The first vrml I made was for Port, an exhibition of live Internet
performances on the Internet. The day after the opening I was trying to
explain to a curator what I was doing, no luck. In came a bunch of kids
who took over the machines, one ten year old within minutes had
discovered all the crevices and secrets that I had stashed in those vrml
worlds. (These were vrml 1.0 worlds, that had little programming built
in.)
VRML is a non-proprietary way of streaming 3d content across the
Internet. All the major players in the industry support it (well, so
I'm into it because, like html, it's a format to distribute). Netscape 4
has the vrml browser built in, and I think that's true of IE 4.0. (When
downloading, you have to specify Netscape plus components and plugins).
There is nothing else out there that has that support. There may have
been some other way of streaming 3D on the Internet…
There are many things to come in vrml. It's a bit like the PC. Every few
months I help a friend buy a new computer and am amazed how much easier
and better these machines get. Not that the PC as a concept will last
more than about three years, and itself will be obsolete in about
five(?). (Apple made a fatal error buying Next, they would have been
better to align themselves with Nintendo.) In about three years the
current pcs will be useless in the next technological leap, given the
choice of buying a $2000 general purpose computer or a $200, faster,
special purpose machine, most people will opt for the later. At that
point, given the smooth capitalist transformation of the planet (not
assured), a huge percentage of the planet will be able to buy such a
device. In this context, vrml good or bad is irrelevant. Current
conversations about networked environments might look quaint.
I remember three years ago talking to designers who made their names in
the 80's talking about the computer with disdain. Now they are
struggling to catch up with their employees (who won't work without
them). Most of the architecture industry is now using computers (in the
US), and the easy transfer of data between architects, engineers, the
construction industry is slowly being put in place. No longer a question
of if, just when. Buildings like the Waterloo Channel Tunnel Terminal
could not have been built a few years ago (and so on).
Yesterday talked to an artist who could only see two things: to work for
a company producing commercial drawings, governed by market forces, or
to be alone in her studio, unable to effect anyone or anything except
maybe a small following and show in a gallery. I thought a change could
happen, but it has to be structural. When Inigo Jones came back to
London in the 17th century he created what we now think of as the
architect's studio. A drafting table, T-square, scale, compass and a
library. Any architect would have felt at home. What the computer does
is make the architect's office an irrelevance. A new design team could
be composed of many people of different disciplines. Which theorist has
addressed this yet?
As for vrml tools, well they exist for the PC. I showed two architects,
who teach 3D, Paragraph's software for creating VRML. Their comments,
like mine, are that it's the simplest program to create 3D they know
of. I use Vrealm Builder, which is much easier to teach than 3D Studio.
It's also a lot more fun.
Yes a bunch of VRML companies are having trouble. At the same time the
industry is consolidating and beginning to figure out what to do with
itself. The lesson of the ten-year-old is clear. 3D on the Internet is
going to be a big deal. They approach it with the ease that people on
this list approach the written word. I get intern after intern already
immersed in game culture. There's something new here.
The file size issue depends on what it is you want to do. The
interactive vrml at the Blast gallery at Documenta is 10k (less than
this message!). The total of the vrml for the Blast WebPages (to be
opened shortly) is about 55k. File size is irrelevant. What is relevant
is the computing power of contemporary PCs. Given that you can move
around with, and that the vrml interacts with you, computer games that
use proprietary software and hardware are the big competition. Every day
now there is news of the convergence of hardware and software for vrml.
Its ugly, will take a couple of years, but its happening.
Have left out a lot about why I think vrml is interesting, I happen to
think its far more flexible than people think. Perhaps another post.
Marek Walczak.