Second Life – Page 161

November 26, 2013

[Vengeance + Vengeance] Shows Why Machinima Growth Could Be Good For Content Creators

I love the art of storytelling, in all its forms. I’d love to have been able to present a story within Second Life, to direct it with my own vision. There are other places where this is more feasible and I’m currently liking the look of Cloud Party for this sort of venture.

However for a good story you need good content too, especially when it’s visual. This is also true for those who make machinima. I have recently been looking at a science fiction machinima short entitled “[Vengenace + Vengeance]“.

This wasn’t shot in Second Life, although Second Life is home to many good examples of machinima. [Vengeance + Vengeance] was created with the Unreal Development Kit 2010-08-Beta , Autodesk Maya 2011, Adobe CS5 Master Suite and ZBrush 4.0. However many of the props could be used in Second Life style machinima, some of the effects and certainly the facial character animations aren’t what you’d see in Second Life but the content, textures, etc they could certainly be at home in Second Life.

One of the things with machinima, due to the fact that it’s often a short production, is to try and find some background to the story. There won’t be much time for character development, especially in a story that lasts less than twenty minutes. Fortunately this example has a synopsis:

“In a world where technology has leveraged politics and military is controlled by corporations, only the cleverest or most brutal survive. The Resnick Corporation through advanced genomic research stands poised to control weapon development with an advanced soldier prototype. The only problem, the prototype has gone wrong.

[Vengeance+Vengeance], a contemporary adaptation of “The Hunter” by Richard Stark (AKA Donald E. Westlake) places an Asian female in the role of the main character Parker. It’s a world set in a dystopian future where human life is a commodity to be toyed with by the powerful. Science has become the key to domination and those who control it the rulers. Lily, our protagonist is blessed with natural talents of athleticism and intelligence. A research scientist who’s specialization is in nanotechnology and its use in biomimetics and organic synthesis is employed by the Resnick Corporation. We find her discarded in a hostile wasteland where the results of diabolical genetic engineering have produced a distorted population of mutants. Who has put her there and why? Using brute intelligence and raw violence to overcome her adversaries Lily finds that all is not as it appears. Her efforts have been distorted and corrupted. Is she the only one who can set things straight?”

Reading that will help you to get more out of the story if you find the time to watch it, you can view the movie and more about it at the link I’m about to post now:

http://vengeancevengeance.com/index.html

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November 24, 2013

Rome Coming To Versu But When Will Versu Come To The Android Or Second Life?

Emily Short has a teaser on her blog for a new Versu title : Coming To Versu. All the teaser contains is an image and the word “Rome“. Now as we all know, Rome wasn’t built in a day, nor was the Versu port to Android. On that blog post someone asks:

“How’s the Android port coming along by the way? =)”

Emily replies: “I’m afraid I’m not in a position to announce a date on that. I hear you, though.”

Versu, if you’re unfamiliar with it, is Linden Lab’s interactive fiction product. There are plans to allow user generated content on the platform so it’s definitely worth keeping an eye on.

Linden Lab don’t seem to advertise Versu that well, which is not going to surprise long term Second Life users. There’s surely scope for an official Versu blog of sorts to keep people updated. I’m also surprised that Linden Lab don’t use Second Life to promote Versu.

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November 23, 2013November 23, 2013

The Day Of The Doctor – Dr Who Events In Second Life

With the 50th anniversary celebrations of Doctor Who in full swing, I decided to take a look at the Second Life events calendar to see what’s going in the virtual world. I discovered best in costume parties, a themed Giant Snail race and a couple of concerts.

This is not an exhaustive list and the only place I can vouch for is Giant Snail Racing, which is heaps of fun.

Some places may be more moderate so check any places carefully before rushing in, one does wonder what’s going on at place where Madam Mellons is the host, but hopefully it’s all good fun! Now on with the events, all times are SLT. Some events are taking place tomorrow.

Giant Snail Racing

Time : 11:00am 23/11/13

Duration : 1 hour

Location : Devon Dream (http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Devon%20Dream/152/100/777)

45 foot tall Snails compete for fame and money over a crazy obstacle Course. You can watch you can race. come check it out. get there a few hours early if you want to race if you haven’t raced before and well get you set up. Talk to RacerX Gullwing about that. You can see the races at http://treet.tv/shows/snailraces Oh the theme this week is the Doctor Who. If you customize your full perm free snail to the theme you might win a prize too. Get your free snail at the track. The track is always open come on down and give it a try touch the ? in green circles for the tutorial. or watch this video from youtube :

Best in Dr Who @ The Worlds End Pub

Time : 11:00am 23/11/13

Duration : 1 hour

Location : London City2 (http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/London%20City2/128/128/2)

Come and join us at The Worlds End Pub, London City, for ‘Best in Dr Who’. Get your favourite Doctor Who outfits on and join us for an hour long event and enter the contest for a chance of winning some Lindens. Our resident DJ will be there playing all the top tunes from across the decades.

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November 22, 2013

Qarl – The Simplest Solution Is The Best One – And Collision Bones Are Indeed MUCH Simpler Than The Mesh Deformer

The arguments regarding the collision bones versus Mesh Deformer solution continue to rage in the Second Life forum. The problem with solutions is that better is very very subjective, both solutions have pros and cons and neither of them are the perfect solution.

Personally I’d have preferred to see a two state solution here because the Mesh Deformer and the Liquid Mesh type solution should have been able to work side by side as a server side value as to whether a mesh needs to be deformed was part of the Mesh Deformer solution. Therefore if a content creator went with the Liquid Mesh style solution, they would just have changed the value of their mesh to signify it did not need to be deformed by the deformer.

However when forming an opinion on solutions it’s useful to get feedback from people who know what they’re talking about and former Linden Karl Stiefvater (Qarl Fizz, formerly Qarl Linden) has responded largely positively to the news that Linden Lab are adding extra bones to the Second Life skeleton to aid content creators to make Mesh clothing that fits various avatar shapes. This is despite the fact that Linden Lab are not implementing his Mesh Deformer solution.

I say largely because Qarl has some complaints about the way his Mesh Deformer project has been received at Linden Lab and quite frankly I agree with him. However in a statement on the Mesh Deformer Jira Storm-1716 Qarl says:

“Several people have asked me – this seems like the best place to answer.

LL’s assessment here is mostly good. in almost all situations, the simplest solution is the best one – and collision bones are indeed MUCH simpler than the mesh deformer. as i see it, collision bones have two downsides: 1) they are substantially harder to use for the person creating the garment and 2) probably don’t track as well to the avatar shape.
in the end, the evaluation must be made by the content creators who use the tool.

i will reiterate that the two year delay and refusal to communicate are unacceptable.”

Are there politics at play in Linden Lab’s decision? I honestly don’t know but we’ll come back to that later. The fact of the matter is that Linden Lab have gone with a solution that will largely work as intended.

Continue reading “Qarl – The Simplest Solution Is The Best One – And Collision Bones Are Indeed MUCH Simpler Than The Mesh Deformer”