Adobe will deliver hardware-acceleration for 3D for Flash in the first half of 2011. They are going to add a new Adobe Labs-page about this key-feature in the next months.
I read a comment on Gamasutra that this spells trouble for Unity3D next year. I beg to differ, mainly out of three reasons:
First: Market-penetration
Of course Flash has a dominant market-penetration with its installed plug-in base. But new hardware-accelerated features will require the latest Flash-plugin (probably version 11). Moreover, Unity seems to have a different approach to its plugin-architecture: more logic seems to be inside compiled code, rather than in the plugin itself; the upgrade from Unity 2.6 to 3.0 did not require any new plugin installation. Furthermore, Unity also caters to the gaming-console-market.
Second: Unity is focussed
Flash is a great all-round-tool, while Unity concentrates on 3D-media and -games. Flash is capable of a lot more, but Unity is better at the things its meant for. Just compare the working-metaphors of Flash and Unity: since the advent of AS3, the mode of operation for Flash changed more and more to "do everything in code" (especially when working with Flex). Unity uses a lot of drag & drop and so-called "exposed properties", which accelerates many production steps.
Third: the production-pipeline counts
Integrating a good production-pipeline is crucial for working with 3D and games. Unity has the edge over Flash here: you simply drop more or less any file-format into your working folder and it immediately becomes usable in Unity. That's a huge difference to the hoops you need to jump through to import complex 3D-assets into one of the large 3D-engines for Flash like Away, Sandy etc. I have written VRML-parsers myself for Sandy and Away in the past years, switching to Unity was a real eye-opener for me.
Warum hadwarebeschleunigtes Flash keine Konkurrenz für Unity ist
In der ersten Hälfte 2011 gönnt Adobe Flash endlich Hardwarebeschleunigung für 3D. In den nächsten Monaten wird es für diese Funktionalität einen neuen Adobe-Labs Bereich geben.
In einem Bericht von Gamasutra las ich den Kommentar, daß Unity sich im nächsten Jahr einigen Schwierigkeiten gegenübersehen wird. Ich sehe das anders, und zwar aus drei Gründen:
Erstens: Marktdurchdringung
Sicher hat Flash gegenüber Unity einen gewaltigen Vorsprung was seine Plugin-Marktdurchdringung angeht. Aber für die neuen 3D-Hardware-Fähigkeiten wird man den neuesten Flash-Player (vermutlich Version 11) benötigen. Zudem: Unity hat offenbar eine andere Philosophie bei seinem Plugin als Adobe -- es scheint mehr Logik im kompilierten Code als im Player zu stecken; so war z.B. beim Umstieg auf das brandneue Unity 3 kein Plugin-Upgrade nötig. Außerdem eröffnet Unity Zugang zum Marktsegment der Konsolenspiele.
Zweitens: Unity ist fokussierter
Flash ist ein Allround-Tool, Unity konzentriert sich auf 3D-Medien und Spiele. Sicher "kann" Flash mehr, aber Unity ist besser in den Dingen, für die es gedacht ist. Das zeigt sich für mich z.B. in der Arbeitsmetapher: seit dem Umstieg auf AS3 ging die Arbeitsweise von Flash immer mehr dazu über, alles durch Programmierung zu lösen (vor allem wenn man mit Flex arbeitet). Bei Unity kommen Drag & Drop und "Exposed Properties" zum Einsatz. Damit lassen sich einfache Arbeitsschritte sehr schnell erledigen.
Drittens: die Produktions-Pipeline zählt
Der Einsatz von 3D hängt stark von der Qualität der Integration der Produktions-Pipeline ab -- und hier hat Unity eindeutig die Nase vorn: man kann ein (fast) beliebiges 3D-Objekt in den Projektordner ziehen und dieses steht dann in Unity zur Verfügung; ein Riesenunterschied zu den Problemen hat, aufwendigere Objekte in einer der gängigen 3D-Flash-Engines (Away3D und Konsorten) zu verwenden. Ich habe in den vergangenen Jahren selber VRML-Parser für Sandy und Away geschrieben. Der Umstieg auf Unity war da ein echter Augenöffner.
"In particular, we are relaxing all restrictions on the development tools used to create iOS apps, as long as the resulting apps do not download any code. This should give developers the flexibility they want, while preserving the security we need."
"In particular, we are relaxing all restrictions on the development tools used to create iOS apps, as long as the resulting apps do not download any code. This should give developers the flexibility they want, while preserving the security we need."
"Applications may only use Documented APIs in the manner prescribed by Apple and must not use or call any private APIs. Applications must be originally written in Objective-C, C, C++, or JavaScript as executed by the iPhone OS WebKit engine, and only code written in C, C++, and Objective-C may compile and directly link against the Documented APIs (e.g., Applications that link to Documented APIs through an intermediary translation or compatibility layer or tool are prohibited)."
"What they are saying is that they won’t allow applications onto their marketplace solely because of what language was originally used to create them. This is a frightening move that has no rational defense other than wanting tyrannical control over developers and more importantly, wanting to use developers as pawns in their crusade against Adobe. This does not just affect Adobe but also other technologies like Unity3D...Speaking purely for myself, I would look to make it clear what is going through my mind at the moment. Go screw yourself Apple."
"But if Apple were simply trying to block Adobe from cross-compiling Flash to create iPhone apps, it could have added the changed text to its existing license agreement and spoiled Adobe's CS5 party immediately, rather than just threatening change that appears fated to kick in when Apple delivers iPhone 4.0 in June...The primary reason for the change, say sources familiar with Apple's plans, is to support sophisticated new multitasking APIs in iPhone 4.0. The system will now be evaluating apps as they run in order to implement smart multitasking. It can't do this if apps are running within a runtime or are cross compiled with a foreign structure that doesn't behave identically to a native C/C++/Obj-C app.'[The operating system] can't swap out resources, it can't pause some threads while allowing others to run, it can't selectively notify, etc. Apple needs full access to a properly-compiled app to do the pull off the tricks they are with this new OS,' wrote one reader under the name Ktappe."
"Here at Unity, we are working hard on getting good information, and working to understand whether – or how – the new changes could affect the developer community and others. We have reached out to both official and unofficial contacts at Apple, we are talking to other companies in a similar situation to us, and we’ve been diligent in reading the ToS to get to the best legal (and business-wise) analysis of it.We haven’t heard anything from Apple about this affecting us, and we believe that with hundreds of titles (or probably over a thousand by now), including a significant proportion of the best selling ones, we’re adding so much value to the iPhone ecosystem that Apple can’t possibly want to shut that down.Our current best guess is that we’ll be fine. But it would obviously be irresponsible to guarantee that. What I can guarantee is that we’ll continue to do everything in our power to make this work, and that we will be here to inform you when we know more – as soon as we know more."
"In the ancient days of the App Store (July 2008), Apple changed the kernel to disallow JIT (just-in-time) compilation. We worked around this by changing Mono to AOT (ahead of time) compile scripts instead (this is why some dynamic constructs in our JavaScript doesn’t work on the iPhone). It was a lot of work, but we made it work to enable all these amazing Unity games to be sold in the App Store..."
"Applications may only use Documented APIs in the manner prescribed by Apple and must not use or call any private APIs. Applications must be originally written in Objective-C, C, C++, or JavaScript as executed by the iPhone OS WebKit engine, and only code written in C, C++, and Objective-C may compile and directly link against the Documented APIs (e.g., Applications that link to Documented APIs through an intermediary translation or compatibility layer or tool are prohibited)."
"What they are saying is that they won’t allow applications onto their marketplace solely because of what language was originally used to create them. This is a frightening move that has no rational defense other than wanting tyrannical control over developers and more importantly, wanting to use developers as pawns in their crusade against Adobe. This does not just affect Adobe but also other technologies like Unity3D...Speaking purely for myself, I would look to make it clear what is going through my mind at the moment. Go screw yourself Apple."
"But if Apple were simply trying to block Adobe from cross-compiling Flash to create iPhone apps, it could have added the changed text to its existing license agreement and spoiled Adobe's CS5 party immediately, rather than just threatening change that appears fated to kick in when Apple delivers iPhone 4.0 in June...The primary reason for the change, say sources familiar with Apple's plans, is to support sophisticated new multitasking APIs in iPhone 4.0. The system will now be evaluating apps as they run in order to implement smart multitasking. It can't do this if apps are running within a runtime or are cross compiled with a foreign structure that doesn't behave identically to a native C/C++/Obj-C app.'[The operating system] can't swap out resources, it can't pause some threads while allowing others to run, it can't selectively notify, etc. Apple needs full access to a properly-compiled app to do the pull off the tricks they are with this new OS,' wrote one reader under the name Ktappe."
"Here at Unity, we are working hard on getting good information, and working to understand whether – or how – the new changes could affect the developer community and others. We have reached out to both official and unofficial contacts at Apple, we are talking to other companies in a similar situation to us, and we’ve been diligent in reading the ToS to get to the best legal (and business-wise) analysis of it.We haven’t heard anything from Apple about this affecting us, and we believe that with hundreds of titles (or probably over a thousand by now), including a significant proportion of the best selling ones, we’re adding so much value to the iPhone ecosystem that Apple can’t possibly want to shut that down.Our current best guess is that we’ll be fine. But it would obviously be irresponsible to guarantee that. What I can guarantee is that we’ll continue to do everything in our power to make this work, and that we will be here to inform you when we know more – as soon as we know more."
"In the ancient days of the App Store (July 2008), Apple changed the kernel to disallow JIT (just-in-time) compilation. We worked around this by changing Mono to AOT (ahead of time) compile scripts instead (this is why some dynamic constructs in our JavaScript doesn’t work on the iPhone). It was a lot of work, but we made it work to enable all these amazing Unity games to be sold in the App Store...":) <- Lutz
"...The first of these reveals that the total number of PCs is based on a forecast made two years ago – an age in internet time. Already then the margin of error on numbers at least is enormous... The second reveals that the figure is based on devices capable of reading Flash player 7 content. To be fair to Adobe they do give the penetration stats for different player releases and thanks to auto-updating the figure for the latest Flash player 10 is already around 55%... The third note is the most significant:
“Total Player penetration is a calculation of the total number of PCs connected to the internet, multiplied by the weighted percentage of worldwide penetration from the Millward Brown study. This is an assumption made by Adobe.”
On top of which the underlying numbers on which such a major claim are built seem tiny with an apparent total survey sample size of 4,600 ie around 0.0005% of the suggested 956,000,000 total (and then weighted according to the CIA World Factbook!)..."
"...The first of these reveals that the total number of PCs is based on a forecast made two years ago – an age in internet time. Already then the margin of error on numbers at least is enormous... The second reveals that the figure is based on devices capable of reading Flash player 7 content. To be fair to Adobe they do give the penetration stats for different player releases and thanks to auto-updating the figure for the latest Flash player 10 is already around 55%... The third note is the most significant:
“Total Player penetration is a calculation of the total number of PCs connected to the internet, multiplied by the weighted percentage of worldwide penetration from the Millward Brown study. This is an assumption made by Adobe.”
On top of which the underlying numbers on which such a major claim are built seem tiny with an apparent total survey sample size of 4,600 ie around 0.0005% of the suggested 956,000,000 total (and then weighted according to the CIA World Factbook!)..."
"Eolas is a United States company and patent licensee. It was founded in 1994 by Dr. Michael David Doyle. His UCSF team has claimed to have created the first web browser that supported plugins. They demonstrated it at Xerox PARC, in November 1993, at the second Bay Area SIGWEB meeting. The claim has been contested by Perry Pei-Yuan Wei, developer of the earlier Viola browser, a claim supported by Sir Tim Berners-Lee and other Web developers.
Patent 5,838,906, titled "Distributed hypermedia method for automatically invoking external application providing interaction and display of embedded objects within a hypermedia document," was filed on October 17, 1994 and granted on November 17, 1998.
In 1999 Eolas filed suit in the US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois against Microsoft over validity and use of the patent. Eolas won the initial case in August 2003 and was awarded damages of $521m from Microsoft for infringement. The District Court reaffirmed its decision in January 2004."
"Eolas ist ein US-amerikanisches Unternehmen, welches vor allem durch Patentstreitigkeiten Berühmtheit erlangte.
Eolas wurde 1994 von Dr. Michael David Doyle gegründet. Doyles Team an der Universität Californien (San Francisco) programmierte den ersten Webbrowser, der Plugins unterstützte. Im November 1993 führten sie diese Funktion erstmals vor. Dieser Anspruch wird von Pei Wei, Entwickler des Browsers Viola angezweifelt. Dabei erhält er Rückendeckung von Tim Berners-Lee und anderen wesentlich an der Entwicklung des Webs beteiligten Größen.
Zur Zeit liegt Eolas mit Microsoft im Streit. Dabei geht es vor allem um die Gültigkeit, aber auch um die Nutzung des Patents im Internet Explorer. Nach einem Urteil von 2003 musste Microsoft 512 Millionen Dollar an Eolas zahlen; im Oktober 2003 schlug Microsoft vor, den Internet Explorer und die enthaltene Technik zu ändern, um Lizenzzahlungen an Eolas zu umgehen."
