I have kind of a general question about the engine, and I'm not even sure if what I'm wondering is possible or practical.

But let's say I create a large level of a building or whatever, and its purpose is to be a virtual walk-through, and lets say that the entire level is going to be hundreds of megabytes in size after all textures and models are accounted for.

Here's the question: is it possible or practical to have this level running on a server that users could connect to and use through a Web browser? I've heard good things about Microsoft Silverlight, for example, and its ability to manage and stream large files, images, 3D, etc, and I'm wondering if that's the way to go with this. The alternative is to make all the users download this large GameStudio file and run it on their local machine, which then brings into play all the questions of compatibility, patching, etc. I figure if it's on one machine (server), patching will be simple enough... However, I don't want the users interacting with each other or seeing what the other sees, since that could get very confusing--I want each to see only their own options and actions.

Suggestions, advice and ideas would be most welcome. Thanks!

maybe you could work with ajax in a webbrowser. The engine produces for every user on the webpage an image and then an ajax script could request an image and send back the controls of the user(keystates). But that ofc would be really slow, maybe after 3 seconds a new image, if the connection is good.

But couldn't you try to make a lot of 360° shots of the level and the user can choose of them? maybe that would be a better way...also for users with a slow connection

There are at least two companies working on a similar idea. So far, I don't think either has a perfect solution yet (at least nothing they can sell).

The trick is compressing the images on the server machine. You have to do 30+ a second and they have to be small enough to not take up too much bandwidth (otherwise it makes more sense to download the entire game).

Maybe not entirely what you want....
http://www.coniserver.net/ubbthreads/showflat.php/Cat/0/Number/812865/an/0/page/0#Post812865

This technique is a new one, here is some more information about it
http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=17619
http://www.instantaction.com/

Thanks folks, those look like some really promising options. I'll be especially interested in anything that takes the graphics/memory/processing load off of the client-side browser. But at the same time, I assume that the server will be running a single instance of the "game" (virtual tour in my case) that any number of people will be able to connect to through their browser and experience their own session independent from what other people are seeing in theirs; sure, in a multiplayer game you'd want them to interact with each other, but in my program I don't want them to, I just want them interacting with the program...

And, if Conitec ever decides to develop/acquire their own option for this kind of native functionality, that would be super awesome!