Propaganda in Second Life

Music is one thing but when a sim plays right-wing talk radio from conspiracy nut Alex Jones, it's another thing entirely. Using Second Life to promote political causes is something that I've always been against mostly since it's a fantasy world and sims should be apolitical and for everyone. At least that's my opinion.

Now it's fine to express an opinion in an IM but using your music settings to broadcast you personal politics crosses a serious line for me. Truth be told, I'd rather that sims not have an agenda since that makes people who disagree feel persecuted and like they don't belong and it's even worse for people outside of the country.

My Chill Spot

So I started building my chill spot, I only call it that because I don't believe I could call it a house, I mean it doesn't even have four walls. But despite it obvious "hole in the wall" build, I wanted it to be that way. I wanted it to be a place I could just sit and enjoy the view, although I am thinking about adding a flat screen T.V. I also want to add an elevator, which I have tried to do but when I scripted it to go up by touch it would give me an error message, I know the scripting was correct because I changed it to go up only a few feet and it worked fine. I think it's not working because of how high I originally wanted it to go, so I'll have to figure something out so I don't have to fly up there every time. I'm also pretty sure I built my crib the hard way, I used two cubes flattened out for each side of the house and one on the inside and I used a few different prims for the roof. I built it this way so that the textures I applied wouldn't look huge and disproportional from the rest of the structure. I will keep adding to my casa throughout the year, I might even add a second floor and garage to park my shoes.

This is the most recent update to my house, I added a wrap around porch where I can park my bike, although it's not the easiest place to park a bike, and changed the a-frame texture to match the porch.

Building a House

 

I start building a house in our class space. I’m having fun building it even though it not real how I want it to be. I still learning so I am go to take my time and think about how to add to it to make it better. So far I start off with a cube and hollow out the middle. Then I cut an opening in to it using the path cut tool to make a doorway. These things can be done in the object tab in the build menu. So now I have a box with no bottom nor top. In saying that I made the floor, which I hollow out a trap door so I can up through floor. This trap door is easy to spot in the house even though it is cover by phantom cube. Next I fix the doorway and did the same thing to it as I did the other part of the house. I made the doorframe metal and gave it a medium shine. I also darken the bumpiness (which make it look more real) and add a rock floor outside my door. The shine and the bumpiness tools are in the texture tab. Next I did the roof. First I start off with a pyramid and it the same texture as my doorframe. The shine is on high but my bumpiness is the same as the doorframe. The roof look to boring leaving it just like that so I went to object tab again and use the twist tool. I also add the flagpole and the American flag but for some reason the flag is upside on one side of the flag. The do not blow in the wind if you are far away from it but up close it will start to.  

VWPBE

I attended the conference on prejudice in virtual worlds and it was really just a quick presentation on creating a sexist sim that openly discriminates against women called Maletopia. I was hoping for a bigger discussion on why there were so few black avatars in SL but sadly things didn't really deviate from the script or scratch below the surface. This isn't counting how both presenters were late to arrive and how they didn't give me a landmark until a day later. I didn't really learn much aside from what somebody else's sim was. So I wasn't all that impressed and ultimately left feeling like I just wasted enough of my time that I didn't bother with any of the other presenters.

Maletopia is still under construction and not available to the public without an LM. I'll still give one to anyone who asks but it didn't really get it's point across as well as it could and just felt like Gor-lite instead of a real commentary on sexism online. There needs to be more discussion of the issues rather than just a satirical sim. It's one thing to point out a problem but it's a weak argument without any solutions presented.

VWBP!

I have to admit, I got the times messed up for the events I really wanted to go to. But to say the least, I still learned a lot more than I thought I did. After I missed the EVE Online Tour,  decided to choose a different event. I went to the poster exhibit area, and found that I was particularly interested in what I saw. I know that in class, we learn that you can use virtual worlds as a medium for teaching. But hell, did they really get into it.  I had never been more thoroughly intrigued with the depth they took to show how connectivity benefits learning. One of the first poster areas I went to talked about Universities on the Hypergrid. The University of Cincinnati had bought land in Secondlife, where they built a complete replica of the UofC campus. The Center for Simulations & Virtual Environments Research (UCSIM, a group of students and professors from Cincinnati) provides support for the application of virtual environments.They use it to enhance teaching and learning, and to model complex processes and situations through the use of computer generated and enhanced environments. It creates educational and practical applications of virtual worlds, such as first responders to incidents such as policemen and firefighters. At first I never really thought about what exactly entails 'practical' uses for a 3D augmented world- but the more I thought about it, it also applies to training for astronauts and pilots alike. It's intriguing to see how 3D worlds, not just Secondlife, can have a more substantial effects on learning on students other majors, rather than ones just learning to make video games and 3D worlds.

Navigation Benchmark

First I headed to see a DJ playing at Deranged. I only stayed for a few minutes since the DJ wasn't playing much of what I'd call “real” metal. The club is usually cool and the crowd is sometimes okay but oftentimes, the people there are obnoxious and the music sucks. They’re just spinning often so I show up since I'll at least find a live DJ.

I left shortly after once they started playing post-grunge in a metal club. That to me crossed a serious moral boundary.

I then headed to a small art gallery in a log cabin. I only really went there for this class so I just took a snapshot and then left.

I then headed to a weapons shop since it's the only store who's name I could remember at the time. I didn't buy anything since I was flat broke in RL so I just took another snapshot.

VWBPE sessions

I went to a couple of VWBPE sessions last week.  Again, Second Life has surprised me.  The first event I wanted to go to was Resistance is futile: making a case for virtual worlds, but the sim was full.  So I decided to go to the Swag Bag Give-Away right after it, just in case it was always going to be this hard to get into an event.  There wasn’t much of a description of the event, so I didn’t know what to expect. When I got there early people were standing around chatting and a greater directed me to where they were.  The were mostly teachers, but there were some grad students too.  They were all really friendly and discussed what sessions they were going to or had been to.  It seems like the social sessions are for people to regroup and discuss how they felt about the whole thing, and of course, be social.  And there was a lot of free stuff at this event, as the name would imply.

There was also live musicians at the event with a dance ball.  At first I didn’t know they were live, but the other people there were happy to explain it to me.  It really shocked me, there were people from all over the US and a few out of the country listening to the same couple singing in Florida.  The part that probably surprised me the most was that there was a sing along part, and a lot of people really did turn their mics on and sing with them.  After the singing ended, I headed over the main building and collected my goods.  There was a lot of free stuff at this event, as the name would imply.

I really wanted to attend the machinima sessions, but I set the alarm in my phone to 8pm instead of 8am. As a result, I missed them, but I did go to the concert at the end.  I was pretty funny actually.  I saw a Michael Jackson avatar perform Thriller and other similar things.  I couldn’t stay long though because Second Life kept crashing.  I guess there were just too many people there. I was hoping to stay for the fire works, so if anyone else did and has some pictures, I would like to see them.

 The first event I went to.  That is a dancing lion and it was awesome.

 The concert area for the last events

I have to keep the graphic settings pretty low on my computer, but this is the Michael Jackson avatar.

VWBP and the Beatles

The Virtual Worlds Best Practices events were great! It was so different to be at speech or concert with an avatar and to see all the other avatars there as well. One of the speeches I went to that I really enjoyed was the EVE online. They brought you through the basics of EVE online and how it works. I actually enjoyed it so much I started an account so I could see more of the incredible MMO. The graphics were breathtaking and how complex the gameplay is at first takes you by surprise but just like Secondlife once you are walked through it is very fun and easy and fulfilling. To see all of your hard work and time actually amount to something. You can also make money on EVE by buying and selling game time which I found interesting. But by far the best venue I went to was the Beatles cover band that performed at the end of VWBP. I did stay to see the fireworks show but I think I might have been in the wrong place because the cover band just kept playing and I didn't see any fireworks. I really wanted to go to a few other venues but because of work and school I was very limited to the ones I could go to. My eyes have opened up to what is possible to not only Secondlife but all MMOs and virtual worlds and the possibilities they can bring to a class. I am really looking forward to next years VWBP and as far as that goes any upcoming events in Secondlife!

So Far...

I haven't had the chance to really sink my teeth into Secondlife yet but as of Tuesday I received my Alienware M17 laptop, finally! So now I can explore the world as it was meant to be explored, on it's highest settings with no lag. With my old laptop I couldn't even log on, or I could but it was unplayable. Now I can freely explore the world and see all of the incredible things in Secondlife. I am very anxious to expand my knowledge of SL, to learn how to build better objects and manipulate prims, script and customize my avatar. I am also excited about our upcoming projects and have a few ideas but need to learn a little more about SL before I can bring my ideas to fruition, I know right, what a nice word. So now I have my incredible laptop that can run Secondlife on the highest setting with ease and it's like a whole new world that I am really want to explore. I'm going to start with finding something a little more fitting for my character, then I will start to create a nice little spot for my avatar to relax in. I have also been trying to get some of my friends and family who have never been to secondlife to start their own avatar. I have a friend who has wanted to open their own store to sell cloths and I told them about SL and how they can have there own store and sell cloths here. This weekend I am going to help them with there avatar creation but I still have a little more to learn before I can get there store going, but I do believe it will be a great way for me to learn with a "crash course" by learning from my mistakes, which is the best way for me to learn how to do something. So far I'm still a noob, but I hope to get past that ever too common turn of phrase by learning everything I can.

The World Is Your Canvas

Exploring SL is super exciting. I look around at all the environments and objects and think about the creation and the creator. Some assets are bought and repeated or stretched to create the illusion of customization. Even if everything in one environment isn't from a singular author, it is from a singular vision. Looking at Columbia Island, our environment is rich and fascinating. No doubt this has to do with the type of residents and their ambitions. Every environment I've seen is a rich 3D environment that was designed by a visionary.

Currently, my only ability to create environments is limited to Columbia Island and its sandbox. I can only make primitive shapes. I can join several prims together and use some imagination to create some really unique shapes. However, until I can model a customizable 3D object, my output is limited. Prims are not all that bad, and I still have a lot of flexibility within prims. After learning about their several properties, such as flexible, physical, locked, etc., and importing my own textures, I believe I can make a pretty complex structure.

I missed class the week before and when I came back to the sandbox, I saw some buildings floating above. These looked like combinations of prims that were simple enough to do on my own. I remember someone mentioning the door even has a script to open and that doesn't seem too hard to do!

I look forward to envisioning a final project. 3D design and virtual spaces are still a new avenue of creativity for me, so I have a lot to learn.

Building

This week I spent some time building a floating room in our class space.  I made this dome shaped house with a satin hammock thing below it.  I made it out of twisted and cut prims.  I wasn’t too careful about the textures so they look pretty crazy, but I like the way they look.  That probably makes my house look like it was built by a noob so maybe I’ll change it later.  I started building a flower too. So far, it’s just a stick coming out of a flower pot.  This is the first time I’ve changed the texture of just one face of an object.  I made the top of the cylinder a dirt texture, and wouldn’t you know, Second Life has a ‘potting soil’ texture.  I got to making the actual flower and couldn’t come up with a good way to make it.  I’ll give it another try a little later.  

I also made myself a Television set.  I linked it up to a live feed of 200 penguins at Sea World.  I told one of my friends about this feature in Second Life and he signed up right after.  It is a really useful feature for fun, and for presentations or anything else in Second Life.  It was wise of the developers to try to integrate more with the web, maybe this trend will continue and make Second Life popular again.  I’m not sure what I’ll do next with the room.  I want to make sculpty objects, but for now prims are plenty.  I also might try to make a skin for my avatar.  I looked at a template and I think I understand enough to give it a try.  So, until we start working with maya, that will probably be the next thing I tackle.  

SL Experience!

Any experience with Second Life that I've had on my Mac, I found to be awkward and frustrating. Pardon the grammar. I found that every time I try to upload an image or sound, or even try to teleport, my SL Viewer crashes. And as I'm sure you can understand, that is frustrating. But beyond that, (whenever I use a regular computer) I find my SL experience quite pleasant. Customizing my character is relaxing, but I also find it quite dull from time to time, and Find myself having much more fun building. Whenever I log on, I try to look around and see what people built, and how they went about actually creating it. I've tried making myself a list of all the things I would like to build, but my list is always changing because I find that a lot of the things I want to create requires scripting, which is a process that causes me some anxiety. Granted, we have the website which helps us out immensely, but I always feel somewhat guilty when I use it. It feels like I'm cheating, and that I should learn the scripting language the good old fashioned way. And that scares me. So recently, I've been having a difficult time making bigger and more complex objects, though I do intend on using the website at some point in my near future. After all, my goal for the end of this class is to gain enough skills to be able to make a giant recreation of the Airship from Final Fantasy VII. Or a unicorn. That would be neat, too.

Journeying with Landmarks

I have traveled to just a handful of places in SL, whether thru the search bar and a random entry or thru the word of a friend. Some places are interesting, some are packed with people (which makes rendering things a nightmare). All in all, I've learned a new appreciation to SL environments, and just taking in the scenery.

My friend Hibiki handed me a location card the other day to the space station above Columbia Island. He tells me the space station was created by one person. The station is beautiful yet simple. It has a bar and many rooms inside. I enjoyed looking around the scenery and appreciating the architecture. It is easy to appreciate the 3D design and interior architecture. I imagined creating my own 3D spaces and giving them purpose. The space bar is a cool place, but what does it do? It provides a cool hang out, no doubt. But could it be more? I thought of using it as a cinema setting. Hibiki showed me some machinima from SL and the idea intrigues me. The types of actors and locations could be limitless and your imagination is the only limit.

Exploring the multiple rooms made me realize the potential for scenes and spaces that are all driven by the players. It was fun goofing off with Hibiki in there and chatting. Each room may offer a unique object or setting, but it ultimately made me think more about location and purpose with SL.

Oh The Place You'll Go... :]

I tried to make my Second life browsing experience as awesome as my real life browsing antics. In my findings I came across 2.5 pretty cool places. I say 2.5 because one of the 3 places I visited only lived up to half the expectations it's title suggested...and for the most random off topic things. Ok! Lets get to it. I figure I'd start from Coolest to Not So Cool :]

1.) Flickr Gettr

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/IDIAA%20Studios/120/198/8

This place I found by going to the destinations and clicking on Art of course. It caught my eye because it had 3d in the title and Flickr. When I got there it kind of felt like I was standing inside the home screen for Safari that shows you your last visited sites but cooler because there were all these images of peoples recent searches just spinning around my head. i really like the fact that the gallery was interactive and required user input because it made my time there a lot more fun. Since I found that the search bar was functional I started using it to search random things just to see what pictures were being pulled from flickr, and to see if it was a real time search or just something that the pre scripted for certain purposes. To my surprise it was a real time search. OH Joy! The search I decided on was "dunks" like Nike Dunks and I came up with some awesome search results. This has to be my top destination.

2.)Nexgen Aviation

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/London%20England%20UK/128/128/21

Now this place caught my eye because Ive always loved planes and it was an Aviation event. When I got there it was about 20 people or so there but I didnt see any planes to my disappointment and there were 5 people dancing on the dance floor and when I teleported to this location and when I got there they were kind of mean but I decided not to stay there and continue to wonder around. In my findings I ran into two things. Free Sushi and a garbage can. Weird right? The garbage can had trash floating around it and it was clickable. I decided to click it just to see what it would do and to my surprise it let me dumpster dive! This was rather nostalgic having played the Sims Urbs and dumpster diving be a pastime in the game and finding cool things in doing so.  I did find a couple of cool scripts as we as a few other things. this place turned ot to be pretty cool after all.

3) PNC Stores

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Kensington%20W8%20London/24/89/22

 I had been hearing a lot of rumors that there was an Apple Store floating around in Second Life for sometime now so I decided to go on the hunt for it. I found numerous of YouTube videos on the store and it showed the store having a genius bar and being a replica of the actual store. Clicking on the links brought me to a place that didn't look like the Apple Store so I gave up. I really wanted to go to a gadget store so I kept looking. I came across a store called PNC stores that had 3 levels. fountains furniture and gadgets. I decided to stick to the gadgets level and I came across a couple of really cool gadgets that were rather expensive. The first was a teleporter that I'm guessing was supposed to be an elevator to go to each level.I tried it out, and the graphics were really awesome(see the first picture) but to my dispair it kept timing out and didn't go anywhere. The second was one of those giant screens like what we saw in the field trip last week that was set to youtube and was $1000L, it would have been awesome if it worked for a demo but it didnt. Bummer

Over all my experience exploring was pretty cool and I enjoyed myself. Yay.

3 Places! =D

Old New York

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Acropolis/85/108/30
Ok! So Old New York sounded really neat to me, because I've always wanted to visit New York in real life. I found myself a little disappointed...It was very very small in comparison t the size I actually thought it would be. It also tried too hard to make New York seem like the dirtiest place on Earth. For instance, there was a barrel of toxic waste, more than enough dumpsters, and what I believe was a strip club, but because I thought it was a strip club I didn't go inside in case I was right. I kind of just went around, it was mostly stores and it was kind of boring. The only really big redeeming factor of Old New York was the bridge, and a really nice art display in one of the buildings.

The Magic Flute
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Imparafacile/133/112/35
The magic flute was really interesting! I remember a day in class when our teacher told us there needed to be a balance between fiction and reality so that those in the world/video game could be able to grasp onto something-but this (what I believe French made world) pushed the envelope a little too far on the fantasy aspect in the only building they had in that world. The rest of the place was very normal, and very pretty. There was a nice beach, pretty land. But then you walk into the only building, and everything doesn't quite make sense. The floors change color as you walk through the halls-things that would be solid aren't and shouldn't be solid are-it was an amazing array of color and mystery! It was much like a funhouse of color and imagination. I loved it way more in comparison to the Old New York! The picture is of the buildings outside, because I didn't know where i the building to take the picture! There was a lot to take in!

  

 
Inspire Space Park
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Shinda/74/187/1560
Inspire Space Park, I think, is my favorite. You're basically in a world that looks like space, and it's very gorgeous. It's the type of place to go if you want to chill or meet people, and the people who were there were very friendly. At one point I fell, but I walked along a space rock path to find that it lead to what looked like a star being created. It was beautifully made and I was astounded by it. There were a lot of interactive things, too. You could click different rocks and dance, or click a different rock and have gravity no longer apply to your avatar-all in all it was very pretty and a lot of fun! Especially for someone like me, who loves to look up at stars and loves space in general. I used to want to be an astronomer! There were also shooting stars, which also really caught my attention! I also took two pictures, just because I thought both were really gorgeous.

3 places

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Five%20Sisters/52/179/21

I visited a 1950's themed sim with a live DJ.  It was a little odd at first, to see all of the avatars dancing.  I joined in and the people there were friendly and nice.  The DJ is what really surprised me, she talked in between each song and took requests from anyone there.  I was expecting just song after song, I didn't expect so much interaction between everyone there.  It made the whole event seem less silly than it initially did, although my avatar wouldn't stop dancing after I left.

 http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Freebies/177/157/65

Freebies is basically what it sounds like, a place to get free things.  I think this is a pretty well known place, but it was new to me.  I say basically in the first sentence because it does have some not free things in it.  Rarely do things cost money; I only saw a few things that were L$10, everything else was free.  This place is really big, I doubt I saw everything there, but I did look around for quite some time.  I even found some free flexi-hair.  There are also these ATM looking things that direct you external sites where you can take surveys and earn Lindens.  I'm not sure how legitimate those are.

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Kalepa/169/251/61

Kalepa is a Greek/Roman inspired area.  It's made up of really steep mountains and a volcano.  This picture is from a telescope at the top of one of the mountains.  There wasn't much going on here, it's meant to look pretty and to walk around.  I explored for a while and ended up going inside of the volcano which had a shining treasure room.  People seem to gather at the beach and chat a little, I explored instead.

Every place cost an arm & leg

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Insula%20Inferi%20Hills/250/20/287

  

Naruto Ninja World - Under Rennovation, Insula Inferi Hillsstore is a store. This place give and sell clothes, accessories, tattoos, and more base on the number one 1 anime Naruto. The at most, you can catch one to three people there at one. Avatar outfit are using from go for 300L to 400L which is crazy high but the thing that brought me to this store was the action scripts or LPCS. I don’t know what that stands for but it on each action scripted poster. Any way there are a lot of cool ones that they sell and some they are very high but most of them have a good deal. I didn’t buy anything but I did get a cool free outfit.

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Halfclaw/204/94/39

MOONLIGHT ANIMATIONS DANCE ANIMATIONS MAIN STORE, Halfclaw

have a lot of Animation there. The Event start at 8pm and it was really to promote the store. That’s why it only had five people there not counting myself. I walk around a little bit and then left to go to another event.

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Tha%20Slump/128/128/2004

* The Vault Game Room &  * The Players Club *, Tha Slump Was an ok event. I talk to a few people. It was about 10 people when I went to it.  the place had look nice and had spme cool features in it. There was a lot of game that you could play there but it cost a lot of money, so again I left.

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Triskelion%20Market/230/72/28

Dreamscapes Art Gallery, Triskelion Market was an ok art gallery. There was some nice pictures but that was it. I try to fly to another place but it didn’t let me. I really I like scenery of the whole place I walk around meet some people and just enjoyed the view.