Archive for the 'Role Playing' category
Run SilkCharm Run in Alpha City Berlin, Twinity
August 31, 2008 7:02 pmI am continually beta testing up coming virtual worlds and one that is showing early promise is Twinity. Although lacking many of the ‘detailed’ features of Second Life it has its own specialities that I will cover in a longer post. One thing that is very impressive off the block is the scale of the world built, unlike Second Life, at scale and gives a real sense of distance in comparison with the real world (which Twinity is focusing on).
So for this next Gary Hazlitt machinima I fiddled with SilkCharm’s avatar (or is that SilkCharm herself?) uploading some portrait faces to map onto the face & body and equipped her with suitable running attire fore this ‘Run Lola Run‘ lookalike (and big soundalike thanks to Twyker’s music). The film features Franka Potente running around the backstreets of Berlin trying to get some money for her criminal boyfriend (and goes back in time twice). SilkCharm though was just getting some exercise…or as she suggested in the comments on the video ‘in desperate search of chocolate’ ! Enjoy…oh before that one interesting effect in here. At one point in the recording I fell off the world and started hurtling south/down or just out of the sim - the running SilkCharm began to ‘break up’ slowly. As I still had the record on you can see the effect at the start and end of the movie which is quite an attractive ‘inworld’ effect 
A Machinima by GARY HAZLITT starring SILKCHARM
‘Run SilkCharm Run’ Filmed in the Beta Virtual World TWINITY (Alpha City Berlin) - more info on the Twinity site
MUSIC “Believe” by Tom Tykwer, Johnny Klimek and Reinhold Heil Feat: Voice of Franka Potente from the film ‘Run Lola Run’
Filmed & Edited (in 3 hours) by GARY HAZLITT
Shot in the ‘massive’ Berlin simulator in Twinity featuring areas around Brandenburg Gate and Alexanderplatz
Many thanks to SilkCharm & A ‘New World’ Twinity
© JustVirtual Productions 2008
http://www.justvirtual.com
Haunted Goth Dreams, a Halloween 2007 Second Life Machinima
October 16, 2007 9:51 pmIt’s that time of the year where avatars wear pale skin, dark make-up and generally scare each other to relog. So armed with a secret camera in trembling hands, Kylie and I ventured into the darker recesses of Midian City, Liquid Heat and City of Lost Angels to make a rather special film. I personally love the avies that frequent these wonderfully crafted places, avatars full of character, individuality, unique clothes, deep role playing (whatever that is) and strange protruding teeth. Sprinkle on one of my favourite songs, Haunted by Poe, a little sneeky editing and voila…enjoy, but make sure your not alone!
“A machinima by Gary Hazlitt based on and using as background, the great song “Haunted” by Poe. Special thanks to the creators and inhabitants of City of Lost Angels, Liquid Heat and Midian City sims, you are wonderful people. Avatanimation, filming and editing by Gary Hazlitt. A JustVirtual Production © Gary Hazlitt 2007″
Posted by Gary Hazlitt from inside Second Life © 2007
Second Life ‘Chances’ - Machinima “In Memory of Lost Love”
October 1, 2007 3:06 amThe virtual stars aligned and I was compelled to make this kind of sad, but moving machinima. The story grew from a combination of 1) a great song, 2) some private sims I am developing, with a new terraform, 3) a space navigator and most importantly 4) a couple of new places I visited. Less than 5 hours later a new machinima was born, you can see the results here.
Also available medium rez 70MB WMV download
The story grew rather organically. I was playing with one of my new Space Navigator joysticks, which gives me unlimited camera control and is great for flying across mountains - I had just terraformed three sims with some ‘placeholder’ vertical interest. So I got Kylie Wollongong to join me on a private sim to do some walking, talking, romantic shots.
About half way through we went shopping to get a new skin. Next to the sims only store was a rather bizarre ‘camping’ area - around 50 avies all sitting around. Not a normal one, it looked positively like a wake, no one chatted, they just sat rather miserably. Gong. Mountain walking plus wake, a story was born.
“A couple in love. It starts with her funeral then flashes back to their recent life, ‘climbing together’. At the funeral again he sits with their friends. Flashback to the decision to be together and then reaching ‘the top’. She walks off by herself and tragedy. Just before she ‘ascends’ they recall a happy moment in Venice, tinged with sadness at the end when she has a premonition of her own short future…”
So I shot some sequences of just me and the crowds quickly and then went back and added some extra elements to the mountain journey - which obviously extended the narrative. I also wanted a few flashbacks of earlier romantic times, so Kylie and I visited Venice for three simple shots.
When I added the music during the edit the whole piece took on extra power and poignency - the emotional quality forcibly reminded me of past lost loves. It became a metaphor for the spirits of love. As it says on my YouTube decription “The story of a couple very much in love whose upward journey ends in tragedy. Flashbacks from the wake and their favourite time in Venice”
Some production stills on flickr here.
Avatanimation, Machinimatography, Editing, Story Written, Directed and Produced by Gary Hazlitt - Copyright 2007
Posted by Gary Hazlitt from inside Second Life ©2007
The Boisterous Billabong Bar
July 1, 2007 3:20 pm
The Pond Bong Overload 07, originally uploaded by Gary Hayes.
When I built the Pond islands over 6 months ago I intended this area to be the most organic of all the spaces on the then three Pond islands. This area was also designed to provide a gateway to the outback and Uluru and the juxtaposition of busy bar, social space and real open space (a whole sim for the outback) was planned. That zen like combination is important, psychologically we like to be on the edge of wilderness - facing open sea, deserts and mountains. The call of the wild. Some other parts of the islands were not rich, social and detailed (due to other forces) and that is reflected in how popular they are. Anyway.
The bar itself was roughly designed on my own memories of Queenslander and Western Australia shacks and bars in the outback. I had to use some Western USA textures on the walls etc: due to time contraints and the whole thing took about a day to do - plus a few extra hours later on the internal details like the beer pumps and original seating.
I noticed after a couple of weeks that people were also gathering outside the bar in front of the Pond so I quickly added a fire, bbq and seating plus extra flooring. This has now become one of the busiest 4000sqm areas in SL. The area at launch was supposed to have live bands, singers, streamed music and so on. These are still being planned but it is slow to materialise on a commercial sim, as it costs real money plus a bunch of legals - yet I am amazed that avies still gather and meet here in such large numbers. Less to be entertained but more to socialise, get away from the less aesthetically designed sims and gather before heading off elsewhere.
The other night we had over 60 avies all gathered in this small area after a TV programme in Australia. The top picture is a shot I took of that. Below are other images that give a feel for what takes place here including floods, small battles and endless winged flirting. Quite a few folk are already creating deep stories and role playing in this space which is great and there are many secret places for the initiated, the pash room for one 
Posted by Gary Hazlitt from inside Second Life
Alternate Reality Panel Chaos
November 29, 2006 12:28 am
There, that got your attention, in true call-to-action style! I went to an interesting panel discussion today down at the Electric Sheep tower about ‘alternate reality games’ in our world. There was an eclectric crowd such as one (devon1234 Allstar you know who you are) who insisted on setting off fireworks at the beginning (pic above), people wearing cubes on their heads and the omnipresence of DestroyTV, the sexy camerawoman broadcasting video (not just stills as in my other post) to the bio world at destroytv.com.
There is a link at the end of this post to a bio site run by SL’s Future Salon that explains the speaker’s connections to bio world games and those strange recorded ’speech’ things, avies in a podcast? Still beyond me how this works. Anyway back to the event, panelists were skillfully moderated by Electric Sheep’s (ESC) own SNOOPYbrown Zamboni as they tackled the complex issues of running alternate reality games here in Second Life. Among the other panelists (shown in the images below) were Zero Grace, Adrian Vanalten, danhon Giles and Aip Pomegranate I believe, although they kept using their alternate names a lot, confusing? Anyway to the discussion.
Zero Grace (who is also known as Tony Walsh apparently) did a nice text introduction about ARGs while the audio was fixed:
“Over the last 12 years I’ve worked as an artist, writer, and designer primarily with web-based sites and games for the youth market. In the last few years I’ve been involved more heavily in game design. I designed game play and wrote storylines for two editions of Xenophile Media’s ReGenesis Extended Reality Game based on the Canadian TV series ReGenesis. and I was a game designer and writer on the Xenophile and Double Twenty co-produced ARG “The Ocular Effect” based on the ABC Family TV movie “Fallen.” My work in alternate reality gaming over the past couple of years has involved a heavy broadcast component and combines some traditional elements like puzzle design and interactive storylines with non-traditional elements like interactive video and working with gaming hooks embedded into broadcast TV.”
When the 90 minute panel really got going there were lots of issues and questions that kept coming up:
- How to devise a ‘game’ that truly plays against and parallel to the consensus reality of our world vs just a ‘treasure hunt’, and if this world is enough in itself (what a question!)
- How to make money (Linden dollars obviously) from running these games
- How hard and time consuming it is to develop a rich and deep narrative and keeping it going
- How to keep control of the ‘game’ as many players take it to areas you never considered possible
- How to make the media in this world, video, sound, text, im, chat, objects, outdoor media, role playing avies etc: etc: work together seamlessly - merged media.
The audience as they do were asking lots of parallel questions and comments (which I find intriguing as a parallel narrative) to the slightly ‘from another world’ audio. One that stood out was from Matthias Eisbar who in relation to a game where a player was set-up to play guitar in front of everyone, talked about the 4th wall and players trying to get behind the mask.
” There are serious privacy issues for any actors though everyone wants to pull back the curtain but breaking the 4th wall like this - sometimes the idea that it’s a game gives people the excuse to cross lines - what if he gets hit by a car getting the guitar?”
InKenzo also raised a point about writers for ARG’s
“writers must be embedded and fluent in ARG worlds….it will not work with two separate teams.” and on linking games “for ARG developers, why must it be competition? there are ways to float between worlds here and there’s no shortage of ways to link games”
I haven’t quoted much from the panelists themselves as they will be on the recording coming up at the Future Salon site which has more information from the bio world here.
Tomorrow looking forward to my friend DanCoyote Antonelli’s SkyDancers 2007 - I have a VIP seat at the 9pm performance, now wheres my glad rags
Posted by Gary Hazlitt from Inside Second Life - using OpenSource - SL Mail, Postie & Cron
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
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!
