edward king

Bart,

Ive checked out the blaxxun plugin for 3ds max and it clearly states that it
produces VRML which has the blaxxun extensions in it....

Pardon my ignorance...but isnt it a supremely bad idea to be writing stuff
which is proprietary? I thought that vrml was supposed to be accessible to
all browsers, not just geared toward one particular type.
I use Cortona (small download compared to cosmo), but dont really have a
preference and wouldnt like to restrict my viewers to one particular kind of
browser.
What are yours and others thoughts on this please?

EK

joerg scheurich aka mufti

It would be interesting to know, what blaxxun extensions are used
exactly....


In general, this is a bad idea. But VRML supports to have browser dependend
extensions and keep a valid, working VRML97 file:
http://www.web3d.org/x3d/spec/vrml/I...sions.html#F.3

Do the blaxxun exporter use the NURBS extensions ?
They are now part of VRML97 Amendment 1

http://www.web3d.org/x3d/spec/vrml/I...epts.html#4.16

and are supported by cortona as well.
For cosmoplayer, there is a partitial javascript based solution:
http://www.csv.ica.uni-stuttgart.de/...ace/index.html
For open source browsers like openvrml, Xj3D or FreeWRL you are wellcome
to implement the NURBS nodes by yourself 8-)

The only problem with the NURBS extensions is their possible fate in X3D 8-(

so long
MUFTI
--
Dann waehlen Sie einen Klang, durch das Klicken gerade in in der
Scheck-Kiste zur Linke des Klangs zu befestigen.
(aus einem Softwarehandbuch, Stichwort: checkbox)

edward king

I would like to know this too...the blaxxun VRML exporter sounds a lot
better than the standard one. (In fact, Im about to try it out with my
cortona browser so watch this space...). At least if I knew what proprietary
stuff its putting in, then I can work around it.

The Blaxxun download page simply says the following:


"The new blaxxun VRML exporter serves in 3 ways:

1.. as a plug-in for 3ds max4, in order to extend the available VRML
helpers towards blaxxun VRML extension nodes

2.. as an enhanced exporter that optimizes the VRML output and supports
several blaxxun extensions ......"


<snip>

You see, you're already moving down an avenue whereby different
solutions/workarounds have to be added to cover browsers other than the ones
specified. Okay so its "only a bit of j.s" here and "a few mods" there right
now....but its a dangerous road. Better to build the whole thing with
portability in mind imho.
Whilst Im not a VRML expert, I do have nearly 20 years experience as a
developer in other areas and common sense and experience dictate that once
you sacrifice portability (however small the mods are to make it accessible
to all), you set off on a route which promotes more and more functionality
specific to that system. What you eventually end up with is a reduced
audience or fatter code. You have to have one or the other. Much as I would
like to say that we cant have our cake and eat it there are some
circumstances in which we can (I did and found to my utter dismay that Ive
put on 2 stones in the last 6 months!). I do not believe this is one of them
though.

So, heres what I'll do (to see how portable my world would be);
I have a cacophony of modifiers, meshes, geometry, animations and effects in
my virtual library vrml world. I'll keep a copy of the world as it is
(which, thanks to a couple of colleagues testing it, has proven to be
accessible to to the big 4 vrml browsers) but start exporting from the
blaxxun exporter and we'll test it to see how accessible it remains to
browsers other than blaxxun.
Presumably other tests like this have been done. Can you (if you dont mind)
point me to some examples?

Also, if the blaxxun plugin does mess around with the portability of my
world, can you suggest a less proprietary alternative?

Regards

EK

joerg scheurich aka mufti

And this is exactly what the specifation allows 8-)


On long range, it looks like we will have Nurbs nodes in the VRML standard,
either exactly the VRML97 Amendment 1 ones (amost identical with the
blaxxun one) or some PROTOs to deal with the syntax of the VRML97 Amendment 1
Nurbs nodes.

I am rather sure, that mathematically can be shown, that all nurbs nodes
can be converted back to a mesh (or interpolator in other cases).
For example this is done for the most important NURBS nodes (untrimmed
NurbsSurface, NurbsCurve) in the "File -> export as -> pure VRML97" menu
point of white_dune.

So i think, the road of using NURBS nodes is not that dangerous.

Another story is using something like a shadow group: this can only be
implemented deep in the browsers world.

It looks like, the shadow group is not part of the new X3D standard.

Do someone know something in the new X3D standard, that can be not done in
VRML itself in principle ? 8-(

So i think, it makes sense to differ between different extensions.

so long
MUFTI
--
Dann Presse <treten Sie ein>
(aus einem Softwarehandbuch)

edward king

Okay, this is detracting somewhat from the point I was making and the
questions I was asking..

My intention was to seek advice on making my worlds as accessible to as many
people as possible. The right thing to do, inho.

I have been a busy beaver, looking at a variety of worlds created with
Blaxxun in mind and I would say that my overall experience was of my Cortona
console window opening every few seconds with a warning about something or
other. This isnt the experience I want for my visitors (a fair percentage of
whom wouldnt know a vertex from a purple camel).

I have also found that where my cortona browser was previously quite happy
to view the world Im currently working on, having now exported it from the
new Blaxxun 3dsmax plugin, cortona complains moans like a (analogy removed
for the sake of decency)....

The prrof of the pie is in the eating I guess. All other arguments aside, I
dont want my visitors experience spoiled for the sake of exporting from one
plugin over another. Any benefits I may have gleamed from using the blaxxun
plugin arent worth that.

Thanks for your input, my question has now been answered.

Cheers

EK

edward king

Okay, this is detracting somewhat from the point I was making and the
questions I was asking..

My intention was to seek advice on making my worlds as accessible to as many
people as possible. The right thing to do, inho.

I have been a busy beaver, looking at a variety of worlds created with
Blaxxun in mind and I would say that my overall experience was of my Cortona
console window opening every few seconds with a warning about something or
other. This isnt the experience I want for my visitors (a fair percentage of
whom wouldnt know a vertex from a purple camel).

I have also found that where my cortona browser was previously quite happy
to view the world Im currently working on, having now exported it from the
new Blaxxun 3dsmax plugin, cortona complains moans like a (analogy removed
for the sake of decency)....

The prrof of the pie is in the eating I guess. All other arguments aside, I
dont want my visitors experience spoiled for the sake of exporting from one
plugin over another. Any benefits I may have gleamed from using the blaxxun
plugin arent worth that.

Thanks for your input, my question has now been answered.

Cheers

EK

jreid

I agree with your points Ed Typical vrml`ers use my Browser war!
Iwish they would grow up. Macromedia and the like must be loving
this! I stand by Cortona they are more open and do not piss you
about. The pace was set by them most of the work done in Cosmo was by
them. Parallelgraphics sell the tools to create vrml while others try
to nip in the backdoor. Give credit where it is due and support those
who support you.

Jake well pissed off with what browser now crap!

spam

Don't use extensions if you want cross-browsers scenes, lol.
If you don't use the parameters of the extensions (aka "Convert to
MPEG-4", "BS Contact J" for the java applet, "VRML97 NURBS",
"Multitextures support", "launch wizard" and "export bones animation"
which converts to H-Anim the models animated by Character Studio), it
should work fine with other viewers. Btw the exporter adds some
helpers in the Create->Helpers->VRML97, so use only the ones from the
standard such as TouchSensor or TimeSensor, and not the extensions
like Layer2D/3D or Particles, otherwise it's normal that Cortona wants
to strangle you *hands a rope* :-)
I often used this exporter for making cross-viewers scenes.

When it's created with Contact in mind (btw, it's "Contact", not
"blaxxun"), it's not meant to be played in other viewers, i mean
that's the definition of having one viewer in mind imho. Like if using
an extension of Cortona, Contact and Cosmo will both want to strangle
you.


If you know how to use the exporter, they won't get 'spoiled'. You
just shouldn't use all its features. Same when writing VRML by hand, i
won't put a layer in a cross-viewers scene. But even without using
extensions it's useful, it can output the file already zipped, saving
the ressources used for the scene (such as the textures) in a folder
of your choice (which is useful when you've done libraries of textures
and that you re-use only some of them), and it has some more helpers
(i recall there is some that are cross-browsers that were added, but i
don't recall which ones, it's been too long i didn't use the discreet
exporter).
Btw, it's not forbidden to edit the exported files to remove what you
don't want too ;-p

joerg scheurich aka mufti

Particles are also a thing, that can be done with pure VRML97 e.g. see
http://www.csv.ica.uni-stuttgart.de/...es/bubbles.wrl


so long
MUFTI
--
Muschelfluchtabfolge
(Stichwort: Shell escape)

edward king

<snip>

This is reasonably easily achieved imho, by doing a search for textures used
in the file and then copying the ones that are used. A couple of minutes
work!

Great! Thanks for offering! I'll send you the files and you can sift through
them and take out the browser independant stuff.
))