VRML is the closest approximation that current technology has come to bringing Virtual Reality directly unto the Internet. You can create scenes and move around in them and have clickable hot spots which link to other objects, scenes or pages.

You will need a 3D application which will export according to the latest VRML standards for the best results. Be advised, vrml files are sometimes quite large especially the more complex ones. Buddycom has included four example files which are not very large, the average size is about 20k and the largest being 104k. You will find the links at the bottom of this page. We will put up more as soon as we can.

Virtus has a program, for Windows only, which creates the most complete scenes and is the most intuitively navigable. They have libraries of hundreds of ready-made objects in many categories which also facilitates rapid creation of complex 3D environments. You can add texture maps, pictures, and movie files to the objects to add realism. For example, you can move through a store building or house, go upstairs, go into many rooms, and as you go, you can see carpets on the floors, realistic looking boxes of products, pictures or advertisements on objects or on the walls, and even movies on the front of television objects. You will see a lot more of things created with Virtus. The big drawback is the price of the program, which is $400US but, this application is geared more for the advertising professional. Most Internet users still can not view these scenes as routinely as they view any other web page due to the fact that....there is no standardization.

We therefore recommend that you use the VRML export function of the 3D program you currently use instead of getting a new program for that purpose. For those of you keenly conscious of the cost-benefit ratio, if you do not have the capability to do 3D animation, you could purchase 3Space Builder from Temple Graphics Software for a reasonable cost. Cyberian Outpost has 3Space Builder bundled with FrontPage 98 for $89US as of June, 1998. You may also purchase a copy of 3-D Web Animation Pack for $30-50US, if you are a member of Xoom. (3-D Web Animation pack has since become vaporware.) If you choose this alternative, you will also get Ulead's Cool 3D for making animated logos, World Visions, a 3D website creation program for dynamic, interactive worlds, "complete with living objects",and thousands of 3D gifs, gif animations and 200 bonus fonts. .3DS format is supported by 3Space Publisher, in case you want to import other nice 3D objects from other programs. Although the raytracing works very well, typical web VRML colors aren't photo realistic, they change to a lower quality when you put them on the Web. Finally, you should note that 3Space Publisher is itself three separate applications, an html editor, a gif animation program and a3D rendering and animation program and is available for Windows but not Macintosh.

Update:
3Space Publisher has become 3Space assistant. Get a demo from TGS Graphics. There you can find other profession 3D applications as well. Some of them are very sophisticated and technical.

You must have a VRML compliant browser or a plug in for Netscape or Explorer and so will the viewers of the pages you create. Alternatively, a viewer can download a scene and view it with a stand alone program. The ability to view and manipulate VRML scenes is not yet a built in feature of the two main browsers. This means that the current size of the target viewing audience for VRML is small.

Intervista has a free downloadable plug in called WorldView which works smoothly on both Mac and Windows without any crashes, freezes or other problems, unlike CosmoPlayer2.1.1 which is how we now spell headache. WorldView will enable your browser to use VRML files from the Web. The company which makes Cosmo Player2.1, SGI, created and is a major player involved in maintaining and determining the standards for the Virtual Reality Markup Language for the Internet, so you would think that it would have the best vrml plug in. Many people made that mistake since one in two of the letters to their news group are belligerent and filled with expletives. Buddycom has a version of CosmoPlayer1.0 running on a Windows machine and was forced to trash the 2.1 version on Macs. Buddycom Macs are running fine once more we are happy to report. And the CosmoPlayer1.0 is still on the Windows machine and runs smoothly but, since the interface of the WorldView produces much more natural and controlled movements and is smaller in size and loads faster, we use it as our Mac vrml plug in.

We have no company preference and we wish godspeed to CosmoPlayer in rectifying this glitch. However, but. We would not consider downloading and using CosmoPlayer until a few important things are done. First, we want to see vrml become more popular and widely used so we need to see that CosmoPlayer plug in which does not time out within a week. That is ridiculous. VRML pages load slowly since they may use java and it would be worse still if the potential viewers of vrml sites had to download a six megabyte plug in every week just to view vrml files. Do they understand how long it takes to download a six megabyte file? I don't think so. Maybe Cosmo thinks that people will buy a product which does not time out from them if they get frustrated. Wrong again. WorldView and others are available. And besides we webmasters have a difficult enough time directing traffic to our sites without expecting someone to pay money to Cosmo or anybody else just so they can come to our sites and view our vrml. And we need to see a more compact interface which has controls which are intuitive and clearly labeled and which provide smooth expected movements. The viewing field for a vrml page is small enough as it is without a big control panel taking a large part of it away. With vrml we will present educational material and we don't need the arcade interface.

Make sure you have the latest versions of Explorer and Communicator and with at least these and the great and inexpensive tools mentioned above, you are set to make some great vrml files, view them from your site and examine the code to be able to learn about VRML.

Phil Staiger, TGS, wrote Buddycom a letter explaining the salient points of 3SP in a nutshell.

Philip Staiger wrote: Hi Buddycom,

3Space Publisher's main purpose is to create illustrations, renderings with the built-in raytracer, and these can be created based on 3D geometry and 3D graphics. The output is either a static image (JPEG, GIF, TARGA, BMP,...) or an animated one (Animated GIF, AVI, ...) or even a 3D dataset with 3D animations, when saving as VRML. So to some extent, Publisher can be used to
create a scene and content in 3D and publish it as a

VRML scene, with actions.

You'll be able to import the 3D from various sources, such as AutoCAD DXF or 3D Studio, and also VRML 1.0, or use the Clip Art collection that comes with it. Many 3Space Publisher users create their 3D geometry separately with a modeler (like our Amapi modeler, www.tgs.com/Amapi) and then apply materials, lights,
animations, etc... for the rendering in 3SPace Publisher.

3SP doesn't create new Java applets, it simply contains a collection (5 at this time) of applets with a specific visual effect, like water
ripple/reflection or waving effects. It takes an image you already have or one you create with 3SP itself.

Check our website www.tgs.com and look for application desktop products and
for 3Space Publisher for further details.