Havok

[iaef]

I know that Havok is no longer available at 3DsMax, but is there a way that someone could fake the HKE? I would like to know if there could possibly be an HKE exporter from Motion Designer or something like this. Or if there is a new Havok product to replace the Reactor in max.

And one last question. Will there be a future for Shockwave 3d?

[MentalFish]

As for what is happening with Motionbuilder (or any Discreet product), I have no idea, but for what is going to happen with ShockWave3D its all up to Adobe/Macromedia really. It seems like they are trying to kill Director slowly, by not giving it any attention to its 3D engine (ShockWave3D). People are abandoning ship at the same time there are people making very cool stuff with it still. SW3D still is the largest 3D enabled web-plugin in terms of % of computers having it installed:
http://macromedia.com/software/player_census/shockwaveplayer/
but it is decreasing in % and it seems to me Macromedia will let it die. It wont stop you making good content with it for some years to come though.

[mdoyle]

Yeah I am really wondering what will happen too. Flash 3d just doesn't cut it with what you can do, and with the scale of the project I am about to start SW3D is the only viable option. The detail and quality that hopefully I will be able to create for this project is massive (thanks petter for some help in other stuff I done)

I hope that they still might keep some sort of 3d application. Someone needs to, unlesss they are hoping everyone will be broadband and for any decent game, application or engine will have to download an installer etc

Just need to wait and see

[Original1]

One of the main drawbacks to Shockwave is the fact that it was not bundled with windows and was therefore a hefty download.

Parts of the 3D engine were orginally developed by Intel.

Around the time of Director 8.5 I built a whole suite of 3D casino games and whilst they were really good the support in some of the graphics cards at the time were a bit patchy.

But the techonology in shockwave is really impressive, some of the techical tests we did really suprised me on how fast it ran.

Discreet even when as far as Plasma a stand alone 3D app for shockwave content.

The biggest bug bear for me with Lightwave is the axis translation stuff. That put some people off since its not as straight forward a workflow as it could be.

I haven't done any Shockwave stuff for 4 years now maybe its time to revisit it.

see the game minisite http://www.2kgames.com/stronghold2/

Now if I could find a way to translate LW particle stuff into havok hmmm???? :cool:

[nt65]

Does anybody know if there will be any more development on SW3D?
We use it extensively, and we are at the cross-roads to either continue using it - or use something else altogether.

I am getting the feeling, that it will slowly be phased out. I was hoping that normal maps and other nice things found on graphics cards would be used by SW3D. But it looks as though it wont be the case.

[iaef]

Then if director might die a slowly and painful death. What are our options? I believe that SW3D was a good tool of the trade, but Director is quite excellent on making interactive presentations, especially if they are distributed on CD or DVD... Does anyone see a competitive alternative on the future? I believe that maybe it is only the internet and 3D part of Director the ones that might go down first. But then what is there outside to replace Director and it's capabilities?

PS: What was the Stronghold2 link for?

[MentalFish]

How is this for alternative for us LightWavers:
http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?t=248382

Also see this specific post in that thread:
http://www.cgtalk.com/showpost.php?p=2370532&postcount=28

The Stronghold2 site contains a minigame made with ShockWave3D, quite fun too :)

[iaef]

Well, I guess it is a "tour de force" for all of us to try this one... seems really promising. Let's see how it holds for character animation :)

[MentalFish]

Just one thing though people. SW3D is limited in terms of effects (such as additive glow effects and bump mapping), but in the end it all comes down to good polygon flow and good use of textures. Even if Macromedia/Adobe decide to put Director on ice, it wont stop it from creating .exe files and .dcr files for online use. I will keep using Director for years I think, until I have a better solution, and to tell you the truth, there is no such better alternative as of today (in terms of production speed).

[nt65]

petterms, I totally agree.
I have been using Director for ages and we have a great product using SW3D.
My question to you is, do you know if there will be anything in the pipleline that will resemble anything that is close to Director as far as ease of development/rapid prototyping goes?

We are a ta stage where we are looking at internet/mobile phone products and wondering if we should stick with Director and SW3D, or use something totally different - that can give us platform independance (almost).

Any thoughts on this would be great.

Also, do you have any good contacts at Macromedia/Adobe that may help in this area - at least the future of Director?

thanks again.

[MentalFish]

Alternatives:

Mobile technology: Java3D, as I dont think we will see ShockWave available for mobile phones for some time.

General interactive 3D: OGRE3D, http://ogre3d.org , but this is based on C++ and I find it rather complex going from Director to C++ (but I am trying). There are so many dependencies and weird things that can go wrong and when they do, I feel totally clueless on what is going on. Good thing Ogre3D has a good forum.

Other alternatives to director is Quest3D and Anark (though I am not too happy with their capabilities / price ratio), though Quest3D looks visually very capable.

I am also looking into the possibilities of XSI <-> AlienBrain <-> Virtools as a high end solution, but I still have to see how Virtools can perform for my needs (going to visit Virtools in Paris after the summer I think).

To be honest, I am rather confused nowadays when it comes to what technology to learn and go for, but if I go for something like Ogre, I know it cant be put to death by some corporate blue-suits :)

No matter what though, I'll stick to Director for a while :) I can do file input/output, have Flash embedded inside it and send of data between a ShockWave3D view and a Flash based 2D interface, export to PC, Mac and Web with one click. I can easily set up a multiuser server and have it work as a hub between a multitude of Director files (Projectors). Havok is still working and good for those fun little physics events such as shooting at crates. The bones animation and blending of animations are good... the list just goes on.

The only technological drawback I can think of (as of today), is its lack of visual wizardry. It wouldnt cost Macromedia alot to update that part of SW3D, but they dont see it as a moneymaker (in the same way as Flash), so therefor they dont do anything. Its all politics, and its annoying the heck out of me. This is where open source projects differ...

[nt65]

thanks for the great feedback petterms.
I also am learning C++. I use to program heavily in C many moons ago, but I have been using Director/Lingo for about 8 years (gee that has flown!!) that I have to retrain myself.
I will check out ogre3D.
Can you elaborate how XSI/AlienBrain/Virtools will help? I thought ALienBrain is a versioning product for assets.\
Actually, on the versioning side of things - seeing as you have extensive knowledge of Lingo - how do you version your src code. I have multiple developers and its very difficult to try and coordinate src code. I am using svn, but being binary does make it very difficult when merges need to happen. I think its possible to link external src code - but can be tricky.

Sounds like you have the same issues as me. I wonder how many people out there are thinking the same thing?

thanks for your input.

[MentalFish]

You are right about Alienbrain. I work on a daily basis in an oilcompany and we are several people producing code and graphics (3D) for use in interactive presentations and tools. So the use of Alienbrain would be to manage all content, so project managers could see the progress, and so that we do not make multiple versions of the same file. At the moment we dont have a system for version handling 3D content or sourcecode (I just name the sourcecode file incrementally file1.dir, file2.dir ++)

With XSI you have the possibility of creating all aspects of the 3d graphics, including the realtime shaders, and it adopts well with Alienbrain.

ZBrush should be added too, so the 3D models can be used for high res normal mapped renders, as well as real time normal mapped models (works very well with XSI ofcourse).

Alienbrain would keep the order of things.

Virtools would not limit our visual capabilities, and is expandable through C++ and optional modules. I am just not too happy with the liscensing they offer.


I would also like to see such a workflow happening as it would make a far better foundation for future commercial game related projects. So many games and game ideas collapse due to the focus of "making the technology work", instead of having an idea and then just implement it over a course of a few months.

As of today, my LW / SW combo is the best option for 1 man projects.

I'll keep you guys posted on anything I might come over...

[iaef]

Thanks petterms and everybody else. I now have a better understanding on what to expect and what could be my options. As for programming under more sofisticated languages, I guess I will stick to C# as I think that maybe some new possibilities will emerge on the coming years and that might be based on this new language. :)