Enter X3D. The description of a "scene", in most cases, can be trimmed down to a description of several standard objects - spheres, cubes, cylinders, etc. - with stretching effects applied. Only in some few, more rare circumstances will one need full models.
When a full model is needed, load in a full model - DAE, MD2, etc. Otherwise, define the objects used in a compact form, and let them get built at runtime by the renderer. You'll still need to provide images as textures or extrusions in some cases, but this is little different (from a networking standpoint) from an HTML page containing inline images. The trick will be to get those things made available on web sites in the way that HTML is currently made available (which Flash does support), rather than single, monolithic SWFs (which Flash developers seem to still like to use). All we have to do is make it easy for Flash developers to work this way, preferably from early on - before old habits enter into this new world - and I /suspect/ many will do so. But that's just my non- profit history talking. I think if we treat it as a cultural issue, rather than a technical issue, then change will occur. And this cultural issue will probably be addressed regardless, because sysadmins and network admins are going to be involved in it, in the same way they're currently involved in putting HTML on the network. The sysadmin/netadmin culture is to "trim it down, trim it down, trim it down" ... an excellent counterpoint to a graphic designer, if we make it easy for them to work in harmony. - Bibek On Oct 26, 10:17 am, Nicholas McClay <[email protected]> wrote: > All very exciting can't wait to try this out with away3D. The concern for > me about the MAX racer demo as an online experience isn't the performance so > much as how long it will take to download those assets. A ten-to-hundered > times increase in the number of polygons pushed can also mean an equivalent > amount of download time to pull down those assets. We'll definitely see > huge performance increases with the 3D asset densities we are currently > seeing, but there will still be lots of networking limitations for > downloading complex 3D worlds.
