Show HN: A CSS 3D Engine (no WebGL)

(github.com)

20 points | by rofko 3 hours ago ago

6 comments

  • Rohansi an hour ago

    But why not use WebGL? It's widely available, more efficient, and can render at a much higher quality.

    https://polycss.com/gallery/?model=2843066616

    https://threejs.org/examples/#webgl_animation_multiple

    • rofko 29 minutes ago

      Hi there! This is not trying to be a three.js replacement, scenes with huge polygon counts naturally should render in canvas.

      For me, the interesting case is smaller low-poly or voxel scenes where loading a full 3D stack may be overkill, and where keeping the scene in DOM/CSS gives you easier integration with normal layout, styling, events, etc. Once you have the HTML, you don't even need to load the library to render a static model.

      Also, part of the experiment is testing the browser’s limits and getting a clearer sense of where this approach works, where it breaks down, and what the tradeoffs are.

      Cheers!

    • socalgal2 35 minutes ago

      Same thought. Even that simple Apple on the front pages runs < 60fps on my M1 Mac. Rendering 3D objects with CSS is like rendering Doom in Excel Cells. Yes, you can do it. No you should not do it except as a joke/curiosity.

  • cush an hour ago

    I give it 15 minutes before someone on here ports Doom

  • sgm1018 20 minutes ago

    wow thats cool