ro.me if you want to

May 12, 2011 6:48 PM

ro.me A new Google Chrome experiment showcasing WebGL.
posted by ryoshu (25 comments total)

This is really striking. I had no idea my browser was rendering the whole thing. I even forgot to wave my mouse around when the scenes were playing out.
posted by tmt at 7:20 PM on May 12, 2011

Very impressive demonstration of new rendering technology. It'll be interesting to see how this gets put to use in more mundane everyday ways.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 7:23 PM on May 12, 2011

We are very sorry, but “3 Dreams of Black” is an experiment and unfortunately does not currently function on every configuration. It appears that your computer's graphics card doesn't support WebGL technology. You can find more details for troubleshooting here and obtain a list of recommended graphics cards.

Nrgh.

My laptop has a Intel G945. Apparently, one of like five cards that specifically don't support WebGL.
posted by BungaDunga at 7:35 PM on May 12, 2011

That was really slick. I'm impressed.
posted by SAC at 7:50 PM on May 12, 2011

Huh, wtf. I have chrome and WebGL used to work fine in it. Now it's not working at all, on any sites. Annoying.
posted by delmoi at 8:00 PM on May 12, 2011

Doesn't work on Chromium 11.0.696.57 – the most recent build. Ah well.
posted by koeselitz at 8:12 PM on May 12, 2011

... also doesn't work on Chrome 11.0.696.65. Maybe it's the fact that I'm on Ubuntu. If so, this is disappointing.
posted by koeselitz at 8:14 PM on May 12, 2011

Interesting, it seems like there's a security problem with WebGL now, which isn't too surprising, given the fact that shaders are basically low level programs running on your graphics card. This is something that's just been made public so maybe

Anyway, I was able to view it by using the command line

chrome --enable-webgl --ignore-gpu-blacklist

posted by delmoi at 8:16 PM on May 12, 2011

Works like a dream in FF4. Maybe y'all should switch!

Also: are we going for a new most-Google-promotional-items-in-a-week record or something on the blue? I mean, I'm not complaining, but let me know if this is going to carry on so I can unsubscribe from every Google blog in existence to cut down on the RSS reader redundancy.
posted by tapesonthefloor at 8:18 PM on May 12, 2011 [2 favorites]

Aaanyway, I got it working but the interactivity kind of sucked. Sometimes it seemed to respond to mouse movements, other-times not.
posted by delmoi at 8:19 PM on May 12, 2011

Why does chrome support every fancy new web feature except for the ability to just use windows instead of tabs by default? I'd switch to it if not for that one annoying limitation. Just a "use windows instead of tabs" setting.
posted by tylerkaraszewski at 8:21 PM on May 12, 2011

I think if you're going to base your thing on interactivity, you might as well go ahead and make the interactivity last through the entire thing. Or be interesting in the entire thing. Looking 5-10° left or right does not an interactive movie make.
posted by ejfox at 8:25 PM on May 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

At the end I had the feeling that I was suddenly on a Minecraft server. In a way, it seems I was.

Very neat.
posted by chemoboy at 8:29 PM on May 12, 2011

Apparently you can add stuff in the last part. Somebody better make a Metafilter logo to compete.
posted by Threeway Handshake at 8:33 PM on May 12, 2011

My computer doesn't support the graphics :c
posted by nile_red at 9:52 PM on May 12, 2011

Debian + Firefox + NVidia = Win.
Debian + Firefox/Chrome + ATI = Fail.
posted by rodgerd at 11:46 PM on May 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

tapesonthefloor: “Works like a dream in FF4. Maybe y'all should switch!”

Nope, doesn't work on FF4 for me.

Guess this doesn't work on Linux at all.
posted by koeselitz at 11:50 PM on May 12, 2011

There is just something beautiful about flat shaded polys.
posted by vicx at 11:53 PM on May 12, 2011

Works on Firefox 4 (Or Aurora or Nightly) on Mac.
posted by gen at 12:35 AM on May 13, 2011

Worth it for Mega Mega Man. The song was nice too.
posted by bayani at 2:16 AM on May 13, 2011

Chrome on my 4-year-old machine worked fairly well. But it crapped out and froze only a few seconds farther in than Firefox 4 did. I think I need a new computer to watch the whole thing.
posted by caution live frogs at 7:01 AM on May 13, 2011

It works well for me in both FF4 and Chrome Dev (12.0.742.30) on Ubuntu 11.04, so the complainers need to upgrade. I tried sketching up a Metafilter logo here but I lack the necessary artistic skills...
posted by togdon at 8:22 AM on May 13, 2011

22 comments, pretty much all about the technology and none of the art. What's funny is the tech doesn't seem very exciting to me, the whole thing felt an awful lot like an old CD-ROM title. Or any demoscene software of the last 10 years. It's nice that it can be delivered streaming into your browser instead of requiring an install first.

I did like the trees-blooming-under-mouse-cursor bit, though. And the Minecraft homage at the end is sort of amusing.
posted by Nelson at 9:06 AM on May 13, 2011

I liked how the birds flew towards where your mouse was.
posted by gen at 9:29 AM on May 13, 2011

Looks great in FF4 / Win7; had to set webgl.prefer-native-gl to true for it to work properly though.

It's also quite the memory hog: http://i.imgur.com/ltEaO.png

The “Continue to Explore” feature is cool; let's hope to see some “Ocarina of Time”-like games in WebGL.
 
posted by querty at 6:36 AM on May 14, 2011