will be made available to audiences and content creators, further accelerating the adoption of computer-generated environments and ensuring a premier place in the Internet media world.
Today's machinima, virtual reality tools, virtual worlds like Second Life, and massive multiplayer online games like Warhammer are harbingers of what's to come. If Moore's Law holds for the development of CPUs and GPUs, moving photorealistic graphics will be possible on home PCs and gaming systems in 2013, and will be commonplace by 2018. Advances in hardware technologies will be matched by new Internet-based software tools that will lead to 3D content types that go far beyond what's currently possible with video. Audiences and content creators will discover that 3D environments will not only be able to duplicate many types of video programming, but will also be able to provide customization, interactivity, and social options that amplify the ability of moving images to entertain and inform.
Imagine a soap opera that lets viewers preselect the appearance of the avatar stars, the sounds of their voices, the location of the dramas, and other plot elements. I may opt to watch the program in the default mode -- a standard plot involving a love triangle between two men and a woman in Los Angeles. However, another viewer may want to see a love triangle with two women and a man in a small town in the Rockies, change the name of the lead male character to "Earl," set the appearance of both of the women to blondes, and restrict close-up shots to less than 3% of the total plot length. A third viewer in Japan may transfer the story to Tokyo, and have all of the characters speaking in Japanese. Such options will be possible with more advanced development tools and user interfaces.
Other possibilities: Programs in which viewers can bring their own avatars into the story, or introduce their own props, using video sampling or 3D modeling. Horror sims that are based on 3D models of people's homes or hometowns. Newscasts that are delivered by a 3D anchor who looks and sounds exactly like Chris Matthews, but only delivers news about "China", "Sarah Palin," "baseball," and other keywords that we select.
Already we are seeing crude experiments with machinima and virtual worlds, but photorealism will change people's perceptions. Such programs will move from the realm of "neat trick" to a serious contender for people's time and attention. The possibilities are endless, and I think far more appealing than video. To be sure, YouTube and its competitors will play an important role in 2018, but I don't think they will dominate the Internet media world in the way Hurley predicts.
Note: This essay is based on a paper I wrote entitled Video, Computer-Generated Environments and the Future of the Web.
More news, commentary, and predictions from The Industry Standard:
- Prediction: Apple opens a store in Second Life
- Prediction: Second Life usage will not break 40 million user hours per month by the end of 2008
- Linden Lab positions Second Life as cost-effective telepresence
- Virtual worlds: Warcraft graphics improve, for a price
- Spore growing by 1 million+ creations per day
Comments
@Ian, nicely written. I fully agree with your take. I just can't wait for Holodeck to become a reality. Imagine the ability to be fully immersed in a artificial dynamic environment that caters to all human senses.
Ian,
Interesting take. I agree with your assessment of Internet video. The interactivity and 3D elements are more compelling, but a bit more problematic, I think. I blogged on this at "Network World" -- http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/32828
Interactive 3D experiences are already starting to take hold on the Web. Check out BigStage.com to see how video, still images, and personalized 3D models can be seamlessly blended into highly engaging interactive experiences allowing audiences to fully immerse themselves in online content.
Ian -
Thanks for this thoughtful analysis. Like you, I believe that video is way over-hyped online. I believe that it's mostly the result of old line thinking and ad people who wish to preserve their channel-centric hold on the media by making the web into just another channel for their existing video content and video creation infrastructure. I blog instead about all different types of INTERACTIVE experiences, both online and offline at http://blog.operand.com/. I'm really happy to hear someone else talk about how video is PASSIVE and not interactive.
Readers: Thanks for your thoughtful comments. I think that experiments in 3D environments have fired up people's imaginations, and there is a lot of promise for this technology. Once photorealism starts to make it into people's homes via their TV screens, computers, or game systems, acceptance of 3D as an alternative to video will increase. And, when some of these software products I alluded to enter the mix, that's when video will start to look really old-fashioned. This latter shift might not happen in 10 years, but I really believe it is inevitable.
Ian Lamont
Managing Editor
The Industry Standard
I agree - passive video is technically useless beyond the TV value prop. Overlay.TV makes it interactive, and we are working with a couple of people on integrating interactive video into 3D environments. Lets get it working together.
The reason I think the alternatives debate is not holistic is because our current real world (4D) environments actually have video in them and we definitely seem to like and consume a lot of that.
Thanks for the thoughtful and informed comments. I'm just now working my way through Stephens' Rise and Fall and find myself looking for some more recent discussion along these lines. Having just completed Postman's Technopoly and re-read Amusing, I find Stephen's thesis provocative-- except for that nagging issue of human nature and its tsunami-like capacity for subversion. By conceding that the "new video" is still new and in need of much maturing Stephens tries to hedge against criticism. Because he never really deals with the fundamental issue of video's passivity (see Ian above) in whatever format, I remain doubtful that the wise, caring culture he envisions can really result from the "moving image" revolution. But maybe that's a part of the reality here. The revolution is taking place and yet wisdom remains a stranger to the discussion. And ironically, the video revolution still depends upon the old world word to propagate itself.
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