Sunday, October 18, 2015

2015 FUTURE: HELP: PROMO: Metaverse in your browser? How close are we? WEBGL?

Metaverse in your browser?  
How close are we?  WEBGL? 
Updated 12/6/15
  • We can show Metaverse on your browser now, but you can't interact.
  • You can get full service, but it costs
  • My ideal for Metaverse growth: the presence viewer
  • A Dimension Beyond (coming soon)
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  • (More after the break)
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News and Notes


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    We can show it to you now

    • We can stream a video to the web.  
    • Geo Meek has done this, streaming live and capturing.
    • Here are the captures: 
    • Lauren's comedy archive by Geo Meek (extensive collection)
    • It did not get a large audience.  
    • You only get to watch, not interact.
    • The remote audience could not speak in voice. 
    • They cold not share the text chat with the local audience.
    • It is not like being there.
    • So we gave up on that

    You could get full service, but it costs


    My ideal for Metaverse growth: the presence viewer

    • Imaginary (for now).
    • Gives you the same "presence" experience that you get now.
    • You see, hear, and chat (voice and text) as with Firestorm now. 
    • You don't build, script, terraform, or do any other "creator" things.
    • Beginners don't need those things in the "steep learning curve."
    • And lots of us don't need them part of the time.
    • We can use the virtual world "as is."
    • Can we get this presence viewer in a browser?
    • Beginners could start without a download.
    • The could come join the fun.  Find a part of the metaverse they liked. 
    • They could use Paypal to give tips
    • They could get  help in getting a "full strength" viewer later.

    Could WEBGL help us get to a presence viewer?  Yes, and more


    *************************
    YesButters:  Yes, but webGL does not have the rendering system.
    -
    Selby:  That seems to be fairly complicted: Render Hell – Book II.  Server-side rendering is possible.  SL tried it a few years ago.   
    -
    YesButters: Yes, but they dropped it.  Probably cost too much.  
    -
    Ann Tree Prenyour: Not cost effective.  Nothing costs too much if it brings in lots more money than it costs.  
    -
    Ida, the idea lady:  I like to start with the minimalist point--what could you do with tools you now have?   Suppose you don't try to compute a view for each browser visitor.  Suppose you compute one view for the whole sim.  You create a special avatar called Seer.
    -
    Seer: I knew you were going to call me.  I have a good graphics board and adequate upstream bandwidth.  And I have a complete rendering system in my viewer.  Somebody who knows how rendering systems work could siphon off the data needed to create the message for WEBGL.  
    -
    Selby: Seer's computer could send the data back up to the grid.  Not necessarily to the sim server, because this is a separate job. 
    -
    YesButters:  Yes but you don't know that Seer will have enough upstream bandwidth.
    -
    Selby: True. But we do know that there is enough bandwidth to stream up a video to Livestream.  The stream from Seer carries the same information, probably in a more condensed form.  And bandwidth costs should keep going down.
    -
    Seer: The server that gets my upload stream  puts it in proper form for WEBGL and sends it out to our browser guests.  They have to watch what I see.  But I keep in mind that I am on camera, not just looking for myself.  And I am following the conversation, so they can tell me what they want to see if I am not looking at it.
    -
    Sew Shul:  They can meet the people there-- talk to them in chat or in voice.  They can see what is happening.  Listen to the music at an event, hear the comedy or the dialog.   Even ask for help in getting a viewer.   They might begin to understand why we like it.  
    -
    Selby:  There was a grid offering  a viewer in a plugin.  That was SpotON3D. Regrettably, they did not survive.   Browsers started banning plug-ins and SpotON3D did not connect to the Hypergrid.  Those limitations may have done them in.  
    - 
    Ann Tree Prenyour: An existing grid might be able to use a browser interface as product differentiation.  
    -
    Sew Shul:  People might be able to get their friends to come inworld if it took only a url in the browser
    -
    YesButters:  Yes, but it only works if a Seer is there.    
    -
    Sew Shul: Right.  You have to arrange for the browser guests to come to a sim that is ready to welcome browser guests.  You provide a list of LMs to the browser guests.  If you want guests to come into an empty sim, you are out of luck.
    -
    Ann Tree Prenyour:  And out of your mind, too.  Most new people don't know anything to do but look and talk.  So if you want to sell them on your virtual world, you show them a bunch of people having fun.  
    -
    Selby: If you want to make the guest browser system independent of Seer, you put the render process on your server.  That would cost more, but make it more reliable.  You can limit the cost by limiting the number of sites that can handle guest browsers at any one time. 
    -
    YesButters:   Yes, but but viewer on browser has not worked in the past.  Why expect it to to work in the future?
    -
    Ann Tree Prenyour:  Nothing new ever worked in the past.  That's why it's new.
    -
    Selby: My guess is that WEBGL is powerful enough that we can do better than minimalist.  But even minimalist would get us a world on the web.
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    News and Notes

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      The Hypergrid WIP Show

      The Hypergrid WIP is a one hour "show & tell" of works in progress or recently completed. All builders from beginner to pro are invited.  Presentations are in voice and text.  For text presentations, best bring the text in a notecard and paste it into chat.  Voice presentations may be captured in video.  Stills and videos from the show may appear in this blog. 

        Previous Articles from the WIP show 

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          The University of Western Australia (UWA) has launched 'PURSUE IMPOSSIBLE, the 6th UWA Grand Art Challenge and MachinimUWA VIII with a starting prize pool in excess of L$560,000.   Deadline: Midnight SLT, 31st October 201

            Entertainment on the Hypergrid

            HG links-- depending on your interests

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