After having done a video tour showing off the Mellanium Apartment, I wanted to do something similar with the Lenovo eLounge. I’d previously reviewed the eLounge but at the time I didn’t realise I could capture the video content from it. Normally the quality is unacceptable when capturing from a browser, but the web.alive technology works a treat.
Popularity: 29% [?]
Tags: eLounge, lenovo, machinima, mellanium, nortel, web.alive
Recently I reviewed Nortel’s web.alive beta, Lenovo’s elounge. web.alive, which is a 3d browser based virtual environment using the Unreal 2.5 engine. As a result of my review I was contacted by the guys at Mellanium who are also using the Unreal 2.5 engine. They’ve developed a way to import Autocad models straight into the Unreal environment. So effectively you can use the same computer models inworld as you use on the production line, whether it be for architecture or industry. By the way, this also reduces one of the barriers against delivering real world goods from a virtual world.
Mellanium have also been working with the web.alive guys and the video above shows me wandering around their proof of concept – an apartment block. It was filmed entirely within the web.alive enviroment – yes, that means it was shot using my browser and FRAPs. FRAPs isn’t supposed to be able to do that but it can with web.alive.
I found it a little laggy and I tended to spurt forward every now and again, but in general it was a pleasant experience. The Apartment model is fantastic with great textures. It really heralds a potential new yardstick for modelling in virtual worlds. Especially given that it only took 15minutes to import it in world. Truly amazing stuff.
Enjoy the video. Apologies for the ‘almost subliminal’ title. Both blip and youtube gobbled it during conversion.
Popularity: 30% [?]
Tags: apartment, autocad, eLounge, lenovo, machinima, mellanium, proof of concept, web.alive
Over the last few years business has shown a great interest in using virtual worlds for enterprise. Everything from seminars and conferences to virtual trade shows and retail. However, after an initial flurry of activity many soon abandon them. For some the required learning curve is too high to be an effective tool. For others the return on investment is not high enough. Whatever the reasons, no virtual environment seems to have really delivered what enterprise needs for its mass adoption. That may be about to change.
Popularity: 64% [?]
Tags: conferences, conventions, eLounge, lenovo, nortel, retail, seminars, unreal engine, virtual trade shows, web.alive