Comments on: Google tries jump-starting 3D Web with O3D

An open-source browser plug-in gives games and other Web applications the ability to take advantage of a computer's graphics chip.

[Chapmaniac]

"Gamers" don't play on Web page plugins but kids who munch downl Cap'n Crunch while watching Saturday morning cartoons will likely follow the link the commercials tell them to go. Those (cereal makers') sites may use this plugin so their visitors can guide Spongebob through a 3D maze.

[Hugh_Isaacs_II]

Everyone with a 360, PS3 or that plays PC games thinks it's necessary to state "gamers don't".

The sad part is that they're outnumbered, so they don't really define the industry.

Well since I fit the demographic and have a PS3 and 360 in my house and play PC games, I'll say that gamers don't have a problem playing Quake Live or Tetris in their web browsers.

How can you predict what will be done with this plugin when no one but Google has made anything with it so far?
This isn't Flash, it's a javascript add-on.

[phatrice]

another waste of time and money

[knowles2]

how is it a wast of money, Everyone thinking working towards 3d web, google just making if it goes down that road it is able to control the technology and standards and most of all making sure those standards are compatible with it advertising technologies. They are investing to protect there revenue stream all the while developing new stuff.

[W1gglesnarf]

Could be interesting if it works right. And yes gamers do play webplugins if they have no other means to play a game... playing a flash game at work comes to mind.

[wiredchicken]

This sounds very interesting, but will it interfere any programs dealing with graphics on my web browser?

[paulimusmaximus]

As soon as I saw this, I was like hmm, I remember this from 12 years ago. And of course, vrml. I used to be into all the 3d sites. Who knows if they'll catch on this time or not. I was a teenager at the time, I think I'd be less interested this time around.

[gggg sssss]

wonder how this will tie into Sketchup

[ddcool1124]

VRML never cought on because it took 30 minutes to load a page on a 14.4k

[jonathan0766]

Completely off topic, but I just noticed a Microsoft ad running along side this article that was touting IE 8 as being optimized for MSN. Those people at Microsoft have a serious sense of humor.

[BOTNET]

dude, seriously keep it on the topic

[BOTNET]

I see this is finally step forward to kill Adobe Flash from places where it does not belong

[tonypee]

places where it doesnt belong? how does a 3d plugin kill flash? except if you mean flash doing 3d, which will be 3d accellerated at some point soon i'm sure.. making them quite similar- except that you wont have to program your whole game in god-ugly/slow javascript!

[BOTNET]

they created temporary plugin hoping this would be part of core javascript in next X years meaning there will be no plug in required. There are a lot of places where developers use Flash just make few menu effects (you will need no plug in for that in the future).

btw, this is not strctly about 3D, this enriches 2D as well (look at o3d.Canvas)

[exitreality2]

A great start with O3D, I do hope that Google adopt open standards so everyone can benefit and interoperate.

ExitReality web 3D app already achieves this on Internet Explorer, Firefox, Google Chrome, Apple Safari and Opera browsers.

It also supports all graphics cards in laptops, you don't need a gamers machine to experience 3D multiuser worlds anymore.

All standard web picture, video and audio content are supported too along with Interactive Flash.

Full support for Khronos groups Collada format and ISO X3D open standards and MPEG4 avatar standards also.

http://www.exitreality.com

[lafatak]

As a developer whose main activity is assisting marketers [of many types of products and services], with all aspects of their web presence, I am very excited to see this progressing. Our company has always seen the future of the web [browser] as a virtual 3D experience.

To that end we have been allocating a large portion of our resources to learning in Second LIfe. I don't see myself as a gamer at all, just exploring a new type of Market Place. The greatest stumbling block has been that our clients need to join and learn to use it.

When 3D web becomes more fully evolved, there will be no need to join something like Second Life. There will be an 'avatar' class created which will be the basis of each person's unique idently on the WWW as we visit virtual 3DE market places [flying around a virtual WWW] as easily as we now punch in a URL.

[eboon]

I'm sure the quality and performance will be no where near that of local software but come on people, think of what you can do with it... second life would have a field day (though the developers may not be too happy about having to completely rewrite the interface), and I'm sure there's many other uses.

[Len Bullard]

If you've seen the code required to display even a simple shaded sphere, it's easy to see O3D is unsuitable for mass market content creation. Layers built over the API can do that and certainly some will give it a shot, but until the tools arrive, content will be hand built and more expensive than even in the mid-90s.

Two questions:

1. What feature of O3D makes it innovative or differentiates it from the wealth of 3D plugins already available?

2. Is there any reason other than the source, Google which failed publicly and spectacularly with Lively, to present this as a "web3D standard" candidate when the Google developers have no experience with developing standards for 3D on the web and have yet to demonstrate how a standard based on their experiments would unify 3D web products or markets? We have the X3D standard, we have the Collada specifications, and we have first class browsers to support them with years of development experience. On the other side, we have a handful of developers, an IP-encumbered lump of code and the Google brand.

Honestly, this announcement is very old school from a time when all it took was a lump fo running code to jump start a standard. I do believe the business professionals have come to understand the meaninglessness of such announcements and have come to rely on the survivability and contract-based control of the standard (see participation agreements) as the basis for accepting that such are genuine candidates.

Google is devolving into Microsoft fast. There was an honest above board way to go about this project and instead, they retreated inside and decided to wage war for profit. Very old school. It appears that Google's ability to scale the learning curve is dramatically foreshortening.

[jessehattabaugh]

The HTML5 Canvas element was built to support more than 2D drawing. Google should be working on the 3D context API for the canvas tag instead of a non-standard plugin. We've already got Flash.

[Atomic1fire]

While the most recent flash plugin can do 3d (without the aid of something like papervision) I don't see why o3d is a bad idea, if its opensource, and can be hooked into gears (saving game data, and allowing offline gameplay of 3d js games) I think it could possibly make the web more interactive.

[dkinzly]

How can it be removed?

[coolnerd123]

All I can see coming from this seemingly pointless plugin, is more free smiley advertising type rubbish and more malware exploiting weaknesses in the software.. Hurrrrrah to progress?!

[jymmyt]

Len Bullard wrote :
"It's easy to see O3D is unsuitable for mass market content creation. Layers built over the API can do that and certainly some will give it a shot, but until the tools arrive, content will be hand built and more expensive than even in the mid-90s."

This has been done by Unity3D. A game engine with an authoring tool that is usable by anyone who is proficient with content development. The authoring tool produces executables for osx, windows, www, and the iPhone. This need has been well filled by Unity3D, and i am quite surprised google didn't just buy them.

Also, for those who might be confused, flash is not a 3d API.