Google O3d On The Pandora

[emil10001]

Google just launched a new plugin/api that takes advantage of the html5 standard, it's called o3d. The idea is to render 3d objects in a web browser. You can check out what's currently available in the link above, there are some samples to play with there.

They are currently supporting Linux, but only x86 variants right now. However, from the looks of it, all of the requirements, and I think the plugin itself are open source, so it is possible that these could be ported and the plugin could be made to work on arm. (Google may even do this themselves to push out to their android phones, I can hope anyways.)

I'm wondering whether you guys think it's possible to port, and if you think the Pandora has enough horsepower to run this type of stuff. I have a feeling that this could bring many, many more games to our platform.

 

[lulzfish]

It's pretty much a Javascript API that connects to a native plugin. If someone makes an ARM + OGLES plugin for Pandora, it should work just as well [but a bit slower] than the desktop versions.

At least that's what I gathered from their block diagram there. Someone will just have to adapt Google's Linux plugin code to ARM / OGLES somehow. Everything else is Javascript, which will be slow as hell but should already be supported by Firefox on the Pandora.

edit: I think O3D looks sort of interesting, but I've heard such bad things about Javascript that I'm biased against anything based on it, purely because it might end up supporting a horrifically broken and slow language. Of course, I've never used Javascript.. For all I know, it might not suck.

 

[emil10001]

It also uses python and java, one of which may do more of the heavy lifting. Javascript is probably just used as glue between the browser and what's doing the work.

I've also noticed that in some of the changelogs there are comments about fixing bugs on ARM. So, it looks like they're working on it.

 

[Pleng]

Google just launched a new plugin/api that takes advantage of the html5 standard, it's called o3d. The idea is to render 3d objects in a web browser.

Oh Jesus. Whatever will they find to ruin next with 3D graphics?

 

[emil10001]

@Pleng ... so, in browser, cross-platform 3d gaming isn't something you're interested in? Where are these forums again?

 

[lulzfish]

3D graphics will be an important part of open standards beating up Flash in the future. To which end:

Oh Jesus. Whatever will they find to ruin next with JavaScript?

Quote edited as a joke, Pleng obviously didn't say that

 

[dflemstr]

3D graphics will be an important of open standards beating up Flash in the future. To which end:

Oh Jesus. Whatever will they find to ruin next with JavaScript?

Quote edited as a joke, Pleng obviously didn't say that

Hey, don't say anything against Javascript; it's bugs/exploits have managed to effectively eliminate certain early Microsoft-browsers, thus clearing the way for Firefox etc. We owe a lot to Javascript
And yeah, imagine being able to write a webapp that uses only XHTML, CSS and Javascript, that has 3D graphics, sound, and fast input, runs on ALL platforms, has no issues whatsoever, doesn't have to be installed etc. We live in awesoem times indeed.

Semi-offtopic: I managed to get WebKit compiled for Konqueror today and am now running a very speedy browser indeed With extra 3D acceleration, this browser of mine could become pretty freakin awesome. Just to get an idea of how freaking fast this is: Peacekeeper gave Firefox 3.5 beta 4 (With TraceMonkey!!) only 1100 points, while Konqueror with WebKit got a whopping 2271 points (both ran on a low-end machine btw).
Link.

And BTW: More and more browsers now have support for Canvas (To see if yours does, and at a reasonable speed, run Peacekeeper), so the technology of tomorrow is slowly coming already.

 

[Pleng]

@Pleng ... so, in browser, cross-platform 3d gaming isn't something you're interested in?

correct

QUOTE
Where are these forums again?


gp32x.de

 

[lulzfish]

Why, does Konqueror normally use that KHTML stuff?
If they're moving to WebKit in the future, I'll just wait. I've had terrible luck compiling and installing things manually due to some sort of enforced stupidity that is used by every major Linux distro.

 

[WizardStan]

And yeah, imagine being able to write a webapp that uses only XHTML, CSS and Javascript, that has 3D graphics, sound, and fast input, runs on ALL platforms, has no issues whatsoever, doesn't have to be installed etc. We live in awesoem times indeed.
Am I the only person who finds websites built entirely with Flash annoying? I fail to see how this will be any better. Have you seen some of the ads made with flash? Give this level of power to a marketing department and 10 minutes later you'll be regretting it even exists.

 

[Tom`]

Why, does Konqueror normally use that KHTML stuff?
If they're moving to WebKit in the future, I'll just wait. I've had terrible luck compiling and installing things manually due to some sort of enforced stupidity that is used by every major Linux distro.

How is the filesystem hierarchy interfering with your ability to compile stuff? Do you not have your PATH set correctly or something?

 

[lulzfish]

I just don't like compiling programs for some reason.. I dunno. Don't worry about it.

 

[emil10001]

Why, does Konqueror normally use that KHTML stuff?
If they're moving to WebKit in the future, I'll just wait. I've had terrible luck compiling and installing things manually due to some sort of enforced stupidity that is used by every major Linux distro.

Webkit is forked from KHTML.

Back on-topic, from playing around with some of the demos on google's page, I really think that there is an opportunity here for some compelling games to be built in a massively cross-platform way. This can work in much the same way that flash did, and there are a bunch of users asking for flash because of all the flash games out there.

I could see a buisness model where users pay subscription fees to access games on a site. This model would encourage commercial games ported to this platform because of the large possible user base.

My point is that we should be looking for any way to allow ourselves access to a library (even if only potential at this point) of games and media.

 

[dflemstr]

some sort of enforced stupidity that is used by every major Linux distro.[/URL]

Dude, you really haven't compiled anything KDE-related if you have that experience
KDE uses cmake which fixes the file hierarchy problem for you. Heck, I'll write the commands right here that are guaranteed (99%) to give you WebKit in Konqueror:
CODE
# go to a directory where you keep your sources, such as ~/src
svn co svn://anonsvn.kde.org/home/kde/trunk/playground/libs/webkitkde/
cd webkitkde
mkdir build
cd !$
# remove the install prefix part to install to /usr/local (which isolates the build, but won't work because konqueror doesn't look for KParts there, so you have to modify $KDEDIRS)
# also, install all devel packages that cmake complains about not finding
cmake -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/usr ./..
make

sudo make install
# --or--
su -c "make install"

# Make Konqueror use the WebKit part
keditfiletype text/html
# in the dialog, go to "Embedding" and move the "WebKit (webkitpart"]" up in the priority list

# Done!
echo "Done!"

On topic:
This is the realization of the "cloud computing" ideal. I look forward to it. So far, it doesn't beat lwjgl, though.
http://lwjgl.org/applet/