A virtual museum done right

So there’s always been lots of talk (and perhaps somewhat less action :) ) about how virtual worlds are potentially great delivery vehicles for education, and schools, and museums, and all like that there.

There are a number of different ways to approach the idea, from wild “pretty much Not Possible In Real Life” things like that amazing and/or disturbing Virtual Schizophrenia build from the other year, to simple “upload my 2D art and put it on the walls of a virtual room” galleries, to novel interactive things that are about other things and that are yet to be built.

As an example of how to build a virtual museum about real-life artworks and artifacts, I can’t recommend highly enough the Peter Vos Museum in Second Life, as covered briefly in these two notes in NWN, and as covered most visually and memorably in this Yesikita Coppola machinima:

The machinima is very well done, and if for some reason you can’t get to the museum itself, by all means watch it.

But if you can get to the museum yourself, I’d suggest doing that first! Or at least second. :) I went the other day (and then got sick and almost forgot that I’d wanted to weblog about it), and am glad I did.

I knew nothing about Peter Vos before visiting the museum, and now I feel both fascinated and well-informed, as well as having come home with some nice souvenirs. The museum is a lovely build, perfectly fit to the purpose, and taking advantage of the SL environment in subtle but effective ways; the lighting is dark with focused lights, as a museum should be, the synchronized slide projectors are definitely synchronized slide projectors, making just the right soft sounds, the little peepholes that let you examine some of the smaller works close up are perfect little peepholes, that zoom your default camera position right in where it ought to be, while making your avatar bend in just the right “museum visitor peering into one of those little peepholes” pose.

About the art itself I won’t say much; it should be experienced. :) Nothing conventional, many many birds, and considerable surreality.

(The story behind the museum, the connections between the artist, the museum builder, and the machinimatographer, are quite a story in themselves, but I’ll let you discover that for yourself also!)

I would commend this both to anyone as a museum to be visited, and to anyone thinking of building a virtual museum (or gallery, or school, or…) as an example of one very effective way to do it. It’s just one point in the (big!) space of possible approaches, but it’s a very well done one, and definitely worth a visit.

“Unmindful” The Movie by Natascha Randt & Karima Hoisan

I will take a LITTLE credit for parts of this, mostly my expertise at not having any particular goal in mind :), and a nice “make a ball look like it’s rolling without risking actual physics” script that I did. It’s a great movie, and a great sim; experience both!

Digital Rabbit Hole

On July 16th, I posted here in my blog, about a new world that Dale Innis and I were beginning to build on Kitely – Virtual Worlds on Demand, called, “Unmindful” See post:
As I said in the post, it was an experiment, to prove or disprove something I had come to believe: “You don’t need an idea to create…ideas come…all you need to do is start.”
So we started off  with no ideas about what the world would be, just making sort of odd stone structures, with off-sim wind turbines, and a parade of wild animals standing on rugs moving in a figure-eight. That was our first part of the build, but then unmindful to how the focus even began changing, we shifted in a very different direction. I had the concept, but I promise you, if it weren’t for Dale, we would never have pulled this off. (Have…

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A poem, and a painting, come alive

It’s been my pleasure and privilege to be part of another of Karima Hoisan’s amazing Kitely sims, based this time on one of her lovely poems.  (See previously The Hudson Line, based on the Hudson line, and In Your Head, based on your head (well…).)

The poem is here, and the artist’s own posting on the sim is here; I urge you to follow both those links, and then experience the Kitely sim for yourself, if you do the Kitely thing at all. (And if you don’t, maybe you should; it turns out you’re still allowed to use SL, too! /grin ).

And in the meantime, here are a couple (more) pictures, as further incentive:

Doing the scripting for this sim was great fun, and I hope there is at least one thing that makes you scratch your head and think “How did they do that?”.  Most likely it is the result of Ms. Hoisan and I racking our brains for a few days trying to figure out how to get a particular effect, and then when it seemed impossible her saying “I don’t suppose we could…?” and me smacking my forehead.  :)

WaterMoon Breeze: stuff and scenery!

I haven’t done one of these Neat Things I Found In SL posts for awhile, both because I have been just hanging around the Rise and other familiar places a lot, and because when I do find new neat things, I am too lazy to organize about a post about them.  :)

The other night, though, I followed the usual SL chain of nice pointers and coincidences to WaterMoon Breeze, the sim and build and inworld store and probably also home of MenuBar Memorial, who (among many other things) made the wonderful crazy 50s-style Lucid Dream Together poster for Chasing a Butterfly, the machinima we posted about here the other week.

Turns out this MenuBar feller has some Mad Skillz, and his stores (inworld and marketplace) contain some Really Neat Stuff.  It’s Old SL stuff in the best way (crazy, fun, creative, offbeat, brightly colored), but also extremely polished. Not only can he script and do amazing things with particles (more on that below), but he also does graphic design like a person who does graphic design, so the offbeat brightly colored things actually look good!

 

See?  How brightly colored and well-done?  And there is a smart umbrella, and a Breedable Pet Rock, and Weather Devices, and all sorts of things!  Here are more of them:

Bird-things, and water-things, and all kinds of things! And if you aren’t careful, some things that sort of, well, explode…

(Hint: something about putting things into Coke…)

Spot the Pun in this one!

Witty, brightly-colored, and useful…

There is also a long swaying bridge up to a mysterious floating island…

with interesting things up top which might include, say, a zipline to get back down…

and at the bottom, naturally, a Hieronymus-Bosch-based merry-go-round.

In terms of buying things so far I have mostly bought this amazing Orb

which I have installed at one end of the Park in the Rise (as pictured) where I can sit and alternate between zoning out and wondering how the heck he does it.  (Just when I think I have a pretty good feeling for how particles work in SL…)

So that is that!  Another example of craziness and creativity in SL, for your consideration.

(Oh, and I still have a marketplace store myself, come to think of it!  But I never add anything to it, and no one ever buys from it, so that works out…)

UWA time again!

I know, all I ever weblog about these days is machinima.  That is because I have already weblogged about trying on clothes from Sn@tch, the other main thing I do in SL these days :), and I can’t imagine that you want to see more and more postings about that.

Anyway!  It is time for the annual University of Western Australia themed machinima and 3D art contest thing again, and as usual I will highlight the entry that I made some small contribution to!  It is of course by Karima and Nat, and is of course wonderful.  :)

I will not say anything about the premise, because it is so delightfully revealed in the film itself.  See also Karima’s post on the subject for more insight and background.

There are no doubt lots of other extremely worthy entries, which we should all attempt to find time to watch!  But right now I must rush off to continue the ongoing RL battle with entropy.

(There’s an interesting question: does SL, or the virtual worlds in general, have any inherent entropy, not counting what they inherit indirectly from RL?  Probably so; for instance empty land with rezzing turned on gradually accumulates trash.  Expand and generalize.  But first watch the machinima!  It is on the You-Tube, so you can even Like and Comment and generally social-media about it.)

Drax does Machinima!

The Drax Files, which is a great collection of SL – RL videos / documentaries about interesting things, almost none of which I have actually managed to watch, has recently done an episode about various SL machinima-makers, which I saw an early version of that was very good, so I bet the final one is too:

(Why, you wonder, did I get to see an early version?  Because one of the featured machinima-making entities is the redoubtable team of Karima and Nat, to whose creations I’ve had the privilege of making various scriptish sorts of contributions.)

For more thorough coverage :) see Karima’s writeup and Nat’s German one.

Definitely worth watching!

Follow Your Road…. All The Way To Success!!

I know I mostly reblog other people’s things these days :) but it’s because they are cool. This is another Karima and Nat machinima, this one with a great RL aspect to it. I was one of the actors again (in a bigger role even, he said modestly), but what those two, and the RL band, have done with our actors’ posing about is really amazing; watch and enjoy!

Digital Rabbit Hole

Costa Rica’s Own..Home-Grown Band

(Version en Español aquí)

  This isthe case of the hottest new Latin Musical group,” El Combo Style,” from my home country, Costa Rica. Really, just keep doing what you’re doing and share your talent with the world!
I love a good cause, and for me, people with artistic talent, dedication and humility are always a good cause.
The first time I heard this group, was in some studio recordings from the University of Costa Rica.
Even though the quality was not the best, I saw, felt and most importantly heard, the talent of this very tight and charismatic band.
David Mendez who plays trombone and maracas, (blind since early childhood) and David Jimenez (singer-guitarist) are part of the backbone of this band. D. Jimenez writes all the songs and lyrics and D. Mendez  along with Gerson Rodriguez on keyboard make all the musical arrangements…

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Speaking of vanity…

Meanwhile, over in WoW, I’ve been playing various of my 90s through the brief pre-expansion quests to get the level 515 item and whatever achievement or title or thingie one gets (oh, right, it’s the “of the Iron Vanguard” title, and you really only need to get it once with one character and then they can all use it), and then doing other random things.

I played Spennix just a tiny bit, then my shadow priest for awhile (wicked DPS), and various others, then settled on Spennatrix the healer for some time, including trying to complete all of the Pandaren raids (at mere Looking For Raid difficulty) before the expansion comes out and makes all the existing content easy. (Still have just one to go! The wait-time for raid healers is always really short, I am just lazy.)

Y’all will doubtless remember Spennatrix’s simple white outfit from the other month (okay, the other year). As she went up to 90 and did Timeless Isle quests and got that gear, I didn’t re-transmog every upgrade she got, so eventually she was looking a bit more baroque again:

although not awful; the Pandaren gear is much less bizarre-looking than the stuff that inspired her to do a set of transmogs in the first place.

But so anyway, I was in the white transmog again, standing around with a raid group buffing up to take down the Council of Elders in Last Stand of the Zandalari, when I notice this other Night Elf Priestess, and she’s wearing like omg TOTALLY the same transmog!!!

That’s me on the left.

Of course it’s not really exactly the same transmog, mostly it’s that we both have Mooncloth Robes, and generally non-ornate other gear. She’s got this High Councillor’s Circlet for a nice blue gem matching the blue hair, whereas I have hair matching the robes, and an unmodified Amaranthine Cowl of the Impatient on top (not really a cowl despite the name, more a little top extension with a hairpin) because it looks good, and matches the (also unmodified) belt.

Neither of us quite have the shoulders right, I’d say; I have the White Woolen shoulders or whatever that is, and they’re simple but kind of a weird shape, and actually too white for the white outfit. On the other hand her I think Shadow Council Mantle is a little too ornate for the overall look (although they do go nicely with the gloves). I’ve switched back to the Silver-Threaded Amice look for the shoulders since, and I think I prefer it.

I was thinking about some evil-looking dark transmog for the Shadow Priest, but then I realized that since she spends 99% of her time in Shadowform, no one would hardly ever see it.

And if no one sees it, what’s the point, eh? :)

These atomic persons…

I have hardly existed at all for some time, as my atomic counterpart claims to have been “out of the country” and to have “jetlag” and “a plugged ear” and all sorts of unlikely-sounding ailments of that kind.

Also to be in dire need of “sleep”. (I don’t understand why the atomic person can’t sleep while the SL person is inworld doing things, since the converse seems to be well-supported.)

When I have been in, I have been mostly (a) checking the riotvends and lucky boards at Sn@tch (see above), (b) sorting inventory, and (c) now and then going to sets by ‘leet DJs.

None of which have inspired me to weblog about them much!

But here is a neat thing, that I can claim some connection to: Karima and Nat have posted on their entry for this year’s UWA Machinima contest (with the very SL-ish theme of “Transcending Borders”), and you can see it on the web and leave comments and stuff (Karima also says some Wise Things about the Culture of Easy Likes, which should be read and commented on). For this film, I got to gallop about as a horse some (see the amazing scenes with horses emerging from water and walking on tabletops and such), and I helped a little with some of the “data flowing” effects; also it includes inter alia some memes and clips from prior films of theirs, some of which I also did scripting and/or galloping about as a horse and so on in. And it is a great film, perfectly on-theme and very worth watching.

So I bask in the reflected creativity! :)

And I urge my atomic person to drink some green tea with honey, say, and get back in shape so that I can exist more often…

Updated: because in the original version I forgot that some stuff that I did was for this movie, because I always forget things.  :)

The New Gallery again

Wow, I haven’t posted here since April? At least it was April of this year. :)

So the other night a friend and I wandered downslope from the Rise into Mooter, where Gee Blackadder has some nice stuff, and in the nice stuff we discovered this piece of art for sale (“Afrodita”, by Kyra) that I thought I would buy a copy of and put up in the Gallery, so I did; here it is up in the New Gallery:

I really ought to put a little TP to the gallery somewhere, or even list it in Art Galleries of Second Life or something, as it’s kind of as nice little place (I say modestly) with a slowly-evolving set of pieces by various people, mostly not me.

And then at the top you can sit on the viewing blocks and just bliss out staring into the ThingMaker (which is by me) and listening to the SomaFM music on the stream (assuming I haven’t changed it to something else).

Some random Thingmaker-as-art snapshots, with Shadows on, taken just at sunset. Or perhaps sunrise.

That LM again! :)

(Hm, I really ought to install some instructions in the little ball-controlling game that’s outside the gallery, if I’m going to tempt people to go there. Or maybe it’s sufficiently intuitive…)

“Vector’s Vortex” The Movie by Natascha Randt and Karima Hoisan

Another lovely machinima with my name in the credits — erhm, I mean — from Karima and Nat! Which I helped a tiny bit with the scripting of the world that it is taken in! Kitely has some really interesting stuff in it (if only one had the time to explore…).

Tongue out of cheek, this world is really lovely and contemplative and worth a visit; the movie (also lovely) shows only some parts of it. Give it a look!

Digital Rabbit Hole

This is number 14!
14 collaborations with Natascha and my heart tells me, we might just keep going!
This one, came obsessively fast, just because we were both in “starburst mode” and as I was madly finishing the build, Nat was filming at amazing draw distances of over 2000(those who cruise in  virtual worlds will know that is being able to see very very far indeed!) For those who love to film, Kitely – Virtual Worlds on Demand is like paradise, where you can actually use these kinds of high graphic settings, and still get 70fps. I have posted aboutmy world here, and also shared a poem  that was born as the world was developing, and now I give you Natascha’s beautiful camera eye, that tantalizes more than it reveals, because I hope you will actually make the journey yourselves to see it on Kitely. Nat…

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My acting career continues! :)

Marvelous talented friends Karima and Nat have another movie out, Drink Me With Your Eyes; another rendering of one of Karima’s poems (a passionate piece in mixed English and Spanish), in amazing visuals of dancers and horses and eyes and… well, go see it. :)

I got a little bit part in the bar scenes (expertly sitting on a poseball!), and also in the horses-running-about scenes (as the Slightly Confused Horse), and got to contribute a little miscellaneous scripting also. But mostly just watched Karima and Nat and wondered to myself how they do it.

I will stick to scripting. :) Although I understand some people find that mysterious also!

Tiny beach shack! And non-tiny Garage! And stores!

So v talented friend Karima Hoisan saw the famous Beach Shack, and immediately said that there should be a tiny-sized version. After the customary long delay of being distracted by shiny things :) I scaled it down, and Karima very kindly is hosting the prototype version on her lovely LINC Island sim:

The copy pictured has some extra railings and underpilings because it is on the edge of a Huge Cliff, and also lots of pretty decorations an’ landscaping from the landlady :). The version that, um, I thought I had out for sale somewhere but apparently don’t yet (oops haha) is just the building itself, and is in fact just a smaller version of the usual Beach Shack.

One thing that I in fact have put up for sale is the White Wood Garage, which is a garage made of white wood, and which goes nicely with the other buildings which are also made of white wood, in a matching sort of way (see prior posting).

And while I am on the subject! I apparently have not one but two (2) tiny little stores in SL now where I sell a tiny handful of things, including some of these White Wood buildings. One is in Hughes Rise (in the bottom of one of the two-level White Wood Sheds; comfy residential quarters are above), and the other is in the little Surf Shack on the famous Rag Dollz Island (which is probably not the best venue for a little shop which mostly sells things that aren’t clothes, but I loved the location and the rental rate).

So thanks much to Ms. Hoisan for the idea of the tiny beach shack, and maybe I will remember to put it out for sale sometime! And maybe I will also remember to change the “50L weekend” thing in the Rag Dollz location, which has been the same thing for more than a couple of weekends now, also oops. :)

“Festival of Love” Comes to LINC Island Friday Oct. 18th 1:30-2pmslt

This is just to reblog this post of the same name on Digital Rabbit Hole, ’cause this sounds awesome, and it’s tomorrow already, and I may or may not be trapped out in RL where my selfish atomic self is like changing employers or some silly RL diversion like that.

Extremely talented friends Karima an’ Nat will be hosting a half-hour segment of this German-based virtual-worlds Culture and Art event, and showing two (and possibly a teaser for a third) of their wonderful Machinimas (Machinimae?).

Oh, just go over there and read all about it! And attend! :)

Aw, Shen :)

This is the welcome sign at Shenlei Flasheart’s SL10B exhibit.

Seems like only yesterday, and ages ago, that we were all frolicking about on Shengri La, accidentally bringing the sim to its knees when temp prims stopped being temp, watching Shen enthusiastically spike overly bitey vampires, meditating in the streams, and generally having fun figuring out what all of this collaboration among creative people in these new-fangled “virtual worlds” was all about.

Now, of course, we have it all down pat. :)

Thanks, Shen, and everybody, for the memories, and also the ongoings, and the yet-to-bes!

Sniff!

This turtle has largish eyes

… but then it is a largish turtle!

Moving Trains

That title is a pun, since these particular trains that move scriptily down the track are in a video that is itself quite moving in the emotional sort of way.

As the official announcement from Karima Hoisan says, Karima and Natascha Randt’s “Window on a Train” is now up for general viewing an’ admiration.

Here it is on the “You Tube”:

and note that per Director Randt “Watching our film without being in full-screen and HD (720p) is Prohibited!” :)

I don’t want to say anything specific about the movie itself, because I think it has the most impact when viewed with the least preconceptions. Do prepare to be touched…

Machinima in general is so cool. I am not a visual person myself, so generally I can only sort of gawk (or make pictures with math), but I am pleased to say that in this case I was able to contribute, in the form of some scripts to provide smooth and mostly consistent motion in three objects (an engine and two cars) that were far too primmy to make physical, and also far too primmy to link together.

If I can gather up the energy and time :) I will post about it (the one-word giveaway is LLSetKeyframedMotion, which having been added to LSL later than 2007, is for me a Strange New Thing in the world, which proved Just Right for this particular use-case).

But anyway! Watch the movie! :) It is good!

More White Wood

I have been having more fun building. Usually I start building something, decide I don’t like it, put it in inventory, and then mostly never see it again; but this white-wood beach-stuff theme is working out nicely for some reason.

Here I am in some nice griefless sandbox some day recently, working on them. In addition to the existing Beach Shack (left), there is now a Beach Garage (center, with swinging-up front doors), and a Beach Fish-Drying or Stuff-Selling or Whatever Shed (right), with swinging-down back shelf for fish or stuff.

Woot!

I may eventually box these two (and the brick one, and the two darker-wood ones that I’m not sure are done yet) up to put into the Marketplace store also, once I’ve fiddled extensively with them for awhile. The shed is like 11 Land Impact, and the garage is like 21 (for some reason fiddling around with physics type isn’t helping any there at the moment). The brick one is 17, I think (and has two floors!).

Maybe I will even put up a little store (in the shed, maybe!) high above the Rise somewhere; that would be fun! Of course I might be sad if I did that and it had no customers at all… :)

Rust

Great pictures of a neat place; you should go!

Michele Hyacinth

A funny thing happened on my way to a blank wordpress post…instead of writing, I logged inworld and looked up the New Destinations listing.  I’m really good at avoidance when it comes to writing.  And this time around, that’s lucky for me because I hopped the slurl to a build called “Rust” and found myself immersed in the creative expression of  C i c a Ghost.  Things move in “Rust.”  The ground cover undulates.  Giant chickens dance.  Metal mushrooms pop up when you sit on a tractor.  I love the build, the lighting, the playfulness, the surprise in just about every corner.  I took a few photos (see below) before logging off and returning to the WordPress screen (where I actually wrote some words, believe it or not, huzzah!).  Check them (the photos, that is) out.  Better yet, head over to Rust if you haven’t yet…

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Two Quick Things

Firstly, Cubey Terra is leaving SL, or actually has been gone for a few years now apparently :), but is kindly now making lots of his stuff available for 10L or 0L at the Terra Aeronautics location in the Abbotts sim; see weblog posting.

So I now own a few dozen more of Cubey’s wonderful vehicles, on top of the few dozen I already owned. :) And you can, too!

And secondly, Kyle Brondson (RL pseudonym of Kyle Beltran) is having a kickstarter to help him wiht fixing up a 1946 Spartan Manor travelcoach as a mobile studio and piano lounge and other awesomeness as described on the page there, and this is something that one could contribute to the success of.

Opportunities everywhere!