Re: [-empyre-] practical questions

["Melinda Rackham" <melinda@unsw.edu.au>]

millie hi..
thanx for identifying some of the great problems with web 3d.. it does take
more  effort to view 3d content.. as pluggings arent readily available in
web browsers say like flash is.. and are not supported across platforms, ie
its harder on a mac or linux. It does  require downloads and installs but so
do games .. and millions of people round the world do that regularly..

i thing cause 3d is quiet difficult still,  the community is strong.. and
helpful.. if you are interrested in starting work on 3d environments i'd
recommend you join the tech lists either the www-vrml list, see
http://www.web3d.org/fs_mailinglists.htm  and or the  mac vrml list at
http://www.macweb3d.org/. both sites are excellecnt resources as well.

if you want to make a multiuser world the bigger commercial spaces like
activeworlds , parallel graphics or blaxxun require no  special server
software on your part.. you make a world in thier domains.. it is when you
go independent that you need to do that.. and thre are many differnet
types..other people in this discussion know far more about that than me..
and there are people around who are also heplful about letting you use thier
servers.. ..its nice to know this still exists on the web.. I use a
university in australia  and the banff center in canada.. there are also
many places that host artworks on their servers for free..  useally art
organisations or unis.. one i heard of recently is the center for digital
discourse at virginatech.. http://www.cddc.vt.edu/index2.html.. so you could
apply to them.

re pluggins
Cosmoplayer, though by many to be the greatest vrml viewer around, has been
languishing for years without any development , but is available for
download from Computer Asssociates who own it.. the link is
http://www.cai.com/cosmo/

re empyrean
 no you probably wont get the full experience in win98 or on a mac
both of which tend to fall over processing bigger sites.. however i have
made the
spearate parts of the world availabe for peopel using those platforms.. so
try the option in single user: empyrean Omni and  for multiuser:
empyreanPoly which you may be able to look at as they are much  smallern
individual files..
-win2000, NT or XP are  the recommended viewers.
if all else fails there is  a real video stream which will give you a very
chunky idea at http://empyrean.cofa.unsw.edu.au/video.html -you need to turn
the sound up.

re cartoons..
i think they translate very wellinto 3d.. Tamiko successfully used cartoon
like charcters in one of her earlier projects.. and ive seen a quiet a bit
of vr research at places utilising cartoon like graphics.. eg the work on
sound environments that Rod Berry is doing at ATR in Japan using cute
creatures for childrens mixed reality applications.

melinda



> Melinda,
>
> I located a link to your empyrean project on www.subtle.com   It looked as
> if I need a plugin called Cosmo to view/explore your environment.  When I
> tried to follow your link to get the plugin, I was led to an unrelated (I
> think) Computer Associates site....  So what to do?  Also, I have win 98.
> 192MB RAM. Not sure of speed (not my computer)  I am about to upgrade to
XP,
> but this is my mom's machine and she has to make backup CDs before I can
do
> the upgrade for her, so it may be a while.  Given these hardware
> constraints, can I fully experience empyrean?
>
> >From the opposite side of the question, I am interested in creating
> immersive environments for my own work.  What is required to do this in a
> basic way?  I assume I need some kind of 3D authoring environment, or can
> one use VRML "by hand"?  Does one need to run a 3D app as a server for
users
> of a web site to be able to participate in worlds one creates?  At the
> moment, I am rather constrained by living in a small, shared web hosting
> system based on freeBSD.  They are not keen on their users running servers
> of any sort, although they do have PHP/mySQL  and Perl installed (with
> minimal modules).  If this is the ultimate hurdle, I supposed one could
> create works for download off a web site, but then you couldn't have
> multiple user interaction and the downloadees would need a program to run
> the worlds.
>
> Excuse the naive questions, for one who has been resolutely 2-d.  My whole
> style/method/paradigm of animation is 2-d, for example using cartoon
styles
> which don't carry into 3 dimensions.  (see my www.sporkworld.org
,especially
> the epoetry section which also contains animations, and The Chirstmas Tree
> Manifesto in the webworks section.  You will see that I do not seem to be
> ready to enter the third dimension.)
>
> Millie Niss
>
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