Flux

From uvvy

Flux is a viewing and authoring environment for multimedia and 3D formats including X3D (the successor to the late lamented VRML). The concept is the same as VRML: open standard 3D formats to create rich VR worlds. The platform is in beta. It is not suitable for a modern MMOG at this moment, but suitability for MMOGs is included in the development roadmap on the website.

Website: http://www.mediamachines.com/

Flux Studio (beta version) is a powerful modeling and animation application to create real-time Web 3D content and virtual worlds. Based on the the industry standard X3D, Flux Studio is great for beginners and professionals alike. Flux Studio is available for Microsoft Windows PCs and uses OpenGL rendering.

Press release — July 10, 2006 - Award-winning FLUX Software Now Available as Free Download to Virtual World, Social Network, and AJAX Developers under Open Source License. Media Machines, Inc., a leading provider of solutions for real-time 3D communication, announced today that it has released the source code to its FLUX 3D platform under an open source license. FLUX allows developers and content creators to publish their interactive 3D animations, models and virtual worlds to a standard web browser. Today’s FLUX release includes FLUX Player, a lightweight browser plug-in with a one-click installer for end consumers. 3D developers can create content in a variety of popular 3D modeling applications.

Referring to the ideas behind VRML, the Media Machines website says: "The Metaverse is Here. And this time, we really mean it". A detailed explanation is in Tony Parisi's "Like a Phoenix From the Ashes: X3D and the Rebirth of Reason". For example: "If you want to deploy real time 3D in an open environment, across platforms and devices, over a network, integrated with data, with no strings attached, then there is only one way to go: X3D. Accept no substitutes. X3D is now the official International Standard for doing real time 3D graphics, period. It’s pretty and fast, it’s XML and programmable. It’s industrial strength for the real world, but it can do Nemo online in real time, if that’s what you’re into. And this time, it actually works... X3D has reignited the revolution of affordable, open, scalable real time 3D, delivered over networks, running on multiple platforms, with seamless data exchange and integrated into applications. GIS, engineering, training, manufacturing, education, defense, homeland security, corporate communications, presentation graphics, marketing, e-commerce, travel, real estate, entertainment, games, medical, pharmaceutical...".

See also CNET: Is it finally time for 3D online?

I think an approach entirely based on open standard formats is the only way to implement a 3D Internet (Metaverse). Of course, there are performance and scalability issues to consider.

3D scenes created with Flux: thex3dxperience.com

The pictures above and below show a military simulation and a shopping mall MMOG. The 3D scenes accessible from the thex3dxperience.com are just demonstrators, but Flux might evolve into a platform suitable for military simulations and MMOGs.

The main portal on the thex3dxperience.com site (picture below) is a 3D index and permits opening other scenes from within a scene.