TESTIMONIALS
At Sony Pictures Image Works, one of our main goals here is to help others in the community, expand their knowledge of VRML, while helping VRML become more a part of the interactive community. We are very interested in people interacting on the Web, in 3D environments, and the more people know about VRML, the better.
This Barn Raising event is awesome - we have a lot of people participating, and a lot of really creative things are happening. People that have never touched VRML before, are creating some real cool things�avatars, and what not. It's pretty amazing how quick they pick it up. And it's a lot of fun too.
Christopher Janney -
VRML Modeler
Sony Pictures Image Works
It's really exciting to be here at the VRML Barn Raising because this is exactly the core group of people that are going to be driving the new technology of the second Web. This is exactly the way we are going to be creating VRML content in the future. It's really great to be here at the very beginning of it, seeing how the excitement and synergy that's created by this group of people working together, building worlds on all sorts of platforms, putting it out on the web for cross platform viewing.
That's really the message of the future�the fact that people can work on may different platforms, many different software packages. At Cosmo Software we are creating the professional tools that are driving that, so it is great to be able to put it in the hands of people here, that are really going to be creating that second web.
A VRML Evangelist is someone who goes out and tries to get the message out. VRML is one of the most exciting technologies out there today. It's exciting for the very reason that people are here at the Barn Raising. VRML was created in community, and it is the only 3D non proprietary file format out there, created by a community of like minded people. It was very similar to what we are experiencing here today.
That's why its really exciting to evangelize about this technology. The ability to create a non-proprietary, 3D format, that is cross-platform, over anyone�s computer, is fascinating. Cosmo Software is bringing this type of entertainment and content to the home and to business, as well as to scientific and educational institutions. I'm out there trying to tell people about it and get them excited about it.
Bill McCloskey
VRML Evangelist
SGI Cosmo Software
Sony Pictures Image Works is certainly devoted to VRML. As a Java programmer, we try to help people focus on the aspects of VRML and Java to create full behavior in VRML worlds. Were here to support that, and to push that effort into the general VRML community.
John DeCuir
VRML and Java Programmer
Sony Pictures ImageWorks
The reason that we felt that this was a very worthwhile endeavor is because the Electronic Cafe, for more than a decade, has been on the forefront of really breaking new ground, in terms of interactive projects, that brought people together, using the cutting edge of media. Of course the Virtual Reality worlds that we work in are on that same cutting edge, so it is very logical to bring the Electronic Cafe into VRML, and expand on all of those interactive
communications abilities that we can accomplish through VRML internationally. So it ties in very much with what we are working on, and we think that what Kit and Sherrie at Electronic Cafe have accomplished in more than a decade is phenomenal, and is very worth supporting.
Tony Rockliff
Executive Producer
Cybertown, Inc.
I'm having a great time here at the Barn Raising. The reason we at Oz Interactive are involved in this event, is that VRML, like so much else that has made the Internet what it is today, is all about collaboration, and group participation. No one person, no one company, can make it so. What the LAVRML Users Group is doing, is basically bringing people together, both
advanced artists and programmers, along with people that are just new to the medium.
The Group is really evangelizing distributed 3D on the Internet very effectively, and trying to build a grass roots movement around Virtual Reality on the Internet. That is basically why we're here, and why we are thrilled to participate.
We should thank a couple of our hardware and software sponsors, NetPower, who contributed an excellent workstation, and SOFTIMAGE for their SOFTIMAGE 3D Authoring Tool, which is quite useful for the ECI Barn Raising.
Thor Gunnarsson
VP of Strategic Relations
Oz Interactive
What we are trying to do is, in a real concentrated period of time, is to create a series of VRML worlds that convey the spirit and history of the Electronic Café. My role as creative Director has been to come up with the overall concept, which is to look at the Electronic Cafe as a series of portals into other worlds. You come into the actual Cafe itself, and objects in the Cafe leads you into another world, or some historical or archival information.
So what were trying to make are real playful environments, and what we�ve got is teams inside the Café. I�ve been going around from team to team, and people are making objects�they are just taking stuff off the shelves, scanning them and making models of them, and it's a very creative environment.
What's really exciting to me about VRML is that, it is the coming together of the technical, and the creative talent. Because the technology is so flexible, we can get a lot done, in a really short period of time. No sooner does someone have an idea for a model, then a half hour later it is done.
So it is very satisfying for all of us, because the ECI materials are coming really rapidly. By the end of the weekend, we are actually going to have a series of VRML worlds, that people can download them as we are building and uploading them to the site. So it's all happening on the fly, and people can just go and check them out. We will continue to evolve and develop them up until SIGGRAPH 97, which is here in LA.
Celia Pearce -
Creative Director
LA VRML Users Group ECI Barn Raising
I also do Java programming, and we are trying to get people involved in doing interactive behaviors for the worlds, which makes them more alive. Behavior attracts more people to visit the worlds, and get interested in VRML as well.
Nick Bali
VRML and Java Programmer
Never before have a group of great minds and people who are leaders in VRML gathered locally, and for the first time they can really get together. It is really in the spirit of the Electronic Cafe, where you have all these top people getting together, and creating something. So we are all learning from each other.
It is really a fantastic experience in terms of sharing knowledge, and sharing all this stuff we have been doing for the last year or two.
Pascal Baudar
Creative Director
Cybertown, Inc
We are a proud sponsor of the VRML Barn Raising. Places such as the Electronic Cafe, give IDS tremendous insight into what people who are actually developing content need from VRML authoring packages such as VREALM Builder. It's a very creative environment, and in this creativity, there are a lot of free flowing ideas which are very helpful for an engineering company that is working on emerging technologies to find out about.
What are content developers actually interested in seeing in their authoring packages? That is the kind of feedback that IDS gets from this type of event. It's a lot of fun, and I think we are very interested in turning on the world to what is possible in the area of VRML authoring.
John Palacio -
Director of Business Development
Integrated Data Systems.
The reason we are sponsoring the Barn Raising, and are really excited to be here, is that we really feel that VRML and 3D on the Web is really the next wave of how the web is going to be presented to people, and allow people to really be participants in the Web, versus the static 2D environments. It is really important for us to meet the people who are going to be driving this next wave of the web, and to show them what the SGI hardware can do with the Cosmo Software tools, and show how easy it is to create both VRML content, as well
as digital multimedia content. It is also good to meet these content creators, because we do have a lot of opportunities out there, and we are looking for people who can help create that content, using our hardware and software.
Yubert Fang -
Systems Engineer
SGI Los Angeles Office
Silicon Graphics has always been a part of the creative community. It's really important for us to be able to facilitate all the things that people want to do, either communications amongst people or to create worlds that people haven't been able to create before, and to share those , which is why VRML is so important to SGI. Being part of this first event, and in real-time actually building an environment, is very exciting. The entire space was captured, and not only the physicality was represented, but also all of the things that are important
inside of it.
VRML actually is being used in a whole bunch of places already, for real important uses. One of the most important areas for VRML usage is global collaboration amongst researchers. There are folks who are sharing molecular models, and putting those out on the Web, and allowing folks to visualize stuff that otherwise would be tough to communicate. Another thing that is nice about VRML, as opposed to video and other technologies, is that it is a non real-time thing. You can actually have people take the objects and manipulate them themselves, and really understand them, as opposed to only taking one particular view of an object.
Rich Mills
Engineering Manager
SGI - Los Angeles Office