Produce Stereoscopic 3D CG Content For Free

Mar 02, 2011 7 Comments by Jonathan Tustain

After a recent interview with 3D Focus TV during Imagina 2011, Dassault Systemes’s have announced its free virtual environment creation software 3Dvia has gone stereoscopic. Now anybody with a decent broadband connection can create stereoscopic virtual environments for games, presentations and simulations.

3DVIA Scenes is an entirely online application and virtual environment creation platform, shown to 3D Focus TV recently during Imagina 2011 which is able to create 3D presentations of virtual worlds. These presentations can then be shared online via other platforms such as Facebook and even monetised. Up until now, 3DVIA was a 2D experience but now users can switch their existing or new creations to 3D stereoscopic by simply dragging and dropping an icon.

Users can view and interact with their work in stereo 3D either online or on 3D enabled televisions. If you have already produced 3D content using 3DVIA you will be able to switch to stereoscopic 3D retrospectively after the update. So far 3DVIA has attracted 240,000 creatives who will now be able to interact with their publications using red/blue anaglyph, side by side, line by line or checkerboard 3D techniques.

“This is quite simply the easiest way for anyone to create a stereoscopic 3D application online,” said David Laubner, VP, online product marketing, 3DVIA, Dassault Systèmes. “We are always looking for ways to expand the 3D content creation market and are excited to see what our consumer and professional customers will create using the new enhanced 3DVIA Scenes.”

3DVIA Scenes is sort of lite version of something like 3D Studio Max. It features a library of pre-made 3D environments and models for people wanting to get started quickly and the simulations that can be achieved by 3DVIA are impressive. One of the uses of 3DVIA is to build games such as serious games or advergames for marketing purposes. During the Imagina 2011 conference we were shown a game called Billions which was created by two people, one in Sweden and one in France, who never met during the creation process. Billions can be played online via Facebook by millions of people.

3DVIA consists of several online tools but 3DVIA Scenes and 3DVIA Studio are the ones which the new stereoscopic feature applies to. 3DVIA Scenes is a 100% online experience where people can create and colloborate on 3D experiences. People can create 'scenes' or choose from various 3D environments, including a grassy field, dojo, dessert, urban lofts and more. You can select an avatar to suit you and others can collaborate with you or simply comment on your 'scene'.

3DVIA Studio is a social development environment that brings the power of an AAA engine to an easy-to-use framework connected to 3DVIA.com's 3D content warehouse and community over 190,000 3D professionals and enthusiasts. 3DVIA Studio is a more complex system that requires a certain level of skill and training unlike the easier 3DVIA Scenes. It empowers everyone from individual 3D artists and programmers to large studios to rapidly prototype, develop and publish online games and other interactive 3D applications.

Other 3DVia tools include 3DVIA Shapes, 3DVIA Virtools and 3DVIA Composer. To see the drag and drop 3D stereo camera functionality of 3DVIA Studio watch the following short video..

Making Money From 3D Content Using 3DVIA

3DVIA suggest you can monetise your content creations via advertising or freemium models so it is worth having a go. Computer graphics lend themselves very well to stereoscopic 3D and now people with limited experience who do not want to purchase a high end 3D graphics package can attempt to create 3D stereoscopic experiences and even attempt to monetise them. Of course, there are stereoscopic plugins for packages like 3D Studio Max but 3DVIA is all free and open source.

The following video features Victorien Miniere from Dassault Systemes speaking to 3D Focus TV about 3DVIA during Imagina 2011 in Monte Carlo…