Web-based multiplayer game

Java Webstart + LWJGL, for one, is a proven choice - there's been a number of 3D multiplayer projects involving this combo. An applet might possible, too. Flash, last time I checked, did not have a 3D api. You can fake the effect with 2D, or if you are really good you might even be able to write a software render in Flash... but it's probably a waste of time.

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Original post by lightbringer Java Webstart + LWJGL, for one, is a proven choice - there's been a number of 3D multiplayer projects involving this combo. An applet might possible, too. Flash, last time I checked, did not have a 3D api. You can fake the effect with 2D, or if you are really good you might even be able to write a software render in Flash... but it's probably a waste of time.

The reason the game is to be web-based is to be able to earn money through ad-revenues. So Java Web Start is out of the question as it runs the application decoupled from the browser. Right now java applet sounds like the best alternative.

Check out Virtools: www.virtools.com

Or you can go with Java3D. That would be my choice, since Virtools is not free.

You can setup part of the window as adspace - just set it up to be the size of the banner and to load the url that results with a graphic or flash file. Set a refresh to it to re-load every 30 seconds or so.

(cough aim cough).

I mean, unless you want it to run inside the browser. Just seems everyone today is posting about doing stuff in the browser.

I believe shockwave has a 3D api. Check out miniclip.com. There are lots of 3D browser-based games there. Check out the game called "On the Run."

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Original post by Daivuk Check out Virtools: www.virtools.com Or you can go with Java3D. That would be my choice, since Virtools is not free.

Personally I would recommend to stay away from Java3D. The API documentation is horrible, the API itself is badly designed (it is only really useable for "physically viable" scenes, everything else such as overlays etc can quickly become quite complicated) and I would in no case call it cross platform (Our program ran on (most, not all) windows machines, but didn't run on mac and not on linux either although we only used Java+Java3D, nothing system specific). And it is quite prone to crash for no good reason at all. (Atleast we never found the cause, and it was apparently non-deterministic, so probably a threading issue in Java3D)

Sorry for the "rant" I've had a really bad experience with Java3D...

Its still very young, but you could look into XAML Browser Apps. I'm presently working on a browser-based strategy game using it and its been quite nice (though, pretty much any time I get to code in C# I'm happy [grin]). I do know that the WPF 3d stuff is enabled in the browser apps, though

Director( produces the shockwave browser plugin content) has support for 3D, combined with a powerful scripting lanaguage and many other useful functions. Unfortunetly the 3D engine has not been upgraded for many years and so is somewhat behind the curve, but that doesn't stop it from producing some great quailty games. Reportedly it has the largest installed base of any 3D plugin and is reasonably priced ($1,000).

Virtools is one of its main competitors and by comparission has a very uptodate 3D engine, unfortuantely the cost is generally prohibitive to most people, something easily like $5-10k last time I looked)

Unity3D is the newest competitor, it has an up to date 3D engine and is very reasoonably priced (from $200 - $1k depending upon which product you go for). Its biggest drawback is the authoring is limited to only Mac's, although playback is cross platform.

Finally another option which may be of interest is Processing which is an open source java wrapper allowing rapid development of applications. It has no native 3D functions, but can interface with openGL via JOGL. It produces applets or executables for win, mac and linux and its free.

After finishing a commercial game in Flash for PomPom I have got together with with a designer (can't name him because he hasn't left the company his is working for yet) to create web based multiplayer games and single player games.

Our chosen technology to do this is primarly XHTML, PHP, MySQL and Flash. The reason for this choice is that almost everybody with a browser will be able to play them. At first this was an incredibly difficult move for me personally because my background is DirectX and X360 coding and I am used to being able to push huge amounts of polys around - but if you intend to reach a large audience that audience has to be able to see what you are creating first...

Now, you are not going to be able to create a MMPOG along the lines of WOW with web technology unless you use something like Unity or possibly Director but you can use 'fake' 3D by getting PHP to render it for you or even better - do it in Flash.

If you are interested I have just set up a blog to cover these exact issues but based on Flash as the first game will be 3D based (not necessarily multiplayer though):

Actionscript game blog

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Original post by Instruo Its still very young, but you could look into XAML Browser Apps. I'm presently working on a browser-based strategy game using it and its been quite nice (though, pretty much any time I get to code in C# I'm happy [grin]). I do know that the WPF 3d stuff is enabled in the browser apps, though

Sounds interesting. Is there any good resources/examples on this? Coding in C# would be great but having to restrict the app to IE is a big drawback.

I have been messing with DX Studio, and it has been nice. I have a few demos of it on my web site. The only down side is that your users have to install a player to use your program. It has several nice 3d capabilities, and the learning curve is real easy. They have several tutorials and the community is top notch. The other cool thing is you can ask for a certain feature to be implimented, and chances are it will be put in the next release.

Check them out at www.dxstudio.com and my site is www.bunzaga.com