LWJGL in an applet

[c_lilian]

Hi,

this is a follow-up of a discussion started on indiegamers forum about the miniclip.com contest… there is also a thread about that contest here : http://192.18.37.44/forums/index.php?topic=10473.0

my question is : can the AWTGLCanvas of lwjgl 0.97 be included in a browser (applet) and has something been done to auto-install (?) the native library ?

as a reminder, that contest requires for java games to be :

• jar files only
• browser based
• java 1.5 (not sure about that one)

many thanks,

Lilian

[Alan_W]

Incidentally I emailed gameclip to ask that they clarify the rules regarding java version & whether this was a comp for Applets only or whether applications were allowed & totally failed to get any response. Someone said browser based on Indiegamer, but was that an authoritive answer? Hope they don’t want stuff to run on Java 1.1 (which wouldn’t support LWJGL).

Probably Java 1.4.2 using Java2D in an Applet would be the safest bet (both the alternative Flash & Shockwave are web-based), but would be unlikely to win if a full-on OGL based webstart application was allowed.

Haven’t programmed in Shockwave so to get an idea of its abilities went and played a Shockwave 3D racing game over at shockwave.com. Pretty amazing graphics. Not sure whether it was real time generated or video though. Not really viable in Java2D methinks.

[princec]

EgonOlsen of these parts has done some quite stunning realtime 3D with plain Java 1.1 - I think he’s even had a Quake3 renderer working!

He has also done something with LWJGL in an applet… hm: http://www.jpct.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=258

Cas

[Alan_W]

From that thread:

Loading the native parts (dll, so, jnilib) is a pain. There is no other way than loading it from the server via http and copying it to the local harddisc. And even then, loading it via System.load("…"); fails at least in Firefox (haven’t tried IE), so i had to copy it into the firefox installation directory…ARGHHH! And it’s slow…so using it in applet is possible in a controlled environment, but for a web-distributed game…not really!

Ho Hum :’( …

JPCT is an impressive piece of work. There’s also my own software renderer : http://192.18.37.44/forums/index.php?topic=9709.0 although that is built on Java 1.4.2 rather than 1.1 (It uses BufferedImages). The posted version needs a bit of rework as the text rendering for the health and score crawls on the Mac for some reason. I have a non-posted version which caches the text as textures, which does hugely better on the Mac, but slightly worse on the PC.

Even so I was looking at this Shockwave game http://www.shockwave.com/contentPlay/shockwave.jsp?id=rr2detonator&preplay=1 I’m not in the same league.

Alan

[blahblahblahh]

@Alan_W

From that thread:

Loading the native parts (dll, so, jnilib) is a pain. There is no other way than

…except for using webstart?

[Alan_W]

@blahblahblahh

…except for using webstart?

Yes, but… While the competition rules don’t explicitly state it, the compo looks suspiciously like applet only as the only other valid formats are flash & shockwave. I emailed for clarification, but they can’t be bothered to reply.

[erikd]

They probably don’t know what JWS is ;D

[weston]

and you can pretty much bet on them not allowing webstart entries since webstart apps allow the user to leave the ad covered page.

[blahblahblahh]

@Alan_W

@blahblahblahh

…except for using webstart?

Yes, but… While the competition rules don’t explicitly state it, the compo looks suspiciously like applet only as the only other valid formats are flash & shockwave. I emailed for clarification, but they can’t be bothered to reply.

I mean:…webstarted applet?

[princec]

I think it is implicit that whatever runs must run inside an HTML rendered page.

Cas

[nonnus29]

We should invade this contest and make it the ‘battle of the java 1.1 software renderers’.