• At a rollicking San Francisco WebGL Meetup last night, we saw demonstrations of new tools and formats by yours truly, Remi Arnaud of AMD, Aleksandar Rodic of Google, Iker Zugaza of Ludei and  Robin Willis from Sunglass.io. Long story short, the content pipeline is still rickety but we are seeing signs of moving in the right direction. Pretty soon we’ll have reliable professional-grade content pipeline tools that anyone can use to create WebGL apps…
• In-browser modeling tool 3DTin just hit 100,000 users! Congratulations. blog.3dtin.com/2013/05/10/100000-users-and-beyond/
• Rehabs.com has developed a compelling and beautiful visualization that illustrates the staggering costs associated with the international drug economy. This is data visualization at its best: numbers brought to life – and the point brought home – with imagery that anyone can understand and appreciate.
• “post-platform digital play studio” pixi.js has added some great new features to their JavaScript WebGL engine. You can see the latest in action in their new “tech-speriment” Storm Brewin’
• Got vectors? You know that WebGL ain’t just for 3D… so check out the awesome new 2D drawing API Two.js.
• Unigine has added support for Oculus Rift & WebGL http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTM2MjQ
• Team RadMars has created another sweet Ludum Dare game called Tessitron. I can’t stop playing this one! (reported by webgl.com)
• Erik L posted Get Red, a Chrome Experiment game that is oddly fun… and a bit exasperating!
• Just when you think everything has been done with Conway’s  Game of Life, Rye Terrell shows us the algorithm running in a point cloud.
• Gamedev.net just published an article on how to build a Multiplayer Pong Game with Go language, WebSockets and WebGL.
• It looks like WebGL is at least on Adobe’s radar. Here is Andrew Phelps’ case study in creating game engines in both WebGL and Stage3D from the Adobe Max 2013 conference.
• In his excellent onGameStartUS talk, Vikram Subramanian demonstrates how he extended Ejecta to support WebGL for mobile iOS development.
• Also up on Lanyrd, Chandler Prall talks about his explorations with Physics in Javascript and WebGL.

• Topping the news: Turbulenz announced that they have open sourced their game engine. A high quality, royalty free and open source game engine could be a real game-changer. Check out the announcement on their blog at  http://news.turbulenz.com/post/49430669886/turbulenz-engine-goes-open-source.
• Almost as ground-breaking as a free game engine would be a way to seamlessly blend HTML page elements into a 3D scene. I didn’t think it was possible, but Jerome Etienne seems to have figured out how to do it.
• I’ve made no secret of my skepticism about cloud gaming, so I approach this next news item with some reserve. Mozilla and OTOY announced ORBX.js, a browser-based cloud rendering system that streams high-end applications to low-end devices through the browser. CNET says it’s about to revolutionize computing, but I’m not ready to trade in my Macbook Air for a $200 tablet. Still… this effort seems like the best one yet to unlock legacy OS applications for use all on devices. #reservingjudgment
• There has been very positive reaction to Runescape 3 going HTML5, the latest of which is this article. This may be the WebGL sleeper story of the year… the first highly successful MMO built on web technology.
• Peter Lüders (@Pl4n3) released a new game demo up now PL4N3s World… excellent!
• Want to get your graffiti on without running afoul of the law? You can, by visiting Cadillac Ranch in Amarillo Texas. But if you can’t make it there in person, try Xavier Bourry’s interactive version in WebGL.
• Solar system models are always a fun demonstration of 3D. This very nice Chrome Experiment called ScalePlanets, written by Kevin M. Gill, allows you to interactively view planets based on size, mass and density.
• Zephyros Anemos has written an in-depth terrain engine demo and case study called Project Windstorm.
• Stumped trying to figure out how view your Maya models in a web page?  Sam Wirch has written a how-to for a basic art path from Maya via OBJ.

• NEW! Vlad Vukicevic ‏(@vvuk) just tweeted that the GDC Unreal JavaScript/WebGL demo went live!
• ViziCities brings real-world cities to life using Big Data and WebGL. Check out the Slideshare about the project at  http://www.slideshare.net/robhawkes/bringing-cities-to-life-using-big-data-webgl and sign up for the beta list.
• Virtual worlds are back? The folks from Cloud Party are creating a HTML5 and WebGL-based large-scale world with in-browser building tools. (The official press release is here.) The company is backed by SecondLife alum and co-founder Cory Ondrejka. Maybe this time, the idea will take off… maybe.
• Leave it to the Scandinavians to combine the best of graphics and dance music! Simo Santavirta just released version 2 of APEXvj, a mind-numbing WebGL music visualiser. http://www.apexvj.com/kaksi/player?s=89129737
• I stumbled over this awesome slide deck posted by effects hacker extraordinaire Felix Woitzel… “all standalone sketches, mostly boilerplate for the shader pipeline.”
• This is not WebGL, but it may be of general interest for game developers: path finding in JavaScript. http://www.chromeexperiments.com/detail/pathfindingjs/
• Theo Armour is at it again, visualizing anything stored in bits. This time it’s an update to FGx Globe, an app that visualizes FlightGear users’ online flight simulator status around the globe.
• Yane Frenski just released ThreeGraphs, an experimental charting package that uses Three.js. ThreeGraphics is easy to use and features really nice graphics.
• John Robinson’s HTML programming blog features a nifty vertex shader-based WebGL Sand Toy.

• Eric Haines of Autodesk (and Real-Time Rendering fame) has created an introductory Interactive 3D Graphics Udacity Course featuring WebGL and Three.js.
• Here is a must-read Mozilla Hacks piece on WebGL Concepts, written by Mozilla WebGL guru Benoit Jacob.
• Congratulations to the folks from Cesium for taking 2nd place in the local judging of the NASA International Space Apps Challenge! Read about their WebGL-based entry at http://cesium.agi.com/2013/04/23/Cesium-at-International-Space-Apps-Challenge/.
• Dan Bagnell from the Cesium also team posted an informative piece on robust polyline rendering with WebGL.
• Not one but two bits of A-life fun: Crunchpp, an artificial life game submitted as a contest entry for Eric Haines’ course, and a nifty experiment in video processing using a WebGL shader version of Conway’s Game of Life.
• Chris Broadfoot from Google Maps Developer Relations demonstrates visualizing massive geotemporal data– a week of Uber car routes through San Francisco– using Google Maps, WebGL and the CanvasLayer library in Maps Shortcuts: Large Data Geotemporal Visualisations with WebGL.
• The folks from Ludei, who recently announced WebGL support for their mobile game development system, have released a WebGL Demo application for Google Play to whet android developers’ appetites. Looks tasty!
• Jeroen & Monique of AtMind are working on a real-time ray tracer. Still experimental, but very promising.
• Matthew Wagerfield and Tobias van Schneider have written a Flat Surface Shader that can run in WebGL, Canvas or SVG.
• Ever wanted to see your code in 3D? Well, now you can, with maybe the coolest developer tool ever: traceGL!
• Want to see more code+3D? Jerome Etienne of Learning Three.js showed his live toy of the day: the particle code for a smoke puff, with the puff itself dancing on the page. Is this the start of a trend…?
• If you are planning to be in New York City in early June, here is your chance to meet the Sketchfab team at the NYC WebGL Meetup.

• This one’s from a few weeks back, but significant news: RuneScape 3 was built with HTML5 and WebGL!
• I was pretty impressed with PhotoGL, a WebGL image editing program created by Sean Kent, built with Three.js and Backbone.js. PhotoGL is just getting going, but it’s off to a great start– looks polished and professional.
• Sublime Text users might want to check out the WebGL Shader Validator for Sublime, now supporting both ST2 and ST3. Thanks to creator Paul Lewis for the tip.
• Instant VJ uses HTML5 video, WebRTC and WebGL to create a live VJ performance tool. Turn up the feedback!
• Websockets Duckshoot is a new Chrome Experiment demonstrating a novel game concept combining of WebGL, Websockets, ad banners, QR codes… and a mobile device as your game controller.
• The folks at Fantasy Interactive have created a sparkling version of their logo using WebGL and the sparks.js library.
• Felix Wotzel shared a great WebGL Playground sketch – just another take on “McCabeism.” (Um, whatever that is.)
• More science-y stuff that’s beyond my ken: Syntopia just posted a new Shadertoy sketch called “Menger Journey.”
• “Bro-grammer” Guillaume Gouchon of Orange Labs UK presented a talk on using Three.js and Node.js to create a 3D realtime strategy game engine at Google Mobile and Gaming Awesome.
• Jerome Etienne of Learning Three.js created a nice video tutorial on the basics of Debugging with Chrome’s Canvas Inspection.
• Webmaestro explores basic collision detection using Three.js, one of a series of articles on Three.js development.
• Adobe evangelist Renaun Erickson published a thoughtful article attempting to assess the market reach of WebGL.

• From the Better Late Than Never department: IE to Support WebGL? A leaked Windows 8 “Blue” build with IE 11 reportedly supports WebGL. I know this is slightly old news, but it’s too important to ignore. cc: Understatement Department; this is a HUGE development.
• (via Mr. Doob) Github has implemented an inline STL viewer using Three.js! https://github.com/blog/1465-stl-file-viewing
• Sandy Ressler, my old 3D comrade-in-arms going back to the VRML days, has created the first-ever 3D for the Web Flipboard magazine. It’s not strictly WebGL but it’s chock full of 3D awesomeness. This is a great magazine format for iOS and Android. Hopefully someday we can integrate WebGL directly into the presentation!
• Chrome users running on Macbook Air machines with OS X may have been experiencing a temporary bug where WebGL applications stopped working. This should have already been fixed (thanks Brandon Jones & co!). For more info on the status of this and related bugs, see product forum postings like this one.
• The folks from Goo Technologies have been creating some awesome content using their engine, to show off WebGL on Blackberry 10.
• Hyperlapse == time-lapse panoramic cameras integrated with Google Street View!!! (Say that three times fast.) This insane experience was created by Teehan+Lax Labs. Read more on Darien Acosta’s blog at webgl.com.
• Patrick Martin’s DexCharts project brings together D3JS and Three.js to create WebGL data visualizations. Some great samples there.
• Gregg Tavares has created a capture utility for WebGL, a library that captures a stream of WebGL commands from a WebGL program and generates a standalone program. This is really handy in general, in particular for creating small, isolated test cases to send to browser makers when reporting suspected WebGL bugs.
• Michael Goodfellow has released Don’t Hit Me, a new WebGL game demo.
• Nice piece on the TypedArray.org about the potential for WebGL for rich internet applications.
• At GDC, Khronos announced that version 1.02 of the WebGL specification is out, with enhancements and greater conformance; they also announced the glTF project to define a new web-friendly JSON format for delivering scene data to WebGL and OpenGL ES applications (disclosure: I am on the COLLADA working group subcommittee designing glTF).
• Radiated Pixel showed off a simple WebGL model viewer written in Three.js.
• Mozilla and Epic Games showed a jaw-dropping port of the Unreal engine to WebGL, using Emscripten and asm.js. It may just be a marketing fluff piece for Mozilla’s new OS– nobody knows for sure at this point– but it sure looks amazing.

The near-term focus for Learning WebGL be to:

1. Update the Lessons. The lessons are awesome but they are getting a bit long in the tooth. Brandon Jones released a new version of glMatrix a while back, which is not backward-compatible with the version being used in the lessons. I have created a fork of Giles’ original lesson code; it’s untouched for now but I will get going on this as soon as possible. You can view the Github project here.
2. Get WebGL Around the Net going again. People find this an invaluable source for recent WebGL happenings. I hope to have the next roundup online tomorrow (Thursday 11-Apr)!

Clearly, those two features are the core of the site today. But beyond those, I am thinking about a couple of enhancements. First, I’d like to add a section that features contributions from outside authors– more in-depth than a simple blog post, along the lines of a short article. Second, I want to look into automated tools for tracking Tweets and other news alerts, maybe visualize them in a fun way. Giles did the initial R&D on a Twitter-scanning system; I am hoping to fortify that.

I also plan to keep WebGL Jobs intact (we are still in the process of moving that server to one of mine), and I am thinking hard about what to do with the WebGL Cookbook. There is some great stuff in there, but the Mediawiki implementation has been spam-prone so Giles had to lock it down until we can figure out a good solution. More on the Cookbook TBD.

If you have thoughts on any of these topics, or are interested in contributing or collaborating, please drop me a note in the comments or email me.

It’s fantastic news that he’s been able to step up and take over the blog, making sure you won’t lack for news and tutorials. I wish him the best of luck and look forward to the cool new stuff he’s planning to add here — come back over the next day or so for announcements about that.

So, from me… it’s been a great experience running Learning WebGL, and now that it’s in safe hands for the future, I can safely say so long, and thanks for all the fish. Thanks to everyone who’s sent in a link to a demo, commented, and otherwise got in touch over the years. You’ve made this blog what it is.

Cheers,

Giles

Until then, while we transfer all of the data over to his server, I’ve temporarily switched off comments.