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Mozilla Develops Gladius 3D Game Engine
An anonymous reader writes "Mozilla is developing its own 3D engine called Gladius as part of a wider Paladin project whose aim it is to bring 3D to the web. As all programmers know, the best way to learn is to experiment, and that's exactly what Mozilla is doing. In order to develop Gladius the team decided to create a game called RescueFox (best played in Firefox). It's a very basic prototype, and Mozilla has no interest in taking it further, but the purpose it served was to highlight what still needs to be done to make Gladius a solid web browser 3D engine solution."
Just what we need... an annoying technology that manufacturers can use to try to convince us to "upgrade" all of our laptops and monitors.
Yeah, I wish there were more stories on Slashdot about how to live in harmony with nature away from all the trappings of modern society. I don't come here for all this news about "upgrades" and "technology" and stuff.
I wonder what projects pila, pugio and plumbatae will be.
That page only shows empty, ahem, space...
Slashdot ya no es que lo era!
Oh well. Was actually pretty impressive, smooth animation and everything.
I have developed a truly marvelous proof of this comment, which this signature is too narrow to contain.
I seem to recall several attempts at 3D plugins and interfaces over the years, all of which withered and blew away in the winds of "who gives a shit."
Games are one of those areas where the web will not be able to compete with local processing power for a very, very long time. Sure you can do some primitive demos, but the sheer bandwidth required to transfer the textures for modern video games are way beyond the capabilities of current internet technology.
Even Second Life with it's shading instead of textures still uses a native client.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
Well those graphics are about 1998 level, so unless you're running really old hardware it shouldn't be that taxing.
Still though who needs this? We have 3d game engines, have for years, and sticking in in a one size fits all browser is a step back for any good technology pushing game.
Its like 15 years later everyone forgot how completely useless and crappy VRML was and they want to do it all over again.
Know what I want my web browser to do? Render HTML, correctly, and quickly. Do javascript if I allow it from that site, and play HTML5 video since that's what half the web is now... and allow me to filter ads, although if it didn't I'd just use the filter list in a firewall.
There is absolutely no reason it should need to render 3d anything on my video card nor do browsers need to add that bloat.
We do not need plugins.
We need next generation webGL and CSS 3D. If Mozilla wants to contribute they should make an alternative to DirectWrite as non exists in Linux. OpenGL has some features of Direct3D, but it lacks in many areas outside of 3D rendering for accelerated 2D.
The dying of flash also shows the market is moving to pen standards.
http://saveie6.com/
this is definitely what mozilla needs rather than a stable release cycle and MSI packages for enterprise
This is about making a game engine to ease development with WebGL, not the shit-flying-in-your-face kind of 3D.
3D support is not and will not be a common requirement for a long time, so it makes sense to use an optional plugin rather than bloating the browser with crap most people will never need.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
I can't be the only one to wonder why Mozilla would be making a Gradius game.
It started with the UI... eliminating status bars and minimizing the ui to an extreme.
Then they changed the numbering on releases.
Now they are copying the game engine. (another feature that chrome already has)
Why innovate for yourselves if you can just copy everything that chrome has done already?!?
Of course copying Chrome is counter-productive... If I want my browser to be like Chrome I am going to use Chrome. Hey mozilla team: If you want people to use your browser you have to innovate on your own and give people reasons why your browser is better. Ask any sled dog, the one that leads has a much better view than the ones that follow the leader.
You(mozilla) started to lead when everyone else thought the browser market was dead. You rapidly gained market share and people started using Firefox. However this year you appear to have no drive, leadership or innovation and people are starting to leave your browser for others. How difficult is it for you to get the clue to start your own ideas instead of copying someone else?
Looking for a job?
Want your resume written professionally?
DON'T USE TUNAREZ!!!
Speed the death of Flash and speed the adoption of HTML5+JS as the goto client-side software development platform for most things. The Joystick API is amongst the greatest things coming out of this effort:
https://wiki.mozilla.org/JoystickAPI
Mozilla is doing good stuff here, buck up ppl!
I've got a ridiculously powerful graphics card (Nvidia GTX 560 TI) and the "game" is hella slow.
Maybe it runs better on windows...
It's a very basic prototype, and Mozilla has no interest in taking it further, but the purpose it served was to highlight what still needs to be done to make Gladius a solid web browser 3D engine solution.
From history, the most successful game engines are those which are written first for a specific game that is sold (Quake and Unreal are two prominent examples, but there are many more). Which makes sense - how else do you find out what a real game needs? I'm not sure a simplistic prototype is going to cut it here...
How thoughtful of them to choose a project name without at least googling for conflicts. :/
https://sourceforge.net/projects/paladin/
Any ideas on who to contact? I can't find anything on Mozilla's project pages.
Between the version number / release cycle insanity and this, I think it's finally time to switch. What a shame, I've been using Firefox since it was called Phoenix. But the update today broke another extension, and building 3D into the browser is a sign of insanity that I thought we had wiped out with the demise of VMRL.
Dear Mozilla developers: If it's not something the majority of your users are going to actually use, it belongs into an extension or a plugin. Also, there are already several 3D engines with Firefox plugins, with years of experience in the field, because you don't build a good engine in a lazy summer. So with all due respect, what the fuck are you thinking?
I'm afraid you've fallen into the way-too-common bloatware trap: Not realizing when your product is feature complete and what it needs is polishing, not more stuff bolted on. There's enough CSS3 and HTML5 support still missing, for example.
Time to take a serious look at Chrome. :-(
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
A lot less powerful GT218 here, but the game is more or less still playable.
I think in it's current state, the game isn't GPU bound. Probably, no matter the humongous GPU you throw at it, you'll still see slow downs due to CPU-bound limiting factors (like javascript).
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Will there be a new version every week that makes obsolete all scripts you created in the old engine?
Don't forget the nightmare that will be security. what is the one driver that really needs to be bare metal? Which driver on a system is the most likely to be flaky? That would be graphics. Personally i'm glad i moved to Comodo Dragon after Moz went nuts with their upgrade schedule.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
http://news.cnet.com/Netscape-buys-3D-vendor-Paper-Software/2100-1033_3-204692.html
"Netscape Communications yesterday moved to bolster its 3D technology for its Navigator browser with the acquisition of Paper Software. ... Separately, Netscape yesterday announced Live3D technology for adding VRML capabilities to its browser. A test version of a Navigator plug-in based on the new technology is available now to let users created and read VRML Web pages."
I don't know, it seemed to run just fine in Chrome.
[quote]Still though who needs this? We have 3d game engines, have for years, and sticking in in a one size fits all browser is a step back for any good technology pushing game.[/quote]
This isn't for "good technology pushing games." This is for Minecraft, Facebook games, etc. They are actually becoming quite popular, though probably not among the Slashdot crowd. Even though these games look like they're from 1998, they're currently done in Flash, so they still run slow as hell on integrated video.
So there is actually a niche for this thing. People who want to play 3D Flash games on the web, and don't have a gaming rig. However, these people are also the least likely to jump on mozilla.org and download some obscure plugin when they already have Flash. So, I doubt that Adobe has anything to worry about.
DO YOU THINK THIS IS A GAME!?
The thought of hanging myself at my student loan organization doesn't bug me as much when I think it might make a differ
That boat sailed long ago. This is just a bunch of javascript.
WebGL is pretty much in every browser (Well maybe not IE, not sure) , and has been for a while now.
Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
what gp is trying to say is that we are sick to the death of webgl, html5 and suchlike crap.
it aint gonna take off, no matter how much the whiney idiots that promote this crap carry on.
for one, we don't want to go back to the days of "best played in Firefox [or insert favorite browser here]"
Set sail for browser exploits. Over and over and over again.
Disclaimer: IANAL. This post is, however, legal advice, and creates an attorney-client relationship.
If it is hardware accelerated then by the very definition it has to have access to the hardware. Again which driver is the most likely to be out of date, flaky, and which bypasses pretty much ALL security because that would slow the living hell out of the hardware? Why that would be the GPU.
Think about it friend, the modern GPU is 500Mhz with anywhere from 256Mb to 1Gb of RAM. That is a hell of a lot more power than most of us had when the nasties were spreading through the systems of the 90s. Now what can a malware writer do if he has access to that amount of hardware? hell most GPUs today are based on only two vendors, ATI or Nvidia, and have firmware which allows features to be flipped on and off. Write the nasty to the firmware? You own the machine and the only way to remove will brick the device.
So to me this is just another case of someone deciding they COULD do something without thinking about whether they SHOULD do something. I mean who in the hell wants to do heavy 3D gaming in a fricking browser? the game will run much faster being installed natively, and the farmville type couldn't give a rat's ass if its 3D or not. Just another dumb idea from the company that seems to be determined to run off all their users, why am I not surprised?
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Nothing like trying to rescue a polar bear cub in a snowstorm
...game development.
WebGL is great, canvas is great, web sockets are great, Audio support is terrible.
If it becomes possible to feed samples into an audio player (or other more complicated synchronization methods) in HTML5, then you're pretty much set.
Loading...
Does it have one? Because it's a slideshow on my notebook.
Also, I thought 3D with h/w acceleration was available in Flash for several years now. Didn't see anyone use it though, except technical demos.
SVG is graphics done in XML. Do you have any idea how much bigger SVG files would be than textures if you tried to do that, in order to get the same level of image detail.
Thanks for the laugh. That was the funniest thing I've read in days.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
I would play 3D games anyway really. If the game is fun and fluid then what really is the difference if I click a link or a desktop icon?
From a distributor's standpoint, they already know people will play games regardless of it being distributed by web/steam/physical CD/DVD. Sure most people here will cringe when someone clicks on web game links because of how slow it will run or the ability to spread malware but we also know most of the millions will do it just the same.
What would really be cool is more easily attainable gaming. Hey most people will download virus laden software just in the hopes of being entertained for an afternoon how are we all supposed to hate on something that could eventually pan out for developers who wish to add 3D features to their websites?
Most IGPs today are capable of much more than they actually do on a daily basis, it might even be possible that if this catches on the GPU manufacturers will offer more hardware VM features that allows the OS to manage states more efficiently.
A loop, by its nature, continues. If that didn't make sense, start reading this sentence again.
back in 95 the "true computer engineers" said they did not need 2D graphics, command-line was better than any GUI could ever become, Internet was a useless toy. They've been proved wrong since. in 2011 some think 3D in a browser will always be useless. but we're all seeing software starting to move the cloud (cloud storage, gmail, salesforce, etc ...), and we're all using 3D.
let's talk again in 2027!!!
umm... HTML5 is here, and it's in every modern browser. Has been for some time.
And as for 3D in the browser, there are only two ways around the "Best played in X".
1) Each browser performs at the same speed (frankly impossible)
2) Plugins, like Flash, or Unity3D, of which people here seem to be allergic to.
so what you're wanting, really, is to go back to using Mosaic.
It pays to be obvious, especially if you have a reputation for being subtle.
states that it "works" in Firefox, but doesn't say what versions.
It probably means it works in whatever version of Firefox the automatic update mechanism gives you.
Uhhh...you DO know we have these things called app stores, yes?Hell my new Asus came with over a dozen games and the Asus app store if I want more. Then there is Steam, GOG, D2D, tons of places you can get games for little cost without opening your machine to the world which is exactly what we are talking about here.
Those of us old enough remember these same claims made by a similar product, a little thing called ActiveX. it had games, could do work, all kinds of really neat stuff....until it became such a virus laden whore everyone was afraid to go anywhere near the crap. that is what i predict will happen here as well.
As I said to have hardware acceleration you have to have access to the hardware, and the only driver on a modern system that is really low level anymore is the GPU because every frame counts. that will allow Mr Malware vendor to punch yet more holes, it'll be nasty. Just you watch friend, just you watch.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.