3D Interaction questions

I am looking to incorperate 3D into my website in the most bandwidth friendly way as possible although I am thinking of just saying to hell with it and having a high bandwidth section anyway…

My question is this. I have a 3d model that I want to animate and put on my site. What I am really interested in doing is making it so that users can interact with the model. Not alter it in anyway, just spin it round with the mouse and click on area’s of it. Nothing too complex.

I have posted on alot of forums and I here that you guys are the best peeps to talk to. Any help is appreciated, many thanx,

Steve

Well vrml is the standard for 3d web plug ins and Blender has vrml export. Your next step would be to find out about the plug-ins. For whatever reason vrml never really took off as you may have noticed you see very few 3d web graphics around. Try a google search and see what you can find. Java also does some 3d stuff so you might find a 3d java applet veiwer that will work for your purpose. I can’t recommend anything because I haven’t done much in that area.

VRML sounds interesting although I havent heard of it before. What is it?
Also i was thinking of using flash but flash only supports 2d yet there are programs like Swift that can export 3D to flash. I was wondering if there were any freeware equivelants???

Theres a blender2swf something like that around here. That wouldn’t be interactive of course. One thing for interactive content you could do is set up a blend file for them and tell them to download blender. Of course, your content would be exposed, but blend files are extremely efficient and the interactive side of it with logic bricks is very easy to do. Just think of Blender as a sort of web plug in. :smiley:

Have you looked at “3DNP”? I don’t have a link handy, but there’s a long thread here on Elysiun about it.

VRML is the ISO standard for interactive 3D over the internet. Actually its been replace by a language called X3D but X3D is backwardly compatible…There is a vrml/X3D exporter for blender that you can find by searching here on elysiun for X3D,VRML or B@rt( the author)

Bascially vrml/x3d lets you create interactive 3d “worlds” that your user can ‘walk’ around in. The worlds can include audio,video(mpg) sound effects,music, and user interaction(the user clicks the mouse over and object and something happens, after a set time something else happens, the user moves over an area the you have designated in the world and something else happens). You can also have multiple users interacting with each other and chatting with each other in the world. Though for that you will need to set up you vrml/x3d world on a server hosted and accessible on the internet somewhere. AND either user DeepMatrix(free but old and tied to M$Java) or pay Blaxxun or BitManagement to license thier server software.

The user will have to download and install a vrml/x3d plugin that can be used in their web browser to view the world and to walk around it. There are several plugins availible for Windows,Mac,and linux. Some are better some are worse. Several are old that only support certain features of the VRML/X3D standard. The most popular ones right now are BitManagement Contact and Flux.

I have just covered the broad strokes here. If you need any more information PM me or better yet PM B@rt. He is the VRML expert blenderhead.

%| Man… I know it’s pretty old and probably not used a lot anymore, but how about the Blender webplugin? Lol, since you’ve found your way to this forum anyways.

http://www.blender3d.org/cms/3D_Web_Plug-in.161.0.html

Hehe, you’d just have to sucker the guy into downloading the Blender 3d webplugin and you’re set. Oh and if you decide to go down this route, use blender 2.25 since the webplugin wasn’t continued afterwards.

Jason Lin

Hey, I am really pleased with the feedback that I have got here. If I be a bit more specific about what I am trying to do then It might help.

I am creating a 3d object based upon a series of polygons. I want users to be able to use this as like a navigation through my website. So they like click on like a surface of the object, and that link opens a link. Is this do-able? I am fairly a noob at 3d thats why I am looking to keep the actual object simple. I have created the object, i just need to get it to link.

I would use image mapping and export it as an image except for the fact I want the user to be able to spin the object around and have clickable surfaces on the back. Is this realistic/do-able? If so will vrml or a flash export or java let me do it???

That’s a lot of work to go through for an image map. The reason you don’t see any of these 3d desktops, etc, take over is because it just isn’t really worth it. The metaphor has become more important than the thing it represents. That’s just my opinion and I wish you the best of luck. Image mapping works well. I would save a 3d image as a jpg and make a map out of it. Not trying to discourage you, if you really want to do that, you should try to find a way. Picture it this way. How popular is your site going to be if people wait 5 minutes or more for the map to come up so they can figure out where they want to go?

All valid points you have made. I am still going to look for a solution for this problem. It should be do-able and whats more, it should be able to be done using a reasonable amount of bandwidth. I am going to pre-load the site and maybe even offer a low-bandwidth alternative.

It doesnt necessarily have to be an image map. There are ways of linking in flash that must be portable to other solutions.

Somewhere down the track when the plugin was first released there was
a demo home page available which was a spinning cube where you clicked on the faces to link to web sites. You could personalise the textures and
links relating to the faces:) .

I will search my cd’s I may still have it but try a search for it

Very possible with the plug in I could probably put one together
or at least get you the resources.

Dr S

Hey I found it. What we are looking for is homecube.zip by zycho and bart

I couldn’t find it on the web but I have a copy and it works with my
xp sp2 v6 IExplorer with the plug in still available (unsupported)
http://www.blender3d.org/cms/Internet_Explorer.209.0.html

Wouldn’t take to long to load plugin on a good dial up service.As long as flash I reckon.

Let Us Know If you want a copy

Dr S

Have you seen this yet?
http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?t=64587

Mike

Reply to: Dr S

The blender plugin looks promising although I am worried about browser compatability. Is IE the only browser that it supports? Also if I make something for the plugin is it just purely a blender file? Are there any tutorials for it?

Reply to: mstram

This also looks like a great solution, I love the interactivity this provides. The only problem Is I looked at the java and everytime that the browser scrolls it flickers. I am very interested in it so long as I can get the clickable aspects can be made to link to webpages

your right about browsers.As far as I know only with IE. I think it worked with netscape years ago but there has been little development.
And all content for this plug in is blender based if you want something into
the future other options may be better. As far as tutorials go You just embed your blend file by changing code in the html page and putting your new file in the correct folder.I have some more resources you can use.

Do a search on the forum for an architechtual 3d walk through that a design house did with blender and the plug in just recently.It looks great
and will give you an idea of whats possible.

Dr S

Also, while I am here, does anyone know how to make a render have a transparent background instead of that blue one???

Just click the rgba button in the f10 menu.

SO, how do I do it from there? I am a complete noob.

Well, once that’s clicked, you press f12 to make a render. Then press f3 and save the file. Make sure it’s saved either as a png or a tga or it won’t have alpha. You have to choose that in the f10 menu, too. Oh, if you click OSA it will look a lot nicer, too.

Ok, so I am looking around, I am trying to get round using flash If I can because I can see that being a nightmare in bandwidth and complexity with this solution.

I think that X3D would probably be the best way to go. I am just wondering if it is possible to link server-side scripting to my blender animation. What I want to do is have a surface or a face of my polygon so that the user can click on it and then have a section of the site load in another part of the page. I am using PHP includes and I just really wanted to know if this is do-able. I want my website to have a unique look and feel about its navigation.

While I am concerned about our 56k friends if the bandwidth requirements get out of hand I will just create a high and a low bandwidth section of the site.