Attached Link: http://www.curiouslabs.com/products/avatarlab/index.html

Well is on their page so I guess I can talk about it.

Its fun, its great its a blast!!!!!!!

I think that the face-mapping technology is really cool! I hope that it will be part of the Poser 5 release! Those character creation tools really belong with Poser... It looks that it is time for an update to my Poser 5 wishlist..

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

to use the above link you need to download the free Atmosphere plug-in from Adobe! URL to dl in this post... Photo-based face mapping will be a part of our NEXT Poser release, in the distant future I should add, at much higher resolutions. The photo-modeling does have an immediate application to currrent Poser scene builders though. It can be used to generate custom photo-mapped characters in AvLab, saved as PZ3 files, imported into Poser for use as lower resolution backgorund characters for complex, heavy polygon scenes that need a crowd or clusters of people. Going the other direction, animation data and new geometries from Poser can be brought into AvLab, creating a whole new market for content creators. Download Atmosphere at http://www.adobe.com/products/atmosphere/main.html Check out the Curious World artist virtual gallery in the link above, we'll be hosting regular virtual events in this space in the not too distant future, perhaps as early as next week. Phil, as always, you're ahead of the curve- a nod of the top hat...

Ahah! So this is the new product that C/L was teasing us about last week. Interesting... but I can't see this Atmosphere thing ever taking off bigtime. Most people don't know it, but Microsoft has had this "3D avatar" technology built-in to every operating system since Win95 (but they finally abandoned it with XP for lack of interest). The technology was not only for 3D avatars (Merlin, Clippit, Genius etc. are examples which came with MS Office) but it also included very sophisticated text-to-speech generation capability - and with free, downloadable software form MS you could build your own characters, animations etc. and use them on a web page. There was a flury of activity with the technology a few years back, but nothing ever came of it. Although I see Atmosphere as a cute gimmick, I can't imagine how it could be used for more than child amusement. Now if C/L would develop a product like this for full-blown Poser figures... WOW!

Yes I understand your point ron.

Times change the internet of '95 bears no resemblance to what we see today. I grant you that Atmosphere and the new Avatar Laboratory will be used to add an amusing 3D element to on line chat rooms. The level of conversation will be the same as ever.

Image however, going into an online store and being able to view merchandise in quality 3D, to be served by a virtual shop assistant. The "WOW!" factor alone will make the sale.

Yes these applications will be used for recreation and at times I enjoy participating, but there is also a more serious side. I would suggest that now is the time to learn how to build a 3D web site.

And will it ever see the light of day on the MAC? ........Still waiting. Come on Adobe, remember your roots ;-) James

I posted a comment about this in another thread moments ago- There are a LOT of really big commerce projects in the works for this technology, because it has arrived at a time where all the pieces (dreaded word about to be used) converged. Bandwidth, large scale success of online communities, affordable, accessable and commercially viable tools to produce the content, businesses globally adopting online marketing & commerce systems to push products, extremely high resolution textrue and model deployment, and names that aren't risky behind the initiative. (Adobe is a blue-chip bet in some cases) All these things are here today, unlike '95 when VRML, Blaxxsun and Alpha World were the most visible examples. (sorry for the name drop but I'm really good friends with Pesce and Parisi) And the list of projects slated for deployment with this system is significant, -we're involved indirectly and directly in a number of them- major instituions in business, information, and education are looking for alternative, complementary methods to inform, educate, entertain and sell. Steve Cooper Curious Labs

I agree, Phil, but to put it bluntly, it appears to be more "sizzle" than "steak". I spent a lot of time with VRML and have been interested in developing the potential for a long time. However, it always seems to be "just over the horizon". Nobody has yet found a sensible application for the larger marketplace - Atmosphere included. I really doubt that merchants will use it to display mundane products because of the time/cost/return factors. Maybe that will change if a low-cost object-modeling laser scanner comes around, but otherwise faithful product modeling is just too tedious (and expensive) except for some specialized high-ticket items. Sorry, but I really don't see how adding "working knowledge of Atmosphere" to my next resume will help me get a job either. I wish I were wrong, because I love the toys as much as the next kid - but let's not delude ourselves with promises that can't be kept. Even this new (and very cool) product from C/L won't generate the type of commercially-viable output you mention. And Steve, I wouldn't be putting all my eggs in an Adobe basket if I were you. They seem to be a little behind-the-times these days, and a bit out-of-touch with any mass audience. Look to Ulead is you want to know who is meeting the demands of the larger marketplace (sad, but true). This is not to say that I don't love the Adobe products, its just that I find myself using them less and less, in favor of other products that seem to offer faster and easier ways of doing many basic tasks.

ronstuff, good points all, just so you know, we do have other baskets, i'm a firm believer in that one... i hope you'll be pleased once we start to see some of the more commerce driven uses of this system "go live" so to speak. the client list is surprising, and a significant amount of it is being driven by our counterparts in Germany. kupa

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

When I saw the Microsoft avatar software for the first time I was astonished about the possibilities - I do not think that Adobe will ever reach ths level. The MS system was throuroughly planned with a handbook of more than 1000 pages and it also consisted of an internal interaction structure with embedded behaviors. The basic problem now is, that there are almost no behaviors for the avatars, they have no personality , no convincing emotions and the timing between speech and gestures is less then convincing. Many problems like the direct generation of gesture are unsolved. The current state of non verbal behavior in online hosts is simply ridiculos. They never will sell anything. Steve is right the technology is there, but it lacks its main component - the simulation of behavior. If this will ever be possible is questionnable. The systems I have seen up to know are not convincing, nor are the approaches taken in this type of research. The problem are the missing direct animation possibilties and the engine which drives it - currently almost everything is handmade and the production costs are just too high. Grammer dMk

how about ken perlin's work with simulation of human behavior? hmmm, isn't he a friend of ours, why yes, I do believe he is... kupa, with a twinkle in his eye

hehe - I can hardly wait. Keep up the good work, and you'll have no problem keeping us pleased!

In time I believe it'll be standard (maybe not Adobe Atmos) but... something like it. :grins: But it will be a very nifty day when it does... :chuckles:

What are these basic tasks you speak of? So, as a professional web designer, I'm supposed to assume my University's site licenses for Photoshop and Illustrator are useless, soon to be replaced with...what? Fireworks and Freehand suddenly becoming the standardbearers? Yeah, some time around the time GoLive supplants Dreamweaver and Acrobat disappears from the market.

I do, however, completely agree with you about avatar technology: it's like the swine flu vaccine, a cure in search of a disease. It isn't insanely great, doesn't add value to online commerce, and until it's viable without new plugins, belongs back where it came from, first person shooter games. Virtual art galleries sacrifice every advantage of traditional computer image browsing (speed, detail), so that isn't much of an incentive. Bottom line: if porno sites won't touch a new technology, it isn't useful -- yet.

kupa, I know you don't want to hear that, and it must be exciting to partner with Adobe, but I'd MUCH rather see this avatar tech used in interactive web applets (talking spokespeople a la Ananova) where a low bandwidth and small memory footprint is an actual benefit. For example, an applet that could play back short, simplified .PZ2 files on the server and cache some basic facial movements would be useful, secure, and provide Poser users working on enterprise solutions virtually no learning curve.

Remember, archived Java applets can be cached on both Mac and Windows browsers, so repeat users won't have a wait time for the basic engine to load. Look at Yahoo! GeoCities' PageBuilder applet for proof of this.

[BTW, ronstuff, the Microsoft 'agent' technology you speak of doesn't actually do 3D. What you're looking at is a series of canned animated bitmaps tied to behaviors, demonstrated by the 2D 'dog' Office Assistant (all the Assistants are instances of Agent tech). It doesn't matter to the API where the images come from.]

duane, i don't have the link in front of me, probably on the egisys site, but they created a very annanova-like poser pro pack derived 3d character for victorianox that uses a bot engine to deploy a faq database. concatenating sound files to reproduce a set of words driving morph targets from a future iteration of our viewpoint media player component isn't far off. step by step, we complete the journey. kupa

I am not against using avatars, nor do I think they wont play a role in the future - in a few years they will dominate the web and other stuff, like intelligent assistents and so on. You are right taking this road. But there is still a lot of work in front of everybody involved in this business. My point is that the behavior is still rudimentary in its automatic generation - by the way we implemented the same stuff Keith Perlin has, on a Poser figure with Python. The figure makes all possible muscle movements in the face seperately and produces real good looking emotions. Real ones, not the handposed ones. This is currently used in research and will be available for the public sometime. We used Poser and everybody laughed at us when they saw the dork, but this has changed. you can see a real behavior example inclusive automatic breathing, blinks etc with a little bit of gravity added by Masa here: http://www.digitalmankind.com/virtual_fs.html Grammer

Nice. Too bad it isn't larger (or should I mess with that URL to get a better display?). kupa: thanks for the reply. I do recognize that a proprietary plugin carries less baggage than an entire VM, so I'm not entirely against that form of tech. It's just frustrating when it isn't biplatform.

You must click on the pictures to get the movie

Grammer, Good stuff. Very impressive. We should talk. Duanne, Plug-ins, once successful, move into the realm of being ubiquitous. Examples would be Quicktime, Shockwave, Flash, and the battle for ubiquity in the 3D plug-in wars is still being waged. We're a bit neutral at this point, delivering a Viewpoint component, and yet still developing one for Shockwave 3D. Pulse, Cult, EON, et all are fighting hard, but it really comes down to business model for the player, installed base and functionality. For us, the Viewpoint player has better features- heck we built the character side- than the others, but we're hedging our bet with work on Shockwave- much less robust support for charcaters at this time- As for installed base, well Shockwave has it hands down, but Viewpoint is catching up with a huge AOL deal to get the first install customer market share. They have some good clients as well, driving a larger install base, and lastly, the Adobe use of the Viewpoint player to host objects.That allows, without license issues for our customers, hosting of our characters and VP objects in a 3D web-space. It will be cross platform, the platform issues need to settle down a bit. Right now there are realistically four consumer level platforms and that makes it hard (Win, OSX, 9.X, Linux) for small developers and large developers alike, espoecially when times are tough. But let's not talk about platforms, please. Steve Cooper

Ok I did not understand any of this and I WENT TO THE LINKS AND STILL DID NOT UNDERSTAND IT. What is a Kupa? What is an avatar? what is adobe atmostphere?