How to do 3D graphics development on the Amiga?

[sharpie]

I am really having a hard time understanding where the Amiga stands today in terms of a platform.

Is it possible to do real-time 3D graphics for games, via something like OpenGL? Are there drivers for the new Radeon cards? I would like to port a real-time 3D shader engine to the Amiga but it uses OpenGL.

Is this possible, and if so what do I need to be able to start?

[Karlos]

No existing amiga 3D api supports the newer features supported by these cards. Until they do, you can only expect

Basic shading, filtered texturemapping, blending, fogging, depth culling, logic operations and stencilling.

Currently you have several choices for 3D on amiga

1) Mesa - Shared library implementation. Pretty well implemented openGL clone, not the fastest on existing systems but not bad for faster PPC systems. Supports both hardware and software rendering, the former via Warp3D.

2) MiniGL - Static linker linrary implementation. A subset of OpenGL spec, written by Hyperion for speed rather than functionality. Requires Warp3D.

3) Warp3D itself. Base hardware abstraction layer for 3D chipsets, developed by Hyperion. Conceptually similar to Glide, but hardware independent.
Low level and the fastest way to do 3D, as long as you know your 3D maths very well becuase you will have to implement your 3D transform yourself - it only works in 'screen' space.

[sharpie]

Ok, thanks for the info. None of those options are acceptable.

What is the ETA for modern/advanced 3D hardware support? Is there one?

I can't help thinking Amiga won't stand a chance of a revival if this is not on their top 5 list of things.. But then again I haven't followed Amiga since my A500 days as a kid. It seems I wisely avoided a lot of self inflicted pain.

[Karlos]

What exactly do you need, anyway?

Unless you are hell bent on doing shader centric stuff, I think you'll find the existing support suffucient for most purposes ;-)

[sharpie]

Well like I said in my original post I am hoping to port a 3D engine that is advanced and built solely on shaders.

I know that the classic 3D support is useable, but again, its hard to imagine Amiga having a comeback (at least in the area of 3d,animation and games) if shader centric code is impossible.

This technology is pretty much here for a long while.

I guess I'm just wondering if this issue is even on the radar for the new Amiga platform?

[SHADES]

This is completly off topic but it's really been bugging me. 3D on AMIGA is really important for games, game share is really important for making money. Sony and M$ know this.

You know, I was really dissapointed in the Australian Melbourne OS4 roadshow. There was this one guy who got up the front plugging his products, used to be some sort of truck engineer. Anyway, he was acting like a guru of new AMIGA hardware and he's saying stuff like "I speak to people all the time about what card they should get for their new AMIGA, can they use the latest ATI 9800 card etc, and I tell them, it's just not worth it. You don't need that kind of power. The OS is so efficiant and small, graphics will fly on even the older cards. You don't need all this big 3D hardware to run under AMIGA OS, I tell them $50 or $800, the price difference, same performance, so buy it now" lblahh blahh blahh. I was so over it I didn't say anything, but this is what it was like. I don't know about you but 3D graphics ability has everyhting to do with the grapics hardware. You don't have transform and lighting shaders, then you emulate it in software and boy , you slow down. I know AMIGA may not have a DirectX 3D type enviroment, but If a game uses the latest 3D and your card can't do it, well it won't look as good and will    
run slowere. No matter how efficant the OS is.

Sorry, it's been bugging me for quite some time. This bloke had no clues and was the Australian contact for AMIGA hardware and helping push forward designs into next revisions.  Really scary if this is the development cycle for Australian AMIGAs I may buy a peg yet!

[sharpie]

^^^ What Shades said.

That is what I'm talking about. If Amiga wants to live in the past, by all means ignore advanced 3d hardware.

I would love an Amiga comeback, but for the general market, it will never happen without full, unapolagetic support for 3d.

[lempkee]

ermm guys... EVER heard of "NOVA" ? .. hyperion will do this for os4 updates, ie after os4 is done ...

and as far as Warp3d goes, it can do exactly what we want it to do for now, i dont see any bigtime commercial games comming this way with state of the art 3d and most of all the money to do such a project.

and since pegasos was dragged in here, where is the 3d ability on pegasos then? , are we talking about TinyGL and rave now ?... have i missed something?? its not even in mos1.4 and as far as my dev docs say its just a basic Minigl transistion.

The nova stuff (os4 only) will be out sometime for sure but i dont see why people is stressing it out atm as its not like people have used w3d much on amiga, infact only hyperion have used it(for their games) + a few freebie games and wipeout2097+payback and some scene demos.

Mesa is dead hopefully and it has no future at all, currently for all mediator (p96) users or later cgx4 user will notice that mesa is struggling on their hw.

so why would a VERY expensive 3d api be needed before we have a finished OS?, please tell me...

belive i want one later on and i am looking forward to nova but i am in no rush since i prefer to have a OS first, and then develop for the os ON the os and see how it goes..

imagine this... DEVELOP FOR AMIGA!! we have a super puper 3dapi but we have no os....

[sharpie]

imagine this... DEVELOP FOR AMIGA!! we have a super puper 3dapi but we have no os....

My brain hurts here. We're talking about a modern system that is supposed to be built upon exactly this kind of feature set. It should be *part* of the OS.

Now if you're saying it will be soon, fine, that's all I was asking. I do appreciate the heads up, because as I said I do not follow this stuff (until now).

As for big commercial games coming to Amiga, nobody is even going to consider it until there is somekind of public and official pledge or plan for that kind of OS level support. So I disagree and think you have it backwards. First they need to anounce the "story" for 3D on Amiga, and then court developers (publishers actually).

Also, a lot of games today run off of middlewhare that could easily be ported to Amiga presuming it had the 3D support.

Anyway thanks for the info from all of you. Its clear that 3D is not something the Amiga can handle at the moment, but it may in the future. But then again, where have I heard that before when it comes to Amiga?

[Karlos]

lempkee wrote:
ermm guys... EVER heard of "NOVA"

Don't worry, I'm way ahead of you - hence the "no *existing* api...".

and as far as Warp3d goes, it can do exactly what we want it to do for now, i dont see any bigtime commercial games comming this way with state of the art 3d and most of all the money to do such a project.

My previous point exactly. Unless sharpie is single handedly going to make a tenebrae type engine, I don't see the rush. You can have the best 3D API in existance, theres no point if you don't have the bluddy OS ready to run it on.

Future interim versions of Warp3D supporting T&L in the API may appear prior to Nova, which requires much work.

Or it may be that Hyperion simply opt to create an OpenGL 2 system. Personally I prefer the nova approach, then building OGL2 upon that, but we'll have to wait and see. In the final analysis, few people know as much about amigaOS hardware 3D than hyperion but people need to appreciate they must finish the OS first.

[Karlos]

sharpie wrote:
Its clear that 3D is not something the Amiga can handle at the moment, but it may in the future. But then again, where have I heard that before when it comes to Amiga?

Correction. Shader centric 3D is beyond existing amiga 3D solutions. I dont see anything more than a few years old that requires it. Fragment shaders are out of the question for now, but a degree of vertex shader emulation can be done in software even with warp3d, provided you are prepared to get your hands dirty and implement your own pipeline.

As for newer games that do require fragment shaders, official ports command liscence fees far beyond any existing amiga games developer budgets.

I don't doubt that shaders will appear, if not by hyperion then by someone else. Now that we can actually use such cards, someone will inevitably implement it.

Boring old shaded/texturemapped 3D hardware acceleration was possible on the amiga *before* anybody saw fit to write a decent API/abstraction layer. Guess who they were?

[downix]

@lempkee

Rave3D TinyGL and a Warp3D compatible API are included with MOS 1.4 last I heard.  JunGL is under development.  JunGL is a modern GL so I understand, including the shaders asked about.

-edit- Just was informed that TinyGL is not included yet atm.   My bad.  

[lempkee]

downix: its not included ..it will be in 1.5 , anyway i guess u understood my point anyway..


for karlos and shaders: anyway integrating an os with an 3d api is the future?? , i dont see why this can be a problem if its added later when there is an OS , seriously warp3d is enough for now and later we will have NOVA which i am pretty sure will be integrated somewhat..

Warp3d is a standard on amiga, its free and has enough power for now,  if you really wanted to develop a 3d game for amiga then u would use this or make your own but then it wont be an API now would it?.

anyway if anyone plan on making one, well i would be very happy but i know why hyperion is not working on nova, os4 gotta be finished first ..

you all have very good points here and i understand it, but i am a developer and i seriously dont see this as a problem atm (that we dont have a brand new 3d api with all features)
and since hyperion aint 100 people working 24/7 i understand it very well, we amiga guys need to base our past in what to expect and in what speed to expect it...

hopefully it wont be too late...

[SHADES]

@lempkee No, that's ok. I wasn't dissagreeing with you.
I was having a go at the Aussi OS4 Road show. The man up the front was trying to tell me that you don't need to update your graphics card to harness the power of 3D enviroments because the OS is so small and efficient. That it would run just as fast on a ATI 7500 to a 9800 and I wouldn't notice the speed. Made me really wonder why he is the sole Aust distributer and why he is pushing for new designs for AMIGA lite and ATX vers on hardware.

I agree the OS won't run faster, it's not 3D but if we want to play the latest games if Software companies want to port to us, we will need the latest hardware!.

The man was a fob off.
I can't beleive he was trying to sell to us. I wouldn't buy from him as he had no idea on what he was trying to talk about.

I'm glad that Nova is on its way.

I did say I was off topic.  OS4 would have been so much more convincing as a viable product if this bloke didn't talk at the show.  

[odin]

What does the GL stand for anyway? :-)
Graphics Library?