History
Adobe Atmosphere began as 3D Anarchy by Attitude Software. It originally relied on IRC 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 embedding 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:
| “ | The decision to discontinue Atmosphere 1.0 was based on market conditions, customer feedback and research done by Adobe. | ” |
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—Adobe Systems |
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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 graphs and the physics engine were licensed from other companies, such as Viewpoint.
Read more about this topic: Adobe Atmosphere
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