The Contact Consortium, multi-user VRML and X3D by: Bruce Damer February 17, 1999

In response to an email Inquiry from J Eric Mason about the Contact Consortium being an alternate home for discussions on open source virtual worlds with the VRML (Web3D) Consortium's focus on X3D and seemingly loss of committment to multiuser 3D. This was written one week before Platinum technologies effectively ended their VRML efforts and the remaining VRML technologies were thrown into uncertainty, or perhaps open source distribution. JEM,
Boy talk about serendipity! In fact the Consortium already has a special interest group called "OWorld" which started at our Biota2 conference last summer. This group was specifically set up to brainstorm technical approaches, application domain targets and community building for an open source multi user virtual worlds platform (or platforms). We have about 20 members on the list now and are seeking to not only expand it but to find a champion who will stoke that list and the SIG. You can find the signup page for the group at: http://www.ccon.org/lists/ As you may know, the

Contact Consortium has four years of practical experience in inhabited virtual worlds. We are "platform neutral" seeking to forward the development of any visual shared space on the net. We use any worlds that work for specific purposes. We are also nonprofit and based on a strong volunteer community, with a focus on users and their applications, rather than technologies and companies. We have a wealth of knowledge about what works and doesn't and what people really like to do in these spaces. All that said, I think I can speak for the organization that I would be happy to have us get behind a merged effort to forward the cause of multi-user virtual worlds/standards. I also have been following the x3d discussions and have a variety of personal and technical opinions on it, which if you allow me, I will elaborate on here.

For years I have been vocal (and largely unrecognized) in my views that VRML was being handled wrongly.. aiming at technical specs rather than what users wanted and what environments to craft that would make it easy for ordinary folks to make 3D spaces. All those 3D modeling tools, however wonderful, will never appeal to a large content community or be able to be used by the ordinary netizen. In addition, and sharing your frustration, the fact that multi user was never treated as a priority was a big problem for VRML and potentially its fatal mistake. Building 3D is fundamentally a social activity (in the real world) and VRML desperately needed a multi user virtual commons where people could come in and kick the tires of new objects or properties, carrying out their development at the level of a real usable visual space. The VRML mailing list approach was a disaster and brought the level of discussion down from the experience of 3D to "text only" code talk and politics. The few multi user vrml spaces made were either not open to the community for development or were efforts too small to drive the development of VRML. I am so sorry all those millions were spent designing VRML for and by engineers working on fat pipes. If only a fraction had been allocated to create a real cyberspace version of the VRML community tuned for dial-up net use, we would have something substantial today, not just islands of innovation, a file interchange format, and a couple of huge overdesigned plug ins. On a personal level I have spent years talking about the Active Worlds project (of which i am not any formal part, just a user) which with a very small investment and little public visibility, built a virtual commons, a strong community and a whole practice of user-built extension and design of worlds people find valuable. In fact, their streaming object format which I have demoed repeatedly at VRML conferences, now seems to be "rediscovered" with X3D. I find all this sad and ridiculous (my opinion, not necessarily that of the Contact Consortium). Did you know that AW citizens have built nearly one billion polygons of 3D content, all of which is still visitable (even the spaces built 3 years ago)? There were no versions to make old content incompatible, instead they employed serial upgrading, in-world social development of the technology and few people know or care about the file format, they build directly inside the world with the Lego parts contributed by a relatively few expert modelers. And hey, all of this was designed and built by two programmers working from home on dialup connections.. a powerful argument against the committee process and big company involvement. AW is owned by a company and is considered "proprietary" but it works, the users extend it and stands alone today as a community supported significantly large multi user 3D environment success. In my opinion, X3D will build to a vastly shrunken audience and aims at an application space which is not very interesting frankly (does it stir the creative or innovative side of what kept many of you in the game and believing?). One is banner ads, and frankly who cares? Is that cyberspace? No! Frankly I find all of this blind following of the dictums of e-commerce disturbing. I think Ecommerce is not cyberspace, as it lacks a caring and creative aspect about people and their interactions and is anathema to why we go online (for other than utilitarian purposes). The net innovated out of an open community mechanism and we still spend the most time online connecting with other people, not ordering products. E-commerce has the attraction of "credibility" and possibly investment but it is a fickle market with poorly defined uses for database visualization and the other apps that X3D has identified. I feel they are chasing some goals that either have no proven basis for real applications or may be done best by simpler technologies built to suit. And they are going far far far from the original vision of "building cyberspace" as enuciated all those years ago by Mark Pesce, Tony Parisi, Mitra, yourselves and many others. Hey, the Web3D folks are missing the killer app of Cyberspace: people and their virtual communities. IYou are right in feeling that it is a travesty and something ought to be done. But what? Well the most sensible thing would be to air this to what remains of the VRML community and the Web3D board. This should be done only if you share some of the above feelings. Again, these are just my opinions. I would have no problem being part of some sort of "co-proclamation about community and the future of virtual world cyberspace". Hammer it to the doors of the Web3D Consortium and see what happens. If they determine that shared cyberspaces are not important to their future, then you might consider picking up your folks, technologies, and energies and making a very public exit, clearly stating why to the community and what your vision is. Schisms have produced new flowerings in cultures and innovations in the past (protestantism, Intel etc). Next, ask yourselves: why do you need the X3D/Web3D Consortium or the corporate partners to develop your vision? Look at the Contact Consortium site at: http://www.ccon.org See what has been accomplished with NO funding (other than conference sponsorships) and little official corporate backing over the four years of our history. Its all volunteers folks. And hey, like the VRML Consortium and others, we held conferences, wrote articles, received a great deal of press coverage, created great experiments in multi user spaces and most importantly, did the whole lot by sticking close to the user. So where would you go? Well of course you could form your own separate community. Alternately you could take on and kick start the Contact Consortium's nascent OWorld SIG, join our community and benefit from a rich set of alternative people and approaches that are demonstrably pushing the MU envelope successfully every year. I know this is a lot and some of the above should be taken in the context of my own personal frustrations at seeing good work going to waste in the VRML effort when it was largely avoidable. You have hit at least one nail on the head. So let me know what you think about all this... and the others on the CC, am I crazy?

How about we all get signed up on OWorld and talk? Sign up at:
http://www.ccon.org/lists/oworld.html
Frankly I have no reservations about being part of a message to yours/the Web3D community (and having my words used if they are at all of interest), but it would have to come from a group of us in a concerted action, not from just me. Best to you and thanks for making contact (that is our name), and I do look forward to continuing the discussion!
Bruce

cc Board, interested parties.
end.
© 1999 Bruce Damer

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