I recently applied for homeowners insurance, buying my first house, and one of the optional coverages was "computer insurance" for like 3 bucks a year or something silly. The first thing that crossed my mind was: "Well, does that cover the washer/dryer, microwave, dishwasher, oven, coffeepot" etc.
It locks up my browser and takes 20 seconds to render one frame. (I guess that would be 0.05 FPS.)
So: no, not really impressive. Feels like a regression, actually.
(At least the mobile devices of 2015 managed to do 3D acceleration properly. Too bad that desktop never caught up and that the mobile landscape formed by accident due to commoditization, not due to an understanding of open standards.)
It rendered smoothly for me on a macbook pro running MacOS 10.11, iPhone 6Plus with iOS 9, A Virtual Box running Kali Linux, and a Virtual Box running windows 10. I'd say the issue is with you machine/setup.
I can confirm that the machine from 2008 with the Intel Integrated Graphics 965 really doesn't work. This stuff obviously needs the newer technology. If your machine is more recent, then the problem could be the drivers.
Must be a driver issue or very, very old Intel graphics. It works fine on Chrome/Android, and usually my Intel HD4000 on Linux/Chrome renders WebGL many times quicker than this phone...
For what it's worth, it's working pretty smoothly on my Nexus 5. Maybe it depends on some hardware acceleration that only newer (but not necessarily high-end) GPUs have
Huh. I'm running it on a Linux machine with a Core i5 (Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-4210M CPU @ 2.60GHz according to /proc/cpuinfo), and it's a bit CPU-intensive (it makes my laptop's fan kick into gear) but it's smooth and responsive and everything obviously works the way it's supposed to. Doesn't even come close to eating a gig of RAM, out of the eight I have.
Firefox 41.0.2 on Ubuntu Vivid Vervet (3.19.0-31-generic), on a LinuxCertified.com LC2430E. (Good laptop. No Microsoft tax. Yes, that is a blatant plug. So's this WebGL demo.)
2007 Thinkpad X61T here (Intel GMA 950, Core2Duo 1.6 GHz) running Linux Mint. Works about 5-8 fps (at SXGA+ resolution no less), fast enough to be enjoyable.
I reckon this is quite RAM-intensive, at least a few hundred megabytes, which might be leading to problems for some people.
Really nice work. This doesn't seem to an official site of BMW, though!?
Porsche[1] and Renault[2] did something similar lately. It's great to see WebGL used for this in production. Honestly, I'm surprised it took so long. Visualizing cars with WebGL seems like a no brainer, especially when most current websites load dozens of images for their "360° views".
To whoever it was a few weeks back who said it looks like the i8 was "giving birth to a Porsche", you were right: Once you've seen it, you can't unsee it.
As this visualization demonstrates in nice 3d form.
Don't know about that - I still think the i8 is one of the best looking cars I've seen. (And I've owned a high end BMW in the past that I wasn't hugely impressed with, so it's not like I'm biased in favour of BMW).
I assume that BMW knows what they're doing and this is a look that the target customer actually wants. Sometimes fashion is about getting noticed, and that can result in design elements that are either ugly or easily dated. It would be interesting to see a "Jony Ive" version with all of the horrible parts removed from the body.
It should be in good company at least, I don't think any 1G electric cars will age well (it's hard finding old parts for cars these days, but I imagine finding old software will be quite tricky).
Generally cars in this segment don't age well to begin with. For example a new BMW 750i will cost you $100k+. A used 2009 750i with only 60k miles though? $30k. Not just BMW, either, a certified-used 2009 911 Turbo can be yours for $70k, less the half the starting MSRP of $150k.
But the people who buy them don't care. They'll just buy whatever the new thing is.
Meanwhile the people who buy 2009 7-series for $30K get a ridiculously nice car for the price of a Camry... but they pay maintenance costs which are a lot higher than the Camry driver's. There's a reason not everyone is buying cheap used luxury cars.
Absolutely, I certainly wouldn't recommend it. But the maintaince aspect is yet another argument in favor of my point, which is that people dropping over $100k on a car typically don't care if it holds value.
It's irrelevant if the i8 is still cool in 5 years to the people that can afford an i8.
I think the design antitheses of the i8 is the Nissan Leaf. It costs 1/4 as much, and has a little less than 1/3 the horsepower. However, its also visually indistinguishable from other sub-compacts. The Leaf is for people who don't want to notice that their car is electric. I can see why someone who spends $130K doesn't want to just blend in with traffic.
The Leaf is instantly recognizable. It's so weirdly shaped compared to other crossovers/hatchbacks. The Volt, on the other hand, looks a bit more like a "regular" car from far away. The most normal-looking electric vehicles are the ones that are variants of existing gas vehicles, like the eGolf or Ford's EVs.
Regular car manufacturers making electric cars want to visually distinguish then from their normal vehicles. But any good-looking design consistent with their existing design language is something they've already built. So they make something that's either ugly (i3) or impractical (i8).
Tesla doesn't have regular cars to distinguish from, so they can afford to make something that just looks like a normal luxury car (a Jag crossed with a Maserati).
You can also buy an electric RAV4 which looks just like a normal one but nobody does because what's the point of driving an electric car if strangers can't see how rich and virtuous you are?
The electric car as a virtuous statement matters to the company as well. VW has made an e-Golf that is indistinguishable from an oil burning Golf. The NOx Incident has people saying VW is a dinosaur with no plans for the electrically powered future. They should have made a headline-grabber instead.
I feel like it looks gimmicky already. I would seriously consider one of these if not for the (to me) hideous styling. The Model S is clearly better from a pure performance standpoint, but I expect the details of the BMW would be better, as well as likely the handling (although would have to drive them to see!) Also I don't live near a Tesla repair facility, which is really making me second guess getting one.
However, I really don't think I can drive a car that looks like this. Especially with the silly blue trim.
I am perplexed. Modern games are fantastically more visually appealing and contentwise impressive than this. Modern films utilize computer graphics that are far more impressive still. What is it about single model viewer that makes it headline material? It looks nice, though.
Have you tried it on your mobile? The fact you can experience this kind of content in the mobile browser and even mobile Facebook and Twitter clients without having to visit an app store is new and IMHO, very exciting.
I think it was Cooper who compared this kind of achievements to dancing bear. Yes, the fact that bear is dancing is amusing, but in no way that negates the fact that that's still very lame dance.
Think 3D content with minimal deployment issues* across a huge variety of devices, and suddenly it becomes a bit clearer.
The trick with the web is not the actual tech inside, as much as the instant delivery capability across a huge variety of devices which support the tech.
* Yes, yes, I know that there are tons of compatibility issues, but native support across the same range of devices is 10x harder. If not 100x or 1000x.
This is one of the most impressive bits of WebGL work I've seen recently - https://ga.me/games/polycraft - a full, playable, and actually very fun cel-shaded game that shows off what WebGL is capable of very nicely.
The purpose of this visualization is to present a car, which requires a good single model viewer. If this was a link to a more visually appealing .exe game, many of us wouldn't be able to run it, because it would require a specific platform, many would be afraid to run it, and many wouldn't bother to download and install executable just to see a car.
Its neat because its a desirable car I guess and because its WebGL, but right now you can download Unity3D, build whatever, and push it out into WebGL trivially. This seems a year too late to be impressive. I think a lot of the people impressed by this haven't been keeping up with WebGL. If you want your mind blown you should see this game that runs in WebGL:
One difference: I was casually browsing web pages on my phone, saw the link, and was able to try out the demo after 15 seconds of loading. Then when I was done I closed the tab and that's the end of it. Nothing to install or uninstall, near-instant casual 3D interactivity (at least on a modern cell phone). I'd say that part is pretty cool.
Cars with internal fake noise generally have an option to disable it. There are plenty of gas cars with small, turbo engines that have this noise, it's not particular to cars that are part or all electric.
> Cars are legally required to do so, aren't they?
As an owner of a Tesla, no, there is no such thing (at least in the US), and please stop spreading misinformation (if you are talking about the US).
And the car is not COMPLETELY silent... the wheels make noise on the road. I've driven a completely electric car for at least a year, never got even closely into a pedestrian "situation", and I live in a highly populated area (NYC and its suburbs).
The scene looks very nice albeit I'm not sure what's so spectacular about displaying a single model? I've noticed someone saying in the thread that it's impressive because you can view it on mobile, but why wouldn't you? Modern phones are equipped with hardware better than the one we had over a decade ago, and we had 3D games back then, so displaying a single higher poly model on way better hardware doesn't really amuse me. Besides, I don't really dig the whole idea of WebGL, but the damage's done already.
Well it's not so much about displaying a single model, but demonstrating the power of physically based rendering using WebGL and the wide range of devices that can be used to view this beautiful content. Current interactive car demos found in official car web sites are much lower quality than this.
Why does something have to be revolutionary to enjoy it? Why can't you just enjoy it because it's enjoyable?
Also, there's a huge difference between "it should be this way" and "it is this way." The fact that the person who made this made it the way it should be is impressive, when so few people seem capable of that.
>Why does something have to be revolutionary to enjoy it? Why can't you just enjoy it because it's enjoyable?
If I were to mind read I would say the general objection is usually the over abundance of praise for projects that do not "deserve" it. I can't say that I'm not sympathetic to such viewpoints. For e.g. "You're great at math" can mean anything from you can do long division in your head to you passed college to you won the fields medal. Raising the floor of appreciation reduces the number of bits at the top end to accurately communicate the emotional importance of things. Its a fair criticism in general. The other end of the argument is that encouragement motivates people to greater things, and that certainly is also valid.
Unless you're talking about casual games that reality is never going to be realized. AAA games are written as close to the hardware as possible/feasible, as you probably already know. For every developer willing to develop against an abstraction like the Web, there will be others unwilling to give up that performance.
For every indie who has made it trying to make AAA games... wait, there aren't any. AAA games are for companies with the resources to port code to every platform they can imagine.
I'm not a diehard gamer, myopically focused on only AAA to the detriment of my livelihood. I'm a developer. There is more business for me in "casual" games--whatever that actually means, because it seems to only ever be used as a pejorative that means "not Call of Duty"--than is realistically possible in AAA.
My point is just like you aren't keen on porting, other people aren't keen on throwing performance away.
What you're really really after is a single OS, single hardware platform world. That would require the least amount of porting effort which is your goal.
People (and you might not be one of those) think that the Web is going to bring about this great cross-platform revolution, but its a lie except for the basic UI, low-perf applications for two easy-to-identify reasons. First, the standards themselves are poorly specified and contain ambiguities (by design to give leeway to implementors on different hardware). No standard body even puts out a reference implementation. Second, each platform implementation will be implemented differently causing people shipping cross-platform to care about weird implementation quirks that cause the performance of their game to tank in weird ways.
I LOVED the Orangey-Brown colour scheme so much that I went straight to the BMW website to see if it was really an option that you can buy. Sadly, it's not. /sadface
BMW Individual. For a good amount of money, any color scheme, exterior, interior, leather stitching, etc. can be yours. They can do a lot as their "custom" shop is kinda separate. You're almost getting a "hand-built" car. On their website they list a few common Individual options, but if you actually work with a rep, they can do whatever you want.
It's a cool demo but I wish it wouldn't autorotate. Makes clicking the door interaction point much more difficult than it should be. A pretty picture over usability decision.
Interesting. It's an android, and the cpu/gpu specs seem close to the 4s, with most 3D openGL apps being fast and smooth. I wonder why you're getting 100x better performance? Could be JS performance, but I'm using the latest FF, which is usually good.
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[ 2.3 ms ] story [ 188 ms ] threadYeah. It's been a half-hour and it hasn't needed maintenance.
This is both impressive, and makes me feel very old.
I didn't ask, but the thought was amusing to me.
So: no, not really impressive. Feels like a regression, actually.
(At least the mobile devices of 2015 managed to do 3D acceleration properly. Too bad that desktop never caught up and that the mobile landscape formed by accident due to commoditization, not due to an understanding of open standards.)
I doubt an equivalent Windows machine would fare better.
An occasional hanging frame, but nothing serious.
I'm viewing it in Firefox on Arch linux.
Linux machine with i5-2450M CPU @ 2.50GHz and i915 integrated graphics, running Chrome.
If it's as slow as you say, it sounds like you're getting software rendering.
(If you are on Mesa drivers you can try it with env LIBGL_ALWAYS_SOFTWARE=1 firefox http://car.playcanvas.com/)
Firefox 41.0.2 on Ubuntu Vivid Vervet (3.19.0-31-generic), on a LinuxCertified.com LC2430E. (Good laptop. No Microsoft tax. Yes, that is a blatant plug. So's this WebGL demo.)
I reckon this is quite RAM-intensive, at least a few hundred megabytes, which might be leading to problems for some people.
http://imgur.com/zmSOfPK
with other 25 chrome windows(god knows how many tabs), one showing live tv
Porsche[1] and Renault[2] did something similar lately. It's great to see WebGL used for this in production. Honestly, I'm surprised it took so long. Visualizing cars with WebGL seems like a no brainer, especially when most current websites load dozens of images for their "360° views".
[1] http://www.porsche.com/microsite/911/germany.aspx#showroom/9...
[2] http://www.littleworkshop.fr/renaultespace/
http://www.turbosquid.com/Search/Index.cfm?featureID=5360209...
This was done by PlayCanvas, so the goal is marketing of their platform / engine.
As this visualization demonstrates in nice 3d form.
It can be best observed in white-blue color.
It definitely grabs your attention, but in a few years when electric cars are less rare I bet it will look kind of gimmicky.
But the people who buy them don't care. They'll just buy whatever the new thing is.
It's irrelevant if the i8 is still cool in 5 years to the people that can afford an i8.
Tesla doesn't have regular cars to distinguish from, so they can afford to make something that just looks like a normal luxury car (a Jag crossed with a Maserati).
You can also buy an electric RAV4 which looks just like a normal one but nobody does because what's the point of driving an electric car if strangers can't see how rich and virtuous you are?
However, I really don't think I can drive a car that looks like this. Especially with the silly blue trim.
The trick with the web is not the actual tech inside, as much as the instant delivery capability across a huge variety of devices which support the tech.
* Yes, yes, I know that there are tons of compatibility issues, but native support across the same range of devices is 10x harder. If not 100x or 1000x.
https://ga.me/games/polycraft
Cars are legally required to do so, aren't they? Otherwise, electric vehicles would be quiet enough to kill people.
As an owner of a Tesla, no, there is no such thing (at least in the US), and please stop spreading misinformation (if you are talking about the US).
And the car is not COMPLETELY silent... the wheels make noise on the road. I've driven a completely electric car for at least a year, never got even closely into a pedestrian "situation", and I live in a highly populated area (NYC and its suburbs).
Not yet in the US, though there are active proposals to change that.
> Otherwise, electric vehicles would be quiet enough to kill people.
A completely silent car, driven properly, wouldn't kill anyone.
Why does something have to be revolutionary to enjoy it? Why can't you just enjoy it because it's enjoyable?
Also, there's a huge difference between "it should be this way" and "it is this way." The fact that the person who made this made it the way it should be is impressive, when so few people seem capable of that.
If I were to mind read I would say the general objection is usually the over abundance of praise for projects that do not "deserve" it. I can't say that I'm not sympathetic to such viewpoints. For e.g. "You're great at math" can mean anything from you can do long division in your head to you passed college to you won the fields medal. Raising the floor of appreciation reduces the number of bits at the top end to accurately communicate the emotional importance of things. Its a fair criticism in general. The other end of the argument is that encouragement motivates people to greater things, and that certainly is also valid.
I'm not a diehard gamer, myopically focused on only AAA to the detriment of my livelihood. I'm a developer. There is more business for me in "casual" games--whatever that actually means, because it seems to only ever be used as a pejorative that means "not Call of Duty"--than is realistically possible in AAA.
What you're really really after is a single OS, single hardware platform world. That would require the least amount of porting effort which is your goal.
People (and you might not be one of those) think that the Web is going to bring about this great cross-platform revolution, but its a lie except for the basic UI, low-perf applications for two easy-to-identify reasons. First, the standards themselves are poorly specified and contain ambiguities (by design to give leeway to implementors on different hardware). No standard body even puts out a reference implementation. Second, each platform implementation will be implemented differently causing people shipping cross-platform to care about weird implementation quirks that cause the performance of their game to tank in weird ways.
I only every see it as 'download' in comments.