Re: Advanced Rendering Interface

On Monday, December 23, 2002, at 12:07 PM, Philippe C.D. Robert wrote:

> Exactly, we should really make sure not to reinvent the wheel. By 
> using a RenderMan like API we could use RIBs as our native file > 
> format.

Ok for me, it is a good idea.

> I am thinking of using a RenderMan like API which is used in the 
> 3DKit's RenderKit as "common language". Developers would have to use 
> this API when working with the 3DKit. Internally the rendering is done 
> using so called backend renderers (see previous discussions) which 
> provide the concrete implementation of the rendering API. This 
> implementation can be done using whatever technology, ie. OpenGL, 
> scanline rendering, raytracing and so on.

OK you want to make a new QuickRenderman implementation, not a bad 
idea, in fact maybe it is a real good idea and make sense on the Mac 
platform ;)

> The beauty of OpenGL is that it is a cross platform standard and that 
> you can implement hardware accelerators quite well. But it also 
> suffers from some serious deficiencies...
> I do not say we should abandon the use of OpenGL in the 3DKit, we 
> should just hide it...:-) If we directly use OpenGL then either we let 
> developers mess with GL inside of a 3DKit app (white box approach) 
> which makes it hard for us to provide any optimisations or we provide 
> all functionality via 3DKit classes/functions (black box approach) 
> which is not what people want, I guess.
>
> What do you think?

Not an easy problem, for sure.

I tried some thoughs but not enough time to think right.

I am going on vacation tomorrow with my Ti but without internet 
connection, I will have the time to think about it and will come back 
with some ideas I hope :)

I can say only that we have to decide the precise target of the 
toolkit, if it is research and experimentation then we need to publish 
the two behaviors....

Well, ok maybe if people want to make new stuff very powerful, i.e. 
access to the low level, they will need to expand the 3DKit by 
programming in C/ObjC/OpenGL, maybe ?

> Then we kind of share this dream...:-) My focus is currently not so 
> much in modeling though, but more in advanced graphics research. But 
> both is required for achieving the dream.

Fine, Ok I will not have the time to write a new Maya app in my spare 
time ;)

> I agree. Personally I am not interested in writing games with the 
> 3DKit.

So do I, programming visual interesting stuff that would be usable in a 
game, why not, but not a game.

> No, it should be fine. I think the GeometryKit's design won't change 
> much in the future (although I have some ideas in mind, but this has 
> very low priority) unless ie. the use of RenderMan requires some 
> functionality/syntax/naming which is currently not there (but this 
> would only matter for the C based stuff).

Ok, I take note.

In the same field, I wonder if it would be interesting to put the math 
algorithms we can find in '3D Game Engine Design' in the GeometryKit ?

Best regards

Happy Christmas

Best wishes for the new year.

	Gerard