3D in your browser [no... for reals this time]

[csven]

Saw this a couple months ago. Virtual World News does a good job of following these things. Will be interested in seeing where this goes.

[Kabab]

Novel idea but its still not a true 3d engine so its quiet limited..

There are 2 other tools notably www.virtools.com and www.unity3d.com which provide full functional 3d game engines :)

They both just require a small plugin and work really well.

[SheepFactory]

This is really amazing! I can see this open up a whole new job sector for us in the future.

[P_T]

That would be cool to play games on the browser, bosses at work can never detect this and it's gonna be quick to hide as well. :scream:

The one problem I see is that people will probably be able to rip your models/textures from this so I'm not sure it would be a good idea to use this to show your models in your website. I don't think I've ever seen any VRML or anything like that in portfolio sites.

[sconlogue]

We just finished a pretty simple job that required 3D in Flash 9. We started by using Papervisions Flash 3D API. Check them out here --> http://www.papervision3d.org/ (http://www.papervision3d.org/)

The "Fish Tank" is worth the slow loadtime. Lookout for that shark!!

Though papervision is very cool we were a bit too deep in the Flash 3D wilderness and decided to use FreeSpin3D www.freeespin3d.com (http://www.freeespin3d.com) instead. Since all we wanted was a realtime 3D spin and their Flash component works out of the box for the most part. Though in retrospect I wish we had stuck it out with Papervision.

There are so many Flash 3D approaches on the radar now that this has to lead somewhere good.

[Kabab]

We just finished a pretty simple job that required 3D in Flash 9. We started by using Papervisions Flash 3D API. Check them out here --> http://www.papervision3d.org/ (http://www.papervision3d.org/)

The "Fish Tank" is worth the slow loadtime. Lookout for that shark!!

Though papervision is very cool we were a bit too deep in the Flash 3D wilderness and decided to use FreeSpin3D www.freeespin3d.com (http://www.freeespin3d.com) instead. Since all we wanted was a realtime 3D spin and their Flash component works out of the box for the most part. Though in retrospect I wish we had stuck it out with Papervision.

There are so many Flash 3D approaches on the radar now that this has to lead somewhere good.
Pretty nice but still no hardware acceleration...

What is really going to kick ass and i think its happening is..

Hardware accelerated web ready 3d engines with procedural geometry and texture generation.. So your going to be able to have massive immersive 3d environments with tinny file sizes but with near AAA quality.

[davius]

Impressive.. specially because of the whole no-plugin thing (well, it uses flash, but who doesn't these days?)

[aaraaf]

The first time I saw 3D on a website was the Alice by American McGee site. I really liked it (just a talking character but true 3D...) but it was just freakin' neat.

I've seen a couple of other sites utilize 3D, including Sony's site for a while. We dabbled with Plasma for a while, as well. And shockwave has had the ability to do 3D for quite some time, but needing a client to use a plugin they are not familiar with is not easy.

I've not been really crazy about a lot of Adobe decisions lately, but putting 3D into Flash is a really simple move that will change things all around... Flash is just accepted on a lot of corporate sites, so there's not an extra install to muck things up. It's also a lot smaller of a download than shockwave ever was.

It's inevitable that a lot of websites will go 3D, but it'll be interesting to see sites with minimum computer specs. Not that this isn't functionally a requirement now, but some of the more intricate stuff will bring older systems to a crawl.

[ThomasMahler]

I'm waiting for what id does with Quake Live - Playing Quake 3 in a browser, hell yeah!

[eightgr]

reminds me the plannar to chunky routines on Amiga

[MrPositive]

Wow, that was cool. I can't wait to see where this leads us next.

[Venkman]

This is the best 3d website I have ever seen done in Flash:

http://www.ecodazoo.com/

I am in awe.

I think it was done in Papervision 3d, but I cannot be sure. It uses a lot of baked textures and depth of field. I don't know how they got the 3d models of the popup book to animate.

[pseudoE]

We just finished a pretty simple job that required 3D in Flash 9. We started by using Papervisions Flash 3D API. Check them out here --> http://www.papervision3d.org/ (http://www.papervision3d.org/)

The "Fish Tank" is worth the slow loadtime. Lookout for that shark!!

Though papervision is very cool we were a bit too deep in the Flash 3D wilderness and decided to use FreeSpin3D www.freeespin3d.com (http://www.freeespin3d.com) instead. Since all we wanted was a realtime 3D spin and their Flash component works out of the box for the most part. Though in retrospect I wish we had stuck it out with Papervision.

There are so many Flash 3D approaches on the radar now that this has to lead somewhere good.


We recently worked on a project that used papervision:

http://www.cathaypacific.aero/index_en.html

Our part was the rendering and compositing, and McCann Erickson Hong Kong did the flash programing. Performance varies greatly depending on your version of flash and your system specs...it is a rather ambitious attempt to put a complex dataset online...it's also a 'trick', as we used a geometrical sphere in papervision and mapped a spherical animation of the interior onto it, leaving the camera at 0,0 and playing the animation as you move through the environment.

Eric.

[Venkman]

That 3d video walkthrough was amazing. I can't believe how well video mapped to sphere worked in that case. Great work!

[pseudoE]

That 3d video walkthrough was amazing. I can't believe how well video mapped to sphere worked in that case. Great work!


Thanks! We used the spherical camera option in Vray, and I tested the theory in a 3dsMax scene just to get an idea if it would work~


There's a bit more info over here if you're interested:

http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=154&t=631920&highlight=777


Eric.

[BigPixolin]

This is the best 3d website I have ever seen done in Flash:

http://www.ecodazoo.com/

I am in awe.

I think it was done in Papervision 3d, but I cannot be sure. It uses a lot of baked textures and depth of field. I don't know how they got the 3d models of the popup book to animate.

That is hands down the best 3d website I have ever seen also.
I would love more info on this.

[SheepFactory]

This is the best 3d website I have ever seen done in Flash:

http://www.ecodazoo.com/

I am in awe.

I think it was done in Papervision 3d, but I cannot be sure. It uses a lot of baked textures and depth of field. I don't know how they got the 3d models of the popup book to animate.

This just blew my mind. I wasn't even aware this was possible.

[heavyness]

This is the best 3d website I have ever seen done in Flash:

http://www.ecodazoo.com/

I am in awe.

I think it was done in Papervision 3d, but I cannot be sure. It uses a lot of baked textures and depth of field. I don't know how they got the 3d models of the popup book to animate.

damn nice. smooth, fast, and very well designed. we need more of this!

[Venkman]

This just blew my mind. I wasn't even aware this was possible.

Kinda makes flash look way more interesting, huh? From what I hear 3d is being added to Flash 10. The biggest problem now is where to invest your time? Multiple open source 3d engines- or native in Flash?

[SheepFactory]

Kinda makes flash look way more interesting, huh? From what I hear 3d is being added to Flash 10. The biggest problem now is where to invest your time? Multiple open source 3d engines- or native in Flash?


So it is not in the current flash? How are these websites done in that case? I have not been foolowing flash\web development at all.

[daevid]

There is no build-in 3d-support in Flash, so all the current sites are done by using different 3d-api:s written in actionscript.

Flash 10 has basic 3d-support (like rotating and moving images in 3d-space) but for more advanced stuff you'll still need to use the Papervision / Away3d / Sandy / Alternativa-engines.

But flash 10 will have other features that these engines can use to get a lot better performance.

/David

[richcz3]

I'm waiting for what id does with Quake Live - Playing Quake 3 in a browser, hell yeah!And from what I read last they were looking at in game ad revenue to make it free.

[Kabab]

And from what I read last they were looking at in game ad revenue to make it free.
The way i read it was..

You have a web browser type interface to find games which then downloads the bits of the app you need and fires it up off your h/disk..

Although you can already develop 3d games as complex if not more then quake3 which run inside your browser with the tools in mentioned earlier.

[ThomasMahler]

I'm pretty sure this stuff could become a quite incredible field for 3d artists - And the fact that you're playing in your browser and that this stuff will be compatible on any operating system... this could be huge.

There are already some really great browser games available and if this kinda stuff is done well (That Eco Zoo thing looks incredible, there's even a simple cloth sim in it :)), I'm sure this stuff could be hugely successful.

Heck, in a couple of years, maybe we'll be able to play stuff like Word of Warcraft in Firefox.

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