URL:Protozoa

VRMLaboR: Could you introduce yourself a little bit to our readers ?

E.Y.:I'm an animator / puppeteer / tech director / puppet builder / director from Protozoa in San Francisco. (I wear many different hats.) I have a mixed science and artistic background. I did a lot of real-life puppetry and puppet performances before I got interested in computer animation.

VRMLaboR:Wow, what kind of puppet performances you did ?

E.Y.:I did a lot of really strange stuff, here are a couple:

One of my favorite puppet performances involved angrily shouting love poetry. Another one I was happy with involved a macho dude character who's made out of garbage bags, and keeps running out of air, and has to inflate himself with a hair dryer to stay puffed up. It was very psychological.

My brother and I also made a bogus child safety film in which cute puppets were subjected to all the scary hideous stuff that happens in big American cities-- drug pushers, kidnappers, 5 year olds who carry guns, etc.

E.Y.:We've been doing what is called "performance animation" for a while, for TV and other applications. We also build characters for hire for other companies.

VRMLaboR:Could you explain a little bit TV works ?
Are they Blockhead and Virtual Bill ?

E.Y.:Blockheads was a while ago, but I still like it a lot. That was for MTV's Liquid Television.

Virtual Bill is a good example of the TV work we've been doing lately-- a lot more modest, production wise. We build a character for another company, and they do the production, in some cases-- like Dev Null of 'The Site' on MSNBC. In the case of Virtual Bill we actually performed it here.

E.Y.:We use custom software, called "ALIVE". ALIVE is built on SGI's "Inventor" format, which in turn is extremely similar to VRML (VRML seems like basically a dialect of Inventor to me.)

When VRML came along, we realized we could export our work to it fairly easily. We'd been interested in putting our work on the internet for some time (and had been doing so, in QuickTime.) But VRML is a lot more space-efficient than QuickTime. Since someone else had already written the browsers, all we had to do was convert from Inventor to VRML.

VRMLaboR:I would like to know more about ALIVE.
Is it an inhouse software of Protozoa ?

E.Y.:Yes. But we also license it out. We're part software, part production company. The software division sells licenses to ALIVE and develops it.

VRMLaboR:Who programmed it ? Is it a kind of "channel driver" ?

E.Y.:Eric Gregory is head programmer. Channel driver is pretty good way to think about it, though it does more than that. It's a similar product in some ways to Kaydara's "Filmbox" software.

VRMLaboR: Does it have its own GUI, or it uses another softwere like SOFTIMAGE ?

E.Y.:It has its own GUI, though it's somewhat limited. It's meant to be a live performance system, not a full featured animation package. We are in the process of creating a good path back and forth from more full featured packages like SOFTIMAGE.

VRMLaboR:What is "multi-pass operation" ?

We perform the basic body performance, and then layer other performances on top of it. Fingers, eye motion, hand motion, or tweaks/changes to the original node motions. It's a similar process to multi-track recording in an audio studio.

VRMLaboR: What are you creating with VRML now?

E.Y.:Our plans for VRML include primarily more linear entertainment.

We haven't pursued artificial life much, although we had planned to for a while. We created a character that walks around when you steer him using the mouse. You could also adjust things like his step length and liveliness using sliders. We also created a fish character that would swim around and try to eat a piece of food you were holding with the mouse.

VRMLaboR:Could you tell me what you are going to create with VRML from now on?

E.Y.:We see the web as a way to get our characters out there. We think it is exciting that there is an alternative way of reaching an audience-- i.e., that we do not necessarily have to go through television.

We also would like to work with some established characters and create 3D web presences for them-- i.e., what we did with Dilbert.

VRMLaboR:VRML's format is still debated.
Have you got any idea or ideal about VRML should have more function or be more like that?

E.Y.:We have always wished the control over timing were more exact. VRML wasn't designed to do what we do with it-- linear animations. And it's also not a top-down control paradigm, scripting-wise. So the audio and motion synchronization have always been inexact.

VRMLaboR: How do you think internet and VRML are effecting into media and art. And also how do you anticipate that they would be changed by Web3D in the future?

E.Y.:I don't know if I really have a good answer for this. But I do think it's cool to be able to find animated content whenever you want it; my favorite thing about the 'net is being able to choose everything at your own pace.

VRMLaboR:Do you think what kind of VRML Art would be the main current from now on?

1. For play back of realistic 3D animation which is like a story-telling movie.
2. For making worlds such as full of interaction on script importance.
3. For multi users.
4. For abstract art.

E.Y.:I hope they all continue. We're pretty strongly in the (1) category, with some experiments in (2) (i.e., the last 25 or so episodes of Floops.)

But I think the other uses of VRML are at least as valid as this, and they will be where we start to see more unique advantages of 3-D web content over TV.

VRMLaboR:You said that you were interested in a Japanese puppet performance "Bungaku" in your site. I think you also may like "Shishimai" performance in Okinawa, Japan. It is a kind of traditional live performance for celebrations , where they are costumed as a big lion with long colored hairs.

E.Y.:That sounds like something I'd like a lot. I hope to make it to Japan someday, and when I do I hope I can see it.

interviewed : fall 1997