Second Life vs. Unreal 2004
MellaniuM is a small company that’s representative of a few hundred unsung hero companies of the metaverse, in my opinion. They fill a niche with virtual worlds technology in a way that can have a serious return on investment.
In their case, they create renderings of real-world constructions. You can walk around them, see how they work, and get a feel for what it would be like in physical space. I don’t have to tell you what the implications of that are for engineers, architects, designers, and a host of other professional sectors. They caused a big stir awhile back with a rendering of a furnace - engineers in the metallurgy sector were extremely grateful to be able to see from the inside how everything was supposed to fit together!
Right now they’re actively pursuing virtual renderings of classic architecture, which perhaps isn’t anything new. What I found interesting today, however, is the latest video that featured renderings first in Second Life, and then in the old 2004 Unreal engine. Check it out:
MELLANIUM:ARCHAEOLOGY - Flythroughs of the Theatre of Pompey and the Titanic Environments as created in Second Life and Mellanium’s “Bridge from CAD to UNREAL”
You know, for fans of Second Life this has to be a bit depressing. With the constant push for updates to the Second Life system, years later the whole thing still can’t handle any kind of draw distance and isn’t nearly as smooth as something from way back in 2004. I asked Joe Rigby of MellaniuM about it, and he said that the Unreal installation was rendering that way because it was all on the hard drive.
Technical details aside, something becomes clear here: Second Life has limits to what you can do with it. Second Life’s fanbase does it a massive disservice by trying to push it as the be-all end-all of platforms, and when it fails (because how can one platform really do everything?) the press has a field day.
I guess I was a bit misleading with the title: it’s not about this vs. that, it’s about using the right tools for the right application.
Of course, you already knew that. That’s partially why we’re holding the vBusiness Expo in Forterra’s OLIVE this time around, and why as a company Clever Zebra is officially platform agnostic. MellaniuM’s video, however, is a really clear illustration of why that is, and what the possibilities are elsewhere.
July 3rd, 2008 at 1:30 pm
The technique which you are seeing in Second Life is known as Level of Detail (LOD) which is common to a lot of 3D engines including Unreal. Essentially, the further the camera gets from a model the less detailed the mesh. You can make it gradual and have multiple levels or more obvious and have fewer levels. Second Life has it set to drop off rapidly.
I think you will find this video also interesting. It’s a stunning recreation of the Amsterdam Crystal Palace that burned down in 1929. The virtual world is running inside a Web browser. (the slight blurriness is due to YouTube compression of the video) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=roU_UBMwK8Y
Here are some still images: http://www.pelicancrossing.com/GalleryCrystalPalace.htm
July 3rd, 2008 at 1:31 pm
more examples are http://www.koinup.com/Tele3dworld/works/coolest/
July 3rd, 2008 at 2:22 pm
Ken - thanks for that! I really liked the Temple of Anubis - I can see spending a lot of time touring virtual renditions of places I’d never have the time to travel to.
Clive - great video, that must have been a lot of work!
July 3rd, 2008 at 3:04 pm
The person who created it has been working on it for a while as a hobby, I’m not sure how long it took him. There’s lots of interactivity, you can click on the images in the art gallery section, etc. I think it’s just a great example of what can be done with virtual world technology which in this case was Blink 3D. Of course not everyone wants virtual heritage, but the point here is to show the complexity and detail that can be rendered inside a Web browser.
July 3rd, 2008 at 4:31 pm
The beauty of UNREAL is that it has pedigree; developed from the early FPS and now powering the latest DirectX 10 games using multi-coreCPU/GPU/Physics/sound processors. Why has it not been utilized more in the serious games arena? Is there a problem; or is it just web browser fanaticism. It just seem’s spending megabucks on creating something that has already been created (like a the wheel) is not a sensible use of scarce resources or human en devour.
July 3rd, 2008 at 11:14 pm
Choosing the right graphics engine is key to a lot of things when it comes to virtual worlds and serious games. Last time I checked the Unreal Engine had some fairly hefty license costs. As we don’t like wasting money either, we decided to use the Ogre rendering engine for Blink 3D. I think you’ll agree that it does a wonderful job. I think that’s why Multiverse and RealExtend have also decided to use Ogre. The Ogre engine is also open source and therefore free. It’s not there yet, but I would say that the Ogre engine is fast becoming the defacto standard for virtual worlds. That means that assets created in Multivers can be used in RealExtend and Blink 3D and vice versa. This is a step towards the hole grail of interoperability between virtual worlds.
Also, like Unreal, Blink 3D uses NVIDIA PhysX for physics and OpenAL for audio.
July 3rd, 2008 at 11:17 pm
Ah, yes, that’s the (w)hole grail and nothing but the grail. Obviously I meant holy grail!!
July 4th, 2008 at 1:12 am
Hefty license costs? Yes to develop Games per say (FPS’s) it is true; but for non-games (serious games) seat license’s are reasonable. Documentation/tutorials are widely available; editors, etc., free with games. why use alpha engines in modern shells. Selling the sizzle when the sausage is a 1902 engine is still a banger in any language.
July 4th, 2008 at 2:23 pm
I would certainly not call Ogre an alpha engine, I think you need to do a little more research here. The Ogre engine is used in far more projects than the Unreal engine and is technically comparative. It is also not a question of which engine is better but which virtual worlds platform is better. Essentially what is the value add?
Anyway, we can go on like this for ever and not settle this. They are both good engines and both have good points and bad points. You asked the question why the Unreal engine was not used more for serious games, I think I gave a couple of reasons and pointed out that the Ogre engine is gaining traction with virtual worlds platforms.
So I think it’s a question of stand by your virtual worlds platform and may the best engine win!
July 4th, 2008 at 5:15 pm
Sorry for the confusion; the title was SL vs UT2004; generally a wheel is clunky if the amount of polys are reduced and noticeable on the titanic sim. video. I have no experience with Ogre. Yes may the best engine win; but it will be horses for courses until then.
July 20th, 2008 at 3:25 am
SL still reminds me of the Flintstones; that stone age cartoon program.
August 8th, 2008 at 12:12 pm
[...] whole proposition of MellaniuM is, as Caleb Booker explains, “not about this vs. that, it’s about using the right tools for the right [...]