Korgscrew
Group: Super Admins
Posts: 3511
Joined: Dec. 1999 |
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Posted: Mar. 14 2002, 19:53 |
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Some of these elements of Music VR mentioned are quite interesting to me...they remind me of something...
A little while ago, while the greater part of Music VR was still in the planning stages, Mike was looking for input from us out in net land, and a certain someone mentioned Peter Gabriel's multimedia creation EVE (standing for Evolutionary Virtual Environment, as well as being a reference to the Eve of biblical fame). It may be coincidence, but EVE featured a very similar idea to that of fertilising the desert. As the player progressed, the environment went from oozing mudflats to idyllic woodland. But, there was also a chance for things to go wrong, and the landscape to become poisoned... There were some brilliant musical toys in EVE as well - objects could be collected during the journey which, when be brought together in one of the buildings, would trigger off little bits of music (some things would give a background loop, others a little sample) which could be used to build up a complete composition, of sorts. EVE had many more facets to it, which may well make it unique to this day, though I couldn't say for sure.
EVE was released in 1996, and still looks good to me today. It was based on 2D technologies, like Quicktime VR, which while not as advanced as realtime 3D, allowed the creation of a photo-realistic environment which still gave the player the ability to look around and interact with objects.
I think that it'll be interesting to look at Music VR in 5-10 years time and see how people feel it holds up. Saying that may be missing the point, though. I suspect that Music VR's goal is mainly to just bring Mike's ideas into some kind of tangible form, rather than creating a product which can be held up against other things on the market place - what matters to him is not that it's better or worse than X product, or whether it will still be a valid object X years down the road, but that it is his, that he's done it and that he's enjoyed the experience of creating it and gained something from it. It's as much a device to explore his own ideas as it is anything else (or perhaps more so). To know that others are gaining something from it would, of course, make it all the more worthwhile. That's all speculation on my part, of course - I may have things completely wrong...I suppose only one person knows for sure...
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