ZnU wrote:
> In article <L0tkh.21238$RR4.17394@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>,
> Lawson English <LawsonE@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>
>> ZnU wrote:
>>> In article <Ggkkh.29588$Rj.4317@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>,
>>> Lawson English <LawsonE@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>>>
>>>> ZnU wrote:
>>>>> In article <7Rhkh.21157$RR4.18001@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>,
>>>>> Lawson English <LawsonE@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Lawson English wrote:
>>>>>> [...]
>>>>>>> Here's a summary of features of MPEG-4 that might be doable with
iTV .
>>>>>>> iTunes + iLife + iTV could be THE killer combo for MPEG-4. If iTV
>>>>>>> caught
>>>>>>> on in a big way, cable-providers might start selling MPEG-4-based
>>>>>>> advertising for playback through iTV. Scary.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> http://www.bbc.co.uk/rd/pubs/presentations/pdffiles/mpeg4gat.pdf
>>>>>> So MPEG-4 is dead, except as a better codec?
>>>>> Interactive features in video formats -- which QuickTime has
sup****ted
>>>>> practically forever -- have never caught on for any but the most
trivial
>>>>> purposes.
>>>> There's a difference between sup****ting it in libraries and providing
>>>> tools to create it. Where's the iMovie tool to create interactive
>>>> buttons in QuickTime movies, for instance? You gotta pay relatively
big
>>>> bucks to do that for Flash. I don't think any cheap product exists to
do
>>>> it in QT.
>>> So, application developers aren't any more interested than users,
then.
>>>
>>>> VRML was a big flop.
>>>>
>>>> Its a standards thing. There's bunches of conflicting
content-creation
>>>> software that don't quite sup****t even the same bits of VRML 1.0
>>>> letalone w3d or whatever the new standard is called.
>>> I don't think that was the problem. What's the use case for VRML on a
>>> web page or a set-top box? I mean, I can think of a couple of things.
It
>>> would be neat to throw in 3D models of locations in movies as DVD
extra
>>> type content... but frankly this is the kind of gimmick that might get
a
>>> few more fans to buy the content, but would provide a grand total of
>>> about five minutes worth of actual entertainment.
>> Artists can only work with the tools that are available unless they are
>> techno-geeks and create the tools themselves. And people ARE starting
to
>> use 3D in content. Look at the creative 3D stuff that people are
>> creating using Quartz Composer, even though the tool is almost
>> completely 2D in orientation. If you make the tools easy enough for
>> non-technical artiste types to use, they start using it.
>
> They'll start using it for the same kind of things you "artiste types"
> using Flash for: gratuitous over-designed stuff of little practical
> value that exists on the margins.
WE artist types... Er, thanks, I guess.
>
>>> Back in the mid-90s, when VRML was supposed to the hot new thing, the
>>> lack of standardization you describe above was true of the web in
>>> general. Yet, the 2D web got fixed, and is now used by hundreds of
>>> millions of people... while the "3D web" got talked up in press
releases
>>> for a couple of years and then went away.
>> Not really, it's still being standardized though. And there's fewer
>> implementations of 3D content packages out there, partly because the
>> demand isn't as high, but partly (I believe) because they're harder to
>> implement well.
>
> If there were any significant demand for web-based 3D content, the
> technical problems with VRML would have been resolved years ago.
3D is hard, and there IS a demand for some kinds of 3D content, as EQ,
WoW and Second Life show.
>
>>> Second Life is sort of interesting as an example of how you can
actually
>>> make networked 3D environments interesting, but it works on a
>>> fundamentally different model from things like VRML, in that it
presents
>>> a unified multiuser world, not just isolated single-user 3D
>>> environments.
>> I only heard of Second Life today (yesterday). How is it different from
>> MMORPGs?
>
> In general, it's designed for social interaction rather than being based
> around accompli****ng game-like goals, it allows the in-game creation of
> arbitrary 3D objects and programmed behaviors, and it openly allows
> exchange of in-game money and real-world currency.
Ah, thanks.
>
>> And I agree that implementing the typical EQ/WoW MMORPG would be
>> virtually impossible using MPEG-4, but that doesn't mean that someone
>> couldn't figure out a way to do interesting multi-personal
>> interactive stuff with it.
>
> Like what? Seriously. Interactive multi-personal stuff tends to require
> complicated interfaces, that aren't going to work well on set-tops or in
> browsers.
Or like consoles?
Plus, if you see value in 3D, why embed in in 2D media? Why
> browse the web for 3D content when you can wander around a 3D world to
> discover 3D content, as in Second Life? And why have many separate 3D
> worlds? I don't want to have a dozen different avatars in different
> isolated 3D environments.
>
Dunno. Why not have one amorphous giant web-site?
> Also, it's not clear to me MPEG-4 has the features to sup****t multi-user
> content.
>
It isn't clear to me either, but I don't count anything out. MPEG-4 is a
large specification.
>> And I still don't see an amazing use case for integrating
>>> it with other media at anything but the most superficial level (e.g.
>>> allow it to be launched as a helper app from browsers via hyperlink
and
>>> vice versa).
>> 3D tools are still extremely ***bersome. As the ease-of-use of the
tools
>> improves, you will see more interesting stuff appear. Right now, you
>> have Gollum and King Kong level stuff because companies can afford to
>> pay the bucks for the techno-geek artists that can use the packages
like
>> Maya, and you have the 3D equivalent of ASCII Snoopy Calenders and
>> nothing in between.
>
> You also have apps like SketchUp, which is being used in Google Earth.
> Incidentally application which demonstrates that while Internet-based 3D
> can be successful, *web-based* 3D is a dud.
My guess is that GoogleEarth will eventually be implemented as a plug-in
as well as a standalone. And Sketchup is quite nice, but is hardly
interactive and is STILL too difficult for most people, IMHO.
>
> [snip]
>
>>> We occasionally hear some implausible idea, like having hyperlinks in
>>> movies that people can click to buy placed products, but... who's
really
>>> going to pause a movie to click on a character's shoes? This is going
to
>>> be another one of those things that gets hyped for a couple of years
and
>>> then goes away.
>> Eh. There's reasons for having 2D buttons in movies.
>
> I have yet to see a very compelling one that wasn't completely trivial.
> (As again, with DVD menus. And arguably, a standard UI for navigating
> DVD features would be more useful than custom DVD menus are.)
>
But less fun, and less immersive.
> Seriously. I keep hearing about all these new possibilities for
> interactive content attached to video. I have been for over a decade.
> Maybe you can *finally* give me a plausible use case? Nobody else ever
> has.
>
>> There would be even more reasons to have buttons associated with 3D
>> objects in 3D movies.
>
> What do you mean by 3D movies? You mean stereoscopic stuff? That's
> another gimmick that has never caught on, and if it ever did, you'd
> probably be better off with pre-rendered buttons anyway.
I was referring to the 3D space that MPEG-4 movies can (does?) render
into. Current MPEG-4 video uses MPEG-4 capabilities in much the same way
Quartz uses OpenGL textures to draw windows. There's a lot more to
OpenGL than drawing windows, and a lot more to MPEG-4 than compressing
2D movies efficiently (or should be).
>
>>>>> Maybe you'll see MPEG-4 movies distributed with chapter stops and
menus,
>>>>> like DVDs. I don't imagine these features will be used for much
else.
>>>>>
>>>> Those are MPEG-2 level. There should massive sup****t from Apple for
3rd
>>>> party plug-ins for iTunes and iLife and yet there isn't ANY, as far
as
>>>> I know. iTunes enhancement should be a major industry for developers
and
>>>> content-creators on the Mac side of things, and yet there is nothing.
>>>>
>>>>> I find it quite entertaining that even Flash is probably used more
>>>>> commonly today to deliver video content than the interactive content
it
>>>>> was originally designed to deliver.
>>>>>
>>>> I don't think that that is quite true. Plenty of websites implement
>>>> simple buttons and other GUI stuff using Flash, even though they
don't
>>>> provide any kind of video content as far as the end-user is
concerned.
>>> Yes, but a lot of this stuff is actually moving to JavaScript, which
is
>>> much more of a "native" web technology, and will probably end up on
SVG
>>> in a few years.
>>>
>> I don't think it is moving TO JavaScript so much as moving FROM
JavaScript.
>
> Um. Google "Ajax", please.
Things move in cycles, obviously. Why, in MY day, it was the big thing
to use Flash for that capability. What little reading I just did
suggests that SVG should be a better bet than Ajax in the long-run
though SVG has the same problem as MPEG-4 3D in a sense: no pervasive
commercial solutions and virtually no market-penetration.
>
>>> Meanwhile, YouTube built a business that Google just paid $1.65B,
using
>>> Flash to deliver what (though YouTube does make some minor use of its
>>> interactivity features) basically amounts to plain old non-interactive
>>> video.
>>>
>>>> Animation studies/special FX studios were using Flash+webbrowser to
>>>> create GUI front-ends to Maya until the latest version when web
browser
>>>> sup****t was removed.
>>> Err? I've never heard of anything like that.
>> Check out the threads on user interface in MEL in the maya forums at
>> cgtalk.com. At least SOME maya techs are pissed at AutoDesk for pulling
>> webbrowser sup****t.
>
> Could you possibly find anything more obscure? I'm just wondering.
>
It was a "for instance." It DOES highlight my point that current 3D
tools are quite esoteric though.
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