Burster Blender Web Player
Burster is a webbrowser plugin that plays interactive Blender content. It’s based on the Blenderplayer, runs on a number of browsers on Windows and Linux, and offers a commercial file encryption option. Burster is (of course) licensed under the GPL.
The Blender community was waiting for stable and platform independent web-player since the Blender Game Engine was developed. There were many attempts to the web player. Some of them worked only in Internet Explorer, some worked only in Firefox but almost all were not finished.We developed the player that works in most popular browsers – Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera, Chrome. It works in Windows and in Linux. It uses slighty modified blenderplayer (on linux it uses original blenderplayer). The Burster team aims to provide the player as business-ready solution that could popularize the Blender.
We count on yours feedback and opinions to the Burster project.
Please visit our website and download the plugin installer.
We created also promotional video that shows some features of the plugin – please visit the link below to see the video and learn more about the Burster.
Best regards!
The Burster team
Update: I forgot to include the following information:
Przemyslaw Kroliszewski writes:
Sources of the Burster will be available in next few days – we are working on the public svn repository now. The svn access information will be published at the Burster home page.
This sounds great… Checking it out right now!
What!?! If this is what is seems to be, it really comes out of the blue for me. Trying it asap!
If it is licensed under GPL, then where is the source code? What are these modifications to the blenderplayer source code they’re talking about?
”
Because if you want somebody to see your 3D scene in action you should supply your file with blenderplayer or embed your file in blenderplayer. In first case you provide source file with blenderplayer – which means that anybody can see it, use it, change it and sell it.
”
And what’s so scary about if some miserable pirate ends up selling your crappy models, there are people selling ripped Halo and Crysis models for money, how does it take away any of your legal and moral rights of your property?
Seems to me they’re just trying to lure people into buying their paid service for encrypted blend files delivery. But for most companies I guess more important than protecting their assets (this is also a problem with Flash, Unity Engine) is to make sure their properties do not suddenly become GPL’ed under some license violation.
That being said, GPL webplayer, even without any encryption would be useful for many. People are always thinking like the big guys in the industry even though they are not in position of them.
In the end though how easy it performs with an average end-user is the true indicator of success. Intel Integrated Graphics nuff said.
I just tested it, so far so good. The car simulation is very nice. The bar would be to see Blendenzo’s Solomon Treasure running on any browser… Then I couldnt stop drooling ;)
I just can’t believe it! Where is the source code?
Don’t always assume the worst, guys! I had forgotten to include info on the source code release – it’ll be available in a few days.
This is AWESOME!!!!!
The sources will be publicly available to download today and information will be at the home page of the Burster project. We working on the public repository now.
How come GPL software contains closed source cryptographic module? Isn’t this practically DRM? The licensing on this one seems a bit fishy. Won’t touch this until a detailed explanation by some respectable party.
Hello knytt,
If the sources of that library is open the encryption of files would makes no sense. The Burster plugin can work with plain blender files (we think that most users will use plain files), and only the open code is in the use. But if someone will to encrypt the file – with standalone application – the Burster plugin uses the library to decrypt the file – this is not obligatory use. So i don’t think that this is DRM. Our motivation was to create solution that can be accepted by business or industrial environment.
About viral nature of GPL copyleft knytt the issue has been raised several times. Erwin coumans, original developer of the game engine and creator of the bullet library explains that solving this issue is one of the use (besides bridging with Ogre obviously) of his gamekit project :
http://code.google.com/p/gamekit/
So for me, that burster is really the perfect solution, I’ll probably try this as soon as the source code is released. I hope the encrypting library will still be free for commercial use? is it under some kind of MIT/BSD/Zlib style license?
Hi!!
may i know with this tool i can make a blender game in facebook page?? can i?? plezz answer!! i really want to!!
I think it’s an elegant solution for industrial environment
Azmil, AFIK facebook doesn’t allow to put extra html code so probably there is no possibility to create the facebook game with the plugin in the form it is today. But maybe in future we implement the plugin that can be embeded at facebook.
What about python stuff? After all many games don’t only use LBs and built-ins.
This is Really Cool!
Great work Guys!
I’m eager to see the source code :D
Unfortunatelly linked libraries does not work in this plugin.
Anyway that’s a great feature for the whole blender community
Hi,
see my small Burster overview with 5 examples: http://en.myinventions.pl/index.php?page=Burster
This is great news! I can see an interactive 3d website in my future ;)
burster can’t embeded in facebook? but unity 3d also can’t?
I was waiting for this for years!!! :D
What is the “best” way to redistribute the browser plugin?
You can use the link to our download section or provide a mirror. The plugin has implemented feature to automatic update when new version appear. So you can share the setup.msi file, but the updated plugin sill will be installed from our site.
Tried this plugin on work, but it crashes all the time. Tried Firefox, Chrome and IE8.
Is using the internet via proxy at work. Could this be a reson?
I will try it at home again.
Proxy could be problematic – The plugin checks for new version on our server.
Ok, thanks for your quick answer! I am eager to try this out at home!!! This is a great idea!
Are you planning a version for blenderplayer 2.5?
An addon for blender 2.5 where you just can export your game would be awsome!
@Sebastian: I tried out one of the examples on that link page and everything worked up until IE was ready to install the .msi file. It was rejected because of being from “an unknown publisher”. (With no option to go ahead and run it anyway, for some reason… maybe my security settings at present… I’m on a work PC, so many are out of my control.) I’d suggest getting this plugin registered in a Microsoft-approved database ASAP.
Also, it would be nice to have some sort of download progress indicator. Many users/visitors are impatient (being the “instant gratification generation” and all…) and need some pretty/shiney blinking lights to keep them occupied while things download and install. (Sad but true.)
Love the potential this plugin has, tho! Looking forward to great things!
Okay, after a manual DL/install of the plugin, I get this error message on attempts to view blender content:
or here: http://www.pasteall.org/pic/6765
even when the blender file was supposedly not encrypted… (I’m on WinXP/IE8)
samples in IE and Firefox (Windows XP Pro) gives “Sorry, encode file is corrupted or there are decoding problems”. Maybe because I didn’t (wanted to) install in documents and settings folder on Windows. I don’t think applications should use Documents and settings folder to install software. Even storing data I find dubious as many applications leave stuff behind after removal.
Is there an (IRC) chat about the plugin?
Same problem for me on Windows 7 64 bits with Firefox
mzungu, msi is digitally signed by iTechnologie with valid CA.
Burster has progress bar that shows percents (http://www.pasteall.org/pic/6769), but some web servers doesn’t send to plugin info about file size.
“Sorry, encode file is corrupted or there are decoding problems” – you see this error with plain (not encoded) file when blenderplayer faild to run or with network error. Browser restart or machine restart or reinstallation should help.
It works great with Firefox 3.6.12. Win XP Pro 32 bit
Thank you!
Wonder if something like this could be tooled for exporting HTML5/WebGL games?
They really should embed a smaple on the site :) like a cheap little car game or somthing. just to show off, becasue I dont think the video can do it justice
Nice work. I tried it and it worked. :) If anyone else wants to test my puny testblend. Here’s a link: http://blog.anicator.com/post/1462329328/playing-with-buster
I just realized you can easily patch these files so updating your game is pretty easy. One thing I’m wondering is this. Does it keep re-downloading all the files?
Any plans for the MAC OSX version?
Why does everyone always scream “SOURCE CODE” every time something is posted on here??? I don’t understand it!
Hi Daniel, sure but we still got lot of work to do with windows and linux version. We haven’t got any experience with Mac OS – so if anyone could contribute…this will be appreciated.
Christiaan – check your html code, it works only on IE
this plug-in is really amazing! I like the business model behind it and I hope it works bringing the money to further develop the software. It needs some more tweaks especially on linux platform but I believe it’s a great start. It’s what I’m was waiting from long time!
I had to create a couple of symlinks on usr/lib in order to make it works on ubuntu 10.04
libdecode crashs when I try to load encrypted blend files with this message: undefined symbol: SSL_library_init
Will encryption always be free for everyone?
How to protect from possible malicious Python code in a blend file?
Will an encrypted blend not be stored in decrypted form on a user’s HDD?
I also wonder about long term availability and support for this.
Where is Mac version?
Hi LOGAN,
All of your questions are very important and hard to answer. We planned that the “encryption” could be a sort of certificate. The user that pay for encrypting files is certified and we ensure that the content is published by him. So if any of his content would make trouble (i.e. with malicious Python code – we do not provide the Python with Burster), the “victim” could very easy get to that publisher.
You asked if encryption always will be free for every one. Did you mean “decryption” – if so – yes – it will always be free. Encryption is not free.
The long term availability is difficult topic. We are small company and no one knows how long we will stay on the market. We got great plans but life somtimes roughly corrects great plans. All depends on Burster popularity…and on the Encryption popularity. If developers would like to encrypt their files and to support us in that way – the answer is Yes – the Burster will be available.
The last question about storing decrypted file on a user’s disk – the file is at disk for short moment, just after the Burster starts the Blenderplayer the file is deleted. We couldn’t come up with better solution to be in compilance with GPL’d Blenderplayer.
Logan, encryption is free only for short tests. We are working on python security. Because of plugin and blenderplayer license decryption is complicated.
Karlis, there is no Mac version. If you like to try Burster check VirtualBox for OS X hosts
Amazing!!! I hope it will be possible to make web games using it. But even just for presentation it sounds great!
Doesn’t the bundled Python give unlimited access to local user files? Is there some sandbox or anything? How to make sure the blend I’m loading is from a trusted source and not some malware? Can I turn Python off and allow only logic bricks? How blender is able to read encrypted files and be GPL without the encryption key exposed? Shouldn’t the encryption module also be GPL? How about then if someone finds a way to ‘catch’ the blend file when passed from decrypter to blender, doesn’t the whole encryption model fell apart? How can I trust your encryption module for not spying my computer… etc.
Pawel – because of NPAPI version Burster work with Firefox 3.5+
The Burster sources published. The information how to get sources from svn is available at this link http://geta3d.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=19&Itemid=22
The link is available from the geta3d.com main menu in Download section
So far, I’m totally amazed. Totally smooth 3d games in a browser, like the racing demo:
http://en.myinventions.pl/index.php?page=Burster&example=2#a2
Down with Flash!
And it actually works, sweet :)
http://blenderecia.orgfree.com/bplayer_demo.html
[yes, even the dome mode works there \o/]
I wonder how is security being managed. Since the games are played right away (without confirmation) some python scripts may be damaged for the system.
Really nice work
I love blenber it is a wonderfull modeling and animation tool,
but developing game is definitely not an option for windows user.
Like the lead developper at Unity3D said OpenGL is not and
will probably never be supported on Window.
Visit http://unity3d.com/gallery/live-demos/index.html#bootcamp for a real Demo of a 3D WebPlayer.
Like I was saying:
Sorry, encoded file is corrupted or there are decoding problems….
Anyway good luck with it.
mine says authors liscence has expired.
i dont have a liscence
Hi, first of all, this looks amazing and very promising but I have some questions:
What about big blend files, let’s say 100MB+, will it first load the full 100MB? (Which would take ages!)
What about traffic and reloading? If you loaded the file once, without it being updated, is it stored somewhere on the users computer so you don’t need to download the full 100MB+ again?
its is cached, and if it’s encrypted it caches the encrypted.blendz and then decrypts it when you request the files.
any one help with author certificate problem?
@pixnlove:
Unity only supports selected operating systems. That means it’s not universal. Web technologies are supposed to be universal.
To hell with it! :)
Ow, by the way, I’m trying to register on the Burster site, geta3d.com, but it doesn’t seem to do anything, can’t login either. Anyone?
pixnlove – “OpenGL is not and will probably never be supported on Window” ????
Browser store transfered files in catch, so when it once download file it will be available until you reload your page or clear history. But it is good idea to not create 100MB+ web games.
goose, you can see “This file authors’ certificate expired” message only with file that was encoded and files author certificate is wrong. If you see this with plain file probably file is broken or created with older Blender version.
Wouter, sorry for registering problem, there is midnight in Poland and admin sleep ;)
@Sebastian Korczak
I mean OpenGl will never be stable on the Windows platforms.
Please look at this video and the OpenGL cross Platform Myth will be Demystified:
http://vimeo.com/6128236
@pixnlove:
What do you suggest then for web 3d content?
I use Linux and I want to create/use such content.
@pixnlove: Smells like FUD. If OpenGL on Windows is good enough for John Carmack (id Games), it’s good enough for me!
@Pawel
You can run DirectX 9 and perhaps 10 with Wine http://www.winehq.org/
So if you develop your graphics with Directx 9 most people can play it with no problem. Yes, its not as good shaders and good looks as with 10 or 11 but most people playing broweser games have slow machines.
@ Sebastian
the plugin works fine now at home and ubuntu.
one strange thing happens though. When I scroll my page, it doesn’t scroll too. and sometimes I can not get in my 3d window and use the controls. If I switch to another tab my blender application is drawn above all.
After game start you need to click plugin window (set keyboard focus). There are sometimes refresh problems on slower machines (or virtualbox).
@miss kaka
But then Linux people won’t be able to use it without Wine. I don’t want them to use the browser under Wine to play a game, that would be ridiculous. I still think OpenGL is more universal. I hope CorsairX is right, and OpenGL is going to be good enough for everybody. We don’t want all to be Microsoft’s minions.
@pixnlove: No facts there, just ignorance! Dont spread those crap here.
As a OpenGL developer for nearly ten years i tell you OpenGL IS stable on windows. OpenGL works different than DirectX and extensions are sometimes experimental and may not work as expected but as a OpenGL developer you know that and you know how to deal with it. OpenGL is used for commercial games by professional graphics developers and just because some stupid moron talks about how he can’t make his work stable with OpenGL everyone should buy it?!? I think NOT!
Next time, please post some facts about OpenGL, not this lame stuff that only upset people who know about this. Seriously!
The questions asked by Logan and Confus are vital: how much attention did you give to security? Is the plugin designed to be safe from malicious code? What is the amount of code that would need to be checked to ensure that the sandbox works properly? For example, if you are re-using a large C++ library that was only intended for Blender internal use, it might contain a number of vulnerabilities because it was not designed to be secure against hostile users.
This is very important because if there is any flaw, any malicious web page could host a Burster file that would give them complete access to your machine, even if you don’t use Burster any more!
The Burster is published with internal Blender python – so – as you said – there are potential security flaws. There is lot of work to do with security with burster.
i am using 2.49b
it did work when i was testing it on my site.
now it does not work at all.
I don’t really know anything about software security, but…
Why not to disable execution of user created modules and scripts and allow only pre-defined set of useful and popular python modules (like mouselook, vehicle wrapper) which would be configurable via properties?
Then again don’t know which is easier in the long run: To keep Python safe or maintain extensive library of modules.
@Grandmaster B
A sign of relief from me.
pixnlove must have been referring to lack of support in UNITY3D, but who cares if THEY support OpenGL. It’s important it’s supported in general on any platform.
So, pixnlove, no more FUD please!
Ok, nice of you.
It’s possible and legal to distribute a modified python version with the plugin. All there is to do is to change the build-in library modules to have limited access. The blender player must then itself restricted to use only this python runtime even if the user has a full python installation.
Burster Team:
Thanks for the honest reply. I think you should definitely warn users about those dangers, and perhaps display a warning before executing any Blender content so that at least sites where the user didn’t intend to use Burster won’t be able to exploit any flaw. It should be clear to the user that trusting a site to display Burster content should only be done if you would trust the site to run native executables.
it turns out that a restart actually helps. definitely do so!
error “Sorry, encoded file is corrupted, or there are decoding problems” is caused by not refreshed PATH environment variable. Restart should correct this. This will be fixed in new version (probably tomorrow).
I have tried to use the Driller demo under Windows XP/Firefox 3.5.15.
When the page was opened, Firefox indicated that to view the demo, i as a user (a lazy one, in that fall), must download additional plugin (Burster, in particular).
For my surprise, when i clicked on the window (with the message “Click here to download plugin.”), in the opened new window there was the message “No suitable plugins were found”.
Thus, do you plan to automate the plugin download and installation?
Because the users that would try to open something, that is using the Burster plugin, will just give up, when they see something like “No suitable plugins were found”!
BigFan,
The security is our primary goal now. But we definetly need hands (and brains) to work at this hard topic. I haven’t even looked at the C++ python library. Long long time ago i worked with Java Python – Jython – so i got some experience – and what i remember – that it was almost impossible to secure this library and to leave the user enough freedom that he can do with the Python the common tasks.
The sollution that is most elegant for me is the sandbox that the Python could not leave.
Other solution is displaying the message “This content may be dangerous for your computer – please use it wisely” – only warning – but the user will be conscious of the danger.
BigFan – our address is webmaster(at)geta3d.com – i will appreciate if you and maybe others could help us in that matter
I published the information about the security at our site. http://geta3d.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=20&Itemid=23
The plugin works for me now. I tried with the (non encrypted) demos.
A friend of mine, whom I had pointed to burster demos, gave up just as hieste mentioned three posts above.
Questions:
Are GLSL shaders supported?
How much does the encryption cost?
Is any of it given back to blender foundation?
Ray, hieste,
I corrected the object and embed tags – so now examples should ask you for installing the plugin. The object tag should contain the codebase parameter set to the installer and the embed tag should have the pluginspage parameter set to the installer. Of course on the authors side is to remember about this. So that is the HTML issue not the plugin issue. Of course this will not work for linux users but they are less lazy :)
The Burster is nothing more than blenderplayer inside your browser – so everything that is supported in blenderplayer is supported in Burster. So if your graphics card supports GLSL – the answer is yes – it is supported.
Visit our page to learn about the encryption cost. Treat encryption as form of supporting our work in the Burster project and not as the “making billions of dollars by greedy >>closed source<< company" :)
You really did a great job, thanks. This is what was needed for years and it also means a lot of blender jobs available in the future. Thanks again.
Is great to see back a new web browser plug in, and the file encription option looks very good as an extra service, thanks :)
there will be a fix or option regarding proxy issue?
Thanks.
That’s pretty cool. It looks like your managing the plug-in platform code manually… why not use something like http://firebreath.org?
@Ben, they are using NPAPI. I know nothing about it, but it seems that FireBreath is also using NPAPI for non InternetExplorer plugins.
@Burster Team member:
Thanks for sharing the code. The changes in Blenderplayer are actually pretty small, interesting. Security still concerns me, but again, it’s a really nice initiative, let’s see what comes up from that.
@Delai Felinto, NPAPI is the Netscape Plug-in API that Netscape developed along with their browser back in the days of yore… Netscape 2.0 ah those were the days. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NPAPI) My curiosity is that it strikes me as easier to use something like FireBreath than trying to deal with the ActiveX and NPAPI layers yourself… I noticed this while looking at the code.
@Delai Feltino/Burster Team member:
Am I understanding the code changes you made to blenderplayer correctly? It looks like you pretty much just gave it the ability to have a reference to its parent window so it could then make the appropriate setup calls and such instead of managing the main window itself. It was that easy? (Well as long as you haven’t sand boxed it yet…). Looking forward to future developments.
@BenLau, Dalai
As i mentioned few posts above, the security is our primary goal and we working at it.
The blenderplayer changes are very small and touches only the window handle – and only for windows version. The linux version of blenderplayer allows to pass the X window identifier so there was no need to change the code.
Firebreath is young project and when we started with our project we decided that we preffer “our’ bugs – that we can fix fast, better that bugs in large code. NPAPI is elegant and easy to implement and is supported by all major (minus IE) browsers. The IE problem is resolved via pluginHost – small code that implements the NPAPI to MS ActiveX technology.
@Burster Team member
helo? can u help? i don’t have experience on using source code or plugins or something like that… so, can u tell me step-by-step until my games get into web???
Azmil, all you need is to create blend file with your game. Then use object and embed tag as described at http://geta3d.com – just replace path to your file in src param in two places (one in object tag – for chrome and IE – and second in embed tag for other browsers). Generally – open our examples page and see the sources of working example.
But if you want to create games with burster you should have basic knowledge of HTML and Python. There are tons of tutorials…
@Burster Team member
btw, ummm… can u make and upload a simple tutorial on using blend files with burster web plugin? that will explain everything for peoples using BGE… ‘n yea of cuz, the beginner tutorial should be made by the official team.
Have to try this.
This is very good, a team up application for blender user. Noe blender user are getting more powerful with the 2 applications team up. Hope that more stable development ahead. THANKS @Blender & Burster Team