some thoughts and research in using video as a texture source in 3d environments. arranged by environment
pd
GEM has the pix_film object
video in PDP (PureDataPacket) can be used with (the supposedly not very stable) 3DP 3D objects.
there are some objects for getting PDP (good for video) to talk to GEM (good for 3D) but i'm not sure what state they are in. pdp2gem perhaps.
Ogre3D
Ogre_Engine Ogre3D has a framework, the ExternalTextureSource which allows producing texture data externally.
there are two plugins that make use of this interface to provide video as a texture, the first (now abandoned) project was ffmpegVideo_Plugin. this was based on the ffmpeg library.
the follow up project is Theora Video System which uses the open source codec Theora and the reference library.
when we looked in to this (mid 2005), we had trouble looping and otherwise controlling video. streaming is also not supported, despite theory being a somewhat streaming-friendly codec.
both of these plugins are maintained by pjcast. > http://www.wreckedgames.com/
when talking to pjcast in IRC he said his main problem with ffmpeg was the interface to the library. it is for this reason that i was quite encouraged when i suggested to him my idea of using GStreamer as a more (very) general texture source, and found that he had not heard of it. in theory GStreamer would provide one interface to the huge array of codes and sources which it supports (including theora, and the ffmpeg codecs).
from the #gstreamer: “<MikeS> xiq: cool. You might be interested in taking a look at some of the other things that do gstreamer → opengl stuff, such as Togra” [see: GStreamer TextureSource]
– piX - 30 Apr 2006
nik