Web3D News Story #5

Brower-based 3D Game Engine Created Using Only HTML and JavaScript

Newer web browsers such as Safari, Firefox and Opera have added support for the new canvas html tag. The tag is a push from smaller developers to encourage the inclusion of non-W3C standard functionality in web browsers to create more dynamic web applications. It is gaining popularity, despite a lack of support from Microsoft. Internet Explorer (IE), currently the most popular web browser avaible, doesn't support the tag. It will be difficult to gain significant popularity without IE support. The tag allows a bitmap image to be drawn onscreen. It is an easy to integrate feature which was before only possible by implementing complicated languages such as Flash and Java. Benjamin Joffe has used the tag, combined with JavaScript, to create a simple 3D FPS engine known as Canvascape - 3D Walker. It's nothing more than a proof of concept right now, but it shows the possibilities of the tag. Similar 3D Java/Shockwave/Flash applications are slower and oftentimes less stable, because there is no native support built into the browser. The canvas tag of course is not as complex as these languages, but there are great possibilities for its use. To see the game, go to http://www.abrahamjoffe.com.au/ben/canvascape/

Web3D News Story #4

BattleFront Mobile Released by LucasArts

First person shooter games are extremely popular with the gaming community, whether it is on consoles such as the Xbox or on computers. Recently a new trend is to convert these games to handheld devices, such as PDAs and phones. LucasArts and Cingular have teamed up to produce a scaled down version of the popular BattleFront game for phones utilizing the Cingular network. While the main premise of the game remains the same, due to the limitations of the host device many features were removed for use on a phone.

The main objective of BattleFront, both phone and full versions, is to eliminate the opposing forces and capture key points on the battlefield. The player must first decide on a team to join, whether it is the Galactic Empire, Rebel Alliance, Grand Army of the Republic or Confederacy of Independent Systems. The second choice is to decide on a venue for battle, several planets are given as options depending on the team the player has joined. For the full version the user has complete control over a single trooper, and may direct this individual anywhere on the battlefield; however for the phone version the player's choices are rather limited. Instead of a massive battlefield the user is confronted with a shooting gallery style format where non-playing characters battle with the user. The user themselves cannot move but instead faces waves of enemy troopers controlled not by other players, but instead by the game engine. The longer the user survives, the more points the user's team gains towards the overall goal of complete domination of the planet in question. Since this is done over the wireless phone network, all results may be viewed in real-time as users log on and off.

Unfortunately not all phones are compatible with this program; a few requirements must be met. First and foremost, there is a short list of phones able to support this Java-based game and have the space available for the download. Some examples for supportable phones are the LG C1500, Motorola V173, and the Nokia 3220. For $3.99 the game can be purchased online via a PC browser and then downloaded directly to the selected phone via the Cingular network. No other downloads are required, all of the other requirements are already met by the phone itself assuming it is on the Cingular network. The initial download fee covers unlimited playing time in BattleFront; the only other necessary fee is the monthly Cingular service charge to keep the phone active.

Media Grid

Media Grid (http://MediaGrid.org/) is an online service for the processing and distribution of media in reference to networkable projects. This service is designed for massive projects that require a vast amount of processing power and memory space. As a result such a service would not be extremely useful to our class as our projects were small in scale and rather simple in their application. However if we did have access to this service and could use it for whatever purpose we wished there is one or two ways Media Grid could have assisted us as a class.

The first and foremost way is to provide access to the Boston Tea Party mod online at all times via a dedicated server. This is normally a bit below Media Grid's purpose, as such a server can be provided by many such services. However an additional feature would have been a helpful addition to the BTP mod. Instead of simply being available for viewing, the mod could also be malleable by the end users (our class). Objects could be altered and included to the mod on the fly with the Media Grid service assisting with the rendering and processing requirements.

The second possible application of the Media Grid service would be to provide a virtual classroom for times when meeting at Boston College are impossible. Students would meet in a virtual world where the next lesson could be demonstrated in real time and discussions could take place between students and instructors, also in real time. This would be beyond a simple forum, but instead could almost exactly replicate the classroom atmosphere in all aspects.

Beyond these possibilities I cannot see any other useful application of the Media Grid service. It's potential is far beyond our goals for the class and even the options described above are not necessary for the class to succeed.

FaceGen Testing

The FaceGen program is a powerful program designed to help graphic artists with the tough assignment of texturing a characters head (minus the hair). This program has quite a few choice and features that allow many, but not all, expressions and possible combinations of characteristics. Above is the starting model.

Here the model's ethnic background is changed to East Indian and the symmetry of the face is turned off. As seen it is possible to create some very unlikely features if the settings are pushed to the max. It is best to change settings in moderation only.

Here the character is given a beard as well as an expression, fear. It is a pity that head hair cannot be added as this would complete the expression.

It is also possible to change physical features such as the height of the eyebrows and the size of the chin. Here we gave the character a Jay Leno chin.

Here the character is given a slight case of fear, as well as displaying the feeling of being tired. Bags were added under the eyes and the eyelids were moved down. The eyelids can be moved independently of each other if desired. The character above looks like week old bread, or any of us in class once the final is over.

John's Makeover

The original picture of John (above) is rather plain but very detailed. This is the hi resolution version of John, and displays all of his imperfections as well as the other details. For testing purposes I altered the picture a bit. I changed John's eye color to a blue-green, however it is a little vibrant. Also a mask was added (think Zoro), a slight beard was included and John's eyes were made bloodshot from staying up too late. Again, as with the Avatar a mouse is not the best tool for the job, nor is Microsoft Paint the best program to make these alterations in. A combination of Photoshop and a computer Stylus would be a better combination of tools for the job. The files for these changes to both John and the Avatar can be found here.

Avatar Alterations

The provided avatar is fairly simple with a basic display. However changing the display is not so simply. We were given only our mouse to alter the appearance of the avatar. After changing the shirt from white to black and adding a pair of white gloves I have decided that professional graphic designers do not use the mouse for this type of project. Instead I would tend to believe that either a trackball or a stylus is used instead. The mouse is simply not accurate enough nor fine enough for some of the changes necessary. All I did was change the color of the shirt for example. However in doing so the shirt lost it's details, details I could not recreated in Paint with my mouse. Had I a stylus then perhaps it would be possible to make the shirt more realistic.

Rendering

Creating the orange itself wasn't very difficult, but that was because I had step-by-step directions to follow. There are quite a few settings involved, many I did not utilize. Trying to do this on my own would have taken double or even triple the amount of time. A few things that I ran into problems with during this tutorial. The first is that nowhere in the directions does it actually state how to render, it's just assumed that you know how. Just a minor point really as getting the above picture was not difficult, even though I do not like all of the words all over my orange. It makes it difficult to really see the applied texture. When the orange was complete there was a folder in the same hard drive location named ".mayaSwatches". Since nothing in the directions mentions this will appear I have to assume it is part of the scene I was working on and therefore necessary to view the orange correctly. I have zipped both files together and they can be found here. It would have been nice to get a note stating this was going to happen, so that I was not left guessing.

Web3D News Story #3

Rendercore.com Announces Support For New Platforms

A major drawback of 3D artistry is the timely rendering process. It is a very demanding task for the highest of high-end computers. A single scene can take days to complete. Effects studios such as Weta and Industrial Light and Magic use some of the world's largest supercomputers to get their rendering done. The average person can't afford a computer fast enough to mimic these supercomputers. Luckily, alternatives are beginning to surface.

A new service known as RenderCore offers access to such processing power over the internet. Clients upload their projects to RenderCore's servers. RenderCore then processes them with their 3.0 teraHz supercomputer and then uploads the finished product for the client todownload. 3D artists can save valuable time. The price depends on the total amount of GHz-CPU-Hrs the client wishes to use. This number is then multiplied by a rate, such as $0.65 per unit for Maya files. It is confusing at a glance, but a their site provides an price and timeestimation tool.

This month they announced support for 3D Studio Max (Versions 7.5 and 8.0) and LightWave 8.5. Last month Maya 7.0 support was added. RenderCore's remote rendering service is rapidly expanding and gaining popularity. It is a fast, effective way for artists to get their work finished for others to experience and enjoy.

UPaint Introduction

Today in class we were introducted to UPaint, the Unreal character development program. From here we can open any character and alter their texture. Basically this means we could turn our character's skin green, change their hat color or anything similar. I can open the previously constructed characters, but when attempting to open a mesh I received the following error.

unfortunately this error also crashes UPaint. Attempted to reinstall, erase, reboot and so forth with UPaint to no avail. I can however take a finished character and erase the texturing to create my own mesh, but there should be a better way. I will have to search the web for a solution to this difficulty as the workaround is a more time consuming process.

Animation

Playing with the animation utility in Maya was rather interesting. It shows how something as simple as a sphere can have a complex animation sequence. Below you can see the short sequence for the ping pong game (minus paddles).

The sequence is short but shows how much work goes into such a simple motion. I can just image what we'd have to do to animate something, such as the hammer we built earlier in the year. This animation sequence can be found here.

Web3D News Story #2

Blizzard wins lawsuit on video game hacking
Recently the computer developer Blizzard Entertainment was the winning party of a court case involving their online website Battle.net. The dispute centered around two outside software engineers, Ross Combs and Rob Crittenden, who reverse-engineered the Battle.net software and then provided their own version of the game server, called BnetD, to the public free of charge. By purchasing and installing the software the defendants had to agree to both the End User’s License Agreement for the software and Terms of Usage for the Battle.net server. Language within these agreements states that any owner of the software is simply licensing the software and not officially the owner of the software, therefore not able to distribute the software in question. The defendants on the other hand claim that by purchasing the software they became the rightful owners of the content contained in the software, and therefore able to alter and modify these games as they desired. Obviously the outcome of this court case will have widespread consequences for not only Blizzard, but the gaming industry in general.

While there is no official comparison, according to gamers who utilized the BnetD software a byproduct of the unofficial game servers were a faster response time and a decrease in amount of bugs present, two common complaints about the Blizzard game servers. The outside engineers were intent on providing a service to anyone in possession of the game software, by improving on the currently available setup. However Blizzard Entertainment was not in agreement, contending that the defendants were circumventing their anti-piracy regulations and encouraging the proliferation of pirated copies of their software. From the Battle.net site individuals around the world can compete with each other in various Blizzard produced games; such as Diablo II, Starcraft and Warcraft. The only requirements are an internet connection and a valid copy of the software game. The price for the software is $50 when released, however access to Battle.net is free of charge. At any given time over 200,000 individuals may be found on the Blizzard game servers, and over 12 million active users overall. Each individual must have purchased a legitimate copy of software in order to participate in access the server. The unofficial servers did not validate if the copy of game software used was legitimate, therefore this would cut into Blizzard’s profits and encourage others to further manipulate the game software.

Blizzard Entertainment won the case and the unofficial game servers were deactivated. While this is a deterrent to any would-be game hacker, it also has implications to the game industry in general. While massive multiplayer games are not uncommon, Battle.net is considered one of the more successful servers available. With Blizzard protecting their intellectual property so strictly this will hamper other game designers from developing similar comparable server software. This will slow down the development and distribution of available multiplayer servers, and will limit the number of games available in such an environment.