Animation Science Develops Web VR Engine.

Despite the repeated failure of much hyped virtual reality (VR) applications and virtual reality modeling language (VRML) to take off commercially, another company is dipping its toes into the chill waters of online VR. Animation Science Corp has announced a '3D Web Interaction Engine' for developing of immersive 3D environments on the web, peopled with avatars - cartoon 'characters' that behave in a realistic manner. The Sunnyvale, California-based company will use elements of its Outburst particle animation system - which models the behavior of natural elements - and Rampage crowd scene animation tool in the new engine. The software has been developed using Sun Microsystems Inc Java 3D application programming interfaces. Animation Sciences sees the software being used in e-commerce applications, online games, travel guides and net chat rooms. The engine will demonstrated at the JavaOne event in San Francisco in June, where large groups of avatars will be shown navigating a 3D environment, avoiding collisions and interacting with one another. Previous attempts at delivering a viable VR environment have been hampered by the computing power needed to represent a natural-looking 3D 'world' and the download times for web pages using VR. Animation Sciences claims that its rule-based software will work in real-time, even with low-speed modems. The company started modeling natural phenomenon such as wind, rain and snow and translating these into code in 1997, usually working on film special effects projects. Earlier this year, Sony Corp said it would be using the firm's applications as part of middleware architecture for the new version of its Playstation console.