Re: One more reason (unlikely) Re: [x3d-public] Google Lively to shut down

[steve guynup <exposedfield@yahoo.com>]

Two replies 

>Is there a market for taking pictures of your house, uploading them to a >social networking site, and then inviting your friends to visit your >pad?  This would simply meet the quest of the realism folks.

Interestingly and partly yes, there are many (many) 2D chat spaces online.
Such as http://mansion.thepalace.com/palace/client/instantpal.html
But realism pushes the imagination from 2D into 3D after all 3D is more like our "real world"

Here's the academic version/examples from Lev Manovich
http://www.manovich.net/TEXT/assembling.html

Beyond Manovich
1877, Scientific American âIt is already possible by ingenious optical contrivances to throw stereoscopic photographs of people on screens in full view of an audience. Add the talking phonograph to counterfeit their voices...â

1849, Richard Wagner (theater of the future) A spectator âtransplantedâ upon the stage,   âby means of all his visual and aural faculties.â he âforgets the confines of the auditorium, and lives and breathes only in the artwork which seems to him as Life itself, on a stage which seems the wide expanse of the whole World.â

1600s, Giovanni Battista della Porta âin a dark chamber â one may see as clearly and perspicuously, as if they were before his eyes, huntings, banquets, armies of enemies, plays, and all things else that one desires â they cannot tell whether they be true or delusions.â The Seventeenth Book of Natural Magick "Of Strange Glasses"


meanwhile outside of realism...
In a funny way, Facebook, Myspace, and IM blends into an interactive social space. Because Facebook, Myspace etc roots are a 2D application/interface rather than a faux 2D or 3D world we can focus on innovative tools for social interaction and support. In contrast Vivaty offers you a pet and blue mullet. (aka faux realism, a doll house slightly spiked with fantasy) 


>>  (and thus X3D and VRML looks smarter) is not a bad
> thing.

> Do any parts of X3D look smarter? For example, what role
> can h-anim play in any of this? From what I have seen, X3D
> h-anim standard is basic and fairly well developed and would
> seem like a natural choice up front. 

Like so much of 3D, h-anim will be useful and makes a good argument to the conventional wisdom of the day. 

For me however, h-anim is not an end, and only a minor tool - it is hardly required for good content. It is (at the moment) dedicated to human behaviors and is merely another example of realism as the only goal of our community. So many people cannot imagine anything but roleplaying with little dolls, they know virtual space can be more, but lack the courage and imagination to consider it.

Imagine early cinema, the development of sound, color, and film that didn't catch fire was important - BUT - as we all know now, sound, color, and fireproofing doesn't mean a movie is any good. 

This is the core problem we face, we actually have a great deal of technical power at our disposal - BUT - there is little understanding of its true application. Everyone here is focused on better simulations and little else.

It is sad that as our real world becomes more and more virtual, the one place where we can best exploit the power of digital media - inside the computer screen itself - it limited to being developed as mere copy of the real world. At best a simulation for teaching, at worst a toy for teenage boys and girls to gossip in. 

regards
Steve - soon to be Dr of New Media - Guynup

PS I can offer some insight into larger view of virtual space. 

Imagine a farmer's plow in a field. It is a tool whose form is designed to dig the soil, harness the local animals and grow food. It is an invention. 

Now imagine a plow in a film. It is a tool used to show rural-ness, and its form is in service to the story. It is a convention.

Two completely different sets of functionalities for the same visual object. Completely separate until now - imagine the virtual plow. It can be either or both, but for now developers only see its role in as story element - a convention. There is little invention within the virtual - largely because the programmers who dominate our field have little understanding of narrative and are unable to conceptualize out of the little box of conventions they exist in.
(this is a riff on Noel Carroll's The Power of Movies)

My own efforts are like those of early cinema, and the development of montage. But its not centered on narrative conventions - like filmic montage, but rather on the long lost idea of usability and HCI within virtual space.








      

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