Attached Link: Check out Avatar Lab!

Okay folks, heres the scoop. For the last four or five days, weve been talking about our new product from Curious- Avatar Lab. I know you want more details and there are a bunch of good tidbits on our website. You want to know about the export of PZ3 files? - It does. You want to know about Atmosphere? The place where these Avatars come to life? - theres lots of information about Atmosphere, Adobes free 3D world tool. And I hope you want to know about actually buying Avatar Lab- Want the inside dirt on that one? You can buy Avatar Lab right now, and be using it as fast as you can download it. $69 US, and well sell it anywhere in the world, all you need is a credit card and a connection. Its an all-electronic, downloadable application, direct from our website, and from my perspective- the best part? Its live now. And you can have it now. You want too see what weve been up to? You want to have a s**tload of fun with your 3D characters in real time? Check out Avatar Lab, and for $69, buy it now. Youll be telling your friends about Avatar Lab- its the killer app of year. Thats the biased skinny. Im going to have a beer. Enjoy the Lab. Yours truly, Steve Cooper Curious Labs

Well as I feared. "Not available for MAC at this time" But I should have known this, since Atmosphere is also "Not available for the MAC". But that aside. Riddle me this ... Are all the avatars stagnent? Can they move? I know that on Phil's world he has avatars in an animation loop. But all other avatars/surfers just stand, jump and glide in their origional pose. And can't you just export a MTS (Viewpoint/Metastream) file and do the same thing? Right now I don't see enough information (screen shots and maybe a simple animated gif or two) on the site to shell out $70 (I am one of the lucky ones that also own a PC, but use my MACs much more) for something that I might be able to do with Pro Pack alone. I realize that this would take away the tedium of doing it on your own, but you should explain why and maybe a comparison to doing it on your own and with Avatar Lab. Sorry to sound so negative, but $70 is quite alot to spend on an online persona. I used to love "The Palace" chat rooms. They were visual and far more interesting than a text chat. But that too was interesting to begin with, but then the novelty wore off. Until this is more "The norm" for online chatting and available for the MAC I don't see me going for it now. Go ahead Steve, convince me to do it! ;-) James

It doesn't sound like you've really checked out what's happening in Atmosphere, sorry Mac only for now... The Palace? That goes way back. You "used" to be an early adopter... ;-) The animations are great. Chris DeRochie set them up. Moonwalk, crazy walks, jumps, gestures, idle states or bring in animations from Poser- they're very much alive. You should check out the experience before condemning it. Anyway, I was up too late last night trying to wrap things up. It's time for dinner and Monsters Inc. with the family. Later, Kupa

I have by no means "condemed" it. I was just trying to get as much info as possible. And trying to determine the pluses and cons. I have indeed tried it. As I said , I do own a PC too. After several romps around, I only ran into 1 person (so far). And of course that avatar was one of the canned avatars built into Atmosphere. I just (as a lot of people do) have fears about spending money. I'm disabled and have to make my monthly checks stretch. Though I do seem to spend a lot on programs. Some which are collecting dust or haven't seen the light of day for a milennium. ;-) But many like Poser I use everyday. I also think that the "Limited" time only is a little premature. Since I don't think enough people have been introduced to this, let alone using it on a wide spread basis. But I like to Kvetch, so don't mind me too much. Have a great time at the movies! I want to see that one soon. I've just seen Shrek and Star Wars Episode 1 and am blown away at the rendering! James

James, No problems with the kvetching. I'm a king of kvetching here at the office. Thanks for the follwo-up post. Off to see Sully now, with three kvetching kids in tow. ;-) Kupa

2 words Kick A$$ Ken

2 more words... poo ware, as I said before. Not much use to me at this stage. Sorry.. not honestly interested in more webby clutter.

I hope the product does well for you guys!

Hi Mr. Cooper, I noticed a Script error in the index.html of the Avatar Lab (line 2 and line 46) I hope it will sell well :o) - however at the moment I don't have the time to participate in the Atmosphere thing (to much poses to do - lol) Cheers Schlabber

Hey Kupa, Popped over to your site for a look-see. I'm one of those folks who you've got to convince to install the Viewpoint plug-in (got ProPack) and get into this stuff. Like James, I can be lured away from my Macs to fire up the PC (and even buy software for it) for a good reason. How about a Quicktime or Flash movie of Chris' work or something we can look at first to see what your new product can do for us? Is it only for real-time web or good for other entertainment, training, advertising, etc. uses? Tempt me, sweetie.

Nice to see the Avatar Lab is up and running. Hopefully it will draw more people to Adobe Atmosphere.

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

We're going to be putting some more animation content up on the site once we catch our breath. I'll be putting together some video clips to show qworkflow and give an idea about the interaction inside the world. But what might be a lot of fun and would certainly be the best way to show what our tool and their system will do is to set-up a time when we all head into a world. I can swap out avatras so you can see how that process wqorks and I could probably be co-erced, for the sake of "science" to share an Avatar with those folks that join in. It's pretty simple, and it's an interesting way to set-up a chat. The animated Avatars can be damn funny. The first step would be for anyone that would be interested to go to the adobe web site and download their free Atmosphere browser, the standalone browser works better than the Explorer/Netscape plug-in version. Then we just need to pick a time to all head in. I know some really great 3D worlds that I could take a few folks into. Petunia's the one I really want to get to join in, got my fingers crossed. The URL is to adobe's area for folks that want to DL their plug-in.... Steve Poo-Ware Cooper Curious Labs

Well, I am all set with the plug in, and I'll tag along to see what's happening :)

Ok, a few more notes. Steve, even though I'm not totaly convinced quite yet I'll shed some light (some problems) on creating an Avatar with Poser Pro Pack Viewpoint plugin. Here is what I get when "Exporting" a Viewpoint model from Poser Pro Pack. As you can see, the joints in the shoulders are extreamly unpleasent. And where the BLUE skin tone is coming from I have NO idea. But other than that, the resulting mesh is pretty good. Notice the detail in the tee shirt (it seems to have kept the edge/trim detail. BTW, this was created with the default plugin settings. NOTE: Plugin seems to not allow you to change the geometry setting on the MAC. Remains 80. The output is fairly small (around 288k for the .mts and 104k for the .mtx) but I don't know how that'll fair in Atmosphere. SO what I'm saying ...Is if one wants to create an Avatar, I'm sure that Avatar Lab would eliminate these problems and you'd end up with a better end result. So points for AL, 1/2 a point for PPP. While PPP (Poser Pro Pack) will allow you to export the nessassary .mtx and .mts files (and I even imported them into Atmosphere), I'm sure they're not as optimized as they would be if done in AL. So there you have it. I hope that Curious Labs/ViewPoint will fix these little bugs in the plugin and I do see why I'd rather do it in AL. AL must have these bugs worked out? But that still leaves the question of ... Can I use my textures from Poser in AL. I"ve made some great textures for Mike and Vicky and would love to use them. They took a long time and what a plus to be able to use them in AL. But I doubt it since it seems that AL will use completely different meshes. Thanks agin for letting me Kvetch ;-) James

Can Sims be converted to avatars? Seems like this would be the way to go for lo-rez quickies...

If you create your own avatar from scratch you may want to review the number of polygons your figure is made up of. Remember we are talking real time 3D rendering over the internet. The AvLab figures are approx all under 2000 yet retain good detail. The animated horse that I have on my world is 1190, the Orc has 876. We are talking "less is more". That said my French Maid, created in part in Truespace and compiled in AvLab, sure knows how to strut her facets :)

Hello Steve,
I am convinced and AvatarLab is in my caddy, but
there seems to be a problem in your store.
I get the error message that the product can not be shipped and billed to my country (Luxembourg) on the order confirmation page.
I will try now without entering my address.
kind regards
Marco Barnig

Now all that said here are two avatars straight out of the box. Not too shabby in my view.

Will it be everyone's cup of tea?... probably not. Are we all going to enjoy chatting in 3D virtual worlds? Again probably not. But some people will and for them I highly recommend this program, not just because it is remarkably easy to operate, but rather because its a bucket load of honest to goodness fun.

Marcob- I think I saw your order go through, but this problem has now been addressed and fixed! Tori Curious Labs

I'm still working up to convincing myself. I think I could do some great things here. I've always wanted to do a 3D game but I'm not a programmer. And even with some of the programs out there, I still feel intimidated. But this could be the "second best thing". But more and more questions come to mind. Can I create my own meshes? Or are we limited to the meshes that come with AL? Does AL export .aer files or .mts, or both? Maybe a complete white paper on the site. Or the manual. BTW Phil, I was at your world and I'm always amazed at how you jump on the latest things and do such a great job. I know you mentioned that you just threw it together, but it was inspiring to me anyway. James

Thanks Tori for the follow up with Marco, we had to change the store a bit. James, Cool image- just so you know what's happening behind the scenes in Pro Pack with the Viewpoint exporter- We co-developed and engineered their playback component to allow characters to work in Viewpoint before there was even an Adobe Atmosphere tool using Viewpoint as a display layer. At that time, Viewpoint needed a complete character dsiplay and interaction system, and Pro Pack tied heavily into how that component evolved. To get Poser content into Viewpoint, we had to translate the very elegant bending system native to Poser into a new system to handle the joints, and bending. So the joints in Poser aren't what you see in Viewpoint, they aren't an exact duplication- hence the appearance in your image. The Viewpoint system would have been too slow on playback if we used a model that exactly duplicated what we use in Poser. Another really important point- any content in Poser is way too high in Poly-count for going online with in Atmosphere or in any system. Even the most advanced game systems use lower poly count figures than the low-res poser 4 figures. AvLab comes with a ton of low-poly count, web deployable content. Michael or Victoria for insatnce will kill the Atmo world, or bring a web page with embedded Poser Viewpoint content to its knees. Steve Cooper

Hello Tori,

yes my order passed after changing the shipment to USP domestic ! The download worked fine (about 1 hour for 22,5 Mbyte). The program is now installed on my windows 2000 system and runs. It's a funny program, my first export of an avatar to Poser Propack was succesful, with some curious behavior of the animations. I have to check this point.

Your registration and unlocking procedure is very special. My guess is that you will get some complaints from users which experience technical problems related to proxis, firewalls or virus scanners. The use of the challenge and the response code is not clear, but it was not requested during the online registration and unlocking procedure.
kind regards
Marco Barnig, Luxembourg

"I'm still working up to convincing myself. I think I could do some great things here. I've always wanted to do a 3D game but I'm not a programmer."

There are some good game engines out there that make making a game pretty easy even without programming - and they have an engine with a lot more flexibility than Atmosphere. Atmosphere is many things, but absolutely not a game engine by any means.

There are some options for beginning game builders.

• Make modifications of existing systems... you can make some really extreme alterations. The engine in Unreal Tournament is particularly well suited for this. There is a seriously huge community of people altering the system and a lot of help and free stuff available.
   
• There are some really good commercial entry level systems. Of particular interest is the one from Garage Games. You can license a state of the are game engine and all the development tools for like $100.. including the ability to distribute the end product.
   

Anyway - enjoy it and jump right in. Atmosphere is a nice interface to small 3D environments - but it isn't a game engine :)

I never claimed that it was a game engine. I was only comparing it in a small way. And the ease of creating a world with Atmosphere opposed to trying to tackle something as hard as a game. I will leave that up to the proffessionals ;-) But thanks for the info. Oh and BTW, I don't like shoot-em-up games. I prefer adventure and puzzle solving. I always wanted to do a game that involved a 3D engine, but an explorable and interactive world that you'd have to interact correctly and solve things. That's a little vague but the gist. And Steve, is there documentation on the export plugin for viewpoint for Poser? I keep getting BLUE people and wierd axis points (rotation axis gets placed strangly). But at least with the Poser 4 Lores guy the joints look better. James

No problem ... generally folks can great new worlds for Unreal in an hour or two so I thought it might apply :) On another point, you don't HAVE to use these engines for shooting :) Each of these engines has been used to build role play and quest/puzzle solvers :) Anyway, just thought I'd mention em :)

Is this tool will be include in Poser 5? I saw Atmosphere as a beta version, will it be for sale and for how much? Is this tool only work with Atmosphere? If yes then if one disappears from the market then the other one will do also? More details will be needed for this tool.

nitreug, Avatar Lab will not be a part of a future release of Poser. Atmosphere is in beta, true, but Adobe has a deep commitment to this platform (some-day-for-sale world builder tool and always-free world viewer plug-in) and they plan on continuing development over the next year, launching a full release version. They are behind this system to the same degree they were behind their PDF tools and reader in the first days of that innovative product's life cycle. Adobe will let their tools proliferate to help build the market and create a ubiquitous 3D world platform for e-commerce, information delivery and community building. In the early days of the web there was Mosaic, and then Netscape- free previewing/browsing tools that few people were comfortable building web pages for until wysiwyg authoring tools became available. I consider Avatar Lab to be the first wysiwyg creation tool for the 3D web. It feels like an historic event to me. And you guys are a part of that. Soapbox gone, time for bed. Kupa

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

We've added some an example of one crazy animted avatar exported from AvLab on the AvLab webpage. It's entertaining and the result of less than ten minutes work. It's at the end of the 5 step process link. If you click on the pirate girl link, tyou'll see a pretty alrge sampling of the kinds of combinations available in AvLab James, sorry for not addressing some of your viewpoint specifc questions- too tired now, but I had in a first draft reply to you that a was lost when my log-in here to 'osity timed out. kupa

Thanks Steve. I know how you must be bombbarded with questions, gripes and the whatnot. Well I bit the bullet and just bought AL. (I hope when the MAC version comes out I can get that for a discount giggle) It's a good program, but (there's always a but) I have to say I'm a teeny bit dissapointed. But I was a teeny bit dissapointed when Poser 1 first came out too. But I see the possibilities in AL that I saw in Poser so long ago. While there are templates for all the hair props, there are none for anything else. That means copying the pp2s to Poser loading them in, saving the obj file and UVmapping to get a template. Please post a templates file. And the inability to "Zoom" in on the figure/avatar while in all stages is annoying. When creating textures it is essential to get as close to the figure as possible even if it's only a lores representation. But I may have missed somthing and this is there and I just haven't found in the GUI or help file. But other than that, as I said before, I see some long nights and fun avatars being spawned from AL. As with Poser, we always push the envelope and find ways to improve and create new and exciting things with a great tool to start with. I.E. The many morph targets that so many have done for Poser. And the great textures that many of us have created. I'm sure as the program evolves, there will be some much more one can do with it (built in stuff). Version 5 is already in the works right? chuckle I hope this didn't come accross negetive, because it's not. On the contrary, I ho-heartly recommend AL, even though it's still too expensive IMHO. James