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From: vanevery@blarg.net (Brandon J. Van Every)
Newsgroups: comp.graphics.api.misc,comp.graphics.algorithms,comp.windows.x.i386unix,gnu.misc.discuss,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.os.linux.development.apps
Subject: Re: Freeware community needs 3d library NOW
Followup-To: comp.graphics.api.misc,comp.graphics.algorithms,comp.windows.x.i386unix,gnu.misc.discuss,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.os.linux.development.apps
Date: 26 Jun 1996 05:17:19 GMT
Organization: Blarg! Online Services 206/441-9109
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Brandon J. Van Every (vanevery@blarg.net) wrote:
: Microsoft's umbrella allows 3d accelerator vendors to hide their board
: specs behind the Direct3d API. Because Direct3d will be popular,
: there is no market incentive for 3d vendors to seek an alternative.
: Put simply, the freeware community is about to be completely locked
: out of any access to 3d accelerator technology.
I just went to a Microsoft OpenGL developer's conference today. This
point became all the more clear to me. Microsoft offers the vendors a
good place for 3d vendors to come and get organized. They offer
technology, and they offer serious committments to mutually beneficial
business partnerships. The freeware world has almost nothing to offer
these 3d vendors, by comparision.
It will be completely up to us to write the drivers and so forth. Any
library we make, will only get used in the freeware world. Until
maybe 3 years have pased, and if we've done a really good job building
better versions of the library, good 3d apps, and especially 3d VR
Internet stuff. Then, maybe the freeware standard will slowly become
a commercial standard as well.
In the meantime, we are totally dependent on locating a 3d accelerator
vendor that makes its specs public. Without that, we're dead.
Does anyone know of such a vendor? If not, does anyone have good
recommendations for which vendors might be approachable on the issue,
and how to go about approaching them? What will they want to see,
before they will take the idea seriously?
Cheers,
--
Brandon J. Van Every | Check out Free3d, my 100% efficient, 100% portable
| 3d lib, at <http://www.blarg.net/~vanevery>.
3d Computer Graphics |
C++ UNIX X11 WinNT | E-mail: vanevery@blarg.net