A new era for Papervision3D
So one of the things that I didn’t discuss in my last Flash on the Beach post is that on the Wednesday afternoon, Ralph Hauwert announced that he was leaving the Papervision3D team. This came as quite a shock to everyone other than the team itself. I wasn’t at the session when he made the announcement but apparently he stated the reason for his leaving is purely so that he can spend more time on other projects and had nothing to do with his relationship with the Papervision3D team – this is also backed up in his recent blog post.
Ralph leaving has caused quite a ripple amongst the community and I can completely understand why. Alongside Tim Knip, Ralph designed the majority of the PV3D engine and the release of Papervision X (the next gen ground-up build) was reliant on them completing it together. The following quote from Ralph’s blog backs up my concerns…
One thing I’m not entirely sure of as of yet, is what to do with the PapervisionX code base. Built entirely from scratch by me and Tim Knip, this project really has part of my soul in it. It’s been exclusively me and Tim working on it, with plans to have the rest of the team start on it a while back. Currently, that hasn’t happened yet and the engine is not ready for release and officially not part of the Papervision3D code base. In other words; it’s mine and Tim’s. While I’d love to release it at some point in time, currently it’s not ready for that and with me leaving the team, it’s most likely not going to be released under that name, if released at all. I might decide together with Tim to donate it to the Papervision3D project, but currently I’m not sure on that decision yet; as there would have to be a considerable effort to make it stable for release. As it is unfinished now and publishing source code is somewhat a personal thing when most of it is yours, I’d think this is not what should be done right now. As I am going to pursue my own goals for the time being, this decision might take a while.
I will discuss with the team and Tim closely to see what can be done in the future, but for now, I don’t think it should be released. It might also be better for the team to work on it’s own Flash 10 compatible version of the engine.
Either way this is going to set PV3D back dramatically, which is such a shame. It was just beginning to get a foothold on the industry and many designers like myself are only just getting to grips with it. Not only does it have an impact on the technology, it also has a massive impact on how designers and developers are willing to push the boundaries with their work. I will continue to play with Papervision3D for the time being, but I have to be sceptical about the future of the technology and whether a potentially unsupported engine is the right thing to use for my clients.
Hopefully the Papervision3D team will make an announcement soon to put all our minds at rest…
Riccardo Bartoli says:
September 29th, 2009 at 12:36 pm
I was reading the Ralph’s post yesterday and I was thinking exactly the same as you.
In the last months (maybe in the last year) the Papervision3D project has not been very active, and with the release of Flash Player 10 we are able to have best performances, but we need an engine that can take advantage of the new capabilities.
I’ve used PV3D in the last year and I was happy with it, but one of the biggest reasons for me to use open source is because usually is the most updated one, bug are fixed quicly and there is a lot of community support. At the moment I’m working with blue-chip clients and me and my team want to be able to create products taking advantage of all the new technologies. And at the moment this is not what is happening with PV3D.
As soon as I’ll have time to do some R & D I will give a deep look to Away3D (especially now that David Lenaerts joined the team) because is the most active and updated 3d API out there.
The Hippy says:
October 1st, 2009 at 2:10 pm
Hi Riccardo, I’m the same regarding Away3D (and a couple of other engines out there), but to be completely honest I don’t get a great deal of time to start playing with new technologies so I have to choose one and stick with it. I’m going to stick with PV3D for the time being but seriously consider other options if any of my larger clients require 3D work. Fingers crossed that Papervision gets itself back on its feet soon.
Tweets that mention A new era for Papervision3D : : The Burned Out Hippy -- Topsy.com says:
October 2nd, 2009 at 3:29 pm
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Plagro. Plagro said: Ralph Hauwert has announced that he is leaving the Papervision3D team. Could this change how web designers approach 3D? http://bit.ly/V2C8X [...]