3D online - some tests

Just thought I'd share some "3d in your browser" tests.

@Red this is for you - send me a submarine!

http://www.smartscreenuk.com/water.htm
(3 mB no user control)




http://www.smartscreenuk.com/game001.htm
(1.3MB use arrow keys to move character about main keyboard number 1 = high camera 2 = closer camera)




These are tests using supplied graphics media and in the case of the water one - the scripts too. You need to accept the Virtools plugin for your browser by the way - right mouse click to adjust settings.

PC - Win'98 onwards - Apple OSX and above I'm afraid.

IPete2.

the water looks great. i hate the camera in the second one though.

what are the plans for these?

hey!!!! that looks great!!! shadered water??

lemme see if i can find an old sub that'll fit the scene :)

--Mike

I'm just playing to get to grips with the tools again.

I have owned Virtools for a few years and let my knowledge slip badly - with shaders now being a feature and 3D becoming more generally accepted I want to be able to offer small web games in 3D which have fab effects and small downloads. I mean the second example with media is about the same as the standard Blitz 3d executable minus media! :) Mind you - you do have to have the plugin in, but hey just like Flash and Shockwave.

I agree the cameras are pooh in the second one, but they could be static like the first one, with just changes to many different cameras as the character progresses. Good 3D game cameras are hard to 'get right' and I have only spent a couple of hours (literally) on the game environment.

The water is an animated bump map effect - and uses shaders and cube mapping too.

IPete2.

well... it doesn't look like your knowledge has slipped very much... this looksvery polished... your artwork is really quite appealing as well, but i expected no less, as your past work represent a mark that i 'm still aiming for...

it looks as though VirTools has also polished up their act a bit as well... the shaders and animation seem a lot better looking and more fluid, as far as i can remember from the past demos i sampled...

in addition, the ease of delivery to the intended audience also makes developing for this platform very attractive... i had the player plugin installed from way back, and even though it was an old one, i wasn't asked anything about updating...

this is actually quite remarkable... thx for the preview...

hey... how does Virtools deal with sound... i didn't notice any sound... or is it my setup here...

--Mike

Red,

Well to be honest the easy stuff is very easy in Virtools, hard stuff requires some in depth knowledge and that's where I'm headed with it. For example within twenty minutes of showing this version I had a new version with a guard parading around the village area on a fixed track - no ai, but animated and following a nice path.

Game environment:

I wish I could take the praise for the graphics but they come supplied - I have only spent a couple of hour on the game environment test remember.

The water one is nothing to do with me - it comes as a standard shaders demo in Virtools tutorials. It looks good, but I wondered if many people could actually see it running (I don't know too much about shaders).

I also wanted to see what everyone else thought of these demos, in particular such things as download size, quality in browser - I've done a lot of optimising on those cartoon textures, features available, ease of use for customers etc. I am currently developing the ss Great Britain in this format so you shall hopefully get to see what it looks like when she sails on-line for the first time in a few weeks time! :) Yes I shall implement some sound too and we shall see what that does to the file size or I could use external sound - I shall do more tests over the next few weeks or so and provide links to some of the more interesting ones.

My ultimate aim is to develop in browser games for websites to supplement the popular Flash and Shockwave ones. I'm trying to see if the market is ready as it were (if it is I need to be too!).

IPete2.

The majority of games portals are attempting to standardise their plugins, some have a different loader per developer! Whilst Virtools is a standard plugin it means that games have to be developed within that environment.

The number of developers making games in Virtools is going to be very small, so small infact that I would suggest that the portals would need some really compelling reasons ($$$$) to support the technology.

We attribute our success, with portals and developers alike, to the fact that you can deliver pretty much any application/game written in any language, as long as it's licensed, within the browser. You could take your SS Great Britian .exe as is and have it on-line within the browser in less that 10 mins!

We are not attempting to replace Virtools or Flash or Java, our offering is different and allows developers to create web versions of their creations quickly, effectivly and for minimal cost.

In fact we have been approached by a company who's business is free Java games, they want to use our software to deliver compiled java .exe files - why? so the client does not have to download bloated and sometimes outdated java runtimes.

And whilst we only support Windows at the moment that won't always be the case.

So I suppose my point is..... Make the games in Flash, Java or whatever you want but just make sure that people are happy to host and deliver content in that format.

Hi Indie,

I get your drift - and I do develop and deliver in those other formats as you suggest. I'm not after the commercial games market sector though (currently) but an extra revenue stream for providing my clients with Xbox/PS2 quality real-time 3D products in browser or in kiosk form - nothing else currently compares as far as I know.

Hosts aren't affected and users don't have to do anything except 'click' to accept the plugin.

I would definately want to use your plugin if I had developed something in B3d - it would be very useful and be extremely fast to move it onto the web - as long as it was optimised for the web to begin with.

I should also say that Virtools is not just a plugin - it is a development suite allowing me to move stuff to other platforms (Mac, Xbox, PS2) and something which helps optimise the game components and provide faster development cycles, and add the incredible feature set available to developers, which in real-time 3D terms is much stronger than anything Flash or Shockwave or Blitz3D can currently offer with out without your plugin.

I guess Virtools is the "poor man's" Renderware.

Virtools is continually updated and has been around in one form or another since 1993 - it has a heritage in the aviation simulation industry and strong connections to museum/exhibition and massive event formats.

That's really where I am at. Currently when I do work for visitor centres/ museums/ event/ exhibitions etc they expect Director or Flash capabilities - which many people can offer - I want something more to give them and provide a service which few companies can provide.

When someone asks is it like my kid's Xbox games - I want to be able to say "Of course - here are some examples you can check out online." and actually mean it.

IPete2.

Ah ha, I see, I thought that you might want to go the commercial games route.

FYI there is another games development tool that can give you all of those nice dx9 features, it is rumoured that the next release will incorporate an igLoader command set and compile .exe's that are optimised for web delivery.

Anyway, Virtools is really cool :D

wooohoooo! Whats this new dev tool called? Hmmm. I'll have to keep an eye out for that one! ;)

IPete2.

Oh it's not new :D