| Q&A |
 Papervision3D
Carlos
Ulloa
jan. 2008 |
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"Papervision
started as my personal project, originally created with
the goal of using it in commercial websites. The first
versions of the engine came out of different sites I
worked on at the time. I started using it all the time,
so I packaged it with a simple API.
At this point, it was clear the engine would benefit
from other people's input. It wouldn't have evolved
the way it did, if I had tried to make money of it.
The objective was to improve the engine, and the best
way to do that is going Open Source."
<
Papervision in action |
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| Q1 |
Today,
lots of 3D content are being developed with Flash. Did you expect
that Papervision would start such a massive trend? |
| A1 |
I've
been doing commercial work using PV3D for two years now and
I've seen the reaction of many creatives and clients. People
just love realtime 3D. That's something I learned when doing
games. I believe we have just scratched the surface and the
best is still to come. There's many talented people working
hard to create new Papervision3D experiences, including myself. |
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| Q2 |
Flash-powered
3D evolves in a surprising way: the polygon count remains extremely
constrained whereas advanced effects are already supported (i.e.
Depth of Field, Normal Map). Why does 3D for Flash follow such
an evolution? |
| A2 |
Flash
was never conceived to support 3D, it's just starting now, whereas
Adobe has been putting lot of effort in visual effects. That
might be one reason. Another one could be that some of the techniques
and effects were created before in other platforms like the
Amiga. |
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| Q3 |
Examples
of 3D Flash content found around the Web show a great deal of
creativity. In your opinion, what does account for this? |
| A3 |
Well,
you've got a whole new dimension to play with! Now you can do
in Flash lots of things you couldn't do before. It's clear there
was many talented people waiting for the tools to express themselves. |
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| Q4 |
The
PaperVision project seems to be seriously backed by Adobe. Why? |
| A4 |
I
think Adobe is putting a lot of effort in listening to their
community, and in this case the community was shouting loud
and clear. |
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| Q5 |
What
kind of relationship do you have with developers of other 3D
engines for Flash? (i.e. Away3D, Sandy) |
| A5 |
An
excellent one. The three teams are doing a great job in bringing
3D to Flash, and exploring different ways too, which I believe
is very positive for the future of 3D in the web. There's a
fluent communication between us and also a healthy competition. |
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| Q6 |
The
last practical problem with Flash for 3D is to reach a triangle
count of 10 000+. Do you think that it can happen soon? Adobe
helped to increase performance by enabling texture filtering.
Will they be adding basic 3D hardware support? (i.e. triangle
setup) |
| A6 |
From
what was revealed from Astro at MAX Chicago, we can expect much
better performance in Flash Player 10.
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| Q7 |
PaperVision
keeps improving rapidly. What are the next steps in the roadmap? |
| A7 |
Our
next goal is 2.0 Beta. The Alpha release was very well received,
and it's being tested to death by our community. There are many
features we want to add after 2.0, including Flash Player 10
support. There's currently nine people in the team, and each
of us is already thinking on new ways to improve the engine.
And of course, we are in constant review, fixing bugs and trying
to optimize every single line of code. |
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| Q8 |
PaperVision
is an Open Source project, and supports the open COLLADA file
format. What brought you to the Open Source philosophy rather
than a commercial approach? |
| A8 |
Papervision
started as my personal project, originally created with the
goal of using it in commercial websites. The first versions
of the engine came out of different sites I worked on at the
time. I started using it all the time, so I packaged it with
a simple API.
At this point, it was clear the engine would benefit from other
people's input. It wouldn't have evolved the way it did, if
I had tried to make money of it. The objective was to improve
the engine, and the best way to do that is going Open Source.
Regarding COLLADA, it's the most compatible format with 3D packages
as well as being free for commercial use.
I love the philosophy behind Open Source, "code developed
by developers for developers", it certainly has made my
life easier. |
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| Q9 |
Do
you think Flash will soon be able to run full-featured 3D games? |
| A9 |
I
do indeed. |
| Q10 |
Can
we expect PaperVision to run on embedded devices anytime soon? |
| A10 |
That's
going to take a bit more time, as I don't believe the hardware
is ready yet. |
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