3 ms·

This is cool, but since all positional movement is on-rails, I find myself questioning their decision to use real-time rendering, as opposed to a pre-rendered v

This is cool, but since all positional movement is on-rails, I find myself questioning their decision to use real-time rendering, as opposed to a pre-rendered video that users can scroll through. The latter approach would have allowed Getty to use higher quality models and lighting, and made the experience smoother on low-end devices, possibly at the cost of bandwidth. A conventional video would mean loosing the ability to drag to look around, but I'm not convinced that this was a significant part of the experience—IIRC, they don't even tell you that it's possible. Alternately, Getty could have sent a 360° video, at the cost of even more bandwidth.

deleted 5y ago
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haswell 5y ago
Wouldn't a pre-rendered video also force a single (possibly sub-optimal) experience across various form factors? > made the experience smoother on low-end devices, possibly at the cost of bandwidth Especially in the context of low-end devices, I don't think the cost of bandwidth should be discounted here.
- Wowfunhappy 5y ago
  > Wouldn't a pre-rendered video also force a single (possibly sub-optimal) experience across various form factors? Since they'd still be working from a 3D scene, they could easily render ten different videos (or twenty, or thirty) and send a different one depending on the device. > Especially in the context of low-end devices, I don't think the cost of bandwidth should be discounted here. I agree, which is why I'm not positive they did the wrong thing, I'm just skeptical. The thing is, it's not as though their current approach is particularly light on bandwidth. They appear to be downloading many (all?) of the models and textures ahead of time, which makes sense, since it's hard to predict what will be visible in the viewport first. By contrast, videos naturally lend themselves to incremental streaming. We're also pretty good at compressing videos these days, and a lot of AAA video games are significantly larger than even movies on BluRay (although I admit, I've never quite grokked how this can be.) So, I'd be interested to see the bandwidth comparison. It's not entirely obvious to me which would win out.
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digitallyfree 5y ago
I wonder if a hybrid approach would work well here to maximize both quality and bandwidth, using baked textures and similar techniques. The idea would be to generate the scene dynamically but use pre-calculated lighting, shadows, etc. as much as possible since the content is basically static.
- Wowfunhappy 5y ago
  To be fair, they could be doing this already, I haven't dug in to see how much is dynamic.
LeftHandPath 5y ago
I'm not sure that I would've watched this as a video. Being tangentially involved -- having to actively scroll -- seems to make it more engaging. And I wouldn't have been so impressed by the website from a technical perspective.
- Wowfunhappy 5y ago
  Oh, I'm not suggesting they turn this unique experience into a boring Youtube video! But I'm wondering whether instead of rendering the scene client-side in WebGL, they should have sent the browser a series of pre-rendered, 2D frames for the user to scroll through and interact with. It should end up as exactly the same experience, except possibly without the ability to turn all the way around, depending on whether or not they want to spend bandwidth on a 360° stream. (They would still need to send a slightly larger FOV than the viewport for their little mouse look effect.)

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haswell 5y ago

Wouldn't a pre-rendered video also force a single (possibly sub-optimal) experience across various form factors? > made the experience smoother on low-end devices, possibly at the cost of bandwidth Especially in the context of low-end devices, I don't think the cost of bandwidth should be discounted here.

Wowfunhappy 5y ago
> Wouldn't a pre-rendered video also force a single (possibly sub-optimal) experience across various form factors? Since they'd still be working from a 3D scene, they could easily render ten different videos (or twenty, or thirty) and send a different one depending on the device. > Especially in the context of low-end devices, I don't think the cost of bandwidth should be discounted here. I agree, which is why I'm not positive they did the wrong thing, I'm just skeptical. The thing is, it's not as though their current approach is particularly light on bandwidth. They appear to be downloading many (all?) of the models and textures ahead of time, which makes sense, since it's hard to predict what will be visible in the viewport first. By contrast, videos naturally lend themselves to incremental streaming. We're also pretty good at compressing videos these days, and a lot of AAA video games are significantly larger than even movies on BluRay (although I admit, I've never quite grokked how this can be.) So, I'd be interested to see the bandwidth comparison. It's not entirely obvious to me which would win out.

deleted 5y ago

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digitallyfree 5y ago

I wonder if a hybrid approach would work well here to maximize both quality and bandwidth, using baked textures and similar techniques. The idea would be to generate the scene dynamically but use pre-calculated lighting, shadows, etc. as much as possible since the content is basically static.

Wowfunhappy 5y ago
To be fair, they could be doing this already, I haven't dug in to see how much is dynamic.

LeftHandPath 5y ago

I'm not sure that I would've watched this as a video. Being tangentially involved -- having to actively scroll -- seems to make it more engaging. And I wouldn't have been so impressed by the website from a technical perspective.

Wowfunhappy 5y ago
Oh, I'm not suggesting they turn this unique experience into a boring Youtube video! But I'm wondering whether instead of rendering the scene client-side in WebGL, they should have sent the browser a series of pre-rendered, 2D frames for the user to scroll through and interact with. It should end up as exactly the same experience, except possibly without the ability to turn all the way around, depending on whether or not they want to spend bandwidth on a 360° stream. (They would still need to send a slightly larger FOV than the viewport for their little mouse look effect.)