[Bf-committers] Blender online

[Patrick Shirkey]

On Sat, April 27, 2013 1:35 am, Sergey Kurdakov wrote:
> Hi
>
>>Maybe it's a better idea to create a simple online modeller, so people
> could create a sketch and then export it to .blend format?
>
> then take a look at this approach
>
> https://github.com/kripken/emscripten  see some results
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XsyogXtyU9o
>
> cannot say, how much of Blender would compile to run this way, but as 1
> mln
> lines of C/C++ code was converted to run in browser, I think, it is
> possible to convert blender ( not sure on dependencies and python though
> ),

I think it would be very useful to have the option of working with Blender
in a browser but I don't think it is a requirement to achieve a functional
networked collaborative platform with Blender as a core component.

For use on tablets and other mobile devices it might be necessary to have
an html5 version of the interface. A lot of the functionality could be
handled by running Blender as a server side headless app and driving it
with an html5 frontend. Python allows for the separation of backend and
interface quite nicely. It may even be possible to run the current UI
toolkit in a browser.

To enable a fully modular production system I see JACK as the glue that
holds it all together. It would enable passing 3d data around a modular
environment in much the same way that audio/midi/video is now handled.
Textures would be an interesting challenge but it could be handled with a
centralised archive on the master server or in the same way that
audio/video is handled now.

Working with a model in Blender while viewing it instantly rendered in
multiple external 3d engines anywhere in the world would be a very
powerful production and collaboration tool. It would certainly rival
anything that proprietary solutions are claiming to offer.

Companies like Intel and Samsung are interested in this because it sells
more hardware. Less money spent by studios on proprietary software
(upwards of $80k per seat in some cases) means more money is available for
the hardware cluster and associated equipment. $80k worth of hardware will
get a studio a lot of rendering and processing power. Adding additional
processing power can be as simple as plugging in a new machine to the
network. Over the course of a couple of years a studio using this modular
system could build a very powerful rendering platform without retiring a
single machine due to hardware/software constraints or spending a cent on
proprietary licenses. It would also free up budget for bespoke development
which will inevitably be handled by the open source multimedia community.
As new functionality is built out by the contributing studios it would be
shared with the global community enabling everyone to move forward at a
quicker pace.

Eventually the singularity will be reached and we will all be able to
retire in comfort after having solved world hunger by discovering
unlimited supplies of energy thereby ensuring world peace too ;-)



>
>
> Regards
> Sergey
>
>
>
> On Fri, Apr 26, 2013 at 7:16 PM, Moisés Bonilla <neodivert at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Wow, this grows fast.
>>
>> Some conclusions I reached until now:
>> * Better to take it as a concept project, instead of one for production
>> use.
>> * Work "only" on a subset of operations. Indeed, from the beginning, I
>> was
>> thinking only about 3D modelling. I forgot to mention that, sorry.
>> * Patrick Shirkey could be a great ally or a fierce competitor ;-)
>>

Just so you know I am not coming up with this on my own. I have some
pretty heavy weight brains behind me...

>> Maybe it's a better idea to create a simple online modeller, so people
>> could create a sketch and then export it to .blend format?
>>
>> Patrick Shirkey, so you would like to extend Jack (which is for audio)
>> to
>> 3D animation, profitting its basic
>> session API and network functionality, ins't it? In that case, yeah,
>> there
>> is a common ground.
>>

Nice to hear we might be onto something here. I propose using the iqm
format as the initial data format as it is well supported by multiple 3d
game engines including Valve's Source Engine and cube2.

http://source.valvesoftware.com
http://4-cube.com


>> Howard Trickey, indeed, when I first tried to describe the idea to a
>> friend, I said "It would be something like Google Docs, but with 3D
>> graphics" :P
>>
>> Thanks for the help, and sorry if i didn't answer to all of you!.
>>
>>
>>
>>
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--
Patrick Shirkey
Boost Hardware Ltd