Understanding Virtual Worlds » secondlife

Introduction to Second Life for GEO 493

admin — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 18:02:34 +0000

Below are the presentation and links mentioned in my visit to John Bailey’s GEO 493 class:

The Presentation Images
http://9scape.com/slpres/demo.html

A Few Destinations:
Orange:
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Orange%204/21/227/46
Vernian Sea (Airship Tower):
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Vernian%20Sea/204/65/106/
Sweden’s Virtual Embassy:
http://slurl.com/secondlife/swedish%20institute/70/212/30
GeoGlobe:
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Commonwealth%20Island/193/83/315
Sculptie Earth:
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Areumdeuli/111/121/214/
Top 20 List of Educational Locations in Second Life:
http://www.simteach.com/wiki/index.php?title=Top_20_Educational_Locations_in_Second_Life

Learn To Build and Script:
Torley’s Video Tutorials:
http://www.youtube.com/user/Torley
Linden Scripting Language (LSL) Wiki:
http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/LSL_Portal
Learn to Do Stuff in Second Life With Tutorials:
http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Video_Tutorials

Links & Inspired Reading
The Congressional Committee Meeting on Virtual Worlds:
http://energycommerce.house.gov/cmte_mtgs/110-ti-hrg.040108.VirtualWorlds.shtml
Digital Urban Blog:
http://digitalurban.blogspot.com/
UgoTrade Blog:
http://www.ugotrade.com
Not Possible in Real Life Blog:
http://npirl.blogspot.com

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Presentation about Second Life Using Stixy

admin — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 15:40:11 +0000

Yesterday I gave a couple of small presentations about Second Life to small groups using Stixy instead of PowerPoint.There wasn’t a lot of time to prepare for these, so I collected images, some were mine and some I found on Flickr, included the proper attribution to the photos and was finished.

Unfortunately, for both presentations I ran into issues flashing my screen to the overhead projector and had to run it is if it were a second monitor. This created some navigation challenges during the presentation, but I thought it was an interesting way to approach the need for overhead display. Personally, I liked being able to see the rest of the images and I felt it gave me some “peripheral vision” as I talked. IT was nice to be able to move things around as I talked too. I’m not sure if the audiences cared either way in the end, though. During one of the presentations the display was way too dark and for the other I had to stand in a terrible location that didn’t allow me to see the screen very well. Those things may have made more of an impact than anything else. I will try this again though.

The presentation is available on Stixy if you’re curious. A note: I did have backup material with me just in case access to the internet wasn’t available during the presentations.

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Importing 3D Models Into Second Life

admin — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 19:41:24 +0000

|| This post is updated regularly. ||
I’ve been gathering a list of resources on the conversion process for bringing existing 3D models on to the Second Life platform. I’m dumping them here so I have a way to get back to them - maybe they will be useful for someone else.
There are various tools people are focusing on as part of the pathway from digital model to Second Life import. There are two considerations when undertaking the import process:

Can the current digital model be exported as data that can then be imported and read into the Second Life platform as prims (basic shape element)?
Will the object exceed Second Life prim limitations once it is imported (approx a 15000 prim limit per island with no prim larger than 10m x 10m)?

Sketchup to SL
http://eightbar.co.uk/2006/09/29/google-sketchup-second-life-export/
http://www.3pointd.com/20060626/sketchup-blender-second-life/

AC3D to SL
http://www.inivis.com/secondlifetri.html (interesting video of actual conversion)

Maya to SL
http://www.sim-image.co.jp/sltk/en/specprice.php
http://www.qarl.com/qLab/?p=49

An example of successful Maya to SL conversion (no work flow - yet)

Pathways from Maya and 3D StudioMax
http://ai-designstudio.net/en/products/hensin-introduction.html

3D Studio Max (OBJ format) to SL
http://digitalurban.blogspot.com/2007/08/importing-objects-into-second-life.html

Blender to SL
Domino Designs Tutorial

secondlife

Finding Textures for Second Life Projects

admin — Mon, 06 Aug 2007 01:49:51 +0000

Virtual worlds like Second Life make it easy to create our own content, but not all of us have the time or talent to create our own textures. As educators we often find our budgets rather limited too. In addition to the various free textures you can find in Second Life at flea markets and yard sales, there are quite a few sites on the web with great collections of textures available for download - free. The majority of these sites make their images available for personal and non-commercial use, but many allow commercial use or their content.

TextureKing - A repository of photo textures of stone, paint, plants, and more. A project from REH3design.
StockVault - A photo-sharing site with free downloads for personal and educational use.
Image * After - Free photos available to download for personal or commercial use.
Grunge Textures - CreativeCommons-licensed photos for personal/non-commercial use.
CGTextures - Downloadable textures for use in personal and commercial use. The license on the images only restricts the reselling of unmodified textures or of derivative textures.
stock.xchng - A great photo-sharing community. Images are individually licensed, though most of them may be used in personal and commercial work.
ShareCG - Textures, animation, scripts, tutorials, and more

resources, secondlife, textures

Configuring the 3Dconnexion SpaceNavigator for Second Life

admin — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 23:23:44 +0000

Finally, the SpaceNavigator works in Second Life with the SL Viewer Joystick Flycam function. Huh? What does this mean? Well, it’s possible to use the SpaceNavigator for more smooth camera control than using a mouse while filming machinima. Note that the SpaceNavigator doesn’t give you as much control as a mouse does, but the camera does pan more smoothly.

Runitai Linden wrote the controls for the Flycam feature and instructions for getting it to work with your SpaceNavigator can be found on the Second Life Wiki. To set to the Joystick Flycam config window you will first need to access the Client menu in the SL Viewer. If you don’t see it in the drop-down menu across the top of the window use the key combination CTRL+ALT+D and it should appear.

It took me a few tries to get my camera under control. After a combination of setting the Joystick Flycam settings according to the wiki, restarting the SL client, and re-enabling the Joystick Flycam feature I was able to get things working pretty well without causing the camera to spin wildly. If you happen to find yourself in a tailspin, simply hit the ESC key to return to your normal trailing camera view.

Don’t forget to check that you have a current version of the SpaceNavigator driver. The easiest way to do that is to use the Update Wizard installed with the 3Dconnexion software.

Happy panning/zooming.

Photo courtesy of Rev Dan Catt on Flickr

device, secondlife, technology, tutorial, tutorials

Webcasts from the MIT Media Lab

admin — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 01:10:33 +0000

There are links on Bob Sutor’s blog to the webcasts from the Virtual Worlds: Where Business, Society, Technology & Policy Converge Conference, presented by IBM and the MIT Media Lab in June of this year. There are some interesting thoughts on how virtual worlds will change how we think of identity in the future.

While digging around on the Media Lab site I also discovered webcasts from the h2.0: new minds, new bodies, new identities symposium held on 09 May. There hasn’t been time yet to listen to them but I’m very intrigued by the description:

“A one-day symposium exploring the innovative research focused on human 2.0—the new science of human adaptability, hosted by John Hockenberry.”

community, education, identity, learning, muve, secondlife, virtual, webcast, world

SL Quirkyness in Meatspace

admin — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 22:49:21 +0000

Thank goodness meatspace doesn’t suffer from the same buggy afflictions often encountered on the Second Life grid. If it did it would certainly be as humorous as this video spotted on YouTube:

[youtube]flkgNn50k14[/youtube]

humor, secondlife, video

Find Voice Enabled Parcels in SL

admin — Fri, 15 Jun 2007 18:39:55 +0000

The Voicemap is available now at secondlife.com and allows you to see which areas have the voice feature enabled. There are a number of locations already and more are added each day.

One thing that caught my attention about this map is that it is using the Google API.

communicate, map, secondlife, voice

SL Framework for Drupal

admin — Mon, 30 Apr 2007 04:22:17 +0000

Looks like a Drupal Second Life Framework will be released in the near future. The release is dependent on the release of the web site (and web app) of the company which sponsored the development. Framework by 2bits.

community, drupal, mashup, secondlife

Learn a Second Language in Second Life

admin — Fri, 30 Mar 2007 09:09:18 +0000

LanguageLab.com is now open for beta testing. Students will be able to sign up for language classes that meet entirely in Second Life.

Classes are small, generally 6 to 8 students, and run for 50 minutes. Events are larger scale learning experiences that allow students the opportunity to practice their new language in realistic settings, with teachers and native speakers on hand to act out the events and help students to both observe and participate.

Although I don’t know anything about this project outside of the information provided on their website, I think it is a fascinating proposition for teaching a language by distance. The students can join the class from wherever they are and interact with each other and the instructor in real time. The class is delivered in a malleable, highly customizable environment which allows the instructor to place students in any number of possible environments - a train station, grocery store, you name it - for various types of activities.

I can imagine a class to feel more like an immersion experience for the student than sitting in a class reading text from a book and memorizing vocabulary on flashcards. Instead they can be moving through a space together as if they were on a field trip sharing the same visual and environmental cues. Don’t get me wrong - I learned a great deal of Russian doing just that - sitting around a table with my classmates for 8 hours a day reading text and doing speaking drills, but the challenge of reaching the same outcomes in a distance-delivered class requires a re-thinking of traditional delivery and I’m excited to see this sort application of SL for language learning.

education, language, learning, secondlife