Ball Pit(codepen.io)
159 pointsby memalign12 hours ago17 comments
  • verytrivial11 hours ago
    For some context, I think this is by mr.doob of three.js fame.
  • chrysoprace8 hours ago
    What a time to be alive. It runs surprisingly smooth on Firefox/Linux and doesn't appear to put much strain on my 9070 XT.
    • cbarrick7 hours ago
      Doesn't appear to put much strain on my Pixel 10!

      Graphics and physics performance in 2026 across all kinds of hardware is wildly impressive.

  • RankingMember10 hours ago
    > The babies look unhappy

    > Add more balls

    Fun simulation. The novelty of stuff like this still hasn't worn off for me in this era where we've got ray tracing in-browser.

  • simlevesque11 hours ago
    Beware: this might totally freeze your computer like it did for me.
    • __turbobrew__7 hours ago
      Runs fine on my iphone
    • ivanjermakov10 hours ago
      WebGPU moment (have same issue on Firefox/Linux).
    • amelius11 hours ago
      Works fine on my phone, Firefox+GrapheneOS.
    • themadturk7 hours ago
      Works great on my M3 MacBook Air under Safari. GPU core temps got into the 130-160 degrees F. range. Fun demo!
    • daemonologist10 hours ago
      Had to break out Chromium for this one - Firefox+Linux does not like webgpu (my whole DE started flickering).
      • mentalgear10 hours ago
        I was amazed that it run smoothly on Firefox mac without WebGPU.
        • extra887 hours ago
          Yeah, it seems fine on my iPhone 13 running Safari 18. It's not warming up.

          Some ball shadows look kind of grainy but moving my finger around moves the balls around.

    • ninju11 hours ago
      definitely needs a lot of computing power
      • wildrhythms8 hours ago
        Runs smoothly and without crashes on my Pixel phone
      • 10 hours ago
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      • 10 hours ago
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  • p1necone11 hours ago
    This runs pretty smoothly on my middling laptop CPU while looking like a typical raytracing demo. I assume there's some smoke and mirrors involved?
    • h4ch111 hours ago
      No, it's using the newish SSGI and TRAA webgpu nodes. The three team has been making great progress with SSGI and webgpu in general and i'd recommend checking it out if you're interested.

      There's also a denoise node in three (not used in this example), but SSGI still looks kinda blurry.

      Work though is still going on: https://github.com/mrdoob/three.js/issues/31892

      • Sharlin10 hours ago
        Jesus Christ, trying to figure out what TRAA is (presumably an anti-aliasing algorithm) and how it works and it's entirely impossible to google.
        • h4ch110 hours ago
          TRAA basically works by using a history buffer, for example using the last couple of frames, all jittered a little bit to compute the pixel. There's still ghosting and smearing that can happen though because of this technique, so you have methods to counteract like subpixel correction where u increase temporal alpha when velocity is subpixel, but that can introduce some artifacts as well.

          There's also SMAA T2x which the pmndrs team is planning on integrating into their postprocessing package[0]. This cryengine3 slideshow gives a nice overview of antialiasing methods if you're interested: http://iryoku.com/aacourse/downloads/13-Anti-Aliasing-Method...

          [0] https://github.com/pmndrs/postprocessing

          This paper also provides a decent overview of TRAA: https://fileadmin.cs.lth.se/cs/Education/EDAN35/projects/17C...

        • menno-dot-ai10 hours ago
          Temporal reprojection anti aliasing :)

          https://www.threejs-blocks.com/docs/traaHD

          • Sharlin10 hours ago
            The only thing even remotely related to graphics I found was references to "TrAA" in forum posts from 2006 (yeah) where I believe they referred to NVIDIA "Transparency AA" or something like that. "TRAA", "TRAA meaning", "TRAA graphics", "TRAA 3D" all gave fully irrelevant results :D
            • jldugger10 hours ago
              If you make the assumption that "AA" is some form of antialiasing, it's not too bad: first scholar[1] hit expands the acronym to Temporal Reprojection Anti-Aliasing

                  [1]: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=traa+anti+aliasing&btnG=
        • nilkn7 hours ago
          The free Google AI mode got it for me on the first try by just pasting in the comment and asking what TRAA was in that context.
  • hermitcrab11 hours ago
    I'm a C++ programmer and only passingly familiar with web/JS stuff. What libraries/technologies is this using, apart from Javascript and three.js?
    • kurishutofu8 hours ago
      it's the three.js library using the webgpu browser api, you can open view and edit the source directly on the codepen page:)
  • rbosinger9 hours ago
    I opened that on a Pixel 9a and was impressed on how well it worked. There's something neat about this.
  • Rendello11 hours ago
    Beautiful, this must have been an excellent learning experience to make.

    I've done some very basic rendering code in C from a rendering internals course, and at the same time I'm learning about perspective from the drawing/art side. I wonder how much learning one would help the other, in a practical way.

    • akie11 hours ago
      The author is a world renowned expert in 3D graphics.
      • Rendello6 hours ago
        I see, it looks like he's the one behind ThreeJS. Well, he had to make ThreeJS before he could make this, and that must have been a learning experience, right? :D
  • fuzzfactoran hour ago
    This does work good with Linux and Firefox on older PCs too.
  • TacticalCoder9 hours ago
    I have fond memories of visiting a university in the early 90s on a demo day and there was a (physical) sphere in a Cornell box:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornell_box

    And next to it was a super beefy computer doing a 3D rendering of a similar scene.

    35 years+ later I've got "many spheres in a Cornell box" rendering in my browser, love it : )

  • CodeWriter2310 hours ago
    I was able to get all the balls stuck on the 'ceiling'. Bug or feature?
  • appstorelottery7 hours ago
    Runs great on MacBook Air M1! Super!
  • slopinthebag6 hours ago
    It's cool but shockingly slow for an SSGI implementation, especially without any denoising.
    • 1bpp6 hours ago
      Runs steadily around 30fps on my Pixel 7a.
  • artursapek9 hours ago
    that's amazing. it runs so smoothly on my M4 Pro
  • newobj12 hours ago
    path tracer?
    • newobj12 hours ago
      nevermind i see the ssgi/traa code. looks great!
  • jessepasley11 hours ago
    Is this marketing for the Shape Store? It's cool but I still don't know when my area is getting a Shape Store.