Wondering what would be involved to support the rift in Adobe AIR. AIR allows for "Native Extensions" essentially native C/C++ code that can be packaged and used inside an AIR application. I don't have any real experience developing my own though.There are a lot of 3D engines for AIR already in the market (Flare 3D, Minko, etc..) but Away3D is endorsed by Adobe and is open source so it seems like a good fit. There's already a discussion on the forums about Rift here: http://away3d.com/forum/viewthread/3286/Wondering if anyone has any thoughts on this / experience with AIR native extensions that could help implement

I used Papervision3D, but especially on that program, I thought that it was unnecessary complicated. Ofcourse, Flash/Air Support would be great, but Unity3D is definitely much easier and efficient than Flash.I also know this product line of Adobe is also slower than necessary.

Certainly Unity is great but to clarify some things currently, Papervision is a very old framework and was all about generating 3d scenes on the CPU which was extremely limited. AIR / Flash now supports OpenGL and DirectX rendering on the GPU, I have already created a variety of 3d apps with millions of polys in a scene.Ultimately, the more platforms that the Rift is on the better. Also I am not looking for official support but if anyone who has experience with AIR and developing ANEs and can help support a community driven extension that would be awesome.

"mrpinc" wrote:Ultimately, the more platforms that the Rift is on the better. Also I am not looking for official support but if anyone who has experience with AIR and developing ANEs and can help support a community driven extension that would be awesome.I agree. Lacking compatibility was a reason for the problems VR faced in the 90s.

For anyone interested there is a thread in the Away 3D forum about this topic:http://away3d.com/forum/viewthread/3286/

I am very interested in this, I have experience developing native extensions for mobile applications and am currently working on desktop specific ones for Mac OSX. I suspect that we could even get support for the Oculus up and going on MAC OSX via AIR relatively quickly, as much of the GPU integration is handled via Stage3D. I imagine the overall system working like this:- Away3D set up for stereoscopic multi-viewport- A fragment shader for peripheral warping of the viewports- AIR Native extension for integrating the tracking system w/ Away3D cameras

Adobe AIR- Stage3D Integration - Away3D? | Meta Community Forums

30 Replies

SSJKamui
Honored Guest
13 years ago
I used Papervision3D, but especially on that program, I thought that it was unnecessary complicated. Ofcourse, Flash/Air Support would be great, but Unity3D is definitely much easier and efficient than Flash.

I also know this product line of Adobe is also slower than necessary.
mrpinc
Honored Guest
13 years ago
Certainly Unity is great but to clarify some things currently, Papervision is a very old framework and was all about generating 3d scenes on the CPU which was extremely limited. AIR / Flash now supports OpenGL and DirectX rendering on the GPU, I have already created a variety of 3d apps with millions of polys in a scene.

Ultimately, the more platforms that the Rift is on the better. Also I am not looking for official support but if anyone who has experience with AIR and developing ANEs and can help support a community driven extension that would be awesome.
SSJKamui
Honored Guest
13 years ago
"mrpinc" wrote:

Ultimately, the more platforms that the Rift is on the better. Also I am not looking for official support but if anyone who has experience with AIR and developing ANEs and can help support a community driven extension that would be awesome.

I agree. Lacking compatibility was a reason for the problems VR faced in the 90s.
mrpinc
Honored Guest
13 years ago
For anyone interested there is a thread in the Away 3D forum about this topic:

http://away3d.com/forum/viewthread/3286/
jonathanhart
Honored Guest
13 years ago
I am very interested in this, I have experience developing native extensions for mobile applications and am currently working on desktop specific ones for Mac OSX.

I suspect that we could even get support for the Oculus up and going on MAC OSX via AIR relatively quickly, as much of the GPU integration is handled via Stage3D. I imagine the overall system working like this:

- Away3D set up for stereoscopic multi-viewport
- A fragment shader for peripheral warping of the viewports
- AIR Native extension for integrating the tracking system w/ Away3D cameras
mrpinc
Honored Guest
13 years ago
Jonathan,

If you are interested in leading this maybe set up a GitHub page for the project (if open source is interesting to you). I'll be happy to contribute in any way I can, I have access to OSX and Windows.
jonathanhart
Honored Guest
13 years ago
Set up!

https://github.com/jonathanhart/oculus-ane

I will play with the Oculus SDK source code tonight and see how herculean of a task it will be to integrate with the tracking code. I don't have a headset yet (and likely wont for several weeks) but I'll do my best.
mrpinc
Honored Guest
13 years ago
Awesome, I am already watching ('pchertok')

I will let you know once I receive my kit, probably a while as I was someone who ordered via the website, although I was one of the first when they started selling via their site.

I like how you are planning to support other engines. I don't have experience with Flare3D but I have a little with Alternativa and would have no problem learning Minko or whatever other 3D framework you wanted to support.
jonathanhart
Honored Guest
13 years ago
I suspect they'll be relatively simple, because they all use Stage3D and AGAL for shading. Much of the code can be reused amongst them.

I was part of the kickstarter program but got in pretty late (my order # is in the 8000's). We'll see! I can at least get started with the SDK integration.
jonathanhart
Honored Guest
13 years ago
I would imagine AIR will be a pretty popular way to play around with Oculus, considering you can develop for it for free. $1500 for Unity is a pretty hefty price tag, even with 4 months of it free.