"We wanted to add some spice to the virtual world development". First experiences from the first ever non-flat virtual world. The CEO of Ludocraft answers Maxping's though questions of why and how.
Spherical world sounds like a huge technical challenge. This is
the first time ever something like this has been
created. Spherical world means that the avatars are locked inside
of a huge ball and they can walk on the inner surface of it. The
gravity works unnaturally so that it always makes people stick on
the walls.
Take a look at it yourself:
Tekes of Finland offers Virtual Expo 3D Environment open for
everyone (includes video from the virtual expo world and
instructions how to get there). The Virtual Expo world was created
by the realXtend developer company Ludocraft.
I started by creating a new avatar account for myself at http://world.virtualexpo.fi and was boring
myself by using my own real world name and not something cool like
"Janette Denimore" or so. After downloading
the newest version of the realXtend viewer, I connected to the
Virtual Expo world itself.
First moments were a bit confusing, everything was black until
objects started to show all around. There was no terrain or skybox,
only black void at first. The land I was standing was a mesh. I
started to see a river and some robots doing movements with their
arms and legs. Later on I discovered that the robots belong to
Ludocraft's booth on the expo.
When all the objects were loaded I was standing on a steady
land. Everything around me seemed to be up-hill. No "down the road"
here! I tried to look upwards to get to see the horizon, but
failed. There is no horizon in this world, just trees and objects
sticking out from the walls of the sphere. In the middle of the
sphere there is a big cloud that is shiny and gives light to the
world, kind of a replacement to the sky and sun in an ordinary
world.
After a while I figured out that it was much easier to navigate
if I changed to first person view, but it still took a good five
minutes until I started to feel comfortable with always-up-hill and
no-horizon features of the world.
The objects on the world take use of realXtend's advanced OGRE3D materials
for glass and ice and such effects. Nice particle effects e.g. for
autumn leaves were also present. Now I was ready to take a look at
the exhibition booths themselves. There are many interesting things
that are worth an article themselves, like VTT's augmented reality
experiments with Opensim.
The world itself is themed around four season's and all the four
season has own special kind of booths and objects. The picture
above shows the icecube booth.
Maxping got an opportunity to interview Tony Manninen, the CEO
of Ludocraft.
Jani: Where did the idea come from?
Tony: The original request was to create a
virtual exhibition space that could be used to showcase the
innovative projects of TEKES (Finnish Funding Agency for Technology
and Innovation) Space and Place Programme. Instead of doing things
in conventional way, we wanted to add some value and raise the
level of challenge by introducing a new concept for our client.
The idea of just replicating a standard exhibition hall sounded
a bit boring. Our client gave us a total freedom to go wild with
ideas. Therefore we started exploring more innovative options. We
wanted to add some spice to the virtual world development. The
spherical world concept was the result of our internal
brainstorming. Naturally, we have seen ring worlds and cylinder
worlds in numerous sci-fi movies. We have been inspired by the
notion of "unrealistic space" and wanted to share the experience
with the prospective realXtend users.
Jani: What were the most difficult problems you had to
solve?
Tony: Both the realXtend viewer and the server
assumed at the start that the world is always flat. Correcting this
assumption was one of the biggest challenges we faced during the
project. Issues like adjusting the server-side avatar physics for
walking along the sphere surface, and to likewise adjust the avatar
& camera orientation on the client side, were among the most
critical things we needed to develop further. This project was very
valuable for us, since it forced us to push the boundaries of
realXtend.
Jani: If I wanted to do my own
spherical world, is that possible? Are there other variations like
cylinder worlds and so on that can be made?
Tony: At the moment we are hosting a public
world which everyone can visit. However, we haven't released the
server software necessary to setup your own spherical world. We are
definitely willing to discuss about the possibilities if people are
interested in these types of non-conventional virtual worlds.
In terms of other shapes, there are plenty of options available.
Naturally, some of the concepts are more usable than the others.
For example, we experimented with a world where you walk on the
outside surface of the sphere. During internal tests, however, we
quickly realised that your view is very limited compared to walking
on the inside surface. So in the end we decided to lock the players
inside the one huge hamster ball.
Jani: Were there any special challenges
to make suitable content for a world like this?
Tony: The main challenge was to figure out a
suitable layout and positioning scheme for the objects. Since there
is no horizon, the field-of-vision gets more crowded. Furthermore,
the theme of four seasons with a notion towards famous Finnish
design proved to be an interesting challenge for our art team.
There were plenty of excellent ideas we did not implement in this
phase, so we hope to continue the work in the future. The realm of
virtual exhibition places will not be the same ever again.
Jani: Spherical world is a very original idea. What
should we expect from Ludocraft in the future?
Tony: Our philosophy is to make things
differently and to think outside the box. We do not want to
replicate things that have been done. Furthermore, we constantly
try to find ideas that make the added value of 3D spaces concrete
for the users. We do not want 3D just the sake of 3D - instead we
want to create something that has a certain "wow" effect. There are
some cool projects cooking up inside our chambers, so I'd say
you'll hear from us in the future as well.
Maxping says...
Very refreshing to see a courageous approach to virtual worlds.
The technology, content and user interface is still in the phase
where even the basic things are not easy to do. We really hope to
see the server side code published to the community so that we all
can start experimenting with our own spherical world
implementations!
snowcrashme