Building Bauble

[troad]

This is so cool. I love this so much. I read the article on my RSS, and then immediately hopped over to HN just so I could upvote.

> Fortunately though, over the course of Bauble’s development, I had produced a comprehensive suite of test scripts with reference images that demonstrated all of the edge cases and problems that I had faced and already fixed and… No, of course not. I can’t even type that with straight fingers. There were no tests.

Intensely relatable.

[xrd]

What RSS reader do you use, may I ask? Mine (readrops for Android) doesn't render the images. It is probably quicker to just review the XML but I'm committed to this comment now.

[peterkos]

After reading this, I am now of the belief that software is, actually, a good thing. And that programming can be enjoyable.

Seriously, this does such a good job of capturing the feeling of MAGIC that code is capable of -- both in its process and in its output. Textbook "craft". It's hard to experience that sometimes when surrounded by dependency hell, environments, build systems, certain dynamic programming languages, and the modern web ecosystem.

[xnx]

Wow. Very impressive work and a very readable and interesting summary. You should be immensely proud.

Personally, it is reassuring to know there are still people out there capable of doing such complicated and quality work. After seeing my 1000th $19/month thin wrapper over uncredited AI, I had doubts.

[Multiplayer]

Been here for 15 years. This is the most interesting project and writeup I have ever seen here.

[FragenAntworten]

This is both a great demo of what Bauble can do and an engaging description of its development. I'm impressed by both!

[skalarproduktr]

Congrats, Ian, on the amazing side project and the thorough and thoroughly enjoyable writeup.

You really got me with the tests for the original Bauble, I had a good laugh after that paragraph!

I’m now also somewhat inclined to have a deeper look into Janet, it looks both useful and interesting.

[dinkumthinkum]

This is very nice. I remember first watching Inigo Quilez videos and they are extremely impressive but this, obviously, gives a little more insight into making something work. Well done.

[agentkilo]

This article is really inspiring! I have a few dozen half-baked projects, that's meant for no one else but me, to play with, or to "learn new things" from, but none of them ever became so complete and polished as author's Bauble. I can feel the pure enjoyment of crafting from the article. I hope more people can find out about it, and share OP's joy.

I should really finish what I started. It may take, say, eighteen years, but I should finish them XD

[uxcolumbo]

This is awesome and inspiring. Thanks for the write up.

I like the look and style of the game art and making it interactive, somewhat makes me think of the game 'The last night' (still in development).

Your post made me curious about Janet. Will explore it more and how it can be used for graphics and art.

[atombender]

The die cast bronze sculptures are very cool. Where does one go to get them cast from 3D models? Sounds very expensive to do as a one-off (the author is a developer at Jane Street, which probably explains why they could afford it).

[ianthehenry]

I ordered them from sculpteo — the only service I could find that would do it. Very happy with everything I’ve gotten from them. It is very very expensive if you want to make anything large, but for small jewelry-scale stuff it’s not too crazy. The balloon is seven custom parts so that was pricey ($250 total?), but the other two models were around $50 each.

[medhir]

Absolutely incredible, the power of persistence can yield such cool results.

I bookmarked to play around with the editor sometime, I’ve always wanted to learn GLSL and this feels like a more gentle intro into the world of shaders.

[tempodox]

Fuck Apple, I'm only getting “TypeError: undefined is not an object (evaluating 'renderer.recompileShader')” in Safari. It works in Firefox.

[ianthehenry]

huh, that's no good. it works fine for me on safari 18.1. would you share the line that it's raising on? no other errors before that one?

[spiralganglion]

Worked on my iPhone.

[flir]

That was fantastic on, like, eight different levels.

[keeptrying]

Beautiful

[mrayycombi]

3d latex