3D graphics

We've been working with 3D graphics and animation on mobile devices for longer than anyone else in the industry. That's why our company used to be called 'Ideaworks3D'.

To deliver the best possible 3D experience across mobile devices today, you need a pipeline that exploits all the power of high-end devices like the iPhone, but can also excel on more limited (but still hugely popular devices) such as Nokia N97. Only Airplay SDK delivers a 3D pipeline that delivers optimal performance across all key devices.

Best-practice asset pipeline

All 3D models, animations, skins, skeletons and scene data is exported from modelling tools (for example Autodesk 3D Studio Max and Maya) in readable text file formats. These are later converted to optimised binary files for reading on device. The text file export contains the maximum amount of information; programmers can elect to filter stuff out when building the binary version, but they don't need to go back to the artists if later they decide the data is useful.

Powerful exporters and viewers

Airplay SDK provides plug-ins for all recent versions of Autodesk 3DS Max and Maya, allowing all 3D data to be easily exported from the artist's desired tools. Models and animations can also be previewed in an integrated Airplay runtime directly from the modelling tools, so the artist can see exactly what their assets will look like in OpenGL ES 1.x, OpenGL ES 2.0 or software rendering, without ever leaving the modelling tool.

Automatic asset optimisation for different device classes

We've been working with all the mobile chipset providers (including Imagination Technologies, Qualcomm, NVIDIA, ARM and Broadcom) for longer than we care to mention. That means we know the CPU and GPU architectures better than most. By default, Airplay SDK will build a binary asset set that runs on any device; however, we also make it trivial to create additional asset sets optimised for different device classes. For example, if choosing to create an asset set optimised for iPhone, the binary version of a 3D model will store index streams as 'strip ordered lists', which is the optimal way of presenting data to the iPhone OpenGL ES 1.x drivers.

Clever data compression

We're experts at getting 3D data as small as possible. That's why, for example, Konami chose Airplay SDK to build an entire console-quality mobile version of Metal Gear Solid within 1.5Mb. And it's why Capcom chose Airplay SDK to do the same for Resident Evil: Degeneration (which was a number 1 game on the iPhone App Store) We're not going to give away all our tricks here, but suffice to say we've spent over 5 years learning how to get 3D data smaller for mobile.