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WebGL visual programming editor cables.gl is now open source
- xmddmx 2y agoIs this essentially Quartz Composer, but in the browser? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quartz_Composer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quartz_Composer I was always amazed at how sophisticated QC was, and also saddened when it was abandoned by Apple...
- brcmthrowaway 2y agoOr TouchDesigner?
- pandur 2y agoyes why did visual programming never fully took off, its somehow like vr ;) it is like QC or touchdesigner, but you can distribute your projects on your own, without cables itself. basically like you can distribute a game you made with unity.
- pjmlp 2y agoMost designers on the game industry, sound composition, or electronics would be to differ, but maybe only having three industries that embraced visual programming is too niche. :)
- CyberDildonics 2y agoNot everything can be made into a one way graph with limited data types. Node graphs work in specific domains because they only have a few data types and don't need to worry much about side effects, ordering, branching, state and IO. On top of that you also need a good GUI which itself is rare. Houdini has a great interface that is well designed. Touch designer is much more wonky, loose and awkward.
- orbifold 2y agoThis reminded me of another project: https://nodes.io https://nodes.io. Apparently it was inspired by cables.gl
- NathanFlurry 2y agoGitHub: https://github.com/cables-gl/cables https://github.com/cables-gl/cables Really cool project, love to see things that touch web tech, VPLs, and creative programming. Could not find repo from the website on mobile, would love to see it in the footer or in the CTA.
- pandur 2y agoHere are all repositories of the project https://cables.gl/docs/6_1_developing_cables/0_repositories/repositories https://cables.gl/docs/6_1_developing_cables/0_repositories/...
- brcmthrowaway 2y agoWeb tech is horrible, but creative programming is great.
- romipan 2y agoWhat about Web GPU, does cables support that?
- pandur 2y agoWe are working on it! That will hopefully be available by the end of this year
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- effekt 2y agoI'm so happy every time I see the demoscene on HN's front page. Hi pandur!
- throwaway290 2y agoBreaks Safari on mobile as soon as the top video loads. At least the back button works but scrolling or any other gesture doesn't...
- ilaila 2y agoWhat‘s the license?
- Zetaphor 2y agoCables is an incredibly powerful tool with a fairly low learning curve. I couldn't have done what I did with my personal website[1] (sorry, mobile optimized!) if I was working with WebGL directly, especially not in the 3 days it took me to build and deploy with no prior experience. If you're a interested in experimenting with creative stuff without the traditionally high barrier of entry, I highly recommend cables and the Decode.gl tutorial series[2]. Cables is an exceptionally versatile and user-friendly tool, especially for those new to creative coding. It allowed me to create my personal website[1] (sorry doesn't work on mobile) in just three days, despite having no prior experience. Achieving the same results using WebGL directly would have been significantly more challenging and time-consuming. For anyone interested in exploring creative digital projects without facing the typically steep learning curve, I strongly suggest giving Cables a try. Additionally, the Decode.gl[2] tutorial series is extremely high quality [1] https://zetaphor.com https://zetaphor.com [2] https://decode.gl/ https://decode.gl/
- parasti 2y agoYour comment says the same thing twice, just rephrased. Did ChatGPT write this?
- darrenf 2y agoNot quite the same thing! > my personal website[1] (sorry, mobile optimized!) > my personal website[1] (sorry doesn't work on mobile)
- parasti 2y agoFair point
- Zetaphor 2y agoMy original comment was a bit rambly and so I had an LLM rephrase it. However I was editing on mobile so I had limited visibility due to the text input sharing space with my keyboard, so I clearly missed this duplicate paragraph. What I'd give for an edit button :P
- pahn 2y agoCables is absolutely fantastic. I used it personally for an art project, as well as was involved with a commerical AR experience which used cables to run elaborate, fully interactive 3d scenes in a normal browser, on mobile. As with other node based languages (e.g. vvvv, max/msp), you edit your code while it's running, so you directly see what you're doing without constantly switching interfaces. And in the end it generates a js file you can just embed in an iframe. Honestly, no idea why this is not more widely used, huge fan!
- j_maffe 2y agoNice to have an open-source alternative to TouchDesigner! Hope the transition to Cables isn't too hard.
- stuaxo 2y agoGreat stuff, lovely this is open now.
- kats 2y agoWow this looks really nice. Great work and thanks.
- rendaw 2y agoThis looks really cool, but I came away with some questions. - How does this differ from say blender's geometry/shader nodes? Aside from operating environment. - How much of webgl does this encompass? Do you control the full render graph? Or is it just one pass, or what? I've been interested in learning modern graphics programming, but playing around with low level gl/vk code seemed like it'd be too slow to figure out the high level concepts. I was hoping I'd find a visual editor somewhere.
- MrLeap 2y agoOperating environment and deployability are practical differences. Blender can be used to create assets consumed by cables.
- T3RMINATED 2y ago[dead]
- mhuffman 2y agoJust a heads up, this site (cables.gl) can reliably crash my browser (Firefox 128.0.3 - Linux) completely so that my only options are to quit the browser or restart it.
- Zetaphor 2y agoThat's really unusual. I'm also using Firefox on Linux with Wayland on NVIDIA and I've never had an issue. Try checking your system logs and see what went wrong. Maybe an extension is causing problems?
- bovermyer 2y agoSo... would this let me build GLSL shaders visually, rather than by code trial and error?