Re: Interest in Lua Web Plug-in?

["Andy Stark" <AStark@...>]

Lua list <lua@bazar2.conectiva.com.br> writes:

>And in all this time, Flash will be working very hard to 
>keep SVG off its heels. Flash intends to survive the onslaught, 
>and it has taken steps to do so. In fact, Flash has been doing 
>remarkably well in keeping the use of SVG almost non-existent in 
>browsers.

Actually, the relationship between Flash and SVG probably isn't
"competitive" as such. Adobe now owns and controls Flash/SWF and more or
less controls SVG (you can see their influence all through the very
PostScript-ish design of SVG and they are one of the few organisations who
could realistically implement the whole spec in efficient code). If
anything, the two technologies will probably converge. This doesn't make
the outlook for a Lua multimedia player any less bleak, of course.

>I see this as less about a browser player than a GUI application 
>that *artists* can use. By the time you want to build that, you 
>can target the output to practically any suitable player -- Flash, 
>SVG, etc.

Well, the point was that you *can't* target SVG or Flash if you want
complex bitmap effects. Adobe have gradually advanced the art of applying
blurs and distortions as a post-processing step in vector graphics, but
these are still limited. This is one reason why SVG (created with
Illustrator, say) isn't an ideal platform for television motion graphics.
Time-dependent bitmap effects lend themselves well to scripting because
they can be combined one after another and generally have a
straightforward set of parameters. They also benefit from hardware
acceleration (they can be implemented in GL shader language or the
equivalent) and could therefore offer much more sophisticated effects than
vector players.

I'm not saying this is a WISE project to undertake, but I think it might
be more worthwhile than trying to duplicate a gigantic, well-established
product which is actually very good in any case.

&.


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