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From: cirby@vaxb.acs.unt.edu ((C. Irby))
Newsgroups: sci.virtual-worlds
Subject: Re: Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On: Modeling Complex Realities (Was Re: T
Message-ID: <11013@milton.u.washington.edu>
Date: 11 Nov 90 19:48:36 GMT
References: <10769@milton.u.washington.edu> <10871@milton.u.washington.edu> <109
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In article <10959@milton.u.washington.edu>, 
autodesk!robertj@uunet.UU.NET (Young Rob Jellinghaus) writes: 
> In article <10923@milton.u.washington.edu> 
> edow@harriett.ncsa.uiuc.edu (Ernst Dow) writes:
>>Ahh, this is just like trying to make fantasy role playing games realistic...
> 
> Yep!  In fact, it seems to me that if any present-day activity is useful
> training for virtual reality, role-playing gaming is it.

I agree... and this also brings up some other thoughts.

Computer games have introduced a lot of innovative ideas to the state of
the art in software.  Other people may have thought them up, but the game
designers are usually among the first to drop new ideas into actual products.

Vector graphics for simulation?  _Spacewar_ used them (back in the Dark Ages,
I think...)

Sound as an important part of the program interface?  Until I saw games on an
Apple ][+, I'd never heard sound which made a difference (not the beeps and
boops of Pong- important sounds.  Warning buzzers, engine noises, and other
outputs... stuff that was significant in *itself*, not as a pointer to a
screen event).

Music?  See above.

Input/Output Options.  The "I-J-K-L-M" or "W-A-S-D-X" choices were in many
computer games back in the late 70s.  How many 'serious' programs let the
user make any *real* choices in what the interface is?

[Note: I'm skipping over the influence of flight simulators, since there
weren't that many out there- and the ones that were in use were owned
by the government or the airlines.  Most of them didn't even use real
computer graphics... just controllers.]

######

Most of what I see in current virtual reality is demonstrated in game-like
terms.  How many nifty demos do you see?  How many of those look like a 
video game?

How many Power Gloves were bought by VR researchers this year?

If you want to see where VR is going to be in five years, you might want
to look in places other than Autodesk, MIT, or HITL.

Look at Atari... Sega... Nintendo... and the software companies.

I know of one (smaller) company that's halfway ready to start working 
on a VR "home game" *right now*... for single or networked machines.

And how much of that game will end up in the 'serious' products the year
after?

Hmmmmmmm....


-- 
C Irby                             || 
Internet:   cirby@vaxa.acs.unt.edu || "It's a long story.  It involves 
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                                   ||          --Judge Harold T. Stone