Best to clearify here. What I meant was that the use of controlled viewer
(or camera) motion can be an effective tool as opposed to give to user
total freedom to roam wherever s/he wants. This is especially true for
systems with limited or crude controls, like mice. Here, a well planed
motion path will be distinctly different from the users own motion, and
therfore perhaps more effective. The transition from free movent to
controlled could be 'explained' by having something or one grabing you,
draging you through a motion.
> [Stopped to read the new mail that arrived as I am composing this.
>Caspersen is, in part, predicting my response, so I'll move on.]
> The one problem Caspersen sees is the difficulty in creating "new"
>visual elements in VR. A greater danger is of not taking full advantage
>of this possibility to create. Mediocrity and laziness are lurking
>threats. However, user expectations may very well weed out the
>incompentent and the haphazard. Maybe.
> Thanks for the postings.
> David-Michael Allen
The biggest 'problem' seems to me to be that we have to go through some
pretty confusing times before some kind of concensus is made. As for not
taking advantage of the possiblities, I'm not too worried. Someone will
always stretch limits. But remembering the look of what the first DTP
system was used for, the exploration might not be an altogether pretty
sight.
I believe that good ideas and techniques will spread meme-like through .net
society as 3d browsers becomes the next thing 'everybody got to have'.
Weeding out the 'incompetent' might be difficult if we don't agree on what
_is_ incompetent. Taste=8A tricky.
-----------------------------------------
Torbjoern Caspersen casper@due.unit.no
http://www.stud.unit.no/~casper/
Student of Architecture
at the Norwegian faculty of technology, NTH, Trondheim.