3pointD.com

Jim Rossignol over at Gamasutra reports on Uni-Verse, a new “distributed interactive audi-visual virtual reality system.” I’ve yet to delve very deeply into it, but it sounds like a virtual world in which collaborative design is possible (one of the selling points of Second Life), but where, unlike in SL, you can work in any 3D design software you like. How does Uni-Verse accomplish this? By adding a network layer that acts as a communications protocol for 3D data. I’ve italicized that idea because if it works (and catches on), the implications could be significant, giving users the capability to port their virtual creations between worlds and perhaps tieing all these 3D environments together just as the Internet’s protocols tie Web pages and other aspects of the net into a common system. One possible drawback: Uni-Verse is open-source, but it seems that its licenses cover only “home, public and personal use” at the moment. That will have to expand to commercial uses eventually, if the system is ever to gain real adoption. In any case, I’m very interested to check this out, and to hear what kinds of experience others have had with Uni-Verse. [Via qDot at MMOrgy.com. <– NSFW]