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Worlds.com, or Worlds Chat is an online chat program launched by Worlds Inc in April 1995. [1] Worlds.com was the first program made available for the general public to download from Worlds Inc's website for free. [2]
Worlds.com is a virtual world platform that offers users a selection of pre-existing 3D avatars to serve as their representation within the virtual environment. The gallery of avatars is presented from a first-person perspective. Upon selecting an avatar, the user is placed within the central hub of a virtual space station, where they can interact with other online users who are also represented by avatars.
Within the virtual space station, users can navigate between platforms through sliding doors and hallways. Each platform is occupied by a group of users with whom the user can interact. The platform interface provides several sections, including software notifications, a 3D interface similar to the video game Doom , a chat message window, and a space station map indicating the user's current location.
Assembled by Dave Marvit (VP of Production), the original team that constructed Worlds Chat consisted of Andrea Gallagher (producer), Dave Leahy, Syed Asif Hassan, and Bo Adler (development), and Jeff "Scamper" Robinson and Helen Cho (UI and graphics). The original client/server protocol for the multi-user environment was developed by Mitra Ardron, Bo Adler, Judy Challinger, and Dave Leahy (PTO US6219045). [3] Contributors to the project included David Tolley (music), Wolf Schmidt (documentation), John Navitsky and Scott Benson (operations), Naggi Asmar (quality assurance), and others.
The first release of VRML, a standard for defining virtual worlds, was less than six months old when Worlds.com was released, and thus still lacking in any best practices to use. Additionally, the speed of dial-up Internet connections placed limitations on the amount of information that could be transmitted to and from the Worlds Inc. servers. An increasing number of users alongside the expanding virtual world increased these pressures. Unlike other immersive environments of its day, it worked on lines as slow as 9600 baud.
In 2011, Tamiko Thiel, the creative director and producer at Worlds Inc. from 1994 to 1996, wrote an article entitled "Cyber-Animism and Augmented Dreams" describing the history of virtual worlds, in which she wrote: "In the virtual worlds and avatar communities in the mid 1990s, we thought we all would start parallel, virtual, online existences in which we could create ourselves anew and realize our personal dream worlds. The technology however was too awkward, the processors and the Internet connections too slow, and the user base for our worlds never extended beyond a small dedicated community. By 2002, the virtual communities of the first generation all went bankrupt or looked for other ways to earn money." [4]
VRML is a standard file format for representing 3-dimensional (3D) interactive vector graphics, designed particularly with the World Wide Web in mind. It has been superseded by X3D.
Second Life is an online multimedia platform that allows people to create an avatar for themselves and then interact with other users and user-created content within a multi-user online virtual world. Developed and owned by the San Francisco–based firm Linden Lab and launched on June 23, 2003, it saw rapid growth for some years and in 2013 it had approximately one million regular users. Growth eventually stabilized, and by the end of 2017 the active user count had declined to "between 800,000 and 900,000". In many ways, Second Life is similar to massively multiplayer online role-playing games; nevertheless, Linden Lab is emphatic that their creation is not a game: "There is no manufactured conflict, no set objective."
Adobe Atmosphere was a software platform for interacting with 3D computer graphics. 3D models created with the commercial program could be explored socially using a browser plugin available free of charge. Atmosphere was originally developed by Attitude Software as 3D Anarchy and was later bought by Adobe Systems. The product spent the majority of its lifetime in beta testing. Adobe released the last version of Atmosphere, version 1.0 build 216, in February 2004, then discontinued the software in December that year.
A virtual world is a computer-simulated environment which may be populated by many users who can create a personal avatar, and simultaneously and independently explore the virtual world, participate in its activities and communicate with others. These avatars can be textual, graphical representations, or live video avatars with auditory and touch sensations. Virtual worlds are closely related to mirror worlds.
Active Worlds is an online virtual world, developed by ActiveWorlds Inc., a company based in Newburyport, Massachusetts, and launched on June 28, 1995. Users assign themselves a name, log into the Active Worlds universe, and explore 3D virtual worlds and environments that others have built. ActiveWorlds allows users to own worlds and universes, and develop custom 3D content. The browser has web browsing capabilities, as well as voice chat, and basic instant messaging features.
Habitat is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) developed by LucasArts. It is the first attempt at a large-scale commercial virtual community that was graphic based. Initially created in 1985 by Randy Farmer, Chip Morningstar, Aric Wilmunder and Janet Hunter the game was made available as a beta test in 1986 by Quantum Link, an online service for the Commodore 64 computer and the corporate progenitor to AOL. Both Farmer and Morningstar were given a First Penguin Award at the 2001 Game Developers Choice Awards for their innovative work on Habitat. As a graphical MUD it is considered a forerunner of modern MMORPGs unlike other online communities of the time. Habitat had a GUI and large user base of consumer-oriented users, and those elements in particular have made Habitat a much-cited project and acknowledged benchmark for the design of today's online communities that incorporate accelerated 3D computer graphics and immersive elements into their environments.
Open Wonderland is an open-source toolkit written in Java for creating collaborative 3D virtual worlds. Within those worlds, users can communicate with high-fidelity, immersive audio, share live desktop applications and documents and conduct real business. Open Wonderland is completely extensible; developers and graphic artists can extend its functionality to create entirely new worlds including adding new features to existing worlds.
Seamless3d is an open-source 3D modeling software available under the MIT license.
Ai Space is a Japanese virtual 3D massively multiplayer online social game (MMOSG) developed by several companies that formed the Ai Space Production Committee which was launched on October 15, 2008 for Windows PCs, despite an earlier announcement of a Q3 2008 release. Beta testing commenced between mid-September and mid-October 2008. Primary development was handled by Headlock, and Dwango provided the world's infrastructure and Internet service. Dwango's subsidiary Niwango tied in the Nico Nico Anime Channel from the Nico Nico Douga video sharing website which provided users the opportunity to upload gameplay sequences online. The game closed down on June 30, 2011.
Cyberformance refers to live theatrical performances in which remote participants are enabled to work together in real time through the medium of the internet, employing technologies such as chat applications or purpose-built, multiuser, real-time collaborative software. Cyberformance is also known as online performance, networked performance, telematic performance, and digital theatre; there is as yet no consensus on which term should be preferred, but cyberformance has the advantage of compactness. For example, it is commonly employed by users of the UpStage platform to designate a special type of Performance art activity taking place in a cyber-artistic environment.
CyberTown (CT) was an online virtual world. There were places available either through a 2D or 3D chat environment. Users were able to have jobs within the community, earning virtual money called CCs (CityCash) that could be used to buy 3D homes and items. Each user was allowed a free 2D home and could locate it within any of a number of colonies subdivided into neighborhoods and blocks. The cost was $5.00 per month or $49.99 a year.
Open Cobalt is a free and open-source software platform for constructing, accessing, and sharing virtual worlds both on local area networks or across the Internet, with no need for centralized servers.
Tony Parisi, one of the early pioneers in virtual reality and the metaverse, is an entrepreneur, inventor and developer of 3D computer software. The co-creator of Virtual Reality Modeling Language (VRML), he has written books and papers on the future of technology. He works on WebGL and WebVR and has written two books on the former, and an introductory book on virtual reality programming. He is the chief strategy officer at Lamina1. Parisi is also a musician, composer and producer working on multiple projects.
Blaxxun Interactive, originally named "Black Sun Interactive", was one of the first companies to develop a 3D community platform designed for the Internet using VRML and highly scalable multi-user server environments.
Virtual worlds are playing an increasingly important role in education, especially in language learning. By March 2007 it was estimated that over 200 universities or academic institutions were involved in Second Life. Joe Miller, Linden Lab Vice President of Platform and Technology Development, claimed in 2009 that "Language learning is the most common education-based activity in Second Life". Many mainstream language institutes and private language schools are now using 3D virtual environments to support language learning.
OZ Virtual was a 3D world viewer created by OZ Interactive that enabled real-time collaboration communications in shared spaces on the Internet with a strong focus on creative content production.
The virtual world framework (VWF) is a means to connect robust 3D, immersive, entities with other entities, virtual worlds, content and users via web browsers. It provides the ability for client-server programs to be delivered in a lightweight manner via web browsers, and provides synchronization for multiple users to interact with common objects and environments. For example, using VWF, a developer can take video lesson plans, component objects and avatars and successfully insert them into an existing virtual or created landscape, interacting with the native objects and users via a VWF interface.
Tamiko Thiel is an American artist, known for her digital art. Her work often explores "the interplay of place, space, the body and cultural identity," and uses augmented reality (AR) as her platform. Thiel is based in Munich, Germany.
Starbright World was an online community for children with chronic illnesses established in 1995. Initially conceived as a 3D virtual world for use in hospitals, it was developed by Worlds Inc. for the Starbright Foundation. The 3D world―credited as one of the first applications of virtual reality in medicine―operated until 1997, when it was shut down due to technical issues. In 1998, it was replaced with a private social network, which is now defunct. Worlds Inc. would later launch lawsuits against several massively multiplayer online game companies, claiming that they held the rights to the concept of multiplayer virtual worlds based on patents obtained in relation to Starbright World.
SAPARi (さぱり) was an online 3-D virtual world service developed in Java and run by Sony. Users could speak to one another and join chat lobbies by using a dedicated server browser called the Community Place Browser. Upon selecting a server, users would appear in a 3-D virtual world as an avatar in the form of a human or an animal. The service's name is a shortening of the name Sampo Park Relaxation. From 1997 to 2001, the service came pre-installed on Sony's VAIO series of computers. The official SAPARi service was discontinued on January 31, 2003.
