[vos-d] X3D

[Len Bullard]

V-Realm Builder was and still is excellent.  I won a copy in a contest over
a decade ago and that was my entry point. I still use it because it is all
VRML and has a great terrain editor and index face set utility, and easy
treeview interface, great support for sequencing and routing, etc.  Big
pieces of ROL were done there.  OTOH, I like Flux Studio.  It is powerful,
has fantastic advanced geometry editing with a drop dead easy interface, and
well... I still haven't gotten through the feature set although I blogged it
at http://3donthewebcheap.blogspot.com  I have to admit that for scene
assembly, PFE is my work horse because I really don't mind native code.  At
some point, one really does have to learn the language and you learn to spot
bugs fast as well as how to make better protos once you see repeating
structures.  After awhile, VRML scene graphs just start to make enormous
sense from the author's perspective.  That is my only caution to the
object-oriented programmers:  it is too much code geekery for an author in
too many cases.  A professional game programmer, yes, but the average kid
getting started, no.  They need to learn a language in the sweet spot
between OpenGL and 3DML.  Go too high level, there isn't enough power.  Go
too low level, it takes to much work to do basic stuff.

I'm starting to post tutorials there regularly.  It is breezy but it is a
blog.  I am describing my processes for building with code samples as much
as anything to give the kids a free place to get the information and a ton
of philosophy about my own story telling processes.  

I call it "3D On The Web CHEAP!" because I'm not a believer in the 'ya gotta
buy a server spot at SL' or wherever or 'ya need a copy of Poser and 3D
Maya' whatever to get into 3D.  That wasn't the original promise of 3D on
The web before the new guys rebranded it as 'the metaverse', a term I
consider kind of dumb (More Meta Than Thou is the death spiral of design).
It was 'get an ASCII editor and a browser and if you got the moxie you can
go 3D'.  I realize the need for powerful tools because real-time 3D is a lot
harder than HTML, but I also know that the key to a real metaverse is
accessibility relative to costs for the new comers.  Otherwise, we might as
well all go back to writing records management systems.

I believe 3D and games are to this generation what rock n roll was to mine.
The best thing I can do for the kids is hold a door open for them as long as
I can, because this is their thing and they need to have their own thing,
not ours.

I really need to shut up. You guys have work to do and I have a blog for
pontificating.  Thanks for the space!

len

-----Original Message-----
From: vos-d-bounces at interreality.org [mailto:vos-d-bounces at interreality.org]
On Behalf Of Reed Hedges

Fortunately, it sounds like some good GUI editors are coming out (like
Flux studio).    I never did manage to find a really good GUI tool for
building VRML97 that was really focused on VRML and supported all of it,
though I was only looking at the free ones.

(Back when I was able to actually do 3D for a job I ended up exporting
VRML from a simple modeler called AC3D and then mucking about in it by
hand slightly.)