While this isn’t a question, I hope you’ll allow it.
I started graphics programming about 1983 on a VAX 11/780 with a 512x512x24 Grinnell Systems box hooked up via a parallel port. The VAX was the only computer serving all the needs of the Computer Science Department at Stony Brook University. When the screen updated, which took several seconds, the VAX froze for all other users.
It was an absolute bear to get hidden lines removed let alone surfaces. The C programming language was still relatively new and relatively unknown. Among my accomplishments at that time was to read the “on” pixels in a font and render them as per-pixel shaded spheres on the Grinnell.
Later I did a Newton’s Cradle on the Commodore Amiga, appearing on Fish Disk #1 using software-based floating point math as there was no FP hardware on the Amiga at that time.
For many years I taught graphics starting with OpenGL 1.2 up through WebGL in (badly written) Javascript.
I was a cofounder of Hypercosm, a very early fully programmable web-based Graphics and Simulation system. Too early alas. waycoollearning.com and waycoolgames.com date from 2000.
At Profound Effects, we did particle systems coded in Python running inside Adobe After Effects. Here are some screenshots from 2005 although some of the images are lost to time.
This brings me to the point of this posting.
The folks behind BabylonJS are geniuses and are to be thanked and appreciated. Given what I have seen since the early 1980’s, the abstraction and design of BabylonJS is magnificent. The wrapper surrounding alternative physics engines is a delight as is the abstraction surrounding particle system support. The performance in the browser is amazing.
I want to express my appreciation and thanks to all the people who develop, maintain and support BabylonJS. The next time I teach graphics, it will be with BabylonJS.
