Ciaran Laval

November 25, 2014November 25, 2014

High Fidelity Moves To The VR Tune Whilst Ebbe Altberg Looks To The Future

“Any predictions on what the future holds for virtual reality theatre?” Draxtor Despres asked MadameThespian Underhill in episode 24 of The Drax Files : World Makers. MadameThespian gave a very interesting answer :

In the future I want motion tracking technology, so that our bodies can be used to flesh out the acting, be free from a keyboard and a mouse. Eventually the way an avatar can be manipulated will be so detailed that it will be like being there in real life, totally immersed. Twenty years from now when everyone is doing this and going ‘Oh wow isn’t this cool’, hey I’ve been doing this in a virtual space since 1997, I’m still here, I love it.

The above quote demonstrates quite a few things. The first being that virtual spaces have been around in one form or another for quite a while now. Another being that the future has a long way to go and a further point is that those who are involved in virtual worlds have different ideas on what the future may hold.

However the most relevant part of the quote as far as this blog post is concerned is to do with body tracking. I’ve raised concerns as to whether people are going to be comfortable wearing headsets, setting up motion trackers and whether people will actually embrace having their movements captured. I’m not totally alone in this view, even enthusiasts of new technologies admit that there are concerns in this area.

Ebbe Altberg was asked by Ben Gilbert of Endgadget : What is the greatest challenge that the medium of virtual reality must overcome in the next five years? Ebbe’s answer touches upon these issues of comfort :

Ease of use remains the greatest challenge. In order to truly reach the mainstream, virtual reality experiences will have to be easy, natural and comfortable to create, interact with and consume.

Ebbe also touched upon this on the Endgadget Expand panel : The Future Of VRBeyond Gaming when he admitted that after about half an hour of using the Oculus Rift he feels tired. This isn’t so much about the comfort of wearing the device, it’s more to do with frame rates and resolution in virtual experiences that were not really built with the Oculus experience in mind.

However one could imagine that having to wear headsets or get in tune with a motion sensor may well suit those who have an acting and live performance background, they are familiar with the concepts of dressing up, making eye contact and being fully aware of what their expressions may convey.

Storytelling in virtual reality is a glaring use case that goes beyond gaming and if consumers can afford to get immersed from the comfort of their own home, it’s one that could really take off. We’re in the very early stages of this here but one company who have been happily playing to their peripherals are High Fidelity and they exemplify this yet again in their latest blog post : Rock-Paper-Scissors Showdown: Using Leap Motion at High Fidelity.

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November 24, 2014

Visiting Nova Albion On The Trail Of Salazar Jack

On September 13th 2012 Salazar Jack went missing after an accident in the Forest Of Kahruvel. This is documented on the Kahruvel website as well as a further update on the Poultry Report from December 2013 where we are told that Osprey Therian went looking for Salazar Jack.

Mysterious communications have been appearing on Twitter recently, so I decided to take a look and started my investigation at the location of the last known sighting of Salazar Jack. However all I really found was a stone pillar with a stickman adorned upon it. I decided to work backwards, indeed I went a long way back. I went to the birth place of Salazar Jack, Nova Albion.

The lands of Nova Albion were discovered by Magellan Linden back in 2004 and it does in places have a feel of a land that time forgot. Nova Albion is a set of city sims, Grignano, Miramere, Sistiana and Barcola. Bay City, which was discovered later, is not that far away.

There’s a definite nostalgia to the place, there s a display board featuring videos from Torley. There is a resident advertising board and there’s even a prim from Blondin advertising the showcase, which morphed into the Destination Guide.

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November 22, 2014

The Drax Files Radio Hour Episode 46 – Drax Visits Linden Lab HQ And Finds FIC Cups!

Episode 46 of The Drax Files Radio Hour sees Draxtor Despres visit Linden Lab HQ in San Francisco whilst Jo Yardley stays in an attic in 1920’s Berlin. Drax gets to talk to the Great Bug Hunter Of Olde Linden Town, in the shape of form of saying hello to Alexa Linden! I’m so jealous, Alexa is a legend and yes she does usually work in the Seattle office.

He gets to talk to Michelle Linden who ensures that Ebbe Altberg doesn’t spend all day on Twitter. He talks to Xiola Linden, who has a very cool hat inworld.

He also gets to talk to Ebbe Altberg, Monty Linden who talks about the content delivery network, Brooke Linden who talks about the SL Marketplace and he goes to the basement of the Linden Lab HQ to talk to Shaman Linden and Kona Linden. I used to love playing Monty Mole on the Sinclair Spectrum. Those were the days! Where were we? Oh yes, back to the future. Drax also got a glimpse of the next generation virtual world Linden Lab are producing, whose project name is currently a closely guarded secret, to such an extent that when someone mentions the name in the radio hour, it gets bleeped out and this also meant that an interview with Bagman Linden had to be pulled from the show.

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November 21, 2014

Viewer-Managed Marketplace Available on Aditi

Linden Lab have blogged that the new Viewer-Managed Marketplace is available on Aditi, better known as The Beta Grid. The blog post informs us that :

The new Viewer-Managed Marketplace (VMM), now available* on Aditi, allows you to easily manage your inventory on the Second Life Marketplace using the Second Life Viewer. Items no longer need to be loaded into the Merchant Outbox or a Magic Box, and are instead sold directly from your inventory.

VMM will allow all Merchants to get off of Magic Boxes in addition to supporting modification of listing inventory directly from the Viewer. While Merchants will still need to go to the Marketplace web site in order to edit listings, they will be able to create listings and list or unlist them from the Viewer.

The blog post is accompanied by a Wiki article and a Knowledgebase Article which both have extra information and instructions on how to use the coming new feature. The Viewer-Managed Marketplace (AKA VMM) addresses some outstanding issues from Direct Delivery. The first is a biggie, VMM allows you to list no copy items. Currently, Direct Delivery does not support no copy items and merchants selling no copy items have had to continue to use magic boxes.

Another issue is that there have been intermittent issues with the Merchant Outbox and VMM addresses those issues too because once this is fully rolled out there will be no need to move items to the Marketplace because they will be being sold directly from your inventory. At this point can I just add, I remain unconvinced that this will end well, but we’ll see!

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November 21, 2014

The Drax Files: World Makers Ep 24 – MadameThespian Underhill

An image should be here — Episode 24 Of Drax Files

Episode 24 of The Drax Files : World Makers features MadameThespian Underhill, Actor-director with the Avatar Repertory Theater and Builder/seller of Victorian homes & items, pianos, harpsichords, pipe organs and scripted music. Then there’s more, MadameThespian is one of those rare beasts in Second Life, she’s a Charter Member! Even Lindens get excited when they see Charter Members. Charter Member status means that someone is rather old in Second Life terms, in this case MadameThespian has a rez date of 18th December 2002.

More importantly Charter Members played a very important role in keeping Second Life afloat during its early days. They paid an upfront fee which I believe guaranteed them a 4096m plot for life with no further land fees. However the upfront fee they paid, around USD$160.00, provided some much needed cash to keep Second Life in development.

Virtual worlds, explains MadameThespian, are an extension to the ancient art of live storytelling. The Avatar Repertory Theater have produced many shows over the years including original productions and adaptations of existing works.

They build their own sets and create some of their own items but sometimes someone else makes a better item and they take full advantage of the fact that there are plenty of other content creators in Second Life who create suitable wares for their shows.

MadameThespian comes from, a thespian background. She was a Chicago based actor through most of the eighties but now lives in the mountains of Montana where she is a member of the Montana Shakespeare company. However there are certain areas of acting where the virtual world provides opportunities for actors where the real world may close doors.

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