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Bruno Simon – 3D Portfolio
- nness 10mo agoDoes not work on Firefox :(
- amelius 10mo agoWorks for me, on Linux.
- scandox 10mo agoWorks for me Firefox on Android mobile
- neogodless 10mo agoFirefox, Windows 11. It loads, I can navigate (drag), and click the white diamonds. There are things like the RC truck and bowling ball that are not interactive and look like they should be, so I suspect it's a bug? EDIT: OK it's a learning curve. With mouse/keyboard, you can click the hamburger icon in the top right, and get to an explanation of controls. I am able to use WADS to drive the truck and push the bowling ball (with the truck.)
- werdnapk 10mo agoI reloaded a second time and it worked in Firefox. First time, the circle loaded and then nothing. After it loaded, I saw no issues.
- tgdn 10mo agoDoes not work on Chrome, and actually freezes the tab
- Karawebnetwork 10mo agoOn Edge, my tab did freeze for a few seconds then the spinner resumed its spinning and the 3D scene displayed.
- stronglikedan 10mo agoWorked for me on Windows with Version 142.0.7444.177 (Official Build) (64-bit)
- werdnapk 10mo agoI had to load the site a second time in Firefox to get it working. So, try again?
- flanbiscuit 10mo agoSame for me. Worked smoothly in Firefox (MacOS Desktop)
- samtp 10mo agoWorked fine on Chrome on Linux (Fedora)
- Wistar 10mo agoWorked very well for me on iPad Pro and Safari. Only took a few secs to load.
- dmd 10mo agoWorks fine in Chrome on both my W11 and MacOS 15.7.2 machines.
- Shaanveer 10mo agogoogle on linux does not support webgpu. (its hidden behind some flags) https://github.com/gpuweb/gpuweb/wiki/Implementation-Status https://github.com/gpuweb/gpuweb/wiki/Implementation-Status
- ycombinatrix 10mo agoThat linked page says webgpu is behind a flag in Firefox for Android but the website worked for me.
- esseph 10mo agoWorks fine on Chrome using Fedora 43.
- RyanOD 10mo agoJust be patient. It took a while to load up in Chrome on my MBP.
- frizlab 10mo agoPeople are discovering what it is to download an app (:
- ssl-3 10mo agoOr they're discovering the limitations of Chrome. It showed up very quickly on my desktop rig. Linux, Firefox, with a CPU that's over a decade old, a GPU of about half that age, and the cheapest Internet that Spectrum will sell me. Just a second or three of a weird luminescent throbber, and then "Click here to start". No inexplicable lags at all -- it was all very smooth.
- jofla_net 10mo agoFF on linux worked great.
- tempestn 10mo agoIt was very laggy for me in Firefox on Windows, but played smoothly in Chrome.
- include 10mo agoworks on Brave :) and actually fery cool :)
- s1mon 10mo agoHN hug of death? I couldn't get it to load (beyond the grid/circle background) on Safari/Mac, but eventually it loaded in Chrome. Seems to just be a game - use AWSD keys. Not sure why this is "coolest 3D website" in this day and age.
- nomoreipg 10mo agoThis is so insanely detailed I wonder how long it took him to build
- dtf 10mo agoThe author has YouTube devlogged this project over the last 12 months. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uc3Ujdh8Ba4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uc3Ujdh8Ba4
- kaszus 10mo agoAuthor open sourced it https://github.com/brunosimon/folio-2025 https://github.com/brunosimon/folio-2025 (MIT license)
- tomashubelbauer 10mo agoI was just about to post this as a top-level comment. I enjoyed following the series.
- gregoriol 10mo agoWorks well on Safari 26.1, nice "game-dev" example, but not clear if it's a demo or a personal website: if former then nice, if latter then unusable
- kdmoyers 10mo agoWorks fine on my android phone. Impressive.
- GreeningRun 10mo agoSame. Fast loaded and very smooth
- FlamingMoe 10mo agodoes not work on internet explorer
- PaulHoule 10mo agoWow!
- nbadg 10mo agoFor those that can't get it to load (it takes a minute, and I noticed my desktop's fan kick it up a notch while things were getting initialized, so... YMMV): this is a portfolio site done via a cozy-gaming-style AWSD game where you drive around in a jeep-like thingamabob. There are some cute easter eggs, including a sort of... shrine to each of the socials, which you can run into with your car and knock over (though the links remain clickable, of course!). It also looks like there's some degree of global state; for example, you can "sacrifice yourself to the gods of chaos" (ie drive into a portal) and a counter on the side of the portal goes up, presumably for everyone (since I certainly didn't drive into it 1700 times myself!). There's a strongly consistent art style, and just generally... seems pretty polished. Or at least, that's what it felt like after 5 minutes of driving around. All in all I'd say, I'm impressed, and enjoyed it. Though I think the HN title ("handsdown one of the coolest 3D websites") is maybe a bit much. It's an extremely-well-executed portfolio site; no more, no less.
- 01HNNWZ0MV43FF 10mo agoAWSD == WASD?
- teekert 10mo agoIt worked surprisingly well on ddg browser, iOS, iPhone mini 12. So, impressive!
- bdcravens 10mo agoGotta admit, I knew the OnlyFans action button was a risky click, and I did it anyways ....
- catapart 10mo agoVery neat! I and completely respect the skill. I respect the effort even more! That said, it's not 'hands down, one of the coolest 3D websites', at least that I've seen. It's all "technical", very little "design". For example, why is it 'isometric overhead'? There's no particular benefit in the view, and it's specifically harder to control than it would be with a 'chase'/'third-person' camera. It's not like this is an RTS or a city-builder-ish thing, where having an overhead layout works to your benefit. Rather, it's just easier to program a camera that never changes angles and input controls that never have to re-interpret camera position/rotation (lookat vector) to function correctly. And there's a kind of symmetry between a flat page and the "ground" that the truck drives on, so some parts of the web forms have been ported over to that. Again, none of that is bad and especially none of it is wrong. It's very cool that it works and works so well (technical)! It's just that the design feels more "portfolio" than it does "best ux for interacting with the environment I've created and the paradigms I've invoked (vehicle control)".
- robofanatic 10mo ago> That said, it's not 'hands down, one of the coolest 3D websites', at least that I've seen. Would love to see those websites.
- Cpoll 10mo ago> For example, why is it 'isometric overhead'? That's design exactly. There's no technical obstacle to making it over-the-shoulder instead, but it changes the aesthetic. The animations focus on what the jeep does to things, so a racing view that helps you avoid running into things wouldn't be appropriate. It also changes how you see the assets. And you'd lose that 'RC Pro-Am' feel. > Rather, it's just easier to program a camera that never changes angles and input controls that never have to re-interpret camera position/rotation (lookat vector) to function correctly. Not really, you just put the camera on a spring arm attached to the vehicle. Vehicle movement isn't harder either. You get this stuff practically for free with any game engine.
- sech8420 10mo agoAwesome concept, but loading took 30 seconds and too many studders/lag on my phone. 11/10 creativity.
- moribvndvs 10mo agoVery cool, even works on mobile. Although, just a nit, driving with your finger frequently activates the long press menu in iOS and spoils things.
- ChrisArchitect 10mo ago(2019) amazingly Some behind the scenes from the Bruno himself: https://medium.com/@bruno_simon/bruno-simon-portfolio-case-study-960402cc259b https://medium.com/@bruno_simon/bruno-simon-portfolio-case-s...
- non- 10mo agoThe version that is live now is a big update from 2019 and was released today https://x.com/bruno_simon/status/1998361646939689235 https://x.com/bruno_simon/status/1998361646939689235
- ChrisArchitect 10mo agoGood to know! thanks!
- deleted 10mo ago[deleted]
- andrenotgiant 10mo agoThis got me thinking: Rewind 25 years, I can easily imagine 15 year-old me sinking DOZENS of hours into playing this "game". I remember I put much more time than that into a free game that came in a box of cereal[0]. Today, I loaded the site up and spend about 30 seconds on it before deciding "this is cool!" and moving on, probably never to return. What changed? I guess it's a mix of: (A) How I value my time. (B) The bar for "what pulls me in" in terms of gaming. (C) Some other factor around me just having already burned enough hours on games. I'm not really sure how much each factor contributes. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chex_Quest https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chex_Quest
- CamperBob2 10mo agoThis particular site reminds me of The Messenger ( https://messenger.abeto.co/ https://messenger.abeto.co/ ) which was on HN not too long ago. If this is the sort of thing you like (or in your case, used to like), you will like The Messenger too, probably more.
- qoez 10mo agoI think it's in large part just having to do with us developing our frontal cortex and like impulse control. I would have probably gotten dopamine addicted to it 15 years ago, as well as wouldn't have some nagging back-of-mind thoughts about having to use my time to be converted into money to survive at that age.
- nurettin 10mo agoYour wonder and discovery phase is over.
- mikepurvis 10mo agoI dunno; I'm 39 and just spent 50 hours in Arc Raiders, much of it in a state of wonder and discovery. I think there's definitely a raising-the-bar effect here too.
- 61j3t 10mo agoIt's called growing up
- FpUser 10mo agoLove the design and programming (tested on Brave browser)
- dwa3592 10mo agoHoly shit, this is really cool. i felt like i was in a movie. the car blows up and is ready to go right away; the car drives in the water (faster if you hold down the space bar). music is nice; and the 3d rendering is also pretty smooth. love it.
- esseph 10mo agoshift is turbo mode B or CTL is brake H is horn
- cantalopes 10mo agoCool indeer but i want to see someone from hr driving to that work experience driveway
- allannienhuis 10mo agoBruno’s Threejs course is great. I’m about 2/3 the way through it, taking my time. Well organized and extremely well documented. Highly recommend, if a recommendation from a threejs novice is worth much.
- beezlewax 10mo agoI completed it years ago. Great course and ge seems like a super nice guy. I must check back in to see what's changed. His website had the same car based premise back then but with less frills.
- nokun7 10mo agoI used to play a game called Pro-Am on Nintendo. This game reminds me so much of that. The controls are basically the same.
- retube 10mo agoMY 24GB of RAM struggles with this
- ProllyInfamous 10mo agoSome other bottleneck on your end. 8GB M3 MacBookAir runs it smoothly, with only a few seconds of loading.
- gldrk 10mo agoThis is very impressive as an art project, but terrible as an actual home page. It’s slow as molasses and difficult to navigate. Microsoft Bob failed for a reason.
- onion2k 10mo agoBruno Simon sells courses on how to make things with three.js. As a homepage it is an exceptionally good example of what you can do with 3D in a browser, and what buying his course will enable you to build. It's a great home page with that context. It would not work for many other people.
- didibus 10mo agoIt seems you need that context prior to visiting the website. Which, if you are looking to hire, and they send you to this site as a "show of skill" is totally great. But if you google searched for some info and stumbled on this, I'm not sure you'd even know what's on offer.
- onion2k 10mo agoI think it's his personal site. The fact it's not littered with ads is kind of nice.
- account42 10mo agoIt doesn't show anything for way too long, not exactly a good example of three.js use on the web.
- ge96 10mo agodang that froze my browser starting up on mbp 16" but yeah it's legit the truck you can drive around with arrow keys let's see ATS parse this the collision physics on individual items like chairs is pretty cool damn map has no boundary ha, weather system? damn
- deleted 10mo ago[deleted]
- MarkusWandel 10mo agoI'm old enough to remember the SGI tractor-trailer demo wagon where they were demonstrating their latest, $20K+, wares that could do immersive 3D graphics that were... crude compared to this. This was sometime in the 1990s. And by now my kids play fluidly immersive 3D games, on the web, on the kind of computers you can get for $10 off Facebook Marketplace.
- jauntywundrkind 10mo agoBuilding a good spatial website is so so high on my must do list. Alas, the state of WebComponents for 3d / spatial is so so. A-frame is still CJS only & won't work with my unbundled setup because of that, but that's sort of on me. Lume.io wraps three.js too and looks tempting, has a neat signals & cool behavioral classes. https://aframe.io/examples/ https://aframe.io/examples/ https://github.com/aframevr/aframe/issues/4242 https://github.com/aframevr/aframe/issues/4242 https://lume.io/ https://lume.io/
- stefanka 10mo agoSo beautiful!
- iambateman 10mo agoThis is unbelievable. So whimsical and fun and different...I really appreciated the attention to detail and joy that clearly went into it. Got to spend some time playing the racing game with my son and we can't figure out how people got 20 seconds...is there a speed boost? Anyway, super fun.
- devin 10mo agoShift is boost. The keyboard near the start will show you controls.
- yesitcan 10mo agoCruising around when suddenly I see a tooltip with the N word pop up
- vegabook 10mo agoThis is a cool website but it's hardly groundbreaking. There have been hundreds (thousands?) of three.js/babylon.js in-browser demos over the past decade and this would qualify as top 10% area, but there's nothing here that hasn't been done before. It's fun, it's high quality, but it's not new, and as far as conveying useful information, it's actually quite cumbersome with high effort for low signal. And while it's polished, it doesn't come close to even the most basic indie 3d game.
- gtirloni 10mo agoOP said it's one of the "coolest", not the most groundbreaking website. Could you share these other in-browser demos that are as amazing as this one?
- Valk3_ 10mo agoThis one is pretty cool that i saw some time ago, not a game though, but a 3D portfolio: https://www.jessezhou.com/ https://www.jessezhou.com/. The author even goes into how he made it: https://jesse-zhou.medium.com/jesses-ramen-case-study-77bae77ab5f0 https://jesse-zhou.medium.com/jesses-ramen-case-study-77bae7....
- _ink_ 10mo agoDid you notice that it includes a shout-out to Bruno Simon?
- AstroBen 10mo agoIt also crashed my browser tab
- tonetheman 10mo ago[dead]
- didibus 10mo agoIt's cool, but I actually find it pretty bad as a website. The UX for navigating and all that, it's bad. I was hoping for some innovation in UX which justifies the use of 3D in the website.
- 65 10mo agoThe unique UX of the site, driving around in a 3D car, is what makes this site go viral on occasion. If it were "good" UX, e.g. a standard portfolio site, no one would care and this guy wouldn't be as well known as he is. Therefore the UX is good.
- didibus 10mo agoHum, I guess, as some kind of metric maximizing dark pattern. But my point is that, it's not bringing in a new paradigm of UX that you'd want to immitate. Though maybe it could if others started making "video games but it's just navigating through a website as you play".
- hahn-kev 10mo agoI think it's not a website you make to get hired to make business websites like this to display information (unless maybe it's a gaming company), but if you want someone to make a game on the web then this is a perfect portfolio site.
- didibus 10mo agoI agree, I was comparing it to the title of the hacker news post which initially said "Most impressive 3D website ever" or something like that. That enticed me to believe someone had figured out a really innovative way to make a website work in 3D. As a portfolio to demonstrate your three.js skills for web game making it's really good.
- runsonrum 10mo agoReminds me of RC Pro Am :-)
- shmerl 10mo agoIt just shows me a black screen (Firefox).
- talkingtab 10mo agoThe course is great. I am a fan. This, not so much. One of the unsung problems of any technology is understanding what you can do with it that you could not do before. Lets say you are a prehistoric person and somehow you find a modern steel axe. What do you do with it? Ultimately, it is not the axe that is important, it is the metallurgy. Lets say you are a modern person and you found bitcoin. What do you do with it? Again, my thought is not the bitcoin, it is the cryptographic technology. Lets say you are a modern person and you find threejs. What do you do with it? My personal reaction is that there is so much more that can be done with threejs, react-three-fiber, react-three drei, shaders, shadertoys, than this. For me the definition of "cool" is things that change how you see the world. Where you never look at things the same way. A little example for me was this: https://codepen.io/prisoner849/full/wBGQYvy https://codepen.io/prisoner849/full/wBGQYvy
- sshadmand 10mo agoHow he created a world around his CV may not be groundbreaking, but very creative and done exceptionally well. I caught myself driving around for a couple minutes. Accepting cookies bakes a cookie, you get hidden easter eggs when you complete certain actions (like lift driving in water). Just like with any creative endeavor (movies, music, dance) doing something no one has ever seen isn't always the goal (striving for that can often feel forced/cringe); creating an emotion in someone is art - and this did that for me.
- sshadmand 10mo agoTakes a min to load even when it shows the circle complete. But a 1-2xrefreshes load it and yes, it is pretty sick. Wish you could zoom out more though. Nice work to Bruno!
- nkrisc 10mo agoWow crashed Firefox on MacOS straight to desktop. Not even just the tab, the entire application.
- mrinterweb 10mo agoI wish more of the web was like this. I miss the wild creativity of websites way back in the day. The web has mostly homogenized around what web UI should be. I love seeing weird experimental stuff made just for fun.
- binary132 10mo agoImpressively playable on iPhone safari
- jzer0cool 10mo agoNice! Ok, any list or core libraries used to help to create something like this?
- FarhadG 10mo ago(shameless plug) I love all the work that Bruno puts out there. His design and engineering skills are next level. There are so many talented creatives using WebGL/WebGPU that I've recently launched WebGL.com / WebGPU.com, where I'm dedicated to bring together the community of creatives (designers, coders, AI/ML, etc.) pushing the boundaries of the web. Would love to see what you would like to see (e.g. tutorials, demos, etc.)
- SilentM68 10mo agoVery Cool Indeed :)
- nikkwong 10mo agoThis is amazing; now when is building this kind of thing going to become more accessible so we can start seeing a lot more of it? Webassembly has been around for years now but we still don't really see many companies compiling games or game-lite experiences to WASM. The tooling doesn't seem to be there which is the necessary prerequisite that could make building experiences like this actually feasible for most devs. Is that coming, ever?
- beezlewax 10mo agoI don't even think you can make something like this accessible other than render a normal site for specific users. It's almost entirely visual.
- mattdesl 10mo agoAmazing as always, Bruno is a wizard with ThreeJS. There’s a surprising amount of stutter and lag on iOS, evident after the loading bar completes and the app freezes for 30 sec. Also during gameplay, quite a bit of stuttering. My guess is GPU texture uploads or shader compilations. Otherwise it was buttery smooth.
- wbobeirne 10mo agoI enjoyed poking around to look for how to get the debug menu and hacker achievement, that's a nice touch to encourage you to peek into the source.
- meep888 10mo agoHow do you get hacker?
- ing-norante 10mo agoI watched all the dev vlogs on YouTube. This is a true masterpiece. Kudos to Bruno
- yakkomajuri 10mo agoImpressive! Very cool that it works on mobile too
- javawizard 10mo agoWoohoo, I got number 10,000 on the altar! https://youtu.be/4KYI8CgGrLw https://youtu.be/4KYI8CgGrLw Now who was there with me running it up at the same time :)
- hexo 10mo agoI see just a black background. Are you sure this is a website and not just chrome-only experiment?
- tomhow 10mo agoPreviously: Bruno Simon – 3D Curriculum - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21362200 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21362200 - Oct 2019 (42 comments)
- sillyboi 10mo agoLooks great, but it lags a bit on my phone with a Snapdragon 855 and 12 GB of RAM. I really like the vehicle controls.
- Elizer0x0309 10mo agoAbsolutely beautiful! Thank You for the polished experience.
- mrlinx 10mo agoI have a 4 yo, and I'm very reluctant to let him into the games world. But I've been thinking of buying a small Super Mario USB steering wheel and let him roam a very simple world like this. Anyone aware of something like this, maybe open source so that i can simplify to the simplest dynamics?
- brentm 10mo agoMy 4yo was a big fan of What The Car? on iPad. It's not quite as pleasant as this but there are some similarities.
- brentm 10mo agoPleasant and nicely done. Took me a few seconds to figure out how I was suppose to drive around but very pleasant experience.
- indigoabstract 10mo agoThis is quite nice. I wonder why doesn't he make games instead of being a web developer?
- ertucetin 10mo agoIt looks really nice, but CPU usage is almost 100% all the time. I have a MacBook Pro M3. When I open some fancy Three.js scenes that I found on the net, I instantly profile them. Most of them are really bad in terms of performance. I don't know why.
- freehorse 10mo agoAlso really high GPU usage and power draw in total. Averages around 60-70W most of the time. Really cool website, no doubt about it. But it consumes as many or more resources than games like cyberpunk or baldur's gate 3 on my macbook.
- division_by_0 10mo agoThis is usually because they are rendered in an animation loop (most three.js examples are set up like this). An example of rendering on demand only (this is even using fancy bloom post-processing): https://cybernetic.dev/helix/about https://cybernetic.dev/helix/about
- chenglemon 10mo agoOkay, bruno-simon.com is probably the coolest portfolio I've ever seen. You get to DRIVE A LITTLE TRUCK around a 3D world to see his projects! It's fun, intuitive, and technically impressive. The attention to detail is insane. Don't visit if you have a deadline—you'll get stuck there! #webdev #threejs #creativecoding
- noobcoder 10mo agomy macbook hung big time opening this