3D Capabilities

[sketchpad92]

I'm wondering what kind of 3D capability Rev studio might have, and where I may find more information about the types of things that it can do with 3D images. I have heard there are some plug-ins available...

M

[edljr]

M,

You can use rev's layering and size/shading to mimic depth. If you want a 3D development tool, try Unity3D. You will need to know .NET-based JavaScript or C#.

Ed

[shadowslash]

Try this one... http://www.mediafire.com/file/ayemcdi1d ... 3d.rev.zip

[edljr]

What is known about Franklin 3D? According to the limited information on the site, it "is an external based on the Runtime Revolution specification for externals."

Site URL: http://franklin3d.com/index.php/faq/39- ... erview-faq

Ed

[paul_gr]

Most of the info available seems to be on the FAQ you quoted.

The price can be seen at:
http://franklin3d.com/index.php/compone ... egory_id=7

it's priced at $299.
I presume they are going up against Shockwave and Unity 3D with that pricing.

Paul

[Mark]

Ed,

It looks like the Franklin3D engine is actually the IrrLicht Engine. You can download it here but I don't think it is of any use if you're not a VB or C++ programmer. The .NET compatibility might be appealing though and there is also a Mac version which I assume is compatible with XCode (but I couldn't find any info on that). The good thing about Franklin3D would be, of course, that it is ready for use with Revolution, while the IrrLicht Engine would take quite a lot of effort to make it work (exactly what whoever makes Franklin3D seems to be doing).

I can't find any reference to the IrrLicht Engine on the Franklin3D site. If they are indeed connected, I believe it would be necessary to add this reference to the site, because anyone using the Franklin3D engine would be obliged to do so as well.

Best,

Mark

[edljr]

Hi Mark,

Thank you for the insight. I am not sure it is worth the $299 to experiment with the product.

Ed

[n.allan]

I think when the new externals api is launched at RevLive 2009 this will be be a whole new ball of wax. The passing of pointers and arrays between rev and an external will simplify and speed things up drasticly when it comes to c++ oriented 3D engines.

Another sticking point is that runrev is not an Object Oriented Language. Don't get me wrong, I don't have any desire to make it OO as you can usually program your way out of it. It just makes all those funky cross platform 3D engines just that bit farther out of reach for RunRev users.

I took my Blitz3D SDK external off my site because I had very little feedback on it. I could post it again if you want another look. It's win32 only, but really is proof of concept. The Blitz3D SDK itself cost $100 and it is very usable product in C++ alone. But with the use of my open source RunRev External wrapper you can access most of the functions from rev. You can even paint your 3D scene to any stack or substack by initialising the engine with the windowid of the stack you want to paint to. Unfortunately my lack of understanding of callbacks prevents me from trapping mouse messages in this HWND mode.

[InfoCentral]

I can see right now that this program has to drastically evolve if it is to survive. Adobe addressed the expanding 3D issue in CS4 with implementation into Photoshop. I suspect that this will be even more expanded in CS5. I know that there is going to be a physics engine added to Flash. They are also addressing the GPU acceleration issue which is just amazing. In the area of technology its all about keeping up, leading the way, or being left behind. And when your left behind survival becomes your top priority.