This document summarizes Minko, a cross-platform 3D engine that allows developers to create 3D applications for desktops, mobiles and the web from a single codebase. Minko uses C++ and Lua for its core and supports 50+ 3D file formats. It provides features like 3D streaming, physics and animations across all platforms. Minko is open source and supports platforms like Windows, Mac, Linux, HTML5, iOS and Android. It allows developers to build once and deploy everywhere through its core framework, plugins and scripting languages.

1. Paris Android LiveCode
Creating cross-platform 3D apps with Minko.
Warren Seine
CTO and co-founder of Aerys
Creator of Minko (http://minko.io)
@warren
warren@aerys.in
http://minko.io
@Minko3D

2. by

3. 3D. Everywhere.
Deliver engaging, interactive and rich 3D content and applications on
desktops, mobiles and the web.

4. Minko Enterprise
“We chose Minko because its exclusive compression algorithms help
us distributing cutting edge 3D content on mobiles and the web.”
Gaël Seydoux, Chief of the NBO lab at
 It’s like Dropbox for 3D files
 Visualize, share, annotate, collaborate…
 On mobiles, tablets, the web and desktops
 Exclusive 3D streaming algorithms
 Load and display 3D files up to 200 times faster
Cloud. Light. Mobile.

5.  Compatible with all major 3D CAO/design tools
 77+ supported file formats
 What You See Is What You Get
 Physics
 Animations
 Lights
 Materials
 ....
…Minko Studio Design. Integrate. Live.

6. Minko Engine
 Develop once, deploy everywhere
 The power of native, the reach of the
web
 Open source, with enterprise-class
support
“We chose Minko to be the 3D engine in one of our new Flash-based games
because we think it’s a highly professional […] solution in terms
of development ecosystem and high performance.”
André Weissflog, Head of Development at
Skyrama 2 by BigPoint
Mobile. Web. Native.

7. International Gaming References

8. New Game Released: IronForce
 Published by EA/Chillingo
 http://www.chillingo.com/games/iron-force/
 Tank MMORPG
 Already available on iOS
 Available soon on Android

9. New Game Released: IronForce

10. Minko VS Unity - Architecture
Unity
Core Library
Mono VM
Application
OS
Minko
Core Framework & Plugins
Lua VM
Application
OS
Native Plugins
JavaScript VM Javascript VM (WIP)

11. Minko VS Unity – Open Source
Unity
Core Library
Mono VM
Application
OS
Minko
Core Framework & Plugins
Lua VM
Application
OS
Native Plugins
Javascript VM JavaScript VM (WIP)

12. Supported Platforms
Platforms Unity Minko
Windows YES YES
WinRT / Windows 8 UI / Windows Store YES YES
OS X YES YES
Linux Desktop (Ubuntu, SteamOS, TVs…) YES YES
Linux Server NO YES
HTML5 NO YES
iOS YES YES
Android YES YES
Flash Player NO WIP
Windows Phone YES WIP (WP 8.1)

13. Minko coming to Windows Phone!
 Windows Phone 8.1 only
 But all existing Windows
Phones should be supported!
 Games have a big success
on the Windows Store.
Windows Store, Downloads per category – Worldwide, Jan. 2014

14. 2D/3D file formats
 50+ 3D file formats
– 3DS, BLEND (Blender 3D), DAE/Collada, FBX, IFC-STEP , ASE, DXF, HMP, MD2, MD3 , MD5,
MDC, MDL, NFF, PLY, STL, X, OBJ, SMD, LWO, LXO, LWS, TER, AC3D , MS3D , COB, Q3BSP,
XGL, CSM, BVH, B3D, NDO, Ogre XML, Q3D
 20+ 2D file formats
– JPEG, PNG, TIF, TGA, RAW, PSD…
 Optimized Minko dedicated formats
– Scene, material, texture, geometry…
– Open source (de)serializer
– Extensions (Physics 3D compression, 3D streaming…)

15. C++ 2011
 Standard, fast, well documented and supported by a vast community
 Already fully supported by all major compilers (VS, GCC, LLVM…)
 New additions make it closer to what we’re used to with AS3/Javascript
– Closures/lambda functions
– Type inference (instead of dynamic typing)
– Shared pointers

16. C++11 Example – Closures
// callback is removed when mouseWheel is set to nullptr

17. C++11 Example – Shared pointers

18. Components – Ex: Directional Light
 The Transform component is not mandatory
– Scene nodes do not necessarily have a 3D transform: lighter and more customizable
– Yet our directional light is pointless without a configurable direction…

19. Components – Ex: Camera
 Our camera has 3 components:
– Transform will make our Camera position/orientation customizable
– PerspectiveCamera will provide actual camera related data to the rendering
API
– Renderer will do the actual DrawCall storage/frame rendering

20. Emscripten https://github.com/kripken/emscripten
 Open source project driven by Mozilla
– Based on LLVM, which is supported by Google, Apple, Intel and many more
 Cross-compile C++ code to Javascript code
– Binds OpenGL to WebGL
– Provide virtual file system
– C++  Javascript bindings
 Code optimizations
– Closure compiler
– asm.js (2x performances of native code!)
 Code compression using LZMA

21. Premake http://industriousone.com/premake
 Cross-platform build system
– Windows, Mac and Linux
– Reference in the video game industry
– Well documented
 Compatible with most IDEs/tools
– gmake
– Visual Studio
– XCode
 Easy to extend and customize
– Based on LUA script configuration files
– Adding support for emscripten was easy

22. HTML5 UI (WIP)
 Portable
– Chromium on desktop
– WebView on mobiles
– <iframe> on the web
 Responsive UI design
 Leverage existing HTML5 tools and
frameworks
 Video
Native 3D backbuffer
HTML5 UI overlay

23. Parallelization
 Workers
 Threads (except for HTML5)
 Coroutines (Lua)

24. SCRIPTING

25. Core Framework Language
 Fast
 Rich & expressive
 Optimized for each target
Scripting Language
 Simple
 Interpreted
 Dynamic
VSC, C++, Java, C#... Javascript, Python, AS3…

26. We chose… Lua!
 Fits all the requirements of a scripting language
 Vastly used by the video game industry (World of Warcraft, Fable II & III, Neverwinter
Nights, …)
– Complete list of games scripted with Lua
 Very (very) fast
– LuaJIT is comparable to Javascript V8, if not faster
 Designed to be embedded
 Designed to script games
– Simple but very efficient syntax
– Minimalistic set of features but very extensible
– Coroutines!

27. C++  Lua? LuaGlue!
 C++/Lua bindings
 Open source project
– https://github.com/Tomasu/LuaGlue
– We contribute as much as possible
 Leverage C++11
– Optimize as compile time as much as possible
– Simple binding interface
 Used to bind 90% of Minko’s C++ API
– Write 100% of your app in Lua

28. Coroutines
 A function can suspend its execution…
– coroutine.yield()
 … and then resume « sometime later »
– coroutine.resume()
 Gives the illusion of parallelism
– Yet no complicated threading stuff
– Fully cross-platform
 Allow the creation of non-blocking (heavy) functions
 Can (always?) be used in place of events/callbacks

29. Coroutines
function myScript()
doSomething()
while isIdle do
say(‘hello how are you?’)
wait(seconds(3))
end
while not isIdle do
wait(keyboard.anyKeyDown)
handleKeyboard()
end
end

31. Event driven Coroutine driven
 Action => reaction
 Breaks the code in multiple handlers
 Messy execution flow
 Messy scopes
 Wait for « something » to
happen
 Non-blocking
 Simple execution flow
 Meaningful and readable

32. You choose!
 C++
– Performances
– Rich and powerful language
 Lua
– Simple and efficient
– Fast iteration times
 Mix both in any project on any target

33. Ready?
SoccerPunch (soccerpun.ch) coming to HTML5 and native iOS / Android!

34. About SoccerPunch
 Lots of important game-related features
– 3D graphics
– Physics
– Animations
– AI
– Gamepad
– …
 Developped in 2 days using Minko 2 and
AS3
– Entirely re-developed in C++/Lua
 Should be one of the most advanced
WebGL game so far
– Then we can juge whether HTLM5 is ready or
not for games

35. Conclusion
 Open source
– More than 20 FLOSS projects used
– 1 million lines of code
 Second beta in May
– New targets
– Stability / performance
– New example projects

36. THANK YOU!

37. Aerys US
Institut Mines-Télécom Silicon Valley
NASA Research Park
Moffett Field
CA 94035 Mountain View
USA
Aerys Europe
15 rue Jean-Baptiste Berlier
Hall B
75013 Paris
France
Customer service
+33 805 690 489
Monday to Friday, from 9:00 to 17:00 UTC
hello@aerys.in
http://aerys.in
Jean-Marc Le Roux
CEO
jeanmarc@aerys.in
+336 20 56 45 78
Warren Seine
CTO
warren@aerys.in
+336 79 51 64 66
Ymane Amrane
Sales Manager
ymane@aerys.in
+339 72 28 55 83

38. http://minko.io