Google’s O3D and WebGL the next wave for virtual worlds?

by justingibbs on November 17, 2009

Virtual worlds seem to be waning. They rarely pop up in the news or in discussion. The last Engage! Expo! only a few hundred people in attendance and most of them were speakers. It’s the end of Virtual Worlds 1.0, Second Life won by default. That of course lets us dream of what’s to come with Virtual Worlds 2.0. It’s my guess that Virtual Worlds 2.0 will be built on the back of 3D in the browser - Google’s O3D and WebGL.

The more I learn about O3D and WebGL the more I’m impressed. But there are some constraints with these technologies – issues with latency, limited bandwidth, and performance limitations of running inside the browser. Stefano Buliani points out, the limitations will make intense video games a challenge.

This is all well and good when the interaction is limited to a few chat messages or coordinates of the mouse pointer on the screen, but multiplayer videogames have to shift a massive amount of data every second. When you play Gran Turismo online the position, speed and state of each player’s car must e synched across all the participants as often as possible. Add chat/voice data to that and you’ll soon realise that 30 players for one game calling your server at the same time to get and post data is just not manageable. Furthermore to ensure the timely delivery of the data to each client you are much better off pushing the data to the client rather than relying on it to call your server.

When I was playing a Infinite Journey you can’t help but notice the periodic lag that you see all the time browsing the Web, but this was in the middle of a jump. However virtual worlds have very different requirements than intense video games. Wagner James Au already commented on the potential for Google’s O3D and WebGL to support virtual worlds and highlighted that exact point.

Virtual worlds are hardly just about graphics, however; at least as important are communication channels between avatars and their groups, both asynchronously and in real time.

The Web started in a similar manner and look where it is today. From constraints comes creativity. It would seem that the video game industry is following a similar path toward creativity, moving away from the age old drive for better graphics. Just look at what the Wii has done with an old processor. O3D and WebGL might make intense video games a challenge but these technologies should be a boom for virtual worlds 2.0.

Related posts:

  1. Why am I excited for O3D and WebGL
  2. The end of Virtual Worlds 1.0, now onto 2.0
  3. 3D isn’t good for communication

Tagged as: O3D, WebGL

  • I think it's probably easier to build a social world around a game rather than a game around a social world.

    I'm not sure the Wii has anything to do with a drive from better graphics, as xBox 360 +Playstation3 sales combined more than double the Wii's sales. But Wii does offer off innovative controllers, family-friendly fun, and lower prices (which could be economy-related).

    You're right, though, that innovation needs to be done. The James Cameron movie Avatar may look fantastic, but if it's just Dances with Wolves on a foreign planet, then why go see it?

    Any thoughts on commercial engines such as Torque3 or Unity? Both have a browser plug-in and a likely a more-robust 3D engine.
  • I've had limited exposure to Torque3 and Unity. I really liked what I saw with Unity but it's my belief that they will be eclipsed by 3D in the browser - not because it's better but because of market dynamics. True you can't do the high end stuff with O3D but I think the developer community will more than make up for that with creativity, especially seeing how easy it will be to create mashups with other Internet services.

    Add to that:
    * Difficulty of getting people to download and install plug-ins
    * The mass of Google getting behind O3D and WebGL
    * Growth of netbooks and mobile devices
    * O3D and WebGL are open source and accessible to novice programmers
  • The problem with WebGL is that it relies entirely on javascript to do the heavylifting maths behind the scene. Whereas O3D is a browser plugin written in C++ - this makes things a lot speedier.

    Google could push the envelope a bit and make O3D a full directx-style library with integrated input, networking and media support.

    Thanks for mentioning my post here. I had also written a more technical article exploring the differences between the two here: http://sapessi.com/2009/10/webgl-and-o3d/
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