The Most Immersive 3D Web Page I've Ever Seen Doesn't Use 3D Graphics

Happy Lander is the homepage for a UK web developer named Jim Hall (he created the viral hit game Isle of Tune that I blogged last month), and it's easily the most immersive 3D web page I've ever experienced. It's hypnotic, engrossing, and somewhat dizzy-making, and see for yourself if you're skeptical. The funny thing is, it doesn't use Unity3D, WebGL, or any other fancy-ass 3D tech, but old school Flash:

"Essentially the effect is a cheap trick in Flash," Hall tells me. "There's a lot of layers of parallax combined with a skewed and scaled ground image, when it all matches up and moves together with the mouse movement, it gives a powerful impression of 3D and depth without the performance overhead that 3D in Flash normally entails."  He created it from photos of his local park, his cat, "and (bizarrely) my mouth."

Trick or not, it's powerful, especially with the ambient sound, and I'd love to see more pages like it. To me the capper is the blinding sun. "I've always found that when watching TV/film and the camera looks at the sun or a bright light," Hall says, "I involuntarily squint (even though the sun image is never going to be brighter than the actual screen and blind you!) I kinda wanted to see if the same effect could be achieved in an interactive environment." I felt the squint, so mission accomplished there -- especially since it's not something I usually feel looking at a virtual world sun.

Comments

[Arcadia Codesmith]

Disney and other pre-CG animators used similar techniques to achieve depth of field.

You can make fun, playable games with fake 3D, but there are definite limitations to the technique as well.

Be that as it may, Jim's work on this piece is tight, dynamic, whimsical and compelling. Given the depth of his portfolio, he doesn't need a rank amateur like me telling him "well done!" But... well done.

[qarl]

oh MAN... i'm going to have dreams tonight about that mouth...

[gillian tunney]

i like it , pretty cool, i wish the scene was bigger. i have always liked this monty-python-like avatar styled graphical chat room on red interactive's portfolio. its kind of similar card sliding style

http://www.ff0000.com/