RE: [x3d-public] Shaders and Triangles: was dedicated working-group focus on X3D interoperability

["Len Bullard" <cbullard@hiwaay.net>]

For art, yes.  You have a good gig, Adam. 

As Eric Maranne notes, real-time 3D is the medium, VR is a genre of that
medium.  Simulation and visualization are other genres.  

Two announcements worth mentioning:

http://www.web3d.org/news/releases/archives/2006/12/ogc_and_web3d_c.php

http://www.stottlerhenke.com/news/pr_simventive.htm

There is a certain satisfaction in that second one. ;-)

The drive for standards is always a slow one.  SL is a good venue for the
artists because like a major record label, it provides the tools, the
environment and as you say, the built in audience.   This is good for art
because as noted here before, art needs management of resources and that is
being supported in SL (see previous posts on interviews with SL's first
content millionaire).  SL is a server-farm and for MU, that is the right
technology today.  Tomorrow?  Who knows.  Make it work for you now, get the
reputation, build up the repertoire and keep going.  The only worry about SL
is can you take it with you?  As the VR content millionaire noted, her
company is ensuring that should SL suddenly collapse, her business will keep
on keeping on.

In emerging markets, which real time 3D still is, there is room for many
labels and as Netscape showed, the candle burning bright in the beginning
may not be the one that lasts.   Best of luck!

len


From: owner-x3d-public@web3d.org [mailto:owner-x3d-public@web3d.org] On
Behalf Of Adam Nash

Hi All,
It will take more than one book I'm afraid. I'm an artist (or in your  
world "content author"), and I've been making work in VRML since  
1997. A long, hard, frustrating slog.

Two things are necessary for artists to take up this medium. Inworld  
tools and multi-user capability.

MU has always been off the agenda for X3D, with the logic that  
someone will use the spec to build a MU solution. Well, nobody ever  
did. For years, I messed around with VNet and Contact  but it was an  
incredibly frustrating experience, even with the kind and supportive  
help of Russ Kinter and Steve Guynup. In a bid to get work out there,  
I put up single-user versions of my work on the web, asking people to  
download Cortona and apologising to Mac users (who make up a  
disproportionately large proportion of my audience) that they  
wouldn't be able to hear any of the sounds, since they were in mp3  
format.

Then, along comes Second Life. Massively Multi-User? Check. Inworld  
building tools? Check. Simple but effective scripting? Check. Already  
established audience? Check. Cross-platform? Check.

I design quickly on a piece on paper, log in to SL and start building  
it straight away. Friends come around inworld and talk to me while  
I'm building it. Within days of starting building my audiovisual  
sculptures in SL, I had a commercial offer to commission a work.

It's very true that SL is also a very frustrating environment to work  
in, especially when one is used to the power and flexibility of VRML/ 
X3D, but as an artist I'm prepared to accept the limitations in order  
to have inworld building tools and a built-in audience who already  
possess the vocabulary necessary to experience the work (no more  
explaining the medium, they're already in it!).

I agree with Dave A that the spec is not designed for content  
authors, rather its been driven by browser programmers, and yet there  
are so few browsers that anybody knows about. I know that there'll be  
lots of replies saying 'our browser is used by xyz' etc, but I live  
in a world of very talented net-savvy digital artist/designers and  
none of them have ever heard of Flux or XJ3D or Cortona, or X3D  
itself. But they all use Second Life, because you just download it  
and start. If you have to read a book about it first, it'll never  
take off.

I miss the power of VRML (I would say X3D but to be honest I haven't  
a clue how to use it other than authoring in VMRL then translating)  
when I'm working in SL, but as an artist I have to be able to work.

I look forward to Don and Leonard's book, and will try to keep  
working in this medium, mainly for sentimental reasons (I've  been on  
this list continuously since joining www-vrml in 97), in the hope  
that I'll be able to synthesise the two worlds (pun intended) of X3D  
and SL.

Kind Regards,
Adam Nash




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