Sun Makes Linux 3D

[zparticle]

http://slashdot.org/articles/04/03/23/1228232.shtml?tid=102&tid=126&tid=163&tid=187&tid=189

[Abuse]

/me follows the link to the article...
/me follows the link to the video on sun.com...
/me sees 'RealPlayer required'...
/me remembers how long it took to fix the last install of RealPlayer...
/me closes browser.

Whatever happened to RealPlayer... back in version 4 it was a perfectly ok player, it had its unique ways of doing things, and didn't use very standard shortcuts , but it wasn't altogether a bad player.
The latest RealPlayer (what is it now, version 8? 9?) is like a fkin disease!
Its got so much Bulls**t accompanying it, its hard to actually find the player
Its worse than even MediaPlayer 9!

10 minutes to download,
5 minutes to install,
30 minutes to disable all the totally unnecessary, and down right annoying features.
5 minutes to watch the movie you downloaded it for.
5 minutes to uninstall the POS.

No thanx :-/

On another note - wtf is going on with Winamp!!
It is in danger of becoming another abomination.
It installs all sorts of crap that 95% of users won't ever use (when am I EVER going to want to rip CDs, browse a web page, or watch a movie from within Winamp!?!)

I wish app. developers would realise when an application has reached maturity, rather than continually adding unnecessary features, bloating the download, and complicating the interface unnecessarily.

If I want to rip a CD, I use nero.
If I want to watch a movie, I use powerdvd or mediaplayer(6.4).
If I want to listen to music, I use Winamp.

Oh, and the compulsory yet crap, Quicktime player.
Stupid Apple, stupid mov format, and stupid people for ever encoding with such a stupid codec.

[swpalmer]

/me agrees that Real Player sucks to the extreme

Oh, and the compulsory yet crap, Quicktime player.
Stupid Apple, stupid mov format, and stupid people for ever encoding with such a stupid codec.

It's much better on a real computer (er.. that's a Mac ).  Quicktime on Windows is a CPU hog and a multi-threading disaster.

And it is just a file format like AVI - the codec is separate.  And Yes Apple seems to have some really shitty codecs (their MPEG 4 sucks royally for instance).

Games published by our own members! Check 'em out!

[Jeff]

This is Project Looking Glass.

Basically its genesis is two observations and a  question:

Observation 1: All modern computers come with 3D hadrware
Observation 2: The kids are growing up with 3D games and an innate understanding of 3D virtual spaces.
Question: Gvien that, why are gui desktops still 2D?

Looking Glass is going to primarily be 2 things:  A desktop manager that :"understands" 3D space and can manage it much like a current desktop manager udnerstadns 2D, and a 3D widget set that is analgous to the 2D widgets sets of today.

Its a sister project of the GTG in the software advanced technologies group and something we're all pretty excited about at Sun.

[nonnus29]

Sounds very interesting, but I'm sure it will be alot more useful when the entire smart-matter-interactive-holodeck-thingy becomes a reality.

[Herkules]

But its not Java, isn't it?

But I think making Swing apps work like that by redirecting the Swings Graphics2D-repaint towards textures and handling them with Java3D shouldn't be too difficult? (and a lot of fun to do of course!)

[selendic]

But its not Java, isn't it?

But I think making Swing apps work like that by redirecting the Swings Graphics2D-repaint towards textures and handling them with Java3D shouldn't be too difficult? (and a lot of fun to do of course!)

Hum, I think it is Java. At least I've read somewhere in press releases it is a Java app. Jeff?

[Captain-Goatse]

It is not completely in Java. More like 99% not Java.

I did try the looking glass project and I have to say, there is yet to be usefulness discovered in 3d window managing. It is kind of like running windows in four monitor setup. You really don't need the four monitors, because windows can't make good use of them, but it is pretty cool nontheless and it will impress your friends.

I think I'm one of the few people who doesn't enjoy stuff spin around for few seconds and look "cool". But, whatever floats your boat.

[Mark Thornton]

Observation 1: All modern computers come with 3D hadrware

Some of that hardware is not very capable, especially that shipped on machines specified for business rather than home use. Not to mention the typical 8MB graphics stuff built in to many servers. Microsoft's equivalent to Looking Glass is expected to make extensive use of full alpha blending which would currently limit it to the top of the range cards.

[pedro]

There used to be promising 3d window manager for the X system, called 3dwm but I wonder what happened to it (3dwm.org just vanished ) I almost chose to implement something similar for my final university project, but there points concerning usability were just too strong.

IMHO 3D interfaces will only became truly useful when you have real 3D hardward to interact with it, otherwise it's just counter-intuitive. Nevertheless, that's not an argument not to continue software research on that area, because as soon as 3D screens (holograms ) and 3D sensors becomes real, we are going to need that sofware  


--
Pedro

Games published by our own members! Check 'em out!

[princec]

I find it outrageous that all this emphasis is being placed on 3D spatial navigation when about 50% of the population find it extremely unintuitive and difficult to cope with.

Cas

[Herkules]

Thats another point ... usability, value .... who cares??

Esp. as long as the content still is 2D....

But from the technical point of view, its cool, eh?

[princec]

LOL! Yeah, it's cool

Cas

[Mojomonkey]

I find it outrageous that all this emphasis is being placed on 3D spatial navigation when about 50% of the population find it extremely unintuitive and difficult to cope with.

But that's the point of Jeff's listing of Observation 2.

Observation 2: The kids are growing up with 3D games and an innate understanding of 3D virtual spaces.

Hell, it's incredibly unintuitive to me as well, but I grew up on an Atari 2600 and didn't start playing with 3D until later in life. I'm assuming that's the case with a large number of people. Those kids growing up now might handle this thing with no problem.

[blahblahblahh]

But that's the point of Jeff's listing of Observation 2.

Hell, it's incredibly unintuitive to me as well, but I grew up on an Atari 2600 and didn't start playing with 3D until later in life. I'm assuming that's the case with a large number of people. Those kids growing up now might handle this thing with no problem.

I assumed Cas was referring to the physiological differences. E.g. I have several dyslexic friends who's inability to navigate both in cities and in open-air landscapes would be very funny if it weren't so tragic.

Equally, I know many people who are completely incapable of doing things like 3D transformations of objects in their heads. Of course, to have a low IQ partially means simply to be poor at such spatial reasoning in 2D, seeing as that is what is being measured directly.

Back on-topic, as someone with veyr strong 3D reasoning, I have found the procession of 3D desktops to be a complete waste of space. In most cases, it's just people with zero HCI/GUI design skills and experience, and what they produce is laughable. The generally poor quality is a reflection of the skills of the people making these systems, rather than that the systems should be so hard to use.

Incidentally, the one that really makes me miserable is ones which try to make your desktop into a "room". This is like the idiot who thought that the "window" paradigm was a great idea. A real-life room is arranged the way it is for several major reasons, none of which exist in a computer. To clone a room into a desktop seems to me like cutting off your head to stop your hair growing!

[princec]

I am actually referring in a very straightforward, straightfaced and honest way to women, who are genuinely wired differently. Present a 3D interface to Jane Doe and she'll just be totally baffled.

My own spatial reasoning is terrible too. I can't read maps and Charlotte kicks my arse at FPS deathmatch. But she's no good at Soldat

Cas

[duncanIdaho]

I am actually referring in a very straightforward, straightfaced and honest way to women, who are genuinely wired differently. Present a 3D interface to Jane Doe and she'll just be totally baffled.

My girlfriend gets sick to her stomach just watching me play Quake3.  She would never in a million years want a 3D desktop.  

I do though!  putting windows far into the screen seems kinda cool.  No more guessing what percent-size to view your document at, just slide your window in or out.  I can see Photoshop and the like being more fun to use with the ability to see things overlaid just by moving windows around.  Rendering your background onto a surface might be cool too.  All eye candy though.

[Jeff]

Sim sickness isnt really an issue with Lookingglass as its not an attempt to immerse but just to organize.

(I get Sim Sickness too btw.)

[Jeff]

But its not Java, isn't it?

Actually, it is  The 3D parts in the window system are Java (derived from the J3D code base) and you do your widgets etc, your environmentla 'scripting' in java.

But it supports all X apps.

Keep in mind that we do things in the GTG that aren't Java too. Thats why we are the GTg and not the JGTG.

[Jeff]

I find it outrageous that all this emphasis is being placed on 3D spatial navigation when about 50% of the population find it extremely unintuitive and difficult to cope with.

Cas

Ah but thsi isn't navigation.

Again you are confusing immersion with 3D spatial organization.

[Golthar]

Looking glass is hawt.
Sun hit me up  

[swpalmer]

Ah but thsi isn't navigation.

Again you are confusing immersion with 3D spatial organization.

Right..  In fact there is scientific evidence that all this 'eye candy' is actually helpful.  It makes things easier on the brain when things are more visual.  Keeping in mind that 'reading' is a relatively recent skill that humans have acquired, and our skills for processing pictures have had much more time to evolve.
Also pleasant imagery helps the brain be more creative.. so trivial things like the rolling landscape background of window XP and the rounded corners on the screen of the Mac, etc. may all help in small ways.