Summer of Luster
Updates for the internal version of Luster are coming fast now. If you aren’t up to speed on what Luster is, it is a small, power-packed, rapid development platform for 3D applications. Following a Flash model, users install a common base which then allows them to access any application created with the system. One install, infinite applications. Developers create applications using the Eclipse-based editing environment. As we near a major milestone, Luster has matured into an amazing system, and it will be battle-tested at two major technology conferences this summer.
The first is Siggraph. For me, this is best conference of the year. It is an unapologetic geek-fest, where the greatest minds in graphics research gather together to show off their stuff. Well, one of the pieces being shown is from RIT. It is the Dome project, which is an installation meant to be a very inexpensive version of a Cave. One of the projects showcasing the Dome at Siggraph will be a 3D asteroids game created using Luster. Speaking of installations, a version of the Dome may be installed at the Rochester Museum of Science. We are unsure yet if Luster will be used to power any application used there.
The second major conference is IGARS (International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium). This is a conference put on by IEEE and is an important one in the world of remote sensing. What’s remote sensing? Spying on you with satellites. Luster is being used to power an application which visualizes 3D sensor data in real time.
What else is Luster up to? At the moment we are creating a compact strategy game called Bombs. It supports up to 4 players and is a real-time, fast paced, physics-based competition where you use force towers to push and pull bombs to destroy your enemies’ bases. If that description is a little short then you’ll be happy to know we’ll be putting out videos in the coming weeks that explain it a bit more.
Stay tuned, because we’ll only have more news about Luster and other Darkwind Media projects as the summer continues.
1 comment
You can expect multiple Luster apps at the Rochester Museum and Science Center – when exactly that’s going down is yet to be determined! :-D