Realtime 3D reality.

There is a reality to realtime 3D that has nothing to do with depiction. The simulation of space and the navigation through it, is a technique with artistic merit onto itself.

We often get distracted from it by interactivity and storytelling. But realtime 3D could be at the heart of an artistic revolution. Not games, not multimedia, not data visualization or procedural pattern generation. But the mere evocation of virtual spaces inhabited by virtual creatures, that we can explore.

This is not simply about depiction. Because the spaces, and even the characters, we create are real. They really exist. As digital objects. They are not a representation of something that exists in reality or in imagination. They exist on the same level as reality -or imagination- itself. They are fact.

We can have memories of visits to virtual places that are eerily similar to memories of real places and completely different from memories of seeing films, or paintings, or photographs or from reading books.  Any functions such places serve in terms of storytelling or artistry are superimposed on the objects that they are -even if they are manual creations too.

This is probably why realtime 3D lends itself so well to open-ended experiences. There is a lot of potential for leaving many things open to interpretation, without ever having the feeling that something was omitted with that purpose. Realtime 3D spaces and characters simply are real.

And the fact that they are still fabricated, is fascinating, and gives the medium an artistic potential that has never existed before. To make something that is a thing into itself, not a representation in some form of such a thing, and to still be able to fill it with expression and evocation, is very powerful indeed.