Trevor F. Smith: Exterior

Papervision3D

When projects like Papervision3D pop onto my radar screen I'm glad that the Ogoglio server uses simple, open formats and protocols so that it isn't tied to the Java client. This fledgling open source project is the first Flash based 3D system which looks like it has the potential to take off.

Check out the demos.

links for 2007-04-30

• Freeway Collapse, Highway 580 East
  Whoa. I guess an exploding tanker truck will do that sort of thing.

Far Urban Orbit

When I'm elbow deep in the guts of the Ogoglio platform I feel pretty far away from the vision of Ogoglio City, but I tell myself that it's necessary spadework and when I get a chance I mix in urban themes:

Here I finally took the opportunity to learn about the skyscrapers in Seattle and their build dates:

Click to play video.

I give Second Life a hard time, but this sort of thing gets me:

A virtual world such as SecondLife has a vibration to it, a bit of energy which can only be had because everyone there is invested in at least one regard: They are there. As geographically separate as the broadband subset of the internet will permit, there is plenty of human energy which is easy to ignore and become jaded to. You develop a circle of friends, people who you may confide in or share victories with, be it selling your first Pet Prim (tm) or having your IPO on SecondLife's World Stock Exchange. [more]

The Ars Virtua online conference starts today with a panel discussion about living in Second Life. I can't log in because currently the login process is borked, and based on the glimpse of the conference hall I did get, nobody else is there either. How's that for living in Second Life?

For the organizers' sake, I hope others are arriving without incident.

I will be appearing in the last panel (when everyone will be in the illegal casino two sims down) on Saturday, which is titled "Game the System" but which, as far as I can tell, has nothing to do with games so much as with interspace hacking. We were going to hold the panel in WoW, which was exciting because I've never PK'ed a fellow panelist, but now it's just going to be us in SL with a streamed in audio of us wondering exactly whether the hermeneutics of limina can be applied to magic circless 3spaces. Ah, well.

I often turn on video podcasts or the TV to generate some background noise while I work at home, and today I happened to notice Staples' ads for the "Easy Button" so I made one for my office:

Unfortunately, all of the items on the development list aren't completed when I push it, but maybe that's because I'm the last person on the planet to notice that campaign. At some point I'll probably switch it to the dark side and script it to crash the space when pressed.

• Jake2
  A port of the Quake2 engine to Java/OGL/OpenAL. Wow.
  (tags: java 3D)

Wow. I was kind of down about the time it takes to download and install Java and Java3D to get into ogoglio spaces, but I'm in the middle of installing the Multiverse client and it takes for-freaking-ever, there's about 50 steps (including no fewer than three clickwrap EULAs), and it's just about the most boring thing I can imagine doing on a computer.

First I downloaded and installed the Multiverse Setup application. Then I waited while it downloaded and installed Direct X (with its own EULA). Then it downloaded and installed the Multiverse client. Then it launched the client which promptly made me wait for 10 minutes while it updated itself. THEN, when I finally have the client installed, I choose a world I want to enter and now I've been waiting for 10 minutes while each individual texture and object is downloaded. This thing should tell me at the beginning to go make a martini so at least I'd have something to do while this thing does unknown horrors to my machine.

I'd delete the damn thing, but what if the deletion process is as painful as the installation process?

*5 minutes later, still bored*

Frack this.

I found these two jokers doing some sort of ritual dance in an Ogoglio space. I think they were just glad to be out of cold storage.

If you successfully loaded the embedded space below, you might try this experimental page: a flock is not a big bird.

There is no narrative, but I believe the medium is new and it's exciting to think of what people with talent will make of it.

If you'd rather not experiment (or ogoglio doesn't work for you yet), it looks something like this:

Each of the six panels is connected to a shared, persistent different 3D space which you can walk and manipulate along with the avatars of other people. Each space can be scripted to connect to each other or to remote web applications.

A Canticle

I give Second Life a hard time, but this sort of thing gets me:

A virtual world such as SecondLife has a vibration to it, a bit of energy which can only be had because everyone there is invested in at least one regard: They are there. As geographically separate as the broadband subset of the internet will permit, there is plenty of human energy which is easy to ignore and become jaded to. You develop a circle of friends, people who you may confide in or share victories with, be it selling your first Pet Prim (tm) or having your IPO on SecondLife's World Stock Exchange. [more]

Ars Virtua

The Ars Virtua online conference starts today with a panel discussion about living in Second Life. I can't log in because currently the login process is borked, and based on the glimpse of the conference hall I did get, nobody else is there either. How's that for living in Second Life?

For the organizers' sake, I hope others are arriving without incident.

I will be appearing in the last panel (when everyone will be in the illegal casino two sims down) on Saturday, which is titled "Game the System" but which, as far as I can tell, has nothing to do with games so much as with interspace hacking. We were going to hold the panel in WoW, which was exciting because I've never PK'ed a fellow panelist, but now it's just going to be us in SL with a streamed in audio of us wondering exactly whether the hermeneutics of limina can be applied to magic circless 3spaces. Ah, well.

Easy Button

I often turn on video podcasts or the TV to generate some background noise while I work at home, and today I happened to notice Staples' ads for the "Easy Button" so I made one for my office:

Unfortunately, all of the items on the development list aren't completed when I push it, but maybe that's because I'm the last person on the planet to notice that campaign. At some point I'll probably switch it to the dark side and script it to crash the space when pressed.

links for 2007-04-18

• Jake2
  A port of the Quake2 engine to Java/OGL/OpenAL. Wow.
  (tags: java 3D)

Multiverse

Wow. I was kind of down about the time it takes to download and install Java and Java3D to get into ogoglio spaces, but I'm in the middle of installing the Multiverse client and it takes for-freaking-ever, there's about 50 steps (including no fewer than three clickwrap EULAs), and it's just about the most boring thing I can imagine doing on a computer.

First I downloaded and installed the Multiverse Setup application. Then I waited while it downloaded and installed Direct X (with its own EULA). Then it downloaded and installed the Multiverse client. Then it launched the client which promptly made me wait for 10 minutes while it updated itself. THEN, when I finally have the client installed, I choose a world I want to enter and now I've been waiting for 10 minutes while each individual texture and object is downloaded. This thing should tell me at the beginning to go make a martini so at least I'd have something to do while this thing does unknown horrors to my machine.

I'd delete the damn thing, but what if the deletion process is as painful as the installation process?

*5 minutes later, still bored*

Frack this.

Two Cards

I found these two jokers doing some sort of ritual dance in an Ogoglio space. I think they were just glad to be out of cold storage.

Differentiation

If you successfully loaded the embedded space below, you might try this experimental page: a flock is not a big bird.

There is no narrative, but I believe the medium is new and it's exciting to think of what people with talent will make of it.

If you'd rather not experiment (or ogoglio doesn't work for you yet), it looks something like this:

Each of the six panels is connected to a shared, persistent different 3D space which you can walk and manipulate along with the avatars of other people. Each space can be scripted to connect to each other or to remote web applications.