Created: Tuesday, October 5, 1999 - Updated: Tuesday, October 30, 2001

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Virtual Worlds:

Interior of the community meeting hall I built
at the village of Nalee on Active Worlds

What is a virtual world?

• A virtual world is a place which exists on a computer or computers.
  
  
• A virtual world may be a representation of a real place, a possible place, or a complete fantasy.
  
  
• These virtual worlds do not require goggles, head trackers, gloves or other "total immersion" equipment. They appear on your monitor much as a movie or TV show. The difference is that you control your view.
  
  
• The virtual worlds referred to on this page all require Windows 95/98 to run. A faster machine, modem and/or graphics card will improve the performance, since these worlds are graphics intensive.
  
  

What can I do on a virtual world?

• Almost all virtual worlds allow you to chat with, see and interact with other occupants using avatars.
  
  
• Virtual worlds allow you to move around (walk, run, fly and sometimes make motions (wave, jump, dance, etc.)
  
  
• Virtual worlds give you an opportunity to explore virtual commumnities and worlds that others have built.
  
  
• Some virtual worlds are gaming worlds where you can play various games with other occupants.
  
  
• Some virtual worlds have virtual shopping malls, where you can buy either real or virtual products.
  
  
• Some virtual worlds allow you to own and furnish a virtual home in which you can meet and interact with others.
  
  
• And some virtual worlds allow you to build your own home, park, public building or whatever you can imagine.
  
  

Some links to information about virtual worlds:

Home page for the book Avatars.

Amazon.com reviewed this book and found it out of date. However, the links to other universes may be of interest. (Also see the link below.)

DigitalSpace's home page.

Information about several virtual worlds on the internet.

The Active Worlds home page.

Learn more about the Active Worlds Universe and download the browser.

The home page for the Blaxxun (Black Sun) universe.

This is another universe of virtual worlds.

The home page for Worlds Chat universe.

This is still another universe of virtual worlds.

The virtual Notre Dame Cathedral.

A limited world which can be downloaded and run on your own computer. Eventually it is supposed to be on line, allowing you to chat with other visitors.

Stroud's Consumate Winsock Applications category Virtual 3-D Chat.

Discussion of several 3-D clients, with reviews. (Note, these two links work only with Netscape 4+ or IE 4+)

Virtual get togethers with live speech.

Two versions, one which runs on a regular web page (Talker) (This doesn't seem to be available right now), another is 3D and has its own browser (Traveler).

Interior of split level a-frame I am constructing on Mars.

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Copyright ©1999 and 2001 by Jim R. Van Scyoc