3-D Gaming on Your Cellphone

to_kallon writes "As game devices, cellphones leave something to be desired. Most of the games found on them are rudimentary, with flat, cartoonish graphics and simple scenes. But that is going to change. Soon cellphone owners will be able to play games with realistic three-dimensional graphics rivaling those on PC's and game consoles."

Comments

New York times link generator..

[joeldg]

Why are people not using this:
http://nytimes.blogspace.com/genlink for the New York times article links..

Re:Let's get this out of the way

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, but the plain jane phones are on the endangered species list. They are simply disappearing. No margins to be made, thus only offer the consumer the new high profit margin phones only.

I just added a phone to my Sprint service, only one phone was available that didn't have a camera with PCS Vision. So my choice was very limited.

Re:Java and OGL

[Anonymous Coward]

OpenGL is already available for cell phones. It's called OpenGL ES (OpenGL for Embedded Systems) and it's a subset of the normal OpenGL specification. I know a couple people who are working on the implementations of OpenGL ES or games using OpenGL ES, not sure if they'd want me to bring up their company or product names though.

Re:Java and OGL

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

I tried a little mobile phone game programming myself.

Most mobile phone games are by and large, java midlets. The J2ME MIDP 1.0 spec gives some basic graphics functions, The MIDP 2.0 spec gives a lot more.

Unfortunatly sun were dead set against 3D graphics and even say so in the J2ME documentation. Admittedly the pixillation of the screen renders any type of 3D graphic ugly, but they might have at least supported it on the high end phones.

There are over 200 million(I think) java enabled phones out there. Basically, until sun support 3D graphics on mobiles, we won't see much of it.

I'm not sure if OpenGL would be a good idea in all its gargantuan glory!:E Maybe a Open GL Micro Edition would suit better? Definitely something based on an Open standard would be nice.

However as phones get more powerful all this "Micro Edition" stuff could get outdated and unesssesary. Cue the part where MS walk in with .NET for 4th generation phones. It could happen!

Re:Plenty of plain jane crap phones around

[BinLadenMyHero]

There's even a free one!

Re:Java and OGL

[UfoZ]

The current OpenGL - java bindings are really geared towards the computer side of things - that is, J2SE and regular OpenGL.

There is an OpenGL specification for handheld devices though, I beleive it's called OpenGL ES, and as technology allows it might merge with the handheld-oriented family of Java that is J2ME Although I don't think that doing 3D in such a restricted and computationally limited Java version is at all feasible or efficient, so I think for 3D handheld apps native code is going to stick around for a while.

google link

[xiopher]

gool link here

Re:Let's get this out of the way

[Pete (big-pete)]

I didn't want a full color LCD (drains batteries) or a phone with useless background images or a million built in ring tones or any of that frilly stuff. Guess what, there ARENT any new phones that are "plain"

What's more, for all its frills, it doesn't have the functionality to do a simple thing like vibrate, THEN ring. My old motorola, which is at least four - five years old, can.

My last "it's just a phone phone" was a SonyEricsson T600. Such phones exist if you want them to. As for the vibrate before it rings, it had an editor built in for the ringtones, and that included the ability to set vibrate and lights on/off in the timing, so you could have it turn on the front light and start vibrating, then make a noise after a few seconds...

Seek and ye shall find.

-- Pete.

Re:Java and OGL

[Traa]

It is called OpenGL ES (Embedded Systems) by the Khronos group. The article started of with quotes from some guy from the Khronos group.

There are several initiatives to bring 3D to the Jave platform as well. JSR184 is a Mobile Graphics API for J2ME. Even more exciting is the upcoming JSR239 which will provided Java with direct bindings to OpenGL ES!

OpenGL ES and 3D for Java

[Traa]

For those interested in developing 3D games for embedded systems (not just cellphones). You may want to look at OpenGL ES by the Khronos Group.

As a preferred programming environment for embedded systems Java will provide access to 3D graphics through JSR184 a Mobile 3D graphics API for J2ME and more excitingly JSR239 direct Java bindings for OpenGL ES!

Re:Java and OGL

[perspex]

Nokia are pushing the JSR-184 Mobile 3D API for J2ME. From the API documents:

The objective of the Mobile 3D Graphics API Expert Group was to provide an efficient 3D Graphics API suitable for the J2ME platform, in particular CLDC/MIDP. The API is targeted at CLDC class of devices that typically have very little processing power and memory, and no hardware support for 3D graphics or floating point math. The API has been defined such that implementations on that kind of hardware are feasible. However, the API also scales up to higher-end devices featuring a color display, a DSP, a floating point unit, or even specialized 3D graphics hardware.

The low level parts of the API are simply a subset of OpenGL. Only the very latest mobile phones support this API. In fact, I'm not sure if any phones supporting it are available to consumers yet.

Re:Except for one thing...

[filth grinder]

You can get Splinter Cell for your phone. In fact, I have it for mine. It is actually really different from the ps2/xbox/pc version, but it's still a fun game. It's pretty much akin to the old school Prince of Persia. very fun.

It's actually programed by a third party, not the phone company.