Attached Link: http://www.curiouslabs.com/worlds/curiousworld.html

There was a very interesting announcement yesterday by Adobe. They unveiled their new 3D world authoring tool- Atmosphere. We have a rich section on our website talking about the wonderful interaction between Atmosphere and Poser Pro Pack. Essentially, you can export Poser characters in Viewpoint to use as virtual characters/avatars to explore and interact/chat in Atmosphere worlds. Atmosphere's standalone browser/IE plug-in/world builder tool is in free public beta now from Adobe, and on our website, there is substantial documentation on the javascript requirements that enable Poser characters to run free in Atmosphere. There is even a "Curious World" that we've brought online for you to explore. This is a remarkable opportunity for Poser characters and users. 6 of the Avatars included in Atmosphere are from Curious Labs. You can create new Avatars witrh Pro Pack, and create and deploy your own worlds, free. Hope you enjoy the wonderful synergy of this... Steve Cooper President, Curious Labs

windows only

I've been playing with the demo, and so far I am impressed. I do believe that it will need more fine tuning in the object control dialogue for positioning,aligning and scaling of objects, but it's a very compelling beginning so far with a relatively intuitive interface. I look forward to seeing how it develops.

Heh. Looks like you guys have teamed with Adobe to dash the e-tail dreams of the former MetaCreations - this looks to beat MetaStreaming to heck and back! Whomever supports the Mac first wins? :-)

heyas; cool! but why's it need pro pack? you gotta program the avatar with python or something?? (yes, i have no clue, i will go read.) :)

Thank you very much for this. A friend of mine has been begging me to convert my poser figures into avatar form for just this sort of thing. Atmosphere is the perfect VR world to use and Pro Pack is the perfect tool.

This sounds great. I believe Mac users should also check out the new Flash 3D (3D Flash) from Macromedia. I would assume that Curious Labs would also be supporting this new Flash format at some point as well- (unless some other deal is in the works...) Seems like the early promises of VRML and Virtual Worlds is finally going to arrive with some really useful (and somewhat familiar) production tools...

Attached Link: http://www.adobe.com/products/atmosphere/main.html

Here's the Adobe link...

Attached Link: http://www.macromedia.com/software/shockwaveplayer/SW3D_Preview/

Here's the Macromedia link...

Attached Link: http://www.curiouslabs.com

You can use any tool capable of exporting to Viewpoint format to create custom avatars. Poser Pro Pack is needed if you want to use Poser figures as avatars because of its Viewpoint exporter. No Python required! And of course, you can use the Setup Room to create custom figures for Viewpoint export to Atmosphere. Anthony Hernandez Pen in one hand, warez handcuffs in the other Curious Labs

CEB, Viewpoint VET IS the latest version of MetaStream ;-) -JH.

Adding to Anthony's comments, the only Viewpoint VET Exporter that supports bending is in the Pro Pack. to CharlieBrown, VET "is" the Metastream technology. Metastream changed its name to Viewpoint after it purchased Viewpoint Data Labs last summer. Steve Cooper Curious Labs

Ah! OK. I lost track of MetaStream shortly BEFORE they bought Viewpoint. I barely got whatever version was bundled with the 3D Suite to work on one site, they released the next version and dumped Poser and I lost track of them. Maybe they DO have a future after all... ;-)

So is the Macromedia product a "competitor"?...

No it's not, Fox - I THOUGHT it was, but they're all "in on it"... :-)

In many circles Shockwave 3D is perceived as a competitor to Viewpoint Experience Technology.

Yeah, but to do Shockwave3D, you have to know Flash, right? And flash is just annoying, but to program and to find on a site, IMO... ;-) Hopefully this will be as easy to use as MetaStream was in its early release!

CharlieBrown, I'm with you on this one. In regards to simplicity of creation and final quality, the VET is a tough competitor

Is Viewpoint then also coming around to a more reasonable licensing arrangement? I'm not against people making money, but the VET software license is extremely verbose and confusing, and even Viewpoint people haven't been able to adequately explain the usage levels of their software. You are Sony or Eddie Bauer, and pay $1000's, or some type of vague "non-commercial" use, but no one seems to really know how it is applied...

You can create and deploy your own worlds free during the beta, but is Atmospheres going to remain a free product?

I am certain it won't. It's going to a regular Adobe software product after the beta download gets some kicking around...

It is fascinating....I spent sleep hours last night, inside some of the worlds, CuriousLabs included. Tried to start building one and fell apart completely :-). I had trouble keeping items in the browser view, when I would move, they would disappear, and then when I restarted a new file, the browser window would show nothing, so I used other views. My idea is to create some bizarre online gallery, complete with sound fx, everything...One of the things that was interesting to me, was the portals to different worlds within a world. The first time I actually ran into an Avatar was at CuriousLabs world and when they started talking to me in the box, I had not a clue what to do. What I need to do is read help, and search around for how worlds are designed. I am assuming in my naivete, that what I would do (I actually lay in bed last night, thinking about all of this, and trying to figure it out) is approach the view as camera, and as I build it, build it as though I were walking through it with the camera. With everything else on the creative plate right now, I dont have time, I got the bite to do it, and cant stop thinking about it. Wave of the future, creating Avatars. There are some really fascinating ones, I saw this twisted eye sculpture that I felt was the best. Off to explore!

Sockwave3D authoring is done with Macromedia Director(v8.5) - not Fash!