Open Media Web

The Open Media Web project team is proud to organize a:

Workshop on HTML.next for gaming
Saturday 24 September 2011 — 09:00 – 13:00

Warsaw, Poland
co-located with OnGameStart

The workshop will explore game developers needs and gather inputs for HTML.next, the next version of HTML, that would enable the development of fully immersive games using regular Web technologies. Main topics of discussion (see below for more detailed topics of interest) will be about:

• New standards for cooler games?
• New features for better performances?
• New ideas for HTML.next?

Come to discuss and share your ideas about the next cool things to happen. And expect HTML5 goodies!
Participation is free!

Background

HTML5 enables the development of richer and ever more interactive applications. As far as gaming is concerned, the situation evolved from a world of hacks and plug-ins to a situation where one can envision the production of a multi-player first-person-shooter game using canvas, Web Workers, Web Sockets, on-going standardization efforts on audio, real-time communications and various other Web and device APIs.

However rich this new Web platform may become, games require precise control over:

• devices used for interaction (keyboard, mouse, joystick, touch screens, gestures, cameras, etc.)
• rendering surfaces (ability to go fullscreen, to take screenshots, 3D APIs, audio synthesis, etc.)
• processing power (multi-threading, memory management, use of hardware acceleration, etc.)

Precise control is tough, either because the right API is missing, or because the specification does not address all needs, or simply because the API is not precise enough to prevent interoperability issues.

Goal and Scope

The goal of this workshop is to meet and engage in discussions with developers of the games community, and gather inputs for HTML.next, the next version of HTML, that would enable the development of fully immersive games using regular Web technologies.

Topics of interest include suggestions for new APIs, as well as scenarios and requirements to improve existing functionalities. For example:

• Going fullscreen
• Access and control of viewport settings (e.g. pixel density)
• Possible improvements to multi-threading execution
• Hit-testing API
• 3D or pseudo-3D rendering (WebGL, declarative 3D, depth control)
• Specific needs for animations, movements
• Performance measurement (number of frames per second?)
• Web application packaging for offline Web apps (HTML5 AppCache, W3C widgets)
• Caching resources, pre-loading (e.g. for sprites and sound)
• Taking screenshots
• Joystick and mouse control
• Multi-player games, peer-to-peer connections
• More efficient DOM tree operations.

The outcome of the discussions will be fed into existing W3C working groups where appropriate (HTML, Device APIs, Web Applications, Web Real-Time Communications, Audio, etc.), as well as into the list of ideas for HTML.next where appropriate. Depending on the level of interest at the workshop, the creation of a Games Community Group could be envisioned to pursue discussions.

Agenda

The workshop will be run as a barcamp to encourage live discussions among participants.

09:00 – 10:00 Francois Daoust: “W3C, HTML5, HTML.next”

• How W3C Web standards come to life
• HTML5 specs progress report
• What is HTML.next?
• How to ensure the next Open Web Platform is the right one for you

10:00 – 12:30 Barcamp Session

Actual content for this session should be provided by participants. What we’re typically looking at is to repeat the following pattern to multiple technical topics:

• One or more specific game scenarios that cannot be done today with regular Web technologies, or that cannot be done efficiently enough today.
• An analysis of what is missing
• What a possible solution could look like
• Areas that could affect the design of the solution and that would need to be investigated (security, privacy, accessibility, complexity, portability, integration with other APIs, etc.)
• Relevant group(s) in W3C for this work, if any

Please prepare accordingly. To help organize the event, please get in touch with Francois Daoust with topics you’d like to present or hear about in particular.

Topics on the agenda for this session so far:

• Accurate sound triggering – Darius Kazemi (Bocoup)
• Mouse lock for 3D games – Seth Ladd (Google), Darius Kazemi (Bocoup)
• An asset loading and smart caching solution – Darius Kazemi (Bocoup)
• Real-time communications for multi-player games – Francois Daoust (W3C)
• […]

12:30 – 13:00 Wrap-up Session

• Summary of discussions
• Inputs identified
• Next steps?

Expression of Interest

Planning to attend the workshop? Great! Please let Francois Daoust know about it!