From: pcrvrjon@aol.com (PCR VR Jon) Newsgroups: sci.virtual-worlds Subject: FAQ: AOL VR Center FAQ (Ver 1.2) (longish) Date: 12 Nov 1994 11:50:13 -0500 Organization: America Online, Inc. (1-800-827-6364) Here is my latest update of the America Online Virtual Reality Resource Center FAQ. If anyone has any comments, questions, or sees any glaring errors or omissions feel free to let me know! This document may distributed or used anywhere, just don't base any life or death decisions on it and then blame me! -jon Jon Neill Resource Consultant AOL VR Resource Center PCRVRJon@aol.com ============================================================ THE AOL VIRTUAL REALITY RESOURCE CENTER FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) Version 1.2 (Last Update: 11/01/94) By Jon Neill VR Resource Consultant PCRVRJon@aol.com This FAQ was developed to answer some basic questions about Virtual Reality and the AOL VR Resource Center. It is by no means a definitive treatise but it does try to answer some of the more common questions that I have seen posted on the message boards in the AOL VR Resource Center. I would hope that this FAQ will serve as a pointer for more information. CHANGES IN THIS VERSION (1.2) - Added additional information the source of the word Virtual Reality (thanx to Linda Jacobson for setting me straight!); - Updated the VR Internet Resources section to include additional Mailing Lists, Newsgroups, FTP Sites, and Gopher - Added additional info about Cybermind and BattleTech LBE's. - Added references to Tactile/Force Feedback - Added references to Gossamer (VR for the Mac) - Deleted references to the Power Glove Mailing List, sci.virtual-worlds.apps newsgroup, and PCVR Magazine who have all gone the way of the Mudshark. The America Online Virtual Reality Resource Center is a special area dedicated to information about Virtual Reality. It is offered to AOL members as a part of the PC Graphics and Animation Forum lead by PC Mike. If you have any general graphics questions, he is the one to ask! Because I am not independently wealthy my interest in VR leans toward the home-use garage-level type of Virtual Reality. As such you will find this FAQ to lean somewhat in the same direction! I also have been using and programming in PC based systems for many years, so my knowledge of other platforms is somewhat limited. This will explain the FAQ's apparent bias towards PC based systems. STANDARD DISCLAIMER The information and opinions found in this fact in no way reflects an endorsement by America Online. They are all strictly FYI and IMHO! If you see any glaring errors, or have any corrections, clarifications, or additions, please feel free to E-mail me. All suggestions and comments are welcome. Also, if you find this FAQ useful, feel free to distribute this freely, or re-use it in part or in whole as you like. Just be sure to give proper attribution! If there are any questions that you think should be answered in this FAQ, please let me know! THANKS TO: PCC Dave PC Mike Joe Gradecki (The Virtual Reality Construction Kit) Jerry Isdale (WHATISVR) Dave Stampe (Virtual Reality Creations and REND386) Bernie Roehl (Virtual Reality Creations and REND386) Linda Jacobson (Garage VR and origins of 'Virtual Reality') Oak Grove and Sylmar Disc Golf Courses (I do my best thinking while playing frisbee golf!) Cybersears aka Jeff Sears (Cybermind) VWE Dave and VWE KT (Virtual World Entertainment - BattleTech) ========================================================================== QUESTIONS ANSWERED: Q1: WHAT IS VIRTUAL REALITY? Q2: WHAT HARDWARE IS REQUIRED FOR VR? Q3: WHAT SOFTWARE IS REQUIRED FOR VR? Q4: WHAT ARE REND386 AND VR-386? Q5: CAN I DO VR ON MY HOME COMPUTER? Q6: ARE THERE ANY GOOD BOOKS AND MAGAZINES ON VR AVAILABLE? Q7: WHERE DO I START LEARNING MORE ABOUT VR? (AOL AND INTERNET RESOURCES) Q8: WHAT IS AVAILABLE IN THE AOL VR RESOURCE CENTER? Q9: WHAT COMPANIES MAKE VR RELATED PRODUCTS? Q10: WHAT ABOUT VIRTUAL REALITY ENTERTAINMENT CENTERS? Q10.1: WHAT IS CYBERMIND? Q10.2: WHAT IS BATTLETECH? Q11: WHAT ABOUT SO-CALLED VIRTUAL REALITY GAMES SUCH AS WOLFENSTEIN AND DOOM? Q12: WHAT IS THE FUTURE OF VR? ========================================================================== = Q1: WHAT IS VIRTUAL REALITY? Virtual Reality is a combination of hardware and software that allows you to see, move around in and manipulate computer graphics. The term 'Virtual Reality' gets used to mean so many things that sometimes it is hard to determine exactly what it is. According to Joe Gradecki in The Virtual Reality Construction Kit, there are two basic components that a TRUE virtual reality program MUST contain: 1) A first-person viewpoint that has complete movement at will in real time; 2) The ability to manipulate and/or change the virtual environment in real time (that is, the computer processes and displays the simulation as you experience it instead of playing pre-recorded sequences off of your hard drive or game cartridge). The coining of the term Virtual Reality is often credited to Jaron Lanier (the inventor of the Data Glove), but while this has been propagated through the press and media, it isn't true (ain't urban fokelore great?). There have been references to the term Virtual Reality as far back as 1987 at the Media Lab MIT in a book by Stewart Brand, and probably even earlier on the West Coast at the infamous Atari Labs. While Jaron didn't invent the word, he certainly popularized it, and its usage now has become part of our common language! VR can also be defined as a computing environment where the computer screen disappears and you are manipulating computer object directly. You are experiencing and interacting with a 'simulated Virtual World'. This world is not pre-recorded, it is generated on-the-fly by the computer. For more info on what VR is try downloading WHATISVR.ZIP from the VR File Area. This paper by Jerry Isdale is an excellent introduction to Virtual Reality Q2: WHAT HARDWARE IS REQUIRED FOR VR? There are many levels of Virtual Reality systems from commercial entertainment systems to home VR setups with ranges in price from about $1000 to tens of thousands of dollars! Computer. The basic VR engine is a computer. This can be a graphics workstation like the Silicon Graphics Indigo or an Evans and Sutherland machine (expensive!) or a PC, Apple, or Amiga. Of these less expensive platforms the most popular is the PC. There is more software and hardware available for the PC than for the Amiga or the Mac. It is somewhat ironic that the Mac - the machine that introduced Graphical Computing to most users - is severely lacking in support for VR features and development. The Amiga platform is the choice of many power hackers because of its multi-tasking, fast processors, and powerful software - but it's multitude of choices usually makes one model of the Amiga incompatible with the other! And, while the Amiga has all of the standard interfaces that most computers have, many VR developers consider the Amiga to be a game machine or video production tool. As such they building the hardware or writing the drivers needed for VR on the Amiga. Visual Displays. Visual Displays are how you see your virtual environment world. For some VR applications, a regular computer monitor will work to provide a window into your virtual environment. However, in order to make the virtual world more immersive, you need to cut yourself off completely from the 'real' world. There are several types of displays used in VR. Head Mounted Displays (HMD's) are visual displays that you put on your head. They consist of two tiny TV screens and optics to allow you to see the images. The HMD sends your head position to the computer which generates the scene as a sequence of images (called frames) on the fly in real time. In this way, the HMD can show images that match up with where you are and what you are looking at in the virtual world. As of this writing, there has been a rush of product announcements for inexpensive HMD systems. So far delivery on these products has been slow, but this bodes well for the Homebrew VRer as usable $200.00 HMDs became available! Fortunately there are other ways to view 3-D (or stereoscopic) worlds. If fact you can just view you world in 2-D on a regular monitor if you wish! You can also use stereoscopic imaging systems such as the Cyberscope Viewing Hood (which transforms an ordinary monitor into a 3-D display, or LCD Shutter Glasses. The shutter glasses (such as the Sega Shutter Glasses or the more expensive Crystal Eyes glasses) essentially alternate between one part of the stereo image and the other on the screen. The glasses are synchronized with the screen to alternate between eyes creating a 3-D image. Input Devices Input devices are a way to interact and control your virtual world. They start with a keyboard and a mouse, trackballs and joysticks. These are fairly common and are a good start into manipulation of virtual environments. The more sophisticated devices allow for processing in three dimensions. This is also called something call six degrees of freedom (6DOF), meaning the device can be used to track six directions of movement - up/down, left/right, forward/back (x,y,z coordinates) and pitch (tilt chin up/down), yaw (pan head left/right), and roll (roll head from side to side). Some one these devices include gloves, 3-D mice, forceballs, wands, and arm-based trackers. The most popular 6DOF devices on the homebrew scene are the Nintendo Power Glove and the Sega Shutter Glasses. Both devices are no longer in production, but are available through a variety of sources. 3-D Sound Most garage level VR system today only have visuals. A true virtual world should also have sound, but in order for it to work the sound has to be 3-dimensional - that is when you walk by a virtual dripping faucet, the sound of the water should be in front of you (and get louder) as you approach, and behind you (and get quieter) as you walk away. Most 3-D sound systems are expensive. Gravis makes a relatively inexpensive 3-D sound system called the Gravis Ultrasound 3-D card for around $250. This, along with the software provided, allows you to add 3-D sound to your virtual world. Force Feedback - Tactile Feedback These are two of the most difficult features to provide in a VR system, especially at the homebrew level (except for taste and smell, perhaps!). Tactile feedback would let you feel the surface texture of objects you touch, and force feedback would let you feel the weight and size of the object. These present quite a challenge to simulate and as of this writing, I know of no commercially available systems to allow you to do this. The closest thing I can think of is the Activator, vest you wear while playing video games. It uses the sound from the game to simulate getting hit by punches or bullets. Perhaps this product can be used as a basis for a Tactile Feedback system. Q3: WHAT SOFTWARE IS REQUIRED FOR VR? Of course all of this hardware doesn't do any good if there isn't anything to control it, or any world to immersive yourself in. This is where software comes in. Software defines the world, generates the images, and provides the interface for the hardware. Some software provides you only with the ability to create a world and walk of fly through it with limited or no interaction. An example of this would be Virtus VR Walkthrough programs. Others let you design and utilize worlds like REND386 or VREAM. Still others provide VR functions to call from programming languages such as C. An example of this would be Sense8's WorldToolKit or Lepton Systems VR Toolkit. Q4: WHAT ARE REND386, VR-386, AND AVRIL? By far the most affordable of all the VR software available is REND386 (and it's successors VR-386 and Avril). They are free!! REND386 was designed by Dave Stampe and Bernie Roehl to be a fast VR rendering system for use on a common platform (a 386, or better PC). VR-386 and Avril are functionally equivalent to REND386 in that the both read the same world and object files and the interface is identical to REND386. Internally, however, both VR-386 and Avril were written to be more portable and more modular - they were both written almost entirely in C and have VR related functions that can be used in other C programs. They all read in what is called a .WLD file. This file contains the definitions for a virtual world like walls, ceilings, windows as well as the size and shape of your world along with any animation, predefined movements, triggers, and collision detection. The program also provides the ability to create objects called .PLG files and use them in your worlds. An object might be a knife or a chair of a piece of sculpture. REND386/VR-386/Avril all provide support for hobbyist VR devices such as the Power Glove, Sega Glasses, Cyberscope, joysticks, mice Gravis Ultrasound Card, and many others. The code is open and any modifications you wish to make - or drivers you wish to write - are all welcome. Also available is Gossamer for the Mac. It reads the same .WLD files the VR-386/Avril read. It is available via FTP from ftp.apple.com (see below for more details on how to use FTP) Q5: CAN I DO VR ON MY HOME COMPUTER? If you signed onto AOL and downloaded this file on a PC, you already have the basic setup for what it takes to get started in VR! Here is a typical inexpensive home VR setup: An PC Clone 386/486 w/ 4 megs RAM, 200 meg Hard Drive, SVGA card and Monitor, Mouse, Keyboard, Joystick. If you get REND386, you have a great start! Add to that a Nintendo Power Glove, Sega Glasses, and Gravis UltraSound Card and you have a basic Garage-VR setup! This configuration can be had for less than $2000.00!! While you aren't going to get the kind of Virtual Reality experience you saw in Lawnmower Man, you have all of the basic components of a 'true' VR system. From there you can build your own HMD or 3-D mouse! When putting the together a VR system, remember this adage "Good, Fast, Cheap: Pick any two!". Q6: ARE THERE ANY GOOD BOOKS AND MAGAZINES ON VR AVAILABLE? This is by no means an exhaustive list, but this should get you started. In fact, most of the information in this FAQ was culled from these books! Books: General VR Virtual Reality - Though the New Looking Glass by Ken Pimental and Keven Teixeira Silicon Mirage - The Art and Science of Virtual Reality by Steve Aukstakalnis and David Blatner Homebrew VR Garage Virtual Reality by Linda Jacobson (hands on VR) The Virtual Reality Construction Kit by Joe Gradecki (hands on VR) Virtual Reality Creations by Dave Stampe and Bernie Roehl (REND386) Magazines: Virtual Reality World 11 Ferry Lane West Westport, CT 06880 Virtual Reality Special Report P.O. Box 7703 San Francisco, CA 94120 Pix-Elation (By and for VRASP Members) P.O. Box 4139 Highland Park, NJ 08904 jkeck@nubis.rutgers.edu Also look for the VR Article List in the Text and Specs file area. This lists recent VR related magazine articles. Q7: WHERE DO I START LEARNING MORE ABOUT VR? Different people have different approaches, but I can tell you how *I* got started. I have been following Virtual Realty developments for about 2 years. Mostly this consisted of reading articles and keeping my eyes open for VR related news. Then I read VR - Through the New Looking Glass. This book really piqued my interest in the subject. Finally I got Virtual Reality Creations. Not only did it tell me about VR, but it let me play around with it on my existing PC using REND386 and gave me a taste for what VR really is and allowed me to build and explore my own virtual worlds. As such I recommend the those two books to start; the first is theory, the second is practice! From there I graduated to Garage VR. This book takes the hands on approach to building VR hardware. Finally I got The VR Construction Kit. It takes the subjects in Garage VR into more detail, with a heavy emphasis on getting your hands dirty. Q8: WHAT IS AVAILABLE IN THE AOL VR RESOURCE CENTER? The AOL VR Resource Center is a service of the AOL PC Graphics and Animation Forum. It provides information, discussion, files relating to Virtual Reality. >From the 'About This Area' Icon: The NEWS & INFO board contains press releases, book reviews, and other 'official' documents found at various places around the net. Look here for latest product releases, upcoming and ongoing shows and advice/suggestions from VR professionals. MESSAGE AREAS include discussions on REND386, Power Gloves, VR Entertainment Centers, VR Hardware and Software, Careers in VR, VR Investment, VR Shows, and more. The VR Libraries are broken down by topic or program: ___________________________________________ - VR Utilities - General applications and utilities - VR Presentations - Ready to run programs - VR Text - Documents on VR hardware and software, dissertations on the art,Source code, etc - REND386 - Virtual home of REND386 and VR-386, and AVRIL by Dave Stampe and Bernie Roehl including many .WLD files and utility programs for creating .PLG's. - Virtual Worlds - Our collection of virtual fantasy world images created primarily with VRLI's VISTAPRO and the Stone Soup Group's FRACTINT In Company Support you will find: Virtual Reality Labs - Offering support for VistaPro, Distant Suns, Mars Explorer and others Virtus Corp. - Offering support for its WalkThrough for Windows and VR for Windows. Q9: WHAT COMPANIES MAKE VR RELATED PRODUCTS? It would be impossible to list all of the companies that make VR related products in this document. There are two files called VRFIRM.TXT and VRFRM2.TXT in the VR Text and Specifications File Area that lists many companies. Also most of the books listed above have entire sections in them devoted to VR resources. Q10: WHERE DO I GO FOR MORE INFORMATION? Two of the best resources available for VR information are E-Mail and Newsgroups. With them, you can connect with other VR enthusiasts via the Internet. AOL has these capabilities right now! - For mailing lists just use the regular AOL E-Mail system; - For Newsgroups use Keyword: NEWSGROUPS and use 'Expert Add' to add new groups to your list; - For FTP sites use Keyword: FTP, select other Site, and type in the address; - For Gopher use Keyword GOPHER. For more info on utilizing Mailing Lists, FTP, Gopher and Newsgroups, use Keyword: INTERNET to get to the AOL Internet Center and RTFM! Here are a few Internet resources to get you started: MAILING LISTS: REND386 - Send mail to rend386-request@sunee.uwaterloo.ca Avril - To subscribe to the AVRIL announcement list, send mail to: majordomo@sunee.uwaterloo.ca containing the line: subscribe avril-announce - To subscribe to the AVRIL developers list, send mail to: majordomo@sunee.uwaterloo.ca containing the line: subscribe avril-developer Homebrew VR - This mailing list has risen from the ashes of the Glove List. It can be joined by sending mail to homebrew-vr-request@acm.uiuc.edu with a *subject* of SUBSCRIBE. BattleTech - to subscribe send email to n-choe@uchicago.edu or to hen8@midway.uchicago.edu. Virtual Worlds The Virtual Worlds list exists for the discussion of the creative and Intellectual possibilities of "Virtual Worlds." To subscribe, send mail to vworlds-list-request@netcom.com NEWSGROUPS: sci.virtual-worlds alt.3-d comp.graphics alt.cyberspace.tech FTP SITES: A great place to start is ftp.u.washington.edu in the public/virtual-worlds directory. Also try sunee.uwaterloo.ca (home of AVRIL) and psych.toronto.edu (home of VR-386). GOPHER: Start with Fun|Virtual Reality, or try Search All Gophers and use a keyword of Virtual Reality (that'll keep you busy for a while!) For more information on VR related resources on the Internet, check out VRU.ZIP (the VR Update List). Also check out SCIVWFAQ.ZIP. It is the FAQ for the sci.virtual-worlds newsgroup. It contains a lot of good info along with pointers to many more VR related resources on the Internet. Q10: WHAT ABOUT VIRTUAL REALITY ENTERTAINMENT CENTERS? There are many VR Centers popping up all over the U.S. They offer high-quality equipment and lots pf social interaction. One of the most popular is BattleTech by Virtual World Entertainment. It features a tank-like simulation where two teams of 4 people sit inside a 10 foot cab called a BattleMech and compete as giant robot warriors (Contact VWEDave@aol.com for more info). There are also CyberMind Centers in San Francsco, San Diego with more to come (Write to Jeff Sears at CyberSears@aol.com for more info), and Exhilarama in Crestwood, Missouri. Of course the drawbacks to this are the fact that you have get to one of these places, and they are relatively expensive. Other VR type installations include the VR Center at the Luxor Hotel in Las Vegas, Star Tours at Disneyland, and Back to the Future at Universal Studios. Q10.1 WHAT IS CYBERMIND? CyberMind is a location-based virtual reality entertainment center. Currently, CyberMind has centers in San Francisco and Kansas City and is scheduled to open shortly in Toronto and Atlanta. CyberMind centers are one of only 20 permanent sites in the U.S. featuring the Virtuality* entertainment systems, manufactured by Virtuality Entertainment Ltd. in England. CyberMind features two Virtuality* units: the stand-up and sit-down. The Virtuality* machines allow the general public to experience and learn about 3D virtual reality technology by playing imaginative, role playing games such as Dactyl Nightmare, Legend Quest, Flying Aces and ExoRex II. Virtuality Entertainment Ltd. has just unveiled their new 2000 series - PC 486 based machines which will be available at CyberMind in the near future. In addition to owning several location based centers, the company also offers rentals of the Virtuality* units and site rentals for special events and corporate parties. Q10.2 WHAT IS BATTLETECH? A fully themed, retail VR entertainment center. Virtual World uses pod-based simulators netowrked in groups of eight. Two software packages are available: BattleTech, a futuristic military game wherein players pilot their robot-like tank and battle each other in an environment with variable terrain, and Red Planet, which puts players in futuristic hovercraft races through the mining canals of Mars. Both packages offer completing freedom and interaction to all players. Battletech centers: Chicago, IL 16 pods Dallas, TX 24 pods Houston, TX 8 pods, different costs Las Vegas, NV 32 pods, 24hr San Diego, CA 24 pods Walnut Creek, CA 24 pods Tokyo- Dr. Jeekhan's 16 pods Tokyo- Nishiyogi 16 pods (?) Tokyo- Rongo Rongo 16 pods (?) Yokohama BTC 32 pods Coming soon: Framingham, MA (Boston area) Costa Mesa, CA Philadelphia, PA Atlanta, GA Pasadena, CA Kyoto, JP London, GB Montreal, CA Q11: WHAT ABOUT SO-CALLED VIRTUAL REALITY GAMES SUCH AS WOLFENSTEIN AND DOOM? The term 'Virtual Reality' is such a hot buzzword these days it seems like every that every new game that comes out is calling itself VR! While games like Doom do have some elements of VR such as a first-person perspective, they lack in one very important area: on-the-fly graphics. The graphics in Doom are actually 2-D bitmaps drawn from one of 4 to 8 views. As such you can only see these object from one these pre-defined views. To be true VR, you would be able to view the objects from any angle you wished. To decide what games are VR and what are not, remember the definition of VR: Immersive, interactive, and utilizing a first person viewpoint with real-time graphics. Q12: WHAT IS THE FUTURE OF VR? Where is VR headed? Who knows. As the cost of hardware goes down and processing power goes up we will see more and more VR applications at the home and level. Many feel that the current explosion of VR centers will serve to acclimate the public to Virtual Reality and it's uses. Also, with the advent of high speed networking, we may see a merge between Cyberspace and Virtual Reality; that is, instead of interacting with online services on the Internet via a keyboard and monitor (like you are doing now), we may don VR glasses, and interact with others in a Virtual World. IMHO - Until we see a truly affordable, full function HMD or 3-D glasses (whicj seems to be closer to a reality than ever, - or until a 'killer app' for VR comes out, VR will be a small segment of the computer market in terms of usage. How does it feel to be on the bleeding edge?? :-) For more insight on where the future of VR may go, check out the following fiction titles: Neuromancer - William Gibson Virtual Light - William Gibson Snow Crash - Neil Stephenson Or these movies: Brainstorm Lawnmower Man Or this Saturday morning cartoon: Reboot! (on ABC) - Truly awesome! Q13: WHAT ABOUT CYBERSEX? A few years ago Howard Reinhold wrote an article speculating about the possibility of Virtual Sex - that is, two people in two different locations in full VR regalia (ie, headsets, bodysuits, gloves, and some special 'attachments') have sex with each other in a virtual world. In his article, Reinhold coined the term 'Teledildonics' and rumors began to fly that there was actually a system that would allow you to do this! In reality, one of the most difficult areas to simulate in VR is the sense of touch , and since sex relies pretty heavily on tactile feedback, such a system is still a long way off. At this point the closest you can come to Cybersex is in some of the steamier chat rooms here on AOL! CONCLUSION Virtual Reality is a complex topic, covering a multitude of disciplines: Hardware, Software, Graphics, Engineering, Optics, Human/Computer Interfaces, Architecture, Psychology, Art and many others. To design Virtual Worlds allows you be a Virtual God, or City Planner, or Artist - The new generation of Renessaince Persons! It truly is a strange new world we are entering and hopefully the applications for which VR is put to use will serve to enhance and advance our understanding of the 'Real World'. If there are any questions that you think should be answered in this FAQ, please let me know!