Innovation (Was: WebView and WebGL)

[John-Val Rose]

Nir,

You're not "hijacking" anything - I think it's been established that this a broader "3D API support" issue. In fact, even broader than that.

I'm only new on the JavaFX "scene" but I've looked through the history and tried to analyse the present and anticipate the future.

It seems that there are 2 main groups of JavaFX users: one that takes it as it is and makes the most of it, sometimes in stunning and amazing ways but they don't seem to like to rock the boat or try to force the improvement of JavaFX itself so much.

Then there's the others who get frustrated, ask for change, offer to enable change or put on their boots and make change. A lot of them seem to get "burned".

We need people from both camps: one to showcase what can be done with what we have in surprising ways and the others to drive innovation.

I'm clearly in the 2nd group and I'm finding that there are quite a few of us. I'm not so afraid of "getting burned" as we all take risks in life and if you are passionate about something, you just go with it.

But, the most disappointing aspect is that Oracle staff are often "M.I.A." when discussing innovation and the future feature plans. As in this thread, Oracle haven't exactly been chiming-in (and yes, I know a lot of it has occurred outside of normal working hours).

So Nir, Laurent (and the many others who are putting their hands up), perhaps we should collaborate and not just "casually". OpenJFX is, after all, "open" so perhaps a more formally coordinated team of motivated community members can pool our resources and skills and "Just do it" (with or without Oracle's help).

I like what you are suggesting and what Sverre is requesting and what numerous others are wanting, and I for one *want* them to become realities. 

Quite frankly, I don't see these changes and innovations (especially) actually being realised any other way.

Comments?

Graciously,

John-Val Rose
Chief Scientist/Architect
Rosethorn Technology

> On 10 Sep 2017, at 23:13, Nir Lisker <nlisker at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> I don't want to hijack the WebGL discussion but since it rolled into the 3D
> library territory anyway I'll give my 2 cents.
> 
> 3D enhancement are indeed not planned for Java10 (at the minimum) and
> indeed you can't bring your own shader (asked already at
> https://stackoverflow.com/questions/43622856/can-we-implement-our-own-materials-in-javafx),
> but I agree with Mike - you can, maybe somewhat surprisingly, do quite a
> lot with what there is.
> 
> Perhaps the most limiting feature is not supporting industry standards of
> 3D modeling via converters (import/export). It has been suggested (
> https://bugs.openjdk.java.net/browse/JDK-8091851) but last activity was 5
> years ago. As for shaders (materials), lightings etc., from what I remember
> by looking around in the source, it will take some effort to rewrite the
> API to be able to accept custom ones but it's far from impossible. If Phong
> is implemented there's little reason reason others won't fit (maybe
> reflective surfaces don't work). Similarly a directional light can be based
> on the implemented point light be using a cone instead of a sphere.
> 
> We've employed some clever tricks to get adequate "advanced features"
> results and considering that all of it can be single-handedly run on iOS
> and Android with Gluon Mobile (specifically JavaFXPorts) I think there *is*
> a future in this direction and I'm willing to team up with whomever is
> interested provided we can get minimal support from the Oracle team.