I'm looking to create a simple iOS app (for a geometry class) where you can tap and drag around 3d figures (cylinders, cubes, triangular prisms, etc.). What would be the easiest way to do this? Note I don't know any Objective-C.
It's kind of early but check out cocos 3d. Cocos 2d is a popular 2D game platform. Cocos 3D should insulate you from OpenGL ES.
http://brenwill.com/cocos3d/
Both cocos3d and cocos2d are built on top of the OpenGL ES frameworks
that runs on all iOS devices, and both are written in the native
Objective-C familiar to all iOS developers. With cocos3d, you can
effortlessly create a full 3D game or application without getting into
the nitty-gritty needs of the OpenGL ES state machine, and without
having to switch over to C or C++, as required by most other 3D
frameworks.
There's a mashup sample project to illustrate how to use it's APIs.
... the cocos3d distribution contains a Demos folder, where you
can build and run the CC3DemoMashUp app, a more sophisticated sample
of what’s possible with cocos3d
Here's the programming guide:
http://brenwill.com/2011/cocos3d-programming-guide/
If you download before april 8 2012 you get a free version of unity 3d ios version (android too if you are interested)
Related
Apple says that apps built using OpenGL ES will continue to run in iOS 12, but Open GL ES is deprecated in iOS 12. Games and graphics-intensive apps that previously used OpenGL ES should now adopt Metal.
But I don't want to migrate my app from OpenGL to Metal because it's the same code for Android and I don't want to create two separate branches, so what can I do to continue to use OpenGL in future iOS releases?
You more or less do not.
Apple has made it abundantly clear that they are not interested in supporting OpenGL ES further on any platform they control. In the future, you will use Metal or you will not have accelerated 3D graphics. Those will be your options.
There are projects that expose OpenGL ES on such platforms by implementing an ES layer on top of Metal. MoltenGL, for example, but that one isn't free apparently.
I use MetalANGLE, which is free and open-source with a non-viral license, in my commercial product, as an (almost) drop-in replacement for GLKit. I have had to make no changes at all to the part of my code that uses OpenGL ES, and only minor changes to the way my View and ViewController classes were initialised.
It is now six months since I moved from GLKit to MetalANGLE and the only problem that arose was one of scaling, which was really a bug in my app: in MetalANGLE I needed to retrieve the UI scale from the View's contentScaleFactor rather than [[UIScreen mainScreen] scale].
There have been no display glitches, crashes, slowdowns, or any problems whatever with the graphics rendering.
I can therefore see no reason to pay for MoltenGL instead of using the free MetalANGLE.
I recommend that OpenGL and Metal are developed together on iOS, and new features are used with Metal.
I recently started building a game for iOS using my iPhone 5s for testing.
However, recently I have decided to try my iPhone SE to see how it looks; all of the materials on all of the objects appear to be missing, but the color of the trails for the particle effects and the line renderers still have their color.
It could be a shader issue or a problem with the graphics API Unity is using. If you're not using the standard shader then make sure that you're shader is compatible with mobile devices. Also make sure that it's included in the project by creating a folder named Resources and moving your shader into that.
If you're using one of the standard shaders that comes with Unity then the issue is likely not a shader one but the Graphics API selected. It's likely using Metal which is causing that issue. Use OpenGL ES instead of Metal.
Disable Auto Graphics API then change iOS Graphics API to OpenGLES2 or OpenGLES3 in Unity's Player Settings.
I am new to MAC OS X programming. I am trying to develop an application that represents the rotation movement of the earth in 3D. What I want to do (probably I have mixed concepts, so sorry me) is to develop a Cocoa app where I will can visualize some controls in the window.xib that will allow me to change the rotation speed of the earth and things like that. The big issue that I have here, is that I don't know how to "connect" this controls with a 3D sphere and his functionality. I wrote a C++ program that uses GLUT libraries, that represents the sphere and the rotation movement, but I think I am going in the wrong way. Please somebody can clarify me how to integrate GLUT with a Cocoa application and the controls that Coca framework provides? If this is not possible I will appreciate any guide, tutorial or advice to continue with the development of my app.
Thank you so much and sorry for my poor english.
So your basic options for Open GL and OS X are Open GL or GLKit. GLKit is essentially an Objective-C wrapper around Open GL that integrates it into Cocoa.
My first suggestion however would be Unity 3D
Also you can look into Objective-C++ if you really want to go down that route, however I'd advise against it.
I've been using NinevehGL 3D engine in my present project, but it no longer support iOS 6, iOS 7 (I cant take screenshot,in iOS 7 device it simply disappear ).
The project specifically is:-
"It is 3D sofa builder. I have .dae files of each part of sofa. 3D engine just selects particular part of sofa (.dae) objects and attach it with sofa. User could change colors or shades of sofa as well also use can rotate it into 3D space "
So i have done bit of research and found Unity 3D engine. I learned that it is compatible with .dae objects but its expensive also it is for creating complex games rather then simple 3D interface which required in my project (description given above).
I checked Cocoa 3D also, not sure it support .dae files?
if somebody has experience using other engines or these above ones and suggest me, it would be much appreciated.
Struggling to distinguish between frameworks for iOS game development. Looking to draw a comparison amongst following frameworks i came across :
How to choose between frameworks or we can mix/match these together, what goes with what ?
Cocos2d
Quartz2D
OpenGL ES
sparrow
any other frameworks out there to consider ?
Which collision detection framework to use :
Box2D or chipmunk ?
is this a choice only with cocos2d ? what if i am using any of the other frameworks listed above , e.g openGL ES - can box2d be used with that or some other popular framework serves a better combination ?
edit #1
When we start a fresh cocos2d project following lines of code seems to be ref to openGl - does that mean we can mix and match the two or one is built on top of other... ?
EAGLView *glView = [EAGLView viewWithFrame:[window bounds]
pixelFormat:kEAGLColorFormatRGB565 // kEAGLColorFormatRGBA8
depthFormat:0 // GL_DEPTH_COMPONENT16_OES
];
// attach the openglView to the director
[director setOpenGLView:glView];
Ok,
Regarding physics engine of Box2d or chipmunk, i think both are great, each having its own benefits, it depends on you, using which engine you are more comfortable with?
Chipmunk is written in C, while Box2d is c++.
Box2D does support Continuous Collision Detection, but Chipmunk does not.
I personally use Box2d, may be i will be little biased, but i prefer Box2d. You can search more on cocos2d forum http://www.cocos2d-iphone.org/forum/.
Now regarding the frameworks, then what i know cocos2d and sparrow are the game engines while openGL ES and Quartz 2D are the graphics rendering API.
there is a post regarding the difference between a framework and the engine given below
What's the difference between an "engine" and a "framework"?
cocos2d uses openGL ES for drawing , difference between cocos2d and sparrow is well defined in the link given by bryanmac.
Using an engine is far more better to start than using an API and create your own framework. You will get many well defined functions already written in the engine which you have to code yourself if you use only rendering API.
I don't know much about sparrow but cocos2d is thoroughly developed, well documented, open source, Objective C language, so i will prefer cocos2d.
For what I have seen Cocos 2d is very powerful, you have full control of the scene, and it is still high-levelly as a framework. The learning curve is somehow steep, but it worth it. Of course you can integrate with Box2d http://www.raywenderlich.com/28602/intro-to-box2d-with-cocos2d-2-x-tutorial-bouncing-balls
Now, Sparrow for me is a speed framework, it is not as versatile as cocos-2d, but you can develop a game in a few days. In my experience, without knowing squat of sparrow, I took 15 days to develop a full simple game, where 60% of time I spent in designing the sprites and backgrounds. And yes you can use Box2d http://www.codeandweb.com/blog/2012/05/07/physicseditor-sparrow-box2d.
If you are starting, and your game is sprity, use sparrow, then little by little start moving to cocos-2d.