Why Shockwave 3D?

In my long and winding quest to do real-time 3D programming on the Web, I’m back where I started — with Shockwave 3D. Much as I love Sandy, I need at least joints and collision detection, and the only existing Flash physics engines are made for 2D. I’ve put considerable thought and effort into extending Flade (now replaced by APE) to 3D; but I’ve concluded that even if I succeeded, it would take some time for the code to mature. When I first started, I set out to learn Java 3D, but I soon abandoned it for Shockwave 3D. Then I abandoned Shockwave 3D for Flash, once Sandy came on the scene. In my naivety, I thought I could hack out a physics engine the same way I’ve always been able to hack out everything else I’ve needed. Once I learned how complicated physics engines and game engines are, I turned to the Torque Game Engine.

I’m Always Looking for Something Better – But Shockwave 3D Has Been Right in Front of Me All Along

Today, I finally realized that my real problem is that I’m continuously looking for something better, without sticking to one thing long enough to get it working. I feel sick at heart, at times, to think of all the time and effort I’ve wasted. It’s a very de-motivating feeling. But I perk up at the thought that I’ve got a lot of flexibility now. I can quickly choose to go in many different directions. Plus, I plan to use Torque Game Engine for CD content that I’ll ship with the Myth of Merula once I’ve published it in book form. As for Sandy, Flash has a future and Director probably doesn’t, so I’ll keep plowing away. It’s just that it will take some time. In the meantime, it just makes more sense to use Shockwave 3D rather than Torque. I wouldn’t even be able to display Torqe-created stuff on the Web. I can quickly get something working in Shockwave 3D at this point. I may as well do that, while I continue to work intermittently on getting Sandy to work with APE hacks. Who knows? Somebody may even release a 3D physics engine for Flash.

Knowledge Is Never Wasted

What’s even more encouraging to me is that my very formal and dry guide to 3D programming in Director, Director’s Third Dimension, now seems very easy to me. At this point, I don’t just know a tool. I know quite a bit about 3D programming, along with the basics of game physics programming. One thing I’ve learned is that, when it comes to 3D and game programming, it doesn’t matter if you learn some software and scripting; you still won’t be able to do much with it, if you don’t understand the basic underlying principles of how everything works. You won’t have any way of knowing what sorts of parameters to pass to functions, for one thing. Heck, you’ll have a hard time even knowing which functions to use, in the first place.

If Adobe Won’t Develop Director Any More, Why Not Let Us Develop It?

Still, all of this would be much simpler if Shockwave 3D would have a future. I wish that Adobe would shit or get off the pot, when it comes to the future of Director. In my opinion, if Adobe no longer intends to develop Director, Director’s code should be released to the community of Director enthusiasts, for us to maintain as an open source project. (Not that Adobe cares about my opinion.)

No Money in 3D on the Web?

Many people believe that the reason why Adobe appears to have abandoned both Atmosphere and Shockwave 3D is that there proved to be too little money in 3D on the Web. There is so little vision in that belief. I recall a small bookstore owner back in 1997 telling me that there was no money to be made on the web, pointing to Amazon.com to back up his statement. But realizing the inaccuracy of the no-money-in-Web-3D-belief doesn’t even require vision, since all you have do is to look at the phenomenon of Second Life. I’ll grant that if you’re a Shockwave 3D developer, you may not have experienced clients standing in line and beating down your door, but you’re just a person. You can’t afford to wait. A large corporation like Adobe can afford to grow a market. Adobe has deeper pockets than you have.

UPDATE 2/5/2007: I was pleased to read today, in Adobe’s Director and Shockwave Player Support FAQ, that Adobe plans to continue to develop Director. “Adobe has not published an official time frame for the next release of Director and generally does not disclose details of new releases more than 30 days before a product is expected to ship. However, our current planning assumption is that the next major release of Director will be in the second half of 2007 [emphasis mine].” Hooray! The last time I scoured the Director Website, I did not notice this. I don’t know how long it’s been up. Now I feel foolish about my above rant. Foolish but happy!