Blender Exporter for Google O3D

Bart · July 28, 2009

Google O3D is an open-source web API for creating rich, interactive 3D applications in the browser. Gerhard Völkl has created a script to export Blender content directly to it.

Gerhard Völkl wrote:

I created a little Blender script, with wich you can genarate a simple demo web side thats include Google 3D API.
It is only a learning vehicle for me, but perhaps someone else could use it.
Using our export script you can create a HTML and JavaScript file which tries to show your Blender scene in a browser using Google O3D Plugin.
The more professional way is exporting Blender with Collada export and convert it to a Google API JSON import file.
But our way is funnier. ;-)

Links

Author Bart

I have a LONG history with Blender - I wrote some of the earliest Blender tutorials, worked for Not a Number and helped run the crowdfunding campaign that open sourced Blender (the first one on the internet!). I founded BlenderNation in 2006 and have been editing it every single day since then ;-) I also run the Blender Artists forum and I'm Community Lead at n8n.

16 responses

RH2

28 July 2009 at 08:10

cool, checking it out…

Piiichan

28 July 2009 at 09:26

I am learning O3D programming and I was just thinking about the blender-to-O3D export/import issue.

I plan to use O3D mostly for online visualization of scientific data, therefore I will try to build the meshes dynamically. But still, having the possibility to import blender models would be a big plus.

Neil
5 September 2015 at 06:20
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Reply

Nixon

28 July 2009 at 13:37

Awesome work,

I bet this gonna be a nice feature for building 3d-based webcontent,
and since blender is open-source anyone can participate :) (given that google O3D will be available for everyone too:)

saverio

28 July 2009 at 16:23

O3d is such a great idea!!!
is the time to cross the bridge from 3d to the web…
google o3d vs adobe flash 3d technology, who will win? :)
great idea Gerhard!!

claas eicke

28 July 2009 at 16:43

Flash of course !

saverio

28 July 2009 at 17:47

@claas the o3d plugin IMHO is awesome!!!
I tried on xp with vmware player and the performances IMHO are incomparable with the 3d until now is capable flash3d
I tried adobe pixelblender too and is so SLOW …o3d shaders are MUCH faster
But flash is the DEFAULT plugin, whereas for o3d the jre runtime is needed..so, although adobe is resting on laurels
i dont know if google is capable to prevail on peoples inertia..

Alex Blank

29 July 2009 at 01:26

Seems interesting…but IMO I find this continuous surge towards “flashier” (exuse the unintended pun) web content a bit sickening. It is so hard to find a website these days that uses just html and pics, and everything else is just decadent bloat. Maybe I wouldn’t think that way if I used a more up-to-date internet PC (I use a Win95 to surf), or if I had something better than dial-up (though I am quite happy with it), but I have neither and I don’t think that dynamic animation on the web really adds communicative benefit. Flash and 03d may fight to the death, but I don’t care enough to stay in the arena to watch.

Nonetheless, good to see more export scripts in Blender…

hitechboy722

29 July 2009 at 11:17

@Alex: Why Win95, ur the second person I’ve noticed who uses it… theres obviously something I dont know. tell me…

google really need to find a more impressive screenshot… lol

@Garhard nice tool, you should consider yourself an explorer. Vista’s desktop is totally 3D, the windows are actually just textures on a plane. 10 years ago this would seem hard to believe. I really think theres a real future for 3d and web and some lucky entraprenuer is going to score it. For the mean time I can imagine medic sites able to communicate where 2d pictures couldn’t and wikipedia showing the wonders of the world in an interactive way! hmmm instant gaming comes to mind (i.e no installs, levels are streamed live etc)

hmmm Flash…
I’ve never understood how flash survives… their devkit is upwards US$600and theres like a million alternatives to flash (laszlo, -linux thingys here-, java). I’m sure flash will win, I dont know how but they just do it.

rtownsend

29 July 2009 at 21:23

Mozilla and Khronos (the OpenGL people) are doing this, too.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10203458-2.html

I wonder who’s going to win?

Alex Blank

30 July 2009 at 07:07

@Hitechboy722: Well there are two reasons. I find Win95 to be more stable than XP or Vista when it comes to surfing (because I can’t load all sorts of unnecessary media). I can check email with it without the constant temptation of facebook (though a lot of that has to do with having a dial-up connection) and since (for the most part) blender.org and BlenderNation don’t use too much “extra,” I can work faster. Additionally, I can run Opera 9.27 just fine when I need to view a site with javascript running. IMO Win95 was Microsoft’s best OS (with the exceptions being lack of USB support and some now-archaic limitations on hard-drive partition sizes and max memory).
The second reason is that some programs I need were developped for Windows 3.0 which don’t run on Win98 and which have proprietary or non-standard file formats that I can’t efficiently port to a new application, so that old Win95 computer still has some much needed plusses.

Jeremy

30 July 2009 at 07:14

@rtownsend

Isn’t it obvious? These guys will fight it out, and Microsoft will start drafting their own solution, until the W3C comes in with their own standard, and a major company will jump in with a plugin that adds support for the new standard in Internet Explorer. Microsoft of course does not want any competition, and so will endorse another companies solution (which happens to be incompatible with the W3C’s standard) by including it with new versions of Windows (hopefully taking out another competitor in a tangentially related area), and the W3C standard will fade into obscurity as this new proprietary solution begins it’s reign on all the websites we visit and cause numerous layout and usability problems.

tl;dr: see SVG

saverio

30 July 2009 at 08:54

@Jeremy, i’m not sure, there are more and more people who adopt firefox, and chrome too…
There are a lot of people (including me) spreading the word that “firefox is better”, and to install chrome, opera, and firefox is easy, compared to install a newer internet explorer version.
In addition we are not speaking of some little detail, 3d in the web is a major, much awaited, feature…
I readed a lot of complaining from flash developers, who are expecting 3d from ages…and flash 10, papervision3d or (put the X flash 3d technology here) are not the answer IMHO, flash is an old technology, useful for 2d, not for 3d…
Now the 3d is here, and is (almost) multiplatform (i installed the o3d plugin for firefox under linux, and is spectacular –> for example the “infinite journey” game demo).
It is an error IMHO to propose a standard without an actual (multiplatform) implementation.

Jeremy

30 July 2009 at 10:59

@saverio

I was just making a little joke. And I honestly can’t stand flash, so I’ll welcome anything that can help to get rid of it (such as o3d and some of the stuff in html5). Can’t say I’m a fan of firefox though, especially on linux. Firefox is more of a windows thing to me.

saverio

10 August 2009 at 10:28

My apologies, i’m very off topic here on blender nation, but i’m VERY interested on this argument :(

saverio

10 August 2009 at 10:31

I think flash has its uses, but it’s useless for more advanced 3d uses.
For users interested on this subject there is a recent thread on blenderartist about the browser plugin : http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?t=158059
I have send an answer, but it is my first post to the blenderartist forum, and i think is under moderation for this reason (or maybe for my ugly, uncorrect english :D), here it is:
“””
Hello,
peoples @ http://code.google.com/p/nativeclient/ are developing “native client” a very interesting technology (the answer to microsoft activex).
Native client is a true multi platform (mac osx, windows, linux) environment to run ( unchanged from platform to platform ) native code executables in a sand box embedded into the browser, although at the moment it supports the x86 architecture only, and the internet explorer integration is not complete(this is an excerpt from latest release notes:”
Native Client supports Firefox 3 on Linux, Windows and MacOS, and
Chrome, Safari and Opera on Windows.
Support for the following browsers is not available at this time:
* Internet Explorer
These browsers are partially supported:
* Camino on MacOS appears to work but has had minimal testing
* Firefox 2 on MacOS: We STRONGLY encourage Mac users to upgrade
their Firefox version to 3 for Native Client. On Firefox 2,
control, command and alt keys are not enabled due to
an eavesdropping vulnerability. Note the control key is used
for firing weapons in Quake.
* Safari on MacOS: However, mouse events don’t work.”
).
I personally enjoyed to play the native client version of Quake, and is AWESOME :D.
I think o3d is based on this technology, and a native client python version (i guess, my source of information is simply a phrase on the web site and the result of googling around) is in development.
And talking about game engines the browser plugin of the panda3d GE is in development, and panda3d use the python language.
The future of the web is more and more crossed with 3d :D
I guess this is the time to talk about the funding…
I think it’s a great opportunity for blender (and for blender users :D )
My apologies for all the inaccuracies and language mistakes…:(
“””
My apologies, i’m very off topic here on blender nation, but i’m very interested on this argument :(

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