METROPIA
Can’t believe I managed to miss the movie Metropia when it was first released a couple of years ago, the art direction and animation look amazing and I’m sure if I’d heard about it I’d have made every effort to see it. Still, better late than never. Made and set in Sweden (but in English) in a not-too-distant dystopian future… Read more
Users get used
There’s much fuss being made about Google+ and Facebook’s ongoing determination to allow only ‘real’ names on their social networking services but much of the fuss does seem a bit naïve to me, at least in the way it’s expressed. Originally we, the users, were able to pick from a range of online products or services by paying subscriptions or by suffering advertising that the providers benefitted from – we were the customers, their main revenue source, and therefore in the most powerful position to make demands and influence the services we were offered. This relationship has been quietly reconfigured by social network providers. We are no longer the customer, we are now the product.
HAIL – an idea for Second Life
Some time ago I was invited by Dusan Writer to help judge his Second Life Viewer Interface Competition (no, I don’t really know why Dusan asked me either!) and it took me a little time to decide whether I wanted to help judge the competition or enter it myself. In the end I decided to be a judge since I knew I probably wouldn’t have time to put together my own entry – however the competition entries were inspiring (and occasionally frustrating) enough that I threw some ideas together afterwards anyway. I didn’t code anything, just made a few Photoshop mock-ups meant to illustrate a couple of ideas – and I never got very far with it. This all happened long before Viewer 2.0 appeared and fucked-up the UI even more (sorry LL, not a fan!) and it’s now probably quite irrelevant – but there was one idea I had that I still think would really add something to Second Life. I called it ‘Hail’ for no real reason other than I couldn’t think of anything better at the time… Read more
BUY-1-GIFT-1 SALE!
The first BUY1GIFT1 Sale has now ended
Thanks to all customers for their custom!
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Anti-social networking?
So the new Second Life web-profiles went live earlier today, after a shorter-than-Linden-usual beta period. They’re a definite improvement on the previous in-world profiles but I’m not sure they serve much purpose for the wider world web. Who’s going to want to visit my web-profile if they’re not already in Second Life? Maybe if there was a way to IM people who are currently in SL using their web-profile page but that doesn’t seem to work, it just tries to launch your Second Life client. If you leave a message on their web-profile they get sent a notification, so I guess that’s quasi-useful. However, if anyone ever does want to visit mine it’s here, enjoy!
POST-SOUND: Brian Eno’s back, this time with vocals, not always his own…
Ico & The Last Guardian
Finally? Is The Last Guardian, the long-awaited game from Fumito Ueda and Team ICO who created the classic PS2 games Ico and Shadow of the Colossus, finally coming soon? Both Amazon US and Amazon UK are now taking pre-orders for the game and Amazon US set the release date at Dec 31st 2011. Alongside the release of The Last Guardian there are new HD-Remastered PS3 versions of the first two classic games in a special duo pack.
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Just imaginym…
Tateru Nino, on her blog, was recently discussing Google’s emergent policy toward usernames for their Google+ social networking service and confirming that Google, like Facebook, would prefer real-life names and not invented usernames (as from Second Life or similar) to be used. Coincidentally I’d been thinking about this earlier in the day and figured we need to have the whole idea of an invented online presence taken more seriously and maybe we need a term for it.
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Apple's iAvatar?
It seems Apple have designs on avatar creation too – they’re trying to patent new iOS-style gestures and features aimed at the creation and manipulation of avatars and objects within 3D environments. Interesting to set that development alongside Linden Lab’s® recent job listing for a developer fluent in iOS and Android. Put the two things together and we could have some very interesting user-interface options for future SL clients running on iPads – or even iPhones, although Second Life as seen through a keyhole might get a bit frustrating…
SOURCE: Beelitz-Heilstätten
So although I have no shortage of ideas for things to make in Second Life® I get too few of them actually finished, this is something I’m trying to address and change (no really!). The problem’s never been lack of ideas, there are 100′s of things I want to make, the problem is being able to finish things to a level I’m satisfied with – sometimes I have to wait until my building, texturing or scripting skills catch up with my ambition.
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BOOK: Scripting Your World
I bought Scripting Your World soon after it was first published and it’s been a really useful reference ever since. My scripting abilities are basic but even I can grasp most of the concepts explained here – just don’t ask me to explain quaternions – ever. It’s fully illustrated and displays the scripts with the same formatting you’ll see in-world while editing the real thing. Speaking of which you can go and collect all the example scripts from the book at the author’s site inworld – so you don’t have to manually transcribe everything yourself. Playing around with actual scripts is always the best way to learn and there are lots of examples to try.
