Metaverse Newscast and News One

News One Website 22 August 2017

I have two exciting announcements! First, Chris Jackson of Digital Media Productions will be launching Sansar’s first television network! It will be called News One, with the tagline “News and more from the world of Sansar”.

And the second piece of news is that I will be host/co-host of a news program on News One called Metaverse Newscast! This will be a regularly-scheduled 30-minute program focused on news and events in Sansar. (The Metaverse Newscast will also take a look at what’s going on in other virtual worlds such as High Fidelity and Sinespace.)

It was Tyler Scarborough (Dynamic Evolution in Sansar) who first approached me last Friday to discuss the idea of a news show. I decided to call it Metaverse Newcast. He will be building me a news studio! We will launch in October 2017. Chris took Tyler’s original idea and decided to expand it to create a whole television station!

Tyler, Chris and I are looking for people to join us in this endeavour! In particular, I am looking for a cameraman/woman who knows how to live stream to a YouTube channel. If you’re interested, please contact me and we’ll talk. Thanks!

Sansar Creator Interview: Tina Fayet

I first met Tina Fayet at an in-world casual meetup on August 9th. She stood out because she was wearing a pair of steampunk wings which she had created herself using the Oculus Medium 3D sculpting tool in her VR headset.

Wings Created in Oculus Medium 2 9 August 2017

Wings Created in Oculus Medium 9 August 2017

I asked Tina recently if she would consent to an interview via email and she said yes.

Can you tell me a little bit about yourself and your background, and how did you get started making and selling objects for virtual worlds?  

The first time I ever created anything for a virtual world would be when I made a multiplayer map for the Duke Nukem 3D game. It came out for the PC in a nice little bundle package with a level editor. I was 11.
I took a brief design studies course in high school (1 semester), and a 3-month drafting course at a local technical school. I gravitated towards 3D drafting and was able to get work designing mostly oilfield equipment but I also have experience designing everything from boats, vacuum trucks, swimming pools, electrical panels, renovation plans. Pretty much anything under the sun that needed to be fabricated. And most recently I’ve gotten into designing clothing and Sci-fi stuff for Sansar.

When I first met you, you were wearing a pair of steampunk wings you had created using Oculus Medium. Can you tell me more about that project, what your workflow was like, and what do you think about Oculus Medium as a tool for content creation?

I honestly can’t give enough credit to Oculus Medium for being a very easy way of getting artistic 3D models from my mind into Sansar. As I’ve said, a lot of my professional experience is doing drafting and engineering plans, renovations, stuff that requires straight edges and calculations. I always had a problem bridging the gap between my 2D hand drawings skills and my 3D design knowledge.

Tina Fayet's Skull CapeTina Fayet Skull Cape 2

Caption: Tina’s skull cape (photos posted by Tina to Facebook)

Where do you draw your inspiration for making virtual objects?  For example, what was your inspiration and what was the process you followed in creating your wonderful skull cape?

When creating something in Oculus Medium it’s very much like sketching; you start with an idea and it kind of just evolves from there. I set out to make a necklace, I started with something going around the neck. I added some shoulder pads, shaved a little off here, added a little bit of clay there. What would it look like if I put some skulls right here, oh that’s exactly what it would look like! It’s a very fluid experience.

What advice would you give to beginning content creators in Sansar?

I’m not a good person to get advice from when it comes to designing content for Sansar. I could say that being part of a team would be way easier than having to take all of this on yourself, especially if you’re going to be working scripting into your content.

 

 

Pick of the Day: Musica

Mikki Miles is a master musical instrument maker in Second Life (in-world store, SL Marketplace). Here is a picture of my medieval roleplay avatar in SL, aptly named Scarborough Fair. She is standing in a tavern at the Conquest of Elysium sim, playing her Lute Signature EX, which was created and scripted by Mikki Miles. I just love Mikki’s instruments! I own and play many of them.

Scarborough Fair Playing Lute 21 August 2017_001

Well, Mikki Miles has come to Sansar, and he has created a wonderful experience called Musica. It’s very simple but wonderfully done! You materialize in the centre of a ring of seven spotlit instruments: an upright piano, a double bass, a drum, a trio of alphorns, a harp, a tiny calliope, and an acoustic guitar.

Musica by Mikki Miles 21 August 2017

Each instrument is playing one part of a seven-part harmony. As you approach each musical instrument, you can hear its sound more clearly. When you return to the centre spot, you can hear the entire melody in all seven parts! So simple! So wonderful!

What really adds to the playful atmosphere are animated white musical notes, rests, and clefs which bounce joyfully around in the sky above the instruments.

Go visit Mikki Miles’ Musica, and enjoy the performance! If this is just Mikki’s first experience, I predict many great things to come!