Links to matters arising during VRA meetings.

You will find here, a copy of the New Scientist news item on direct brain-connection that I emailed out to those of you who are on the VRA mailing list.

A list of the VNet multi-user virtual worlds is kept at Jeff Sonstein's site.

Alan Taylor's International Space Station is an excellent example of what can be acheived with just a text editor -- he didn't use a 3D modeller; just the lovely text editor TextPad

OnLive! Traveller has a few virtual worlds which are famous in VR circles. You can talk with the other people you meet there via your microphone and hear them on your speakers.

Active Worlds is the oldest and still the most popular set of virtual worlds on the internet. You need a special program to participate, though it is very small considering its speed and capabilities. This year's show Avatars98 was held there, and WOW! was it great! See some pictures of the conference at the Avatars98 home page and at the home page of an on-the-ball, snap-happy person named Daphne (her site is on Geocities and contains a lot of large pics so be prepared for slow downloads).

Oz Virtual is sadly now defunct as a company making fantastically innovative virtual worlds, browsers, and avatars. They have moved into developing streaming technology. (I haven't checked that address so it might not be current - I shall update it when I have more info.)

The list of working groups associated with the vrml effort.

Tom Barbalet, in Canberra, Australia, has developed Nervana - a virtual world which is an island populated with apes. These apes exhibit some aspects of artificial life and artificial intelligence.

LParser - lets you "grow" plants or animals using L-System genetic algorithms (mutation allowed too)

Flock Applet: Boids in Java - Craig Reynolds, the guy who made the first boids. He was one of the pioneers of the exciting field of artificial life. He came up with the simple flocking algorithms that govern the behaviour of his boids by watching birds. His work has since been applied to any number of other creations: the stampeding wildebeest in the Disney animation The Lion King; the running flock of dinosaurs in Jurassic Park; studies on the schooling behaviour of fish...

Most 3D modeling programs will export or save objects as VRML. If it is VRML 2.0 then you are laughing, but if it is VRML 1.0 then don't worry -- if you have the brilliant 3D browser CosmoPlayer then you will find you also have the tool vrml1to2. I am not sure if it still comes with new versions of CosmoPlayer but if you don't have it you may still get it from here (I haven't rechecked this address recently -- if you need it and have problems getting vrml1to2 contact me)

Here is a simple HUD (Heads Up Display) (by Scott Hackett <shackett@mindspring.com>)
And here is a slightly more complex one which does something useful. (by Bob Crispen <crispen@hiwaay.net>, after the simple HUD by Chris Fouts <fouts@gameover.atlanta.sgi.com>, modified by Vladimir Bulatov <bulatov@dots.physics.orst.edu>).