Month: September 2018

Second Life Steals, Deals, and Freebies: A Fifteen-Minute Female Avatar Makeover for Free!

Time for another fifteen-minute Second Life avatar makeover!

Here’s the before (the starter Maria avatar; not bad, but definitely looking a bit dated):

Before 8 Sept 2018.png

And here’s the after (now she’s all set for a night on the town!):

After 8 Sept 2018.png

Here’s a rear view to show you the lovely detail on the back of this daring little metallic minidress:

After 2 8 Sept 2018.png

This avatar is wearing:

Mesh Avatar Head and Body: Altamura Jenny (free from the Freebie Megastore in London City)

Hair: Leah hair in ash by Zalea (free gift); the HUD has 36 colour choices!

Dress: Faith gold metallic minidress by Justice (free group gift if you join the SL Frees & Offers group for free); the Maitreya Lara version of this dress fits the Altamura Jenny body well. The dress comes in three colours—gold, copper, and rose gold.

Shoes: gold Olivia heels (free gift from Ello); the Altamura Jenny body has Slink-compatible feet

Animation Override: Lucky Girl AO Basic Bento Mocap by Tuty (free)

Ankle Lock: by Baby Monkey (freebie from the blue bag on the reception desk)

TOTAL COST OF THIS AVATAR: FREE!

Hulk Hogan on Staramba Spaces

Staramba.jpg

Staramba Spaces (Remember them? The blockchain-based virtual world where you can be neighbours with Paris Hilton?) has been busy uploading promo videos to Vimeo. Among the celebrities called upon to shill for Staramba Spaces is Hulk Hogan:

https://vimeo.com/288500770

“Come train with Hulk Hogan! Come hang out on the beach with Hulk Hogan! Come surf on a tiger shark with Hulk Hogan!”

Uhhh… gimme a sec to think about this… how about…

NO. 

As I have said before:

How much interaction with real celebrities will you actually get, with all this talk of “lifelike scans” of celebrities and soccer stars? Why would you want to hang out with a 3D scan of a famous person in the first place?

I would dearly love to see the market research that shows people are willing to spend money hanging out with a 3D scanned likeness of Hulk Hogan, for any reason.

As far as I can tell, all that Staramba seems to have at this point, that its competitors do not, is a large and growing collection of 3D celebrity scans that they can (possibly) animate. How exactly does that translate into a virtual world platform that people will want to visit? How will people interact with Paris Hilton and Hulk Hogan? It sounds like Staramba Spaces is creating a version of Madame Tussaud’s wax museum. “Get closer to the stars!”

I just don’t think this idea is going to fly. (Sorry, Hulk!)

https://vimeo.com/288537371

Seed: A Brief Introduction

Seedlogo
The Seed Logo

Seed is an intriguing hybrid MMORPG/virtual world I first heard about today through Wagner James Au’s blog, New World Notes. Apparently, they have hired Wagner to write about this new virtual world for their blog. The Seed storyline is remarkably similar to another MMORPG/virtual world hybrid I have blogged about in the past, Virtual Universe, where humanity has to start all over again:

“HUMANITY IS DEAD. LONG LIVE HUMANITY.”

ENDLESS EXPLORATION OF A LIVING, BREATHING EXOPLANET

Voyage across a persistent, Earth-like planet to harvest resources, collaborate with other players, and conquer new lands. This vast exoplanet is abundant with all forms of biomes, filled with various habitats, seasons, unpredictable weather, and ecology.

MANAGE YOUR SEEDLINGS AND FORGE RELATIONSHIPS

Develop and define the hierarchy of needs across multiple characters to ensure the growth, and more importantly, the survival of your colony.

Handle essential human demands and emotional states – hunger, thirst, fatigue – by forming routines that can be carried out to ensure the longevity of your colony. These routines are carried out even when you’re offline.

When multiple characters start interacting with each other, complex behavioral patterns will emerge – birth, death, marriage, divorce, love, hate.

WITH PURPOSE. WITH CONSEQUENCE

Players will be able to construct comprehensive colonies that feel alive, with every entity having a purpose or role.

Every move, thought, or decision made by a player will have a knock-on effect and impact a colonization and overall structure of the planet, no matter how small.

COLONIZATION THROUGH COLLABORATION

Collaboration is the strongest asset for colonization. As a colony’s population grows, resources, research, and construction will increase, which can permanently impact the economy of the planet.

Players can freely construct and build structures to benefit themselves and their colony. This freedom can unleash the player’s sense of creativity and desire for recognition and power.

Through collaboration comes security. Players can contribute to the defense of a settlement, which builds dependency and forms a “power in numbers” mentality.

This sounds like a very interesting virtual world experiment! Here’s a more recent promotional video:

Sansar Pick of the Day: Galen’s Fountain

One thing that Sansar still lacks is a particle system like Second Life’s. But we’re getting closer! Today’s Pick of the Day is Galen’s clever demonstration of an object rezzer he scripted, a sort of fountain with cubes instead of water:

In his experience description he writes:

Demonstration of a recycling rezzer acting as a physical particle system. Once it gets warmed up, you’ll see it “rezzing” 200 particles per second, way beyond the technical limit of 16 per second.

Note that initial tests show the scene is touchy. It and/or your client may crash when trying to get here or leaving the scene.

Here’s the link to visit Galen’s Fountain. You can learn more about Galen’s scripts at his Metaverse Machines website. You can also visit his new Reflex4 Workshop, where he has further demonstrations of his Sansar C# scripting.