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Dec 14, 2002, 3:15pm

Was emailed this today, and I found it a great look at more of the Linden
initiative for anyone who is interested - thanks Mac.




Interesting thread. I think if ENZO signed on as a closed beta tester
he would be in more trouble than simply disclosing his participation.
Isn't industrial espionage illegal?

Anyway, we published a short article on Linden (Now Second Life) a few
months ago, with permission. For anyone that is actually interested (as
opposed to FUDing in an AW only newsgroup). Here is the link:

http://www.3dvrweb.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=2

and another here:

http://www.3dvrweb.com/modules/mylinks/singlelink.php?lid=306

They have info on their web page about what the product plans are and
when it is expected for public release, not nearly the long secretive
process alluded to in the earlier posts. Steller was also quoted in a
lengthy Wall Street Journal article done several months ago,... here is
a Linden press release page that has the link. It's a metered link or
something so posting the link directly might not work.

http://lindenlab.com/news_1.php

Another product that is comming along nicely is:

http://www.3dvrweb.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=117

And there is yet another one that we are not at liberty to even give out
a link for just yet. And finally, there is Adobe Atmosphere, which is
overlooked by anyone obsessed with in-world building, but which in all
other respects produces far more realistic 3D scenes than is possible
with AW. (and is free) (and has quite a community of former AW users
already). They plan to add in-world builting at some point too.

I think as these products emerge there will be no confusion about them
having stolen ideas from AW. From screenshots, videos, and reading
betweeen the lines you can see that these programs are taking radically
different approaches than AW. As far as I know none of them are based
on Renderware for example.

Several of the emerging products have objects that can be freely
manipulated by any user, without the use of the kludgy "bot" concept.
They also have full "physics" components that allow for fairly realistic
gameplay and simulations, again, without the use of "bots".

AW's lead in this market space has slowly evaporated. While I agree
with you that ENZO will not be inclined to let the product die, there
are certainly a number of oportunities that were missed to ensure it's
long-term survival. No point in going over them now though :)

I really liked ENZO when the program was just geting started, then
things changed, and never got better again. I kinda think AW and maybe
even ENZO got taken for a ride. Need I say more? Interesting that he
is actually interacting with the community again. Is it too little
too late? I think the newsgroups are a bit TOO moderated at this point.
They go from one extreme to the other. Everything about AW seems to
operate at two speeds, ON or OFF. hehe

Post this if you wish. As a former AW user I can only read.

PS: I forgot to mention, we've been in touch with some university types
who are working on a totally open source 3D-VR that has some really neat
new concepts. One that I particularly like is that (like the web) it
can pull objects from anywhere on the net. As you might have a web page
with graphics drawn from several other web sites, so you might have a 3D
world with objects drawn from servers all over the world. They are
designing the thing from ground-up with voice and text handling
features, and building it to compile for Windows, Linux, or even OS X.
The graphics are primitive at this point, but these days, getting the
underlying design right is much more important, otherwise you paint
yourself into a corner where new features are harder and harder to add
(sound familiar?). Here is the link for their site:

http://www.interreality.org/

Dec 14, 2002, 3:31pm

Wow - and I thought that the first rule of life is never to burn bridges.

All of this is still speculation. Adobe MIGHT enable in-world building;
Second Life MIGHT be released; these other products MIGHT be developed.
None of the things alluded to below have happened yet. Furthermore,
statements such as "AW's lead in this marketspace has slowly evaporated" say
very little - what's the definition of "slowly" evaporating? And just
because a product isn't based on Renderware doesn't mean it's radically
different - it's possible to program something very similar if not the same
as AW with another 3D engine. And who is "we"? And how are you a "former
AW user" if you're posting here?

I'm not going to abandon AW until any of these products comes into existence
(or the extra features are implemented in the case of Adobe) for sure, and I
hope that nobody else does either. I'm sorry to say this, but this post,
its timing in comparison to the previous ones, and your taking your leave of
AW a few months ago seem to make this add up to the fact that you're trying
to spread as much negative PR as possible. Isn't it a little premature to
be predicting AW's demise when these products haven't even been released
yet?

-Brant

[View Quote]

Dec 14, 2002, 3:54pm

> as AW with another 3D engine. And who is "we"? And how are you a "former
> AW user" if you're posting here?

Brant.

Please read the full text of the post before commenting....as my first line
said :


Linden


...it then went on to his email to me, I am merely reposting for him...so
please read read read before commenting, none of that post is *my*
thoughts - it was an email from MacB with *his* thoughts - and MacB is no
longer a user of AW - which is a huge shame, as he has been around probably
as long as I have been.

AW has lost so many of the old timers *sigh*


F.

>
>

Dec 14, 2002, 9:45pm

Oops..maybe i shuld read a little better- thought you were directing your
comments at me,....

F.

[View Quote]

Dec 15, 2002, 2:32am

I told a whole bunch of people to stop spreading negative and one-sided (key
word) PR in AWGate to tourists, but I don't think macb was among them, God
bless 'im.

I said it on some AW Discussion yahoo group and everyone got mad. Not one
single aw supporter in that group. ;P OH you should have seen the personal
attacks I got from that! It was a mess.

Chris


[View Quote]

Dec 15, 2002, 3:34pm

I think I agree with some of what you said ^_^ Believe it or not, it is now
with 3.4, more than ever, possible to create stunning landscapes and
environments. All you need is to know how to put the stuff together
correctly, and have the correct objects. Look at Lady Murasaki's work (I
know there are others who design stunning sets, though she is the only one
I've worked with first hand) - it's incredible and in many cases, very
realistic to the point where people have not been able to tell that they are
in active worlds (by focusing on the environment alone :P browser aside).

Poseidon

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