Massively Animated Application -- How ?

[thegrinch]

Hi guys,
I'm planning to develop a massively animated application. This means that the GUI shall be nicely giving feedback, eg. for mouse hovers, Klicks, etc. Also, there will be shown images, changing over time, blending effects and so on.

The thing is that in priciple I know quite well how to implement such animations, but this time I am searching for a tool or library to work with, that is really well prepared and designed for animating the components.

Questions:


Which library is efficient and fast, which is not? (MFC, C++.net, C#.net, QT, Swing,...)
Is there mayba something like QT, giving great compatibility while still be natively supported?


I'm also thinking of those MacOS Cocoa things, that really incorporate Animations at design time.

I have also made animating experiences in connection with java and opengl (jogl) but what I really had big problems with were the opengl capabilities of the client pcs.

Thanks for your impressions and answers,

with best regards
Oliver

[TheCPUWizard]

90% of the time, animation is dependant on the client PC capabilities more than anything else...this must be factored into your decisions. There will be a direct correlation between your targeted environment and the level of animation you can provide.

[thegrinch]

Hi,
thanks for your reply.

OK. I absolutely agree with you that the target system has to be powerful enough to actually be able to compute everything in time. But still, my question is open, which platform to use. Eg., as I said, I worked with Java, which offers to some extend libraries that can help animating. But, and here comes the drawback, Java wastes a lot of time in its virtual machine, especially when it comes to drawing to the screen.

Isn't there a good compromise avaiable?

Thanks in advance,
Oliver

[TheCPUWizard]

I tend to use Direct-X or OpenGL. An alternative is Silverlight...OR a true "client" application.....

[thegrinch]

Well, I agrre with you concerning OpenGL (and DX, but no experience), when talking about framerates and so on. The drawback I see is, that
1. To my knowlegde, there still exist a lot of PCs out there having trouble with their grpahics card drivers. At least with java and JOGL I encouter problems every day.

2. Interpreting mouse actions is uncomfortable using OpenGL. I dont know if this is easier with DX. And the mouse is definitely important for UI affairs :D. Also all this stuff about Textboxes and so on... I would have to implement all that from scratch.

Please correct me if I am wrong.

Best regards,
Oliver