3D?

On a Utube demo I saw a while ago, there were some 3D boxes whizzing about. It was probably a Classic program. Is there now or will there be 3D for HTML5?

Dicon

Yeah that was on Construct Classic. 3D on browsers right now is a mess. There's WebGL but it's support is pretty limited. Only Chrome and Firefox support it decently. IE won't support it, it appears they will do 3D with Silverlight 5 using XNA as expected. For Apple platform it seems there will be no full support of WebGL anytime soon. The best chance to accomplish multi platform browser 3D would be Flash Molehill, but that's another story. So we'll have to do with normal canvas for HTML5 for some time.

I thought it might be a bit "iffy".

Thanks.

Dicon

yeah, but if someone didn't mind the math, it might be possible to make a plugin

http://www.kevs3d.co.uk/dev/canvask3d/k3d_test.html

EDIT: just noticed you can download the source code at the link at the bottom of that page

A plugin could be made indeed, but the problem is WebGL represents a possible security hole. Indeed, as browsers get access to low level routines on the client's graphic card to render 3D, it gives possibility for hackers to read GC's memory (take screenshots of what is displayed on your screen if you will).

Historicly, Graphic Cards drivers didn't need to care about security measure in the past. With WebGL, there will be a need for new design of thess drivers.

As a result, Microsoft has no plan to support WebGL and will focus on silverlight as far as 3D is concerned (even if I guess they will have to deal with the the same security constraints as WebGL). Moreover, "experts" advise for now to disable webgl support in chrome and firefox until the implementation is secured (once again, like websocket).

So working on a 3D plugin for C2 now could be quite a loss of time and energy. It might be safer to wait for a proper support by the browsers, and then getting hands and heads around such a plugin.

Again, such a plugin wouldn't be supported on IE (and possibly safari in the long term).

Sources: Researchers Warn of Security Issues in WebGL Standard

Microsoft Rejects WebGL for Security Reasons

I heard that was mostly FUD from microsoft, probably to use as an excuse to not support webGL. Read this: http://my.opera.com/haavard/blog/2011/06/22/microsoft

A few choice quotes:

"Microsoft's criticism would sound a little less hollow if they weren't doing the exact same thing with Silverlight that they are criticizing WebGL over. And lo and behold, a Denial of Service vulnerability in Silverlight 5 of the same type that Microsoft was overly concerned about with WebGL recently surfaced."

"Even people at Microsoft do not buy it."

I also recall hearing a bunch of the security issues have already been resolved.

Regardless, do those demos in Lucid's link actually use webGL or are they purely HTML5 canvas?

Pure html5 and javascript(on the demo link above)

Well a plug would give C2 a leg up if it didn't rely on webgl.

The question is how slow would it be?

Lucid's link actually ran pretty good on my FF3.6.

Well, the k3d render library lucid posted about seems the good way to start. It's indeed not relying on webGL, and it renders pretty nicely in my FF5.

I don't know, though, if the library can run alongside jquery, and how that would affect C2's exported projects.

I do think everything Microsoft has said about WebGL is rubbish. Other browser makers have secure implementations of WebGL. For example, they clear all surfaces that are created to transparent black, which prevents the "take a screenshot of your apps" security issue. Honestly, they just don't want to implement it because it would help promote OpenGL, which is a competitor to DirectX.

Well ofc. The "take a screenshot" stuff was a bug which have been corrected and dealt with since.

But as said in one of the articles I quoted, Graphic Cards drivers never had to deal with the possibility that an "external" source might have access to the ressources of the graphical card. So their might be potentially other bugs/exploits which haven't been discovered yet. (and this doesn't apply only to WebGL anyway, but also to silverlight, even if Microsoft won't point it out)

I never meant to diss on WebGL, and ofc, Microsoft standing point is once again a commercial statement in the "Browsers battle". (even if it is, somehow, a lost battle anyway imo.)

Unlike audio, I think 3D might be an argument, though, to attract more users to a peculiar browser.

The "bad point" for Microsoft is that they can't win any monopoly over browser (seeing that FF and chrome are also available on windows OS and widely used).

The users have the choice happily, the dullness falls back again on the devs that will work to make their app compatible with all available browsers.

As a sidenote : Welcome back Ash, hope you had some nice rest.

WebGL water simulation

WebGL water simulation video