[x3d-public] X3D and Occuli

[cbullard at hiwaay.net]

Many thanks, Doug.  Good information.

There is only one campaign that will count: in olde speak, killer content.

As you say, the fact of consumer grade VR dedicated display systems is  
THE change.  That there is an API and different format engines can be  
gotten says those barriers are gone.

What is important to this list, and it is a rather old list as lists  
go these days is that there is a deep experienced group of VR content  
builders here.  For all the other things in the VR news, that is not  
insignificant.

Hold up your hands:  how many of you have built a VRML97/X3D world?   
How many of you have a library of 3D assets?  What do they do?

The lessons to me of the projects I did is not about good or bad VR.   
We had to make that up as we went along because examples in the wild  
were few and far between.  The lessons were about the power of doing  
precisely that in groups of talented non-local world builders.  That  
is, the fact of the hardware sets up the market.  The fact of projects  
sets up the content.  As far as I can see, there are no barriers.   
Just projects where you do as we did:  pick a target browser, write a  
concept, write a narrative or other event system that organizes the  
context, and start building.  Adjust as resources become available.    
We got from jump to Tralee in 90 days with about 20 minutes left.  It  
took me ten years on and off to build ROL.   Learned from both but...

You need a company that gets the money to pay the content builders.  No d'oh.

And X3D runs fine on a CD.  All compelling applications are not  
social.  Taylor Swift got an Emmy.  The Nez is still running the  
VideoRanch.

X3D has one issue and it isn't an issue of quality but focus:  funding  
sources drove it toward engineering applications.  The bet on the  
headset devices is entertainment.  My content runs on BS Contact fine.  
  Some bugs to fix.  But the Instant Reality node set is very  
intriguing because they did implement some of the wilder ideas about  
building semi-autonomous objects with compelling self-generating  
behaviors.  If it works.  Haven't tried.   They do a good job, BTW, of  
tutorials.

len

Quoting doug sanden <highaspirations at hotmail.com>:

> Len,
> Yes - if you can come up with some promotional campaign for us, that  
> will get X3D back in the HMD dialog. 
>
> On the other hand, I'm personally happy to let Oculus worry/fret  
> about how they are going to scale up - and if they need DoD or  
> Facebook that's fine with me. I think VR gurus are used to  
> benefiting from the stereovision-hardware-de-jour. 
> (I used to work in photogrammetry - an even smaller niche  
> application of stereovision - and we rode the waves of whatever  
> hardware the VR community was using, often we would be the first app  
> to buy dozens of a new VR hardware)
>
> In several months you may be able to add freeWRL to the oculus  
> capable club. I know their developers -slow volunteers wading  
> through tomes of spaghetti C- are working on it.
>
> If you have a landline and no-ip capable^ router at home, you can  
> host at home with a free no-ip account:
> http://www.noip.com/remote-access
> -Free Dynamic DNS account
> Disadvantage: 
> - you need to keep a computer running 24x7. Its better if its low  
> power consuming.
> - usually your upload speed on a home landline is throttled to be  
> much slower than download, so those visiting your site will  
> experience it as a slow server
> But it can get you back in the self-hosting game and open up new worlds.
>
> ^no-ip capable router: it will have an option where you can enter  
> no-ip provider and your no-ip url, and it will call the no-ip  
> provider whenever it gets a new dynamic IP address.
>
> I'm planning a 'content developers site' for web3ders, including  
> hosting, tools, community forums, news: CRAB VR. However it needs to  
> make 'pin money' to pay for good hosting server, I'm thinking of a  
> monthly subscription via app-store.
>
> -Doug
>
>>
>> A bit of googling returned links that are wildly scattered. The first
>> was a forum where a fresh face asked about X3D and was told that they
>> should not bother with it. Another pointed to the Instant Reality
>> site which said it supports it and does go into some detail about the
>> Rift (essentially, it is just another display device). I found the
>> Bit Management site statements that it supports Rift with its stereo
>> software. Admittedly I am way behind on this subject but from the
>> surface this appears to be the case. Please correct me if I am wrong:
>>
>> 1. Once again, anything open or free such as X3D is being beaten down
>> by the hardware vendors and new kids on the block in an attempt to
>> capture market and make as much money as fast as possible. So once
>> again the Silly Valley diseases are infecting the 3D marketplace and
>> anyone who wants a long life cycle solution has to go out of the US to
>> get it. Sad that.
>>
>> 2. For those of us who are sitting on X3D content we took some effort
>> to develop and don't want to see it "abandoned", our reliable way
>> forward is to stick with the dates that stuck with us at the party:
>> Bit Management and Instant Reality. If there are others, I simply
>> didn't see them in my quick survey.
>>
>> 3. There is a "No Bad VR!" meme out there. I don't know what that
>> means but I suspect it is part of the market capture strategy (Wait
>> for OUR Content! It will be the Real Deal RSN!). Meh.
>>
>> 4. This is a market that is pushed by the headset but the real deal
>> is the desktop and the applications on it that can use the Rift or
>> other headset APIs as display devices. IOW, we are looking at the
>> same problems we have looked at since the 90s" multiple incompatible
>> platforms for which content development is a bet and an expensive one.
>> The camera capture devices seem to be getting the most attention a)
>> instant applications b) cheap content.
>>
>> 5. VR still makes people queasy.
>>
>> 6. Finally, X3D has more and better functionality for VR creation
>> than is actually necessary to get started. The focus on hardware and
>> the usual hype/greed curve drowns out that message.
>>
>> I'm not convinced this is quite the leap being hyped. It is progress
>> but not a revolution. It still comes down to the cost of developing
>> and maintaining scripted content.
>>
>> I am afraid as far as jobs are concerned, Cecile is right. Here in
>> the heart of darkness (DoD Big Sticks Land), it is all about sims
>> using Unreal and Unity to sell weapons platforms and to train
>> soldiers. 
>>
>> That this is very expensive for the taxpayers is of no
>> consequence in an industry that invented the idea of market capture
>> (you should see the S1000D pubs systems that are all MS Word and
>> SharePoint until the ever deferrred final deliverable). I have to
>> wonder how Don justifies his work to his paymasters these days. A
>> topic for another time...
>>
>> Aside: the node tree in Instant Reality is amazing if half of them
>> work. That's a lot of toys in the toy box for those of us who like to
>> play with semi-autonomous VR objects. Cool!
>>
>> If any of that is wrong, please say so. I'd love to put The River Of
>> Life up where it can be viewed on these new display devices, but since
>> my ISP has given up on it's web hosting for the casual users, I had to
>> pull all of my VR and other web content off the original site. This
>> has become an expensive proposition for hobbyists and I get the
>> distinct impression from what I am reading in the VR blurbs we aren't
>> welcome in the brave new worlds.
>>
>> The tragedy is there is probably more original thinking, ideas and
>> chops in this community for creating VR than in all of Facebook.
>>
>> len
>>
>>
>> Quoting Cecile Muller <newsletter at wildpeaks.fr>:
>>
>>> Hi again,
>>>
>>>
>>> 99% of Oculus apps use either Unity or Unreal, and that's the landscape
>>> for the forseeable future; the headset doesn't need to care about the
>>> formats
>>> used in the apps, it only displays the resulting views rendered by the 3D
>>> engine.
>>>
>>> If you were referencing Carmack's Vrscript, that's a toy language to
>>> experiment with,
>>> it's unlikely to go mainstream.
>>>
>>>
>>> See you,
>>> Cecile
>>>
>>
>>
>>
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