A quick exploration of some of my old builds which may not be there much longer! Using the Space Navigator and running Windlight in Day cycle mode (the sun and moon take a minute or two to do a full rotation)  to produce lots of moving shadows across the landscapes, people and builds. Rather than just show shadows I was keen to tie some ‘psych trance’ music into fast moving space navigator footage hence the constant movement – all shots took into account the timing with the shadows too.

The whole process was about 1 hour of capture, 1.5 hour edit and 2 hours on music track. Music was composed on Logic Pro mostly using Spectrasonics Omnisphere plug-in software ‘processor-eating’ synth.

I had access to a top end NVidia GTX280 high spec graphics card and quad processor machin so I put all SL graphics settings at max for once! The video was captured at PAL resolution using Fraps and the raw files edited using Adobe Premiere.

To have a go at this yourself make sure you have a top flight graphics card from NVidia or ATI and then download the Shadow Viewer client from Kirsten here or I believe a more recent one (that I used) from Boy Lane here. I am not sure of the widespread use of shadows given the grunt your computer needs to handle this, windlight, voice on top of all the usual networking issues – but for those with computer horsepower it definitely brings the place to life.

Published & created under creative commons – attribution, non-commercial, non-derivative, 23 May 2009 in Sydney, Australia

My Second Life sim builds included: Esperance (AFTRS), ABC Island, Melbourne Laneways, Thursdays Fictions, Deakin, The Pond and others. (I would have loved to show some more commercial & arty builds but non-disclosure and all that!)

My build and design of the Deakin University Arts Island almost a year ago in January of 2008. Special thanks to Deakin staff Jenny Grenfell, Fiona Phillips, Jo Raphael and Stephen Seagrave for their guidance. The general brief for this was based around a couple of escher and dali paintings alongside some basic teaching space and gallery areas. The video captures the organic growth of the design ideas – it is still growing as all good builds should do! The island has been in regular use by staff and students but closed to the general public.

Medium rez 105MB MP4 available here. Music composed and performed by Gary Hayes. These images with comments can be seen here.

Video, music & 447 Images © Gary Hayes and Deakin University

Below is the flickr slideshow embedded as an alternative

A machinima by Gary Hazlitt in the new virtual world Vastpark

The music is by Gary Hayes performing live on his Salvi Julia (concert string spacing) Harp at the Contemporary Composers Festival run with the Royal Academy of Music in London a few years ago. There is added ambient mood and specialised sound effects using LogicStudio.

Filmed and Edited by Gary Hazlitt ©JustVirtual 2008

Medium rez (47MB MP4) download available here

For Vastpark enquiries contact Bruce Joy on bruce@vastpark.com

and a reminder of what it was like in its opening glory

You obviously can’t read the labels on the map below, clicking will take you to the high rez version. Enjoy. Oh and if I have missed an Australian sim (or related to) please add in comments and I will update if I get at least 5!

Modified map is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0

Although the distance between, or proximity to fellow inhabitants doesn’t really affect you operationally in Second Life it is nice to be able to just call up the map and in one quick hop, double click a neighbour’s sim to ‘pop over’, feels all communal and friendly. I tp all over the grid and meet anyone and everyone but it is nice to be back in Marni on a Sunday morning and just pop over to AFTRS, The Pond, USQ and Cog with a simple double click And there are many other benefits too, especially when adjacent, joined at the hip so to speak – over to you!