CONTACT: DAVID BLAIR
tel/fax: 212 228 1514 email: artistl@interport.net
WAXWEB 2.0 IS UNIQUE BECAUSE:
First Film Multicast on the Internet (NYTimes)
First Feature-Length Interactive Film on the World Wide Web (Variety)
First Large Scale Implementation of VRML
First Dynamic VRML server (WWW/VRML/MOO )
First Web-Synchronized Cross-Platform CDROM
First Large Scale WWW/MOO server
First Digicash MOO
First Internet VideoServer Project to utilize Media Mirroring
(additional information available on all the above)
QUOTE from David Blair:
"VRML is the beginning of a public virtual reality cinema... one that leverages
existing content and distribution to bring VR across an open system
to the entire world. It is extraordinarily exciting to work in this
now generally-accepted, and soon-to-be extended standard... one that links
top and bottom-end computers, 3-D and 2-D data, and scalable connectivity,
clearly pointing to our practical future as media-multicasters
thriving in an international network 3-space."
Waxweb 2.0 is an experiment toward the production of David Blair's second electronic feature:
"Jews in Space"
(now in pre-production)
Authored for simultaneous linear (theatrical) and non-linear (Web, Interactive TV, portable media) release
First Electronic Feature Produced under the "Virtual Studio/Virtual Movie Theatre" paradigm.
Co-Producers in: Denmark, Germany, France
WAXWEB IS DYNAMIC:
Waxweb Programmer TOM MEYER of the Brown University Graphics Lab has made it possible for network users of Waxweb 2.0 to add to the narrative with their own immediate, publicly visible hypermedia: hypertext, pictures, audio, video, and hyperlinked VRML. In addition, all VRML objects in the network Waxweb database have their attached hyperlinks changed ON THE FLY, dependent on user interaction. In the near future, custom scenes dynamically recombining internal and user-added objects will allow the synthetic creation of a DYNAMIC, 3-D INTERSTORY on the network.
WHAT IS THE VIRTUAL REALITY MODELING LANGUAGE?
VRML 1.0 (VIRTUAL REALITY MODELING LANGUAGE, 10.94) was the result of a grassroots, Internet-wide effort, initiated by Mark Pesce, to define the standard for a 3-D metafile format which would allow DISTRIBUTED VIRTUAL REALITY over the existing Internet.
VRML allows users of World-Wide Web browsers to view and interact with computer generated 3D models, scenes and virtual "worlds". The most distinctive attribute of VRML is that 3-D VRML objects can have hyperlinks attached to their different parts. Users can move around 3-D VRML scenes, clicking objects or parts of objects, to either "travel" to new 3-D scenes, or load other types of data (from hypertext to video) into their World Wide Web browser (e.g Netscape, Mosaic).
ENDORSEMENT for VRML as the 3D graphics metafile standard for the Internet was announced TODAY (4.3.94) by Silicon Graphics, Netscape, Digital, Template Graphics (TGS), NEC, and many other companies. Viewers based upon the established 3D graphics standards OpenGL and Open Inventor will be available in 30 days from TGS for the SGI, Sun, IBM, Windows 3.1,and Windows NT systems, with support for Apple and HP 9000 platforms by summer. Netscape Communications has announced support of the VRML standard and outlined plans to integrate the new VRML products from Silicon Graphics and TGS into the upcoming release of Netscape 1.1. Viewers based on Rendermorphics from Microsoft will be also available from the Community Community within 30 days.
VRML ON WAXWEB 2.0
Users can enter the 3-D VRML world from a great many places in the 2D text/picture WAXWEB 2.0 WWW document, which is served from the Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities at the University of Virginia. Text links or picture buttons on the flat page can take the reader to a 3-D scene. Once "in" the VRML world, users press 3D hyperlinks to travel through that world, or to automatically change the page on their electronic "book" (the Web browser), or even cause a part of the feature-length movie to play.
This is the "third" interface to Waxweb, which is meant to be readable (hypertext), visual (all 5000 pictures are buttons, allowing visual navigation), and flyable (VRML).
HOW WAXWEB 2.0 IS UNIQUE:
Waxweb is an Internet-based, distributed, interactive and intercommunicative 3-D narrative environment.
Waxweb uses MOO technology to dynamically serve hyperlinked 3D VRML objects/scenes. What's a MOO? MOO's are network-based tools for computer supported collaborative work (and play), which allow realtime intercommunication in an multi-room virtual space, as well as the sharing of network information resources... they are text-based virtual realities. By combining VRML with MOO technology on the WORLD WIDE WED, WAXWEB 2.0 allows 3D narrative content to be shared, examined, added to, and reconfigured.
Waxweb's implementation of dynamic VRML gives it the ability to efficiently serve VRML from the MOO, and dynamically auto-assemble objects/scenes and auto-insert hyperlinks (URL's) dependent on user interaction. This allows flexibility in the use of the existing large 3D database, and in addition will let users easily add to that 3D world.
WAXWEB 2.0: TOWARDS A PRACTICAL, GLOBALLY DISTRIBUTED, INTERCOMMUNICATIVE, SCALABLE, FINANCIALLY INDEPENDENT HYPER-NARRATIVE SERVER
The facts: on Feb. 18th, Digicash was implemented in die MOO (Waxweb is die first Digicash MOO). On the same day Waxweb also became a Sesame server, capable of handling Ubique's Web client for the Sun platform (and soon PC), the first publicly available system for realtime chat through a Web client. Media mirroring has also been established with Sunsite at UNC, and Internationale Stadt in Berlin. Visitors to Waxweb from Germany receive text, VRML, and control information from the Waxweb server in Virginia, but are pointed to Internationale Stadt for pictures, audio, and video. These tiiree experimental implementations point to a practical, globally distributed, intercommunicative, scalable hyper-narrative server, based on an open system, and capable of being financially self-sufficient.
THE PRINCIPALS:
David Blair is an electronic cinemamaker based in New York City. He is currendy at work on a second feature, set in the US and Japan.
Tom Meyer is a virtual reality specialist in the Brown University Graphics Laboratory.
Waxweb has been made possible by networked associate fellow status generously extended to the members of the Waxweb project by IATH, die Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities at the University of Virginia, headed by John Unsworth. Waxweb has received partial funding from the New York State Council for the Arts, with both finishing fund and distribution grants, the latter administered by the Experimental Television Center, Owego, NY.
###########################################
CONTACT: DAVID BLAIR
tel/fax:- 212 228 1514
email: artistl@interport.net
********** FOR RELEASE ON APRIL 3, 1995 ********
***** WAXWEB 2.0: INTERACTIVE 3D CINEMA ON THE WORLD WIDE WEB
WAXWEB 2.0, THE FIRST INTERACTIVE FEATURE FILM ON THE WORLD WIDE WEB,
IMPLEMENTS A DYNAMIC VERSION OF VRML, THE NEW GRAPHICS INDUSTRY
STANDARD FOR VIRTUAL REALITY ON THE INTERNET, TO DELIVER REALTIME 3D
NARRATIVE "VISUALIZATION" OVER THE EXISTING INTERNET BACKBONE.
The WWW address for Waxweb 2.0 is http://bug.village.virginia.edu With a VRML browser: http://bug.village.virginia.edu/vrml
WHAT IS WAXWEB 2.0?
Created by DAVID BLAIR, Waxweb 2.0 is:
The first interactive, intercommunicative FEATURE FILM on the WORLD WIDE WEB (Variety, 2.16.95).
The first NETWORK-DISTRIBUTED narrative to offer REAL-TIME 3-D NAVIGATION through a story.
The first LARGE-SCALE, DYNAMIC implementation of the VIRTUAL REALITY MODELING LANGUAGE (VRML), the 3-D METAFILE format for the INTERNET endorsed TODAY (4.3.95) by Silicon Graphics, TGS, Netscape, Digital, NEC, and many others. Waxweb is a project of the Brown University Graphics Laboratory, headed by Andries VanDam, with Tom Meyer serving as the technical director of the project.
Based on David Blair's electronic feature film "WAX or the discovery of television among the bees" (85:00, 1991, distributed by FIRST RUN FEATURES), Waxweb is the LARGEST hypermedia narrative document on the World Wide Web. "WAX" itself was the first feature film sent over the Internet ("Historic First", Markoff, NYTimes, 4.93).
In May, Waxweb 2.0 will become a CROSS-PLATFORM, NETWORK SYNCHRONIZED CD-ROM available from First Run Features. Available for Mac/Windows/Unix, it will run as a standalone on non-networked computers, and in synchronization with the Web site, for those who wish to publicly ADD TO THE STORY.
Waxweb 2.0 Online contains: 3000 Web pages with approx. 25,000 hyperlinks; 85 minutes of digital video (the entire feature film); 5000 color stills; soundtrack in English, French, German, Japanese. Plus: MORE THAN 250 3-D VRML SCENES,
FILLED WITH THOUSANDS OF HYPERLINKED PARTS. Every part of every object in the virtual world is an active button, triggering access to other 3D scenes, to the movie, to pictures, or to hypertext.
################################
WAXWEB 2.0 FACT SHEET
contact: David Blair (artistl@interport.net)
Waxweb 2.0, by David Blair Tom Meyer, technical director
WHAT IS WAXWEB 2.0?
The first interactive, intercommunicative feature film on the World Wide Web (Variety, 2.95). Based on "WAX or the discovery of television among the bees" (85:00, 1991), a feature film by David Blair, which had successful theatrical release in the US (25 cities), Japan, UK and Australia. "WAX" was first feature film transmitted across the Internet (NYTimes, 4.93).
Waxweb 2.0, online since January 1994, currently consists of:
3000+ pages, with 25,000 hyperlinks, 4500 color stills, 85 minutes of video, audio in English, French, German, and Japanese.
Plus: More than 250 3-D scenes, containing thousands of procedurally defined hyperlinks. Waxweb 2.0 is the first large scale, dynamic implementation of the Virtual Reality Modeling Language (4.95), the newly defined standard for distributed VR over the existing Internet.
Users can add immediate, publicly visible hypermedia to the site, allowing for the creation of 3-D interstory on the network.
Key concepts:
Integrated: VR/movie/hypertext
Scalable: from text to VR
Virtual Studio/Virtual Movie Theater: a scalable, networked production environment, allowing for distributed workgrouping and immediate prototyping, is no different from a virtual movie theater, where people meet in a virtual space to collaborate in the viewing a film. The electronic cinemamaker must learn to take advantage of this fact.
Independent and Global
Multiple: a single narrative across multiple media (theater, cassette, CD, online, place-based)
Now in progress: a second feature, called "Jews in Space"
