About

Why are websites still flat? Aren't we living in the future? Don't you wish visitors to your website could really walk around and explore? Imagine how many hits you'll get when visitors are immersed in your world. An eShowplace is a new idea that lets you really show off your existing website or create a new website from scratch. Each eShowplace is a virtual environment for presenting your content to the world. It requires no programming to use and even if the idea of running a website seems daunting you can run an eShowplace with ease. If you're still a little confused about what an eShowplace is take a look at our website eShowplaces.com which is presented in our preliminary alpha build of the very first eShowplace: Airship Cove.

Pretty cool huh? Imagine your website transformed into a virtual world and how impressed your visitors will be. Unlike any other virtual world, eShowplaces act as a website. Our current build clocks in at just about 7 MB so it loads up in just a few seconds. There's no logging in and no signing up. We retain no rights to your work and there's no entanglement. Once you receive your eShowplace it's yours forever and you can do what you like with it. People will visit your website like they would any other and are instantly immersed in your eShowplace.

We are just a father and son team who had a cool idea. My dad is Peter Engelbrite, programming master and all around techno-geezer. He's the greatest programmer from the greatest generation and will code circles around young upstart whippersnappers. (Ahem, Andrew's words, not mine: Peter) He absolutely loves creating virtual worlds and this project is a real labor of love for him. I'm his son Andrew Engelbrite, dyed in the wool nerd and marketing major at UNT. Together we're working tirelessly to make eShowplaces a reality. If successful we can get some real development tools like Maya to bring eShowplaces up to modern standards and also for advertising.

Ok, so you get that an eShowplace is a virtual environment but how does that actually show your content? Each eShowplace contains panels. A panel is an in-world object that displays your graphical image. When someone visits your site they will be able to explore. They will be able to click on your panels in world, instantly accessing your webpages, videos, pictures, text or pretty much anything else you would want to show in a website. So you will have all the utility of a website but framed in an impressive and immersive world.

You will download a .zip file containing what you need to upload to your website. You will configure your eShowplace with a simple spreadsheet file. Technically it's a .csv file, but it can be edited with any spreadsheet program such as Excel or OpenOffice. We also include a starter art pack including several example blank panels, fonts, stylesheets, textures, and web pages appropriate to the theme. You will also receive a .pdf with a full instruction manual.

Configuration options:

panel - Opens a link to a web page (your own or an other's) inside a frame in your eShowplace.

tab - Opens a link to a web page (your own or an other's) in a separate browser tab.

embed - Many sites will give "embed" code to access their site.

email - Opens the users email client with your address and a title line (mailto:).

text - Creates a web page on the fly with your text. You can include HTML tags.

goto - Exit the eShowplace and go to another web site. This can allow you to link eShowcases in a community with your friends and associates.



title - Sets the web title of your site.

ad - Installs a banner ad at the top of the screen. You may have multiple ads.

adweb - If you have a more complicated ad system (like an ad rotator), you can put a mini-website at the top of the screen. You can also use it for other purposes, such as an internet radio station.

disable - Removes the panel from the scene.



Other Features:

If a user loads an eShowplace on a tablet or decides not to install Unity3D, the eShowplace transfers the user to an alternate web page of your making.

We have used major optimization techniques to keep the download file size small: the current download is about 7MB, so your users won't have to wait long at all.

We've worked hard to keep the frame rate high even on older, cheaper systems (tested on a 5 year old laptop over WiFi, and it ran with no problem).

In this eShowplace:

A glass bottomed zeppelin



An active engine room with lots of gears and working pistons

An animated crystal gear chandelier

The pilot's bridge

A time-accurate steampunk clock

A grand staircase

Davinci-style rotors



An animated clockwork town

Steam engines on elevated railroad tracks

Underwater city

Clockwork whales

Dynamic ocean with waves and foam

There are a lot of web developers, bloggers and small business owners out there. You need hits, traffic, digital impact and every other current buzzword that all translates at the bottom line to mean you need people to visit your website. What eShowplaces offers is a memorable and great first impression to your website. The hits generated from turning your website into an eShowplace will far exceed anything gained from a simple reorganization or theme. An eShowplace is unique, affordable and far more impressive then just about anything else you could use to enhance a website.

Now our first eShowplace is amazing but what we really want to do is create a whole bunch of eShowplaces for you to enjoy. If we get enough capital we can devote our work towards creating more eShowplaces. Each eShowplace we reach through our stretch goals will be sent to you upon completion with no additional cost to you, so go tell your friends!

We've been putting our hearts and souls into creating the first eShowplace Airship Cove. Airship Cove is a visually stunning environment filled with zeppelins and clockwork whales. Your panels line the walls of an airship that gently flies against its moorings at a seaside steampunk village. If you want to take a closer look follow this link to eShowplaces.com to see the alpha build of the steampunk eShowplace you'll receive when we hit the $5,000 mark.

If we reach the $10,000 mark we can get these two features added into your eShowplaces. These additional features will be included in the steampunk eShowplace Airship Cove and also in each additional eShowplace when we reach our that stretch goal.

The additional features will include:

An automatic 2D system for tablets using the main configuration (tablet browsers don't do 3D).



In-world editing: once logged in, click on a panel to edit. This will require PHP on the server, but it will be compatible with the spreadsheet configuration, so PHP is optional. But this means that you will be able to edit your content while still in your eShowplace.

Maybe steampunk is a tad too contemporary for you? How would you like your web content lining the walls of a medieval, magic palace while dragons fly across the horizon? If we reach $20,000 we will create a beautiful and stoic fantasy eShowplace for you to enjoy in addition to your steampunk eShowplace. We aren't quite at alpha build for this one yet but take a look at the screen capture below.

Please note that while our estimated delivery date is Sept 2014, each additional eShowplace will take us about two months to complete. We will ship each eShowplace upon its completion so expect your fantasy eShowplace around Nov 2014.

Both fantasy and steampunk just too old fashioned? How would you like your web content displayed on futuristic consoles while hurtling through deepest reaches of space in the far flung future? If we reach $30,000 we will create a technologically advanced and futuristic sci-fi eShowplace for you to enjoy. We're still in the concept phase for this one but here's an example of what we're planning.

Please note that while our estimated delivery date is Sept 2014, each eShowplace will take us about two months to complete. We will ship each eShowplace upon its completion so expect your sci-fi eShowplace around Jan 2015

So you've enjoyed your steampunk, fantasy and sci-fi eShowplaces, what now? Well, what do you want next? We had some ideas about a gothic cathedral, a dance club or even a music themed one inside a violin. In fact we've had a lot of ideas about what eShowplaces to develop but we want to give the backers who made our project a reality the chance to make their opinions heard. Let us know what you want at https://www.facebook.com/eShowplaces or https://twitter.com/eShowplaces. The most popular theme request we receive will be created and given to you all if we reach the $40,000 mark. If we get even higher and reach the $50,000 mark we'll also create the runner up. That means that if we reach $50,000 you will receive the steampunk, fantasy, sci-fi and the two community voted eShowplaces all with the additional features.