Changes in the Atmosphere

During my very long blog-entry drought, a couple very important things happened in the Atmosphere:

• Version 1.0, Preview Release has been released. This version includes a greatly improved builder (now merely called “Adobe Atmosphere”) and plugin (called “Adobe Atmosphere Player”).

  New features to the builder include a customizable world-building grid and easier JavaScript tools. New features to the plugin include hardware acceleration and many more scripting features. You can download both parts of Atmosphere at its website.

• A momentous effort by 20 Atmosphere world and avatar developers launched their final product Friday (July 4^th). It is a collection of 27 avatars and ten worlds, all based on the Star Wars series. These avatars and worlds are, by far, the most innovative, interactive, detailed, and (of course) slowest I have ever witnessed. Due to the vacation, I wasn’t able to attend the day-long opening ceremonies, but (after a frustrating hour of technical difficulties) I was also able to experience the glory of this project this morning, thanks to help from Martin and Lace especially. You absolutely must download the new Atmosphere Player and go there (follow the link at the end of the page).