3D --- Media Creation --- Shared Space
Published by 4th WAVE, Inc.
Issue #608 9/13/96
CONTENTS
Microsoft and Singletrac Collaborate
On Monday Microsoft announced a product licensing and investment agreement with SingleTrac, the Salt Lake City developer of the hit PSX titles Twisted Metal and WarHawk. Utilizing SingleTrac's experience in 3D game development and Microsoft's marketing and distribution channels, the two companies will collaborate on the development and marketing of game titles for the Windows 95 platform. In addition, Microsoft has also announced an equity investment in SingleTrac, its first-ever investment in a games developer.
Contact: http://www.singletrac.com
Intel and Cisco: Internet Multimedia
This week a joint announcement was made by Intel and Cisco Systems, introducing software solutions for enabling higher-speed multimedia delivery over the Internet. The technologies include Intel's PC-RSVP, which allows PC clients to utilize the RSVP protocol on Cisco's backbone routers, and a new version of Cisco's IOS software that offers IP multicast, RSVP and RTP support. The technologies, which have been used in trials in conjunction with MCI, will be displayed at the Networld+Interop show from Sept. 18-20.
Contact: http://www.cisco.com
Joe Fantuzzi, the President of MultiGen, has left to pursue other interests. At the same time he has been extended an offer to remain on the Board of Directors. Dennis Yeo, the founder, chairman and CTO, is now responsible for day-to-day operations. In an interview with WAVE, Dennis stated that there is no change in the strategic direction of the firm in its pursuit of both the SGI and Windows NT markets.
Contact: http://www.multigen.com
608.2 ATI New Product Announcements
--3D RAGE II--
On Sept. 3, ATI announced the next-generation 3D RAGE II chip. Compared to its predecessor, RAGE II improves 2D performance by 20%, doubles the 3D performance and adds support for MPEG2 playback. Specs for the chip include:
Performance: 26M perspectively correct texture-mapped pixels/sec
3D acceleration: double buffering, 16-bit z-buffer, perspectively correct mip-mapped texturing, bi- and tri-linear texture filtering, alpha blending, fog, video textures, and 8/16bpp dithering support
Supported APIs: Direct3D, Renderware, BRender, QuickDraw3D RAVE, OpenGL, Heidi, and ATI's own API
General: 3D screen resolutions up to 1280x1024, support for DRAM, EDO, SDRAM and SGRAM
The 3D RAGE II has just entered volume production, and is available for $30 in quantities of 10,000. ATI has also announced that over 50 gaming titles will support the 3D RAGE family by Christmas.
--ImpacTV--
ATI has also introduced the ImpacTV chip as a companion chip for the 3D RAGE II. It offers video out capabilities that will allow users to connect their PC's video output to a regular large-screen TV. With support for a PAL or NTSC TV, the chip can generate display modes from 320x200 up to 800x600, and uses techniques for scaling, flicker removal and artifact suppression for higher quality images. The chip has just entered volume production, and is available for $15 in quantities of 10,000 for integration with a RAGE II chip on either an add-on accelerator card or on the motherboard.
Contact: http://www.atitech.ca
608.3 SIMBA Online Conference '96 by Jonathan Sunberg
On Sept. 8-10, SIMBA held their second annual conference on the online information services industry and delivered a message to the online community: the business professional is ready to spend billions on online services. Steve Case, CEO of AOL, was quick to point out, though, that the business market and consumer market are getting increasingly difficult to decipher.
Lorraine Sileo, Senior Analyst at SIMBA, noted that of the 76.3 million white collar workers in the US only 10 million use the Internet (19% penetration) and only 4 million use proprietary services (5.4%). Therefore, growth was the key subject for all the speakers. Sileo estimates that business use will double to 20 million users by the year 2000.
Karen Burka, Editorial Director of SIMBA, went even further and broke up the market into 7 segments (with coinciding business use percentage). The following is a list of the segments and their 1995 and 2000 dollar estimates: 1995 2000 Brokerage (42%) $7.4 Billion $12.8 Billion Credit (15%) $2.6 Billion $3.6 Billion Financial News (14%) $2.6 Billion $4.2 Billion Marketing Information (9.4%) $1.6 Billion $2.9 Billion Professional Services (6.2%) $1.1 Billion $1.8 Billion Legal, Tax, & Public Records (5%) $.91 Billion $1.3 Billion Vertical Market Services (1.1%) $.19 Billion $.5 Billion
608.4 SIGGRAPH: The Last Round by David Lohse
For our final story regarding SIGGRAPH (I promise!), we examine what it revealed about the current and future trends in entertainment and networked interaction. In doing so, we interviewed several key industry players, including Warren Katz, COO of MaK Technologies, Louis Brill, a consultant for the high-tech entertainment industries, and Clark Dodsworth, co-chair of the Digital Bayou and Director of Osage Associates.
Warren Katz
In the context of the Digital Bayou, MaK Technologies demonstrated their DIS-Lite technology, a slimmed-down version of the DoD's DIS, optimized for low-bandwidth networks such as the Internet by leaving out many of the military-specific capabilities. DIS-Lite powered the Digital Bayou's Bayou Sauvage demonstration, which, according to Mr. Katz, was the first-ever demonstration of true networked interactive gaming for a cross-platform, cross-vendor implementation. With MaK already developing an Internet tank- based game (due in 3-6 months), Mr. Katz indicated that planning was already underway for next year's SIGGRAPH. For next year's event, they are planning a much larger scale: an estimated 30 companies are expected to participate, as well as 100's or even 1,000's of players.
On the issue of DIS vs. VRML, he echoed the sentiments of many in the industry: VRML is just not very good for real-time rendering. He felt that VRML will not prove to be adequate for online vis-sim or gaming markets; rather a streamlined technology such as DIS-Lite will be required to support online multiplayer gaming.
Alert: MaK Technologies and their DIS networking technology will be profiled on CNN this Saturday.
Louis Brill
Asked about the most important or influential entertainment-related technologies on display at this year's SIGGRAPH, Mr. Brill felt that both tactile feedback and motion capture will play an increasingly important role in entertainment applications. Tactile feedback, which has been around for several years but is only now going mainstream, infuses games with force-feedback capabilities, further enhancing the realism of the gaming experience. In particular, Mr. Brill cited a hoverball-like game in the Digital Bayou, which employed force-feedback techniques in a networked multiplayer game.
Motion capture, which has also been around for several years but is only now beginning to find widespread acceptance due to increased exposure and lower prices, was featured prominently at the show. Animators utilizing motion capture can greatly increase the realism and ease of animation, using either wired (typically magnetic) or wireless (typically infrared) motion capture techniques. Around 10 companies demonstrating motion capture systems were at SIGGRAPH this year, including leaders Acension Technology and Polhemus, as well as Motion Analysis, Adaptive Optics Associates, Vicon Motion Systems and several others.
Clark Dodsworth
Clark Dodsworth, co-chair the Digital Bayou, gave us his impressions on both the Digital Bayou as well as SIGGRAPH in general. The Digital Bayou held at least one distinction from previous years: almost every exhibit (around 50) used video projection. Drawing on his experience in the entertainment and amusement park industries, Mr. Dodsworth wanted optimal presentation of the Bayou content to the attendees. Regarding the future, his suggestion for next year's Electric Garden was to allow corporate sponsorship; until now, this practice has been disallowed, but he feels that if done tastefully it could infuse the exhibition with increased funding and contributors.
Mr. Dodsworth felt that some of the most important or influential technology demonstrated at the show were closely related, including synthetic personalities/avatars and online worlds. Regarding avatars, the Spirit of the Bayou demo by the NYU Media Research Lab (very possibly the coolest thing at the whole show) featured real-time 3D expressive avatars imbued with artificial intelligence in a fantasy setting, and the Virtual Kabuki System by ATR of Japan featured avatars with multimodal (facial, gestural and positional) expression. This is the area in which he feels the current state of avatars is seriously lacking: although calling them avatars, current virtual representations are often just repositional objects, while a genuinely useful avatar must be able to express some emotion, acts and expressions of the user.
Regarding 3D online environments, the Digital Bayou contributors included an extraordinary total of 23 different virtual worlds, done for a range of applications goals. Many were done in VRML 2.0, by companies like Sony, Intel, SGI, and OnLive!, and others were developed using military real- time environment tools, including Bayou Sauvage and the Virtual Lego(tm) _in-world_ worldbuilding application by MultiGen. Brian Blau, co-producer of Digital Bayou, and Mr. Dodsworth see significant interest and momentum building in Hollywood for online versions of theme parks and other licensed properties.
Mr. Dodsworth is currently finishing a book, "Digital Illusion" on the tools, techniques, and future of interactive entertainment for Addison- Wesley, due in 4Q96. Each chapter is written by a top practitioner in their field, including Turner Whitted's on "Personal Image Generators," and it should prove to be a useful reference and overview of this many- faceted industry.
608.5 VRML Consortium: Status by David Lohse
The VRML Consortium, which was proposed at SIGGRAPH 96 and is the focus of much attention in the VRML community, is currently in the planning stages by a working group comprised of core members of the VRML community. According to Gavin Bell of SGI, the working group is "putting together a proposal with recommendations on:
-- a charter for the consortium -- structure of the organization -- a timetable and specific to-do items for how to proceed"
The offical proposal is due out in the next couple of weeks, and according to Mark Pesce, VRML evangelist, "We have a good chance at getting it up and running(in a real rather than theoretical sense) within the next 60 days or so." The proposal will be posted to the www-vrml mailing list as soon as it becomes available, as well as to the VAG's Web site.
Contact: http://vag.vrml.org
608.6 Seybold San Francisco by John Latta
Publishing is just another industry struggling to cope with the impact of the Internet. Seybold San Francisco was expanded to include Internet Publishing. There were sessions on the Internet which discussed the Pipe, Platform and Place followed by Microsoft, Netscape and Java days. It is clear that everyone is having similar problems coping with the Internet. A sample of the issues are: is there a business model?, does advertising have a long term role in the Internet?, when will cable modems come?, how will the local telephone companies respond to the increasing load on the telephone network due to Internet usage? and will the backbone collapse? As these issues have been hashed over many times before we did not find much new in the ongoing Internet debates. Trying to understand the Internet at Seybold was like riding a high speed boat through the early morning San Francisco fog - going fast but without a sense of direction.
A main opening session entitled Visions included both Marc Andreessen of Netscape and Brad Chase of Microsoft. Marc Andreessen would not participate in a combined Q&A session moderated by Jonathan Seybold that was to include Brad Chase. During its demo Microsoft showed IE4 which brings a whole new meaning to Internet access and the desktop. IE4 is the new desktop for Windows. There is seamless integration of HTML, files and Internet sites. Microsoft is moving to leverage its position in operating systems to pass Netscape with Internet integration which Netscape will have difficulty duplicating. Also shown by Microsoft was the new browser for Macintosh. There were four windows open at the same time and included were Shockwave, QuickTime VR and QuickTime. Very good integration of multimedia.
One of the hottest products of the show was NetObjects Fusion. It claims to be the first tool for constructing Web sites as opposed to Web pages. No HTML coding is required and the process is completely visual making heavy use of drag and drop. Some of the features include: Site Editor, Page Draw Editor, Site Styles Editor, Automated Navigation and Linking, Data Publishing and ODBC and SQL connectivity. The street price is $499 and a 30 day trial version is available.
Strata was showing Version 2.0 of Strata Studio Pro on the Mac. This is due to ship in October and is a complete rewrite in C. The long awaited NT version is due Q1 1997 (First announced at SIGGRAPH 1995.) The Mac version will support OpenDoc and the Windows ActiveX. The pricing for both versions is $1495. (As an aside there have been rumors of a restructuring at Strata. This took place in June with the loss of approximately 10 people out of 110 and these were only in administrative functions. Strata claims that the company is doing well financially and that this action is not reflective of long term conditions.)
Contact: http://www.netobjects.com
608.7 @Home Finally Launches by David Lohse
After many months of anticipation, TCI has finally launched their much- hyped @Home Network. Having finished the last test phase last week, TCI has announced the availability of @Home to customers in their first market in Fremont, CA, with services soon to be available in West Hartford, CT. Other markets are expected to soon follow: in addition to TCI's own markets, @Home partnerships are being established with other cable companies (currently partnerships have been established with Comcast and Cox Communications).
The large initiative finally brings cable modem technology to the mainstream, allowing users access speeds of 10 Mbps downstream and 128 kbps upstream. Although consumers will have access to @Home at a maximum rate of 10 Mbps over the cable infrastructure, in practice they will not reach this maximum in most cases, since they will have to share that bandwidth with other local users. For example, seven users accessing streaming video content simultaneously at 1.5 Mbps will quickly deplete the available bandwidth. Possible solutions are for the cable company to "split the fiber" so that a data channel serves fewer homes, or for improved compression techniques to be developed.
The pricing for @Home services is also very reasonable, and as the availability becomes more widespread it threatens to change the current pricing structure for online services. For a one-time set-up fee of $150, a user is supplied with a dataport, ethernet card and @Home software, and for a monthly cost of $34.95 the user has high-speed access not only to the Internet, but to @Home's proprietary services and content.
Contact: http://www.home.net
Copyright 1996 4th WAVE Inc.
May be redistributed in full for individual readership and posted to newsgroups, Web, and FTP sites. May not be reprinted or redistributed for profit. Short quotes are permitted but must be attributed to the WAVE Report on Digital Media.