Groundbreaking, literally - Faith in Selavy Oh

Posted by Bettina Tizzy

And they said you couldn't move mountains... Oh ye of little faith!

Physics and now Land artist Selavy Oh has created a script that operates the terraforming capabilities in Second Life®, resulting in the continuous and automated reshaping of land, even without her presence.

To my knowledge, this is without precedent.


That's me filming in the center of the mountain peaks. Selavy was not even in-world for that portion of the taping!

Filming and editing: Bettina Tizzy
Music: "Truth of the Legend" by Kevin MacLeod

Terraforming, the ability to intentionally transform surface topography, atmosphere, temperature or ecology, is not unique to science fiction or even science (where it is primarily called planetary engineering).

In his book, The Making of Second Life, Hamlet Au (aka Wagner James Au), explained the in-world terraforming process quite poetically: "Standing on a hill like a demi-urge, a Resident can wave her hand and cause the ground to swell, expand, or even collapse into the sea."

In Second Life, terraforming land is a skill that looks easy to do, but frequently results in unrealistic and poor duplicates of mountains, lakes and canyons.

Selavy, who rezzed in February of 2007, is most widely recognized for her physics work with the most basic of prims: the humble but noble cube. She has expanded her range considerably in the past few months and now works with any number of shapes and even Alpha textures, but physics are always involved. Art historian Amy Wilson once compared Selavy to Rauschenberg, explaining that, "I can’t help but think she’s the Rauschenberg of SL, albeit one whose hands are much, much tidier than his ever were (makes sense for the environment we’re talking about). Navigating in this little space created by artists whose work is pure abstraction (DanCoyote, Juria) and artists whose work specifically references real life (Cheen, Nebulosus), she comes to find some very fertile ground indeed."

Given recent developments with Comet Morigi's terraforming explorations and her anchoring of huge prims to sims - thereby extensively and surprisingly expanding the canvas - and now Selavy's epic work - many of the most exciting innovations in virtual worlds at this time have to do with Land Art so extreme that I can't help but wonder what James Turell and Micheal Heizer would think.

Possibly the closest reference to Dancing Mountains in Real Life might be Heizer's 1971 Double Negative project in Nevada, for which he removed 240,000 tons of stone to make two slices 30 ft wide by 50 ft deep on opposing sides of an existing canyon to suggest a line between the canyon walls. His focus was on the removal of something, thereby creating a Land Art piece that stressed space, rather than an object. But I have no Real Life reference for land that wiggles, shrinks and grows, with no attending human, in an automated fashion.

Selavy accomplishes this by leaving her scripts with Negative Overland, a bot that is hidden underwater.

Some years ago, I was traveling in the rain forest in the heart of Costa Rica. My traveling companion and I had just sat down to a white tablecloth dinner at a lodge perched a top a mountain less than two miles opposite the Arenal volcano. The volcano was erupting (and still is to this day). Constantly. With a surprisingly loud and deep rumble, the mountain would cough up the fiery lava and rocks, dressing itself in a never-ending kinetic skirt of thick veins in an orangey red.

We struck up a conversation with the couple sitting at the table next to us. They were vulcanologists from Finland and they spoke about volcanoes the way we talk about virtual worlds. The woman shared how she got a kick out of hugging active volcanoes at the base and putting her ear up to them. She swore they sounded like the loudest heartbeat on earth. That certainly had a lasting impression on me.

For some reason, it was the first thing I thought of when Selavy teleported me in to watch a proof-of-concept demo of Dancing Mountains. She has managed to breathe life into the landscape in ways heretofore unimaginable.

~*~

Dancing Mountains can be experienced on arts patron Mab MacMoragh's Soup sim by teleporting directly from here.

In addition, Selavy nearly always has an installation at Brooklyn is Watching. Teleport directly from here.

See also:

• Land Art in Second Life: A historical perspective and an introduction to virtual artist Comet Morigi
• The Patron Saints of Poetik
• It's Hip to be Squarish
• Selavy's page on the Odyssey Art Ning
• "Attention Economy" by Beth Harris on smARThistory
• New York Times piece on art in Second Life

Own the universe - and a piece of Second Life - in Real Life

Posted by Bettina Tizzy

This mathematical structure - known as the E8 Polytope created by Wizard Gynoid in Second Life® with the guidance of renown physicist Garrett Lisi (and sometimes avatar, Garrett Netizen)... is now available for purchase in Real Life.

The virtual version consists of 6,672 prims that were generated via script by Wizard with the assistance of Desdemona Enfield and Nand Nerd. Given its complexity, it seemed unlikely that its recreation in Real Life would be possible, barring enormous expense.

Now art, math and 3D printing artist Bathsheba Grossman has done it.


The 80mm glass cube will cost $72 USD and will be available as of July 10, 2009

Batsheba used Wizard's mathematical data for the crystal visualization and explains: "This 3D projection is notable for showing all 240 vertices, arranged in the concentric circles that appear in the common 2D "spirograph" rendering of this polytope." She adds that if Garrett Lisi's unified field theory is true, it "would mean that it explains most aspects of the observable universe. Here's a handy model for pondering the possibility."

In Lisi's seminal work from which these mathematical virtual creations stem, "Theory of Everything," the E8 Polytope may at last reveal the link between gravity and the other fundamental forces of nature.

"It has all 240 vertices and if you look straight down from the top, the zenith downwards, you will see a hole through the middle. If it were flattened, it would form the perfect spirograph," Wizard explained.

Here is a TED talk recorded in February, 2008, in which Lisi unenviably attempts to get us up to speed on his unified field theory in just 18 minutes.



See also:
Universe in the Metaverse by Hamlet Au, New World Notes

Wizard Gynoid: "I think it's important. I have an intuition about it"

Posted by Bettina Tizzy


Could this be the shape of our universe?

This is a favorite blogpost of mine by Hamlet Au of New World Notes in which he describes the October 2008 unveiling of a virtual E8 Polytope created by Wizard Gynoid with the guidance of renown physicist Garrett Lisi (and sometimes Second Life® avatar, Garrett Netizen).

Today, Bryn Oh teleported me to see what Wizard calls "the best representation of my previous work. The previous E8 Polytopes were like sketches of this." The new mathematical structure consists of 6,672 prims that were generated via script by Wizard with the assistance of Desdemona Enfield. "Desde's giving me a crash course in quantum physics," laughed Wizard, but those of us who know them both realize that this is exactly what is happening.

In Lisi's seminal work from which these mathematical virtual creations stem, "Theory of Everything," the E8 Polytope may at last reveal the link between gravity and the other fundamental forces of nature.

"It has all 240 vertices and if you look straight down from the top, the zenith downwards, you will see a hole through the middle. If it were flattened, it would form the perfect spirograph," Wizard explained.

Here is a TED talk recorded in February, 2008, in which Lisi unenviably attempts to get us up to speed on his unified field theory in just 18 minutes.



I wondered outloud if there is a benefit to realizing an E8 in-world. If it can be realized in CAD, then isn't that enough? Why here? Why now? "This is going to sound paradoxical, but somehow it's more real here. You can almost reach out and touch it. You fly around it and bonk into it," she replied.

Wizard was unaware of any Real Life reconstructions of the E8, and believes that it would be a hugely expensive proposition to try to construct the same sculpture in Real Life. Indeed. Faster, cheaper, easier to create in a virtual environment, and people from all over the world can visit it and share it simultaneously from the comfort of their own homes.

Had Dr. Lisi been involved in some way with the creation of this newest model? "He kept giving me hints and guidance," said Wizard. Did she mean the he wanted her to figure it out herself? She believes so. "I think of him as a mentor or teacher."

Wizard's parting words to me this afternoon about this work brought it all home: "I think it's important. I have an intuition about it."

I like to think that she is right.

This latest E8 is due to disappear any moment, along with the sim it is sitting on. If you hurry, you might still catch it by teleporting directly from here.

Miyaoka Hitchcock's Automatic Playing Piano and Morse Code Factory

Posted by Bettina Tizzy

Oh, those wacky guys over at the SoftBank sim. Physics are their playthings and they have been playing... a lot!

Molly Montale is one serious explorer and consequently, she is always discovering cool stuff. This morning she pinged me with news of further developments over at Softbank.

Softbank Slim Japan is an amusement park sponsored by Samsung and Softbank, the Japanese mobile phone company. It is also home to that giant avatar-tossing bar-tilting 3-axis accelerometer and robot that Tori Teatime and a couple of others put together.

Now Miyaoka Hitchcock (aka Masaya Kazama) has joined the mix of creators there with several installations. Two among them are the Automatic Playing Piano that hurls balls onto piano keys to play the song Scarborough Fair, and then there is his Morse Code Factory, wherein the visitor uses a light or heavy touch on a small platform to input Morse Code that goes into an extruder and then issues the letters the visitor manufactured. Teleport directly from here.

Music composer, sound designer, machinimator and all-around nice guy Dizzy Banjo created this video to demonstrate what happens. Thank you, as always, Dizzy!


Miyaoka Hitchcock Interactive Installations inSL from Dizzy Banjo on Vimeo.

I first learned about Miyaoka through his involvement with the COM Fun Club. Manbo! With a rez day of 1/27/2007, he is one day younger than I am, which puts me completely to shame. He's accomplished so much!

Miyaoka is also the owner of the School for Tinies, and the creator of Miyaoka HomeElectronics, which must have been founded on a hot day. The two items for sale there are the Tiny Electric Fan avatar (3-speed oscillating fan with ribbons blowing in the wind), and the Tiny Refrigerator avatar, with a door that opens and shuts, and enough food enclosed to get you by over a weekend. You can pick those up by teleporting here.

An interview with LaLa Legend, proprieter of the virtual world Legend City Online

Posted by Bettina Tizzy

March 15, 2009 ping: It's been months since I or anyone else I know has logged in to Legend City Online. Does it still exist? Does anyone care? Sound off, please!

Update: Per Marianne McCann, and in a message dated November 22nd, Legend City Online's LaLa Legend posted a clarification of LCOs terms of service to the LCO message boards:

"A reminder of our Terms of Service and Code of Conduct in reference to age and the use of Kid Avatars. All services are mature, strictly for entertainment purposes and are designed for individuals 18 years of age or older. It is strictly prohibited to portray a child or child avie in the matrix of Legend City Online in any way shape or form -- use of such will be seen as a direct violation of our terms and your account will be terminated."

The LCO Terms Of Service, however, as vague on issue of age, only indicating that, "Legend City Online will not knowingly execute an Agreement with anyone under the age of 18. Persons under age 18 may not use the Service without the consent and supervision of their parent or legal guardian. We only provide MATURE land. If Customer chooses to permit a minor to use the Service, Customer agrees to (i) supervise minor's use of any and all MATURE land usage, (ii) assume all risks associated with the minor's viewing of content received through use of virtual land we offer, (iii) assume any and all liabilities, including payment for services, resulting from the minor's use of Legend City Online Services as specified in this Agreement."

The only statement in their Code of Conduct ó roughly analogous to Second Life's Community Standards ó is that "all services are mature, strictly for entertainment purposes and are designed for individuals 18 years of age or older."

Hmmm.

FAST FACTS ABOUT LEGEND CITY ONLINE:

* Legend City Online's website can be found here
* Opened for business on September 22, 2008
* Legend City Online was formerly known as Central Grid
* Registration is free
* It is a registered US Company. The name has been trademarked and the design is under copyright.
* The German "Xumeo" continent was added to the matrix on October 28, 2008
* As of November 15, Legend City had a total of 303 Regions: 181 public regions, 69 regions on the separate continent of Xumeo, and 53 private regions
* There were 5,214 registered accounts as of 9am November 15, 2008; 2,196 of which are unique accounts since Legend City's acquisition of Central Grid
* Legend City will not disclose what kind of physics engine it is using
* Textures R Us (TRU), Simone and Alady Shapes are setting up shop in Legend City even now
* The Hippo Viewer, as modified and developed by Mana Janus, is their most compatible viewer. You can download it for Windows, Linux, or Mac here


Many thanks to Jolly Jedburgh for bringing Legend City Online to my attention eleven days ago. On the surface, this virtual world looks a lot like Second Life®, but it is another grid altogether. The differences don't stop with the company name, either. Despite the harried pace of signing up many new residents and dealing with the extraordinary technical issues that one might expect for a brand new world, it's owner graciously agreed to an extensive interview.

LaLa Legend has been a resident of Second Life since just after Beta in 2003. She left shortly after because, "(I) didn’t get the concept of its awesomeness," and returned in 2004 going by the name LaLa Xevious. Today, LaLa is the owner of Legend City Online. LaLa would not disclose her real name.


LaLa Legend

How many new accounts can you handle immediately?

LaLa: 75,000 new accounts can be handled, at which point we will need to restructure our database.

How large is your staff and what are their hours of operation?

LaLa: We have staff of 8 core team members as well as a small staff of volunteers working hard 24/7 to serve our community.

Why should we believe that you will not disappear overnight? People would invest in your grid, buy land, create content and set up shops... why should we believe that you will still be around in five years?

LaLa: Why would you believe that Second Life® would be? Our promise to our customer is this: We are working to create a lasting environment, where people can come and realize their goals and dreams at Legend City Online. We plan to be here for the long term.

Where is your funding coming from and will you be able to raise sufficient funds to maintain a state-of-the-art grid no matter what its growth might be?

Our funding is coming from multiple sources, and is stable enough to maintain our matrix as we are faced with the challenges that all I.T companies face in an ever changing market.

How long ago did you add a currency/economy and do you plan to keep it to Lindens? (This question was posed before I realized that the "L" I was seeing in my client related to the Hippo Viewer I was using, and not Lindens)

LaLa: We have enabled currency from day one. Our currency, the Legend $Ð has never been tied to the Linden$, nor will it be. In fact, the Legend $Ð trades at a different U.S rate than the Linden.

Understanding Legend City's currency

* Legend City's currency uses this symbol: $Ð
* Plans are in the works to establish a full-blown exchange
* You can purchase Legend dollars at Legend ATMs in Second Life. $1,000Lindens will buy you $Ð666 Legend dollars
* Notably, uploading a texture costs you $Ð10



Like every start-up, some growing pains are glaringly in evidence. This building is adjacent to the Legend City welcoming area

What are your biggest technical challenges, at present?

LaLa: Legend City is burdened with many technical issues. This is pioneering work, and there will be problems, which we will solve as we go along. We are, however, not changing things for change's sake, and we are listening to our users about the user experience they would like to have and about the steps we have to take to get there. Please bear in mind that this is a very complex endeavor and there are many things in Legend City that, in this form, have never been done before. Making Legend City a world enjoyable for it's residents is our highest goal.

More on Xumeo, the German continent...

Xumeo is a separate continent/grid available by teleport only from Legend City. It is planned as an All German speaking environment including currency, blue box dialogs, and all in world communication and signage. The two main regions there are Willkommen and Willkommen 2.



Xumeo is very PIRL and urban




Country cabins, perhaps? These were found on Xumeo


What are your thoughts on governance? Do you welcome all communities (child avatars, Gor, BDSM)?

LaLa: We welcome people from all walks of life. Of course we expect everyone that comes to our community to be respectful of each other’s choices. As well as expect that all activities are legal.

Are groups working well yet? (In fact, since I posed this question, my own experience has been that while you can create a group, it is not yet possible to add additional members. In other words, groups in Legend City have one member).

LaLa: Group implementation is a work in progress and is not complete yet. However, we are the only world offering groups at all.


Legend City newbies


There are eight avatars you can choose from upon registration: four male and four female. Here I am (also Bettina Tizzy) within two minutes of rezzing in Legend City Online


Once in-world, you can pick up any and all of the eight freebie avatars at the welcoming area

* Friend people when they are in your presence. Even so, they may not show up on your friends list. Search does not work yet.
* To change any of your body parts, go to your inventory and create a new part. Then wear it and go into appearance to begin modifying it.


Newbie look-alikes abound


Skins and eyes are already for sale on the Barrows region


My own experience has been that female avatars seem to outnumber male avatars nine to one

Newbie navigation tips:

* While it doesn't always happen, you may find that your avatar begins to bounce. One way to prevent the ensuing sea-sickness is to set your avatar to "fly"
* Sometimes you will find that the ground seems to swallow you up whole. Again, set your avatar to "fly" and you'll be back above ground again
* A teleport can be a dangerous thing. If you are meeting friends, be sure to agree on a spot before you attempt that teleport.


Sometimes the grid performs admirably and all seems perfect. You can even dance!


I have had a giggle over my avatar becoming a contortionist at times. Major lag spikes are not uncommon.


When do you expect to add voice and what protocol do you plan to use?

LaLa: We currently have no plans of adding voice because there are no technologies available to us that meet our standards. However, as our technologies develop, we will certainly look at including this feature.

Are you working with standard back-end protocols for everything?

LaLa: OpenSim is based on standard back-end protocols. These include http, xmlrpc and REST (Representational State Transfer). So the answer to your question is yes, we are working with the standard back-end protocols for everything.

Legend City Online's pricing structure and prim allocations are as follows:

Basic Private MiGs (Mini Grids) include 2 Regions for the $500 buy in pricing. Tier fees will remain at $85 per month.

Custom Private MiGs (Mini Grids) include 4 Regions for the $1000 buy in pricing.

Traditional Regions are priced at $100 with $100 a month tier. These regions have 20,000 prims and prims are scaleable to 256x256x256m

Open Space Regions are $25. Prim limit is set at 3750 and only 10x10x10m prims are allowed.


Do all scripts work on your grid? Which ones don't and do you plan to provide support for them soon? How soon?

LaLa: Of the 360+ functions, most have been implemented but not fully. The most notable exception is physics. Physics act somewhat differently and vehicle physics are not implemented yet. However, simple scripts like pose balls, doors and teleporters are very likely to work, with more complex ones needing a bit of a touch-up in places, but to know for sure you just have to try it. That’s what this is all about! Testing to see what works and needs to be tweaked.


Jolly Jedburgh tested particles in the sandbox. No one appears to be using the sandbox to learn how to build. They already know how

What are your policies on content theft, IP protection, etc.?

LaLa: As we continue to grow at such a rapid pace with new people coming to our community at mind boggling speeds, I have been made aware of the issues that other grids are plagued with at this time. It is this that has prompted me to address this issue head on and make public what my protocols for this will be.

Unlike other virtual environments, we have a zero tolerance for Content Theft or Infringement of rights in any way shape or form. With this zero tolerance come a few concerns I have as the owner of Legend City, as well as a person that creates content.

I want to say that we have taken precautions to make sure that the casual bot or copy bot being used on "our" grid is not possible.

This, we know, does not stop the uploading of content that may or may not be stolen from other grids. With this being said the following protocol will take place if the issue arises:

1. The content creator/s, themselves, MUST be the root of ANY complaint or suspicion for questionable items on the matrix of Legend City Online.

Although we appreciate those who want to keep an eye out for content theft, we will NOT respond to nor condone "witch-hunts" or arbitrary cries of theft from overzealous residents - period.

We do not feel it is fair to incite unfair or unjustified "doubt or suspicion" in anyone's products until it can be proven that the questionable content is being distributed improperly.

2. It will further be the responsibility of said content creator to provide proof of ownership and copyright and/or intellectual property registration. Without this information, your content may be unprotected. Watermarking should be kept on file with our administration.

3. An investigation of questionable content will take place for all sources to be discovered. If a justification cannot be made or it is deemed that content was intentionally stolen for ANY purpose, then this content will be banished from the matrix of Legend City Online.


The Eve region, created by Taarna Wells, is attractive.









Humps Place is a region on the westernmost coast of the Legend City continent.


Humps Place


Good to know: Moving your creations from one grid to another

According to Melanie Milland who owns the Xumeo continent, Second Inventory is having some trouble with sculpty transfers into Legend City.

Second Inventory is a 3rd Party Software that allows you to save your creations from one virtual environment directly to your hard drive, and then restore them in other grids. It costs € 29,00.

In conversation, Melanie indicated that you can NOT download a sculptmap from Second Life even if you have it in your inventory as an original, and re-upload it (in Legend City). In her words, "It WILL be broken. You need to take the same file you originally uploaded to SL and upload it. Saving it from your SL inventory to your hard disk is not lossless in itself. It changes the file."


Melanie Milland

See also:

LaLa Xevious' thread on SL Universe


Mana Janus (best known for developing the Hippo Viewer) has already set up a couple of businesses in Legend City, including MJM Lab (it sells a sim-wide teleporter), as well as Christmas trees

Alice in Wonderland, physics and Atom Burma

It was Real and Virtual wizard and magician Tuna Oddfellow, who first told us about the Carnivale Amusement Park. "It's a very comprehensive carnival, complete with a Disneyesque ride through an Alice in Wonderland fantasy, and a nifty roller coaster, too. (There are) lots of games and rides here. It was created by Atom Burma... apparently someone who likes to play with physics."





Indeed. We've seen a number of Alice in Wonderland installations in Second Life® this year, including the magical SLB5 version by LittleToe Bartlett, and each had its own attributes that made it special.





Carnivale is very much an amusement park that enjoys the distinction that you can actually walk away with many of the rides niftily tucked away in your pocket. Practically everything moves and nearly everything is for sale!



Teleport directly from here.

Pandora Wrigglesworth's Portable Door Generator - Physics with panache

Today, Pandora Wrigglesworth will be releasing her newest product, The Portable Door Generator. She teleported me to a room yesterday and asked, "The door is behind you but, how would you get out of the room if there were no door?" She went on to explain, "With my new device, you don't have to rely on the architect's choice of where to put a door."

She activated the mechanism, and with a swirl of particles, a new door magically appeared, when none had been there before.




And just like that, Pandora walked through a door of her own creation...

Pandora went on to say that "It works on any solid surface. It doesn't have be just walls. It does require rez perms but it is temp rez so prim limits aren't an issue. It works on walls up to about 5 meters thick and doesn't have trouble with walls being different angles on the other side. There are five different kinds of doors chosen at random."

How does it work?
Pandora Wrigglesworth: Rezzing the doors and linking them up was easy. It was detecting *where* to rez them that was tricky. There is no LSL command to detect the shape of a prim in other objects, so I rez small invisible prims and bounce them off the walls and then through the walls like sonar. They move until they hit a wall and that's where one door goes. Then they drill through the wall until they stop colliding with it and that's where the other door goes. There are three prims and then I use a little matrix algebra to determine the rotations and positions from that. They are self-deleting. I'd hate to see them stack up in the Lost and Found folder!

Please note: This device is also handy when you fall down underneath a building on a bad teleport.

All proceeds from the sale of Pandora's items benefit her Global Domination Fund. You can pick up the Portable Door Generator at Pandora's shop, Curio Obscura, by teleporting directly from here.

Sachiko Kodama - Real Life inspires...

Via artist Nebulosus Severine, I learned about artist/physicist, Sachiko Kodama.




Better quality and other films of her work available here

Funny thing is... I live about five minutes from this gallery.

AngryBeth Shortbread opens PLAY: A Collection of Sound Sketches, and talks about Twinity

AngryBeth Shortbread (aka Annabeth Robinson; rez: 7-26-2005) breaks ground with such ease that I'm not even sure if she is aware of how signifcant her work is. Certainly everyone I know in Second Life who works with sounds and physics greatly admires her. Now, this Leeds, UK-based multi-media artist and lecturer has just opened PLAY: A Collection of Sound Sketches 2006-2008, with some installations we've seen before and new ones, too. The show will be open to all throughout the month of April, and was presented at the People : Place : Prescence conference and exhibition on April 2nd at the Foundation for Art and Creative Technology (FACT) in Liverpool, England. You may visit it in Second Life by teleporting directly from here.

According to Beth, who likes to encourage social play and experimentation, "Though most of these works could be recreated in other software, it is the social aspect of the virtual world that makes me stick to working in Second Life or similar. Seeing groups of online people experiment and collaborate on producing music with my pieces is more rewarding than a more solo experience on a flash based website or similar. And I still get goosebumps when I watch a group of international avatars all playing together telepresently, yet seemingly all together in one place and presence."

Here's a vid of one of her newest "toys," that is labeled PUSH at the installation:


In this video by Osprey Therian, you can see a good demo of an older piece by Beth dating back to 2006 that I find very entertaining, called the Synthy-Go-Round, an experiment in mixing two synthygorounds remixable tunes that is part of this month's show, and labeled TOUCH. Basically, you can orchestrate your own mix by adding or subtracting different tracks/instruments, available to you in each cube.



There are a few NPIRLers that are actively exploring virtual worlds other than Second Life, and Beth is definitely one of them. "I've been doing a little peek at Twinity, but it's in very early Beta. I'll return when they've added an ability to upload content - not just textures - but it looks promising," said Beth. When I asked what kind of content she was hoping for, she indicated that she's looking to them to make sound files, 3d builds and eventually scripting uploadable. "At the moment, its textures and webpages on a prim. The webpages on a prim do rock, though," she added.

I asked if it was stable at present, to which she replied, "Nope - you've got to have a patience of a saint."

While I haven't tried Twinity yet, I am fascinated by the ability to work with mirror effects there. Here's yet another video that Beth created, working only with the items made available to users inside Twinity.

Avatar puppeteering for Second Life in 2008?

Insofar as virtual worlds are concerned, puppeteering is the real-time, user-manipulated animation of avatar joints, and nope, it's not available in-world yet, though Linden Lab and its Studio Shiny (an SL developmental lab) have indicated that they are behind it, or were behind it or...

The first goal is to create a Physical Avatar, meaning that people will be able to maneuver the joints of their avatar. Later releases would feature much more, including real-time gesturing through the use of your keyboard or some other external device, users being able to build and save their own gestures, without having to use external modeling applications, exporting, and uploading; and something they call "ragdoll friction," relative the force of impact.

I found this Linden Lab press release dating back to August of 2006, where the capability was announced and presented. On the Second Life Wiki, however, it states that this project "is being put on the back burner until 2008." *Glances at calendar.* At the end of the Wiki page, it goes on to say: "Project in hibernation so that developers have time to devote to projects that increase Second Life's stability and performance."

*crosses eyes, smirks, wrinkles forehead, raises one eyebrow*

Looky what popped in my video feed last tonite, by Jeffrey Ventrella, former senior developer at Linden Lab, who was also responsible for developing Flexi Prims and the FollowCam.



On his comprehensible and informative website, Jeffrey goes on to say, "As of now (March, 2008) the technology has not yet been fully deployed, but I hope it will soon be re-visited, as I think it would add a level of expressivity and direct expression to the avatars in Second Life."

Furthermore, he says,"This technology has the potential to provide a way for residents to manipulate their avatars through motion-capture, using input devices similar to the Wii."

*whistles and... puts left foot in, puts left foot out, puts left in, and shakes it all about*

Theory of Everything - Or my grandma can crochet better than your grandma

A few weeks ago, artist and creator Gaynor Gritzi caught an article in The Times of London about Antony Garrett Lisi, a 39 year old surfer and physicist who has linked the Theory of Everything, or ToE, to a complex 248-dimensional shape known as E8.



Update: Gaynor had rezzed an E8 in Second Life, but it is no longer there. You might contact Gaynor directly for an opportunity to view this.

Someday... an engine that will knock our socks off: CryEngine2

Proceed with caution! This may prove painful.

A few days ago, AM Radio slipped me this URL, and I've been whimpering ever since.

Not Possible in SL? The CryEngine2 is a game engine currently being used for Crytek's game, Crysis. How soon will Second Life reach this level of physics? Even if it were there today, would most user's computers be able to handle it?