|
 We've heard a lot on Microsoft XNA over the last couple of weeks. XNA is basically Microsofts new development environment for cross-development done for XBOX and Windows. As XNA offers a integration environment for different tools that make the development of games more convenient, the question comes up what is Sony doing in this regard?
Well, even though Sony has not yet publicly announced what the PS3 development environment will look like, there are a couple of announcements that a least give you an idea where they are heading to. The COLLAborative Design Activity The magic word here is COLLADA, the COLLAborative Design Activity. It is basically an XML based open standard that allows you to setup a content creation pipeline for the PS3 more easily. By using an XML based interchange format, various tool vendor can provide plugins and im and export modules to connect to each other via the COLLADA format. COLLADA as such is not just limited to graphics, but also covers assets for AI, physics and many more. COLLADA is mainly driven by the Khronos group and its members incl. Sony which is also in charge of the OpenGL graphics library, another piece of software that comes with the PS3 DevKit. PSGL, as Sony calls it, is a special version of OpenGL ES, the embededded version of OpenGL. Check out this overview presentation from SigGraph 06. As of today COLLADA comes with 4 open source tools - The COLLADA DOM, is a comprehensive framework for the development of COLLADA applications and provides a C++ programming interface to load, query, and translate COLLADA instance data. The DOM loads COLLADA data into a runtime database consisting of structures that mirror those defined in the COLLADA schema.
- The COLLADA RT is sample code that reads in a COLLADA document via the DOM and converts the structures into renderable data. It has two flavors, 1. A viewer application so you can quickly view your data, and 2. static libraries so you can use the COLLADA RT as an import API.
- COLLADA FX Loader is a library that reads COLLADA documents via the DOM and creates the effects in the CG 1.5 runtime. These effects can then be applied to geometry in your scene via the cg runtime.
- The COLLADA Refinery is a tool that should allow you to massage COLLADA data into formats other non-COLLADA applications understand (i.e. chain conditioners together to form basic COLLADA asset pipelines).
Big Industry Support Don't get me wrong, COLLADA is by no self-contained as XNA. XNA is a full-fledged product which you can use. COLLADA on the other side is mainly an open standard that has and will be implemented in various products. Currently COLLADA is used by major tool providers and developers (10%-15%) like 3dsMax (ColladaMax) Maya (ColladaMaya) XSI (included in the product) SketchUp (COLLADA document inside the .kmzzip file) Google Earth (can load .kmz, or drag&drop COLLADA on the earth) RealVizImage Modeler DAZ studios (lots of content available) Houdini 8.1 Blender COLLADA-DOM, COLLADA-RT, FX-loader libraries FCOLLADA library Feeling Software COLLADA viewer, including FX and Physics OpenSceneGraph Refinery content pipeline prototype application Physics middleware (AGEIA, Bullet) NIMA for COLLADA Physics support in Maya FXComposer2.0 (NVIDIA) AI middleware (Kynogon) User interface middleware (Omegame) Game engines: Unreal Engine, C4 engine, Ogre, Agent FX, Irrlicht… Game Developers: Epic, EA, Konami, Sega, Namco, THQ, DoubleFine, …
As you can see, the strategies of both companies, Microsoft and Sony, are very similar and different at the same time. But that isn't surprising at all. Both Microsoft and Sony need to provide a better development environment to deal with the complexities of the next generation game development. As Microsoft is a software company in first place, they are focusing on their own development tools big time. Sony on the other side needs to reuse existing software products to a much higher degree. But don't forget that Sony recently aquired a software company focused on development tools for consoles, called SN Systems. It is more than obvious that we are going to see some new products there based on COLLADA and targeted towards the PS3. It is still to early to tell which strategy will work out better, but at least both companies have one ;-) Related Links:
|
