WebGL: bringing native 3D graphics to your browser

WebGL: bringing native 3D graphics to your browser: "

Filed under: Developer, Games, Browsers

One of the most-anticipated features HTML5 promises for the web is the canvas tag, which allows for dynamic rendering of 2D images. If you can use HTML to draw a 2D image, can native 3D graphics be far behind?

The WebGL project is making that a reality by combining the canvas element, a bit of JavaScript, and the OpenGL 3D drawing engine. OpenGL has been around for years, and you might know it because of its use in many popular desktop video games – if this project is a success, you could be playing 3D games in your browser.

WebGL isn’t that far along, though, It’s just started turning up in developer builds of Webkit -the engine behind Safari and Google Chrome – and isn’t even enabled by default in the nightly builds yet. Webkit is just the first test, too. It’s only one segment part of the market, that doesn’t include IE and Firefox. For native 3D games to really take off on the web, they’d have to be supported for a much larger percentage of web users. Google, Mozilla and Opera are all on board for the WebGL working group, but Microsoft hasn’t said anything. MS doesn’t have a history of playing nicely with web standards, but they might be forced to offer some support if everyone else is doing it.

If you want to see WebGL in action, check out the video after the jump.

[via Slashdot]

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WebGL: bringing native 3D graphics to your browser originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 14 Sep 2009 02:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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