Google Engineers get Quake II to Run in HTML5
While Apple’s decision to exclude Flash technology from its iPad may have content creators fretting about the lack of designer-friendly HTML5 authoring tools, the company’s ally-turned-rival, Google, has proven at least that HTML5 Web apps are capable of delivering computationally demanding graphics. In a blog post on Thursday — one of the few that day from Google that wasn’t an April Fool’s joke — developer programs engineer Chris Ramsdale revealed the existence of an HTML5 port of id Software’s Quake II engine. It’s the product of Google’s 20% time policy, which allows Google engineers to spend 1/5 of their work hours on projects outside the scope of their formal job descriptions.
The code — which must be built and installed before it will run — re-creates Quake II in a Web browser, either Google Chrome or Apple Safari. This may seem redundant, given that one can already play Quake Live, which relies on the id Tech 3 engine derived from Quake III, in a Web browser. But Quake Live requires a graphics rendering plug-in. Requiring users to install a plug-in is widely regarded as undesirable because it can limit product adoption. Flash, having become ubiquitous over the years, represents an exception to this rule, or at least it did until Apple intervened. Google’s Quake II port does not require a plug-in. It utilizes WebGL, the Canvas API, HTML 5
Comments are closed.