It was a rather “epic” saga to get a ticket, but I managed to grab one at the last minute. Should be pretty fun (hopefully) to talk to some of the Blizzard developers on the show floor, particularly to gather their thoughts on OpenGL 3 (Blizzard is a member of the OpenGL Working Group).
Going to Blizzcon ’08
Real Life
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Aug 122008
Aug 122008
Check it out, it’s a good read.
There has been a lot of noise on various news sites and forums concerning OpenGL 3 and how the GL Working Group has killed OpenGL. I consider most of that noise just that, noise. The dissatisfaction of API fanboys that has little to do with the reality of hardware and software vendors.
With that being said, here’s a a list of reasons why OpenGL is not dead:
- Apple
- Linux
- Samsung
- Autodesk
- Blizzard
- id
- NVIDIA
- AMD
- Intel
- Matrox
- Sony
You get the idea. Microsoft Windows is not the only operating system that needs a 3D graphics API. Are companies like Apple and those that have financial and strategic interests in Linux, or mobile handset manufacturers, really going to say “Oh snap, the fanboys have declared OpenGL dead, so huh… we’re not going to offer 3D hardware acceleration on our platform anymore. Sorry.”?
As for the reason I included Blizzard, id, NVIDIA, AMD and Intel in that list, it should be obvious: they contributed and are contributing massively to the development of OpenGL. Why in the world any company would spend significant man-hours (and hence dollars) on something it plans on killing? Projects do get killed, sure, but I doubt anyone has ever started a project with the intention of killing it from the start.
So to all the of API fanboys out there: beware the CAD monster. As for me, I will be discussing the new specifications over the course of the upcoming days, and am looking forward to OpenGL 3 drivers from the various hardware and software vendors in the industry.
Addendum: please see the comments for a clarification of what I mean by API fanboy. There are some very smart people who have criticized constructively the new specification, but those people have not made emotionally-charged and irrational comments such as “OpenGL is dead”. I am sorry if I offended anyone by not being clear enough the first time.
Link to the new ARB extensions
Computer Graphics
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Aug 122008
Along with the OpenGL 3 and GLSL 1.3 specifications, the OpenGL Working Group has also released a number of ARB extensions which bring any OpenGL 3 core functionality to OpenGL 2.1 if possible. Although the OpenGL 3 specification’s ARB extension annex doesn’t list them, they are available on the OpenGL Extension Registry. Below are direct links to the extension specifications. Most of them are the ARB form of NVIDIA’s Shader Model 4 EXT extensions.
Aug 112008
If you have read my previous entry, you’ve seen the links to the change-annotated versions of the OpenGL 3 and GLSL 1.3 specifications. If you are an OpenGL veteran, those versions will provide for a better read, highlighting the new content, thus allowing you to focus on the important stuff.
Aug 112008
Barthold Lichtenbelt of the OpenGL Working Group wrote an extremely valuable post in the OpenGL forums into the final form of OpenGL 3 and the radical change from the Longs Peak plan. It certainly is worth reading.
OpenGL 3 specification released
Computer Graphics
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Aug 112008
The OpenGL 3 specification has finally been released by the Khronos Group, as part of the just-launched Siggraph 2008 conference. It is a major step for OpenGL 3, bringing much needed functionality to bring it up to par with Direct3D 10.
I will be writing a series of entries on some of that new functionality in the future as soon as I have digested the new specification documents, which are available on Khronos’s OpenGL site.
Aug 092008
Riven X 0.7d3 is now available. It’s a quick release to address 2 issues:
- Preliminary support for the Myst Trilogy edition.
- Fixed another Tiger launch on crash bug. Should be the last one, I swear!
Grab it now below, from the sidebar or through Sparkle!
Physics library Bullet 2.70 released
Game Programming
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Aug 032008
Version 2.70 of the excellent open-source physics library Bullet has been released, with soft-body collision detection improvements, a new kinematic character controller, multi-material triangle mesh support, broadphase speed improvements, a Havok .hkx to COLLADA Physics .dae file conversion tool, and many bug fixes.
It’s extremely nice to have such a powerful piece of software available for free and with source code. Major kudos to Erwin Coumans and everyone who contributes to Bullet!