"Honey Bunnies" is a generative art experiment showcasing a colony of stylized rabbits evolving and interacting within a simulated environment. These rabbits, rendered with simple geometric shapes, exhibit emergent behavior as they seek out and consume food, represented by growing and shrinking circles. The simulation unfolds in real-time, demonstrating how individual behaviors, driven by simple rules, can lead to complex and dynamic patterns at the population level. The visuals are minimalist and abstract, using a limited color palette and basic shapes to create a hypnotic and evolving scene.
VSC is an open-source 3D rendering engine written in C++. It aims to be a versatile, lightweight, and easy-to-use solution for various rendering needs. The project is hosted on GitHub and features a physically based renderer (PBR) supporting features like screen-space reflections, screen-space ambient occlusion, and global illumination using a path tracer. It leverages Vulkan for cross-platform graphics processing and supports integration with the Dear ImGui library for UI development. The engine's design prioritizes modularity and extensibility, encouraging contributions and customization.
Hacker News users discuss the open-source 3D rendering engine, VSC, with a mix of curiosity and skepticism. Some question the project's purpose and target audience, wondering if it aims to be a game engine or something else. Others point to a lack of documentation and unclear licensing, making it difficult to evaluate the project's potential. Several commenters express concern about the engine's performance and architecture, particularly its use of single-threaded rendering and a seemingly unconventional approach to scene management. Despite these reservations, some find the project interesting, praising the clean code and expressing interest in seeing further development, particularly with improved documentation and benchmarking. The overall sentiment leans towards cautious interest with a desire for more information to properly assess VSC's capabilities and goals.
This project introduces lin-alg, a Rust library providing fundamental linear algebra structures and operations with a focus on performance. It offers core types like vectors and quaternions (with 2D, 3D, and 4D variants), alongside common operations such as addition, subtraction, scalar multiplication, dot and cross products, normalization, and quaternion-specific functionalities like rotations and spherical linear interpolation (slerp). The library aims to be simple, efficient, and dependency-free, suitable for graphics, game development, and other domains requiring linear algebra computations.
Hacker News users generally praised the Rust vector and quaternion library for its clear documentation, beginner-friendly approach, and focus on 2D and 3D graphics. Some questioned the practical application of quaternions in 2D, while others appreciated the inclusion for completeness and potential future use. The discussion touched on SIMD support (or lack thereof), with some users highlighting its importance for performance in graphical applications. There were also suggestions for additional features like dual quaternions and geometric algebra support, reflecting a desire for expanded functionality. Some compared the library favorably to existing solutions like glam and nalgebra, praising its simplicity and ease of understanding, particularly for learning purposes.
Jesse van der Pluijm has created a web-based 3D global topography explorer using CesiumJS and elevation data from Mapzen. The interactive globe allows users to smoothly zoom and pan around the world, viewing terrain in realistic detail. It features adjustable vertical exaggeration to emphasize mountainous regions and an optional atmospheric scattering effect for added realism. The project is open-source and available on GitHub.
HN users generally praised the 3D topography explorer for its smoothness, intuitive interface, and interesting data visualization. Several commenters appreciated the technical details provided by the creator, specifically around data sourcing and rendering techniques. Some suggested potential improvements, including adding features like location search, elevation profiles, and different map projections. Others discussed the challenges of representing elevation accurately on a globe and the trade-offs involved in different visualization methods. A few users shared their enjoyment in exploring specific locations using the tool.
Surface-Stable Fractal Dithering introduces a novel dithering technique that maintains detail and avoids shimmering artifacts when applied to animated or deforming 3D surfaces. It achieves this by generating spatially correlated dither patterns using fractal Brownian motion, ensuring temporal coherence as the surface changes. This method produces visually pleasing results for various applications like reducing banding in low-bit color displays or adding stylized noise to textures, outperforming traditional dithering approaches in dynamic scenarios. The provided code implementation offers a flexible and efficient way to integrate this technique into existing graphics pipelines.
Hacker News commenters generally praised the visual appeal and technical ingenuity of the dithering technique. Several highlighted the cleverness of leveraging 3D surfaces for dithering, finding it both unexpected and effective. Some expressed curiosity about the performance and potential applications, particularly in real-time scenarios and stylized rendering. A few commenters delved into the technical details, discussing the specifics of fractal noise generation and the implications of different surface types. There was also a brief discussion comparing this method to traditional dithering techniques and its potential advantages in preserving detail and minimizing banding artifacts. One commenter suggested potential improvements like exploring alternative distance functions and optimizing for different color spaces.
Gingerbeardman's blog post presents an interactive animation exploring the paths of two slugs crawling on the surface of a cube. The slugs start at opposite corners and move at the same constant speed, aiming directly at each other. The animation allows viewers to adjust parameters like slug speed and starting positions to see how these changes affect the slugs' paths, which often involve spiraling towards a meeting point but never actually colliding. The post showcases the intriguing mathematical problem of pursuit curves in a visually engaging way.
HN users generally enjoyed the interactive animation and its clean, minimalist presentation. Several commenters explored the mathematical implications, discussing the paths the slugs would take and whether they would ever meet given different starting positions. Some debated the best strategies for determining collision points and suggested improvements to the visualization, such as adding indicators for past collisions or allowing users to define slug speeds. A few commenters also appreciated the creative prompt itself, finding the concept of slugs navigating a cube intriguing. The technical implementation was also praised, with users noting the smooth performance and efficient use of web technologies.
This project demonstrates a surprisingly functional 3D raycaster engine implemented entirely within a Bash script. By cleverly leveraging ASCII characters and terminal output manipulation, it renders a simple maze-like environment in pseudo-3D. The script calculates ray intersections with walls and represents distances with varying shades of characters, creating a surprisingly immersive experience given the limitations of the medium. While performance is understandably limited, it showcases the flexibility and unexpected capabilities of Bash beyond typical scripting tasks.
Hacker News users discuss the ingenuity and limitations of a bash raycaster. Several express admiration for the project's creativity, highlighting the unexpected capability of bash for such a task. Some commenters delve into the technical details, discussing the clever use of shell built-ins and the performance implications of using bash for computationally intensive tasks. Others point out that the "raycasting" is actually a 2.5D projection technique and not true raycasting. The novelty of the project and its demonstration of bash's flexibility are the main takeaways, though its practicality is questioned. Some users also shared links to similar projects in other unexpected languages.
Summary of Comments ( 34 )
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43355521
The Hacker News comments on "Honey Bunnies" largely express fascination and appreciation for the visual effect and the underlying shader code. Several commenters dive into the technical details, discussing how the effect is achieved through signed distance fields (SDFs) and raymarching in GLSL. Some express interest in exploring the code further and adapting it for their own projects. A few commenters mention the nostalgic feel of the visuals, comparing them to older demoscene productions or early 3D graphics. There's also some lighthearted discussion about the name "Honey Bunnies" and its apparent lack of connection to the visual itself. One commenter points out the creator's previous work, highlighting their consistent output of interesting graphical experiments. Overall, the comments reflect a positive reception to the artwork and a shared curiosity about the techniques used to create it.
The Hacker News post titled "Honey Bunnies" links to a WebGL experiment called "fro_9". The discussion in the comments section is relatively brief and focuses primarily on technical aspects of the demo and similar graphical effects.
One commenter highlights the demo's effective use of signed distance fields (SDFs) to render the complex, interwoven shapes. They appreciate the aesthetic achieved with relatively simple rendering techniques. This commenter also points out the clever use of "domain repetition" within the SDF, enabling the creation of repeating patterns across the scene without needing to explicitly define each individual element. They further delve into the technicalities of SDFs, explaining that the underlying distance function determines the rendered object's shape, allowing for complex forms to be described mathematically. This commenter links to Inigo Quilez's work, a well-known figure in the computer graphics community, recognizing him as a resource for learning more about SDFs and their applications.
Another commenter questions the choice of the title "Honey Bunnies," expressing confusion about its connection to the visual content of the demo. This points out a disconnect between the artistic presentation and its chosen label.
A third commenter shares a personal anecdote about encountering similar rendering techniques in the demoscene, specifically within the work of a group called "Farbrausch." They mention "fr-041: debris," highlighting its intricate visuals and the technical ingenuity behind its creation. This comment contributes historical context and connects the demo to a broader artistic movement.
Finally, the original poster (OP) responds to the question about the title, clarifying that "Honey Bunnies" is simply the name assigned to this particular experiment within a larger series. They explain their naming convention involves random word pairings. This explanation sheds light on the seemingly arbitrary title and reveals the OP's broader creative process.
In summary, the comments on the Hacker News post offer a mix of technical appreciation for the demo's use of SDFs, a brief exploration of its historical context within the demoscene, and an explanation for the somewhat puzzling title. While the discussion is not extensive, it provides some interesting insights into the demo's creation and its place within the broader landscape of computer graphics.