Flash with HW accelerated graphics

[SeanJD]

Hi,
we're thinking of using Resolume Arena for the projection mapping features. Some of our content will be programatically generated (at runtime) using the Flash player. The content is graphics heavy particle fx and I'm leveraging Flash's Stage3D APIs to use my system's GPU for the heavy lifting. I can successfully load and run a swf which uses the traditional display list and CPU renderer with no issues but when I try to run a file which uses Stage3D/Context3D it isn't available 'out of the box' and I'm assuming this is at least partly because you would normally need to set WMODE=direct when embedding a swf in a web-page (or <renderMode>direct</renderMode> in an AIR file) as far as i know 'direct' allows the direct use of the GPU and has to be explicitly set.
I read this post from last year: http://bit.ly/1hbdGlg but no solution or concrete answer was given as to whether this is possible?

Does anyone know if it's possible to use HW accelerated graphics in Flash and load and view that file in Resolume? If not, do you think it would be possible with a hack/plugin? Or is there another way of me loading and displaying that content? (i.e. taking the output of a graphics card as the input to a Resolume slot)

It would be great to use Resolume with some of our HW accelerated graphics using Stage3D.

Thanks
Sean

[SeanJD]

I'm guessing no-one knows the answer to this? (I suppose more of an internal knowledge of resolume is needed to know how the slots are channelled and whether they would have direct access to the GPU when loaded via resolume)? Joris?

So could anyone advise whether this would be a fallback option: have the interactive graphics being rendered on a separate system and channel the output of that into resolume as a live video input? Like through a video mixer? Anyone know if that would work?

Cheers
Sean

[Joris]

Whoops. Sorry, this post got snowed under.

We have no experience with Stage3D in Resolume, and it sounds like you're more of an expert on it than we are.

To be honest, Flash support causes us so much trouble with every Adobe update that we do not plan to invest any more time in it, aside from keeping the current core functionality running. All in all Flash was a great platform with amazing capabilities in its day, but performance wise it has mostly been overtaken by newer technologies. At the moment we don't really see a future in it anymore.

I hope that explains our views on this.

[SeanJD]

OK fair enough.

Is there any technique for routing an output from a display port into reoslume then? I know you can use capture devices and was just reading something that suggested prior to the vvv plugin users would record the screen with a camera and use that as input? Would there be a more direct solution that could route output from a graphics port? (sorry if its a silly question, new to this)

[Joris]

Yikes. Pointing a camera at a screen would kind of destroy your beautiful 3D vector work, wouldn't it?

We recommend using a Blackmagic device to capture the output of one computer, which can then be played like a virtual camera in Resolume on another computer. For instance the Intensity product line can capture HDMI sources via a variety of connections.

[SeanJD]

Great I'll have a look into using one of them then thanks!

It's a shame 'flash' isn't supported at this level as now there is access to the GPU via the molehiill APIs it's possible to get amazing 2D and 3D generative/interactive/programmatic artwork at 60fps.
I'm biased towards this tech as i have lots of experience dev'ing AS3 but I do understand that Adobe are making things hard for everyone else as they slowly pull the rug from it.

I'll try the OpenFrameworks (ofxFFGL) plugin when I get some time but for now a hack to get Stage3D running through Resolume is what I need and that Intensity card may do the trick.

Thanks for your help

[dirtyjohn_lv]

Maybe if we had access to change the flash params, similar to the way powerpoint does it, we could force gpu acceleration

[thedawjones]

The issue is; not being able to run stage3d within flash files in resolume -e.g.Away3D
Flash has the option to publish in different hardware acceleration modes as seen below.
So you can get hardware acceleration, just not using stage3d.

[SeanJD]

Thanks for your input guys.
As far as I can tell though Away3D still uses Context3D whether it's renderMode is set to gpu or direct. You can fallback to software rendering but that kind of defeats the point.
My guess is that dirtyjohn_lv is correct and we would have to change the flash params to give access to gpu/direct (I think this allows the flash player access to the GPU hardware and that's why Context3D isn't available here). But even if they were set I'm not sure whether this would enable direct access via Resolume as there may be other conflicts with access to the gpu hardware.

For now I think I'll order a Blackmagic Intensity capture device and run my particle fx from my GPU via that and into Resolume on my laptop. That should do the trick nicely.

Thanks for the advice

[hookerbot]

To be honest, Flash support causes us so much trouble with every Adobe update that we do not plan to invest any more time in it, aside from keeping the current core functionality running. All in all Flash was a great platform with amazing capabilities in its day, but performance wise it has mostly been overtaken by newer technologies. At the moment we don't really see a future in it anymore.

I was going to start teaching myself some more flash coding to be able to add extra live content to res, but if its going the way of the dinosaurs is there a different language we should expect Res 5 to use for similar functionality (especially on pc where quartz isn't an option)? All freeframe plugins...?