Become a fan of Slashdot on Facebook

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Handhelds Hardware

Blender Running On iPAQ 25

Posted by timothy from the blender-intuitive-blender dept.
Blenderlover writes: "The full Blender 3D animation & game creation/playback suite runs on a Compaq iPaq now! Here's what Not a Number (the creators of Blender) write on their website : One of the biggest suprises at the GDC was the demonstration of Blender running on a Win CE PDA (personal digital assistant). Prepared as a demonstration of the portability of the Blender code, the full creation suite was shown running on the 200 Mhz, 32 Mb iPAQ system. With a textured game demo playback of 3-4 frames per second, without CPU optimization, it was another confirmation of the power of NaN technology to shape next generation digital media. Mobile and PDA 3D gaming is arriving! There's a wicked video showing Blender on the iPaq" Why not the Linux version on an iPaq properly equipped? ;) This strikes me as a less-than-ideal development tool for Blender (which screams out for a 36" monitor just to hold the widgets!), but a cool accomplishment anyhow.
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Blender Running On iPAQ More

Blender Running On iPAQ

Comments Filter:

  • disappointment (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    i was hoping it would actually be a blender... you know, a thing with which you can make mixed drinks...
  • It would be neat for geeks, but useless for just about everyone else. It would take more silicon real estate, and suck batteries dry quicker. There is a reason why the Palm Computing philosophy of "less is more" is so successful. Then again, you could argue that mobile 3D chips are so popular, using proprietary 2D is more expensive, and then market the 3D capable palmtop as a fully capable multimedia device. And I'd certainly pay an extra $50-$75 for hardware 3D.
  • A bit early for April Fool's Day?
  • wireless network rendering on a napsack full of iPAQs?

    aka: imagine a beowulf-like cluster of these.

  • Why does everything have to have a linux version/run linux/be connected with Linux in any way.

    /. is great but I wish you guys would lighten up on the advocacy sometimes a little bit.
  • Yeah, I just wish someone would port Freeciv (www.freeciv.org) to Windows CE. The source is there too, there's already a win32 port available, and frankly, being able to play Civilization everywhere would be the greatest thing in the world next to sex !!!
  • proof that geeks lack sense of humor.

    sigh. No wonder we get such a bad rap.
  • No, it's aprils fools day already here in europe, so it could be ... ;-)

    --
  • I thought the idea of mixing a Blender and a iPAQ was to turn iPAQ into a tasty cocktail.
  • post from a box that's not teeny-tiny! w00t!

    --

  • So, we finally get a decent game that can be played on the standard 32 meg iPaq, but we can't have it?!

    Come on - I need something to do during meetings and the SNES emulator just isn't cuting it!



    T. Bradley Dean
  • Actually I think my company has begun to expect this type of behavoir from the IT department...

    T. Bradley Dean
  • hey, genius - ever see quake on a gameboy? its been said before, and this is the first time i agree with it, "Just because you can, doesn't mean you should." granted, it would be neat to mess around with blender on a subway, but you wouldn't use it for a big project. the same rules for a development package for programming would apply for graphics, specifically 3d apps.
  • Now, I admit, I'm a nerd. I'd love to have a >1Ghz machine, or a giant
    flat-screen TV, but eventually you have to draw the line.

    So, I ask you: why the FUCK would my BLENDER need a 36" MONITOR???

    I mean, really: do you want to ZOOM IN on the little pureed chunks?

    How about a Bluetooth-enabled FOOD PROCESSOR while you're at it?

    P.S. You guys are sick.

    P.P.S. If you haven't gotten it yet, yes, the above is a joke. However, slashdot submissions are never clearly worded, and yes, we're all a bunch of nerds. This is just here so you can all laugh at the posters who invariably won't get it and will *still* reply! They're illiterate too.

    Thank you.
  • Too bad you still can't save 3DS files.
    ---
  • well... partly to show "ha ha! blender can do this! i bet maya cant" and also, i can see a reason tho. Imagine yourself in a **really** boring meeting, loads of people with palmtops making notes, and you with your ipaq, making 3d characatures of everyone in blender.
  • what about a game WITH goat sex? ?

    that could be cool!
  • You're right. Goat sex is much funnier.
  • And what's worse, some geeks fail to recognize the value of goat sex.
  • Normally I follow the general population in terms of what technology I should be using but for all its marketing success the handheld PC is still the first technological trend which I don't personally use.

    When PC makers switched from 550Mhz computers to 133Mhz handhelds I switched from 550Mhz computers to dual 1Ghz computers. That was the turning point. Guess I'll never work in IT.
  • games drive hardware sales. A 3-d accelerated gameboy that links/doubles as a PDA? Sounds pretty golden to me. Wireless internet no less. Batteries would be a problem, but that's not my department.
    --
  • Then you havnt seen much. *.blend files in this case are the equivalent of *.pak files for quake.

    No kidding. That's why I called it an archive.

  • I really cannot see why we would need blender on a handheld. You see, there are two possible applications for this: 3D gaming or 3D design, neither of which handhelds are particularly well suited to do.

    I mean, imagine playing counterstrike on your ipaq: "Oh damn i just got shot by that awm whore, where was he? oh yeah he's 2 pixels tall"

    Designing dungeon walls with your fat stylus won't exactly be very good for your blood pressure either!

    But as a purely challenging application of programming skills, I applaud NaN! After all, pushing the envelope is what brings about progress, and as we all know one of the strongest drives for progress in the computer industry is computer gaming. Full ahead!

  • Opening the way for Palmtop 3D acceleration? (Score:3)

    by Julius X ( 14690 ) on Saturday March 31, 2001 @12:42PM (#324740) Homepage
    This looks like the type of thing that would warrant companies such as NVIDIA to expand into PDA/Handheld 3D graphics acceleration. I would love to be able to render something while I'm sitting on a bus or play a little Tux-racer while I'm in the middle of a boring lecture.

    Bring on the GeForce3Go!

    -Julius X

  • I like NaN's approach to game creation... (Score:5)

    by mav[LAG] ( 31387 ) on Saturday March 31, 2001 @11:38AM (#324741)
    ..mainly because it's so totally different from anything else I've seen. Instead of a separate executable and support files, you get an archive which you load in Blender 2.x. From there it's press a key to play. The games have:

    • complex interaction with a full actor-based system
    • a built-in graphics environment (Blender itself)
    • scripting through python
    • sound through OpenAL

    In just a few months, the concept has gone from crazy idea to "wow - they might just pull this off." I'm not sure whether it can really rival a dedicated game engine, but that doesn't matter. It's a different idea well implemented.

Slashdot Top Deals

It is impossible to enjoy idling thoroughly unless one has plenty of work to do. -- Jerome Klapka Jerome

Close