ZnU wrote:
> In article <OrWkh.162$_44.119@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>,
> Lawson English <LawsonE@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>
>> ZnU wrote:
>>> In article <u9Ukh.30282$Rj.15756@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>,
>>> Lawson English <LawsonE@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>>>
>>>> ZnU wrote:
>>>>> In article <VsCkh.30059$Rj.10342@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>,
>>>>> Lawson English <LawsonE@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>> [...]
>>>>>> For some stuff, keyboards are essential. But for other stuff,
>>>>>> console-level controllers (which are getting more sophisticated all
the
>>>>>> time--look at the wii wand controllers), will be quite adequate.
>>>>> For anything involving interacting with other humans at a level
beyond
>>>>> shooting at them, keyboards are necessary. At least until voice chat
is
>>>>> pervasive in interactive environments.
>>>> iChat conferencing apparently already uses H.264 compression. It
should
>>>> be possible to limit which voices are sent to which person in a
>>>> conferencing chat based on how far away someone is within the VR
world
>>>> so bandwidth issues and whatever else might look like a potential
issue
>>>> here isn't really.
>>> Probably for WoW-type games where most of the content is stored
locally
>>> this is true. For Second Life type environments, where geometry and
>>> textures get streamed, bandwidth is going to still be an issue for a
>>> while.
>>>
>> So no content is stored on the client side?
>
> There's a local cache, but it never contains more than a tiny fraction
> of the world at any given time.
That actually seems inefficient. Unless a "default" world is built into
the graphics engine...
>
> This can be entertaining on slow connections... you tele****t into
> something that looks like an empty field, and then watch as buildings
> and people start popping into existence one by one.
Sounds like there IS a default world built-in: empty field.
[...]
>> Eh. SOmeone created a demo of one of the 1st person shooters using X3D
>> that is supposed to be pretty snappy. Uses DirectX/3D so I can't test
it
>> (the concept of an open source "cross platform" project that requires
a
>> proprietary library is a tad odd, IMHO.
>
> And being able to embed first-person shooters in web pages is useful
> how, again?
Shows that x3d is capable of rendering 3D virtual worlds of that type
(afterlife?) in realtime using streaming media, which is what x3d within
MPEG-4 would use. From what I've seen of the screenshots of Second Life,
the world isn't so complex as to preclude being embedded in an MPEG-4
stream. And there might be reasons to do that (or embed MPEG-4 in the
Second LIfe stream, but that would be less useable on a set-top box
unless it had the Second LIfe codec isntalled.
>
>>>>>> I can see an obvious interaction between Google Earth and Second
Life or
>>>>>> a meta-Second Life: The ability to travel quickly to foreign
"lands" or
>>>>>> worlds or universes or dimensions or whatevers. GE allows you to
see
>>>>>> progressively more details of the local terrain as you zoom in and
this
>>>>>> would be quite useful for traveling from one virtual world/land to
the
>>>>>> next. Web-surfing via geometric interface. Apple's old Project X
tried
>>>>>> this, but the available graphics and bandwidth only allowed for
clouds
>>>>>> of URLs. An extended version of Google Earth could allow you to
navigate
>>>>>> a terrain of the VR equivalent of URLs in a more entertaining, or
even
>>>>>> more comprehensible way.
>>>>> It would be a gimmick, and people would play around with it for a
few
>>>>> minutes and then never bother again. Seriously. We've seen all this
>>>>> before.
>>>> Maybe. However, the Second Life players are actually discussing this
>>>> kind of thing (using Google Earth or something like it with SL) in
their
>>>> forums.
>>> Sure. Just don't expect people to use this kind of thing as a
substitute
>>> for web browsing.
>> For some kinds of browsing, it might be more efficient.
>
> For browsing based on *actual* geography, e.g. finding content related
> to specific real-world locations, it's useful.
>
> That's about it.
That YOU can think of. There are countless ways of organizing data and
meta-data that neither of us have thought of. Some efficient ones might
lend themselves to a Google-Earth-like system. Or perhaps not. I just
remember Andy Grove's alleged corollary to Moore's Law: "...and every
two years people come up with stuff to do with it you never imagined was
possible."
>
>>>>> The tools are primitive because there's no good use case for the
format,
>>>>> not the other way around.
>>>>>
>>>> VRML has given way to X3D which is the new basis for MPEG-4 3D
scenes.
>>>> There's even an Ajax3D based on Ajax + X3D. I think that the
situation
>>>> you describe is about to change. The current generation of low-end
video
>>>> cards (even the built-in graphics of the Mac Mini!) are more than
>>>> capable of handling Second Life type graphics. X3D is an XML-based
>>>> language. I don't know that there is a binary version, but likely one
>>>> will be devised if the text version proves too slow for Virtual
Worlds use.
>>> Because, you know, when a technology stagnates for a decade, coming up
>>> with a buzzword-compliant replacement with a new name always turns
>>> things around.
>>>
>> VRML was XML based also.
>
> VRML predates XML by 3 or 4 years.
>
>> My point was about the binary format. And there ARE uses for VRML,
>> even.
>
> Not widespread ones.
>
Things change.
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