The thing about going on holiday is that you miss things and I’ll try and catch up this evening if I can, a bit at least. One of the things I missed whilst walk along the beach in Majorca was episode 6 of the excellent Drax Files, as usual I’ll embed the video at the end of the post.
This episode featured Abramelin Wolfe, AKA Animation King of Abranimations in Second Life, which for those unfamilair with the brand is an animation store, one that even I’ve heard of and as I’m often poked for not wearing an AO inworld, that’s rather impressive! At their store you will also find avatars, skins, games, toys, vehicles and gadgets.
The thing about this interview is that it gives you an insight into the eye watering costs of animation accessories, Abramelin talks of how he purchased his first mocap suit back in 2005 at the eye watering cost of £14,000, the suit also looks very painful. Most people think of Second Life content creators as being plucky amateurs but with setup costs like that, we’re delving into a far more professional world.
Again Draxtor manages to get behind the avatar with real life footage appearing of Abramelin and his wife walking in Scotland as well as at work creating content for their inworld business. Abramelin works on the rigging and movement and his wife is the artist behind how the avatars look.
We get an insight into their studio, which features 24 cameras capturing motion as well as Abramelin talking of how motion capture works and how people move naturally.
Abramelin is also very enthusiastic about the creativity of Second Life, not just from his own products but the creativity of others and how Second Life is a great platform for people to express those creative skills. However there’s a twist at the end of the interview where Draxtor mentions that Abramelin doesn’t seem to be wearing his own products when he’s inworld! Ha, see, it’s not only evil Drow Wizards who can go without.
This is another great interview and one that yet again exemplifies excellent use cases for Second Life, but the beuty of this series really is how Draxtor gets behind the avatar to explore the person behind the avatar so well, it’s bringing the virtual person to the real world that really makes this series stand out.
Abranimations Main Store SLURL : http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Animations/44/97/253
Nice interview. I’m on my way to the stor ;-D
store too!