Presentation is loading. Please wait.

Presentation is loading. Please wait.

3D on the Web Bernie Roehl December, 2000.

Similar presentations


Presentation on theme: "3D on the Web Bernie Roehl December, 2000."— Presentation transcript:

1 3D on the Web Bernie Roehl December, 2000

2 Overview What is Web3D? Applications (why Web3D is important)
History (where we’ve been) Current Status (where we are) The Future (where we’re going) Where does that leave you? Tech talk -- creating 3D web content

3 What is Web3D? Combination of two powerful forces
the internet 3D graphics The result: interactive, realtime 3D graphics delivered over the web

4 Why now? Until recently, there were two problems:
slow computers slow connections Downloading 3D content took a long time Once downloaded, it ran very slowly Quality of the graphics was poor

5 What’s Changed? Increased bandwidth into the home
cable modems DSL Increased processor speed 1 ghz and beyond Graphics accelerators installed on all new machines able to provide fast, high-quality graphics

6 Applications E-commerce Training product visualization
3D virtual shops interactive demos 3D “banner ads” Training web-based training using interactive 3D

7 Applications (cont’d)
Games multi-player, fully 3D (e.g. Sony Everquest) Entertainment streaming 3D animation (much lower bandwidth than video, can run full-screen, can have interactivity) Social Interaction 3D chat spaces

8 Applications (cont’d)
Education virtual “field trips” distance education as well as on-campus virtual “experiments” for physical sciences historical recreations for social sciences 3D data visualization for various fields

9 Applications (cont’d)
Collaborative design and engineering architecture product design plant layout ergonomics

10 History In the beginning, there was VRML. And it was good. But not great. VRML 1.0 had an awkward scene graph structure (inherited from SGI’s OpenInventor) VRML 2.0 (renamed VRML 97) fixed that problem, but introduced others

11 VRML 97 ISO standard for 3D graphics on the web Lots of good ideas
Too many good ideas -- very difficult to implement Very large browsers (3 meg downloads!) Incompatibilities across implementations

12 Other problems Complexity of the spec made it an expensive business to get into Players had to be free, so... Companies tried to sell authoring tools CosmoWorlds from SGI VR Creator from VREAM many others

13 Problems (cont’d) Slow acceptance
players too large and buggy bandwidth too limited for “serious” content computers too slow to play content in realtime Therefore… no market for authoring tools Most companies withdrew from the market

14 The Many Woes of Cosmo The most influential players and tools came from Cosmo Software, a division of SGI SGI hit money problems, sold off several divisions -- including Cosmo Cosmo was bought by Platinum Platinum hit money problems, got bought by Computer Associates

15 Whither Cosmo? Computer Associates essentially abandoned Cosmo (but is still buying up 3D companies) Engineers who worked on Cosmo got snatched up (e.g. by Sony) CosmoPlayer and CosmoWorlds were orphaned

16 Current State of VRML VRML 97 was ahead of its time
Modern computers have no problem with it (demo) Several VRML vendors still around, doing well Blaxxun Interactive (Contact) Parallel Graphics (Cortona) Sony (VRML multi-user systems)

17 The Present Chaos! VRML is now just one of many competing technologies
Not clear which ones will be successful Market is still not growing as fast as companies are entering it Shake-out is inevitable

18 3D Web Technologies (3/13/00)
3D Dreams ( 3D Groove ( Alice ( Anfy 3D ( Atomic 3D ( Blaxxun3D ( Cult3D (

19 3D Web Technologies (cont’d)
e3DNet ( Flatland ( Fluid3D ( Gel ( Genesis3D ( Hollywood3D ( Java 3D (

20 3D Web Technologies (cont’d)
Lightspace3d ( MetaStream ( Multipath Movies ( NeMo ( OpenSpace3D ( Pulse3D ( PuppetTime (

21 3D Web Technologies (cont’d)
Realax ( Scol ( Shout3D ( Vecta3D ( WorldUp ( Zap ( Plus...

22 3D Web Technologies (cont’d)
Cortona ( Contact ( CosmoPlayer ( … and many others!

23 So What Happened to VRML?
Many of the systems above use VRML (but don’t call it that) VRML is “under the hood” of Java3D, X3D, MPEG-4, and many of the proprietary systems Basic VRML “scene graph” concept is used by the vast majority of systems out there

24 Who Will Survive? Good question!
Market isn’t large enough for all those companies to make it Some (most!) will fail Those who survive will do very well Stakes are high New markets appearing soon (set top boxes, game consoles...)

25 Order from Chaos? In theory, the Web3D Consortium exists to push open standards Largely ineffective, for a variety of reasons Their current effort is X3D, a successor to VRML Much infighting about DTD’s, very slow progress Proprietary solutions are pulling ahead

26 Current State of the Art
Several different approaches Web browser plug-ins Plug-ins for other plug-ins RealPlayer Shockwave Standalone applications

27 Demo time! Blaxxun3D Shout3D MetaStream Cult3D Pulse3D Cortona
Others...

28 Blaxxun3D 55 kb Java applet Supports most of the VRML spec
Full interactivity, fully programmable Completely cross-platform No plug-ins, nothing to install Works great!

29 Shout3D Small Java applet (size varies) Supports most of the VRML spec
Full interactivity, fully programmable Completely cross-platform No plug-ins, nothing to install Extensible Works great!

30 MetaStream Puts 3D graphics on a Web page
Easy to use (3D Studio Max exporter) Viewer must be downloaded and installed Viewer bundled with browsers No royalties Clever incremental download technology Downside: no interactivity (version 3.0 will fix this)

31 Cult3D From Swedish company “Cycore” Fast, lots of features
Big marketing push right now Expensive to license ($3600 per product line) New version just released One of the front runners

32 Pulse 3D From Pulse Networks “Virtual Jay Leno”
Tightly integrated with 3D Studio Max Close ties with Discreet Supports streaming 3D animation Very powerful Largish download

33 Cortona From Parallel Graphics Minimal download is 500 kb Very fast
Full support for VRML Lots of extensions (e.g. NURBS) Good authoring tools (Internet Scene Assembler, Internet Character Animator)

34 The Future - X3D? X3D will happen
By the time it’s designed and implemented, market will already be very crowded Not clear what (if anything) it adds to VRML May be too little, too late

35 The Future - MPEG-4? MPEG-4 will happen
Lots of big companies pushing it Uses VRML, H-Anim, etc Licensing issues still unclear Won’t be commercially available for at least a year (possibly longer) Authoring tools will be needed

36 The Future (cont’d) Most likely scenario: Short term… Medium term…
Market remains split between a few small proprietary solutions (probably Cult3D, Pulse3D, MetaStream) plus Java applets Medium term… Standards begin to take hold (particularly MPEG-4) and slowly displace proprietary solutions Long term… who knows? :-)

37 So where does that leave us?
Basic advice: Don’t lock into any one technology yet Decide what the needs of your application are Create your 3D content in 3D Studio Max reasonably powerful package almost all formats have 3D Studio Max exporters can re-target content to different systems down the road if necessary

38 What to do next Start thinking how 3D can help your web site
Can be a major differentiator Good 3D content is compelling Interactivity leads to “stickiness”

39 Tech Talk How to create 3D web content: start with design!
create geometry (virtual objects) export to intermediate format animate and add interactivity polish (sound, text, surrounding HTML) convert to final format and publish

40 Design How can 3D help me convey my message?
What visual form should the 3D content take? (What is my metaphor?) What kinds of 3D objects are needed? How will they move? How will the user interact with them?

41 Geometry Creation Use existing 3D modeling programs
3D StudioMax Lightwave TrueSpace Maya Softimage Use whichever ones you’re most familiar with (3D Studio Max very popular for this)

42 Exporting to Intermediate Format
Exporters are plug-ins to the 3D authoring application that let it save in a different format Converters are standalone programs that read a standard format and convert to an intermediate form

43 Animation and Interactivity
Can be created in 3D authoring application and exported Can be created in a separate authoring tool (e.g. Pulse, Cult3D) Can be created using standard Javascript (Blaxxun3D, Shout3D) Advantages and disadvantages to each approach

44 Polishing Add sound, music if appropriate
User actions should often have sound Put in context by creating a surrounding HTML page Add links to additional information pages

45 Publishing Once everything is working, the content gets put on a standard web site Users go to that web site to view the content (possibly after downloading an appropriate plug-in)

46 The Content Creation Team
3D modelers fairly specialized skill different modelers know different packages can also create 3D content from scanning 3D “clip art” also available 2D artists probably already in-house for web page art generally use PhotoShop or PaintShop Pro

47 Content Creation Team (con’td)
Sound/music specialists probably available in-house must adapt skills to Web3D context Animators often same as modelers must be able to design for interaction Programmers Javascript, Java both common

48 Example 1 -- The Toaster Geometry created in 3D Studio Max
Background modeled and then pre-rendered (once with lights on, once off) Textures came from a library, everything else was created from scratch in Max Exported to VRML 97

49 Toaster (continued) Some cleanup required on the exported VRML (easy to do with a text editor) Animation handled with Javascript Final output is just VRML, viewed using the Blaxxun3D viewer with HTML and Javascript

50 Example 2 -- Forest Walk Forest created by Andrew Reitmeyer for the VRML Dream project Simply uploaded the VRML file to a web site and wrote a short HTML page to use Shout3D’s “walk” viewer applet on it Total time minutes! Building the forest itself took a bit longer

51 Here’s the HTML <body bgcolor="#000000" text="#FFFFFF">
<center> <applet width=300 height=250 codebase="../common/shout3d" archive="shout3dClasses.zip" code="applets/WalkApplet.class"> <param name=src value="forest.wrl"> </applet> <br><i>Use the mouse to walk through the world</i> </center> </body>

52 Example 3 -- SciSat Content originally created in 3D Studio
Imported into 3D Studio Max, exported to MetaStream Uploaded it and wrote a short HTML page to view it Backdrop of Earth orbit was pre-rendered in Max Total time -- five minutes, because we’re leveraging existing content

53 Here’s the HTML <head><title>Canada's SciSat</title></head> <body bgcolor=# text=#FFFFFF> <center> <embed name="metaviewer" type="application/metastream" pluginspage= " BgImg="earth_from_orbit.jpg" ui="black" logo="0" width="320" height="240" src="scisat.mts"> </embed> <p><em>Try dragging the satellite around</em> <p><em>Drag with the CTRL key down to zoom in and out</em> </center> </body>

54 Key Points Simple 3D web sites can be easy to create
Good 3D content can be compelling You need to build a good team Try to leverage existing 3D content wherever possible

55 Contact Information These slides Bernie Roehl VR Studios Web3D Consortium


Download ppt "3D on the Web Bernie Roehl December, 2000."

Similar presentations


Ads by Google