> Have been thinking about the debate going on here about portals and links...
> An idea is to use the caching capabilities of the browser - that once you move
> from one VRML area to another then the browser simply places the last area
> within the 3d view but further in the background, and as you move through the
> world this builds up around you.
This has the problem, that different VRML worlds linked together and displayed
simultaniously need not make topological sense. imagine two streets in a
Y-Shaped Street crossing. If the two on the top are buildings they simply
stand at the side of each other, if they are vast planes, seas, halls etc.
They would overlap each other. This would lead to a confusing view from the
outside, although on the inside you'd have a kinda holodeck experience.
Maybe links should be displayed as windows to other worlds or like the good
olde Ultima Moongates.
> In some ways this is a development of what HTML does already . i.e. the links
> change colour once you've been there, but is also a massive improvement in that
> you will be able to in VRML actually see those previous areas stretching away to
> the horizon (to a limit set within preferences..).
> The links that you haven't chosen would be darkness, helping you also to
> navigate around this world. Another benefit will be that this would allow the
> VRML files to be kept small.
It is a good idea to display unchosen links as darkness, but why not load the
world in advance as the user get only near to it? That would give him
something like a preview.
> for him/herself. How about applying this to VRML, so that VRML becomes a
> dynamic, ever different world, depending on the way the user explores it?
I think this is the only way as long as we have just individual worlds,
linked to each other by hyperlinks.
> Going through an enclosed doorway will take you to a fresh level, and you will
> only see the last level through the doorway. With this type of link, you could
> walk around that doorway and still stay in the same level; only when you move
> through it would you be taken to another level.
Yeah, that's what I think is best.
> Another thought is on order and organisation...
> I think the web as it is now is a good answer to how things will go. The
> commercial sites which need to allow people to find them will become ordered and
> very structured. The non-commercial sites will generally be unordered with
> endless tricks of navigation and unexpected twists - the wilds of the VRML
> world... And the sites which dedicate themselves to finding other sites
> (Yahoo,Lycos) will become ordered gateways to these sites.
>
I like the thought of an anarchistic organization of Virtual Worlds. Some
would organize and produce sets of reciprocally consistent worlds across
several companies, institutions, countries and others would just integrate
in a chaotic manner. The lost in hyperspace syndrome would gain the third
dimension which is not bad.
But we shouldn't stick to a 3D World as we know it on Earth, Hyperspace gives
us the possibility for example to enter a TV-Set and get ported to a complete
Western Scenario or to enter a huge pathway and find ourselves in
Microcosm surrounded by enzymes and bacteria. Wormholes, dimension gates and
such things are now possible and should also be integrated in our thoughts,
until the real world gets boring :) (Don't fear, it will not).
Ciao,
Gonz
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Constantin Gonzalez, student at Technical University of Clausthal
EMAIL: [email protected] WWW: http://www.rz.tu-clausthal.de/~incg/
"What's so bad about being drunk? Ask a glass of water. - Douglas Adams"