A Look at Java 3D Programming for Mobile Devices

An anonymous reader writes "IBM developerworks is running an article that describes the Mobile 3D Graphics API and introduces you to 3D programming for Java mobile devices. Sony's PSP has shown the graphics power you can put into a mobile device and mobile gaming. Although the average mobile phone is technologically behind this specialized game machine, Java seems to be helping to drive the market in a very definite direction."

Sony Ericsson phones

[wertarbyte]

The developer pages of SE offer Mobile Java 3D Tutorials as well: http://developer.sonyericsson.com/site/global/tech support/tipstrickscode/mobilejava3d/p_mobilejava3d _tips_new.jsp [sonyericsson.com]

Re:3D Handsets

[Agret]

There is just no comparison between the PSP and a mobile phone (using your links and the psp comparision in the original summrary)

http://www.superscape.com/games/title.php?SB_3D,sc reens [superscape.com] Phone basket ball game with "amazing 3D"
http://www.1up.com/do/media?cId=3142148 [1up.com] PSP Basketball game

Re:Explain this to me

[CyricZ]

Do you or I need it? Of course not. We'd get a phone to increase our productivity. But that's just because we're into getting work done.

They've reached a point where basically everyone has a cell phone that does everything they _need_ it to do. Now they need to start throwing in gimmicks like this to get people to upgrade. This is especially true for the "teenyboppers" or "hardcore gamerz" who are easily amused by gadgetry such as this. Chances are there'll be many 13-year-old boys and girls begging their parents for a phone with 3D graphics support, even though it has very little practical benefit.

Gaming on the Phone !?

[betasam]

One of the early companies focusing on Mobile Phones was Fathammer [fathammer.com]. Initially they started out with a ports of Doom engine based classics; now seem to have a nice collection. I believe the stronger driver of applications on phone platforms is the phone hardware. Java 3D API is one more trial at luring in more applications by providing easy-to-use API. But even if Handspring and Palm were to provide 3D programming API for their Treo series (or anyone else does likewise), it still depends on the hardware. Things one would be bothered about would be battery times and audio which actually adds on to gaming experience (and already no one wants to hear loud ringtones everywhere!)

Nokia airs an ad in India which almost drives in a message saying "phones are for talking" while showing a model with a vidcam and video playback. I wonder how many people find time to use the "other" applications on the phone apart from a PIM (Phonebook/Calendar). Further, with 3D games what about an added issue of people getting something akin to Doom Induced Motion Sickness(DIMS [slashdot.org])? I have found controls for a 3D game (on my Treo) pretty difficult to use for a 3D racer game, which kind of kills the experience. I wonder how many people play 3D games on their phones comfortably, and where they get them from!

John Carmack

[vasqzr]

He made a comment a while back:

"The biggest problem is that Java is really slow. On a pure cpu / memory / display / communications level, most modern cell phones should be considerably better gaming platforms than a Game Boy Advanced. With Java, on most phones you are left with about the CPU power of an original 4.77 mhz IBM PC, and lousy control over everything."

Re:How much would a phone..

[Tryfen]

Nokia 1100.

Does nothing but voice and SMS.

Costs ~£20 on PAYT. That's ~USD$40.

3d user interfaces

[Goodbyte]

I have just had my final lecture in a course on Mobile Computer Graphics [cs.lth.se] and there is a lot more to mobile 3d graphics than producing nice games. Especially there was one lecturer from TAT [www.tat.se] that makes user interfaces for mobile devices, and the possibilities for creating more userfriendly interfaces are endless with 3d graphics. I am not just speaking of eye candy, but useful animations that help the user navigate the menu tree.

Re:Hello World

[Anonymous Coward]

10% becomes quite a bit when you're on slow platforms, like the current crop of mobiles.

ps. the 3d rendering on most mobiles is not on the hardware, and I really dont trust that the java libraries are faster than my handcoded polyfillers.

Re:Only for JIT VMs

[Hal_Porter]

Sort of. Most of the ARM9 cores in mobile phones have a very clever hack that lets them execute 80-90% of byte codes in a single cycle by mapping them to a Arm instruction with an extra stage on the front of the normal Arm pipeline. The rest trap to ARM code that emulates them.

http://www.arm.com/pdfs/JazelleWhitePaper.pdf [arm.com]

The real ARM instruction set is nothing like Java BTW, it's a slick Risc chip where all instructions are conditional, and you get shifts for free, whereas the Java VM is stack based.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acorn_RISC_Machine [wikipedia.org]