[x3d-public] Flattening Scene Graph

[Michalis Kamburelis]

2017-04-26 7:31 GMT+02:00 Michalis Kamburelis <michalis.kambi at gmail.com>:
> E.g. I will definitely defend cube maps, 3D textures and
> generated texture coordinates

Although, while I will defend cube maps and 3D textures, I will not
defend (as much) the current MultiTexture or
ComposedTexture3D or ComposedCubeMapTexture.

- If we add CommonSurfaceShader to the spec, it can fill many usecases
where right now people use (with varying success) MultiTexture. I can
easily see that the MultiTexture component gets removed at that point.

- ComposedTexture3D and ComposedCubeMapTexture could be in principle
removed. The existing ImageTexture3D and ImageCubeMapTexture could
perform all their roles (but we should recommend there some formats
with a good and open specification, like Khronos KTX; the existing
prose for ImageCubeMapTexture recommends only Microsoft DDS). So the
cube maps could be specified as "generated" or "url(xxx.ktx)", and
that's it.

- Some of the TextureProperties information can be derived from other
information, or implementation-dependent (e.g. whether to use texture
compression). But not all (e.g. anisotropicDegree really needs to be
specified per-texture by a graphic artist, there is no escape from
that, with existing technology).

IOW, I do see various ways in how the current specification could be
simplified, to have less nodes (and thus, enable more concise
description of some features). I do think that the optimum may be
somewhere between the current specification and your flat Mesh
proposal.

Best regards,
Michalis