Do You Dream In 3D?
Raph Koster, world designer from such games as Ultima Online and Star Wars Galaxies has an article about the online community MyMiniLife. This morning many bloggers seem to have adopted MyMiniLife as the hot topic of the day.
In reading about this topic however, it appears to me that many people are seeing Flash objects as the future of the 3D web. That is, they are saying the web of the future will be based upon the same old 2D underlying structure of the ancient concept known as webpages, and the 3D experiences will be served on those webpages in the form of an embedded Flash client.
I, however, believe that while Flash clients may be where the internet is heading next, it will not stop there. When you look at computing history, you see games evolving from Spade Invaders in 2D, to Half Life in 3D. Windows went from 2D Windows such as Windows 3.1 to Vista which has now has 3D spinning windows.
It's just human nature to evolve our computing and entertainment tools to be more like real life. I don't think it's far off track to assume that the web itself will someday be presented in full, glorious 3D.
Flash 3D worlds on 2D pages may well be "destination NEXT", but I'm still foreseeing a fully 3D future for the web.
In the meantime, let's remember that Linden Labs has allowed secondlifelib to be developed and used to create alternative clients for Second Life. I wonder how far away we are from a Flash client for Second Life?
Although all of these current Flash client worlds are "cute", Second Life is on it's way to becoming the first large virtual world that has more than one way to access it. Sort of like the web can be accessed by IE, Firefox, Opera, etc.
Second Life has yet to prove that it is the web of the future, but Linden Labs appear to fully understand that the more ways to access their servers, the more eyes will see it and adopt it.
Now that Linden Labs have thrown open the gate to the open source community, we'll start to see all kinds of clients for Second Life, including Flash, I bet. It appears that whichever train leaves the station, whether it be a Flash-based environment, or a fully 3D client, Linden Labs will already be on it.
Areae, Linden Labs, and all the Flash worlds all appear to be going head to head within the same virtual space and market. It'll be interesting to see which way this shakes out.
In reading about this topic however, it appears to me that many people are seeing Flash objects as the future of the 3D web. That is, they are saying the web of the future will be based upon the same old 2D underlying structure of the ancient concept known as webpages, and the 3D experiences will be served on those webpages in the form of an embedded Flash client.
I, however, believe that while Flash clients may be where the internet is heading next, it will not stop there. When you look at computing history, you see games evolving from Spade Invaders in 2D, to Half Life in 3D. Windows went from 2D Windows such as Windows 3.1 to Vista which has now has 3D spinning windows.
It's just human nature to evolve our computing and entertainment tools to be more like real life. I don't think it's far off track to assume that the web itself will someday be presented in full, glorious 3D.
Flash 3D worlds on 2D pages may well be "destination NEXT", but I'm still foreseeing a fully 3D future for the web.
In the meantime, let's remember that Linden Labs has allowed secondlifelib to be developed and used to create alternative clients for Second Life. I wonder how far away we are from a Flash client for Second Life?
Although all of these current Flash client worlds are "cute", Second Life is on it's way to becoming the first large virtual world that has more than one way to access it. Sort of like the web can be accessed by IE, Firefox, Opera, etc.
Second Life has yet to prove that it is the web of the future, but Linden Labs appear to fully understand that the more ways to access their servers, the more eyes will see it and adopt it.
Now that Linden Labs have thrown open the gate to the open source community, we'll start to see all kinds of clients for Second Life, including Flash, I bet. It appears that whichever train leaves the station, whether it be a Flash-based environment, or a fully 3D client, Linden Labs will already be on it.
Areae, Linden Labs, and all the Flash worlds all appear to be going head to head within the same virtual space and market. It'll be interesting to see which way this shakes out.
Labels: Areae, Second Life, Virtual Worlds
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posted by Delzo Delacroix | 9:00 AM
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