We often have to attend to meetings in virtual worlds. Each of us are in different parts of the world, so the time of these meetings is often expressed in GMT/UTC time, and others it is the local time of a specific country.
To convert that local time to our local time, I've found an useful tool:
The awards that are given in Activeworlds' yearly gala event celebrating its citizen’s achievements in many different categories. As you can see in the page of the previous awars, there are categories like "Best Art", "Best Avatar", "Best Interactive Game", "Best World", "Lifetime Award"...
Alltop is a new service that allows you to access, browse and visit the best content on many topics by listing their most recent articles.
Their websites are selected on quality criteria by hand. Hiperia3D News has the honor of being showcased in the 3D section.
You can see a sketch that explains how Alltop works here.
Nononina is the company that owns Alltop. It is managed by Will Mayall, Kathryn Henkens, and Guy Kawasaki.
I admire Guy Kawasaki for his books on how start a business or enterprise, and his views on marketing and economics. For him, a business reaches success in the long term when it makes the world better, and knows how to communicate it properly.
Myrl is a project that will be composed several different services. Their first product, the Social Gateway for Virtual Worlds, has been released on September 2008.
Francesco D'Orazio is Sven Neumann on Second Life
Francesco has been working over the past 7 years as a strategic communication consultant and qualitative researcher specializing in social media strategy and immersive marketing. He holds a Ph.D. in New Media Studies and Sociology from the University of Rome. His research has been focussing on immersive communication, mapping the pervasive and ubiquitous spread of immersive strategies and tracking down the history of immersion from religious rituals, planetariums and panoramic painting, up to ambient music, experiential marketing, alternate reality games and virtual worlds. He is currently Lecturer in new media at the IULM University in Milan and is Senior Fellow at the McLuhan Program in Culture and Technology, University of Toronto.
What Is Myrl's Social Gateway For Virtual Worlds
For users, Myrl's Social Gateway offers a way to keep track of their online activity in the different virtual worlds in which they're into, sometimes even with multiple accounts in the same virtual universe. This helps them to be more active and integrated in their virtual worlds.
Myrl users can add their avatar's profiles and post and vote on popular places, events, news and images, discover new worlds, keep contact with their virtual friends...
For corporations, organizations and websites, there are "Organizations" accounts, that can increase their web presence.
Myrl supports 19 virtual worlds, and this list will always be expanding. Future Myrl services will allow its members to sign-up for new virtual worlds directly from Myrl, something that will increase its value not only for users but also for organizations and businesses.
Myrl supports 19 virtual worlds
For 2009, Myrl is creating the 'Cross World Entertainment Platform', a feature set that will allow to explore and 'jump' from one world to another playing games and participating in challenges and competitions.
If you're not on Myrl, you're missing the future bridge between virtual worlds.
Interview: Francesco D'Orazio Myrl's Founder and CEO
- How could we explain what is Myrl?
- Myrl [My Real Life and My Role Life] is a cross-world platform that brings different virtual worlds and their users together on the web. We are building a layer on top of each virtual world, with the ultimate goal of linking them up to create an integrated playground with endless possibilities and applications. One of these applications is gaming, that’s why we think of Myrl as a cross-world entertainment platform. We just launched our first release, the Social Gateway for virtual worlds. Future releases will focus on immersive-storytelling, gaming across different worlds and virtual goods trading.
- How did you had such an original idea?
- I hit my head on the sink and came up with the idea of the Flux Capacitor, which is what makes worlds-travel possible. This is the official story. The unofficial story is that the idea for the cross-world entertainment platform didn’t came up at once, it was rather built brick after brick over time. The core idea was a response to the need to make virtual worlds visible on the web and the need to keep up with multiple virtual worlds easily. To do that we had to solve two problems: how to integrate virtual worlds and the web and how to connect multiple virtual worlds to create an integrated environment, easier to manage, funnier to explore.
When I started to be actively involved into virtual worlds I realized that there was a lot going on inside but too little was actually filtering to the web. It was almost impossible to explain outside how rich, complex and layered the experiences inside the virtual worlds were. So I started thinking about a platform to export contents from the virtual worlds to the web. We designed a web hub with direct integrations into the virtual worlds and realized that we could use that as a gateway to connect different virtual worlds and to allow users to perform cross-world actions, such as instant messaging, searching or playing. And then I was struck by another idea... We have already dozens of worlds with their cultures, societies, geographies and histories, and they are there, ready to be used. It’s every game designer’s dream! Why not to use the various worlds as areas or levels of a bigger linked/integrated environment, for gaming and storytelling for example? The web hasn’t done really well about storytelling. Virtual worlds offer now a huge opportunity to change this, as they are the perfect medium to tell immersive stories. That’s what the cross-world gaming platform will be about, but I’ll save it for later ;-)
Browse news, events and places
- What can users do in Myrl?
- Virtual worlds users can manage multiple avatars from a single dashboard, share their virtual lives on the web, aggregate and manage all their content in a single place, keep up with virtual worlds friends, news and events via the web and the mobile, discover and access new worlds, communicate, search across and explore multiple virtual worlds.
- What types of accounts can users create in Myrl?
- Right now users can signup as Avatars or Organizations. The Avatar account allows you to publish a web based profile which is directly connected to your actions inworld, showing when you are online, what you are doing, where you are and allowing other members to instant message you from the web to inworld, something like a friendfeed for virtual worlds. Clearly the user decides whether to make what information public or private. Once you create this first profile you can then add as many avatars as you like and associate them to the first profile, so that you’ll be able to manage all of them from the same dashboard. The Organization account allows users to create a page that represents a brand, a project, a media platform, a business/service or any collective organization that operates inside virtual worlds and wants to keep up with virtual worlds users and maintain an open dialogue with them.
Brose images and videos, join groups and meet organizations
- What virtual worlds does Myrl cover, and what do you expect to support in the future?
- Myrl currently supports 19 virtual worlds like Imvu, Lively, Entropia Universe, Habbo, and provides web integration with Second Life and There.com via custom built 'profilers' that link avatars with the web and the virtual world. We are working now on supporting more worlds and developing the integrations for the worlds that we already support. Basically we work on a three levels integration: signup, avatar and content. All the worlds we have been talking to so far are keen to go through the three levels integration so for us now it’s more a matter of coping with the demand... Just as an example, we have already 10 worlds waiting to be supported and 17 to be fully integrated...
- As Myrl is a social site, do you have some kind of popularity/voting system in Myrl?
- Yes, we do, but it’s not really about popularity, is more about recognizing the value of experienced virtual worlds users as guides for the rest of the community. We thought it was crucial to provide users with a meaningful selection of the information available online about the various worlds. But the only reasonable way to generate this selection was by using a social criteria. So we started working on a digg-like system where users can myrl (vote on) the things they like, but we hybridized it with a slashdot-like karma system. Every avatar has a karma which grows through 5 levels, according to the user’s interactions within the virtual worlds and the community. The more time you spend in Second Life for example, the more your karma grows. The more it grows, the more you get ‘myrls’ (available votes), and so become more influential in the community. The leveling up mechanism goes like this: Tourist, Traveller, Explorer, Adventurer and Pathmaker. Right now we’re linking the karma system only to the social ranking mechanism, but it will play a central role in the cross-world gaming system.
- What about the integration of Myrl with other Web2.0 services?
- Virtual worlds users are already using many web2.0 services to share their images, videos, blog posts, tweets and so on.. on Myrl you can set up your account so that your content on platforms like Flickr, Twitter, Youtube, Plurk or your personal blog gets automatically imported in Myrl. We are acting as a hub for this content scattered across multiple platforms, offering a simple solution to easily aggregate it in a single place.
- What's new on Myrl 2.0?
- There are many improvements in this new release: we are supporting 19 worlds (2 worlds in the previous release), we added a multi-avatar system to manage multiple avatars from a single account and dashboard; we have redesigned the homepage, the sub-homes and the submit sections; we added a new “Worlds” section, showcasing 19 virtual worlds and providing editorial and social information about those worlds; we developed a new karma system, introducing the first unitary leveling up mechanism in the social virtual worlds space and we added the functionalities to aggregate all our external content on Myrl, making it very easy to import all our blogs, tweets, video and image streams into the Myrl account.
Myrl bets on outeroperability between virtual worlds
- What are your medium/long term aims for Myrl?
-We just released the Social Gateway for virtual worlds. Now we want to add more worlds and develop the integrations with all the worlds already supported. The next milestones are The Cross-World Gaming Platform and The Universal Trading Platform.
But our toughest challenge isn’t really building new technologies, it’s more trying to change the perception of the virtual worlds space. People still see it as a collection of separated worlds rather than as an integrated space. We are building the tools to start browsing worlds like browsing web pages, it’s about switching from a context-driven mentality to a content-driven mentality, where we see and use the Metaverse as an immersive web of worlds. It’s a change that’s already starting to happen and that we intend to support and foster.
- Do you think that the interest of people for virtual worlds is in its maximum point or that it will keep on increasing?
- I think that we are actually at a low point now, if not the lowest since the SL hype.. we have just scratched the surface of the mainstream, and as Jesse Alexander said in a panel at the LA Expo, this industry is still waiting for a Star Wars to blow the roof off. Look at what’s happening in the kids virtual worlds space... the big wave is only starting to mount now. The point is, are we too ahead of the curve? I think that web integration and storytelling are key to mass adoption, but there’s still a long way to go...
As you should know, Hiperia3D News discovered a security flaw in ExitReality. Their search engine has already indexed the worlds and models of many VRML worldbuilders, without asking their previous permission. Read this here.
But Rory Hart, the Head of Development of ExitReality, has given an answer today in the comments of my article. This note has also be sent to some virtual worlds forums. They provide you two ways to prevent your objects and models to be incorporated to their search engine: the robots.txt file and the referrer in the http header.
This is a good starting point to correct something that has upset many worldbuilders, and I congratulate Rory Hart for this act.
Here's his quote, and after it, my comments and feedback about this, as requested.
"We use a crawler to collect urls of wrl files for linking in our web 3d search engine. Its useragent string is ExitRealitySearchAgent.
This crawler obeys the normal robot.txt set of rules for search engines as described in:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robots.txt
To address the issue that has been describe on this forum I suggest these entries to tell the ExitReality spider not to index vrml worlds on your domain:
To ensure your site is crawled quickly I would also suggest submitting your domain for a priority spidering at the following url once your robot.txt file has been updated.
http://www.exitreality.com/submiturl.php
Also I noted Paul Aslin's post on the public web 3d mailing lists in regards to vrml browsers providing referrer in the http header. We already provide a referrer in the http headers when our browser makes a request. This contains the referring file (whether it is html or vrml) and was implemented to help prevent deep linking.
Your webserver can be configured to disallow deeplinking by checking this referrer and constraining it to referrers that you allow. Configuration of this is dependant on your hosting service and the type of http server they use.
All this information will be fasttracked to our knowledgebase the assist others who share these concerns.
We have read your comments on our web 3d search and are discussing your suggestions. I would like to take this opportunity to state our intentions for the web 3d search. We do not intend it to pass off others work as our own, rather the search is meant to provide an accessible way for people to find and view 3d content.
Thanks for your interest and please feel free contribute feedback."
-Rory Hart, Head of Development of ExitReality, in the comments of Hiperia3D News
Feedback
ExitReality should not index anything without the prior consent of the builder. The builder should not do anything to prevent this.
Other software companies, like Vivaty or 3DXplorer, have their own object catalogs built by themselves, or rewarding the creators (that have previously given permission to use their objects and scenes). ExitReality takes a great advantage over these other companies taking objects for their software without asking. This is not how copyright works. You should ask first, and then use -- not the opposite: use first unless I forbid you to do it.
Anyway, Hiperia3D News' purpose is just give the news, not to take part on anything of this. Now it's time for worldbuilders to negotiate this. ExitReality has taken a first step and one thing is for sure: they listen the feedback.
When? Today Wednesday, September 24, 2008 from 12:00 PM until 4:00 PM US Eastern time, that's is in UTC/GMT 5:00 PM to 21:00
All members of the AVW are called to take part, and this is an excellent opportunity to meet the Headquarters and 3DXplorer, the plugin-less technology in which they're built.
To know more about the Headquarters, read the interview with Dave Elchoness, the Executive Director of the AVW:
SoundSnap: These sounds are free for any use, commercial or not. Very big library, sorted by categories. They are the source of sounds for many virtual worlds and 3d chat communities. The categories are organized in attractive icons, making navigation very easy. Most of the sounds are in MP3 and WAV formats.
Absolute Sound Effects: Big collection of sound, suitable for personal use. Most of them are in WAV format.
Rory Hart, the Head of Development of ExitReality, has given an answer today in the comments of this article. They provide you two ways to prevent your objects and models to be incorporated to their search engine. Read this here.
As requested, I provide my feedback in the same article. ExitReality should not index anything without the prior consent of the builder. The builder should not do anything to prevent this.
Other software companies, like Vivaty or 3DXplorer, have their own object catalogs built by themselves, or rewarding the creators (that have previously given permission to use their objects and scenes). ExitReality takes a great advantage over these other companies taking objects for their software without asking. This is not how copyright works. You should ask first, and then use -- not the opposite: use first unless I forbid you to do it.
Just entered ExitReality, and discovered that the 3D worlds of some of the best worldbuilders had been linked from there. But then I saw that they were not named as authors, and that ExitReality had not even linked their websites...
I had warned about this in my previous review. This is a security flaw and a danger for the owner's copyright.
"...worlds have no editable usage rights. The author of worlds and avatars are unknown. They could add a floating tooltip or a text that said who is the creator of the worlds or avatars to prevent this."
Now, anyone (business or people) can take one of these builders' creations, and place them inside other worlds, or link them to their business or personal sites. Anyone can claim them as theirs, and use them for the purpose that they like, without asking for permission. In the minds of their visitors, those businesses or people may appear as the authors although they're not.
The only barrier is a simple question in a gray box, that is asked to everybody: "Is this your space? YES or NO".
This is not allowed in any 3D virtual community.
But ExitReality considered that everything that the worldbuilders did is free. Free and anonymous. They talk about all these worlds, avatars and objects as "the repository". Even more, in an interview, they say that there's a lot of content "out there", as it was abandoned in a wasteland, and had no owner. They also add that the real owner will be very happy when their worlds receive "massive traffic" form ExitReality.
Oh, yes... Happy of seeing their worlds being used to promote any kind of business, without receiving any benefit of it. Happy of seeing that they are not credited anywhere as authors. And very happy when they see that they have no way to control if their place is shown or not, if it's public or not... Some will be even more happy when the bandwidth of the sites in which they host their files is annihilated by the "massive traffic" from ExitReality. And all that people that will visit their worlds will never know that they are the authors.
And.. Who Are These Builders?
There are some 3D worlds that are in the main page of ExitReality, and also in the main page of the search engine, that belong to well known VRML worldbuilders. I know them all, so here I will show you who are some of them, what are the real names of their worlds, and their websites.
They are all excellent builders, that have achieved a degree of mastery that is hard to achieve with any 3D technology for virtual worlds, even today.
If ExitReality has some problem identifying the author of something, I'm sure that the VRML community of users will identify it all in just some days. This article is just a start point for this work.
These 3 worlds, that in ExitReality are named "the streets", "boat island" and "forest start" are in fact named: "Whitechapel 1890" (a world about Jack the Ripper), "Make and Break Harbour", and "Craig-Y-Ddinas" (based on Arthurian legends). They are done by Peter Griffith, also known as Griff. Griff's site is: http://www.3dworlds.ca/
This is Interneland, a series of worlds in VRML that worked with the Blaxxun platform. There's a lot of quality work here, and one can see this took them years to build all this, including the website. They wanted to build a community, maybe still want. They may be not too happy with not recognizing them as authors. Their site is: http://www.interneland.com/
This is from http://www.silondi.net/ Silondi is a laboratory of arts and new technologies, and has many works on VRML. The one of the photo is Virtual Palace Akropolis. You can see more many awesome pics here: http://www.silondi.net/infos_silondi/akropolis.htm You won't believe the pics, they reach a extreme quality.
This is called "forest" in ExitReality, but in fact, this is called "Rainforest discovery center" . This is done by Jeffrey K. Bedrick, a superb artist that has all kind of art skills, and VRML is one of them. You can read an interview about him and his works on Cybertown here, that is in his site.
And this is "Cave Island", that was built by Bernd Ferdinand Heilenz, widely known as Erny. A rock inside the scenery says that he is the author, something that is a good idea, and many should do that. Unfortunately, visitors not always look all the rocks they find. Erny's site: http://www.ernys.de/
This is "Alien Planet", by Graham Perrett, also known as Thyme, the developer of Seamless3D, a program to model in VRML and X3D, specially good for effects, animation and avatars. Thyme is specially skilled at all this.
This world is done by Thyme's brother, known as Bumpy. Thyme's works and Bumpy's can be reached through Thyme's site: Seamless3D.
This is called "Jungle Head" in ExitReality, but in fact its name is "Jungle Nights", and is a world of cyworx.com. All there is built by Hermetic Cab.
Solutions
I encourage strongly the ExitReality staff to fix these problems as soon as possible. May not be a problem now, but will be in the future, for ExitReality and all the builders. Many people will be upset if they see that their loved virtual cafe is the meeting point for a gambling or porn site, or if they see that their forest site is the business site of a timber industry.
It's just asking before adding models and worlds to the search engine. It's just adding some way to display the authors and their sites. This is how Vivaty, SceneCaster and others have done. Others, like 3DXplorer, just avoid this, and you get your own embed code.
The problem with ExitReality is that anyone can add a simple line and place your world as theirs in their sites, and even edit it.
For now, I encourage worldbuilders to add a sign saying they own the copyright, and their names inside their worlds, and also saying that any use for businesses or personal site must be authorized by the owner.
Vivaty is one of the new platforms that have bring 3D to social sites like Facebook or AIM. The difference of Vivaty is that they are focused on X3D and COLLADA, which are open standards, not proprietary formats.
When you build models and worlds in an open standard, you can recycle much of your old works to be used in services that also use that standard. Many of the worldbuilders that have works on VRML or X3D can recycle them and take part in the new developer's program of Vivaty (Vivaty Create). Your participation can be rewarded with prizes and being showcased in their site as a 3D artist. They also updated their legal terms, and you just give them a non-exclusive right to use the submitted models, so you don't loose your property and you can still send your models to other contests.
No one can explain us better why they chose X3D like Tony Parisi. He is the Co-Founder, Vice President, and Chief Platform Officer of Vivaty, but also the co-father of VRML (alongside with Mark Pesce) and the editor of the X3D specification.
It's an honor for me to offer this interview to Hiperia3D News' readers.
- Vivaty is taking X3D to the place that many users wanted it to be: multiuser 3D worlds. As co-creator of VRML, editor of the X3D spec, and VP of Vivaty, was this aim in your mind since the founding of Vivaty?
- To us it’s not about a specific technology. It’s about the user experience – a virtual experience integrated with the rest of what you do on the web. We want to create an ecosystem that encourages multiple levels of creation, sharing, customization, and personalization. This dictates that using open technologies, and X3D is one of many things we use because it fits the bill. We also use other open technologies in different parts of our application development process, such as COLLADA, and standard supported by all the major content creation tools (Max, Maya, Sketchup, Blender, etc).
- X3D is often used for scientific, military and medical applications. Vivaty has innovated using it also for multiuser 3d worlds. What are the advantages of X3D for this?
- We believe the future of multiuser 3D worlds is on the Web and X3D is very web-friendly- it’s light, it streams 3D content and it integrates well with XML and other web data.
- Did you consider choosing another file format, or did you see it clearly from the beginning?
- When I started doing this, there were no other open technologies for building virtual worlds. We had seen a lot of proprietary technologies come and go, so we decided to make a bet on an open approach. We’re glad we went with open formats like X3D and COLLADA.
- Models for Vivaty Scenes need to be optimized in order to be accepted in the developers program. What tools would you recommend for this optimization?
- When you say “optimized”, I assume you’re asking about our texture limits. Rather than thinking about how to optimize a huge file into Vivaty Scenes, we’d love to find developers who are thinking about the right approach to creating for the medium. What’s compelling and fast to load? We are certain that most people developing in other platforms can find something they’ve done that would work well (or even better) on the web. For starters, more people will see it!
VRML and X3D are very similar, if you use the classic VRML encoding for VRML (the files with .x3dv extension). In fact, you can take any VRML file and convert it to X3DV following some simple steps.
1) Open the VRML file with your favorite editor, for example, Netbeans with the X3DV Module Suite
2) Change its header from #VRML V2.0 utf8 to:
#X3D V3.0 utf8 Profile Immersive
3) The Script nodes now use ecmascript, and no longer javascript or vrmlscript.
Script { url "ecmascript: ... " }
4) Make this changes in Script nodes, and PROTOS:
VRML
X3D
eventIn
inputOnly
eventOut
outputOnly
exposedField
inputOutput
field
initializeOnly
5) There are minor changes in some nodes. Switch no longer uses choice, use children instead of choice. LOD has also changed and no longer uses level, use children instead of level.
6) Of course, save the file with the extension .x3dv instead of .wrl
Style changes and error removing in Xj3D
Most of the X3D plugins and viewers will run the files, but Xj3D may give you some errors and not run the file at all. Flux may simply hang, and BSContact may give you strange console errors.
Specially when using Xj3D, the code style must be perfect. This viewer is specially strict with the X3D specifications. In my programming with it, I found some things that are detected as errors, and are errors in fact, although the old VRML browser allowed them.
So if you want to remove all possible errors from your X3D files, thus preventing frustrations, just watch out and correct these points:
DEF names can't start with a number. Ej: 2towers is not allowed, but towers2 is.
Bars like \ in urls are not good, / are.
ROUTEs must be gathered together at the end of the file.
PROTOs inside PROTOs must be at the start of the proto.
EXTERNPROTOs can't be placed inside a PROTO. (It is not clear if it's an error or a Xj3D bug)
The types of field and exposedField routed one to the other must be the same.
What more?
If you have noticed any more changes or know a good conversion tool, you can help us all adding your comment.
Although in future posts I may cover deeper these technologies, here I introduce you to some interesting virtual reality hardware that I've found while browsing.
3D Movement Tracking Camera This is a camera that tracks your movements and moves avatars inside Second Life following your moves. I found this in VirtualWorldNews. Here's the video:
Virtual 3D Mousepad It is a virtual mousepad because it doesn't exists. It's a similar solution to the previous, although it is smaller and tracks your hands. Watch the video:
Virtual Walking Simulator It is a simulator of floor that is used to help avatars walk while real people walk over it. Read the full article Anyway it seems there are other less enormous solutions...
CAVE I was introduced to what a CAVE is in a conference and course that I assisted done by Carolina Cruz Neira, that versed about expert tips on virtual reality. Said with simplicity, a CAVE is a room of screens that surround the virtual world visitors, so you are immersed inside the virtual world without having to wear 3D glasses. You can read more about CAVEs here:http://www.evl.uic.edu/pape/CAVE/oldCAVE/CAVE.html
This is a CAVE with a virtual world using Quake game engine:
VR Glove This video shows a glove that you put in your hands and acts like a complex mouse.
There are more gloves and other VR hardware stuff at http://www.vrealities.com/ SpaceNavigator This is a home virtual reality device that can be used instead a mouse. I find it is a mix of a graphics tablet and a trackball, but much more improved. It deserves a look.
This video is a tutorial on how to use SpaceNavigator for Second Life, but it can also be used for many applications (if not all) to model in 3D.
The SpaceNavigator has been added to Hiperia3D News Store at Amazon. Check its features here. There are pics and explanations on how it works.
This tutorial is done by Torley Linden, a great virtual artist, vital member of the Second Life community . Don't miss his video channel at YouTube or his works at Flickr, specially if you are at Second Life. I hope I can make a deeper review on his work in the future, as I consider Torley a great contributor and creative genius, but for now, enjoy his art and videos.
VRML and X3D have obvious advantages for displaying 3D graphics on a network, but many worldbuilders also built many games in VRML, that were sometimes showcased at Eurographics.
Kambi VRML game engine is a is an open-source engine that is especially oriented towards working with VRML models. In the last times, it has also increased its support for X3D, that is being developed. In addition, it has VRML node extensions that add lots of new features for graphics and gaming.
- Most of all, any kind of 3D game (FPS and others), as that's where VRML/X3D come to great use. Also 2D games are perfectly possible, since everything under the hood (starting with OpenGL) is suitable for 2D rendering. For example,"kambi_lines" demo is a trivial top-view 2D game, "sandbox" (SVN only) is a simple demo of isometric view a'la Diablo, "rift" (SVN only) is a simple demo of fixed-view 3D (still 2D background with 3D characters, a'la adventure games like "Alone In The Dark" etc.).
Games are portable, as the engine is portable, and uses portable libraries (OpenGL, OpenAL). I work 90% of my time on Debian, the engine works under Linux, FreeBSD, Mac OS X (and probably any other Unix) and (yeah, you guessed) Windows. The programmer shouldn't need to write any platform-specific code.
On the darker side, networking is not really implemented. So network games (internet a'la MMORPG or local) are not possible, unless of course you're ready to implement networking part yourself. Which doesn't have to be very difficult, taking into account many networking libraries available for FreePascal, but it really depends on your game needs.
- What demos are included and what are they about?
- Two most important programs (not really a mere demos) are
1. view3dscene, universal VRML/X3D (and other 3D formats) browser.
2. "The Castle", FPS game. I was quite proud of this game, but now it got old and game content doesn't use many of the newer engine features (shaders, bump mapping, VRML events), so around the end of this year I plan to make a new FPS game designed to blow your eyes... uhm, I meant "to impress you" :)
Demos provided in pre-compiled form on http://vrmlengine.sourceforge.net/ show various things. "malfunction" and "lets_take_a_walk" are simple 3D games, and are mostly for historic purposes (they are also somewhat playable :) ). Others, like "glplotter" and "glViewImage" can be used as actual usable programs (to display function graphs and images), they were developed by the way of making the engine.
Inside engine sources there are a lot of example programs (in examples/ subdirectories). Too many to actually list them all, and they try to show pretty much every part of the engine (audio, shadows...). These example programs are mostly for programmers who want to learn how to use Kambi VRML game engine.
There is also Kambi VRML test suite, partially as a demo what VRML content we can interpret and display.
- What visual improvements does Kambi engine have?
- Bump-mapping and shaders are available, and I'm quite proud of them :) Multi-texturing by standard X3D nodes is not available *yet* --- this is one of the more important things for the next release after view3dscene 3.0.
Some details: we have various bump mapping algorithms available, starting from simple bump mapping using multi-texturing with dot3, to the most advanced steep parallax mapping with self-shadowing (using GLSL shaders).
When designing with White Dune, you can even do it visually. Internally engine will take care of everything, including selecting the best bump mapping method suitable for current hardware, loading and setting up necessary GLSL shaders etc.
GLSL shaders are available. Following the nodes and syntax in X3D specification.
Some other notable features:
- 3D sound (by OpenAL, with OggVorbis etc.). Sound support is not yet integrated with VRML (which means, it's available to the programmer using the engine, but is not immediately available to VRML author trying to use standard nodes like Sound).
- MovieTexture is implemented, besides normal movie formats (through ffmpeg) it can also play movies from a sequence of images with full alpha channel (ideal for pre-rendered fire/smoke animations, like rendered by Blender from it's particle engine).
- Kambi VRML game engine is written in ObjectPascal. Do users need a good knowledge of Pascal to build games with it?
- Yes. Although it's possible to just use view3dscene VRML/X3D browser, then no knowledge of ObjectPascal is needed of course.
But in practice, you will not be able to make a "real" game this way. Especially since scripting (through VRML Script nodes) is still not implemented. So for a "real", non-trivial game, you have to write and compile some code yourself, expressing complicated behavior (like creature intelligence) in ObjectPascal code.
- Kambi engine supports X3D and VRML. At what degree are these supported at this moment?
- VRML 1.0, 2.0 (aka 97) and X3D (both classic and XML encoding) are supported. VRML 1.0 is pretty much complete (with the notable exception of networking --- not implemented for now, so only local files with local filenames may be used). VRML 2.0 and X3D have a lot of features covered, including all standard rendering features, full PROTO and EXTERNPROTO support, SVN version includes routes/events/sensors mechanism.
Most important lack is the scripting support, and sensors support will be quite limited in the next view3dscene 3.0 release (only basic TimeSensor, KeySensor, TouchSensor, ProximitySensor support).
- What advantages do VRML and X3D have for game developing?
- It's a great 3D content interchange format, and so much more. Long time ago I tried to make a conscious decision about what 3D format should I focus on, and VRML turned out to be just perfect. Open, precise specification, support by virtually any 3D modeling program, extensibility,...
The only other 3D format that is at least close to VRML is Collada, but I personally choose VRML anyway (since it has a lot more than Collada, whole events and sensors mechanism just for starters; and many other small reasons, that boil down to "I like VRML more").
- And what flaws that you've successfully overcomed?
- Not much. Shadows and easy bump-mapping come to mind. In theory, it's possible to implement bump-mapping in standard VRML using GLSL shader nodes, but I think that my approach (simple normalMap field for KambiAppearance node) is more scalable and much simpler for VRML authors. For shadows, the lack of specification support is understandable --- it seems nearly impossible to add shadows to VRML language in such way that it's flexible for VRML authors and at the same time doable for various implementors using various algorithms.
Fortunately, this is where "extensibility" of VRML comes to use, it's trivial to add your own nodes.
- As the VRML spec does not force to support object-to-object collisions, that is something that most VRML viewers lack. How does Kambi engine deal with these? - When using view3dscene as universal VRML browser, this is simply not implemented for now. When rolling your own game, the main collision-detection structure we have is an octree and axis-aligned bounding boxes and/or spheres for moving parts (creatures, level moving parts like elevators etc.). Octree may be triangle-based and shape-based (every occurrence of X3DGeometryNode is treated as one item), both types are useful and usually both are created.
Admittedly, this is not a very scalable solution. It works fine for typical FPS games, where you can (most of the time) separate "dynamic" parts like creatures, elevators etc. from "static" parts. It fails when you want to make every part of the world dynamic. In the future, I'll switch to so-called "loose" octree, to allow smoothly updating octree. And some day we'll probably use external physics engine.
- And what about collisions between avatar and objects or enemies?
- view3dscene creates an octree, so collisions between player and scene work fine, as long as the scene remains static (otherwise octree recalculation is an overkill on scenes where geometry changes, and it has to be turned off).
The rest of the answer is the same as for previous question: you can roll your own collision-detection when making your games, utilizing octree and various bounding objects for moving parts. Far from perfect, and to be improved in the future.
- Have you thought in adding support for H-Anim or Blaxxun avatars for players and enemies?
- We have the basic HAnim support, which means that we can correctly render your human designed with HAnim nodes and efficiently animate it through VRML interpolators. In other words, Joint is pretty much just a Transform node, Segment is pretty much just a Group node etc. So while we support HAnim, we don't do anything interesting with extra information about the skeleton (we're not 3D authoring tool, we only render it).
Implementation was tested on all HAnim versions (1.0, 1.1 and 200x HAnim), both in VRML 2.0 and X3D (in X3D specification says to prefix nodes with "HAnim", like "HAnimJoint"). Our "VRML implementation status" page has some technical notes about this.
So if you already have 3D authoring program to design using HAnim stuff, that's great --- use it to design and animate your humanoids, and we'll be able to render them using standard VRML stuff. So you can use them for player/creatures in our engine. We do nothing more, currently. In the future this may be improved.
- Have you considered supporting online multiuser games?
- Making online games wasn't the focus of my engine, that's why networking support is almost non-existent. *For now* :)
As someone who likes to make (and play) games, I'm personally still focused on single-user games. That's either because I'm not a social person, or because I really like games with interesting stories underneath, you decide :) I *do* like online games, but even the ones with a thrilling and living world don't feel "personal", not personal like a good single-player game. Of course, this is entirely my point of view and based on my experience with games, you're welcome to prove me wrong.
As someone who makes a VRML and game engine: networking support, including the possibility to make online games, is sure a great thing to have. It'll inevitably be tackled in my engine at some point. Before the end of this year, I plan to add at least basic http:// support for "url" fields, this is trivial after all. But it will still be very far from being able to make real online game. Contributions are welcome, developers interested in making online game using my engine are welcome!
- What are the features that you would like to add in the future?
Hm, I either like to talk a lot or your questions were perfect :), because I feel I already mentioned most of the things I like to do in the future. In the nearest future (I mean, right after view3dscene 3.0 release) these are: multi-texturing and cube map texturing using standard X3D nodes. In the (slightly) more distant future: loose octrees, physics engine, scripting, H-anim, networking. Oh, and particle engines using standard X3D 3.2 nodes would be nice one day.
Torley Linden has created more than 200 video tutorials and is a very important member of Second Life, part of the SL Staff, and also a great artist that finds the best places of SL and captures the beauty of this virtual world like no other.
For this, Torley will have his own celebration day in Second Life. Read this announcement:
What happened to virtual worlds between the end of August and the first days of September? Many things, and here you are the most vital ones for virtual worlds users (and yes, for developers too).
In our will of making simple what is complex, here's a quick summary. To expand the information just follow the links. Don't miss the videos!
Linden Lab has launched SLim, an instant messenger that allows you to communicate with users that are inside Second Life without having to enter in 3D. This is a good tool for those who want to talk to someone that is inworld and are using a computer that has low resources. Although, having seen similar things in other virtual worlds platforms, I think this may encourage stalkers a little. Reuters/Second Life » Linden launches instant messaging client
Mono has been added to Second Life, and it's basically an improvement to SL scripting. This way, more can be achieved and will run faster. Read this article, and the SL Wiki about Mono, that includes videos.
Vivaty News
Vivaty is now runnable on Firefox 3. Just visit your Facebook or AIM profile and enter the Vivaty application while using Firefox 3 and follow the instructions that will appear. Read about this and other improvements like dancing moves and gifts in their blog.
Stay tuned for the upcoming interviews that will be published here on Hiperia3D News with relevant members of Vivaty.
Altadyn's (3DXplorer) Virtual Worlds For Corporate Sites
Altadyn Altadyn, the developer of 3DXplorer, announced the invention of “Meet in 3D”, which is a service for corporate websites that consists in a button that visitors can click and then enter a 3D scene that is customized to the needs of your business. There are promotional bundless at interesting prices available, that can be seen here. The promotional bundles will be offered on a time-limited basis, starting with the launch on September 3, 2008 and ending on September 30, 2008.
Journeys Soft launched the public alpha of their virtual worlds, built with Flash. For those who don't know it, an alpha is a very early version of a software.
Twinity, a virtual world that replicates the real world, is in open beta. So this is your time to go and test it.
GoWeb3D, Custom Worlds And VW Solutions
Dave Elchoness, the Executive Director of the Association of Virtual Worlds, has founded GoWeb3D, which is a product line, services company, and consultancy that provides low cost to fully custom virtual environments on the web.
Virtual Worlds Innovation Awards Winners
The Virtual Worlds Innovation Awards have been given. See who won which here.
SceneCaster To Support COLLADA
SceneCater announced their will to support COLLADA. Read it here. COLLADA is an interchange file format for 3D, this is, many applications export to collada, and this format is used as a bridge between them.
Dave Elchoness is the Executive Director of the Association of Virtual Worlds, which is becoming a never-seen phenomenon in the virtual worlds scene, gathering together the most remarkable professionals and platform leaders of the sector, and also the most active fans and users.
He is also founder and CEO of VRWorkplace, where he advises companies on how to use virtual worlds technology for maximum impact, primarily in the workplace.
In the last times, he founded GoWeb3D, which is a product line, services company, and consultancy that provides low cost to fully custom virtual environments on the web.
Recently, the Association of Virtual Worlds opened its Virtual Headquarters, a place for its members to gather together and meet in 3D. This interview is of extreme value for them all, and if you are still not in the AVW, consider joining and taking part in this thrilling community.
- Why did you created the AVW Headquarters?
- We created the AVW Headquarters for a number of reasons. First, as an organization dedicated to the advancement of virtual worlds and web3D, we need to have a virtual space of our own to showcase the AVW, offer an environment for members, and to demonstrate to newcomers the power of the immersive web. We also felt we needed a place unrelated to any existing virtual world to make all visitors welcome in our space.
- Why did you choose 3DXplorer as technology for these virtual worlds?
- We chose this technology because it is highly accessible. As a Java based technology that launches in the browser and requires no download or plug-in, we felt that 3Dxplorer offered a great opportunity to capture the attention of individuals and organizations unfamiliar with the power of immersion in 3D. The idea here is that if you can demonstrate immersion by clicking a link, you will sell people rather quickly on the concept of virtual worlds and web3D.
- Who was the builder of the geometry and final shape of these spaces?
- A very talented designer, Rahul Dutta, CEO of Trimensions-Metaverse Development of Gurgaon, India.
- How many virtual spaces does the AVW Headquarters have?
- The AVW currently has three spaces: The Main Hub, an Office and Conference Center, and an Auditorium. There are more to come.
- What kind of activities will be done in each one?
- The Main Hub will serve as a landing space and an informal gathering space. It will highlight the AVW and some of our partners and members. The Main Hub has a library, lounge area, and media center for this purpose. The Office and Conference Center will house some of the offices of the AVW and its partners and serve as a more formal meeting space. Finally, the auditorium will serve as one of our larger meeting spaces and presentation spaces. - Do you expect to host special events or celebrations to gather the members at these virtual places?
- Yes, in fact, we recently announced our first AVW Conference, Expo, and Networking event (CoNeE) that will take place February 20 through 26, 2009 – a fully virtual event taking place over seven days and around the clock. We are presently seeking speakers and topics to cover. In addition to the official CoNeE event, we encourage the membership to have less formal events such as discussion groups, get togethers, and meetings. Our virtual headquarters provides a great meeting center for discussions and relationships started up in our Business & Social Network.
- As a final question, can anyone organize an event in these worlds, or will be some restricted access?
- Spaces will be available for use by members of the AVW. We hope that the virtual space will serve as a meeting space for informal and formal gatherings of members.
on how start a business or enterprise, and his views on marketing and economics. For him, a business reaches success in the long term when it makes the world better, and knows how to communicate it properly.
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