IMVU Confidential

3D on the Web in 2011

Chad AustinTechnical Director, IMVU

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Who is Chad?

Iowa State, 2005M.S. Human Computer InteractionRenaissance, a functional shading language

IMVU, 2005-Present

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What is IMVU?

Mass market 3DWorld’s largest virtual catalog: 6 million items

7000 new items every day50 million registered users

50,000 of which created content in last monthDownloadable client...

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IMVU likes 3D, so what?

Tasteful, responsive UITransitions60 Hz animation

GPGPUHarness local processing power from web pages

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Today’s Agenda

GPUsWebGLFlash 11Unity3DSilverlight 5Native ClientTrends and Unsolved Problems

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Caveat

New and changingCan you teach me?

GPU

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Graphics Processors

Vector math accelerators external to CPUOften with separate memory

~Every computer has a GPU in some formLimited API access

Direct3D & OpenGLStarting to see OpenCL, CUDA, DirectCompute…

Wildly different internal architectures

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History of Consumer 3D

<1999: OpenGL, Direct3D, niche APIs2000: Direct3D 7 – “fixed function”, multitexturing2001: Direct3D 8 – limited programmability2003: Direct3D 9 – general programmability2011: finally on the web!

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Modern GPUs

Buffers of data…textures, vertex arrays

… and code that runs on themVertex shaders, pixel shaders

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Modern GPUs (con’t)

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Shaders

Small programs:Input:

Vertex attributesTextures

Output:Pixels on screen

Syntax varies across platformsBut same basic functionality

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Today’s Market

Unity hardware surveySteam hardware surveyIMVU experiences

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Today’s Market (con’t)

shader model 2.0!8 textures8 vec4f vertex attributes (wish it were 16…)decent number of shader instructions

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What’s missing?

Vertex texture fetchGeometry shadersGamma?

SURVEY

WEBGL

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WebGL

JavaScript access to OpenGL ES 2.0Fully programmableComposites into HTML on page

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WebGL Demos

http://www.nihilogic.dk/labs/worlds_of_webgl/http://o3d.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/samples_webgl/o3d-webgl-samples/pool.htmlhttp://www.ro.me/

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WebGL, con’t

Uses ANGLE on WindowsHardware and driver blacklist

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WebGL Unsolved Problems

No Safari (yet)No iOS (yet)Device ubiquity?

Example: GMA 950Content storageFullscreenInput handling

FLASH 11

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Flash 11

Stage3DExposes GPU capabilities to ActionScriptCustom shader language: AGAL

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AGAL example

http://pixelante.com/index.php?b=ambient_and_color_lighting_molehill_agal_flash_tutorial

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Flash 11 Demos

http://alternativaplatform.com/en/demos/maxracer/http://molehill.zombietycoon.com/

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Flash 11, con’t

Expect widespread deploymentAutomatic software fallback

Driver blacklistGPU not capable of shaders

Windowless?

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Flash 11 Downsides

ActionScriptLow shader limits

8 vertex attributes8 temporariesno vertex texture fetch

Mobile...?

UNITY3D

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Unity3D

Web plugin, iOS, Wii, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360Custom graphics engine

Built-in visual effectsScene graphArt pipeline

Built-in asset storeRuns on older hardware if necessary

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Unity3D demo

http://unity3d.com/gallery/live-demos/tropical-paradise

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Unity3D downsides

No windowless modeCommercial software

No LinuxRequires plug-in (10% installed, 70% install rate)

Does not fully expose hardware

SILVERLIGHT

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Silverlight 5

Integration with XNA 4Limited to “Reach” profile, shader model 2.0Demo: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDIeijJkV14

NATIVE CLIENT

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Native Client

Google’s in-browser, secure native code engineAvailable in Chrome todayWrite programs in C++, run them on the webExposes OpenGL ES 2.0 if supported

Remember ANGLE?

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Native Client Downsides

No cross-browser plansTeething pains

TRENDS & OPEN QUESTIONS

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Betting time!

Short-term: Flash 11Long-term: WebGL

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Security

3D drivers suckRarely updatedCrashesSecurity problems

3D on the web exposes all of the aboveDriver blacklists

Important: this is a solvable problem

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Trends

3D is here to stayI expect a killer app Very Soon Now

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Thank you! Questions?

chad@imvu.com@chadaustin

http://engineering.imvu.com

We’re hiring!http://www.imvu.com/jobs