What if a website would be completly in 3D? I made the experiment and created this test using the X3D modeling package called Vizx3D. Media Machines (Tony Parisi) acquired Vizx3D and released later an application called Studio3D based on X3D.
You will need the newest installer to play this experiment. Get it here. Vivaty has taken over from Media Machines and has finally developed a plugin that also works in FireFox.
Note: If you install the «SetupFluxPlayerStudio2-1.exe» from this package it will install the Flux Studio 2.1 and the Flux Player. Flux Studio is an interactive X3D authoring tool.
Warning: Although the Flux Player install will crash and report that FireFox is open and the plugin cannot be installed, the player will be installed. You can find it in the start menu under «Media Machines, Inc». I can confirm that it runs on Windows 7.
If you run it you can then open the URL: http://fullframestudios.ch/AREA/X3D/files/index_04.x3d to see the demo I did 8 years ago.
Be aware, this is completely experimental and I don’t take responsibility if it crashes your computer.
My basic idea was to transport the regular experience of browsing a website into 3D space plus add a little more excitement.
I wanted following basic points covered:
• regular html links
• ability to change the entire desing quickly
• sound
• movie
And those more advanced features:
• links that trigger fly to animations and back
• links that start and stop the main animation
I created this «Space Station», added links that trigger animations onto the big plates and added links that open web pages by clicking on the 3D text. The entire view can be rotated by 190 degrees and the website has a total different appearance. It’s lit blue from the front and lit red from the back. (blue pill – red pill, anybody 🙂 ). From the get-go the website is vivid because it’s animated. And it’s interactive, the animation can be stopped by pressing onto the green/blue; play/pause sign in the upper middle. In the center of the construct I placed a sound that pans around on your speaker or headphones when you move around in space and the pulsing blue or red waves in the middle is an avi used as a texture.
