But they don't have the computational horsepower to do global
illumniation in real time. Even SGI ONYX workstations don't do that
yet, and that's a few $100K right there. The physically-based stuff
is really intense. It's a few orders of magnitude more
computationally intensive than what current super duper computers can
do. Thus it'll be 10 years before you have it on a PC card....
Anyways this is IMHO, and I'll refrain from commenting further.
>Now, having primed the canvas for a discussion of the _artistic_
>solutions, would anyone care to conjecture on how to make "good"
>commercial VR art?
The only way to make good 'commercial' VR art is to drop that stupid notion
of 'commercial'. Sorry, but i just can't see how 'commercial' art today will
survive in a new medium like VR.
I don't agree here; I think we should try to see. We might look at
the history of TV advertizement, as it was translated from radio and
print ads. It's only fairly recently that TV ads have gotten as slick
as they are today.
Today's commercial art generally degrades
the audience it's directed at by advancing the lowest common denominator.
There are the occasional exceptions. I have always been more
impressed by the tenor of British advertizments than ones in the USA,
for instance. As a culture, the Brits seem to be much more willing to
appeal to someone's intelligence in an advertizment. I'm tempted to
think that it's only American advertizers that see the masses as only
so much dumb cattle, although I could be wrong. And even in American
advertizment, there are occasional bright spots.
The audience likewise is captive or passive. In a medium that is interactive
(and I would argue that VR demands interactivity) who's going to participate
in a degrading advertisement?
Now that's a question of Orwellian import. Let's forget the standard
answers of "if they like the VR enough, they'll put up with a few
ads." Let's go beyond that, into a more sinister realm.
Psychologically speaking, can a mass market audience actually be
lured, trained, and socially conditioned to participate in degrading
VR experiences, despite their complete freedom to do otherwise?
Market saturation of an image isn't going to
be possible either- with millions of people going to millions of different
places in VR or on the net how can it be done?
People might try to close a lot of those interconnecting doors, or try
to make their own particular cul-de-sac very popular.
The best commercial
advertising these days are the most memorable (i.e. how do you stick out and
repeat it ad infinitum) in VR the best 'commercial' art is going to be most
alluring or enticing and probably subtle.
Hmm. I guess it's hard to talk about the best "commercial" VR art, since
we don't yet have many exampes of "regular" VR art to draw from.
Also this is going to be a world
of extremely directed niche advertising- the age of the lowest common
denominator will have to fade out because it won't be possible unless we
force commercial breaks during internet sessions (any takers for that kind
of service?)
If cable and broadcasting is any indication, it really depends on how
many providers are involved. In TV-land there really aren't too many
choices, even with cable. Thus "no ads" is a value-added service that
costs more money, consumers always vote with their $$$$.
Now if economically speaking hundreds of small VR service providers
can survive in the marketplace, then consumers will really get a
choice, and "no ads" may indeed become so common that ad-based
approaches won't work. The question is how to ensure their survival.
What's to stop a Microsoft or an MCI from "cyborg-ing" them, and
creating a more monolithic playing field?
Throw out all of the old concepts regarding advertising and
commercial art- it won't translate.
I'm afraid that it will - haltingly, stumblingly, but it will. There
are already many magazines out about how to advertize on the net,
which criticize the mistakes of naively going from old ad styles to
new ones. No one is going to read a straight ad copy when they can
choose not to, after all. But the advertizers are devising new
techniques to get attention all the time. They talk about building
"virtual communities," "informational services," or more ruthless
things like buyouts of other Internet service providers. The ad world
is putting its collective brainpower into these new media ventures,
and we might do well to try to stay one step ahead of them.