Just Leap In doesn't let you quite do that, but it's close. After downloading an 8.8MB (26.6MB installed) plugin. In a startup spotlight at Mashable, the company balances that against improved graphics and physics relative to other Web-based worlds. Like its increasing number of competitors (e.g., Lively, Vivaty, SmallWorlds, etc.), Just Leap In lets users create their own spaces, embed them, share media, and connect with friends. It looks like it's just now going public with a closed beta, so it may seem like a late entrant. In Just Leap In's favor, it's already compatible with PCs and Macs as well as Firefox and Internet Explorer (Safari worked alright for me as well).
"We use the Web every day to check on friends, browse multimedia and news, and discover new people. Just Leap In aims to bring that daily simplicity to virtual worlds, on any webpage," the company explained to Mashable. "When you land in JLI, we want you to feel like you’re smack in the middle of a social community where you can express yourself, upload multimedia, and link to friends - not in the middle of an empty island. And unlike other Web-delivered virtual worlds, we’re already delivering next-gen 3D graphics and physics to both Mac & PC, Firefox & IE."
I couldn't access the main service, but I was able to log into the demo space, watch some video, and play a bit with the physics and a soccer ball. Of course, that's not really enough to tell what the world will look like eventually. (In other words, take any of my thoughts with the biggest possible grain of salt.)
It's still tough to tell, but it sounds like Just Leap In is ambitious from the start. It's also looking to more advanced users. While worlds like Lively are emphasizing their mainstream appeal to non-gamers or virtual worlds users with simple controls and limited early options, Just Leap In uses a traditional gaming keyboard layout for controls and is looking to expand its users' control with a toolset for user-created content that mirrors its internal developers' kit.
"For the technically inclined, our first release of UGC 3D tools will include a set of XSI properties, RT shaders, a custom fbx exporter that adds some JLI ‘sauce’ and a Mac/PC JLI viewer, with full documentation," explained the Director of Visual Development on the company blog. "Users of Maya/Max/Blender/etc. can tap into our fbx pathway to create JLI-compatible data as well. In subsequent releases, we’ll be considering adding Collada support, which in combination with fbx will further broaden the number of 3D packages that can be supported. We are also open to collaborating with third party tool creators to broaden further the abilities for our users to create."
That sounds even more open than Vivaty's recently announced user-created plans. That doesn't necessarily mean richer or better, just more open than Vivaty's plans to work hand-in-hand with developers at the beginning.
That's mostly been the province of downloadable worlds while the Web has been about simplicity and ease-of-access. A crossover could be pretty appealing, though. I'll be interested to see if and where from Just Leap In draws its audience.
They really need to change the annoying tools and such!
Posted by: Matt | August 20, 2008 at 11:34 AM