4 ms·

Cubeteam: A collaborative 3D voxel editor in the browser

47 points by everettForth 13y ago

inDigiNeous 13y ago
Slow and unusable. Cool UI though.
- ahkurtz 13y ago
  Yeah, sorry about that. The sandbox is a stress test and geometry doesn't get thrown away if you've ever loaded it. Can I ask what kind of hardware/browser you're running? Is it immediately unusable or only after loading a bunch of stuff?
  - LinaLauneBaer 13y ago
    It is very slow for me as well... Latest stable Chrome, MacBook Pro (end 2012), 16 GB of ram, OS X 10.9. Immediately unusable.
    - notlion 13y ago
      It should be more usable now. We don't do much in the way of culling yet, and the amount of data in the sandbox just then was far too much to render at once.
fudged71 13y ago
It worked eventually, a little bit, but my laptop has never revved it's fans this much before. Seems cool though.
noptic 13y ago
Running fine on my "work" laptop :) (Win7 64bit i72760qm@ 2.4GHZ 8GB RAM) I just realised that my company laptops is A LOT better than my desktop at home :/
willvarfar 13y ago
Looks a lot of fun! And brings back fond memories for me. Back in the 90s as a high school student I made a Will's Voxel Editor for the Tiberian Sun games. Was wonderful. Found a screenshot: http://www.ppmsite.com/newspic/vxlseIII12_big.jpg http://www.ppmsite.com/newspic/vxlseIII12_big.jpg
rainmaking 13y ago
Super fast and fluid on Ubuntu 12.04 64bit, 8GB RAM, Core i7 QM, GT630 2GB. (yeah beefyish box but it does work great)
franze 13y ago
here is the same .... but different https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6731386 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6731386 (in 2D and with snowmen and flowers instead of voxel) built on top of meteor.js (on github: https://github.com/franzenzenhofer/snowmen https://github.com/franzenzenhofer/snowmen)
- dualogy 13y ago
  So -- actually not "the same" at all then ;)
  - franze 13y ago
    well voxels = {x,y,z} flowers = {x,y}
Stormvirus 13y ago
Around 30-50 fps with a lot of geometry on the screen, sometimes peaks at 60 with an i7 950, 12gb, 280x and the latest version of chrome.
ThomPete 13y ago
This got to be the closest I ever come to feeling cyberspace and I have tried my share of things. The whole thing works flawlessly, lightning fast and it's thrilling to see others building at the same time while I can walk around in a first person view. Beautiful, just beautiful.
jones1618 13y ago
It's a really cool project and performs reasonably well but I have issues with some of the interface choices: 1. The navigation controls are non-intuitive and don't follow most 3D movement conventions. I wanted right-click panning and some shortcut for orbiting (not having to change modes). 2. Positioning is erratic. When building something it would randomly refuse to let me draw on top of some cubes even when I precisely positioned my cursor on the top cube surface. Positioning guides would be nice: Highlight adjacent surfaces, draw alignment axis, etc. 3. Conversely, erasing a bunch of blocks would fail because the erase cursor would "hop" on top of (some not all) blocks I wanted to erase. 4. The "thicken" operation sounds handy but never worked for me even once I figured out (I think) that you have to select blocks first. I expected I could select blocks and then pull them up or out to duplicate them. 5. Having a multiuser environment default to fill/drawing mode is a horrible idea since _everyone_ spews blocks all over the landscape destroying stuff before getting the hang of it. Suggestion: Give everyone a protected 30x30x30 home sandbox where no one else can draw. Everywhere else would be free range. Overall, you have the tech down but the UI needs playtesting. Watch novices and Minecraft-ers try doing something more than scribble with it. You'll know your interface is working when you start seeing more than blobs and piles littering your world.
oftenwrong 13y ago
I like it, but I am confused by the interface. How does one switch between navigating the left-side menu and using the crosshair to look around?
SteroidsLove 13y ago
Building thrones at the top of the world is so fun!
Pxtl 13y ago
Works on firefox, but had a hilarious bug: I allowed the "hide pointer" mode, but after I hit ctrl-W to close the tab my pointer was locked in the middle of the screen on all the other tabs. Since you're using FPS controls for navigation, I found I was missing space/ctrl for up/down. Also, for another sandbox map-editor (but desktop-based not web-based) see Sauerbraten.org

47 points by everettForth 13y ago

inDigiNeous 13y ago

Slow and unusable. Cool UI though.

ahkurtz 13y ago
Yeah, sorry about that. The sandbox is a stress test and geometry doesn't get thrown away if you've ever loaded it. Can I ask what kind of hardware/browser you're running? Is it immediately unusable or only after loading a bunch of stuff?
- LinaLauneBaer 13y ago
  It is very slow for me as well... Latest stable Chrome, MacBook Pro (end 2012), 16 GB of ram, OS X 10.9. Immediately unusable.
  - notlion 13y ago
    It should be more usable now. We don't do much in the way of culling yet, and the amount of data in the sandbox just then was far too much to render at once.

fudged71 13y ago

It worked eventually, a little bit, but my laptop has never revved it's fans this much before. Seems cool though.

noptic 13y ago

Running fine on my "work" laptop :) (Win7 64bit i72760qm@ 2.4GHZ 8GB RAM) I just realised that my company laptops is A LOT better than my desktop at home :/

willvarfar 13y ago

Looks a lot of fun! And brings back fond memories for me. Back in the 90s as a high school student I made a Will's Voxel Editor for the Tiberian Sun games. Was wonderful. Found a screenshot: http://www.ppmsite.com/newspic/vxlseIII12_big.jpg http://www.ppmsite.com/newspic/vxlseIII12_big.jpg

rainmaking 13y ago

Super fast and fluid on Ubuntu 12.04 64bit, 8GB RAM, Core i7 QM, GT630 2GB. (yeah beefyish box but it does work great)

franze 13y ago

here is the same .... but different https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6731386 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6731386 (in 2D and with snowmen and flowers instead of voxel) built on top of meteor.js (on github: https://github.com/franzenzenhofer/snowmen https://github.com/franzenzenhofer/snowmen)

dualogy 13y ago
So -- actually not "the same" at all then ;)
- franze 13y ago
  well voxels = {x,y,z} flowers = {x,y}

Stormvirus 13y ago

Around 30-50 fps with a lot of geometry on the screen, sometimes peaks at 60 with an i7 950, 12gb, 280x and the latest version of chrome.

ThomPete 13y ago

This got to be the closest I ever come to feeling cyberspace and I have tried my share of things. The whole thing works flawlessly, lightning fast and it's thrilling to see others building at the same time while I can walk around in a first person view. Beautiful, just beautiful.

jones1618 13y ago

It's a really cool project and performs reasonably well but I have issues with some of the interface choices: 1. The navigation controls are non-intuitive and don't follow most 3D movement conventions. I wanted right-click panning and some shortcut for orbiting (not having to change modes). 2. Positioning is erratic. When building something it would randomly refuse to let me draw on top of some cubes even when I precisely positioned my cursor on the top cube surface. Positioning guides would be nice: Highlight adjacent surfaces, draw alignment axis, etc. 3. Conversely, erasing a bunch of blocks would fail because the erase cursor would "hop" on top of (some not all) blocks I wanted to erase. 4. The "thicken" operation sounds handy but never worked for me even once I figured out (I think) that you have to select blocks first. I expected I could select blocks and then pull them up or out to duplicate them. 5. Having a multiuser environment default to fill/drawing mode is a horrible idea since _everyone_ spews blocks all over the landscape destroying stuff before getting the hang of it. Suggestion: Give everyone a protected 30x30x30 home sandbox where no one else can draw. Everywhere else would be free range. Overall, you have the tech down but the UI needs playtesting. Watch novices and Minecraft-ers try doing something more than scribble with it. You'll know your interface is working when you start seeing more than blobs and piles littering your world.

oftenwrong 13y ago

I like it, but I am confused by the interface. How does one switch between navigating the left-side menu and using the crosshair to look around?

SteroidsLove 13y ago

Building thrones at the top of the world is so fun!

Pxtl 13y ago

Works on firefox, but had a hilarious bug: I allowed the "hide pointer" mode, but after I hit ctrl-W to close the tab my pointer was locked in the middle of the screen on all the other tabs. Since you're using FPS controls for navigation, I found I was missing space/ctrl for up/down. Also, for another sandbox map-editor (but desktop-based not web-based) see Sauerbraten.org