Daniel is a software design engineer on the Avalon team and he’s responsible for the 3D features of Avalon. Here he gives us a demo of Avalon 3D. Originally designed to only run on the next version of Windows, code-named Longhorn, Avalon is now supported on Windows XP and Windows Server 2003. In fact, the demo here is done on XP.
Demo of Avalon 3D #
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Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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does it do vertex shaders and fog effects.
…in FFox… atleast it broke for me and IE worked fine..
You know, there isn’t much to see in this movie, you know.
75MG = too long to download (even with broadband)
25 minutes = too long
skip the first 5 mins as it shows an example of a web site using 3D to sell video games. Just a demo. Can’t be implemented in the real world due to extreme demand on bandwidth and server CPU (when scaled up, as in a web store).
10 next minutes are about how to program a red square and make it flip in 3d. boring.
the remainder (oh gosh it was hard to convince myself not to stop the video as it’s terribly boring) really makes me think that MS reinvented OpenGL (or built a programming interface on top of it). They show the Amiga bouncing ball demo done in Avalon. So what?
One thing is certain, I coudl not see any business benefit to this thing. Businesses won’t take it.
I also watched others videos on MS’s site , those targeted at vertical indurtry segments. It’s simply not realistic and makes no *business* sense to use those “cool” things.
Microsoft lost its way and does not know what (useful product) to develop next.
The only funny things is that the guy does not use windows. he has 3 17″ or 19″ monitors, with one window on each. I suppose they will rename “Windows” to “Monitors” :=)) That shows their desktop environment is deeply flawed.
I am 3D fan (pretty wide spectre, from I like to read hi-tech scientiscic articles to just install any game and just enjoy how look and fill another 3D engine).
IMHO, we absolutely loose in this area. From low-level (kernel AGP issues) to middle ( XFree86/xorg years constantly promises still 2005 no final product, just huge internal rewriting) and as result, zero developers work on hi-level apps. Blender 3D, Doom3 linux port you say ? Proprietary SGI, Dreamworks render farm software? BS. Too small, too narrow user base. It is Open Source, right ? Everyone can look at xorg.org and make fix or speed or other changes? Guys, 3D is one of most scientific, hi tech, bleeding edge area, usual “there is a cvs tree, let’s patch it” did not work here (BTW, IMHO gcc have similar issue). 1000 average scientists did not replace one hi-grade talented man. I very scare that Longhorn 3D all-in-one solution, consistent, good documented, (as always
).
Add to it ATI linux support (rage3d.com linux forum nearly to reface to comics competition).
skip the first 5 mins as it shows an example of a web site using 3D to sell video games. Just a demo. Can’t be implemented in the real world due to extreme demand on bandwidth and server CPU (when scaled up, as in a web store).
You obviously didn’t listen to what he said during the demo. It would not put more load on servers but most likely less than many webshops today. The “games” in the demo was texture-mapped onto a 3D-box which are just a few lines of text. Ever done any raytracing? Try povray and see how efficiently a few lines o text(3D describing code) can be used to create complex images that would require a lot more kilobytes if represented as 2D bitmaps (jpegs or PNGs).
This really is very interresting stuff, nothing new but made really easy and neat. That is what matters in the end.
10 next minutes are about how to program a red square and make it flip in 3d. boring.
Again, did you check the code? XML style (again nothing unique) 3D descriptive “language” that is easy to code and read. This matters a great deal if something is going to be used or not.
the remainder (oh gosh it was hard to convince myself not to stop the video as it’s terribly boring) really makes me think that MS reinvented OpenGL (or built a programming interface on top of it). They show the Amiga bouncing ball demo done in Avalon. So what?
Now you really show your ignorance. OpenGL is built into Windows and ships with the standard install. However, Direct3D (or WGF as the new version will be called) is the first class 3D citizen of Windows and that is what Avalon “uses”. Avalon is the new API to make 3D graphics applications really easy.
One thing is certain, I coudl not see any business benefit to this thing. Businesses won’t take it.
I don’t know what your background is but I can see lots of buisness uses for the ease of use of Avalon. I guess a lot of websites will make use of Avalon and this is something we should be watchful of.
I also watched others videos on MS’s site , those targeted at vertical indurtry segments. It’s simply not realistic and makes no *business* sense to use those “cool” things.
If there is one thing that MS cares about then it’s buisness. While I don’t care too much about MS in general I’d say that they’d hardly put any real effort into something that they haven’t checked that different companies would want to use.
The only funny things is that the guy does not use windows. he has 3 17″ or 19″ monitors, with one window on each. I suppose they will rename “Windows” to “Monitors” :=)) That shows their desktop environment is deeply flawed.
If you are even trying suggest that virtual desktops are better than two monitors then I don’t know what to do. It is obvious that you’ve never even tried using two screens instead of two desktops. Did you even know that there are a tool from MS to give you virtual desktops (works just like the X-Windows ones)? More monitors are extremely useful when coding and guess what the guy was doing… that’s right, coding!
wow, 20 lines of FUD.
Besides the page not validating in W3C and not being shown correctly on other browsers than IE, it’s one of Microsoft’s inovations again: you know, those things that they insist that are great but overall they don’t bring anything new to the market, except a new campaing of market.
Does Microsoft projects to patent-it ? In the affirmative, they should consider with other folk that had the same idea a long time before them :
http://www.sun.com/software/looking_glass/details.html
http://desk3d.sourceforge.net
I agree with you. Its like people have to make stories up as to why Windows is so bad.
I think it would be better if people looked at what MS is doing, take it in the most positive light possible and then go out and try to produce something better. Just shouting it down is not going to work.
the website worked with firefox, and I really find it interesting the way he programmed the 3d stuff in xml, quite a step up from the usual.
I wonder how this would affect Macromedia Flash?
Only took em 20 years to do the same as a 7mhz 16bit computer with 256KB of RAM.
How do they do it? 😉
When he showed the code for the bouncing ball, I thought that XAML code can get pretty ugly pretty fast. It doesn’t seem like you can “programatically” produce the ball. I would hate to have to hand maintain that stuff. Maybe its okay if it is just spat out from a webserver or something. Overall I can’t see a core business case for it, rotating 3D graph, why?
Nothing on OS X. 😀
> Nothing on OS X. 😀
Yeah…hey check audio and video units. That’s the dope man.
He explained that his implementation for the Boing demo was more complex than it needed to be due to it being developed for one of the earlier Avalon builds and subsequently ported forward. He also mentioned that in the current builds, it’d only take a few lines of code to do the same thing.
One of the things that made Boing so complex is that he didn’t use a texture-mapped ball, but instead created the ball from individual quads.
In a real-world scenario, you’d develop the geometry in a tool like Maya or 3DS Max and import it into your app.
Also, you could programatically produce the ball using C# or another managed language.
When Avalon ships, most people won’t even interact directly with XAML. They’ll use tools like VS’ visual designer, Maya, Adobe Illustrator, and other content creation tools that will allow the content creators to work with the tools they’re currently comfortable with, while behind the scenes, the tool outputs XAML. Developers can then use the XAML output as a storage format, or a UI representation that they can wire up their logic to.
There’s also the option of getting the same results w/o using XAML at all. As XAML is just another entry point into the WinFX framework, you can do everything with C# or some other language.
this really shows us what XUL… i mean XAML can do. 😉
Have you seen the demos for the next flash player, what it is able to do ?
I think those features of the fp plus(+):
– filesystem access library
– 3d api (even if they have shockwave,thats is exactly for 3d)
Will make no harm to flash.
You already have flash for rich ui.
Have you seen how mxml ( another xul ) looks like … ?
Those features are incredible ….
And the sites you do in flash ….
I mean … what they propose with client applications is already here , but not marketed as xaml is ….
The same with XUL ….
Not a very impressive demo.
I don’t see what the big deal is.
Lol !
Have you seen the “Amiga” poster on the wall at about 3’50” ?
Leo.
<haha… this shows cutting edge api’s which you obviously know nothing about. please don’t post a statement like this without backing it up.>
This statement was just a sarcastic joke, nothing else.
The Avalon stuff the guy typed up in the video, reminds me of another not so widely adopted “web standard” – VRML (Virtual Reality Markup Language). Used do be all the rage 10 or so yrs ago, modelers supported it – the idea is quite the same…
I don’t really care about this, plus why would it even be used on a server os?
I mean what do they intend this for again?
It’s kind of a cool idea but I’m confused as to why it’s going to be helpful.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying this because it’s MS. I just don’t get where these technologies are going.
I have yet to see a useful example of why 3d belongs on the desktop but I’m certainly open to it. In apples case they’ve used 3d like affects to produce some useful things but full 3d??
Is this a web language or what?
I really like the stuff about implementing visual styles without having to craft custom controls from hand – that stuff really rocks and I’ve been waiting for it for a long time. What I’m really wanting to see are designers that output to XAML, though, and those designers abstracted from Visual Studio or X IDE or Y IDE. That’s what I really want to see XAML bring; the incredible easy mark-up for web developers and junk is just a bonus to me.
Heya,
I’m no 3d-expert, but I “programmed” 2/3 years ago some stuff in X3d, which is the XML-standardization of VRML. I think I even didn’t know anything of computers then.
There was a very ncie tuotrial for it .. which maybe still exists today. You can convert the X3D to VRML … anyway it was nice. Although I didn’t try it out …, there also seem to be constructs in X3D for interactive multi-person worlds.
Anyway, could anyone tell me the real difference between X3D and Avalon?
tx,
Michel
“I think it would be better if people looked at what MS is doing, take it in the most positive light possible and then go out and try to produce something better.”
Some of us are.
avalon is microsoft “innovation”. hehe, seriously though, if XAML ripped anything off it was XUL
“I agree with you. Its like people have to make stories up as to why Windows is so bad.”
I dont think people are going to like how you have exposed the truth…
Funny, you talk just as MS would invent 3D:)
Avalon 3D is just API designed with most common 3D elements: Viewport, Camera, Object, Texture mapping, Light, Perspective
Everything existed in OpenGL back in the 90s on SGI.
Avalon3D is nothing special. Just make Avalon API for OpenSceneGraph (by my opinion most featurfull and perfected 3D engine. If you don’t know what it is you should check site demos. But here’s a little quickinfo. Uses SGI OpenPresenter, highly optimizes OpenGL, supports most common formats (3ds, amya…) for mesh objects).
Again, XAML? Nothing really special just XML interpreter to .NET. Plain syntax interpreter presented in common XML syntax.
< Window >
< Whatever X=”5″ Caption=”test” />
< SomethingElse Y=”6″ />
< /Window >
is just the same as
Window.Whatever.X = 5;
Window.Whatever.Caption = “test”;
Window.SomethingElse.Y = 6;
Even if MS woulld want to patent its implementation I doubt they would gain anything with it. First law case would fall under prior usage. XUL is working like that too. Images being passed as texture maps are stil just images being transfered over the net.
The whole idea is not to bring something new to the table, but to take what we’ve got and make it much simpler and quicker to make….
But of course since this is a Microsoft thing it must be complete crap and utterly useless… I mean, why would anyone want to be able to do something more easily and quickly?
I dont think people are going to like how you have exposed the truth…
Does truth over this even exist???? One API being better than others? I guess not.
XAML = XUL = XML wrapped code that is interpreted on the other (client) side (btw. They are not the only implementations of this feature)
Avalon3D = still just another 3D API (one of many, if my count is correct then there’s about few gazillion of them, including my school project, back in Win3 times)
Seems funny to me that MS fans are preaching about those 2 like they mean bright future for all people in this world. Remember, neither of those 2 is finished.
Isn’t MS here THE ONE that renivents the wheel?
Maybe out of topic, but wasn’t the most praised development language on this years voting: MONO? Maybe you’re not so correct as you think. It looks like people are thinking straight enough not to bash something just because it was MS that started it.
The whole idea is not to bring something new to the table, but to take what we’ve got and make it much simpler and quicker to make….
Then why is MS making new implementation of something that exists for ages?
There’s already
gazillion 3D APIs
gazillion XML client-server-interpreters
But of course since this is a Microsoft thing it must be complete crap and utterly useless… I mean, why would anyone want to be able to do something more easily and quickly?
It’s not MS thing here. It’s your first sentence. Why in the world where everything already exists, MS must make his own implementation that’s cmpletely different from others (in case of Avalon3D I might even say another MS implementation, they already made D3D now Avalon3D, what’s next? Nirvana3D?)?
Everything existed in OpenGL back in the 90s on SGI.
Wow thats a computer system that everyone has. It must be very useful for everyone who is not using OpenGL on an SGI.
Avalon3D is nothing special.
Yes it is. Its special because for the first time this ‘technology’ is being brought to market by a company with the muscle to put it on the vast majority of desktops the world over.
You are talking about the groundwork that companies did in the past leading up to this like thats the big deal – ITS NOT – technology is nothing until its put to widespread use in the hands of users and MS has the capability to make that happen with this.
Avalon3D = still just another 3D API (one of many, if my count is correct then there’s about few gazillion of them
Right except the other few gazillion of them are not going to ship on the most widespread OS in use today – Avalon3d is – thats the difference.
Isn’t MS here THE ONE that renivents the wheel?
Actually what they are doing here is more like taking all of these pieces that have existed in some form or another and bringing them together into one package. More like integrating technologies, which is what they have always done.
“Right except the other few gazillion of them are not going to ship on the most widespread OS in use today – Avalon3d is – thats the difference.”
Unfortunately its being pushed by a company that will make sure that the other 5%+ of desktops won’t be able to use or see any content delivered with Avalon. (the percentage is probably much larger than that considering it won’t be available for anything older than XP, which is still a huge number of windows users)
I know of one graphics API that ships on all but a tiny percent of toyOSes, and that is OpenGL.
Wow thats a computer system that everyone has. It must be very useful for everyone who is not using OpenGL on an SGI.
API stayed the same. Library is cross-platform. Except upgraded.
And about other little stupid rant of yours. Many Games use OpenGL, which means most of the users already have OpenGL. So does 3DStudio, so does Maya. Those users have D3D too, and even implementing this with D3D would mean not loosing backward compatibility.
Again, same thing could be said about Flash, Java…. Looking at your logic (it seems like appreciate one technology that is most widespread distributed) I don’t understand why MS started with C#. Java already was popular enough (and it was autoinstalled when you came across page that needed java).
Avalon is not cross-platform, hell not even Win-platform. And MS goal s not to make people happy, but to sell them new version and lock people in.
Again. Avalon is nothing special. Take any 3D interface. Make Avalon bindings that work with that engine and here you are. Or do you really think this is some Next Generation 3D. What reasonable people can’t stand is that MS excluded backward compatibility intentionally. Which leads to less widespread technology.
p.s. Will you implement Avalon for 98, ME, 2000???? Those users will be left out completely:) XP are now out for a long time, and still far from everybody uses them. How long it will take for everybody to jump on Avalon3D bandwagon?
p.p.s. Your nick says all about you. Don’t forget to grow up.
That was one of the lamest things I’ve seen in a long time. Someone could easily make an openGL wrapper that could do the same thing using xaml, xml, or anything else. To me this is a huge waste of time for Microsoft… as usual, eye candy first, working productivity maybe 10 years down the road… maybe.
Cool.. you know.. they can actually.. you know.. make boing balls.. which.. you know.. the amiga did 20 years ago.. you know.. but anyway.. this demo sucks.. you know.. dot.
“Again. Avalon is nothing special. Take any 3D interface. Make Avalon bindings that work with that engine and here you are. Or do you really think this is some Next Generation 3D. What reasonable people can’t stand is that MS excluded backward compatibility intentionally. Which leads to less widespread technology.”
Backward compatibility with WHAT? Just what other platforms is Quartz (for example) available for? This system will be available on XP. For the niche platforms, why should they care? This type of thing is developed to attract developers to their platform. They don’t *have* to use it.
You’re mixing and matching “bindings” and APIs as well as the various types of 3D APIs very incorrectly.
For one thing, there’s no such thing as “SGI Presenter”. What I think you meant was “SGI Performer” – and OSG was NOT built on that API, but written by a former Performer programmer for his own reasons.
More “wheel reinvention”.
Just as Inventor was a perfectly good scenegraph, but it didn’t address everything SGI wanted to market, so they released Performer – another 3D scenegraph.
More “wheel reinvention”.
There are plenty of valid reasons for “wheel reinvention”.
(1) The available libraries don’t do what you want or do so, but not in the way you want.
(2) You don’t own and control someone else’s API. It’s not all that smart to base a major portion of your product on something the competition may have more control over.
BTW, OpenGL isn’t a “3D engine”, but a low-level representation of the OpenGL state machine.
Funny, you talk just as MS would invent 3D:)
*Sigh* That was exactly the point I was making to the post I was originally replying to. MS certainly did not invent 3D and it was not until many iterations of Direct3D that they even had an API of their own that could be considered usable. Did you even bother to read what I was replying to?
Avalon 3D is just API designed with most common 3D elements: Viewport, Camera, Object, Texture mapping, Light, Perspective
Everything existed in OpenGL back in the 90s on SGI.
I already said that Avalon is an API. Read my post again.
Avalon3D is nothing special. Just make Avalon API for OpenSceneGraph (by my opinion most featurfull and perfected 3D engine…
But Avalon is not about the 3D engine, it is an API.
Avalon it makes it easy to add simple 3D to a program or a webpage. I never said it couldn’t be done already (adding 3D to an app, that is).
Again, XAML? Nothing really special just XML interpreter to .NET. Plain syntax interpreter presented in common XML syntax.
< Window >
< Whatever X=”5″ Caption=”test” />
< SomethingElse Y=”6″ />
< /Window >
is just the same as…
*Sigh* Did you bother noting that I’ve used 3D descriptive “languages” before? The issue is (and here you perhaps can enlighten me as I’ve not bothered to study it further), is there another API that makes adding 3D objects to an application as easy as Avalon?
Images being passed as texture maps are stil just images being transfered over the net.
Yes, this I said too. My response was in opposition of the claim that this would make bandwidth use much higher than a comparable 2D site (an image mapped on a box does not require more bandwidth than the same 2D image presented as a “flat” image).
So, basically, nobody should ever do something the way they want to do it?
I thought everyone here liked more choice… I guess what you really like is for Microsoft to do absolutely nothing (to which you will complain about also).
Honestly, what do you care if Microsoft does this or not? You don’t like, don’t use it, plain and simple, use whatever the hell you want to use.
Not actually even a programmer and you are pissing and moaning about Avalon just for the sake of pissing and moaning? Well then, I suggest you move on.
This could take a huge bite off the VRML market.
boring
Many Games use OpenGL, which means most of the users already have OpenGL.
The same with D3D, which MS has control of so it makes sense for them to code to their own API.
I don’t understand why MS started with C#. Java already was popular enough (and it was autoinstalled when you came across page that needed java).
Well if you don’t understand it then I’m not sure I’ll be able to help much. Its a pretty obvious thing to most people who follow the technology.
MS did jump on the Java bandwagon. It was only after they realized they were unable to take the language in directions they wanted that they left it and created C#, which in my opinion was the right thing to do as going with Java would have stuck them with whatever direction Sun wanted java to go.
Again. Avalon is nothing special. Take any 3D interface. Make Avalon bindings that work with that engine and here you are. Or do you really think this is some Next Generation 3D.
No I think its the next generation API for developers to create UIs with on the windows platform, which is exactly what it is.
There is no point in binding it to everything when DirectX is the native 3d engine in windows.
Binding it with everything under the sun is just going to produce more development work and for what ? So a few picky people can cheer that they can use OpenGL ? End users won’t notice a difference and likely won’t give a rip.
p.s. Will you implement Avalon for 98, ME, 2000???? Those users will be left out completely:) XP are now out for a long time, and still far from everybody uses them. How long it will take for everybody to jump on Avalon3D bandwagon?
Hm people running 5+ year old operating systems won’t be able to run the latest software technologies – I’m shocked – when did this start happening ?
p.p.s. Your nick says all about you. Don’t forget to grow up.
lol the nick was just something fun to do so that I could see what kind of response I’d get.
Once someone starts bringing up my nick its obvious they’ve run out of valid arguments.
Have a nice day.
1. I wasn’t saying they had to bind it with OpenGL. OpenGL is just the best example.
2. They could implement it on D3D. Yes. I said that too
3. I think they have no reason to say that current 3D is not satisfactory for Avalon3D
4. Question wasn’t API, question was what’s under the hood.
Now questions:
1. Is current D3D or OpenGL in any case not adequate for Avalon3D?
2. Is excluding of older technology positive thing for you?
If answers are 1. no and 2. yes then we just probably live on different planet. But be carefull. If they are not, then you don’t agree with what your posts
lol the nick was just something fun to do so that I could see what kind of response I’d get.
lol It goes well with your personality
not OpenPresenter amd again not even OpenInventor, it’s OpenProducer:) Yes, my bad.
But if you’ll check dependancies for OSG: OpenThreads and OpenProducer
Yes, there was OpenInventor, which was plain C and written by SGI
OSG is C++, and is completely free implementation written outside of SGI, but it was introduced at first on IRIX http://www.openscenegraph.org
If I remeber correctly, OpenInventor had different licence then, something like Qt now. Commercial was overexpensive and that was a reason for rewrite or in your case “wheel reinvention”