The 3D Experience - Resistance Is Futile

3D interactive media is going mainstream. Moving rapidly from video games to machinima and ultimately to TV, movies and augmented reality, interactive 3D will be the norm in less than a decade. 2008 will mark a key turning point as virtual world citizens and You Tube producers get their hands on the next generation of machinima production tools. Leading Hollywood directors have seen this coming:

Imagine a movie in which the viewer is swept along by a narrative, following the action from place to place, but without the intervention of a camera. You can choose which character to watch in a scene, as if you’re an invisible witness standing there while a real event plays out. This is still years away, at a level of realism people would consider cinematic, but certainly not decades away.

I can imagine the dense fantasy worlds I like to create for movies having an equal or greater life in a world of interactive play, authored by others, in a partnership. Of course, add massive multiplayer capability to this, and people will never leave their homes.

Beyond 3D: James Cameron in BusinessWeek

“Do you still use a typewriter?” he asks a TIME movie critic. “Do you go to a library and consult books for most of your research? Is your story set in type, letter by letter? No. Your business takes advantage of technological advances. Why shouldn’t my business?”

Google+YouTube=Handwriting of the Wall of the Web: George Lucas in Time Magazine

Beowulf is currently making a strong showing now, James Cameron’s Avatar movie is slated for 2009(see also More Signs of Convergence: Avatar - the Movie ) and there are rumors that The Hobbit will be a 3D production due in 2010. More productions are in the pipeline and theaters are gearing up:

• CNN: Movies in 3D: into the next dimension
• 3D Movies Rise Again
• Let’s Talk 3D Movies
• Time for the Digital Age

Given the level of realism being delivered by Second Life’s new Windlight viewer and improvements in avatar robotics, machinima is poised to explode. Some relevant links:

Machinima and what might be

Why Machinima Is Good For Hollywood

BBC: Machinima waits to go mainstream

Croquetlandia

Machinima For Dummies (For Dummies (Computer/Tech))

3D Game-Based Filmmaking: The Art of Machinima (with CD-ROM)