TechCrunch has uncovered a video from LivePlace.com demonstrating a 3D virtual world, City Space, with incredible graphics. From the video, the graphics seem more comparable with something from Hollywood than virtual worlds thus far.
Perhaps even more significant, the video reveals that the world is rendered with OTOY, a technology which enables 3D rendering to happen in the cloud. This is important because it means that the graphics of a virtual world are not dependent on the local hardware, but are rendered on a remote server. Less powerful computers and even devices such as mobile phones would, in theory, be able to enjoy 3D experiences of unprecedented quality. Another advantage of OTOY is that it raises the prospect of truly 3D virtual worlds which do not require any special plugin or client, since the rendering is not happening locally. We've talked previously about how crucial it is that plugin-free virtual worlds are created if the 3D metaverse is to reach the mainstream.
There are some catches, however. No-one was supposed to find this video (the original was removed when TechCrunch posted, although not before they had a copy), so City Space could still be vapourware. Secondly, there are some doubts as to whether the 3D graphics in the trailer are authentic, since they are identical to the work of an artist- at any rate, it does not appear that they were created on the fly, perhaps suggesting that OTOY isn't fully working yet. Finally, OTOY might not be reliant on graphics hardware, but it does presumably need a very fast internet connection to achieve a good rate of frames per second. It isn't clear how fast it would need to be, but the requirement may put OTOY out of reach of many consumers for some time to come, despite the ever-increasing speeds of broadband. Nevertheless, there is a good chance that something could come of City Space; the whois shows that the domain LivePlace.com is owned by Brad Greenspan, a co-founder of MySpace. It's clear that this is a serious venture.
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