Помните ли нечовешкото видео, което AMD показаха на 16 юни в Сан Франциско (клик)? А сега си представете нещо подобно, което върви в реално време на… почти всяко PC имащо интернет, с минимални усилия от негова страна (на PC-то)…

По-долу има едно доста обстойно видео което демонстрира OTOY server-side rendering технологията, в действие. Почти цялото видео е изрендено в реално време още през март 2007, а от тогава авторите твърдят, че са напреднали много с визуалната част на нещата (добавени са voxel rendering и персонажи базирани на Lightstage технологията). Принципно долното видео не е трябвало да достига до “масовата публика”, но какво да се прави… разни неща изтичат в нета
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Та в общи линии, идеята е следната… Закачате се към LivePlace, посредством интернет. Сървърите там рендят и правят всичките изчисления и ви пращат обратно визуалната част. По-този начин, компютъра ви не смята почти нищо, и единственото изискване към вас е да имате машиня която може да възпроизведе сигнала. По-този начин, LivePlace може да тръгне на почти всеки компютър, че и дори на мобилният ви телефон…

Естествено въпросът е, през колко огромна тръба трябва да тече интернета към вас, за да няма чудовищен лаг И точно когато си мислех, че подобно нещо е не възможно в днещни дни, се оказа, че в САЩ (на западният бряг, където се намира тестовият сървър на OTOY), въпросните достигат 12-17 милисекунди, и 100ms към Япония. И докато това е недостатъчно за екшън игра (въпреки, че за Quake ще ни трябват около 120ms ping), не може да отречете, че технологията може да влезе в употреба за много други игри и не само… А и реално, ако LivePlace стартира, това тотално би издухало Second Life от “лицето на интернета”

И предвид факта, че в днешно време интернета става все по-бърз, няма да се изненадам много, ако скоро (до няколко години) LivePlace стане достъпна за масова употреба. Е разбира се, възниква и въпроса (тъй като вашият компютър прави минимални изчисления) какви машини ще трябва да захранват това чудовище
Например 200 000 човека онлайн, това би означавало сървърна купчина от 200 000 машини смятащи какво се случва… Е разбира се горното твърдение е доста преувеличено, и нямащо много общо с действителността, но все пак разбирате основната идея…

Все пак LivePlace изглежда повече от любопитно, и с радост ще следя бъдещото развитие на проекта…

Източник:
LivePlace To Launch Photo-Realistic Virtual World Rendered In The Cloud [techcrunch]
LivePlace: Online Photorealism On Rubbish PCs? [Rock, Paper, Shotgun]

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Тази статия в свежо – клик!

Jason Kincaid recently blogged on Techcrunch about City Space, a photo-realistic 3-D virtual world.

Trust me when I tell you that you need to check this post out. The graphics are so rich and immersive they’re almost lickable.

Kincaid has included a video in his post which shows a massive virtual city filled with towering skyscrapers, parks, user-customized apartments and houses, public meeting places, subways, and everything else you might expect in a metropolitan area, all beautifully rendered by the OTOY engine. The game also features impressive real time lighting, reflection, and weather effects that rival those seen in detailed 3D games (and even some movies).

This is undoubtedly the next frontier in gaming.

Faldt over denne video på Techcrunch og må sige at jeg er dybt imponeret. Nu er jeg ikke ekspert på det tekniske område, når det kommer til online rendering af 3D content, men hvis denne video holder vand, så må det siges at være et kæmpe skridt for 3D gaming. Jeg ved at mange har været skeptiske overfor Second Life og virtuelle verdner generelt, ikke mindst på grund af mangel på realisme. Netop dette har været medvirkende til at annoncører har trukket sig ud af Second Life og har fundet andre løsninger. Hvis teknologien bag LivePlace er  skalerbar, så tror jeg, at vi vil se online verdner få ny vind.

Check videoen ud her.

So there was some drama in the last 24 hours over a supposed 3D Virtual World called “Cityspace”. It all started with this article on Techcrunch about a video showing up on Liveplace.com, a web domain owned by one of the peopla associated with MySpace.com.

The video was quickly taken down, but techcrunch reposted it at blip.tv.

Here is the claim on the video: Cityspace can realistically render the city in real time using server side computing (cloud computing), meaning that the city can be viewed in a simple browser on any computer or even a mobile phone.

Why does it smell like bullsh!t?

Well the first clue was posted in the comments section of the Techcrunch, the first 30 seconds of the video is from a known “pre-rendered video” posted here.

The second clue is the sheer insanity of the whole concept. Real time realistic rendering via cloud computing? Every 3 words is an stupid idea. Realistic rendering is very time consuming. Every frame of a 3D animated movie takes hours to render. So lets add realtime realistic rendering, and you are talking about each frame rendering in 1/12th a second. And then we are adding to that doing it in cloud computing, where experience has shown everything takes longer, not shorter.

The claim is that this is all possible via new technology called OTOY. Their website features some screenshots that look identical to the video and a 2006 spech about deploying 3D games and virtual worlds in a web browser. Here is another company doing just that, but if you try it yourself, you will probably notice that its far from realistic. It renders client side using Java. There is another experiment in embedding second life locations into web pages, but it too uses client side renders, and renders no better than Second Life does.

But there is another element of sheer stupidity involved here. Anyone who would pre-build a giant city for a forthcoming “virtual world” has not been watching the virtual world market at all. Nobody wants to have an apartment in a prebuilt city. People want open space to build whatever they want, and maybe some professionally built meeting places to meet people and explore. Realism, is not necessarily a draw, in fact it can be a hindrance if made too real. I know all this stuff, and anyone doing minimum research into 3D virtual worlds quickly figure this stuff out too. If “Cityspace” really is a program under development, its a program doomed to failure.

The third clue that this smells like bullsh!t is the video itself. If this was actual footage rendered through a web browser, where’s the interface? If this was actual footage from a 3D world, where is the avatar controls? Why do we never see avatars move except during those first fake 30 seconds? How are lights turned on without pointing and clicking with a mouse? And if so, where is the mouse cursor?

What I see is multiple 3D models being navigated through using a 3D mouse, with obvious fake “jerkiness” added to simulate typical gaming camera moves. I also see a post process filter in most of the video softening the image and making the viewing area round with black corners. I also see evidence of post editing and added stills. There are also obvious lies like when viewing the suburb houses at night and the voice says “none of this is shadow mapped” when the houses were obviously shadow mapped to the point where the shadows were even in the wrong direction from the light source.

I also see zero evidence that any part of this video was rendered in real time, in fact the lack of interface and mouse cursors and avatar animation is very strong evidence that the whole video was post rendered. The narrarator was either reading badly from a script, or pulling the whole 3D virtual world concept out of his ass.

Why would they do this? Either its a real stupid internet joke, or a scam for VC money. I hope its the first, because the second is a felony.

I know its ironic that I call Cityspace bullsh!t when I just did a post on another realistic looking 3D world Project Blue Mars. The technology surrounding Blue Mars is technology I am familiar with and I know is possible. The Cityspace technology is speculative at best, and requires major leaps in technology that does not exist yet.

I’d be more than happy to take it all back if these guys showed up to do live demonstrations at E3, CES, or one of the Virtual World Expos, but until then I’m not buying it.