ABSTRACT
This comment is of particular interest in the context of this book since its target audience is game developers. According to Mark Pesce, game developers should have been all over VRML and creating content for it. Indeed, content is what makes a medium successful, and games represent a significant amount of 3D interactive content, although not all games require 3D graphics. Game developers are important because they are recognized for pushing the limits of the technology in order to provide the best possible user experience. Game technology needs to empower artists and designers with tools to express their creativity and enable nonlinear interactive storytelling that can address a good-sized audience and build a business case for 3D on the web. Game developers do not care if a technology is recognized by ISO as a standard. They are more interested in the availability of tools they can take immediate advantage of, and they require full control and adaptability of the technology they use, for the
creation of a game is an iterative process where requirements are discovered as the game development progresses. The main issue game developers seem to have with VMRL/X3D is its core foundation. The Open Inventor scene graph structure (see Figure 13.1) is used to both store the 3D data as well as define its behavior and interaction with the user, dictating a specific run-time design that would constrict game engines. The objectives of Open Inventor, which have been followed closely in the design of VRML/X3D, are well described in the Siggraph 1992 paper that introduced it:
■ Object representation. Graphical data should be stored as editable objects and not just as collections of the drawing primitives used to represent them. That is, applications should be able to specify what it is and not have to worry about how to draw it.
