Excuse me but have you seen Papervision stuff? It's pretty lousy by comparison. No real-time video textures,
One absolutely can have real-time video textures, even using an outdated technology like PaperVision (and more so with the new, still not gpu accelerated, 3d software renderer).
Did you notice there was a pause button? Can't do that in Flash without a major overhaul of the broken timeline system.
The "timeline system" is not used in any real animation project.
Did you notice the beat detection? It was awesome. It would be a huge CPU hog in flash (if you have the security rights to access the audio stream) - no problem in Javascript with the Firefox Audio API.
It's not a CPU hog, and audio spectrum analysis features have been present in Flash for a long time - google "AS3 SoundMixer.computeSpectrum" for a specific, player-based API for that. And if you want to compare AS3 speed to JS -- you're dreaming if you think JS is that fast compared to AS3.
On top of it all, Flash 11 beta already supports GPU-accelerated 3d on top of OpenGL (or DirectX or OpenGL ES, and a software renderer if all of these are unavailable). If you want to present features like the ones from this demo - that only a handful of people will see - then compare to the next version of Flash Player too instead, and let's see who doesn't support enough shaders.
You clearly don't work with Flash, or hasn't looked at Flash in the past 5 years. The timeline is only good for hand-drawn, keyframed animation. No serious rich media work use it; the most complex animation you'll see will use code instead. And if you do use the timeline? "stop()" will pause, and "play()" will resume. Why you think a play/pause button is something so hard is beyond me.
You're right that demo wasn't made with Papervision. It's because it's not fair of you to talk about Papervision (a framework that hasn't been updated in a very long time, and was made for a Flash Version 2 versions prior) if you're comparing to Webgl, something that is barely supported nowadays. What now, should I compare equivalent demos in Flash 10 vs HTML 1.0 then use the same lame excuse? If you wanna compare the same result in both technologies, use examples created in the same time range.
Finally, both FF4 and Flash 11 are available for installation now. You say I need to have a specific browser, turn on an specific config setting, using specific cards, and a specific amount of memory; I say you need to install the public Flash 11 beta. Both are here now.
Or maybe not now, because this demo is still not working on my second machine, also using FF4, Windows 7, plenty of memory, and a great video card; nor on Chrome, latest dev build. I had to go to youtube and watch a video in Flash to understand what the demo was even about. Go standards.
Whatever, dude! I concur with everything you've said. Especially the bit about not using the timeline. The web is for interactive content, people, not timeline-based animation. Flash shifted focus to the former long, long ago.
I want to clarify why I mentioned Papervision. Papervision will achieve a similar effect to WebGL (you get textured polygons in your browser), and it won't require installing anything that 90% of users don't already have.
For developers and creative types (of the sort called out in response to my initial post), we need solutions that work today. There's no sense in getting us excited about tech we can't use; it's just showing-off that your particular platform has more bling. Tech demos are impressive when the technology is available to everyone. What we're seeing with these demos is as indicative of what can be done on the internet, now or in the near future, as a pre-rendered cinematic is indicative of the graphics in a video game. They're boastful and deceptive.
Excuse me but have you seen Papervision stuff? It's pretty lousy by comparison. No real-time video textures,
One absolutely can have real-time video textures, even using an outdated technology like PaperVision (and more so with the new, still not gpu accelerated, 3d software renderer).
Did you notice there was a pause button? Can't do that in Flash without a major overhaul of the broken timeline system.
The "timeline system" is not used in any real animation project.
Did you notice the beat detection? It was awesome. It would be a huge CPU hog in flash (if you have the security rights to access the audio stream) - no problem in Javascript with the Firefox Audio API.
It's not a CPU hog, and audio spectrum analysis features have been present in Flash for a long time - google "AS3 SoundMixer.computeSpectrum" for a specific, player-based API for that. And if you want to compare AS3 speed to JS -- you're dreaming if you think JS is that fast compared to AS3.
On top of it all, Flash 11 beta already supports GPU-accelerated 3d on top of OpenGL (or DirectX or OpenGL ES, and a software renderer if all of these are unavailable). If you want to present features like the ones from this demo - that only a handful of people will see - then compare to the next version of Flash Player too instead, and let's see who doesn't support enough shaders.
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=molehill+flash
Want to run them yourself? Here, this one puts that f1 car one to shame.
http://alternativaplatform.com/en/demos/maxracer/
I guarantee you: Flash Player 11 will reach 90% penetration on desktop devices before webgl even reaches half of that.
Say what you will about the subjective advantages of this demo. But don't lie about the technology you're trying to advice against.