ZnU wrote:
> In article <3xolh.21733$4w4.3033@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>,
> Lawson English <LawsonE@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>
>> ZnU wrote:
>>> In article <Whmlh.18834$9e.1446@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>,
>>> Lawson English <LawsonE@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>>>
>>>> ZnU wrote:
>>>>> In article <OrWkh.162$_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...
>>> The world is huge, and allows users to construct arbitrary objects and
>>> upload arbitrary textures. So, it's not like WoW, where you only have
to
>>> download new data when Blizzard changes something, which doesn't
happen
>>> that often.
>> Eh. Even within EQ and WoW, there's a huge amount of content that is
>> continually being updated: the locations of all the MOBs and players.
>
> Sure, but this stuff is comparatively tiny, compared with all the
> geometry and textures..
Sure, but its not constantly changing as is the case with 100+ mobile
objects and/or avatars.
>
>> Of course, custom textures aren't allowed, nor are arbitrary objects,
>> but from what I've heard, there are few places where 100+ avatars
>> congregate in 2nd Life, so the demands on the system are entirely
>> different. If 100+ people added arbitrary objects and textures to the
>> same local area, I'm pretty sure that 2nd Life's lag would be worse
>> than the first day that the Bazar went live in Luclin if you were
>> there for that (not to mention the day that the Ahn Qi'raj ****tal
>> opened in WoW).
>
> The entire Second Life world is arbitrary objects, essentially. How
> many you have within your field of view depends on your settings, among
> other things. You can potentially get a very large number in your field
> of view, if you're looking from a high place. (And since avatars can
> fly, that's not uncommon.)
I suspect that there is a way of scaling how much info is sent to each
2nd Life client based on how far away an object is. Is there only one
geometric description per object? Even if so, there could be some
attempt made on the server-side at scaling the info automatically.
>
>>> [snip]
>>>
>>>>>>> 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."
>>> OK, but people have been going on about this stuff for a decade now,
and
>>> nobody appears to have come up with anything particularly useful.
>> Have you seen what p***** for tools for some of this stuff? Its
>> pathetic. Creative types don't want to learn programming languages or
>> the GUI equivalent to create something.
>
> Yes. But my argument is that the tools are so primitive, even after all
> these years, primarily because nobody can really think of anything much
> that would create demand significant to justify the investment
> requirement to make them better.
>
It's a chicken and egg thing. Up until recently, the highest-end movie
studio 3D packages cost as much as $60,000 (e.g. Maya Unlimited). Now,
you can get a student version for less than $400. Those packages were
around for YEARS but no-one was posting homemade 3D animations on the
net using them, so non-professionals must not have had any ideas, eh?
Now, Youtube has over 11,000 entries for "3d animation."
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=3d+animation&search=Search
As the tools become cheaper and easier to use, you will see more stuff
made using them.
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