Building Shade — next-gen Web graphics engine | Graphics engineer
Joined August 2009
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181 Photos and videos
Jun 14
There's an essay from 1958, called "This pencil".
The premise is that the common wooden pencil, could not be made by any single person on the planet, because too many skills and expertise go into it.
If you take AI away from and "AI artist" - he can't create as effectively. If you take Photoshop from a digital artist - he can't create as effectively.
You can continue this chain and
* take away modern acrylic paints
* take away oil based pre-mixed paints
* take away pigments
* take away the brushes
* take away the textiles that make up the canvas
* take away the paper
We always rely on something. As an example - 100 years ago a typical work week was 6 days and 12 hours / day. Today we rely on the abundance of leisure time. Not going to make a claim on whether that's good or bad. But a modern person does lot live in a vacuum and being completely self-sufficient and independent is an illusion.
As far as AI goes, there is an argument that a company X (no relation) could just take away your AI access. But there are already very competent free models, and some of them are already small enough to run on moderately powerful machine like a mac mini.
Jun 13
Democratization is great, and many past technologies have made art more accessible or simplified technical processes.
I don’t think generative AI is inherently bad; technology itself is not evil. The problem, to me, is the kind of democratization it creates. Now anyone can generate a “pretty illustration” or an AI video, but many people seem more focused on the final result than on actually understanding how to make art.
As you said, in 10 years a child might see Photoshop as outdated. But if you take AI away from that child, they may no longer be able to create anything, because AI was their main tool. If you take Aseprite away from me, I may stop making pixel art in that specific way, but my artistic knowledge remains. I could still pick up a canvas and draw traditionally.
That is my concern: AI makes creating art so easy that many artistic and technical skills may be lost. People could become so dependent on it that learning anatomy, composition, or other fundamentals may seem unnecessary.
I don’t think using generative AI is bad. What I find problematic is when 100% of the work is made with AI.
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Jun 13
Generative art is good.
I see this opinion everywhere: "Generative art is evil".
As a game developer and a classically trained artist, I can see how someone could have this opinion.
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Jun 13
I think generative AI unlocked art assets for many people for whom it was previous out of reach due to price, skill and time required. For those who had access - it increased the scale.
Previously, you could pay for 100 images to be made for your game, and it limited your creativity, now you can have 10,000 images and your vision can be a lot more ambitious.
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Jun 13
Personally - I work with artists all the time, and I ask them to use AI if they don't already, because it makes them a lot more productive.
Some images need to be just so, but many images only need a few details to be nailed down.
I could use gen AI myself, but my "eye" is not as good as theirs, so the results I get are pretty, but much worse than what we end up with.
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Jun 5
made "Jet Propulsion Alliance".
Browser game, source available on the page with the game.
Link: meep.company-named.com/examp…
Some of the features:
* Particles
* Decals
* Trails
* Clustered Lighting
* Physics
* Time manipulation
* Audio
* Object Outlines
* Behavior Trees
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Jun 1
Forward decals. Done using @threejs
live link: meep.company-named.com/examp…
The example is simple, there is a pool of 75 images, and a decal placed is chosen at random.
Technically it scaled to 1000s of decals, I haven't tried with more than a million.
The decal images are automatically atlased, so if you have a 1000 images instead of 75 - it will work just as well
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May 31
Added vehicle physics to my JavaScript physics engine
This is the raycast variant. Some boxes for a bit of extra interactivity and large heightmap terrain to demonstrate stability.
Live demo: meep.company-named.com/examp…
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May 30
First person character controller.
meep.company-named.com/examp…
Controls: ASWD, space, C, B
Features:
- jumping
- crouching
- sliding
- wall run
- wall jump
- mantling
But it's mostly about the camera control, mimicking human biomechanics with a fairly large bias towards dynamics - i.e. making it feel fun.
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May 30
Making chains.
Meep physics engine (JavaScript, Browser).
This is an example showing position constraints. All element on the screen are physics-enabled. Each link runs full collision against every other link and the rest of the scene.
Solver runs 5 sub-steps at 60Hz, TGS
engine: meep.company-named.com/
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May 30
A new JavaScript physics engine. Testing settling stability.
Most physics engines struggle when you place a bunch of blocks tightly packed like this.
They want to jiggle and bounce.
Engine: meep.company-named.com/
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