[REBOL] Re: Rebol and 3D
From: jason::cunliffe::verizon::net at: 20-Sep-2002 6:16
> IMO Current state(and probably state of few another near future View
> releases) of compositing and DRAW dialect engine in Rebol/View is not able
> to handle more than a few solid filled polygons in small size so don't
> expect better 3D graphics than in Amiga demos or vector games in early 90's.
> We need better framebuffer routines, HW acceleration support on OSes where
> it is possible, enhanced/improved DRAW, native support for computation of
> matrices etc. to achieve at least VRML 3D quality in Rebol.
right.. I imagine it can be no better than Flash3D. Some cool stuff there, nice
ideas, very talented programming. Lots of people have learned to think about 3D
engines by trying to Flash3D. But still very much toys. good designs can make
good use. But its not serious at all. Its best when very abstract, for little
widgets and stuff or things which are 2D imagery but moved around in semi-3d
paradigm to handle scaling, depth and blur or alpha value changes. Some of that
looks really good.
There was that brilliant guru in New Zealand, Che Tamahori, who pioneered
beautiful work with Director3D in Lingo about 6 years ago, before anyone thought
it was possible. Or had seen any of that. He was the first to get smart and use
blur and alpha to create a sense of depth of field. All other 3D still sucks
because its too fucking crisp.
Still worth looking at...
http://www.lingoparadise.com/articles/
http://www.lingoparadise.com/articles/che/index.htm
see down through all his steps to 'Combining Ingredients'
That's I suppose what REBOL can do today
VET rocks though :-)
http://developer.viewpoint.com
Apart from the incredible smooth level of detail zooming they do with texture
maps, VET has this great soft shadows thing going and sweet transparency. Also
it the ONLY one which does not clutter up your screen with endless ad-toting
promo-bloating window like RealNetworks or WindowsMedia. In fact VET is smart
and beautiful because 3D objects float right over the rest of the web page if
you let them.
The best is to load up Poser4Pro and then export a human animation into VET.
It's a huge amount of work to get these 3D players going, especially to really
test and debug all the file format import/export and optimizations and version
madness. For RT or even Macromedia its a giant and risky undertaking. I guess
that MM will eventually import Director's 3D into Flash, but I would not be
surprised if they ended up buying into VET's instead. Their big problem is
keeping the player penetration solid and consistent. If they pile on features,
it bloats and they end up with a painfully fragmented user runtime base. Then
everyone gets pissed. Mercifully FLashMX [6] is so good, that people are going
for it. They can do lots of innovation on the Authoring and server sides, but
have to be very conservative on for player increments. Most of their upgrades
are bug fixes except for the big ones.
./Jason
