“Would it be effective to develop a.” I am really sorry for that mistake (missing 99% of original text:) and I am surprised and amused how this thread developed. I hope it will be alright if I just edit this first post with the originally intended text.
As I understand it, blender engine is supposed to develop a stand-alone application too, right? My interest lies in a possibility of developing such application for Windows or Linux, as the application would be of use at desktop/laptop and handheld computers, i.e. preferably A4 tablets in a field conditions. It would be kind of front-end for relational database input.
The main purpose of this application would be in collecting osteological data in field research and laboratory processing.
Among desired functions will be simple 3D model viewer similar to p3d.in, which would be used to comparison of found bones or fragments with virtual specimen to correctly identify them. Preservation status of bones as part of a whole skeleton would be recorded by interactive filling/colouring of a simplified reference model of that bone to represent e.g. half of the bone missing, fragmented body, poor surface condition etc. There would be also simple textual forms supplemented by graphics to record features that are used to assess sex, age etc. (e.g. feature present/missing; scaling of its manifestation; measurements).
I know that for half or more of the features of this application is using of blender redundant. But I need a stand-alone application for inputting all of the collectable data. Important is a viewer of reference models but it should have some kind of relational interface for better orientation and quick access (like choosing the bone to view in a scheme, not to look for it in a file tree).
Recording of preservation state of bones is also important but using of 3D representations is just an attempt to easier and more clear approach.
This whole thing is also an attempt to substitute the filling of paper forms with easier and well-arranged data recording. It would be sufficient to work out just the viewer for comparations and the preservation state of bones with simple graphical output, and for the filling of forms use another tool, but it would be great to have it bound all-in-one. There is also a challenge to use its potential capabilities as a learning tool.
Well, that’s a very nice idea, I love it, LOVE IT!
Can you imagine the huge benefit we would get from it if someone would finally jump into the deep end take take the needed time to develop such a
Android based blender is a good idea, and they are laying the groundwork now, by moving away from the old glsl, to newer solutions, that said… It may be a while before blender is ready, I hope 2.8… But I am not the person coding any of it so…
Android based blender is a good idea if and only if someone outside of the BF is doing it. Absolutely not worth wasting developer time. If some motivated group wanted to fork the codebase and modify it to work in a touch environment, that is awesome. But if Campbell or Dalai or Julian or whoever is pulled off of development work for blender proper to take care of this side project, it would be a great loss for the community.
I have no idea why we need Blender for Android or any other - mainly - tablet-focused op system.
It would be pretty much useless with the current GUI; for mobility there are notebooks. Wasting time.
Our old phones, were 10 year ago desktop speeds, with some new developments in the mobile gpu department, in 5 years, your old phone may be all that some poor blender head has access to.
If I were trapped in some third world corner of hell, it would be ok if I had a decent phone running blender and a solar panel …
it is easier to get an old, used computer with better parameters to run Blender than a cellphone.
‘What if you want to animate on a old phone?’
Then you missed something related to 3d animation and its needs:)))
‘Our old phones, were 10 year ago desktop speeds, with some new developments in the mobile gpu department, in 5 years, your old phone may be all that some poor blender head has access to.’
There is no point in it. To use Blender on a cellphone you will still need keyboard, monitor, mouse and a cellphone with proper performance, amount of ram, GPU. For the price of a cellphone what could handle Blender you could by a PC what does it better and Linux run on it happily.
‘If I were trapped in some third world corner of hell, it would be ok if I had a decent phone running blender and a solar panel …’
OK, if it is hell, then you will not waste your time on Blender and you will have no cellphone as you will have no network to use it. You will fight for surviving, not for rendering monkeyheads. If it is not hell, just a regular 3rd party world, you could get a computer and use it.
The bottom line is after the drawing code is compatible, it won’t be even that hard to port from what I understand,
Android is a linux distro but it runs openGL/ES which does not like any of the old fixed pipeline drawing code, but from what I understand that code is old, and being rewritten in modern GLSL any way…
It is not a matter of if blender will run on android but when,
Also another thing to consider… The hundred old phone rendering farm.
BPR, we all know that getting blender to run on android isn’t that difficult, but getting it to actually work, that is an entirely different monster. think of how long it is taking to reconfigure the keymap for blender. now imagine trying to get all of the ~1000 different tools scattered across blenders ~20 different editors and modes crammed into a touch interface on a 4" screen.
and while the concept of a beowulf cluster of Androids sounds fancy, the cost benefit analysis breaks down really fast once you start doing math.
If you are in the sticks and you need a machine that you can run off of a 12 volt power supply such as what you can get from a car, solar, wind-mill. I would suggest ether a little netbook or an atom mobo And with an alright addon vidcard these can do decent enough for gaming. But truthfully if you are someplace that is in the middle of the sticks ether take in the wonders that nature is giving you, Or deal with survival.
And for the price of a cellphone you can get a netbook that will do a far far better job. Some day there might be a real need for blender on cellphones, but for some reason I don’t think we are there yet.
Anyway you could actually respond to peoples real concerns? everyone knows that phones and tablets are capable of rendering 3d objects. Nobody is questioning the feasiblity of running a 3d app on a mobile device.
How do you see interacting with blender working on a phone?