ANNOUNCE: VR Event - call for artists, world & avatar builders, worlds

From: Miriam English (miriam_at_werple.net.au)
Date: 7 June 1999

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Hi all,

Well, I've been holding off announcing this, but the time is here...

We have been organising a special event to try and publicise VR so that the general public can see that it is here now and not something sinister, contrary to the impression Hollywood would give us. The coommon perceptioon is that VR is only for geeks who put on weird helmets and gloves, wire themselves to supercomputers, and immerse themselves in fast-moving photorealistic worlds. Few realise that there are hundreds of worlds out there right now with hundreds of thousands of citizens who go there largely to socialise.

Every year the Science Fiction community organises a Worldcon. This year the 57th World Science Fiction Convention is in Melbourne, Australia over the 5 days 2nd-6th September, so I decided to try and organise a VR side to it. The Worldcon organisers agreed to let me do it, and I now have a great team of people building a terrific event. Our core group consists of people in Australia, USA, Argentina, Italy, Austria, Norway, Germany.

All our work is volunteer and we have no budget at all, but it is starting to look just brilliant. But we need still more people to build worlds and parts of existing worlds. We need avatars for the people coming to those worlds. We also need people to build worlds that are not multi-user. Any form of 3D is welcome: VRML, RWX, Flatland-style, ... anything. We just want to knock people's socks off -- the more the merrier.

Activities will center around OuterWorlds who are donating an Expo world for this project. They also have a Virtual Reality Radio that services their virtual worlds and we intend to make novel use of that. There are a lot of ActiveWorlds people working on the project, two of whom (Victoria D'Onofrio and Rodolfo Galeano) are devoting their world to the event. Deep Matrix will be a part of this too -- their worlds, like VNet worlds, require no special downloads. At least one VNet world will be made over for the occasion. The amazing Holodesk by VRTelecom will be there. Blaxxun have expressed excitement. And we have asked Sony to be a part of it too.

We will be doing some really cool things at the convention:

• There will be a video and audio feed from the real convention into the worlds so that people around the planet can see what goes on at a Worldcon.
• A projection screen will show the virtual worlds to people at the convention (as well as being accessible from the computers in the convention's internet lounge).
• A large number of science fiction celebrities (authors, film directors, actors, artists, special effects people, scientists and technologists, and musicians) will be guests in the virtual worlds and will interact with the people at the convention through talks and question and answer sessions. (I expect many of these will be held inside Holodesk.)
• A world building competition should ensure that there is plenty of science fiction oriented stuff for exploring. (As far as I know this is a first... has there ever been a world-building contest before?) There may even be a science fiction theme, avatar building competition. (An avatar is the body you wear in a virtual world.)
• We hope to broadcast from the convention over OuterWorld's VRRadio to its virtual worlds.
• We also hope to be able to play Outerworlds' VRRadio station's programs to the folk at the convention.
• Roving reporters will transmit interviews from the convention into the worlds as video and sound.
• Other roving reporters will transmit interviews from inside the virtual worlds.
• We are building some special worlds for the convention, one of which, Expo world, will be preserved by OuterWorlds for posterity. In Expo world and a number of other worlds you will be able to build pavillions to display your talents.
• There will be an art gallery, which will include sculpture (remember that in VR the real world's laws of physics need not be obeyed, things may float in the air, may pass through each other, change color and shape spontaneously, and be seen as if from the same angle from many positions simultaneously).
• Tutorials, discussions, and demonstrations on various aspects of making and using VR will held inside various worlds. They will be free and open to all.
• There are also a number of other suggestions in the pipeline.

A number of organisations are taking part in this effort.

VR universes that are involved:

	OuterWorlds (http://www.outerworlds.com)
	ActiveWorlds (http://www.activeworlds.com)
	DeepMatrix (http://www.geometrek.com/products/)
	VNet (http://ariadne.iz.net/~jeffs/vnet/)
	Holodesk (http://www.holodesk.com)
	Blaxxun (http://www.blaxxun.com) -- I think they will almost certainly be
involved, we are currently involved in discussions
	Sony -- I have chatted with some people there who are very interested but

Other groups and companies:

	VRAvatars (http://millenium.simplenet.com)
	BMB Multimedia (http://members.aon.at/bmb-multimedia/)
	SeeRay Studios (http://www.seeray.com)
	Virtual Reality Radio (http://www.wvrr.com)
	LaKatz Designs (ttp://home.earthlink.net/~lakatz/)
	Virtualy (http://www.virtualia.net)
	Geometrek (http://www.geometrek.com)
	VRTelecom (http://www.vrtelecom.com)
	ExitReality (http://www.exitreality.com)
	Contact Consortium (http://www.ccon.org)
	The Virtual Reality Association (temporarily offline)

This event is shaping up to be bigger than the Worldcon itself, so come on and be a part of it.

Best wishes,

• Miriam

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• Kermit the Frog

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