Fast 3D in applet

Engines, Libraries and Tools Java 3D
#1

I recently discover the 3D engine “WildTangent”. It’s use to create online game using applets. The speed is quite impressive, but since it’s using DirectX, it’s for Windows platform only.

I just want to get your opinions on this engine. I read that it’s using “Genesis3D” rendering engine. How can they mix native directx library with applet using their “Web driver”. The engine is installed on the client computer and the applet is using it ??? … I don’t got it.

They also add a full API for game such as collision detection. Do you know other engine that perform at this level with a collision detection system (for online game or not).

Maybe I’m not a king in 3D, but this engine is complete, small and fast. The only downside is the DirectX dependency, but I can live with it.

Any comments ?

#2

Well WildTangent started by simply licensing Genesis but has long since become a lot more than Genesis3D. Its very tightly coupled to DirectX and will not likely ever see another platform.

#3

well i used to work for wildtangent (wrote betty bad)

i can tell you that they had rather… odd design decisions when they wrote it initially and isn’t nearly as powerful as it could be. you have very little control over anything advanced and they give you no information to do it yourself. and hacking around it is more work than it’s worth, you may as well use something else at that point.

these issues only apply to somebody who wants to do advanced things with the webdriver. if you are new to 3d it is one of the best ways to learn. it can do all the work for you to set things up yadda yadda, just don’t expect it to do much more.

and like it or not, the installation process for the end user is MUCH more acceptable and smaller if they just have to get a 2mb auto-installing auto-configuring file as opposed to downloading java 3d and the sun jvm and setting it up manually or with an installer of your own (which would need massive qa to make sure it worked everywhere). it’s not commerically feasable to sell java3d games over the internet if you have to attach the sun jvm and java 3d along with your 5 mb applet.

also they never started out licensing genesis 3d they started out as their own plugin that was basically a wrapper around direct3d retained mode and then aquired genesis.