Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Google O3D Plugin Brings 3D To Browsers

O3D is an open-source web API for creating rich, interactive 3D applications in the browser. O3D allows you to create rich 3D web applications using JavaScript. O3D is a much needed effort to enable innovative 3D applications in the web browsers. Virtual worlds and games such as WoW and Second Life could use O3D instead of native clients.



Vangelis Kokkevis and Gregg Tavares will discuss O3D on the upcoming Google I/O conference in May 2009. This session will primarily cover best practices for getting 2D and 3D content into O3D. They will also explore the API's advanced features, primarily through demos and coding examples to keep the session fun.

Download O3D for Mac or Windows and test it for yourself. Nice job, Google!

2 comments:

Rune Skovbo Johansen said...

O3D is interesting to follow, and will likely be a useful 3D plug-in once it has matured a bit more. However, it is certainly not the first general-purpose 3D browser plug-in with accelerated graphics. Unity has provided a stable plug-in for years, which has become very popular. For example, Cartoon Networks made their fullblown MMO FusionFall as a 3D in-browser game with Unity ( http://www.fusionfall.com ). It's very affordable though, so small indie game developers use it too, to create games such as Off-Road Velociraptor Safari and RC Laser Warrior.

It's also interesting how Google's Beach Demo looks similar to Unity's vast Tropical Paradise Demo (except this one is a huge island and has collision physics):
http://unity3d.com/gallery/live-demos/tropical-paradise

Nevertheless it will be interesting to see where things will be going with an open source project like this!

Geekr said...

Rune, thank you for your comment about Unity!