4 ms·

This is a 3D renderer like three.js. Does anyone know how they compare?

ilaksh 13y ago
As far as I can tell they copied the major features and concept of Three.js, added a few extra features, but implemented it in such a way that it is only performant in a specific version of Internet Explorer. In other words, embrace, extend, extinguish. I don't understand why people keep falling for this crap. Microsoft will do the best that it possibly can to disrupt WebGL with compatibility and other issues, just as it has always done with every key aspect of web technology. This li brary is the latest example. They could have easily made improvements to Three.js or some other existing library that was tested on other browsers but they did not. There are too many billions of dollars on the line. 3d gaming in the browser means the end of the Windows PC monopoly and Microsoft knows that whether the rest of you do or not. No I'm not exaggerating.
- nollidge 13y ago
  > it is only performant in a specific version of Internet Explorer Where does it say this? Demos work fine in Chrome for me, at least.
  - ilaksh 13y ago
    Lol.. if it really works fine in Chrome for most people then I will have to take back what I said at least as far as Babylon. Honestly I would like something like Three.us with collisions. I just really really don't trust these fuckers at this point and I don't see why they didn't expand an existing project. Is Babylon 100% open source?
    - dirkk0 13y ago
      Yes, it works great on Chrome. Regarding the missing collisions: ThreeJS focuses on the 3D part of a game engine only. If you want collisions, you need to add a physic engine. There's a couple of them out there - I would recommend CannonJS and there is a working ThreeJS FPS with WASD and collisions here: https://web3dblog.wordpress.com/2013/01/07/source-code-of-the-minimal-first-person-webgl-demo/ https://web3dblog.wordpress.com/2013/01/07/source-code-of-th...
    - paultyng 13y ago
      Its on GitHub https://github.com/BabylonJS/Babylon.js https://github.com/BabylonJS/Babylon.js
- gamblor956 13y ago
  Babylon.js is based on the Babylon Toolkit for Silverlight, and includes significantly more features than Tree.js (not just a few), including sprite support and other 2d-graphics functionality. BTW...Babylon.js works in all 3 of the major browsers, and performs best in Firefox, not IE10.
- mrdoob2 13y ago
  I think competition is good. Soon after babilon.js got released I took a look at their file format and did a loader for three.js. This made me see how much three.js needed some geometry structure refactoring (moving towards a bunch of flat typearrays). I'm slowly working on that but I still need to find a nice API for it [1]. [1] https://github.com/mrdoob/three.js/issues/3672 https://github.com/mrdoob/three.js/issues/3672
  - mrdoob2 13y ago
    *babylon.js
nollidge 13y ago
Would seem that at least particles, sprites, 2D layers, collisions, and dynamic textures are not in three.js. There's also mesh hierarchies, animations, and mirrors in Babylon.js, which I'm not sure if three.js supports those as first-class concepts or not. Syntax seems pretty similar, which is not terribly surprising.

As far as I can tell they copied the major features and concept of Three.js, added a few extra features, but implemented it in such a way that it is only performant in a specific version of Internet Explorer. In other words, embrace, extend, extinguish. I don't understand why people keep falling for this crap. Microsoft will do the best that it possibly can to disrupt WebGL with compatibility and other issues, just as it has always done with every key aspect of web technology. This li brary is the latest example. They could have easily made improvements to Three.js or some other existing library that was tested on other browsers but they did not. There are too many billions of dollars on the line. 3d gaming in the browser means the end of the Windows PC monopoly and Microsoft knows that whether the rest of you do or not. No I'm not exaggerating.

nollidge 13y ago
> it is only performant in a specific version of Internet Explorer Where does it say this? Demos work fine in Chrome for me, at least.
- ilaksh 13y ago
  Lol.. if it really works fine in Chrome for most people then I will have to take back what I said at least as far as Babylon. Honestly I would like something like Three.us with collisions. I just really really don't trust these fuckers at this point and I don't see why they didn't expand an existing project. Is Babylon 100% open source?
  - dirkk0 13y ago
    Yes, it works great on Chrome. Regarding the missing collisions: ThreeJS focuses on the 3D part of a game engine only. If you want collisions, you need to add a physic engine. There's a couple of them out there - I would recommend CannonJS and there is a working ThreeJS FPS with WASD and collisions here: https://web3dblog.wordpress.com/2013/01/07/source-code-of-the-minimal-first-person-webgl-demo/ https://web3dblog.wordpress.com/2013/01/07/source-code-of-th...
  - paultyng 13y ago
    Its on GitHub https://github.com/BabylonJS/Babylon.js https://github.com/BabylonJS/Babylon.js
gamblor956 13y ago
Babylon.js is based on the Babylon Toolkit for Silverlight, and includes significantly more features than Tree.js (not just a few), including sprite support and other 2d-graphics functionality. BTW...Babylon.js works in all 3 of the major browsers, and performs best in Firefox, not IE10.
mrdoob2 13y ago
I think competition is good. Soon after babilon.js got released I took a look at their file format and did a loader for three.js. This made me see how much three.js needed some geometry structure refactoring (moving towards a bunch of flat typearrays). I'm slowly working on that but I still need to find a nice API for it [1]. [1] https://github.com/mrdoob/three.js/issues/3672 https://github.com/mrdoob/three.js/issues/3672
- mrdoob2 13y ago
  *babylon.js

nollidge 13y ago

Would seem that at least particles, sprites, 2D layers, collisions, and dynamic textures are not in three.js. There's also mesh hierarchies, animations, and mirrors in Babylon.js, which I'm not sure if three.js supports those as first-class concepts or not. Syntax seems pretty similar, which is not terribly surprising.