Machinima

A few recent finds for all those readers that do not know the richness of talent, and reach of expression to be found in Second life. For many of us this collection captures Second Life way better then the sterile opening scenes found on the official Second Life web site.

Farewell from Tommylee Nightfire on Vimeo.

News & Links

UNITY:

The Unity engine is becoming even more affordable to independent and hobbyist developers, as Unity Technologies has retired the $200 "Unity Indie" offering and replaced it with a free license, simply called Unity.

http://unity3d.com/

DAZ 3D

DAZ 3D has frequently been contacted by game developers looking to use DAZ 3D assets in their games and virtual worlds. Current licensing (EULA) limits the use of DAZ 3D content. An examination of the issues surrounding this topic including licensing and compatibility raises a number of additional questions. DAZ 3D would like to solicit input from members of the community who are in game development. Check out this video -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=woo3YWE9vtM

If you are interested in 3D game or virtual world development, please take a few moments to take a short survey.

http://survey.daz3d.com/index.php?sid=77755&lang=en

If you are a member of game development communities, feel free to share this survey link with those that may be interested in using DAZ 3D content in their game and virtual world projects.

Ogre 3D in the browser

Ogre is a popular C++ 3D engine, with bindings to many languages. It is the graphics rendering engine used by realXtend.

These tutorials show you how to use Ogre 3D, both from C++, and from a Java applet embedded in a web page.
Read more:

• www.brighthub.com/hubfolio/matthew-casperson/blog ---- ogre-3d-tutorials
• http://webdemos.sourceforge.net/Ogre4J/

Via: http://www.brighthub.com/hubfolio/matthew-casperson/blog.aspx

Clarity & Market Focus for Second Life

Image of the 2010 NMRA Train Show and Convention exhibit area

I clipped a part of a comment by Justin Bovington to a blog post this morning By Dusan Writer: Second Life and Unity: Time for a Developer’s Conference?. Now Justin may know more then i do, or even Dusan about "The Lab's SL 2.0 Stratagy".

His comment does make it all so simple and clear. He gives three general uses cases for three communities of interest, three separate approaches to SL & therefore three markets segments.

As we enter 2010, this will change will bring about a more defined set of entry points:

EDUCATION – second life and privately managed entry points

ENTERTAINMENT – P2P content creators, defined by Xtsreet and Second Life.com

ENTERPRISE – (b2b) privately managed solutions, delivered by the SL develop community

With education and enterprise a hybrid of managed privately hosted environments and “code name: Nebraska” behind-the-firewall solutions. Entertainment’s front door with be via the traditional Second Life.com experience.

These defined entry points – I believe greatest epoch change since 2003 – will give us all the opportunity to focus and build relevant experiences. This is arguably why the media still has trouble categorising Second Life. Some of the press still see Second Life as a “story” from 2006-2007, with little to no definition beyond Google researched news threads. As we know, it’s not that black and white. Hence why I think 2010 will be the tipping-point. Definition creates Clarity*.

Beyond the SL developer community, we need to crossover from “niche conventions” and take this into the mainstream clients/sales/development conference circuit. Virtual Worlds are coming of age as a business tool; we’re seeing real ROI and real tangible benefits. The longer we hide this in the wilderness, the longer it will take to adopt. The current “niche conventions” are peer-to-peer meet ups, with no purpose other than showcasing platforms.

Success will come from proving to the market that these “platforms” have relevant and developed “solutions” for sector specific business use and challenges. This is the reason we created Immersive Workspaces, a complete solution for the collaboration and virtual business development.

The Entertainment entry point is the world of the fantastic designers, artists and artisans who create the rich tapestry of content and ideas in Second Life.com They need a celebration and party once a year, with the opportunity to network and attend workshops. Linden Lab can use these sessions as a “listen and learn” with the community. This would also be a great place for Adobe or Autodesk to run master classes.

Education needs it’s own convention, maybe again within the established Education conference circuit? I will leave the educators to answer this one, as they do it well and with gusto.

Justin Bovington – CEO – Rivers Run Red the creators of Immersive Workspaces

*This is a contentious statement, one though I feel needs to be said. If Second Life delivers what I think it can in 2010, it will be “game over” for the majority of the other vendors/platforms. Especially the ones that leverage off a similar immersive experience.

I was initially perturbed by finding myself labeled a consumer by Linden Lab last year and now finding myself placed primarily in the "Entertainment" category but just maybe this time the label fits. I once told someone Second Life reminded me of the Model Railroading hobby and culture.



If SL continues as is in the Entertainment category without finding a significant reason for growth we should all stop thinking content creation & micro-transactions will change the internet & the world & see it as just a hobby, the digital version of Model Railroading.

• Model Railroarding Magazine 2008 circluation: 146,648
• National Model Railroading Orginization nmra.org Membership: 14,486
  

Can Dell Outdesign Apple?

Today at the Windows 7.0 show the buzz was over the Dell Adamo Laptop

News & Links - Sketchup Pro

Professionals are using Google Sketchup Pro with amazing results. Someday, hopefully soon, we can provide the right platform so complex models and use cases like these two examples will find there place in RealTime Virtual Worlds.


Google SketchUp Pro Case Study with Mortenson Construction. SketchUp Pro is software for creating and presenting professional 3D models. Learn more at http://sketchup.google.com/pro

Process images of Silvershadow's SketchUp model of the ship HMS Snowberry.

Click here to view the slideshow

All modeling was done with SketchUp; rendering was done with VRay. Read all about it on the SketchUp Community Forums at http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?f=81&t=20385

Both via: http://sketchupdate.blogspot.com/

News & Links

This will be a new category for the blog - Just headlines and links, a bit like a collection of Twits.

News:

• Adam Frisby Adds Paypal Module to Open Sim
• CryEngine 3.0 Released 10-14-2009
• Pip Moves on
• Eshi Otawara, takes her place in the scheme of things
• Ati Releases the ATI HD Radeon 5870: For now the Fastest Videocard

Little know - Hidden cookies

You Deleted Your Cookies? Think Again

August 10, 2009

More than half of the internet’s top websites use a little known capability of Adobe’s Flash plug-in to track users and store information about them, but only four of them mention the so-called Flash Cookies in their privacy policies, UC Berkeley researchers reported Monday.

Unlike traditional browser cookies, Flash cookies are relatively unknown to web users, and they are not controlled through the cookie privacy controls in a browser. That means even if a user thinks they have cleared their computer of tracking objects, they most likely have not.

What’s even sneakier?

via: Wired (Note: Wired.com uses Flash cookies)

Some flash LSO-cookie properties in short...

• they are never expiring - staying on your computer for an unlimited time.
• by default they offer a storage of 100 KB (compare: Usual cookies 4 KB).
• browsers are not aware of those cookies, LSO's usually cannot be removed by browsers.
• via Flash they can access and store highly specific personal and technical information (system, user name, files,...).
• ability to send the stored information to the appropriate server, without user's permission.
• flash applications do not need to be visible
• there is no easy way to tell which flash-cookie sites are tracking you.
• shared folders allow cross-browser tracking, LSO's work in every flash-enabled application
• the company doesn't provide a user-friendly way to manage LSO's, in fact it's incredible cumbersome.
• many domains and tracking companies make extensive use of flash-cookies.
• These cookies are not harmless.

------------------------- IMPORTANT -------------------------
IF YOU PERMIT DELETION OF LSO's,
THEN COOKIE-STORED INFORMATION LIKE
GAME SETTINGS OR LOGIN DATA (YAHOO SEAL)
MIGHT BE LOST! MAKE SURE THAT YOU EXCLUDED
IMPORTANT COOKIES FROM DELETION

Via: firefox addon BetterPrivacy 1.29

RealTime - Reacting to Wave

STEVE GILLMOR: Where are we going to see it first?

RAY OZZIE: Within Microsoft? You’ll probably see it in the consumer properties first.

STEVE GILLMOR: You mean in gaming?

RAY OZZIE: It will start in the realm of gaming because gaming tends to be very twitch-level interactive. But consumer communication properties — I mean, the nature of communications nowadays — I’ll give Facebook probably the most credit here. We used to think of communications as relatively partitioned from other modes of things that we do, meaning it’s a message and it’s addressed and a message that you would send to someone. But Facebook, because of their investment in photos, because of the nature of how they implemented the Wall and the little previews of things, and then ultimately apps, they’ve blended social media and communications in a way that kind of informed everyone that communications are richer when you bring other media into it, and I think that’s tremendous.

Via: Steve Gillmor - TechCrunchIT

3Ds Max - Improves the Pipeline for Content Transfer - One step Remains

The Connection Extension for Autodesk 3ds Max Design 2010 design visualization software offers new and enhanced connectivity features.

Enhanced Interoperability with CAD Packages



Extensive Connectivity with Google SketchUp




via: http://ankitsurti.blogspot.com/

The remaining step is the import and use of these models in Virtual Worlds.

The Race to 3D - Keeping up on WebGL and Adobe

Image from http://blog.vlad1.com/

EA/Maxis recently added COLLADA export of Creature designs to their popular game Spore, and they have a Sporepedia where players can see others' creations. Right now, those previews are just as images. With WebGL, they could be fully 3D, even animated.

Staying current with WebGL:

Canvas3D is precursor to WebGL, which was recently added to the Mozilla nightly trunk and will soon be included in a future release of Firefox. Along with the Firefox implementation, a WebGL implementation landed in WebKit fairly recently.

Firefox 3.6 is set for release before the end of this year. It's not a major upgrade, but will tweak the JavaScript engine and upgrade the look of the browser, among other new features. After 3.6, Mozilla will release Firefox 3.7 early next year, with major update Firefox 4.0 due out in the second half of 2010.

Via: http://blog.vlad1.com/
Via: http://www.itpro.co.uk

C3DL is a JavaScript framework that can load Collada models and perform other high-level tasks. C3DL is being developed by a team at Seneca University using Mozilla's early WebGL prototype.

Motionview is a web based application for making the motion capture cleanup process more efficient. It uses Canvas 3D and C3DL for its 3D viewer.

The Navarra Group needed some help to make this sort of preview for their client Bedlam Games. It found it in Toronto's Seneca College, where an open source project has been seeking ways for 3D content to be viewed in Web browsers without the need for a plug-in.

Researchers and students have been working with Mozilla Corp. on the library and are pleased to see it put to practical use.

“The purpose of the project was to save costs and make it easy,” says Evan Weaver, chair of School of Computer Studies at Seneca. “We had a library to use to draw 3D stick figures.”

Navarra Group's Web application displayed 3D stick figures acting out the motion capture data for Bedlam Games. Producers could pan around and view these stick figures from different angles – an advantage they wouldn't have if the preview was only in 2D.

Via: http://www.itbusiness.ca/

Seneca is located in the Greater Toronto Area.

Via: http://senecacollege.ca/about/index.html

What is C3DL?

The Canvas 3D JS Libary (C3DL) is a javascript library that will make it easier to write 3D applications using canvas 3d. It will provide a set of math, scene, and 3d object classes to make the canvas more accessible for developers that want to develop 3D content in browser but do not want to have to deal in depth with the 3D math needed to make it work.

via: http://www.c3dl.org/

On another front we look at Adobe

The Open Screen Project

So, how can you build a contextual application? The Open Screen Project is a $10 million market development fund offering grants to developers to accelerate the creation of contextual applications. According to Adobe, "The fund is seeking applications in the following focus areas: entertainment, business, social networking, productivity, gaming, travel, multimedia, health, finance, weather, sports, news, education, and more."

Obviously, there's a lot of room for innovation and experimentation. Past funded projects have included real estate mobile applications, virtual pianos, personal media publishers, and a guide to the annual Roskilde music festival. According to Maxim Antinori from Max Media Corp., "The convergence of support for Adobe Flash Player across many platforms, coupled with the improvements in distribution on the mobile platform in particular, make Flash the best choice for developing applications that need to function across a wide range of devices."

Adobe is actively accepting proposals. So if the idea of defining a new class of application and manifesting the history of convergence appeals to you — do it.

via: www.openscreenproject.org

The Adobe® Flash® Platform will provide the consistent runtime environment envisioned by Open Screen Project partners. This technology was chosen because it has the widest reach in the world across operating systems and devices, a community of more than one million developers, and leading authoring tools.

The Adobe Flash Platform

The Pipe:

BT has said a further 1.5 million homes can expect to get broadband speeds of up to 100Mbps by 2012. BT is in GB.

BT is more than doubling its plans to roll out fibre to the premise (FTTP) broadband, which has the potential to deliver speeds of up to 100Mbps.

Via: http://www.itpro.co.uk/616114/bt-doubles-fibre-rollout

A Proposed New Open Viewer Platform

Basic Concept - Draft

This is an architectural concept that forms the basis for simple GUI design for a new 3d+ Viewer platform.

This post was inspired by Steve Jobs visit to Xerox Parc

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0UjU0rtavE
  

• Naali UI Mock-up Contest

Browser developers currently rely on standard, interpretive Web languages such as HTML and CSS to render content in a browser window, and programming languages such as C to create the graphical user interface, or “chrome.” Chrome refers to the hard-coded features on the periphery of the browser window, including menu items, buttons, and the address bar.

Quote above via : http://news.cnet.com/ March 26, 1999

The basic concept is to model and build “a 3D viewer interface” based on the appearance and functionality of a standard browser and sneakily add the 3D viewer not in the browser window but through a common tab interface open it in a window.

How it works:

Using the look and feel of a browser, the tabs do slight of hand magic. The app may also do sandbox memory management (ala Chrome). It looks and feels like a browser (ie: Google Chrome modeled below) but it blows you away in the first ten seconds.

Once you enter the first address bar url from preinstalled “favorites” or by cut and paste, a log in page appears, displayed as a sidebar widget app. After authentication it opens a second tab, fills in a URL for a 3D server and opens a 3D viewer in a large window. A third tab may then be triggered to open. The login app slides down one slot and its tab slides over for a new tab and widget/app/window to appear above the login app. This new top left window may host your fiends list, an avatar appearance selection page or inventory treeview, maybe your last chat session. The First 30 minutes Experience is reduced to 30 seconds

The above image is a composite of existing apps found via Google images and is not intended to specify any specific GUI elements or appearance such as icons, color etc and is used to illustrate the concept only (clips are used as Fair Use - no copyright infringement is intended)

This platform immediately creates a level playing field, interoperability and 3D / web page equality. The design is not for a viewer in the browser or a web page driven by java or a web page on a prim using Webkit though it will support all these as they develop. It does not try to fit a square peg in a round hole or solve all the worlds’ problems with a single application. It is a platform/framework that hosts both 2D and 3D apparently seamlessly, if not in fact. It is “the container/manager” for a browser window, PC apps & 3D viewers. It is designed to be modular and open from the ground up.

Benefits:

• The interface is incredibly simple, but can be expanded easily to accommodate complexity as needed for modeling or editing.
• The interface is not foreign and the key GUI elements like the address bar and back button are immediately usable, familiar and well tested. This provides comfort.
• It drastically reduces learning time and customer/user acceptance.
• It is forward thinking: The address bar will become core to all apps, navigation in the future (IPV6)
• It is very Sticky (load it for browsing and get the viewer loaded at the same time, sneaky) This single load can be used for more then just going inworld making this viewer the #1 app for users.
• Efficient: No need to start two separate exes on a PC one browser & one viewer and fight for memory and CPU, though this may still happen since this is not a full OS (yet)
• Single download/install… or the upper first applet might host a list of Apps to plug-in, like, Blender or a widget , etc.
• Being modular and open would engage existing developer communities,markets and users to immediately add value, third party add-ons, apps, etc.
• The browser or other apps are not reinvented, developed/maintained/supported directly. They are only hosted in this new container app and are still independently developed by their own communities.
• Can be marketed as demonstrating the convergence of open source work by providing a simple paradigm & framework.
• As a container the app leverages work from Google, Apple, qt, Ogre, etc without getting into turf battles or determining a winner. It is modular and open for plug-ins, even if the largest plug-in is an 8 million line of code browser or a small embedded flash widget.
• Tabs could include the a 3D viewer, a Browser, maybe Blender, Sketchup, Twitter
• It is simple to understand with three form factors in one.

Full screen (think IPTV)

Page sized window(think Word or a Web Page or a view into VWs)

Widget/mobile size app) this form factor for sidebar widgets should be the same as mobile apps. This will be as familiar to iphone/smartphone users as the browser is. The possibilities are exciting.

• The app can be made full screen visually replacing the desktop, think what this would be like on a 50 inch HD/IPTV combined with Microsoft Natal.
• Does not reinvent the wheel, makes a truck out of car parts, We just invent the truck

Process Manager:


Image source: Google Chrome Introduction Comic

• Use the Google Chrome(Webkit/QT) browser interface with tabs and process manager as a starting point

Functionality/Features:

• Tabs open widgets, 3D Views, 2D web pages or full apps like Blender
• All sidebar widgets have associated tabs above and an address bar. For example my inventory can be from a different URL or a local HD or localhost
• Optional standard [File—Help] Text Menu /w dropdowns for each tab based on the apps properties
• Each tab has an address bar with back button etc.
• Highlighted (active) tab, highlights the border of the active area (sidebar apps or main window)
• Sidebar apps scroll down, can have many more open then visible. If out of sight become icons, tabs still visible (scrollable)
• Integration with and drag and drop between windows/widget apps & the main window (the region view or web page) (Usecase: the main widow is Facebook or SL and the widget is a twitter stream or skype).
• Make the upper area look like a browser, with menu bar and address bar, same operation as all browsers. Allow the addition of custom tool bars like in browsers for use as HUDS or editing tools.
• Widgets (mobile window apps) can be attached/docked on the right or left side
• Sidebar widgets scroll down and new ones are opened and compress into icons or a bar if out of sight.
• The primary upper sidebar window (shown as upper left) would be as customary in most browsers or IDEs. It is used primarily to provide hierarchical tree views of the asset db, or list views like in world avatar radar, objects within range, search result lists. running streams like API feeds etc.
• Examples are:

Inventory (It would be great to see an object hierarchy of all linked parts of a large object)

Friends List ( with grouping like chat)

Favorites

landmarks

Groups

Search result listings

HUDs

Totally open for third party developers to innovate, add value

• The lower sidebar would be for display of Item selected in the list above like:

Code/notecard/email editor

Edit 3D Object properties

Texture Previewer

Inventory 3d objects previewed w/ simple spin the object around

User profiles

A tabbed chat window

Your radio playlist

Media previewer

etc, etc

• All tabs full page views or widgets can be ripped off (ie: non-model) and re-sized, placed to the side outside the main viewer window in a separate window for multiple or large screen users (Like chrome does it now).
• Selected items in the sidebar can be dragged into the main 3D window and rezzed inworld or placed in context of a web page field or app like blender or Sketchup
• The bottom of all windows have engraved simple icons for functions/addins like windows systray
• The blue background (The app itself) can be skinned along with all components.

Conclusion:

The use of APIs, widgets and plug-ins has opened the net again to innovation. Widgets on the desktop have not stuck. CMS platforms support both pluins and widgets, browsers support toolbars & plug-ins. Now smartphone platforms are now in a race to gather the most & best “apps”. What is needed in the future is a single platform, a smarter platform. Right now I want a browser with sidebar widgets for Skype, Twitter etc.

This is the future Google OS? Will Linden Lab, Microsoft or Google do this? Maybe. The hints are very strongly pointing this way but I have no real idea. I do think LL, Nokia, and Google would be interested and keep an eye on realXtend for sure if they did this.

This Architectural concept supports open source & is standards based, not revolutionary, but evolutionary. It could support multiple smart apps/widgets & 3D viewers, even Second Life. You could have multiple tabs open, two different 3D viewers running at the same time, with enough memory/bandwidth. You could even be logged into multiple regions at the same time. Think about it…

Brand it: “KISS”, “Glass”, or snarkily “The Real Windows”. By any name you give it, it adds meaning to the name realXtend

Copyright October 2009 John R. Pagan, All rights Reserved

How does the Venor - Autodesk ruling impact 3D content sold in SL?

Below clipped from : The Electronic Freedom Foundation

"It’s Still A Duck: Court Re-Affirms That First Sale Doctrine Can Apply to “Licensed” Software

Building on a prior ruling, a federal court has re-affirmed that a Seattle man was not infringing copyright law by re-selling software he obtained from an Autodesk customer.

The ruling is bound to frustrate the copyright industries, which have struggled for years to convince courts and their customers that the only thing you “buy" when you buy software is a limited and temporary right to use that software under certain conditions. In other words, they claim buyers aren't owners.

The distinction is no mere technicality. Under the Copyright Act, owners of copyrighted material are given substantial rights in the particular copies they purchase. One of the most important of these protections is the "first sale" doctrine, which says that once you've acquired a lawfully-made CD or book or DVD, you can lend, sell, or give it away without having to get permission from the copyright owner. Without the first sale doctrine, libraries would be illegal, as would used bookstores, used record stores, video rental shops, CD-swapping communities and so on. "

Linden Lab should understand this considering the background of Kapor et al. The question now is can a licence ie: no transfer exist under a sale.... and can a seller restrict export of legally purchased content off the SL platform? This is open for discussion.....

We need to Open the Pipeline to Virtual Worlds Now.

It is rumored that Linden Lab is looking at .dae (Collada) as the file format of choice for importing 3D meshes. When? SOMEDAY TBD. While we wait we often forget that the major players in CADD, AutoDesk and Dassault Systemes are deeply experienced and vesting in 3D. So while you scan the horizons of virtual worlds and pride yourselves in having virtual stores (most of which won't even rez now) take a long look here -> http://www.3dswym.com/.

Don't be surprised if one of those in the CADD/Digital Content Creation (DCC) industry or maybe two or three thunder into the landscape before Linden Lab and the diverse, poorly funded open source communities can get it all together to support a common standard for import/export and exchange of content.

While merchants of Second Life worry about theft of their creations, hundreds of thousands of object creators and industry in general will not be denied their own megaregions, with PLM and BIM tools. Below is a little clip from mid September about 3DVIA.