Re: testing...
I hope everybody is just on vacation, it would be sad to see this point of light so to speak fade to black... -mash At 11:53 AM 7/29/01 +1000, Miriam English wrote: Is the list still alive? Just a test. :-) -=-=-=-=-=-=-- Q. What is the similarity between an elephant and a grape? A. They are both purple... except for the elephant. -=-=-=-=-=-=-- http://werple.net.au/~miriam http://members.optushome.com.au/miriame Virtual Reality Association http://www.vr.org.au
Re: content on the Web
Dennis McKenzie wrote: I'm married to the concept not the file format. That's the way I feel too. Even though my bread is buttered with VRML, I believe the real magic comes not from the technology but the way it's used. My goal is not to create cool worlds but to create good interactive stories, in 2D, 3D, 2.5D or whatever other D does the job. I happen to like 3D because of my own approach to interactive fiction, which is to replace time with space as the organizing principle. Not that you can't do this in 2D, but if you're going to build a spatial model to hold the story you might as well use the same model to generate the story's visual representation. Mostly I want to wanted to reply to wish my friends on the list all of the best for the Holidays Same here! in hopes that one of them would buy me a really expensive HMD for Christmas. (I'll settle for a cheap one.) Michael
Re: content on the Web
Jed Hartman wrote: I've looked at some of the Flash cartoons out there, and so far I haven't been impressed -- the art mostly *looks* fine (though still nothing to write home about), but the stories are mostly just bad. Is that a natural consequence of Sturgeon's Law and/or growing pains of a new medium? Are the good storytellers just hard to find among the chaff? Or are they biding their time, waiting for a better medium/format? Sturgeon's law? Is that Theodore Sturgeon, the sci fi writer? What does the law say? Michael
Re: Introduction
At 01:35 AM 3/19/99 -0800, J C Lawrence wrote: Our esteemed list owner has suggested that I introduce myself, and comment on my interest in VRML-Lit. Welcome! However, the VRML-Lit list owner has suggested that the continued existance of this archive needs to be blessed by the membership. I would like to continue archiving the list -- there really is a lot of mutual interest between the two lists. May I? By all means, yes! (speaking only for myself) ... Michael St. Hippolyte[EMAIL PROTECTED] Trapezium Development LLC http://www.trapezium.com
RE: cool content 'The Long View'
One application category conspicuously absent in the X3D comments and documents I've seen is storytelling. I don't think this is cause for alarm. I do think it is a good reason to think about viewing X3D not as a storytelling medium but as one component of a storytelling medium. Here's another way to look at it. Which model is better: 1. A browser loaded with big plugins and players, each of which handles a complex combination of audio and graphics (shockwave, realplayer, VRML, MPEG) 2. A browser loaded with composable and synchronizable components, each of which handles a specific medium (audio, 2D graphics, 3D graphics, controls) #1 is what we have now. It seems to me that #2 is a much better option. Rather than have a dozen mostly mediocre audio (for instance) implementations you'd have one really good one. Ditto for all the other capabilities. #2 would be especially appropriate for storytelling, which can potentially make use of any combination of media. The hard part of course is the "composable and synchronizable" part. But it seems to me that this is a question that must be settled between all the media, not in a single medium such as 3D graphics. Michael
narrative dynamics
ch a geometry might even be a useful way of discovering new storytelling approaches. For instance, I can envision a story built of layers, a nonlinear, deterministic story layer on top of a linear, nodeterministic location layer. The story layer would consist of one or more narrative threads, each one persistent and global in nature. The location layer, by contrast, would consist of separate, self-contained locations, affected perhaps by changing global values (time, weather, etc.) but not directly by narrative states (hence linear, narratively speaking). They would be the narrative equivalent of texture, providing ambience. Because they are independent of the story, they can be kept relatively simple, are easy to reuse, and may be independently authored. A simple example of this would be to stage performances in other people's worlds. Avatars invading Alan Taylor's space station and doing Hamlet for instance. More ambitiously, one could create a whole constellation of elaborate simulations, each one providing rich local color to serve as the context for the unfolding story. "My linear, nonderministic local simulation or yours...?" Michael ........... Michael St. Hippolyte[EMAIL PROTECTED] Trapezium Development LLC http://www.trapezium.com
Re: Some good links
Dennis wrote: One of the things not covered in almost all of these nonlinear/interactive story essays is dealing with a realtime 3D interface. By way of disclaimer, I wrote the particular paper you're referring to in 1995, when my own computer graphics experience was decidedly 2D. But that didn't last long. The approaches to nonlinear narrative which I find the most promising revolve around a shift from time to space, so the idea of using a 3D simulation as the basis was very attractive. In 1996 I looked into VRML as a possible medium for interactive fiction and quickly decided it was a more than viable platform. Needless to say I haven't changed my mind since then. I think this makes a difference in how things are handled storywise. First of all, do we want to go outside of 3d space (into textual space) to handle the interface? My own thought is no we don't. Keeping the story immersive is hard enough without the interactor's attention constantly being forced to deal with an interface outside of the physical space of the story. I completely agree (as a strategy, not as an iron clad rule). If there is any message I wanted to get across in my paper, it's that for authors of interactive literature Limits Are Good. 3D is very good at giving the appearance of infinite choice while imposing strict limits through geometry or navigation. What the viewer really wants is not infinite choice but joy of exploration. Michael
