Tekes, the Finnish Funding Agency for Technology and Innovation launches an open to everyone virtual expo world. The world is now live, and it features the new realxtend spherical worlds - see video here!
Virtual Expo is a virtual world created within Tila - Spaces and
Places programme coordinated by Tekes, the Finnish Funding Agency
for Technology and Innovation. By getting to know the Virtual Expo,
exploring its exhibitions, having meetings with avatars and
participating in seminars one gets a personal experience of the
possibilities that 3D graphics and sound have in improving
communication and the immersive experience. The world can be
created into an open online exhibition where companies can update
their material in real time.
In general virtual worlds have been flat so the challenge of
creating a sphere was taken up. As a shape it is technically
challenging, especially creating a natural movement within it.
Virtual Expo has succeeded in this. The space is built up as a
large sphere, inside of which the user moves with an avatar by
either flying or walking. Virtual Expo is not only a 3D modeling of
reality but a vast space offering immersive experiences. It
challenges and changes the entire concept of space. There are
waterfalls, autumn leaves, ice cubes - the seasons change as the
user moves on the surface and comes across exhibition material and
other users' avatars.
Virtual Expo uses open source virtual
world technology
Virtual Expo is built on the open source virtual world platform
realXtend. The main difference to many other currently popular
virtual worlds is that in realXtend everyone can build their own
virtual world and control it. Most commercial virtual worlds are
based on the principle of selling space or they are otherwise more
closed. This has limited their business applications and usability
for many applications.
Also essential in Virtual Expo is the global avatar created in
realXtend. The avatar can be easily moved between different worlds.
Until now one has had to create an avatar and a user account for
every virtual world separately and standardizing has been missing
completely.
Virtual Expo is created by the game studio LudoCraft which is
also one of the main developers of realXtend.
Instructions for creating a user account and
getting to know Virtual Expo:
http://world.virtualexpo.fi
Download new realXtend viewer 0.42. Connect to
world.virtualexpo.fi
Images and video:
http://www.ludocraft.com/
http://www.realxtend.org/
Maxping says...
We already suspected that something was about to happen when
realXtend published the improved version of their viewer software (
read about it here). Maxping will dig in to know more about
Virtual Expo and report the findings here, soon! Follow the
reporter in twitter as the story unfolds: snowcrashme
Here's the videoclip from the virtual expo, looks awesome!
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