Special Report
VRMLocity and 3D Design
By Sue Wilcox
Intensive tutorials by industry experts are the special appeal of the 3D Design Conference,(See "
Online") and this time around (June 1997) they drew large, rapt audiences to the San Francisco Marriott. This year the conference devoted an entire day to seminars focused on 3D on the Internet. Titled "VRMLocity," this day offered plenty of VRML-related fare as well as tutorials on a wider range of 3D experiences: becoming a 3D artist, using AutoCAD 14, creating special effects with 3DStudio MAX, and sculpting, digitizing, and animating characters. The other three days comprised four extended sessions per day, each offering six different tutorial-based classes that included product-specific sessions, character creation, 3D artistry, creating textures and special effects, and using VRML. Attendance this year increased over three times from last year, so the organizers must be meeting a real need.
VRMLocity
VRMLocity attempted to cover all the bases of concern to 3D artists designing for the Web. Bruce Damer, codirector of the Contact Consortium, gave the keynote: "A Journey into Our Future." "VRML is the mechanism to carry your content to a mass audience," said Damer, and "the future of the Internet is communication and personal expression space." Damer discussed uses of VRML for character creation (Floops from Protozoa), avatars for communication (OnLive's talking heads), and his research into L-systems, which algorithmically generate large (250K) VRML creatures from tiny (400-byte) seed files.
