Brian Hay

Best real-time 3D architectural visualization/experience.

I can't comment on the Microsoft SDK barriers but if this is solvable you wouldn't be limited to the Unreal engine. The free, open-source OGRE 3D http://www.ogre3d.org/ is cross-platform (windows, mac, linux) and there are people working on Playstation and Xbox ports with some success already. I can't imagine it would be too long after the Xbox 2 launch that someone would tackle a port for it. Brian.

Yes, very nice effect! It's a shame there aren't more 3D apps that export VRML IndexedLineSet. I personally have just got into the habit of exporting to 3dsmax ASE (ASCII Scene Export) format, then I cut 'n' paste the coordinates into an IndexedLineSet node. There are a few groups working on X3D and VRML exporters for the various 3D apps. Maybe that's a feature that we should request? Brian.

I agree with Richard. Low poly is the way to go. Put the detail into the maps. The other advantage to this approach is render times. With low poly models and high res maps, rendering out to video (if necessary) and baking GI lighting to maps is generally much faster. RPC has been very successful with their image-based rendering solutions. Just apply the same concepts scene-wide and that's essentially your workflow. Brian.

This isn't possible unless browser makers support a web3D format (such as X3D) natively and hell will freeze over before that happens. The only so-called "plugin-less" web3D solutions are written in Java. After the Sun/Microsoft legal battles, Java is no longer guaranteed to be on a user's computer for such plugin-less web3D applets to work. Many non-MSIE browsers have Java as an optional download simply because it is so large. The only other potential technology for "plugin-less" web3D is Microsoft's .NET platform (and Mono on Linux/MacOSX), but again there's no guarantee users won't have to download and install 20Mb+ of stuff. So when companies market their web3D solutions as "plugin-less" (WireFusion, Kaon etc) they're really stretching the truth. Brian.

Yes the VRML/X3D specifications are large but one of the improvements of X3D is the concept of "profiles". So, in order to be "100% X3D compliant" you need only support say the interchange profile which is a small subset of the X3D specification. If your intended market requires more features, you could support the immersive or interactive profiles. In this way you can have very small plugins or applets to display ISO standard 3D content in a compliant manner. Brian. PS. The auto-install ActiveX cab file for BS Contact is only 1Mb. This is miniscule given the feature set and file formats it supports IMHO. The 4-5Mb filesize of the manual install of Blaxxun Contact is probably due to such extraneous features as multiuser chat, shared events, languages and text to speech.

Blaxxun Contact, Bitmanagement Software Contact and Parallelgraphics Cortona all support multiple texture sets/coordinates but using their own proprietary mechanisms. The new X3D standard supports it in a standard way, based on the way Contact does it (but not exactly the same). Flux and Octaga support X3D at present. As far as exporters go, BS Exporter exports multiple texture sets plus light, bump and environment mapping from 3dsmax. Dave Arendash has an alpha X3D exporter for 3dsmax (and a cool Unreal to X3D converter) and there's X3D exporters for both Blender and Maya. More options are in the pipeline ... Brian.

Agreed ... mostly. Standards are required. So many wannabees littering the web 3D graveyard. Forget all the small efforts that barely made a ripple before sinking like a stone, you only have to look at the BIG proprietary failures like Microsoft Chrome (stillborn), Microsoft/SGI fahrenheit (stillborn), Adobe Atmosphere (discontinued) and Macromedia Shockwave 3D (barely updated of late) and every 3D technology Intel has ever touched (they're now pushing the U3D - Universal 3D barrow). VRML is far from perfect but hey it's the ONLY ISO standard for 3D on the web that we've had ... until now that is. Now there's X3D, which is a definite improvement and evolution of VRML97. With multi-texturing, shader language support (cg, HLSL), better extensibility, scriptability and integration with other web standards like XML it's right up there on the cutting edge again IMHO. Of course it will only have a chance of taking off if and when the plugins, exporters and visual authoring tools mature and have feature and performance parity across multiple platforms ... but that is happening. Support from the big 3D players would help too, but don't count on it (they don't see any competitive advantage/profit in promoting the uptake of open international standards over their proprietary "me too solutions"). However, you can't enforce standards compliance - you only have to look at the web. We have XHTML, CSS, XML, XSLT, SVG and umpteen other W3C standards and although there is now growing acceptance and use of tableless XHTML/CSS amongst web designers, you still see a lot of proprietary, inaccessible Flash instead of the standard SVG. And for any designer that's taken one look at XSLT and NOT run screaming from the room, I take my hat off to them ;-) While there are still tech-geeks walking the earth and failed games companies trying to salvage some investment dollars from their 3D engines, there will always be the weekly "unique new web 3D technology" announcement. rtre, turntool, blender3d web plugin and many other wannabees are just failed game engines repurposed into web 3D plugins. People will always want to reinvent the wheel, despite the fact that we have had a perfectly good wheel for a long time ... I think the one big factor going for VRML/X3D is that, after a decade of growing pains, try hards, criticism and general ignorance from the masses, it's STILL HERE, being used daily and thankfully now evolving again. Whilst many other proprietary technologies have died along with the companies that developed and marketed them, VRML/X3D has survived despite the loss of individual companies like Cosmo and Intervista along the way. Only a standard gives you that safety net ... So back to the point of this thread. Stefand, if you want to succeed in your web 3D efforts, it would be my suggestion that you focus on supporting existing and evolving standards like X3D rather than reinventing the wheel like the many who've tried and failed before. Unintentional rant over ;-) Brian.

Hi Richard, Business is always a roller-coaster ride but still enjoying the work! Real-time interactive 3D is so much more fun and challenging than doing rendered stills and video IMHO. But I could be shot for saying that on these CGA forums. ;-) It would be great if more architects would take up the challenge ... Brian.

Here's something we recently did: Real-time web 3D apartment http://www.construct3d.com/mosaic/ BTW: Where in Australia are you from? I'm in Toowong, Brisbane. Brian.

The "Selling Web Design Services Blog" by Andrew Neitlich at http://www.sitepoint.com/blog-view.php?blogid=14 has some awesome advice that is just as applicable to architectural illustrators as it is to web developers. This is the sort of professional, down-to-earth marketing advice you'd normally pay 1000's for. Brian.

Amazing work as usual Richard! Just curious as to why the 2 different renderers (Vray and fR)? Were you just experimenting or using the best tool for the respective job? Brian.