Like a Phoenix From the Ashes: X3D and the Rebirth of Reason

Oops, I Did it Again.

I didn't mean to start another real time 3D standards revolution. Really. Back in 2000, I was just looking for my next gig.

It seemed obvious: the Internet economy was going down in flames, but the game industry was red hot. So I teamed up with a southern Cal veteran from Sony Online to create a next-generation massive multi-player online role-playing game (MMPORG). Cool concept, good design-- basically Everquest for the masses. There was only one problem: we had no money.

These days it takes $20M to create and launch a MMPORG using a traditional game development approach. First, you need to develop or license a game engine-- e.g. Unreal. That's half a million bucks right there at a minimum, assuming you’re smart and license it. Then, you spend another $3-4M to design and develop the game. Then there's $5M to build and host your network operations center (NOC). And then $10M to market it. And the whole thing will take about 2 years.

That's a pretty big league game to get into for two guys with a good idea and no money. We had a solid business idea, but little established cred in the game industry. And while games were all the rage, breaking into that business as a newbie wasn't going to be a picnic. So my partner got this bright idea: why don't we launch the game on the web instead? It’ll be faster and a whole lot cheaper.

DOING!

That changed everything. Now we were talking about building a web-based system. Many game engines are Internet-enabled, in that they allow for multiple players, but most are nowhere in terms of integrating with web formats, languages, standards, i.e. the things you need to make a viable Web product... not to mention that the engine downloads are usually a whopper, because these things typically ship on CDs, not a 56k line.

I realized that we needed =shudder= a Web 3D engine.

That last time I had dealt with one of those, it was pretty traumatic.

Back in 1994 I was part of a posse that invented VRML. Remember that? VRML was one of the most-hyped and least understood phenomena of the Internet age. “Web3D-- coming to a virtual shopping mall near you!” A spectacular entrance, years of hype, and finally a lurid demise. Deader than dead... sideswiped by Java3D, kneecapped by ChromEffects and finally trepanned by Flash... all the while misused and abused... ultimately rolled up into a mighty PLATINUM armada on a one-way mission to a dead Stargate address. The tombstone would read: VRML was too early, too broken, and too poorly managed. My only consolation in all this was, compared to the subsequent excesses of Kozmo.com and DEN, the paltry $5M I blew at Intervista Software trying to democratize 3D was a pittance. Ah well, Live and Learn.

I ran screaming, and took a couple of years off.

The MMPORG project brought me back to Web 3D with some reluctance. I had been following the developments there from a distance: Macromedia and Adobe were taking a swing at it-- after half a decade of me trying to hammer this into their corporate heads, I guess they finally got the message-- and a crop of up-and-comers with spiffy names like Cult and Pulse were trying to make a dent, too. Redmond alum Alex St. John was there with WildTangent. I figured, by now, someone would have cracked the puzzle, and I wouldn't have to suffer too much pain to get a working system up and running.

No such luck.

Is That All There Is?

I approached the problem as a system architect. What technology would I need to deploy a large-scale multi-user 3D game world over the web?

- An engine - a graphics layer at a much higher level than the 3D rendering APIs DirectX and OpenGL. I needed a scalable, robust simulation system that would manage objects, animations, interactivity, behaviors, text, movies, images, etc., with a lot of built-in functionality that didn’t require hand-coding every time;
- An API – I needed a way to program the engine, not just feed it "content" for "playback." I was building a complex application, not ad banners;
- File formats – The content had to be created in well-accepted formats, giving us the widest options for cheap tools and content that could be reused in a variety of settings;
- An open architecture – Finally, I need something that integrates well with the other technologies in the web, uses standard programming languages, and could connect up to different servers for chat, streaming media, terrain, models, etc.

What did I find? Media Players. Everybody was playing the Player game, trying to own the runtime, be the next Macromedia. (I guess they didn't realize that even Macromedia didn't want to be the next Macromedia by then. They were just trying to stay afloat as the Internet ship was sinking). The only exceptions were WildTangent and Adobe. They had Engines. However, those engines were on the other end of the spectrum-- they were programmable platforms, but they didn't have support for any of the higher-level constructs; one would have to roll one's own to implement even the most rudimentary capabilities.

These technologies were barely more useful than low-level rendering APIs, for all they help they gave. And being the control freak that I am, if I was going to use someone else's stuff, it had better be *really* good. I mean, why hitch to someone else's wagon if it wasn't going to pull me far or fast enough? Also, if it broke down, I better be able to fix it myself. I didn't have much luck going down this path, and found myself asking, "Is that all there is?"

But here's where it gets really interesting. What started as an engineering exercise ended in Irony.

These newer, supposedly better, Web 3D systems were hatched during the years 1998 through 2001, when VRML was in full nose-dive. Around that time there was a massive feeding frenzy by people who had been sidelined watching us build an open real time 3D platform and praying for our failure, itching to dominate with their own flavor of proprietary thing, stone age throwbacks to a bygone pre-Internet time.

Several years earlier I had come to the painful realization that 3D developers are completely blind to the rest of the computing world when it comes to user interface, work flow, application development, basically the whole proposition of Information Technology (IT). The worst of these offenses is their continual defiance of Net Logic, i.e. sharing and cooperation, open standards, interoperability. They just don't get it, and I suspect they never will. I suppose because I am a relative latecomer to 3D-- my own dirty little secret being that I'm a compiler hacker, never studied 3D graphics in school -- I have always had something of an outsider's perspective on these matters.

Anyway, they all partied hard when VRML tanked, and my ears are still throbbing from that. Dozens of companies rushed in to fill the vacuum, proclaiming "3D has come to the Web" at last, at last, and offering their own unique brand of salvation for the content creator: YAMPs (Yet Another Media Player) by the dozen. Spinning tennis shoes! Shooter games! Avatars! Viewpoint! Cult! Shells! Pulse! Join us in the Web 3D revolution. Barf.

The spin on VRML's crash and burn was that it was a "standard for its own sake," too bureaucratic, too slow to evolve, a problem looking for a solution, a Communist plot, etc., and that these new entries could do a much better job of "responding to their customers' needs" with a proprietary format controlled by a single company with a Really Big Name. The truth behind VRML's demise is plainer, simpler and uglier than this convoluted logic: we were too early, and the products sucked. If we hadn't been too early, we could have generated enough business to stick around for another revision or two and fix things; but we were too early by a decade. And I can say with first-hand knowledge that the products truly sucked. Mea culpa; I was just a boy. Anyway, the truth didn't matter. These other guys had Karl Rove working for them, and they spun brilliantly. VRML was consigned to history's scrap heap, Big Name was going to pick up all the marbles and I would just have to sit by and watch. =Sniff=

So here's the Irony: none of that new stuff did even 50% of what VRML does. Most of it didn't even work. Despite the rather large chip that was still on my shoulder, I had been hoping, for the sake of the current project, that somebody by now had figured out how to do 3D on the Web right, and I would have a platform to work with. I was willing to come to terms with that before I could accept the idea that hundreds of the supposedly best and brightest minds in graphics and Internet software were en masse repeating the mistakes of the past.

Nope. Everybody was still doing it WRONG.

I wasn't sure whether to feel vindicated or despondent. But even as I was trying to decide between those two emotions, I was hit by a nauseating realization: I was going to have to re-invent VRML.

I Will Survive

It was my own kind of Groundhog Day. After the heavy lifting years before, the invention, evangelism, business development, and industry chess matches, I was going to have to start all over again. I didn’t even have my old code; that was bought, paid for, locked up in a vault somewhere and nobody would ever find the key again. All in all, a pretty daunting proposition. But, times and idle hands being what they were, I jumped in. Also, I must admit to a certain excitement about rewriting something from scratch. It’s the engineer in me.

Step 1 was to go see what was up with VRML. Back in 1998, as the writing was on the wall for VRML, the Web3D Consortium started a next-generation project to rescue the good bits of VRML, put a fresh face on it, incorporate XML, and add the spiffy visual features from the new generation of graphics cards. We called it X3D-- a little name magic to distance ourselves, we would eventually find that this tactic worked brilliantly-- and began work on the new spec. Now, in late 2000, I checked in with Web3D to see what was happening with X3D.

The X3D specification effort was well under way, but there was a big disconnect between the still-surviving commercial interests slogging away at VRML97 and the visionary forces within Web3D willing to break with the past in order to embrace today’s realities via X3D. I like to think I helped bridge that gap, if only by virtue of being a commercial interest willing to make an X3D pure play with very little need to hang on to VRML. More precisely, I had every desire to get as far away from VRML as I could! So, I joined up with the X3D working group, and, perhaps not surprisingly, was asked to co-chair the group before long. By 2002 we had a spec we could live with and went to ISO for standardization.

By the time Web3D had fully sucked me back in, my MMPORG game venture was history, and I was in full prototype mode with my new Flux engine, looking for a business. I didn’t mind that I had no clear idea of the direction; to me it was enough just to be back in the saddle. But more than that, I was still burning with the conviction that this was the right course: the only way 3D was ever going to reach mass audiences-- on the web or anywhere else in the 21st century— was with a standard format and an open architecture. It didn’t matter that the Internet wasn’t quite dead yet, and the proprietary behemoths were still pushing their own brands of 3D dog food; I had Right on my side.

But did I have time? I needed some customers. Luckily, they began finding me. By 2002, we had our first customers for Flux and we were up and running. By 2003, the X3D spec was in its final review stages with ISO. It looked like we were gonna make it.

Then, another Irony.

Lo and behold, the realities of business were catching up with latest pack of proprietary wannabes, and it was crash and burn for Web3D for a second time. Note to industry: virtual Shrek may make a great demo, but you can’t build a business on it. To quote the immortal words of Barbie: “Math is hard.” Simple nostrums and spinning sports watches aren’t going to change this immutable law of nature: real time 3D is a tough proposition. Hats off to WildTangent, the only one of the bunch who ever had a working business model, and mazeltov. After the dust settled, a few crafty folks-- survivors of the latest 3D wreckage-- got a Wonderful, Awful idea for saving their doomed efforts. They decided to create a Standard.

Hah?

Yeah, you heard right: a standard. You see, that’s been the problem all along, they said, there is no *standard* for 3D content on the web. This is what they said, to the world, and even with a big fat straight face directly to the Web3D consortium, who had just spent nearly ten years creating not one, but two standards for real time 3D on the web and beyond.

Now, Web3D is an inclusive bunch. They have had to be, over the years, to survive the vicissitudes of this market space. But that effrontery was too much for some of us hard-liners to bear. A cold war ensued within Web3D, the details of which don’t matter for the sake of this story. I don’t intend to get into a tell-all about the insider politics of our industry. Suffice to say that the particular initiative I am alluding to was a non-starter, and in the end it turned out alright for us. But with Big Names behind it, that episode randomized us, and more significantly, our customers, for a while. Thankfully, only just for a while. The reason I cite the incident here is because it appears to be the first of several attempts to Steal Our Act.

You see, standards aren’t the problem, it’s just *their* standards that are the problem, or so the Newspeak goes. Fresh on the heels of quashing that particular threat from within, we see a new field of so-called “standards” for 3D content emerging, backed by Big Names and promising Great Things, all over again, again. And the tactics are getting more insidious: some of them are even stealing our requirements slides now, verbatim.

What is going on here? Is the 3D industry actually getting the new economy? Or is it just a ploy? Have they finally been pushed into a corner, and realized that in order to expand their business they have to (holding their noses) cooperate? Or is this simply a cynical strategy intended to lure in the unsuspecting customers who haven’t read the fine print about royalties? Whatever, all of a sudden, “standard” isn’t such a dirty word, and, following the tried and true formula for Stealing Someone Else’s idea, we are now in Stage 2 – claim that it was your idea in the first place.

Well, don’t believe the hype. The Emperor is buck naked and I’m here to point it out. If you want to deploy real time 3D in an open environment, across platforms and devices, over a network, integrated with data, with no strings attached, then there is only one way to go: X3D. Accept no substitutes. X3D is now the official International Standard for doing real time 3D graphics, period. It’s pretty and fast, it’s XML and programmable. It’s industrial strength for the real world, but it can do Nemo online in real time, if that’s what you’re into. And this time, it actually works. :->

As a parting shot to those who would dabble in standards, pseudo-standards and quasi-standards for real time 3D, I’ve got two words: Bring It. You’re on my turf now. This is my game and I know how to play it.

Money, Money, Money

There. Now I feel much better. Thanks for letting me vent.

You know, at a certain level, this standards stuff doesn’t matter. But at another level, it’s everything.

Standards don’t matter because it’s the applications that matter. (To the legions of people who lay this platitude on me, pretty much on a daily basis, thank you. I wouldn’t have been able to figure it out without you. I would just sit around working on a 500 page spec for its own sake, because that’s so much fun.) But try to scale these applications up, and try to reuse your content, across an enterprise or over the Internet, without standards. Just try. And even if you don’t want to use standards, your customers will eventually make you, because by now they have gotten tired of paying you too much money to rewrite the same content over and over and over again for each new application use, each new platform.

Let me be as crystal clear as I can about this: I am in it for one reason, and one reason only: Money. Moola. The Long Green. Back in the VRML day, it was enough to be famous as The VRML Guy. Now, I could care less about the fame. As an old bass player friend of mine used to say: throw money, don’t clap.

In my world view, the best and surest path to making money with real time interactive 3D over the long haul requires standards. Are they sufficient? Of course not. But they are absolutely necessary. Without standards, the market will never reach an interesting enough size. Without standards, customers will never invest in a new technology like real time 3D, unless of course it is supplied by you-know-who, and they don’t seem to be in much of a hurry. (The latest estimates I’ve heard place spinning boxes in the operating system by 2007. Sorry, Bill, but the world isn’t going to wait that long.) Without standards, real time 3D will continue wandering about its own version of the Balkans, with rich content trapped in $20,000 CAD design seats or withering away on proprietary vines, unplayable because the player company is out of business or changed its mind to meet the fashion of the day.

But it isn’t going to go down that way, because the world is ready for something better.

X3D has reignited the revolution of affordable, open, scalable real time 3D, delivered over networks, running on multiple platforms, with seamless data exchange and integrated into applications. GIS, engineering, training, manufacturing, education, defense, homeland security, corporate communications, presentation graphics, marketing, e-commerce, travel, real estate, entertainment, games, medical, pharmaceutical… it’s hard to conceive of an application area that is not *already* using real time 3D in one way or another. It won’t be long before they make the move to X3D because it makes good business sense.

It’s the only reasonable thing to do.

Comments

[stefano]

Very interesting article, but I was wondering why nobody mentioned the w3d file format, that lets you bring real 3d content to the web via the shockwave plug-in. Quite easy to get and very powerfull indeed, though sometimes not so stable.
And it has been out there for 2 years at last, since macromedia unveiled director 8.5. Since then, they have already released at least two subsequent version (the more recent one is Director MX 2004).

Off course, this has to do with the ways to bring interactive 3d content on the web, and not with standards. But as flash has became a de facto standard, and since director is the equivalent standard for multimedia cd-rom authoring, why it could not also become the standard way to distribute 3d content on the web? It is easy to use and to learn, especially since most developer are used to the program's GUI (the usual macromedia GUI) and maybe also with the not so different scripting language, similar to flash actionscript.
I was able to design and program a 3d first person shooter in less than 2 months, starting from scratch and having no experience at all both in 3d graphics and in director itself.
The biggest problem might be due to the program really expansive price.

Stefano

ps: it can be also used for multiuser online games.

[cube3]

in response to yor post about director and shockwave3d, i suggest a few things.

1. flash is not shockwave3d and the two have been inversely popular in usage and adoption.
2. directors interface or lack of it was responsible for this, Ill bet you used the CHROME LIBS on your game, they wre not made or offered by macromedia, but all due to th altruism on a guy named karl...macromedia for web3d has not been your pal:)
3. Ive posted a current posting direct from the macromedia.shockwave.3d newsgroups. take a read, youll find alot more like it there..

4. vizx3d offfers a version 1 not 10 , but decent gui to interactive x3d that runs in flux.. try it. then make your comments....

theyre most likely will not be a shockwave3d upgrade from macromedia...time to move on. and BTW- flux and vizx3d togther are less than 600.00 bucks.

---------------------------

Hi Tom and Emmy,

I appreciate that you both have a number of issues on your plate, the very
least being the future of the 3D xtra. I understand that businesses are
governed by ROI, and to-date the 3D side may have consumed more than it
delivered. However, I think things are about to change for the following
reasons. Let me explain.

3D on the web has been hamstrung for the following reasons:

1. 3D cards have not been pervasive enough

2. Download requirements for compelling 3D content has been excessive
(comparatively to normal 2D content)

3. 3D imagery did not accurately reflect or represent real life products,
therefore limiting mainstream acceptance (i.e. businesses)

All these "issues" are about to go away...

1. Microsoft (who unfortunately have a huge influence) will be releasing their
next operating system in a year or so, which will rely heavily on 3D rendering.
This will have the resultant effect that ALL PCs will have quite decent
graphics cards.

2. Broadband is increasingly prevalent, and prices have dropped considerably
for both consumers and content providers. The time and cost per megabyte is
dropping all the time.

3. The past 3 years have seen great revolutions in realtime 3D rendering
technologies. Pixel and vertex shaders have allowed the creation of realistic
surfaces for 3D models. Combined with other quality enhancing features such as
anisotropic filtering and anti-aliasing, and you can produce VERY realistic
looking 3D models that are truly representative of their real-life
counterparts. This will make it both feasible and attractive for businesses to
have their products viewable in 3D online.

Macromedia were visionary in their view that 3D will revolutionize the web
experience. However, the revolution is happening a little later than everyone
expected. The required critical mass will be achieved by Microsoft's next move,
and if Director is kept up-to-date, it will be well poised to take advantage of
this paradigm shift.

The current 3D product is very good. The main thing it is lacking is support
for pixel and vertex shaders. You have done most of the hard work already.
Adding support for these new shaders is only a change to the rendering pipeline
- not too big a job. There are many 3rd party tools available for creating and
testing the shaders.

If you need a business case for continuing developing and enhancing the 3D
xtra, I hope this helps...

-------------------------
d[-.-]b

[stefano]

cube3 you are right in saying that i should try vix3d, and i will. But i'm not really convinced that shockwave 3d is dead and won't be supported again. And even if now x3d, as you state in your posts, outperform shockwave in realistic redering capabilities, i still think that programming a game - and also a multimedia app - in director isn't that hard at all. On the contrary it is surprisingly easy, even without third parties' xtras (which i actually didn't use at all for my project). Lingo is powerfull (just think about havok phisics and what you can do with it, in terms of user experience) and easy, and i don't have much to bother with director's gui. But off course that's a matter of opinion.
BTW i also think open formats are the best, and wish x3d and your company all the success it can have.

stefano

[cube3]

lingo is great, but the sad truth is that most lingo experts got lost in the flash actionscript hoopla years ago. and that since shockwave3d wasnt exactly marketed well, very few new pros learned lingo. Most pro level director projects used c anyway to augment lingo, thus the same can be done with x3d...
as for shockwave3d being updated, im sure it will in minor ways, but the core tech and engine are old and know one sees a plan to do that. In 3D engines matter:), havok isnt lingo, just a licensed physics tech that im pretty sure has not been licenced in director mx,,,so that also may be a dead end for shockwave3d.

I think macromedia is fixed on flex and flash and the 2d interface os ....

so looking into x3d now would serve you well if you want to continue to do 3d related web projects:) thats just safe advice.

larry

[cube3]

lingo is great, but the sad truth is that most lingo experts got lost in the flash actionscript hoopla years ago. and that since shockwave3d wasnt exactly marketed well, very few new pros learned lingo. Most pro level director projects used c anyway to augment lingo, thus the same can be done with x3d...
as for shockwave3d being updated, im sure it will in minor ways, but the core tech and engine are old and know one sees a plan to do that. In 3D engines matter:), havok isnt lingo, just a licensed physics tech that im pretty sure has not been licenced in director mx,,,so that also may be a dead end for shockwave3d.

I think macromedia is fixed on flex and flash and the 2d interface os ....

so looking into x3d now would serve you well if you want to continue to do 3d related web projects:) thats just safe advice.

larry

[Dan Mapes]

What kills 3D on the internet is lack of compelling applications. period.

Games are nice but the pre-existing competition between engines dilutes the opportunity for X3D.

What Tony has done with Flux is to set the stage, and the tone, for commercial development without too many strings attached. I for one am taking a serious look at X3D but with less of a focus on the technology and more on the business models that might truly leverage it.

The point is, that until the fundamental biz problem is solved all these worries about who is technically better... or not... is really moot.

Tony's Flux, the X3D standard and affordable realtime platforms have opened the door again. Whether it's the right time yet... well.. that's the gamble isn't it.

Just hope Mr. Money isn't too jaded from the last iteration.

Dan

[Bill McCloskey]

Boy,

This sounds familiar. 10 years ago, in 1994 I was in the games industry. We put a fantastic design, had a distributor (Microsoft) interested, and Digital Domain lined up to the do the production. Then everything fell apart (as it always does in the cyclic world of computer games - witness Acclaim filing bankrupcy recently). I then had a great idea: put it on the Web! Which led to my interest in VRML and eventually being hired as the VRML evangelist for Cosmo Software.

I was eventually able to leverage my experience at Cosmo into being the "Rich Media Guy" in the online advertising world. Which eventually led to me designing a product for marketers that people actually wanted to use and buy - not in the 3d world but the world of email.

Over the last few years I've witnessed attempts by companies to make a profit from 3D on the Web. Most had fantastic demos but after millions of dollars spent, no one really wanting to buy. Viewpoint recently changed their model into a Contextual Search Engine business.

Anyone looking to make money from the fickle world of games or from 3d on the web...my hats off, but I fear it will always be the area of hobbyist and of niche interest. I don't think VRML was 10 years ahead of its time. I don't think the time will ever get here. There will always be passionate people in this industry, and Tony is a great example of that. But as a financially viable growth business... it will never happen in my opinion. It will always have the cool factor, the great demo, but as far as being a "must have", it is just not part of the equation.

[Tony Parisi]

Bill,

The one point I think you're missing here is that it's no longer about "Web"... and it probably shouldn't have been in the first place.

It's about real time 3D. This represents a fundamental shift in HCI, the surface of which we have barely scratched. The conventional wisdom these days is that real time 3D is useful primarily for games. To me that's like saying that the printing press was invented to play Monopoly. It's totally myopic and ignores the other 90% of applications out there. My vision is that, in five years, the $20B (or whatever the number is based on however they count this stuff) game industry will be 10% of the overall market for real time 3D.

My mission isn't to bring real time 3D to the web-- that's fine as far as it goes, and it will comprise a portion of Media Machines' business-- but rather to anybody doing anything. And if you don't think it's a must have, or will be soon, then you aren't looking in the same place that I am looking:

GIS
CAD
Distance learning
Simulation
Manufacturing
Real Estate

and more. They are all already using real time 3D or looking to get into it. The X3D proposition is about *commoditizing* that to tap into economies of scale. This is the wave I hope to help build and then ride.

+

[rikk carey]

I read your post with great interest, but still cannot answer the question: "what problem is X3D solving?"

[Alex]

Tony,
Great stuff – & now it’s good time for the fresh start of 3d web – now it has to be driven by the end user – really - it is only that as long as discussion is in the tech domain – they have no clue there is this great open language to use…

Its mostly a marketing job towards the user – once developers choose the language, write some cool stuff – the market will grow.

Well , it is just natural that industry does not listen – or pretends not to. The Moneymen do not hear ‘cause its too little publicity / hype, & IT professionals are simply threatened by this more transparent approach. Because it turns conventional ways of making money in IT upside-down. And because it is a threat to all those closed 3D web solutions.

How is average developer / IT firm is making money these days? On making things (look) COMPLEX - and / or proprietary - so that they can control the client, charge max, surf budgets etc.

See, black boxes cost more than glass ones - all paid for by the helpless business or private user… So, I guess it’s a re-enforcing downward spiral: closed it => more money (extorted) => stronger IT brand => (more) => (even more) stronger IT brand… - At the end, who is going to listen to the rebels? – Who dares to say many ASP, SAP etc. etc. implementations are major rip-off

If we are to make 3D internet come true – it has to become a real interesting place - & has to be hooked up to important applications with substantial underlying cash flows/investments, - small learning apps, visualisations, whatever - & they can be small – just need to be based on real important needs.

& should not listen to all the scared black-box code weavers – we need to carve a need for the better ways – open, more efficient….

…we need more air to breath, more SPACE.

As to technicalities of the X3D:
Its great someone bothered to develop it - & cool it is there – but why XMLise 3D scene graph, really? – Scalability across apps, sure – but all this effort into XMLising the geometry code… Actually, I am happy with VRML as it is– most of hardware will run good old VRML real smooth, - I’d rather bring XML on a meta-data level… Of course - to distance from VRML, so that Moneymen r not scared to invest into “VRML under the hood” (in positive terms) – but that is another story…

BTW - your x3d editor is COOL.

Alex

[John Anthony Hartman]

Tony when I read Marks book with the foreword from Sir Time Beners-Lee stating “The word “space” is used in an abstract way , but people seem to feel more at home in a hyperspace when it has some of the properties of real space” and the Acknowledgement from Mark stating “ Tony Parisi for his collaborative genius and down to earth attitude. Without whom, non of this would have happened.” I was hooked. Having been a virtual reality consultant in the early 90’s I was of course intrigued in 1995 when I read these words. The reality that stuck me sunk to the very core of my existence and said to me that no one would quite understand the reality of tomorrow in the 14.4 realities of today. The bandwidth wasn’t here yet. 3G just scratches the WIMAX of reality was not even there in 1995 but in 2005 and the reality of 3D environments seem oh so much more a real possibility.

If you will indulge me I would like to share with you the same story I have told Dr. Webber at ManyOne.

“It has been my dream for over ten years, ever since I walked through VR World and caught a glimpse of what might be, to develop interactive environments . At that point having already read Rheingold and following Lanier’s concept into the virtual spaces of tomorrow I started envisioning the UI that could be. I rendered and modeled my way into some little gigs and actually had clients who were very interested in the concept of location based entertainment.

So with hope and excitement I headed out to California to this conference put on by Meckler Media ready to strike. My head was spinning after the first day of hardware and software options. I still have the Virtual IO glasses I bought. Walking though the conference hall I stopped and waited in a long line to sit inside an F18 hornet simulator pitching and rolling on hydraulic arm shooting at the bad guys until I crashed into the ground. I then moved on to playing a video game where you strap into a set of spinning rings, remember Lawnmower Man, you used you body to guide your space craft across the desert planet and fired at the bug aliens, I was blown away. 3D stereoscopic display with my physical movement actually translated into the game awesome!

After stepping off this game I immediately wanted to purchase both units on the spot, but then the cold hard reality started to creep in. The F18 Hornet simulators were hundreds of thousands of dollars and then you had to buy the control system and oh buy the way a three unit minimum was required for purchase. I knew that my clients did not have that kind of budget and saw my VR consulting days slipping away.

That night I sat and had a drink at the hotel I was staying at, right near the convention and meet up with a lawyer who was at the show as well. We started talking about the show and I mentioned the spinning ring game and how great I thought it was. He proceeded to crush my dreams even more by pointing out the legal liabilities involved with this. The step coming out of the unit is too height and will get you sued in a heart beat as soon as some one falls. He also pointed out that the spinning actually affects your balance and the effect is like drinking two glasses of alcohol so if this establishment sold liquor then the liability for DUI is high.

Distraught I took my World Tool Kit and Virtual IO glasses home and played around a bit. As soon as my clients heard the costs they immediately started looking for the exit. This killed my VR consulting right then and there with no clients and some cool toys I moved to my other main interest in those days this new thing called the Internet.

I had been doing BBS for years, hell I remember my 300 baud modem days, but this was different. At one point in the mid 90’s I had 16 ISP’s at the same time trying them all out looking for the best one. Sixteen ISP’s got a little expensive and the lucrative VR trade had been a pan full of fools gold so I decided to go back to school and at night and do something that would not take up to much gray matter, like work at a video store.

So with my new job at Hollywood Video I embarked on my quest to finish my degree. After working at the store for less than a week my manager informed me that I had a job interview lined up at the corporate headquarters. I had fixed more computer issues in four days than they had resolved in four months and so he had mentioned while at meeting there that he a computer wiz kid working for him and well they needed bright young yada yada… So the next day dressed to the nines I went in for my interview. I got the job at corporate and a mighty hefty raise however this required a 9-5 with 24 hour support leaving little time for school. The rest is as they say history. So having hooked up with Hollywood Video I then proceeded to get involved with Intel beta testing some of the first web servers.

I created one of what I have to guess were the first Intranets linking documents and forms; I seem to remember writing a search engine in Perl. As I sat working with this Star Gate server that you never closed the management console on, if you did you had to reboot because for some reason it would not launch with the HTTP daemons running, I had an epiphany about video on demand over the Internet.

I was supporting the Networks at the stores and testing the web while trying to convince management to create the relationships and data base to sell movies over the Internet. I was meet with great skepticism when I suggested this concept of selling a video on demand over the net. "At 14.4 it would take forever to download a movie" they said. I tried in vein to convince them it would take them quite some time to digitize all this media and work out the contractual agreements with the studios etcetera and that by the time we were ready for market that the Internet would be much faster and bigger.

Alas in my youth I did not yet have the realization that one must wade through middle management and get to the real meat of a company or leap head first in the owner’s arms to actualize ones vision. So I floundered in Dilbertville with my gold mine collecting arsenic and resulting in only slag offerings from the lower entities in the corporate food chain. Business lesson number one learned I headed to Internet World to sit at the webmasters round table and caught a glimpse of the future.

Disheartened I left the company to go back to school. I was headed to Seattle to get my Multimedia design degree and from there to design the most amazing 3D interactive environments the world had ever seen. You see I had just discovered a new language called VRML at Internet World. WOW! An actual code for my vision, could it be true I joined Cybertown and was ready to roll.

At first life was grand I had clients left and right. I was taking the school by storm and all was right in the universe or so it seemed. Business lesson number two never let your partners control access to the clients, always be involved in meetings and keep your eyes on the ball. After learning, months after the fact, that one of my partners had pissed off all our high paying clients. I watched a steady income of 30 hours a week while I went to school dwindle to 3. I found my self in a very precarious situation. The other two partners had decided to move into another “marketing venture”. Broke and still having real world bills from my previous life I came to point where the school would not allow me to return until I paid my back tuition.

Switching gears I formed my own consulting firm and moved back to Portland. I had quite a few clients but my main client made me a Y2K offer I could not refuse. So leaving the other clients on the back burner I traveled the country assuring the world was safe for four digits. Coding for two digits to save a few K unreal, I just saw a 120 GB hard drive for $59 but I digress. One thing lead to another a client whom I was doing work for benefits cut me off and another offer was made to have me come to work for the big client full time. So for the last 5 years I have been a cog in the corporate wheel. Doing things like building there Active Directory structure from the ground up, working with the FAA to run two systems in tandem for flight operations while getting the new system blessed by the feds and other things that I could go on adnausium about various projects and duties with my current employer. We have 12 major companies and multiple subsidiaries everything from air craft to hazel nuts so it has always been very diverse. However I slowly shifted into the grind. One of my joys in all this has been being on the Board of Directors of the he Michael King Smith Kid’s Fund. We grant loans to Kids to start there own companies. I have always loved kids and even studied education early on in collage and considered it as a career before the binary call of silicon got in my blood.

I had settled into the hum drum when what should I come across but ManyOne. All the old feeling immediately rushed to the surface and I realized what am I doing? My quest to try and find the answer as to how we were going to move beyond the flat world interfaces had been locked in some unexciting corporate comma. I had settled but it seems that the passion was still burning coals just waiting to be stoked by the winds of change. With ManyOnes philosophy of social awareness and dedication to education as well as your universal browser and other media concepts everything just seems right. I do not know how you will take this, as a rant or a testament but I felt this was a quintessential moment in my life and if I did not express myself in great detail that I would forever regret it.

Let’s create the future,

John Anthony Hartman”

I would not so openly advertise but as I stated to Dr. Webber this is that moment and I must not let it pass me by. My wife gives me a hard time about my statements like “ its time to change the world” but it truly is. Please help me to help you and mention my name to Dr. Webber the next time you are in Scotts Valley or on a conference call please just mention this communication and perhaps we can make a reality out of a dream so long ago dreamt.

[Alex]

John,
Thank you for the EXCELLENT story... – There comes my “stream of conscience” in return…

Corporate world does not open up for 3d primarily due to narrow focus and over-spent on all those other, simpler kids of IT...

"we can make a reality out of a dream so long ago dreamt"... - sure, - just a question of scope/scale that is feasible - & I bet there is so many people out there remaining in similar "un-exciting corporate comas" sharing our vision (incl. myself).

Now, this all gets down to commercialisation, - is there anybody out there with budgets crying for 3D? - And willing to spend money on this?

Sure, - but most business users still get easily impressed with any web app and Excel macros that work - after having spent zillions on patchwork-style IT... 3d just sounds more risky, expensive - but it is not, when done right.

So, "The Change" has to start from the "rock-bottom" - converting end-users into open 3d solutions, - they’d never come back to "flat-land" applications...

And now this IS the time, - just need to carve out the market niche large enough for us to survive as professionals - our way, with our kind of clients... & they probably won’t be those corporates to start with...

As to kids: - this is rather interesting segment - they have no vested interests in tech solutions as corporates and developers, - use any solution that does the trick, - & it'd better be simple, scaleable and easy to tweak and build on (and most of those C++ games are not) … Yet, its too little to see in either x3d or even VRML – its mostly some test simple worlds developed by the programmers toying with the tech back in 90s. Today 3d content has to be the king - & its available mostly as commercial game titles - & that market is under-developed …

We need to involve users directly into content development – time to create and then colonise new cyberspace on the large scale – & it does not matter which language – can well be VRML/x3d (bind it to shared XML schema and be open about “flavours” of back-end engines) – integrated into every-day uses of IT (learning, counting etc.) .

Alex

(To be continued)

(to be continued)

[John Anthony Hartman]

Yes YES YES!
Content is king and the lackadaisical development of a cohesive environment in the past has lead the 3D industry into a first person shooter rat maze mentality. DOOM was huge so lets flog this horse till it dies, well DOOM 3, Unreal, Halo and many others show that money is still in shoot-um up, yawn, video games. The industry is sooooooo sort sighted sometimes.
The realities was in 1995 we were at the precipices of an unbelievable future where children would be taught in interactive 3D simulations. Imagine sitting in the boat as Washington crosses the Delaware, a lot more exciting than your history teacher reading from his text book supplement. In a future where augmented displays would feed us bus schedules and other mundane day to day information in an overlay of our vision. Living in a time where doctors would perform remote surgeries on patients in rural communities or half way across the world. A tomorrow that existed in interactive 3D shared space where our visual, auditory and even haptic senses would span the globe and move us beyond our physical locality.

Many of these advancements are coming but the corporate CFO has no concept of what this truly means to his bottom line. He is still in gee whiz from his latest reporting tools with pie charts that update in real time. Wow can anyone say DATABASE. I truly believe that until they can get some sort of real true 3D experience beyond the video game corporate America will be more than happy to stick to 3D bar charts in Excel and Everquest as the extent of there 3D experiences.

So to that end I say we strike at the only demographic that will guarantee to get them to open the pocket book, their children. Start with an educational environment or application. Make it interesting and fun while incorporating functionalities that utilize 3D, hell even 4D space. This is one of the reasons I am so interested in how Flux is going to be used at ManyOne. Lets bring these flat worlder’s into true space (not to confused with Caligari) and make the realities of tomorrow not only virtual but visceral.

[Alex]

Well, what can I say? - Funny, I kind of gave up my hopes for the grown-ups, really - who wants to be cooler than necessary?

The only folks who get real good use of 3d (always did) are military - there s funding is plenty & - who does not like playing toy soldiers out there? - & VR has no limitations in the game play... could that be a reason?

& all this shoot-them up gaming craze - well, its a minor share of the potential 3d entertainment market that is still in hibernation - sort of on ice - maybe intentionally kept in sleep by the addiction-game "weavers" - again, why be cooler that need-be?...

Alex

[Peter]

Indeed, a nice piece of IT history from first hand ...

But someone invited me to leave "my" VR-"discussion" group for posting a link to it ... no discussion, no conversation, no thought was spent on it ... will X3D underlay the same desease that VRML suffered ? What kind of hypnotic subliminal code is macro... - that one -feeding our brains with trough the screen ?

What a terrible world is this !

Peter

[Peter]

Hi, Toni !

I´ve got some questions about the Flux installation :

At this point I´ve got installed on one and the same WindowsXP SP2 system :

Blaxxun Contact on MSIE 6.0
Cortona Client on Netscape 7.2
Flux on .... ?! ... I really don´t know, cause it was installed after all those Blaxx, Cort and NS.

Do you think that my viewers might get in conflict one with each other ?

What kind of installation and registation is the Flux installer performing ? I mean, is it registering for all mime-types it´s able to handle or is it first looking for previous installed viewers and respecting them or something else?

As "rich-media-player" it is, shouldn't I have somhow, somwhere a flux.exe or at least the option to open eg. mpeg4 files with it ?

Now let me get rid of some thaughts I had about "... why did vrml97 never get "airborne" and what could Toni Parisi do to prevent X3D from a similar lack of success ?" It´s very related to my questions above :

If you are creating any content for the web, you might embed eg. a flash-movie and send the client to download the needed plugin, knowing you would not harm him at all doing so. We all have our Quicktime, Flash, etc. ... plugins (don´t we ?).

At the other hand, if you want to embed a wrl file, and you are one of the "nice" web-makers, things are gonna get hard for your concience :

Even if you embed a 100% spec-conform wrl and the client doesn´t have the needed plugin, you should really think twice about if sending the client to the downloadpage of your favourite vrml-plugin or redirect him first to some vrml-tutorials, mailing lists etc. ... so he might decide by himself what plugin is the best for his needs.

I think it is not nice - and the consortium should have done something to prevent from this - if you visit a Blaxxun-Chat you get "injected" the Blaxxun-plugin, afterwards you go to a Parallel-Demo and get injected the Cortona Plugin and after that - before going to bed - you visit the Flux Splash-Screen and you´ve got a third plugin ...yep... plugged in. Nobody has told you that you shouldn´t do so (maybe cause nobody really knows why you shouldn´t ?).

Are things going to be different with XML and X3D ? Why not a generic consortium plugin, and you guy´s deliver the (compatible-) extensions for it - and of course the specific dev-tools and why not sell a wonderfull stand-alone app with an engine made as you think it should be ?

Or, why not creating an alternative mime-type for each plugin-specific wrl/x3d file ?

Or why not, at least, asking the user (we are not all web3d gurus ...) for what of his Webbrowsers he wants the plugin to be the default viewer ?

That would be nice (I love the Parallel-Guys for doing that !).

I apologize for any nonsense I could be writing down ;-)))

I wish you good luck, and lots of $$$ ... your work deserves it !

Regards,

Peter

[Alex]

Peter, - c'mon - its not a main issue here, - we do need good plug-in & I think Flux is real cool one, - & co-exists real well with any onther thinkable VRML plug that I have - I see no issue here, really.

As to Parallel Graphics - are you guys awar they r Russians? - Of course, this is hard to see behind their real slick PR campaign - but hey, these guys were pioneers back in 80s - & had their own standard, based on Russian military 3d sim technology, then this story with Cosmo - all ex-PG people what moved to silicon valley... read good story...

Anyway, Cortona - goood product, but canonic vanilla VRML... Flux is cool 'cause it supports both VRML & x3d - though , as I said earlier, why XMLise scene graph? - all this x3d smells hype - especially when VRML on these new acceselared 3d cards works real smooth - & MPEG4 supports it...

Anyway, - shal we get real discussion going on here?

Cheers (literally) ;)
Alex

[Peter]

Hi Alex,

Don´t know if it´s the right place for this, but I'm not kidding : I'm really interested on knowing what plugs and what amount of em you got on your system coexisting with Flux. Maybe it's some sort of urban legend that issue about plugin-compatibility ;-)

best regards,

Peter

[Alex]

Peter,

I agree - plug-in downloads is major annoyance - ideally they should load together with content - Java applets are actually just fine - lika Blaxxun3d or CortonaJet. As to plugs - got Flux, Contact 5, Cortona - all run well 2gether - I do not see any issue here, - though I'd be happy to ditch 2d browsing for totally 3d surfing one day...

Cheers
Alex

[John Anthony Hartman]

Amazing things look to be on the horizon for 2005 and the comments about where the cash is going to come from are right on the money, pun intended. I can not go into to many details but needless to say after my “awakening” I have been on a crusade to get involved again and have personally helped to craft a system that addresses some of the underlying issues that go beyond “rich media or 3D” and truly applies to any media or data for that matter. These systems that I have helped to develop in conjunction with others that are being used to create a useable and incredible 3D experience. Approach data from a code stand point and you will be at our beginning. I am sorry about all the cryptic but again my hands are tied. So this being said (sort of) I can state that if you keep your fingers crossed money should be infused soon. Keep your eyes on what Tony is doing and all will eventually become clear. One day we will move beyond the flat world and interact with machines in a much more natural manner where we grasp and feel in X, Y and Z.

[Damon Hernandez]

Excellent article! Please keep them coming!

[anon]

Tried x3d from the persective of a normal user.
Too difficult to navigate: slow and can't turn quickly.
Kind of takes away from the purpose of movement freedom in 3d.
Also... where can I find content?

[Peter]

Hey, anon ... content ... CONTENT ... it's the magic word.

:) cheers

Peter

[Thommes]

X3D provides an extensible foundation for building engaging 3D content in a range of applications, including games, entertainment, social networks, and online virtual worlds," commented Tony Parisi, president of Media Machines and co-chair of Web3D's X3D working group. "This revision brings the state of the art in real-time graphics together with the open framework of the web, enabling endless possibilities for play, communication and commerce

[Peter Strømberg]

This article transports me back in time. Not to 2004 when it was written (how did I ever miss it?), but to 1997 when I first bought the VRML 2.0 Sourcebook. I was completely awestruck by the power and not least the immediateness of VRML, coming from a 3D Studio environment where we had to leave animations rendering over a weekend. After impressing friends and colleagues with some semi-interactive VRML (click the ball and it moves!) I hit a brick wall. Once over the technological wow-factor it became clear that it was virtually impossible to do anything usefull with it. 3D without a programming environment is like a powerboat without a lake; yes it looks absolutely beautiful and just listen to that motor purrrr, but in the absence of water a bicycle is better (for example HTML).

I found developing in Notepad is only fun for a while. In the end you need a decent development tool. To sell it your customers need to be confident their target audience will actually be able to see what you make for them. That's why I completely dropped 3D and went over to Flash 8 years ago.

I've just installed Flux Studio. It's by far the best VRML editor and the only X3D editor I've ever seen, and yes there's even a scripting interface! (needs some work to be as intuitive as Flash, but it's a good start). If this had been around 8 years ago it might have changed the course of my life. Maybe it still will. Then there's ajax3d.org. What a brilliant idea. Make all the power of 3D available to lowly javascript hackers like myself. This is really quite exciting for me. Ofcourse I'll just use javascript to link to a Flash interface and use Flash from there, but I think the possibilities are enticing, even to the point of getting back into 3D after 8 years of 2D. I can see already that without too much trouble I'll be creating games quickly in Flash and playing them in Flux, afterall the 3D window need only be abstraction of the game engine.

Professionally I work with GIS these days (hyperGIS, plug, plug) and since Google earth came along I've been pining for a 3D capability. Perhaps this is it. I hope Tony that you've still got the same energy and goals as when you wrote this article. I've always maintained that if you could get the Flash community involved in a "real" 3D technology, the whole world wouldn't be far behind. If via a javascript API you can make Flux a "3D window for Flash" (and Ajax ofcourse), keep the development tools free, then you might just start the revolution, whether you mean to or not. For my part, I have an extensive Flash/.NET GIS platform at my disposal, so a browser based Google Earth should be a "snap" aslong as the necessary handles are available in Flux. This will take some more investigating. I'll send a request to ajax3d.org

Keep it up! In a freak moment of insanity and inspired by your article and the open sauciness of X3D I pledge to publish my experiments and findings for all! (OK they'll propably be crap, but that's how I learned Flash)

Long live Flux :O)