Battlebots: The next smash-hit geek sport?
Published: 16 Feb 2001 14:38 GMT
Battlebot, billed as the next smash-hit geek sport, has launched a Web site featuring animation robots designed to, um, kick each other's bots.
The Web site seems ideal for the geek, macho crowd that can't afford to build giant steel machines with kill saws, pulverisers or ramrod spears. Instead, with a few clicks of the mouse, enthusiasts of the sport can paste together a virtual robot and engage in virtual combat.
"It's crazy how popular the sport is," said Deb McCain, spokeswoman for Iguana Studios, a New York-based Web design company that helped build the Battlebot site.
A key component of the virtual combat element involves an emerging animation technology called Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG), which is under recommendation by the World Wide Web Consortium to become a standard in online graphic designs.
According to backers of the standard, vector graphics are more flexible than other available animation technology, able to make computer images fit into any screen -- from mobile phone displays to monitors. SVG renders more easily because it is written in pure XML (Extensible Markup Language), a programming language that makes it as simple as tapping a computer key to exchange large amounts of information over the Web. Vector graphics can then easily move through tight bandwidth connections that typically choke on bulky files, such as animation.
SVG competes directly with Macromedia's Flash, which even designers at Iguana acknowledge has a big headstart. The Battlebot project is the first commercial use of the technology, which is still in a "beta", or testing, phase.
"We were surprised at the level of animation that the plug-in could handle," said Christy Nicholson, producer of the site. "The real rivalry with Flash will come."
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