web-based 3D engines

TomDunne

I have a project at work for a health care company that requries using real-time 3D on the web. Basically, what they want is something akin to the character configuration system for games like Oblivion: various sliders modifying the mesh, texture and shader changes, etc. Ideally, it would allow me to simulate fat gain and loss, muscle gain, age, things like that - just sliding between a couple of different states.

Do any of you have an engine/interface you can recommend for that? Our primary experience is with Director/Shockwave3D, but that stuff is getting pretty old and the support for it isn't too good. If there are other, more sophisticated packages out there, I'd love it if someone could drop some knowledge on me. Thanks!

JKMakowka

I would try to fake the 3D with regular flash, as people probably wouldn't install some obscure browser plugin just for the site anyways.

j_bradford

you may want to ask the guys who are making rastererks, over at http://www.rasterwerks.com/

Brice Vandemoortele

Wirefusion use only java to run, no plugin needed
http://www.demicron.com/wirefusion/

rube

I'd probably stick with shockwave, it's still the primary app we use for 3d webgames here at work. There's also virtools but that's very expensive.

Richard Kain

I understand DX Studio has a web-plugin that works. You might want to look into that. Any web-plugin engine is going to require downloading an external plug-in, which sucks. But until Flash manages to integrate hardware accelaration, that's pretty much what has to be. DX Studio isn't too expensive, and its development environment is fairly easy to use. Might want to give it a try.

TomDunne

Thanks for the input guys, I'll pass these suggestions along.