Adobe Atmosphere
Encyclopedia
Adobe Atmosphere was a software
platform for interacting with 3D computer graphics
. 3D model
s created with the commercial program could be explored socially using a browser plugin available free of charge. Atmosphere was originally developed by Attitude Software as 3D Anarchy and was later bought by Adobe Systems
. The product spent the majority of its lifetime in beta testing. Adobe released the last version of Atmosphere, version 1.0 build 216, in February 2004, then discontinued the software in December that year.
's hyperlink
s. These portals were represented as spinning squares of red
, green
, and blue
that revolved around each other and floated above the ground. Portals were indicative of the Atmosphere team's desire to mirror the functionality of Web page
s. Although the world itself was described in the
or MP3
format. Objects in worlds were scriptable using a specialized dialect of JavaScript
, allowing a more immersive environment, and worlds could be generated dynamically using PHP
. Using JavaScript, a world author could link an object to a Web page, so that a user could, for example, launch a Web page by clicking on a billboard advertisement (Ctrl+Shift+Click in earlier versions). By version 1.0, Atmosphere also boasted support for using Macromedia Flash
animations and Windows Media Video
as textures.
Atmosphere-based worlds consisted mainly of parametric primitives
, such as floors, walls, and cones. These primitives could be painted a solid color, given an image-based texture
, or made "subtractive". Invisible, "subtractive" primitives could be used to cut "holes" in other primitives, to build more complex shapes. Many worlds also contained animated polygon mesh
es made possible by Atmosphere's implementation as a subcomponent of Viewpoint Corporation's Viewpoint Media Player
. However, Viewpoint stopped supporting the Atmosphere subcomponent some time before Atmosphere was discontinued.
Unlike the more centralized structure of Active Worlds
, in which environments are primarily built within AlphaWorld, Atmosphere worlds were spread throughout the Internet, usually hosted on the author's own Web site as
; in later builds, an option allowed the user to see his or her own avatar. An early quirk of Atmosphere displayed users whose avatars had not yet loaded as colorful, slanted cylinders, and announced the arrival of users with a "bug zapper
" sound.
Whereas in ActiveWorlds it is only possible to communicate with users within a 200-meter radius, Atmosphere users could chat with all the users in the world. This model was more appropriate for Atmosphere, considering the smaller sizes of most worlds. Technically, users could chat with anyone in the same YACP channel, a reference to the IRC
protocol (see below). The exception was when worlds would receive too many visitors, as was often the case at HomeWorld: worlds would "clone", creating duplicate channels for the same world, which would often cause confusion for users. Some world developers wrote scripts that limited communication to users within a certain distance, for greater realism.
A built-in Havok
physics engine, detailed rendering, and dynamic lighting (with support for lighting effects like radiosity, distance fog
, and glare
) also contributed to the realism of Atmosphere worlds. Many world authors wanted to create large worlds, in order to build more realistic cities, for example, but such worlds would often take an excessive amount of time to load in the visitor's web browser
, especially if the visitor was using a slower dial-up connection. To alleviate this issue, Atmosphere supported a pattern reminiscent of inline frame
s in HTML: sections of the world – subworlds or models – would load as the user neared, so that a city could load block
by block, rather than all at once. One of Atmosphere's problems, however, was excessive memory usage, which was exacerbated by the use of advanced features such as embedded models and Flash movies in many worlds.
Atmosphere's chat console used the Windows-1252
character encoding
.
From its inception, Adobe Photoshop Album
included a "3D gallery" feature that could publish a photo album as an Atmosphere world.
for chat functionality. The original user interface
was rather eccentric, featuring two ever-present eyeballs that would occasionally blink. Later versions adopted a more conventional interface, although one of the pre-supplied avatars was based on the eyes. Adobe bought the technology from Attitude in November 1999 and announced the first public beta version under the new name on March 26, 2001.
Atmosphere came as two stand-alone applications: the Builder, which was used to build online "worlds", and the Player, which allowed users to explore these worlds. (In 3D Anarchy, these components were called Editor and Chat, respectively.) In addition to these applications, Adobe provided a browser plugin, to explore these worlds within a web browser
, and a companion chat server called Adobe Community Server, which ran on an IRC-like protocol known as Yet Another Chat Protocol (YACP). During beta-testing, all three components of Atmosphere were available free of charge
. Adobe distributed the server software under the "Atmosphere Open Source License", a permissive
open source
license.
Beta versions of the Builder were notoriously unstable, and the program crashed so frequently that a user wrote a program that automatically saved worlds opened in the Builder at a fixed interval, preventing users from losing hours of work.
In August 2002, Adobe began to scrap the stand-alone Player, instead devoting more resources to develop the Atmosphere Plugin, which was at the time viewed as a buggy, less attractive alternative to the Player. The company's focus on the Plugin was viewed as an attempt to compete with Flash
before its developer, Macromedia
, was purchased by Adobe. For the most part, the Plugin ran only on Internet Explorer
for Windows, despite frequent requests by community members to expand Atmosphere support to Mozilla
-based browsers, and to Linux
and Mac OS
. Unofficially, the plugin ran in Mozilla-based browsers with limited functionality. One user was able to run the stand-alone Player on Linux using Wine
, albeit in a less-than-usable state.
As part of its efforts to garner commercial interest in the software, Adobe introduced support for embed
ding Atmosphere worlds into PDF
documents for viewing in Acrobat Reader
. The company also distanced Atmosphere from its reputation as a platform for online chat, by first disabling chat on the various official, Adobe-hosted worlds, then by deleting the worlds themselves.
Version 1.0 was released on October 22, 2003. At this point, Adobe decided to charge for the Builder, which was simply renamed Atmosphere, and continue to provide the Plugin and Server for free. As the beta-testing program ended, Adobe sent free copies of the Builder to registered beta-testers in late 2003 and early 2004 via Airborne Express
and DHL
. Following a long period of relative silence from the developers, Adobe announced in December 2004 that it would not continue development of the software. According to an FAQ
from Adobe:
Adobe retains copyright
on Atmosphere and does not give permission for others to distribute copies of the software, so the company's decision to stop making the Builder available for purchase has essentially halted the creation of new worlds. The plugin remains available as a free download on Adobe's FTP
site, however. Adobe still provides 3D capabilities in its more popular Adobe Acrobat product, but these features were developed using technology from New Zealand
's Right Hemisphere, rather than using Atmosphere. Nearly all of the Atmosphere development team went on to work with the Acrobat team. The only Atmosphere component still in use at Adobe is the scripting API
; other Atmosphere components including scene graph
s and the physics engine
were licensed from other companies, such as Viewpoint.
trilogy. The creations were unveiled on July 4, 2003, and festivities officially continued until July 6. Another large effort held was themed to the Lord of the Rings
trilogy.
Community members also organized and attended events such as World Tours, which featured innovative worlds each week, and Tech Talks, originally a weekly event intended for world and avatar developers. Initially, most community discussion occurred either in the worlds or at the appropriate Adobe User-to-User Forums. Later, to supplement the official Atmosphere product Web site and discussion forums, the community created a large number of resource Web sites, some of which are listed below.
Beta-testers dubbed the Atmosphere developers "zombie
s", in recognition of the long hours the Adobe employees apparently spent developing the software. The running joke on the team was that, instead of the typical meal of brains, Atmosphere's zombies ingested eyeballs, due to the visual nature of the product. The beta-testing community eagerly awaited new releases from the development team, to which the developers invariably answered that it would take "about two weeks"; this response became a euphemism
for "when it's ready."
Despite the decentralized structure of Atmosphere and the popularity of the world-building contests, the Atmosphere community still preferred to gather in worlds created by Adobe and its partner DigitalSpace, such as Adobe's annually-revamped HomeWorld and DigitalSpace's Atmospherians Community. As the HomeWorld was the primary starting place for new users, the community found it easier to establish lively crowds there. When Adobe shut down HomeWorld, along with a number of other Adobe-hosted worlds, many builders made attempts at emulating the success of HomeWorld with their own starting points. However, without the constant stream of new users that HomeWorld experienced, most of these attempts failed to attract more than a small group of regulars.
Years after Adobe ended support for Atmosphere, some worlds remain online, though very few have been maintained and fewer still continue to support multi-user chat. Nonetheless, the software continues to enjoy a small fanbase that meets online each year on Halloween
.
Official:
}
Commercial:
Directories: An archive including some original Adobe worlds. A directory of worlds, avatars, and world building blocks dating from the software's heyday. A directory of extant worlds.
Tutorials: World lighting and animation tutorials.
Community Examples: A large-scale community event themed to the Star Wars
trilogy, held July 4–6, 2003. – magazine for world builders Mysteri House – world made by a group of former Atmosphere users
History:
Computer software
Computer software, or just software, is a collection of computer programs and related data that provide the instructions for telling a computer what to do and how to do it....
platform for interacting with 3D computer graphics
3D computer graphics
3D computer graphics are graphics that use a three-dimensional representation of geometric data that is stored in the computer for the purposes of performing calculations and rendering 2D images...
. 3D model
3D modeling
In 3D computer graphics, 3D modeling is the process of developing a mathematical representation of any three-dimensional surface of object via specialized software. The product is called a 3D model...
s created with the commercial program could be explored socially using a browser plugin available free of charge. Atmosphere was originally developed by Attitude Software as 3D Anarchy and was later bought by Adobe Systems
Adobe Systems
Adobe Systems Incorporated is an American computer software company founded in 1982 and headquartered in San Jose, California, United States...
. The product spent the majority of its lifetime in beta testing. Adobe released the last version of Atmosphere, version 1.0 build 216, in February 2004, then discontinued the software in December that year.
Features
Atmosphere focused on explorable "worlds" (later officially called "environments"), which were linked together by "portals", analogous to the World Wide WebWorld Wide Web
The World Wide Web is a system of interlinked hypertext documents accessed via the Internet...
's hyperlink
Hyperlink
In computing, a hyperlink is a reference to data that the reader can directly follow, or that is followed automatically. A hyperlink points to a whole document or to a specific element within a document. Hypertext is text with hyperlinks...
s. These portals were represented as spinning squares of red
Red
Red is any of a number of similar colors evoked by light consisting predominantly of the longest wavelengths of light discernible by the human eye, in the wavelength range of roughly 630–740 nm. Longer wavelengths than this are called infrared , and cannot be seen by the naked eye...
, green
Green
Green is a color, the perception of which is evoked by light having a spectrum dominated by energy with a wavelength of roughly 520–570 nanometres. In the subtractive color system, it is not a primary color, but is created out of a mixture of yellow and blue, or yellow and cyan; it is considered...
, and blue
Blue
Blue is a colour, the perception of which is evoked by light having a spectrum dominated by energy with a wavelength of roughly 440–490 nm. It is considered one of the additive primary colours. On the HSV Colour Wheel, the complement of blue is yellow; that is, a colour corresponding to an equal...
that revolved around each other and floated above the ground. Portals were indicative of the Atmosphere team's desire to mirror the functionality of Web page
Web page
A web page or webpage is a document or information resource that is suitable for the World Wide Web and can be accessed through a web browser and displayed on a monitor or mobile device. This information is usually in HTML or XHTML format, and may provide navigation to other web pages via hypertext...
s. Although the world itself was described in the
.aer (or .atmo) file, images and sounds were kept separately, usually in the GIF, WAVWAV
Waveform Audio File Format , is a Microsoft and IBM audio file format standard for storing an audio bitstream on PCs...
or MP3
MP3
MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III, more commonly referred to as MP3, is a patented digital audio encoding format using a form of lossy data compression...
format. Objects in worlds were scriptable using a specialized dialect of JavaScript
JavaScript
JavaScript is a prototype-based scripting language that is dynamic, weakly typed and has first-class functions. It is a multi-paradigm language, supporting object-oriented, imperative, and functional programming styles....
, allowing a more immersive environment, and worlds could be generated dynamically using PHP
PHP
PHP is a general-purpose server-side scripting language originally designed for web development to produce dynamic web pages. For this purpose, PHP code is embedded into the HTML source document and interpreted by a web server with a PHP processor module, which generates the web page document...
. Using JavaScript, a world author could link an object to a Web page, so that a user could, for example, launch a Web page by clicking on a billboard advertisement (Ctrl+Shift+Click in earlier versions). By version 1.0, Atmosphere also boasted support for using Macromedia Flash
Adobe Flash
Adobe Flash is a multimedia platform used to add animation, video, and interactivity to web pages. Flash is frequently used for advertisements, games and flash animations for broadcast...
animations and Windows Media Video
Windows Media Video
'Windows Media Video is a video compression format for several proprietary codecs developed by Microsoft. The original video format, known as WMV, was originally designed for Internet streaming applications, as a competitor to RealVideo. The other formats, such as WMV Screen and WMV Image, cater...
as textures.
Atmosphere-based worlds consisted mainly of parametric primitives
Geometric primitive
The term geometric primitive in computer graphics and CAD systems is used in various senses, with the common meaning of the simplest geometric objects that the system can handle . Sometimes the subroutines that draw the corresponding objects are called "geometric primitives" as well...
, such as floors, walls, and cones. These primitives could be painted a solid color, given an image-based texture
Texture mapping
Texture mapping is a method for adding detail, surface texture , or color to a computer-generated graphic or 3D model. Its application to 3D graphics was pioneered by Dr Edwin Catmull in his Ph.D. thesis of 1974.-Texture mapping:...
, or made "subtractive". Invisible, "subtractive" primitives could be used to cut "holes" in other primitives, to build more complex shapes. Many worlds also contained animated polygon mesh
Polygon mesh
A polygon mesh or unstructured grid is a collection of vertices, edges and faces that defines the shape of a polyhedral object in 3D computer graphics and solid modeling...
es made possible by Atmosphere's implementation as a subcomponent of Viewpoint Corporation's Viewpoint Media Player
Viewpoint Media Player
Viewpoint Media Player is a browser graphics rendering plug-in originally produced by Viewpoint Corporation, a subsidiary of the marketing company DG Fastchannel .-Description:...
. However, Viewpoint stopped supporting the Atmosphere subcomponent some time before Atmosphere was discontinued.
Unlike the more centralized structure of Active Worlds
Active Worlds
Active Worlds is a 3D virtual reality platform. The Active Worlds client runs on Windows. Users assign themselves a name, log into the Active Worlds universe, and explore 3D virtual worlds and environments that other users have built. Users can chat with one another or build structures and areas...
, in which environments are primarily built within AlphaWorld, Atmosphere worlds were spread throughout the Internet, usually hosted on the author's own Web site as
.aer files. (The .aer format originally came in binary and ASCII formats. The ASCII format was phased out in later releases.) As with ActiveWorlds, the user navigated an avatarAvatar (virtual reality)
In computing, an avatar is the graphical representation of the user or the user's alter ego or character. It may take either a three-dimensional form, as in games or virtual worlds, or a two-dimensional form as an icon in Internet forums and other online communities. It can also refer to a text...
; in later builds, an option allowed the user to see his or her own avatar. An early quirk of Atmosphere displayed users whose avatars had not yet loaded as colorful, slanted cylinders, and announced the arrival of users with a "bug zapper
Bug zapper
A bug zapper, or more formally an electrical discharge insect control system is a device that attracts and kills flying insects that are attracted by light. A light source attracts insects to an electrical grid, where they are electrocuted by touching two wires with a high voltage between them...
" sound.
Whereas in ActiveWorlds it is only possible to communicate with users within a 200-meter radius, Atmosphere users could chat with all the users in the world. This model was more appropriate for Atmosphere, considering the smaller sizes of most worlds. Technically, users could chat with anyone in the same YACP channel, a reference to the IRC
Internet Relay Chat
Internet Relay Chat is a protocol for real-time Internet text messaging or synchronous conferencing. It is mainly designed for group communication in discussion forums, called channels, but also allows one-to-one communication via private message as well as chat and data transfer, including file...
protocol (see below). The exception was when worlds would receive too many visitors, as was often the case at HomeWorld: worlds would "clone", creating duplicate channels for the same world, which would often cause confusion for users. Some world developers wrote scripts that limited communication to users within a certain distance, for greater realism.
Havok (software)
Havok Physics is a physics engine developed by Irish company Havok. It is designed primarily for video games, and allows for real-time collision and dynamics of rigid bodies in three dimensions. It provides multiple types of dynamic constraints between rigid bodies , and has a highly optimized...
physics engine, detailed rendering, and dynamic lighting (with support for lighting effects like radiosity, distance fog
Distance fog
Distance fog is a technique used in 3D computer graphics to enhance the perception of distance by simulating fog.Because many of the shapes in graphical environments are relatively simple, and complex shadows are difficult to render, many graphics engines employ a "fog" gradient so objects further...
, and glare
Lens flare
Lens flare is the light scattered in lens systems through generally unwanted image formation mechanisms, such as internal reflection and scattering from material inhomogeneities in the lens. These mechanisms differ from the intended image formation mechanism that depends on refraction of the image...
) also contributed to the realism of Atmosphere worlds. Many world authors wanted to create large worlds, in order to build more realistic cities, for example, but such worlds would often take an excessive amount of time to load in the visitor's web browser
Web browser
A web browser is a software application for retrieving, presenting, and traversing information resources on the World Wide Web. An information resource is identified by a Uniform Resource Identifier and may be a web page, image, video, or other piece of content...
, especially if the visitor was using a slower dial-up connection. To alleviate this issue, Atmosphere supported a pattern reminiscent of inline frame
IFrame
iFrame can be:* I-frames, in video compression; see video compression picture types* iFrame * The HTML iframe element....
s in HTML: sections of the world – subworlds or models – would load as the user neared, so that a city could load block
City block
A city block, urban block or simply block is a central element of urban planning and urban design. A city block is the smallest area that is surrounded by streets. City blocks are the space for buildings within the street pattern of a city, they form the basic unit of a city's urban fabric...
by block, rather than all at once. One of Atmosphere's problems, however, was excessive memory usage, which was exacerbated by the use of advanced features such as embedded models and Flash movies in many worlds.
Atmosphere's chat console used the Windows-1252
Windows-1252
Windows-1252 or CP-1252 is a character encoding of the Latin alphabet, used by default in the legacy components of Microsoft Windows in English and some other Western languages. It is one version within the group of Windows code pages...
character encoding
Character encoding
A character encoding system consists of a code that pairs each character from a given repertoire with something else, such as a sequence of natural numbers, octets or electrical pulses, in order to facilitate the transmission of data through telecommunication networks or storage of text in...
.
From its inception, Adobe Photoshop Album
Adobe Photoshop Album
Adobe Photoshop Album is a software application by Adobe Systems designed to import, organize and edit digital photos, and allows quick and easy searching and sharing of entire photo collections. It has been compared to Apple Inc.'s iPhoto and Google's Picasa....
included a "3D gallery" feature that could publish a photo album as an Atmosphere world.
History
Adobe Atmosphere began as 3D Anarchy by Attitude Software. It originally relied on IRCInternet Relay Chat
Internet Relay Chat is a protocol for real-time Internet text messaging or synchronous conferencing. It is mainly designed for group communication in discussion forums, called channels, but also allows one-to-one communication via private message as well as chat and data transfer, including file...
for chat functionality. The original user interface
User interface
The user interface, in the industrial design field of human–machine interaction, is the space where interaction between humans and machines occurs. The goal of interaction between a human and a machine at the user interface is effective operation and control of the machine, and feedback from the...
was rather eccentric, featuring two ever-present eyeballs that would occasionally blink. Later versions adopted a more conventional interface, although one of the pre-supplied avatars was based on the eyes. Adobe bought the technology from Attitude in November 1999 and announced the first public beta version under the new name on March 26, 2001.
Atmosphere came as two stand-alone applications: the Builder, which was used to build online "worlds", and the Player, which allowed users to explore these worlds. (In 3D Anarchy, these components were called Editor and Chat, respectively.) In addition to these applications, Adobe provided a browser plugin, to explore these worlds within a web browser
Web browser
A web browser is a software application for retrieving, presenting, and traversing information resources on the World Wide Web. An information resource is identified by a Uniform Resource Identifier and may be a web page, image, video, or other piece of content...
, and a companion chat server called Adobe Community Server, which ran on an IRC-like protocol known as Yet Another Chat Protocol (YACP). During beta-testing, all three components of Atmosphere were available free of charge
Gratis versus Libre
Gratis versus libre is the distinction between two meanings of the English adjective "free"; namely, "for zero price" and "with little or no restriction"...
. Adobe distributed the server software under the "Atmosphere Open Source License", a permissive
Permissive free software licence
A permissive free software licence is a class of free software licence with minimal requirements about how the software can be redistributed. This is in contrast to copyleft licences, which have reciprocity / share-alike requirements. Both sets of free software licences offer the same freedoms in...
open source
Open source
The term open source describes practices in production and development that promote access to the end product's source materials. Some consider open source a philosophy, others consider it a pragmatic methodology...
license.
In August 2002, Adobe began to scrap the stand-alone Player, instead devoting more resources to develop the Atmosphere Plugin, which was at the time viewed as a buggy, less attractive alternative to the Player. The company's focus on the Plugin was viewed as an attempt to compete with Flash
Adobe Flash
Adobe Flash is a multimedia platform used to add animation, video, and interactivity to web pages. Flash is frequently used for advertisements, games and flash animations for broadcast...
before its developer, Macromedia
Macromedia
Macromedia was an American graphics and web development software company headquartered in San Francisco, California that produced such products as Flash and Dreamweaver. Its rival, Adobe Systems, acquired Macromedia on December 3, 2005 and controls the line of Macromedia...
, was purchased by Adobe. For the most part, the Plugin ran only on Internet Explorer
Internet Explorer
Windows Internet Explorer is a series of graphical web browsers developed by Microsoft and included as part of the Microsoft Windows line of operating systems, starting in 1995. It was first released as part of the add-on package Plus! for Windows 95 that year...
for Windows, despite frequent requests by community members to expand Atmosphere support to Mozilla
Mozilla
Mozilla is a term used in a number of ways in relation to the Mozilla.org project and the Mozilla Foundation, their defunct commercial predecessor Netscape Communications Corporation, and their related application software....
-based browsers, and to Linux
Linux
Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...
and Mac OS
Mac OS
Mac OS is a series of graphical user interface-based operating systems developed by Apple Inc. for their Macintosh line of computer systems. The Macintosh user experience is credited with popularizing the graphical user interface...
. Unofficially, the plugin ran in Mozilla-based browsers with limited functionality. One user was able to run the stand-alone Player on Linux using Wine
Wine (software)
Wine is a free software application that aims to allow computer programs written for Microsoft Windows to run on Unix-like operating systems. Wine also provides a software library, known as Winelib, against which developers can compile Windows applications to help port them to Unix-like...
, albeit in a less-than-usable state.
As part of its efforts to garner commercial interest in the software, Adobe introduced support for embed
Compound document
In computing, a compound document is a document type typically produced using word processing software, and is a regular text document intermingled with non-text elements such as spreadsheets, pictures, digital videos, digital audio, and other multimedia features...
ding Atmosphere worlds into PDF
Portable Document Format
Portable Document Format is an open standard for document exchange. This file format, created by Adobe Systems in 1993, is used for representing documents in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating systems....
documents for viewing in Acrobat Reader
Adobe Acrobat
Adobe Acrobat is a family of application software developed by Adobe Systems to view, create, manipulate, print and manage files in Portable Document Format . All members of the family, except Adobe Reader , are commercial software, while the latter is available as freeware and can be downloaded...
. The company also distanced Atmosphere from its reputation as a platform for online chat, by first disabling chat on the various official, Adobe-hosted worlds, then by deleting the worlds themselves.
Version 1.0 was released on October 22, 2003. At this point, Adobe decided to charge for the Builder, which was simply renamed Atmosphere, and continue to provide the Plugin and Server for free. As the beta-testing program ended, Adobe sent free copies of the Builder to registered beta-testers in late 2003 and early 2004 via Airborne Express
Airborne Express
Airborne Express was an express delivery company and cargo airline. Headquartered in Seattle, Washington, its hub was at Wilmington, Ohio.Airborne was founded as the Airborne Flower Traffic Association of California in 1946 to fly flowers from the state of Hawaii to US Mainland.Airborne Express...
and DHL
DHL Express
DHL Express is a division of the German logistics company Deutsche Post providing international express mail services. DHL is a world market leader in sea and air mail....
. Following a long period of relative silence from the developers, Adobe announced in December 2004 that it would not continue development of the software. According to an FAQ
FAQ
Frequently asked questions are listed questions and answers, all supposed to be commonly asked in some context, and pertaining to a particular topic. "FAQ" is usually pronounced as an initialism rather than an acronym, but an acronym form does exist. Since the acronym FAQ originated in textual...
from Adobe:
Adobe retains copyright
Copyright
Copyright is a legal concept, enacted by most governments, giving the creator of an original work exclusive rights to it, usually for a limited time...
on Atmosphere and does not give permission for others to distribute copies of the software, so the company's decision to stop making the Builder available for purchase has essentially halted the creation of new worlds. The plugin remains available as a free download on Adobe's FTP
File Transfer Protocol
File Transfer Protocol is a standard network protocol used to transfer files from one host to another host over a TCP-based network, such as the Internet. FTP is built on a client-server architecture and utilizes separate control and data connections between the client and server...
site, however. Adobe still provides 3D capabilities in its more popular Adobe Acrobat product, but these features were developed using technology from New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
's Right Hemisphere, rather than using Atmosphere. Nearly all of the Atmosphere development team went on to work with the Acrobat team. The only Atmosphere component still in use at Adobe is the scripting API
Application programming interface
An application programming interface is a source code based specification intended to be used as an interface by software components to communicate with each other...
; other Atmosphere components including scene graph
Scene graph
A scene graph is a general data structure commonly used by vector-based graphics editing applications and modern computer games. Examples of such programs include Acrobat 3D, Adobe Illustrator, AutoCAD, CorelDRAW, OpenSceneGraph, OpenSG, VRML97, and X3D....
s and the physics engine
Physics engine
A physics engine is computer software that provides an approximate simulation of certain physical systems, such as rigid body dynamics , soft body dynamics, and fluid dynamics, of use in the domains of computer graphics, video games and film. Their main uses are in video games , in which case the...
were licensed from other companies, such as Viewpoint.
Community
Atmosphere had a dedicated beta-testing community, whose members constructed many worlds and avatars, promoted the software by word of mouth, and conducted community events, such as world tours and building contests. The largest of these contests was Star Wars 3D, a large-scale effort to create a comprehensive set of worlds and avatars based on the Star WarsStar Wars
Star Wars is an American epic space opera film series created by George Lucas. The first film in the series was originally released on May 25, 1977, under the title Star Wars, by 20th Century Fox, and became a worldwide pop culture phenomenon, followed by two sequels, released at three-year...
trilogy. The creations were unveiled on July 4, 2003, and festivities officially continued until July 6. Another large effort held was themed to the Lord of the Rings
The Lord of the Rings film trilogy
The Lord of the Rings is an epic film trilogy consisting of three fantasy adventure films based on the three-volume book of the same name by English author J. R. R. Tolkien. The films are The Fellowship of the Ring , The Two Towers and The Return of the King .The films were directed by Peter...
trilogy.
Community members also organized and attended events such as World Tours, which featured innovative worlds each week, and Tech Talks, originally a weekly event intended for world and avatar developers. Initially, most community discussion occurred either in the worlds or at the appropriate Adobe User-to-User Forums. Later, to supplement the official Atmosphere product Web site and discussion forums, the community created a large number of resource Web sites, some of which are listed below.
Beta-testers dubbed the Atmosphere developers "zombie
Zombie
Zombie is a term used to denote an animated corpse brought back to life by mystical means such as witchcraft. The term is often figuratively applied to describe a hypnotized person bereft of consciousness and self-awareness, yet ambulant and able to respond to surrounding stimuli...
s", in recognition of the long hours the Adobe employees apparently spent developing the software. The running joke on the team was that, instead of the typical meal of brains, Atmosphere's zombies ingested eyeballs, due to the visual nature of the product. The beta-testing community eagerly awaited new releases from the development team, to which the developers invariably answered that it would take "about two weeks"; this response became a euphemism
Euphemism
A euphemism is the substitution of a mild, inoffensive, relatively uncontroversial phrase for another more frank expression that might offend or otherwise suggest something unpleasant to the audience...
for "when it's ready."
Despite the decentralized structure of Atmosphere and the popularity of the world-building contests, the Atmosphere community still preferred to gather in worlds created by Adobe and its partner DigitalSpace, such as Adobe's annually-revamped HomeWorld and DigitalSpace's Atmospherians Community. As the HomeWorld was the primary starting place for new users, the community found it easier to establish lively crowds there. When Adobe shut down HomeWorld, along with a number of other Adobe-hosted worlds, many builders made attempts at emulating the success of HomeWorld with their own starting points. However, without the constant stream of new users that HomeWorld experienced, most of these attempts failed to attract more than a small group of regulars.
Years after Adobe ended support for Atmosphere, some worlds remain online, though very few have been maintained and fewer still continue to support multi-user chat. Nonetheless, the software continues to enjoy a small fanbase that meets online each year on Halloween
Halloween
Hallowe'en , also known as Halloween or All Hallows' Eve, is a yearly holiday observed around the world on October 31, the night before All Saints' Day...
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External links
Current:- New Atmo Homeworld – est. Oct 2010; a new multi-user chat-enabled world portal to Atmo Worlds online.
- AtmoJunkies: Atmosphere Addicts Anonymous – est. 2009; a private Facebk community site for Atmo users; email Donza ThreeDee for access.
- AtmoStats for Atmo Worlds Online - check here to see which worlds currently contain visitors.
- The Beach Club. A private forum and resources for Atmo users.
Official:
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- Official UK website http://www.adobe.com/uk/products/atmosphere/downloadatmoproduct.htmlhttp://www.adobe.com/uk/products/atmosphere/overview.htmlhttp://www.adobe.com/uk/products/atmosphere/indepth.htmlhttp://www.adobe.com/uk/products/atmosphere/awards.htmlhttp://www.adobe.com/uk/products/atmosphere/features.html
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- [ftp://ftp.adobe.com/pub/adobe/atmosphere/win/2.x/ Adobe Atmosphere Plugin]. Free download at the Adobe FTP site.
Commercial:
Directories: An archive including some original Adobe worlds. A directory of worlds, avatars, and world building blocks dating from the software's heyday. A directory of extant worlds.
Tutorials: World lighting and animation tutorials.
- Viewpoint tutorials @ Donzas.com Video tutorials on using the Player and setting up the Atmosphere Collaboration Server. A guide to interacting with the chat server. http://www.dmu.com/atmolight/al0.htmlhttp://web.archive.org/web/20061110015557/http://www.dmu.com/maxatmo/mxt0.htmlhttp://www.dmu.com/atmoconex/ac0.html
Community Examples: A large-scale community event themed to the Star Wars
Star Wars
Star Wars is an American epic space opera film series created by George Lucas. The first film in the series was originally released on May 25, 1977, under the title Star Wars, by 20th Century Fox, and became a worldwide pop culture phenomenon, followed by two sequels, released at three-year...
trilogy, held July 4–6, 2003. – magazine for world builders Mysteri House – world made by a group of former Atmosphere users
- SimTech: a Wallenberg project http://summit.stanford.edu/adobe_er/ – emergency room training world developed by Stanford UniversityStanford UniversityThe Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...
History: