Virtua Writer
If you’re a playwright or an independent directory, you might want to take a look at VirtualStage. If you’re an animator or a computer artist, you might want to skip this technology until it’s gone through a few generations.
VirtualStage is a software application that enables you to create your own virtual reality and, in particular, your own three dimensional (3D) animated plays, dramas, films and television productions. The drama is created in real-time, that is, as-it-happens and is recorded for subsequent playback.The actions of the virtual actors are defined and directed by you, thus allowing an infinite range of possible gestures and movements. The actors’ dialogue, also entered by yourself, is spoken using computer synthesised speech. You position and then control any number of cameras so that the performance can be viewed from any angle. The drama itself takes place against a backdrop that you will have designed.
It’s a fascinating idea – one that will probably benefit a lot of younger writers looking for some indicator of what their work will look like once it’s been put on the stage or shot on film. It’s simple – cast your characters from a set of different body types paired with computer generated voices. Tell the characters when to sit, when to stand, when to walk, and what direction to face, and they’ll do it. Type a line of dialogue for them, and they’ll say it. Point a camera and you can switch to that angle at any time. Granted, your characters look blocky, your environments look flat, and your dialogue winds up being delivered with all of the passion of a Johnny Mnemonic-era Keanu Reeves on tranquilizers, but for many authors this will help them just by virtue of seeing and hearing their play before they actually get it produced.
Now, beyond playwrights and screenwriters, does this have any other application? Could it, for instance, be used to create the first virtual Seinfeld?
Are you kidding? Look at the sample video of this program in action. I have enough trouble watching ten seconds of the video without imagining watching anything close to thirty minutes of it.
But it makes for an interesting first step. Up until now, Maya has been one of the few computer animation programs aimed at making CG accesible to the general public – and, as somebody who tried and failed to learn Maya using their Personal Learning Edition, I can testify that even that program has a few stumbling blocks on the way to mastery.
Dakine Wave, however, has developed an interesting concept when it comes to accessible computer animation. Tell a character to walk across the floor and she walks. Tell a character to shrug and he shrugs. Put in a line of dialogue and the mouth “syncs” (somewhat) to the words. You don’t even have to have any friends to provide the voices – the computer will do it for you (albeit in a stilted and lifeless fashion).
You’re a long way from competing with Pixar, but this kind of thinking in the music industry has produced some truly amazing software – GrooveMaker, ACID, and Apple’s nothing-less-than-amazing GarageBand spring to mind. Even so, those programs are the current product of generations of software aimed at making music accessible to the people.
As it stands, VirtualStage is little more than a quick-and-easy visualization tool. But if it continues to develop and grow, this could get very interesting.