Archive for October, 2006
Reaching out to the Bio World
October 24, 2006 2:46 am
Some strange things been happening recently. With the voice thing in the Robbie class in the last post and now being seen and chatted to from the bio world. Not sure exactly what is going on but a young lady ‘noob’ type avie called Destroy Television, is apparently broadcasting (in short bursts) our world out to the bio world and they are talking back through her. Yes you heard it. I met Destroy on Sheep Island and multiple people were chatting through her from the bio world! Crazy.
The bios see what Destroy sees (the small lady on the right with “Broadcasting SL Live” over her head.)
I was then joined by the co-creator of this SNOOPYbrown Zamboni who told me what was going on. Destroy’s view is being sent to a website called destroytv.com and to flickr. It should be streaming video (next version) but at the moment is just still images. SNOOPY called it betaverse. Viewers on the bio website get updated snapshots but can also send chat through the website, and through Destroy’s avie to our world. Very cool. Now I can find out all about those bios out there. See what makes them tick. I said it would be good to have a camera so we can ‘perform’ to it and the bio audience, so I gave SNOOPY a camera I had built based on bio world designs. You can see it in all the shots here. Perhaps they may use it? The other creator Rik Reil appeared briefly and was talking to a bio called Jerry on the other side. Still trying to work out the consequences of this.
I was given this shot of what the bios see on their websites.
You can see our meeting in a series of images at this flickr stream website thing. My meeting is around the 20061023 08:57:30 series of images. This is one of those images.
Posted by Gary Hazlitt from inside Second Life
The Sound of Second Life with Robbie Dingo
October 22, 2006 12:58 pm
Had a wonderful experience on Tuesday teaching eight students on the island I built and manage, AFTRS Esperance (slurl). They were here to learn how to approach professionally designing sound for games and worlds like this ours. From my perspective they appeared early in the day and I took trained them for five hours in the basics of communication, moving around our world, building, general management of one’s assets but most time was spent on intermediate sound design. I was stunned how quickly new students nowadays pick things up so quickly as I took them further through the scripting for our amazing world. From relative babies of this world after five hours they were flying, dancing and more importantly building and adding scripts to sound objects all over the place. A mixture of ambient sound, transient effects and interactive sound. There were even two screen composer students who were adding evolving music around the spaceship and ghost castle sets I mentioned in my previous post.
To put the icing on the cake we were joined at the end by Robbie Dingo for an hour master-class. Robbie, who develops the best musical instruments in our world (click here to go to his store) and a sound guru, had set up a great interactive walk-through on one of the backlots and we were treated to listening to him speak (and my students spoke back), yes really weird, hearing avies in this world speak - where does their voice come from? Robbie did a post on his in-world blog called ‘Virtual Lecture’ that may explain it. Anyway Robbie took us all through the basics of scripting sound showing large boards with key examples on. We then listened and interacted with each example as we walked around in our class-like huddle. At the end we saw some of Robbies wonderful musical instrument creations, synchronised marimbas and his incredible installation ‘The Whisper Box’. I have installed his Elven drums and other instruments around the island already and Robbie has kindly left the Whisper Box on the island for a while click here to go to precise spot.
All in all a great day and an example of how new people in this world can with the right guidance and mentorship really learn some great skills. From zero to a hundred in six hours.
Here are some images.
Robbie prepared a wonderful interactive teaching walkthrough
We all listened intently as Robbie took us through some more complex scripts.
I had already taught them the basics of looped, ambient and some trigger sound and this is one of the sets we sound designed.
Robbie explains the wonders of the CollisionSound script, we all seem to crash into things regularly in this world.
and here we are about to test that out by each of us walking through the trip wire.
Beware the objects that listen and sensor us. We walk into the sensor circle which triggers a sound. Normally one wouldn’t see the dome of course.
and a fun bit as bees sounds swarm and circle around our heads.
There are more images on flickr that someone uploaded of this event.
Posted by Gary Hazlitt from inside second life
Preparing a Haunted House
October 15, 2006 8:14 pm
As I have been doing for the past few months I am continuing to train talented avatars in the many skills in this world. They often come as newbies so after giving them the grand tour I then go into basic tips on how to survive here, all the tools, how to communicate, some of the dangers and only then do we go on to learning. It has been great fun teaching them such things as how to animate themselves, how to build, design and animate objects, how to film using the many cameras in here and next week how to make the place ’sound’ exciting. As part of this creating the sounds around you we will be sound designing a space-ship and a haunted castle set, with the idea that this would help them develop sound for games. I just spent a couple of hours setting up a ‘mute’ forest, graveyard and interiors of a horror castle. Still some work to go. But it has been useful hanging out in Midian (which has strangely disappeared today - sure it will be back) and the City of Lost Angels - useful being immersed in some of the ambience from these places. We will be a) doing constant ambient, background and environmental sound, b) random ambient sound (for horror this would be occassional screams, thuds etc:) and c) interactive sound, what happens when you walk into somewhere, touch something or it is triggered by a timer. Anyway as I haven’t blogged for a while here are some pics with me and my Island boss A. Ebi, she was posing for the pictures…
I built the scene into a closed black production set.
The fog makes a big difference to the feel, even when it is silent
Props scattered around all ready for those interactive sound effects
More tombstones ready for random ambient sounds. There is a lot in the castle to set-up for possible game-like sound, will save that for another post.
Posted by Gary Hazlitt from inside Second Life
The World Grinds to a Halt
October 9, 2006 7:05 pmI woke up this morning to a world stuck in time. Apparently someone here has released a self-replicating ‘virus’ of sorts that was about to fill the world with objects bringing it to its knees. In response the powers that be (whoever they are) have deactivated all our scripts, the life blood that animates and controls our systems - in the bio world this is like turning off something called electricity. Anyway nothing works, doors dont open, teleporters are disabled, all our attachments rendered useless, no sound - it is all very eerie. I got back to my house later on and found a massive 800 prim spaceship had fallen from the sky and crash landed in my backyard, its operating system frozen, no one around, they just left it lying there. Some astronauts!
Posted by Gary Hazlitt from inside Second Life
Role-playing in Midian City
October 3, 2006 11:30 pm
In this world it is amazing what you find on your doorstep, literally. I have been building my sky platform at 400m over the past week and noticed just across the way a large, black monolith build. I was naturally curious. Little did I know inside was a complete city simulation, an under belly of bio society, for us avies to act out and role play both innocence and deviance. You can see how close this is to my land which has vertical elements of course - that is my sky pool, dance room and cinema. I visited the city at first by actually jumping inside from my sky platform and after a few visits quickly learned the secrets within.
I spoke briefly to Baal Zobel the creator (and author of the story text below) who said the whole build only took four weeks because the rich textures were all pre-prepared.
“I did the bulk in a week and just spent two messing with the details. I did have all the textures which is two thirds of the work. Its for other people to use”. Baal the name Meaning Master or Owner. In ancient times, Sun, Lord or God, A fertility deity, Son of EL, High god of Canaan. The cult of Baal celebrated annualy his death and resurection on mount Saphon where the children of Baal danced around the altars chanting frantically, cutting themselves to inspire his attention and compassion. The form, a mask, to face the world
He has an altruistic vision for his creation and this post will hopefully give you a feel for his dark, engaging and altogether immersive world. I visited several times and as instructed acted my part when confronted by a range of characters. Here is the welcome area and some of the instructions:
Welcome to Midian City. We hope you enjoy your stay. Enter, follow these, or never leave. STEP 1. Read the rules. Ignorance is no defence in the eyes of the MPD. Then grab a role. That’s STEP 2. You need one to RP
STEP 3. Force Sun to Midnight. Midian City was made to be played in the dark.
Midian City Roles
Read the carefully to learn about the group titles available to inhabitants of Midian City, which will help you define your role and allow others to know your intentions. You should wear one of these group titles AT ALL TIMES while in Midian City. Reading the description of Midian City below will help you understand the roles and better choose one.
As you walk into the black mist door the city is slowly revealed as it fades out of darkness, you are on the main street.
Strange characters hide in the darkness, there are secret back alleys at all turns, the sound is deep wind, creaking doors, eerie.
Graffitti, decay and litter are everywhere - here is a description of the story world of this dark and dangerous place.
They say that Midian City never sleeps, and the souls that linger there never rest. The country ignores it, and the world has forgotten it; a foul example of what can happen when crime, corruption and decay finally take their toll. The accumulated sins of men and beasts have smogged the entire city into an unyielding night of shifting shadows and flickering lights. And at the dark heart of this forsaken place stands Sector 6.
In this deranged corner of the world, there is no hope, there is no laughter, there is no peace. There are only the hunter.. and the hunted.
The craven who have managed to tear themselves away from the Midian City’s sordid grasp with their sanity still intact have long spread their stories of the factions that rule it. More than gangs, less than brotherhoods, these factions form a delicate balance of hostile peace that keeps the city moving. Although, the direction to which it moves is anyone’s guess.
The story continues to permeate ones brain as you crawl in the sewers or get lost in the subway, metro station. When I descended onto the main platform once a man had cornered a lady, trapped on the tube train with him, he had a knife.
The story of Midian City continues:
They tell of THE HOUNDS; a spectrum of beings who live for the chase. In fact, without the thrill of the pursuit, they’d have no interest in their quarry at all. If you become the object of a Hound’s affection, it will step up to you and utter a single word: “Run.” Every fibre of your being will be inclined to escape, but this is a mistake, because anyone who’s encountered the Hounds will tell you this: they will chase, they will catch, they will play, and they will feast.
And they also tell of the SHADOW STALKERS; another spectrum of beings who take a different approach to the hunt. The Shadow Stalkers do not play games with their prey like the Hounds do. They wait in the shadows, and are behind every corner, under every fire escape. They are patient, they are determined, and when they spot a favoured prey, they pounce, grab, and drag it into the darkness with them. What happens after that is often unspeakable, even within the city itself.
Then there are tales of a gang of felines seldom seen on the streets, from which they are banned by law. These “CATWALKERS” can be found perched high above the city on the many catwalks, upon which they are forever roaming, watching, and waiting for a chance to pounce. They love to toy with their prey. Frequently jokesters and easily amused, they just as readily squash those things that come to bore them. They are jokers and night creatures and just love to play, just like the cats they resemble.
I visited some of the seedier areas of Midian, the snake pit dance hall and the various peep shows scattered around. All of them had an air of sex, danger and a lurking terror that made my wings crawl. I gave Erika the dancer a tip and made my excuses.
Women of the night are both prey and predators and they move in and out of the shadows. Occassionally the MPD, Midian Police, prowl the streets, keeping order but following their own laws. No one can be trusted. A scream is heard in the distance. After several wrong turns I find the twilight zone club. Larissa and Clarita jig the night away, off duty maids keeping an eye out for the vampires that frequent this dance hall.
After the club I took a wrong turn and got lost in the sewers.
The story continues:
And beneath the city streets in the maze of ancient decaying sewers stories tell of the NIGHTBREED. A gang of vampires and other dwellers in darkness that feed on the flesh and blood of their victims, those foolish enough to dare the dark slime covered tunnels where even the Midian police have lost control and seldom venture. Here in the cool darkness the Breed Queen suckles her brood, waiting for the night when she will leads them up and out into the streets to feed.
And at the top of the pyramid lies the MIDIAN POLICE, most currupt of all.. because at least the Hounds and the Shadow Stalkers are honest, the Breed and Cats are at least true to their natures. Although the smallest group of the faction, they are the self-proclaimed “elites”. Enforcing their laws on a whim and arbitrarily serving justice as they see fit, the Midian Police are suspected of connections to a rumoured underground cult to maintain their sphere of power. But nobody knows, they could be neither.. or something worse.
Midian City is a place of even further rumoured darkness, secret society activities, prostituition, cruel experiments, sinister motivations, and ancient evils that go beyond the base desires and instincts of the gangs, or the hedonism of the Midian Police.
Somewhere in Midian City, somebody knows the truth. But those who do aren’t telling, and those who don’t should do well to leave it alone.
One of the most terrifying areas I visited was the toilets and the Medical Centre with blood scattered on the walls and barbaric instruments on the floors. What deviance goes on here?
Back on the streets there are many dark alleys that only a black angel would dare. On the catwalks above the sounds of stilettos clunking on cold steel, a muffled shout and silence.
After all this excitement with heart pounding I try to find the main street again, the smell of death and onions and hot dogs fill the air.
For sanctuary the most social place in Midian City is the famous Sushi bar. It is here that lost lives are discussed, where the innocent newly undead and unaware visitors drift and face their demons. I sit and chat here with many residents of the city, the passers-by, all charmed and intoxicated by the potential of our own fears. I have met individuals who are totally engrossed in their role, who cannot remember their true avie character, who have been possessed by others, lost in the darkness. Others talk of unworldly happenings, some are looking for victims. Midian City, a place to visit more than once, but be careful you may never get out. Here is the obligatory SLURL to go there if you dare!
POST SCRIPT: For some reason only known to Baal he decided to ‘ERASE’ his creation, the whole city. This is a real shame as many residents were enjoying the experiences here. I hope he will reinstate it one day.
UPDATE Dec 06: Baal has rebuilt Midian City bigger and stronger on its own island, simply type in Midian City on the map tool and explore 4 times what I describe above!
Posted by Gary Hazlitt from inside Second Life - aaaarrrgghhhhh!
Teaching the Tools of the Trades
October 2, 2006 9:05 pm
Start of a few posts about training sessions I do on the island. I have only just started taking pictures of these so the first couple are of a designer group of seven who were extremely talented and built quite a few impressive sculptures, some animated, after only a few hours instruction. A few of them had never built anything in 3D before, which is odd as this world ‘is’ 3D, so presumably not built anything, period? Anyway here we were collaboratively building a drum kit all at the same time while one of us shouted out instructions. Later some real interesting sculptures came out, some are still on Esperance.
The next picture is from one of the films the seven cinematographers and editors did. It captures some of the atmosphere of the film and the quality of their compositional and storytelling abilities. It was great watching them use the scripted, triggered, handheld and dolly cameras and their natural ability just flowed out.
Posted by Gary Hazlitt from inside Second Life
Yea about 6 hours in total mainly cause it...
