Author Topic: 3D Blender  (Read 5807 times)

Fraggy

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« on: August 10, 2004, 07:54:34 pm »
Has anyone tried to "port" Blender on a Zaurus SL-5500 already?

Blender is open source modeling/rendering software that runs on different platforms, and now also on an IPaQ:

http://download.blender.org/documentation/...BLENDERING.html

and:
http://mirrors.wamug.org.au/blender3d/docu...ade%20news.html

The unoptimized version seems to work quite well on the IpaQ.

Blender uses opengl only, even for it's gui, so it's supposed to be very portable, so please anyone who volunteers to port this 3D baby to the big Z, please please pretty please? I'm not much of a programmer

Source code can be found here:
http://www.blender3d.org/cms/Source_Code.12.0.html

Hope there will be enough geeks interested in this, because this would also be a killer application to show off the capablities of the big Z, especially with code optimized and the likes!!!!
----------------------------------------------------
Sharp Zaurus SL-5500 / Crow - Cacko ROM
512Mb Sandisk SD, 512Mb Sandisk CF, 128Mb Expansys CF, 4 in 1 Card reader
Linksys WCF12 Wireless CompactFlash Card
Serialo ZThinCable USB
Socket Mobile Power Pack
Garmin eTrex Legend GPS
----------------------------------------------------
Damn expensive toys, but worth every dime :)

dz

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« Reply #1 on: August 10, 2004, 07:58:30 pm »
ee.. 3d modeling on a 400mhz processor?

Doesn't sound too smooth to me :-/
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xamindar

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« Reply #2 on: August 11, 2004, 04:27:46 am »
Quote
ee.. 3d modeling on a 400mhz processor?

Doesn't sound too smooth to me :-/
What are you talking about?  400mhz is a lot!  Back in the days I had 3d games running smooth on a 486sl 33mhz!  Gaming and 3d modeling might be a bit different but give me a break!  400mhz is not a slow speed.

I would also be interested in seeing this type of program on the Z.
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zenyatta

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« Reply #3 on: August 11, 2004, 08:53:51 am »
Well, another obstacle is the missing floating-point processor. There is a thread somewhere on ZUG about an integer-only OpenGL implementation, hopefully it gets somewhere. I have to regard Blender as an overkill, though - the VGA screen is just too small for anything serious. And who _needs_ a toy 3D modeler?

z.
« Last Edit: August 11, 2004, 08:54:12 am by zenyatta »
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coolass

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« Reply #4 on: August 11, 2004, 10:55:01 am »
The java demo on the 6k seems to render fairly smooth and maybe one can be used from there.

yzord

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« Reply #5 on: August 11, 2004, 11:47:18 am »
Many moons ago, when I used to do 3d work, I did my first contract work rendering a product demo on a 486dx2-100. The render for about 45secs of final product took about 3 days, but the modelling process was perfectly acceptable, which is what this product should be targetted at!

Unfortunately, it did have a floating point co-processor, which makes a big difference.

I must admit doing a double-take when I read that they were porting a version to the ipaq (320x240!!!).
Yz

Fraggy

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« Reply #6 on: August 11, 2004, 08:07:58 pm »
Indeed the actual Zaurus has a lot more horse power than the old 486 computers and remember that the first 3D Studio (the DOS version) was written for the 486!!!!

That was waaay before we were spoiled with pentium 4's that have now come with Geforce4's!!!

True, the screen is a bit small to be truly productive, and it's also true that rendering on the Z is does not seem usefull, but the Blender demo case on the IpaQ is about MODELING, and according to the reactions, even the UNOPTIMIZED "demo" was performing pretty well (pay attention zenyatta!), so if the code would be optimized for fixed point operations then we'd have a nice "offdesk" modeling tool.

Quote
ee.. 3d modeling on a 400mhz processor?Doesn't sound too smooth to me :-/

I've done some pretty heavy modeling on my P233 Laptop, and a 400Mhz is MORE than enough for modeling, especially with nurbs! Animation Master runs smoooootthhhhllyyy on low end machines!!!! Also Lightwave runs pretty well on a 233Mhz.

And the small screen size is not an excuse: using appz that replace M$ Word on a tiny screen??? Nobody complained about that before? Haha, and in the case of a modeling tool, I think that if you think well about the layout and optimize the use of your space and GUI, you could create a modeling tool that is actually quite usefull!!! It just needs an adapted (more efficient) gui!

And with the new LCD technology Sharp introduced, we'll see super small 800x600 screens in the near future and let me tell you that this, together with a 400Mhz arm processor, will be moooore than enough to do some basic but good modeling.

Besides, every modeler *should* model with resource-friendlyness in mind, not like you hardware spoiled kids, haha!!!!
----------------------------------------------------
Sharp Zaurus SL-5500 / Crow - Cacko ROM
512Mb Sandisk SD, 512Mb Sandisk CF, 128Mb Expansys CF, 4 in 1 Card reader
Linksys WCF12 Wireless CompactFlash Card
Serialo ZThinCable USB
Socket Mobile Power Pack
Garmin eTrex Legend GPS
----------------------------------------------------
Damn expensive toys, but worth every dime :)

Fraggy

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« Reply #7 on: August 11, 2004, 08:26:14 pm »
Anyway, why do businessmen wanna use PDA's? To take "small work" with them on the road: do some excell and word compatible work "offdesk" so they can later complete that work "ondesk" using the full blown M$ Office suite.

Well, with a 3DBlender version for PDA's the same thing is valid: You can model props and small stuff "offdesk" (or "on the road" if you prefer that term), and render them "ondesk".

Especially modelling characters and objects using lowpoly boxmodeling (yes, I am a modeler who keeps his mind on resources!!!) would be very viable on a PDA. And for games where polycount has to be kept to a minimum...

Then later you "upload" your models to your desktop machine to put them in a scene, add lights, etc... apply meshsmooth and render them...

I really don't see why 3D modeling would *NOT* be usefull on a PDA!!!!!
----------------------------------------------------
Sharp Zaurus SL-5500 / Crow - Cacko ROM
512Mb Sandisk SD, 512Mb Sandisk CF, 128Mb Expansys CF, 4 in 1 Card reader
Linksys WCF12 Wireless CompactFlash Card
Serialo ZThinCable USB
Socket Mobile Power Pack
Garmin eTrex Legend GPS
----------------------------------------------------
Damn expensive toys, but worth every dime :)

Fraggy

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« Reply #8 on: August 11, 2004, 08:32:30 pm »
Quote
And who _needs_ a toy 3D modeler?

... and who needs a Toy M$ Word, M$ Excel, M$ powerpoint????

... who _needs_ toy *computers* like handhelds in the first place???????

Hahaha, gimme a break!!!!

Jean-Marc.
« Last Edit: August 11, 2004, 08:40:21 pm by Fraggy »
----------------------------------------------------
Sharp Zaurus SL-5500 / Crow - Cacko ROM
512Mb Sandisk SD, 512Mb Sandisk CF, 128Mb Expansys CF, 4 in 1 Card reader
Linksys WCF12 Wireless CompactFlash Card
Serialo ZThinCable USB
Socket Mobile Power Pack
Garmin eTrex Legend GPS
----------------------------------------------------
Damn expensive toys, but worth every dime :)

Fraggy

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« Reply #9 on: August 12, 2004, 01:54:41 am »
Doing some more sniffing around I found out that my news was actually old news (from 2001): this "demo" was running on a now old Ipaq with only 200Mhz, not even a 400Mhz one!

http://download.blender.org/documentation/...0Community.html

Quote
One of the biggest suprises at the GDC was the demonstration of Blender running on a Win CE PDA (personal digital assistant). Prepared as a demonstration of the portability of the Blender code, the full creation suite was shown running on the 200 Mhz, 32 Mb iPAQ system.

With a textured game demo playback of 3-4 frames per second, without CPU optimization, it was another confirmation of the power of NaN technology to shape next generation digital media. Mobile and PDA 3D gaming is arriving!

But this means that the news only gets better  
----------------------------------------------------
Sharp Zaurus SL-5500 / Crow - Cacko ROM
512Mb Sandisk SD, 512Mb Sandisk CF, 128Mb Expansys CF, 4 in 1 Card reader
Linksys WCF12 Wireless CompactFlash Card
Serialo ZThinCable USB
Socket Mobile Power Pack
Garmin eTrex Legend GPS
----------------------------------------------------
Damn expensive toys, but worth every dime :)

Chaos

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« Reply #10 on: August 12, 2004, 03:16:18 am »
Quote
... who _needs_ toy *computers* like handhelds in the first place???????
People like us. Zaurus user are geeks. Well, a fair number of us.

For example..

There's a libSDL version of Bochs in the ZSI, and one of the screenshots is of WINDOWS 98 BOOTING (and it's a picure of the Zaurus - evidently taken with a camera of some sort - not just a screenshot). Supposedly too slow to actually use, but it's another one of those if-you-can-do-it-why-not? things.

But from the sounds of it, Blender on the Zaurus is actually plausible if it runs fairly well on a 200 Mhz Ipaq.

Anyone up for the porting job?
Sorry. I just don't have the time...

zenyatta

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« Reply #11 on: August 12, 2004, 05:10:27 am »
Fraggy,

I'm glad you provided an answer to my question (which was by no means rhetorical). It is nice to see your enthusiasm. I hope you can find a few equally enthusiastic people with the necessary skills to do the port. Good luck

z.
SL-5500, 256MB Kingston CF card, 128MB EDGE SD card, Thomson HED-155 headphones
OpenZaurus 3.5.3 / Opie (kernel 64-0)

Fraggy

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« Reply #12 on: August 12, 2004, 12:23:38 pm »
Quote
I'm glad you provided an answer to my question (which was by no means rhetorical).
It did sound pretty rethorical to me, hehe, but then again modern technology allows us to see beauties like Soulcalibur on the dreamcast where the characters move smoothly at 60 fps with antialiasing, and this game is programmed so well that you don't even see the polygons anymore! My eyeballs almost fell out when I first saw that game on the dreamcast 5 years ago, and the visual quality and fluidness is still not equalled by PC games (due to "lazy" programming: we need more optimization gods like John Carmack (Doom, Quake...) and namco)

So being spoiled with such smoothness and visual quality it is not surprising that many people wonder if 400Mhz will be enough, especially with the floating point operations missing. I myself am surprised that it actually works on a 200Mz fixed point processor, but then again, Animation Master, Lightwave and Rhino worked extremely well on my pentium 233Mhz laptop (although here we do have advantage of floating point processing & mmx)...

So now anyone bold enough to port to the Zaurus? The sourcecode is available on www.blender.org!!! There are 2 linux versions, a version that works WITH and a version that works WITHOUT OpenGL, so come on guys, give it a try!!!! Here's the source code:

http://www.blender3d.org/cms/Source_Code.12.0.html

Bring that baby to the Z!!!!
----------------------------------------------------
Sharp Zaurus SL-5500 / Crow - Cacko ROM
512Mb Sandisk SD, 512Mb Sandisk CF, 128Mb Expansys CF, 4 in 1 Card reader
Linksys WCF12 Wireless CompactFlash Card
Serialo ZThinCable USB
Socket Mobile Power Pack
Garmin eTrex Legend GPS
----------------------------------------------------
Damn expensive toys, but worth every dime :)

labingdaga

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« Reply #13 on: August 19, 2004, 03:14:28 pm »
I'm a new owner of an SL-5500 and was a ipaq 3600 user, who had a Blender port working on said ipaq.  I would love to see Blender on the Zaurus.  I've been blending for 4 years now, so a toy 3-d modeler would be absolutely fantastic for me.  I also happen to be a programmer.  I don't have much free time, but I would be interested in helping a port effort

Trevor

Fraggy

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« Reply #14 on: August 20, 2004, 07:41:19 pm »
Well, how about I setup a project page on sourceforge.net????

First of all, I'd advise you to simply download the Linux source code and cross compile it to your Zaurus. The ipaq version you have is not optimized neighter, so the result you'll have should be a working one!!!! That would definately be a good start and if we'd turn it into a distributable package for the Zaurus and spread it through the Zaurus Software Index (http://www.killefiz.de/zaurus/) or other Zaurus software pages, it might generate much more interest and participants in order to port/optimize it for the Z.

Right now, I'm not much of a programmer... I have some experience with Java and right now I'm specialized in Webdesign (programming html / php mainly) and worst of all: I do not have my Zaurus yet .

I'll have my Zaurus in December, when I'll spend my holidays in Holland with my parents (I'm Dutch but I live in Argentina). My parents bought one for me (SL-5500 for the next X-Mas), yipieeeee!!! As soon as I have the Z in my hands I'll start focussing more on programming in C, C++ and well, whatever... Programming for Linux / Zaurus!

I'll try to compile Blender for the Zaurus myself, but when it comes to optimize Blender for the Z? I suppose you'll need some 3D skills for that too, but what the heck, having a Z and having an Open Source 3D suite that kicks arse is motivation enough to at least give it a try! (okay, it's still not as powerfull as Lightwave or 3DStudio Max, but it's still growing and it's free!!!). I've used Max & Lightwave for too long, I wanna be an open source 3D artist, haha!

I bet we kan make Ton Roosendaal, Blender's founder (we had some conversations by mail), very happy if we get this project running, because the old ipaq blender project died because people didn't see the usefullness of it (Grrrrr!!! Like having a stripped down version of M$ word is *usefull*    on an handheld!!!) Of course it is usefull and so would be a (literally) portable Blender!!!!  

But due to this lack of interest, Ton and his people can not spend time on a Pocket PC or Zaurus version of Blender although he really enjoyed to see my enthousiasm.

Let's see if we can get this project off the ground.

labingdaga, please stay tuned while I open a project page on Source Forge and anybody who's reading this thread and wants to participate, you're welcome!!!!

Let's revive the handheld blender project!!!!
----------------------------------------------------
Sharp Zaurus SL-5500 / Crow - Cacko ROM
512Mb Sandisk SD, 512Mb Sandisk CF, 128Mb Expansys CF, 4 in 1 Card reader
Linksys WCF12 Wireless CompactFlash Card
Serialo ZThinCable USB
Socket Mobile Power Pack
Garmin eTrex Legend GPS
----------------------------------------------------
Damn expensive toys, but worth every dime :)