The files are getting smaller, the browsers are finally incorporating it, and now it looks like VRML is getting its digital heroines as well. This week at Siggraph, VRML evangelist Mark Pesce and Jan Mallis debuted their new VRML animation shop, blitcom, and their smartass VRML character, Bliss.com, in the hopes of doing for VRML what, say, ILM did for film effects.
"The new mission is to build a cult of personality for VRML and show content developers its ability to be a storytelling medium," explains Jason Meresman, producer of the vrml.sgi.com VRML news site.
In five "webisodes," the blue-haired, crop-topped Bliss.com whirls, dances, and cracks wry jokes throughout 30-second to 2-minute VRML animations. Available this week on vrml.sgi.com, the cartoons are designed to attract the attention of the folks who could draw even more attention to VRML in return: Hollywood and advertisers.
"It's going to take getting name brands [to make VRML popular] - a character that's already familiar to mainstream America," says Pesce. In a fantasy example, Disney would pay blitcom types to push interactive Mickey Mouse VRML cartoons to millions of desktops.
Blitcom isn't the first company to explorer VRML characters: Protozoa has already created a wormlike creature called Floops that plays as a cartoon twice weekly on vrml.sgi.com. Other developers like Construct and Dream Team have also explored the terrain of animated VRML entertainment
But after years of promise and grandiose dreams, VRML still isn't a main feature in the average surfer's household. Still, at Siggraph, the VRML cheerleaders are convinced that this year is the turning point. Both of the new versions of Navigator and Internet Explorer browsers incorporate VRML 2.0 - Navigator included SGI's Cosmo 2.0, and IE incorporates Intervista's WorldView. The technology is better, and bandwidth requirements and VRML animation file sizes are sometimes even smaller than comparable graphics or Shockwave files.
"It's in the browsers now. That's what we've been waiting for," says Pesce. "We don't have to worry about whether users downloaded a plug-in - which, let's face it, just doesn't happen."
But just because it's in your browser doesn't mean you'll actually use VRML - 7.7 million surfers probably aren't aware that their Netscape 3.0 browser includes a Cosmo VRML browser, simply because they've never surfed by any VRML. But at Siggraph, developers are pointing at the visible VRML coups of recent months - such as a VRML ad banner Out of the Blue recently created for Pepsi (with a tiny 9-KB download), the Jet Propulsion Lab VRML Mars site, and a promotional VRML game for Spawn that recently debuted on Mediadome - as signs that commercial interest in VRML's potential is perking up.
And although file sizes are still unwieldy - the Bliss.com cartoon is a 600-KB download - streaming technologies are getting closer. Cosmo, Protozoa, and blitcom demonstrated real-time VRML streaming to seven locations at Siggraph, using motion-capture technology on the actress who plays Bliss.com to create a relatively seamless VRML animation on the fly. Although that technology is more than a year away at best, others are demonstrating more realistic solutions, such as audio streaming for VRML (more than half of a VRML file is often the audio).
Still, not everyone thinks cute animations will make VRML mainstream. Intervista, for example, is focusing on business uses for VRML, running its Reality Check information site that explains practical every-day use for VRML and touts its advantages for smaller downloads and ad banner potential.
"A lot of people are focusing on entertainment. We're focusing on business applications," says Heather Schlegel, a spokeswoman for Intervista. "People think VRML is fluff, eye candy.... You can do the entertainment stuff, but it doesn't get big companies interested for too long."
