Ciaran Laval

October 31, 2015

High Fidelity – October Updates Include Developments With Mouth Tracking, Avatar IK & More

High Fidelity keep people who have registered informed on their progress, whether or not they having been logging in recently. They do so via way of a monthly email update and this works very well.

The news letter usually appears on the High Fidelity blog, the September Newsletter was posted on September 30th. The October one hasn’t yet appeared but it will soon I would imagine. I should add at this point that finding the blog from the main High Fidelity website isn’t as easy as it should be using Windows 10 with a Chrome browser. The link to the blog is at the bottom of the main page in light on light text, or from a dropdown at the top of the page via company.

So what have High Fidelity been doing in October? The newsletter informs us that they have been working with a company called BinaryVR who develop facial tracking software that is intended to be used in virtual reality :

We have been fortunate to work with so many great entrepreneurs doing amazing stuff with VR hardware, BinaryVR is one of these companies. BinaryVR develops facial expression tracking technology for virtual reality, enabling users to create a personalized 3D face from 2D facial photos to track and retarget their facial animations in real-time in any transformed CG character or avatar mode. BinaryVR have integrated their technology into High Fidelity, allowing your mouth to be tracked while in the HMD.

I will include a couple of animated gif’s in this post, but for a better perspective of what’s going on in them please view the short video I’ll embed at the end of the post. Here’s a gif of mouth tracking in action :

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October 30, 2015October 30, 2015

OpenSim Storytellers Are Developing Some Impressive Storytelling Techniques

I’ve spoken to Nara Malone a few times now. Nara is an author, a storyteller and storytelling is something I’m somewhat passionate about. Back in June Nara showed me around OpenSim and gave me some insight into how they were using NPC’s. Things have progressed since then.

On November 7th – 8th An Adventure Game in Open Sim will be launched. Nara informed me that the team behind this immersive storytelling projects includes 25 creators from various grids, including Second Life. They will be exploring stories told with NPCs. Here’s a trailer :

The key thing to note with a project like this is how much collaboration there is between different people. Coders, designers, storytellers are all working on this project, adding their expertise to create the whole and it looks absolutely fascinating.

One of the tools used is The Story Sequencer, Nara talks about it more here.

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October 30, 2015

The Drax Files: World Makers Ep 33 – Luxembourg 1867

Episode 33 of The Linden Lab sponsored Drax Files : World Makers takes us to Luxembourg, but in a sci fi style twist it takes us to Luxembourg in 2015 and Luxembourg in 1867 at the same time.

The main protagonist in this episode is Second Life resident Cyperpiper Roelefs (AKA Pit Vinandy outside Second Life). What makes this episode particularly interesting is that the physical world footage takes place not only in the streets of the City of Luxembourg, but also in the Fort Thüngen Museum and the City Museum of Luxembourg

Inside the museum lies an exhibit; Pfaffenthal 1867 – A virtual walk through the historic Pfaffenthal. This is an exhibit that visitors access through computers as they enter the virtual world of Second Life to find some pretty damn impressive recreations of the historical location.

This is an exhibit that also takes advantage of more modern developments because as well as ten computers, there are also two Oculus Rift headsets available for people to immerse themselves deeper in the virtual experience.

At its heart this is a history exhibit, which utilises the virtual world environment to tell the story of how in 1867 there was a bit of a crisis in Europe (this is not unusual by the way!) when France wanted to buy Luxembourg. However those pesky British were having none of it and during negotiations it was decided to allow Luxembourg to become an independent nation. The aim was partially to prevent war between Germany and France. There’s a lot more to it than this!

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October 29, 2015

Take A Five Hour Creepy Crawl Tour With The Lindens On October 30th

Xiola Linden has urged people to get their costumes ready and join some Lindens on a five hour creepy crawl tour on Friday October 30th. In the linked blog post Xiola says :

It’s creepy, and kooky and you don’t want to miss it!

This Friday, October 30th from 10:00am SLT until 3:00pm SLT – you are most cordially invited to join us inworld for the 2015 Second Life Creepy Crawl! “What is the Creepy Crawl?” you may ask. It’s a scary-good inworld event where Lindens and Residents get dressed up in their best Halloween costumes and roam from spooky spot to spooky spot for music, dancing, and celebrating! It’s going to be a bit like a ‘pub crawl’ without the need for taxi fare.

Costumes are strongly encouraged for this event – some come out and show off your best. I am still deciding between 4 different costume choices I’ve put together and may have to wear all 4 at some point during the crawl. It’s a good thing we’ll have 5 hours to run amok and have fantastical fun. Just keep in mind that this event is for General and Moderate audiences when perfecting your look.

Xiola is a lady of many outfits it should be pointed out. However Xiola won’t be the only Linden on the tour, although the names of the others have so far been kept under wraps there’s a good chance you’ll get to see Lindens inworld, yes they really do make inworld appearances.

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October 28, 2015

Are Virtual Reality Experiences Deficient In Value?

On October 14-15 Oxford Martin School hosted a workshop; Cyberselves in Immersive Technologies. The blurb for the workshop reads :

On October 14-15 2015, the Oxford Martin School hosted the ‘Cyberselves in Immersive Technologies’ symposium on virtual reality and telepresence, sponsored by the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council. The multi-disciplinary symposium brought together technologists, psychologists, neuroscientists, philosophers and cultural theorists looking at the future societal and ethical impacts of virtual reality and immersive technologies.

After this workshop, Dr. Hannah Maslen, a Research Fellow in Ethics at the University of Oxford, published a post over at Practical Ethics; Virtually reality? The value of virtual activities and remote interaction. This post touches upon the benefits, concerns and drawbacks of virtual reality in Dr Maslen’s opinion and certainly makes for an interesting read.

Dr Maslen seems to have some knowledge of Second Life, she references the virtual world more than once, however she also goes back to the 1970’s to take a look at experiments in comparing virtual reality with the physical world :

In 1974, Robert Nozick used the Experience Machine thought experiment to argue against the view that human wellbeing consists only in pleasurable experiences, no matter how complex or apparently real.

There have long been concerns that virtual reality will take us away from the physical world, that we will be immersed in the machine and that we will become addicted to a reality that isn’t real. However we’re a long way from being anywhere close to that point and in her post Dr Maslen points out that at this moment in time, in terms of virtual reality that is plausible, we know where we are :

The main difference between the Experience Machine on the one hand and plausible virtual reality on the other, is that when we use immersive technologies we know that this is what we are doing.

Dr Maslen also points out how virtual reality experiences are different, depending upon the platform, for example using Second Life to drive around in a vehicle would be a different experience to using a driving simulator to drive a car. The technology, the software, the immersive nature all play a role in providing different experiences.

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