trees are people too

well, I said I wanted more pictures, so here you go.

I am documenting my sculptypaint creations as they have a nasty habit of going awol for no reason. I think my poor old confuser is having trouble handling the pressure. It really creaks through this. But this is me as builder.

pretty simplistic, i know, but they will hopefully add a bit of authenticity to the set. For my final trick I hope to make a (drumroll please) trash can, oscar the grouch style. I hope these will suffice as things I have built. The pain of sculptypaint better be worth it -_-*

Our first idea in second life was devised during brainstorming in the tute, and I think we are all pretty pleased.

Following on from the creative brief of ABC’s My Street (which is pretty broad, mind you) we have decided to do a piece based on the following concept:

Following a single central character, the narrative of the story will follow their life through the various streets they have lived in. Each street will represent an age, an emotion, an experience from their life as they grow and move over time. Starting at age 10 (childhood), then 20, 30 and finally forty, the four different street will (hopefully) encapsulate different stages of the characters life, moving from the innocence and nostalgia of childhood, to the more pacy life of your twenties and thirties, through to the more settled life of your forties, when the street you are living in will probably be the one you settle in. In this way, our My Street really become the road of life (cliche much lol) as traipsed by this central character.

After discussing the many different streets we had lived in during our lives, and also the different aspects we wanted to add to our machinima, this seemed like to perfect way to incorporate a number of experiences and scenarios within a limited amount of time and space, while still maintaining a fluid and continuous narrative. It’s also a story we can all relate too, as we all have memories of streets we have lived on in our lives, be they bad, good, fond or otherwise. I guess you could say we are are conceptualising that the story of my (our) street is also the story of my (our) life.

We have decided to divide our plot into 4 smaller streets, and the ‘camera’ (when we work out how to use it) will follow the character through the various streets chronologically, which also gives us all the opportunity to build our one complex prim/item/building to place in our section. The visuals will be accompanied by a narrative which gives a little further insight into each street and each period of life, even a little anecdote: When I was 20 we lived in an amazing skyhigh apartment, but all I did was party all the time so the place was a mess…. or something. You get our drift.

Of course, ‘complexity’ of objects/buildings is totally subjective (cough cough), and we are still discovering our limitations and abilities in SL. This should mean that we can capture a variety of scenes – perhaps implement a range of angles, themes, colours etc – which will keep the piece interesting, but will also not require too much camera movement, and so should translate well to machinima for mobile phone.

Teamsupersecondlife consists of:

Caroline (aka me) playing the part of Growler Xue
Danny as Dahnee Skytower
Ash as Adede Morpork and
Sofia as Jemima String.

So watch this space. It’s sure to be amazing. At the very least it will be a street or something.

Chanced upon the most timely of documentaries last night. Virtual adultery and Cyberspace Love is part of a documentary series called Wonderland created by BBC2, and this particular episode explores the real world relationships of people who meet, court, and even marry, in the virtual world of second life. The episode centres around two relationships – one successful, the other not so much, but both equally fascinating.

While the documentary provided only a superficial analysis of what are essentially incredibly complex and unprecedented relationships emerging from a new and unexplored social space, it was surprisingly heart wrenching to watch the story of Carolyn and Lee, an American couple whose lives and marriage is slowly torn apart by her addiction and ‘virtual affair’ in second life. The disturbing yet arresting story of Carolyn’s second life addiction slowly unfolds against the backdrop of her neglected home, where dishes pile in the sink, the windows are taped up to prevent light coming in and even the room has been completed painted except for the area around her computer – she clearly couldn’t spare the time from the game to relocate. In the next room play her four (presumably lonely) children, and her baffled and dismayed husband, as she quenches her 14-hours-a-day SL habit, which she explains to her kids as akin to ‘playing barbie’. See, in real life Carolyn is a pudgy, ordinary looking, depressed housewife. In SL she is a ravishing vixen brunette, with the body of a goddess and a virtual partner to match – cue Elliot, who lives in Britian, is small, also ordinary and caucasian, but in SL is a huge black man with numerous piercings, bulging pecs toting two uzi’s and a sword (why not after all).

The subplot of second life features Kiera and Dean, two relatively unattractive brits who also personify their wildest dreams through their SL avatars (as Kiera sadly says, in second life she looks like she ‘should have looked’ before her life took over, aka got really fat). These two get married in second life in front their family and friends (in realtime, of course, and there were real tears and it was real love) and spend the majority of their time together in the game. As Kiera puts it so succinctly, ‘In real life we life in a tiny house and it rains all the time. In second life we life in a huge mansion on the beach!!’ But their story is happy, having met up, married in real life and lived (virtually) ever after.

Carolyn and Elliot’s tale, on the other hand, is not so rosy. These two would often spend eight to ten hours a day together over their 10 month affair, and their complex relationship involved arguments, breakups, reconciliation, more arguments, secret rendezvous and cybersex, while real life, and her real family, continued on without her. But Carolyn is devastated when Elliot decides to end the relationship, deciding it will ‘go nowhere’ (I am not sure where he expected it to go??), and so flees her family for the UK in the hope that her and her virtual love could perhaps make it work in RL.

Needless to say, and to cut a rather tragic story short, it doesn’t, and Carolyn, is forced to confront reality again when she discovers that the virtual world doesn’t necessarily translate to RL communication and relationships. But oh! How fascinating it was to watch these people live out their complete fantasies, their utter hedonistic desires, without really understanding the ramifications to their real lives, nor, it would seem, the difference between the real and the imaginary.

The issues of SL were only lightly touched on but plentiful, with the primary being why people enter and become addicted to SL in the first place – to be someone they cannot be in RL. What was so interesting (and concerning) was the complete absorption into this virtual world, and their gradual inability to distinguish the two. While her real life decomposed around her, Carolyn could care only for herself in SL.

In an interview about WOW, a Professor studying the phenomena of virtual worlds argued that because the internet was real, so too were these virtual worlds. But if so, then this must be considered real cheating, not just some ‘game’, or virtual cheating. I know were it my partner, I would be devastated, and not just virtually, either. Regular (addicted??) players also argued that in the future, people would spend their entire lives in virtual spaces. And why not?? In a society obsessed by image, consumerism and egocentricity, SL is the answer to all your physical, financial and personal shortcomings. It’s just a shame you will have to make love to your keyboard.

Watch the doco on youtube here.

What on earth are we doing here? I always laugh at people watching shows on their ipods/mobile phones/pdas on the tram. I thought the idea was to go bigger, ever larger. Who has the biggest plasma screen of all? But of course I am missing the point – there are plenty of opportunities when I would have loved an episode of House to distract me form the smelly person sitting next to me/on top of me on the train. i just have to understand the context.

For mobile content to be successful, it is going to need to be seriously constrained, and that could be kind of cool. There’ll be no Lord of the Rings epic battle scenes viewed on a 8×8 mobile screen, thank you very much. At the same time the technology and display is becoming more sophisticated, so presumably in the future these constraints might shift, but for the moment lets examine what we are working with.

First is time. It’s got to be short. Short and sweet, not just so you don’t ruin your eyes, but also to contend with external distraction and our shrinking attention spans. So, no epic love/war/biographical stories for this medium. We have to keep it to about 90-180 seconds. This means this story is going to have to hit relatively fast and hard, and clarity and succinctness is vital.

Next is the actual filming. What should the pictures contain in terms of content and action. We’ll need to use tight shots, and panning, zooming and fast edits are probably best avoided, unless we want to give our viewer a stiff headache/epileptic seizure. Bold, strong colours are recommended, but this could also mean contrast could be very effective, so I am not averse to implementing dark colours also to increase dramatic effect. I wonder what the consensus is on black and white mobile movies? If done carefully, I don’t doubt they could be effective. But this again will only be successful by carefully using contrast, and this means effective lighting. In second life we can not only implement light, but can also dictate the lighting of the actual environment, so I am looking forward to playing god. At least god of lighting. hmm.

At this stage we are still brainstorming. Within our team I have not been nominated as an ‘ideas’ person, and yet :gasp: I have come up with an idea, and so might propose it should we be struggling to come up with a concept. It’s very simple and basic, but it just.might.work.

The story centers around one character and goes something like this (you will have to forgive its simplicity and use your imagination). Read the rest of this entry »

I have been pondering the bizarre nature of advertising and consumerism in sl, after discovering that large ad agencies were investing time and effort into advertising their client’s wares on second life. I can understand the allure – advertising, and eventual purchasing, of goods in second life is fabulously cheap, compared to the real world.

According to Second Thoughts, a comprehensive and actually very entertaining and insightful blog on second life happenings, companies such as Reebok and adidas have long been using advertising in sl to promote their products.

Purchasing a pair of Reeboks in sl will set you back about 50 linden dollars (approx. $0.20). Not exactly the profit margin one might be hoping for, but I guess it might be worth it, considering it also will cost them next to nothing for advertising, renting a shopfront, creating the product itself (done in seconds by skilled modellers, I presume) and getting exposure to thousands of potential customers, be it in either rl or sl.

As the post points out, the majority of users are not so concerned with their appearance that they would need to pursue Reeboks or Adidas as a cure to their virtual sneaker fashion crisis. But apparently there is a comparatively small section of the population (say one million sl’ers, and rapidly growing) who take their sl fashion as seriously as their rl fashion, and are prepared to invest that $0.20. Now, $0.20 x one million = $200,000 and it is all starting to make sense. While it’s possible the transition into sl may not be as successful for all products, it’s clear it’s a new channel and market that advertisers will be sitting up and paying attention to.

As for the consumer, well… sucker, or no? Just the concept of purchasing a pair of shoes made out of pixels makes me want to laugh. It couldn’t possibly be as satisfying as purchasing a pair in rl, could it?? But then again, as a friend in second life so eloquently put it, it is a cheap way to fulfill an addiction to retail therapy. In sl I can afford almost anything I want. I might have to give I a go.

And meanwhile these brands are on to a winner, because what’s at the top of my mind now? I fresh pair of Reebok kicks. dammit.

so, last night i had somewhat of an epiphany. I missed IM2′s second life ‘happy hour’ yesterday due to another class, but I decided i’d pop in anyway (albeit late) and just check if anyone was still around.

There had been some building going on (more cheezels in the sky, I see) but it still looked pretty remote and desolate, with not much action. But not long after I arrived I met a few more RMIT’ers, Pineapple and Pyewacker. Although they weren’t from IM2, they were extremely friendly and helpful, and thus began my first real ‘engagement’ in second life.

These two were hot. Both had invested significant time and effort into their avatars (which looked wild) and were experienced sl’ers and builders. They taught me how to drink coffee, build small objects and use my camera, and it became glaringly obvious that I was going to learn how to use sl far more efficiently by watching, copying and practicing, rather than reading about it in articles. In fact, that is exactly how Pineapple described it (forgive me, I’m smitten) – she was modify, Pyewacket was transfer and I was copy. This was how I could learn sl. And they do say the best way to learn is by copying.

Suddenly things were beginning to make sense. As Pyewacket asked me, “have you ever wanted to be anything? A fireman? A dancer? A pig farmer?” I could be and could build and modify anything here. What seemed daunting suddenly seemed really exciting and liberating. But this was just the beginning.

Pineapple gave me a flight feather, which allowed me to fly many metres higher than a normal sl being, and took me to see the ship that she had built in the sky. And that was that. I was hooked. An amazing, creaking mishmash of collected and modified objects, Pineapple had built the most amazing home in the sky, complete with small side vessels, bars, galleries and a hot tub, where I was permitted to soak while they gave me tips on where to go and how to beautify my avatar (apparently un-primmed hair is immediate evidence of being a newbie).

Now I know this sounds like a cheesy fantasy novel, but suddenly I started to realise not just the allure of second life (the ability to live out all of your fantasies and be whoever you want, wherever you want) but also the ability to create and to communicate. Everything about Pineapple and her buildings was a carefully and beautifully orchestrated narrative dictated by her. And it was kinda magical.

BUT, enough gushing for now. Let it just be said that this could become dangerous because I feel I could get easily addicted, and this is just the first meaningful exchange (they taught me how to dance!) On a more practical note, I now feel incredibly inspired to build, modify, texture and develop my own buildings, sets and concepts. I just have to work out how to do it.

Thinking about:

Size – what would translate well into a 60-90 second story.
How much do I want to include?
What kind of narrative works for this time and this medium?
Digital storytelling – the simplicity of the story, stripping it down to the essence of the story.

Dean showed us a couple machinima. Anna and Red vs Blue.

In our own machinima, we need to starting thinking about universal themes: love, friendship, death, hardship, heroism, redemption. The use of music, the use of silence, composition (derived from cinema, but for a small screen we will have to restrict this) the use of colour and form…

Dean mentioned machinima festivals, the future of media in machinima and that gaming, which uses this medium, is now more prolific than the film industry. I’ll investigate this a bit further this week…

ok. I am creaking my learning cogs into action. While I may not ‘get’ second life itself, I feel as if I may have begun to grasp what Jenny is trying to get at with it’s application in IM2. We are just continuing with media production, but will be implimenting it using this new medium, machinima. (Unfortunately not as close to Mech-anime as I had hoped, ha!)

Just when I was wondering what all this had to do with second life (which, as astounding as it is, does not seem quite as ‘cutting edge’ as it sounded 4 years ago) Jenny pointed out that this was just an easy and free way to access a games engine, which we can then use to ‘build’ our productions. It could be any engine. My rudimentary understanding of creating machinima is that you need a powerful piece of software – such as those used in games (think Halo, World of Warcraft) – that allows you to create real-time graphics. It’s come pretty cool stuff actually, now that I am getting the gist of it, and I was surprised at how impressed I was with the short machinima film that Jenny showed us in the lecture, Silver Bells and Golden Spurs.

Right now, however, we are still all stumbling our way awkwardly through this seemingly never-ending landscape of terraformed grass and stuttering graphics. I am trying to work out how on earth anyone would have the patience to stay in second life long enough for it too start to mean something, to formulate meaningful relationships and legitimate businesses, but in the meantime I am feeling somewhat more reassured by the fact that we are using sl as a media tool, rather than a social tool. socially (thus far, at least) I have found it somewhat…banal. Rudimentary? oh god, that is probably a reflection of my social nuances, however.

meanwhile, where to go for a good time in sl? A bit of research here and here seems to indicate that places in sl are categorised as such: Games, buildings, stores, gathering places and other. i just want to go somewhere to dance. Clubbing in second life, i’m sure, will be an exhilarating experience.