Association Of Virtual Worlds (Read more...)

It was only some months ago that the Association of Virtual Worlds (AVW) was born,an now it has more than 1500 members. What is the reason of this? Because they've filled a real need for virtual worlds: a place in which to collaborate, associate and share strategies.

Virtual worlds have become a familiar notion for all humanity since the success of Second Life, although there were many of them before, like Cybertown, ActiveWolrds and Travellers Network.
But in the latest times, the buzz that SL created has make many industries, businesses and individuals pay special attention to virtual worlds.

There are many different technologies for virtual worlds, though. And many different purposes, publics, etc.
Some of them share a technology (for example, VRML/X3D), or public (teens and kids, for example).

Wouldn't it be good that they had a place to work together?
And what if someone could help them to get the necessary skills, publicity, etc?
Or expand the interest of people for virtual worlds?

"Paper Verse 1", by SideLong.

Well, AVW was created for that. And not only for virtual worlds platforms, but also for anything related sites that promote virtual worlds and technologies, like Hiperia3D News.

It's leaders are Edita Kaye, who was its founder, and Dave Elchoness, its Executive Director. Both are very experienced people in virtual worlds and media.

The AVW has 2 websites. One is their main domain:

http://www.associationofvirtualworlds.com/

The other is their community website, which has an intense activity, and is hosted at Ning:

http://associationofvirtualworlds.ning.com/

If you join the Association Of Virtual Worlds, don't forget to add Hiperia3D as a friend. Our profile page:

http://associationofvirtualworlds.ning.com/profile/Hiperia3DJordiRCardona

Here follows a list of the last news from the AVW:


Person of the Year Award

This is an award that will be given to the person that has made the most extraordinary contribution to virtual worlds in 2008. The election of this award will be done by the AVW members, so start thinking in the candidates. Soon, they will open the nominations.


Global Ambassadors Program

A Global Ambassador of the Association of Virtual Worlds is one of a group of people that will represent the AVW in their region of the physical world.

Be an Ambassador of the AVW. Photo by Torley.

As an Ambassador, you will talk about the AVW with the people at your physical location, invite people to join the AVW, inform the AVW about opportunities in media, events, sponsorships, ect to spread the AVW existence in your country. Note that here we are talking about local ambassadors.

The Global Ambassadors also post news about virtual worlds on their locations and blog about them.
He/She will also serve as a local contact for AVW members in his country/area.


Publications

"The Blue Book: A Consumer Guide to Virtual Worlds" is one of their first titles. Available in PDF for printing, list over 250 virtual worlds and is free to download. All the virtual worlds are listed alphabetically and include website url and brief description. It also gives you important data like if it's active or in development, whether is appropiate for teens and kids or adults, or its type (MMORPG, social virtual wolrd, social network...).
If you are a virtual worlds explorer, this is your book to get a quick view of most of them all.

Soon they'll publish "The Green Book: A Business Guide to Virtual Worlds", also available for free. This will be another different approach. It will be useful for businesses.

All the AVW books can be downloaded from this url:

http://www.associationofvirtualworlds.com/publishing.htm

Virtual Worlds Day

August 20 will be the day that the AVW has chosen as the Virtual Worlds Day. In that day, all of us will try to bring virtual worlds to the attention of the public.
More info on this subject will be posted soon. But in the meanwhile, I will add it to our Calendar.
Don't forget it: it's, after all, our day.

There's a world day for us. Photo by Cyrus Khamak.

Let's Collaborate. Follow Hiperia3D in AVW

You may have noticed that here in Hiperia3D News the AVW badge is displayed in the sidebar, with a link to our profile.

If you join the Association Of Virtual Worlds, don't forget to add Hiperia3D as a friend. Our profile page:

http://associationofvirtualworlds.ning.com/profile/Hiperia3DJordiRCardona

View my page on Association of Virtual Worlds

Joining is free (FOR NOW!), and it's good for you if you have a site or project about 3D worlds, virtual worlds, or VW news, resources, etc, or if you are a worldbuilder.

Blaxxun News And Problems Fix (Read more...)

Blaxxun, one of the first solutions for 3d chat communities, and the only one serious solution that uses VRML, is having problems at the Outers (the free server) where many people have their worlds.

This happens from time to time. The people from another community that is Blaxxun-based, 3D Planets, have invited the worldbuilders of the Outers to join their server, as can be read here:

http://www.cyworx.com/viewtopic.php?t=179

"3-dimensional collage", by DerrickT.

Anyway, the Outers community have found a way to make the Outers' server work, at least for now:

Open the 'hosts' file that is in:
Windows 95/98/Me ---> C:\windows\hosts
Windows NT/2000 ---> C:\winnt\system32\drivers\etc\hosts
Windows XP ---> C:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts

and add the following two entries:
80.190.134.206 www.blaxxun.com
80.190.134.206 developer.blaxxun.com

After doing that, you may enter in any Outers world without problems.


Recommendations

Certifications like 70-297 and 640-816 prepare one well enough to fix such problems. However, going for an extra 156-215 credit or a 70-528 never hurts and you also become eligible for 650-393.

Calendar Of Worldwide 3D Events (Read more...)

The calendar may not be up to date as we are trying to find a more agile way to add and organize events. Sorry for any inconvenience. In the meantime, check the Meetings category

Follow the upcoming worldwide 3D events with the Hiperia3D News calendar.

Email any event that you wish to add to our calendar to info@hiperia3d.com, or post it in the comments if you wish a bigger exposure.

Join Google Calendar and get automatic reminders of the events to which you subscribe in this or other calendars. You can create your own calendars and also subscribe to our calendar events easily.

If you have some special calendar that you may like to share with our readers community, you're welcome to post it in comments too.

You can also check the hour of the day in different countries in the sidebar, on the right.
When posting an event, please tell the time zone.

List Of Virtual Worlds Meetings For 2008 (Read more...)

This year there are some important symposiums and meetings related to Web 3D, virtual reality and virtual worlds announced. Here you are the dates, locations and details.


X Symposium Of Virtual And Augmented Reality
Location: João Pessoa, Paraíba (Brazil)
Days: May 13-16 (2008)
For everybody interested in VR, virtual worlds, VRML and X3D and Web3d.

"SVR (Symposium on Virtual and Augmented Reality) is the major conference in VR and AR in Brazil sponsored by SBC (The Brazilian Computing Society). It will cover many virtual reality topics, and VRML, X3D and related web-based technologies."


This is maybe one of the most interesting meetings this year. There are conferences, and mini courses of great value.
If you have some opportunity to go there, don't miss it. You can register in site. Check their website, all is explained there.


Virtual Worlds Expo
Location: Los Angeles, California (USA)
Days: September 3-4 (2008)
For virtual worlds business people.

"Virtual Worlds Expo is dedicated to helping businesses harness the power of virtual worlds to engage with their customers, partners and employees. Conference agenda will include consumer worlds, enterprise worlds, investment and strategy, education uses of virtual worlds, virtual law and visionary/future development."

Los Angeles at night. Photo by QuinTes.

The call for speakers is open. This is an expo thought mainly for business people from the virtual worlds sector.


Web3D.org Symposium 2008
Location: Los Angeles, California (USA)
Days: August 9-10 (2008)
For everybody interested in virtual worlds, VRML and X3D and Web3d.

"The Web3D 2008 International Symposium will address this wide range of topics covering 3D Hypermedia on the Web. The annual Web3D Symposium is a major event, which unites researchers, developers, experimenters, and content creators in a dynamic learning environment. Attendees share and explore methods of using, enhancing, or creating new 3D Web and Multimedia technologies, such as (but not limited to) X3D, VRML, COLLADA, Croquet, MPEG4, MPEG7, Java3D, and Canvas3D. The symposium will also focus on recent trends such as interactive 3D graphics and applications on mobile devices."

This is a major event in Web3D, organized by the Web3D Consortium. The registration was opened April 29, so now is the time to inform yourself about it and consider joining the symposium.


SIGGRAPH 2008
Location: Los Angeles Convention Center, Los Angeles, California (USA)
Days: Conference: 11-15 August (Monday through Friday)
Exhibition: 12-14 August (Tuesday through Thursday)
For all the computer graphics enthusiasts and professionals.

"The SIGGRAPH conference attracts the most respected technical and creative minds, focusing on: research, science, art, animation, gaming, interactivity, education, and the web from around the globe.(...) SIGGRAPH is widely recognized as the most prestigious forum for the publication of computer graphics research. In addition to SIGGRAPH's leading-edge technical program, the conference's installations provide close-up views of the latest in digital art, emerging technologies, and hands-on opportunities for creative collaboration."



The biggest computer graphics and Web3d event in the world. It is an interesting event for everyone. There are different activities and fees, so you can join those that you like best.

It will also host the world computer animation festival (FJORG!).


Virtual Worlds London
Location: London (England)
Days: October 20-21 (2008)
For virtual worlds business people.

"Virtual Worlds London the leading event for businesses seeking to understand and maximize business strategies within virtual worlds. Virtual Worlds London is produced by Virtual Worlds Management (VWM), the leading virtual worlds trade media company."

This meeting is focused to business people that are interested in virtual worlds as a business.
In 2009 this meeting will take place in New York (USA), on the Spring.


ACM Solid And Physical Modeling Symposium
Location: Stony Brook University, New York (USA)
Days: June 2-4 (2008)
For academic scientific people.

This series of conferences and courses instruct about modeling for physics and scientific modeling.


Recommendations

Indeed the success of virtual world owes part of its credit to successful pay-per-click. Not the website design and definitely not the domain name, if it was not for webhosting growth and the advent of dsl, we would still have been in the dark ages of the web.

Build X3D Worlds For Free With Flux Studio (Read more...)

Flux Studio is now Vivaty Studio. Although the links to Flux Studio may remain live some time, I recommend you to download Vivaty Studio, as it keeps the same features and adds many more. Read about Vivaty Studio and the developers program Vivaty Create here.

Mediamachines did this wonderful and complete application to develop X3D (and VRML) worlds visually, without having to code. It allows people that don't feel conformable with coding to do beautiful worlds.

But if you have a good understanding of X3D nodes and notions, it will be even easier for you.

Download Flux Studio

I know many people that did great worlds with this free tool. It is based on a previous program that became very famous (Spazz3d, later Vizx3d).


There are some good docs about how to use it in its Wiki page. You can also check the feature list and see all that Flux Studio is able to do.

In the last times, Mediamachines, the business that developed Flux Studio has changed its name to Vivaty. Seems that the virtual worlds server that they were developing has been adapted to make the Vivaty server.

The core of Flux Studio has changed of name and company many times. It may be a good idea to download this great free tool, that is comparable in quality to others in the market that cost several hundred dollars.