My favorite animation in Second Life

This is a shoutout to the man who created my favorite animation in Second Life... the unsung hero responsible for "lifting" avatars and sending more of us soaring than the Page Up button.

Last night I was reviewing an art installation that incorporated the animation - it's a perennial hit with artists - and suddenly it dawned on me: I had no idea who had made it. Shame on me! I rustled up my inventory and right clicked SkybornFly: Creator: YuzienBorn Janus. I'd never heard of him. Had you? Why, I'll bet that any Second Life resident reading this blog has one in his or her pantry. I hastened to contact him presto fasto.

Animators in Second Life strive so hard to emulate the graceful movements of real professional dancers through precision motion capture, but the animation I adore and would miss the most is my trans/copy SkybornFly. I know I've had it since January 2008 because I remember handing out copies of it like there was no tomorrow at Komuso Tokugawa and MoShang Zhao's fabulous realtime jam and prototype event: SynaesthAsia, captured here by Osprey Therian. You can see us using the SkybornFly beginning at 3:17 into this video or by clicking here:



YuzienBorn Janus got back to me today and I peppered him with questions:

I do believe this was the first "not possible IRL" animation on the grid. What possessed you to create such a wonder?

YuzienBorn: First? No. I saw a couple prior to mine. They were robotic, and lacked any human motion. You might have seen the zen-like hovering pose? If not, perhaps you have seen that straight up in the air 4m legs splayed thing that strippers still use. I feel I could claim the first *fluid* NPIRL anim.

It was my love of SL's electronic music culture that posessed me to make the skyborn animations. While there were many for dancing, for better or for worse, there weren't any that were really suited to a good downtempo or ambient sets (like Ribe Oh, or Transient Zeluco's). So avatars either danced (while showing appreciation, they looked silly), or just stood or sat there.

When did you create this animation?

YuzienBorn: Oh, my. I havent the slightest idea. If my inventory is correct, I made it exactly two years ago yesterday. Wow =)

Why did you decide to make it copy/trans? (Had he set it for sale, surely he'd be a virtual tycoon today!)

YuzienBorn: A combination of self-serving publicity, and self-serving competitive spirit: trying to out-do the other high-end developers that had released free products to the public. I also wanted to give a little something to the people, but that's prolly just because I was having an insecure moment and wanted attention. All selfish reasons ;)

How did you make it?

YuzienBorn: Poser.

Have you created other animations?

YuzienBorn: Yes. Aside from the boring sitting animations I made for my furniture products, I made one I adore: The animation I made for my Pika-shoes (pikachu on your feet) took me 10 hours and syncs perfectly with the song that plays. It is deliciously retarded. There are some clips of it near the beginning of this video that 2ndThoughts Brando and I made about our little electronic SL subculture.

Side Note: In view of Linden Lab's bullying this week of a crown jewel in virtual education - and an organization that has made them look good time and again - I've decided to never add a damn registered mark after the words "Second Life" again. If they want to take down this blog, so be it. TYRANTS!!

"body parts" : Virtual lovers are star-crossed islands

Posted by Bettina Tizzy

“body parts,” Alpha Auer’s fittingly poetic contribution to the new Poetik sim, is an installation that consists of several monochromatic and nude human bodies heaped upon each other, and an offering of unusual skin outfits (both male and female) to be worn by its visitors. Poseballs scattered around the bodies invite visitors to become a part of the sculpture. In the accompanying notecard and on her blog, Alpha bemoans the lack of corporal love in our virtual environment and asserts that avatars are ultimately alone.

While Alpha’s work in Second Life® is often playful, this is no puff piece, and it opens up the conversation about the compromises virtual world residents make when we dedicate so much of our time tethered to our computers, manipulating our human simulations, but never actually making contact.



Virtual lovers are star-crossed islands but… are we not beautiful to look at? Like hothouse petals, translucent “body parts” emanate from the wearer, pining for, reaching out for, but never touching. Romantic? Yes... but also quite sad.

One might argue that physicality is not essential to love or to friendship, and most assuredly, it is not. But it is the deepening of that exchange between two people that gets hobbled and can go no further in pixilated form, no matter how ardent or tender the feelings. Intimacy is the casualty, and any participant in “body parts” is sure to face his or her demons.





Alpha was intentional in creating a colorless piece, but “body parts” plays well with Windlight. The installation can also be found on her own gorgeous sim, Syncretia, where it resides behind a cinematic wall of creamy nudity.



In addition to creating art of staggering beauty (or hilarity), Alpha Auer (aka Elif Ayiter) also blogs here on Not Possible IRL.

You can visit "body parts" at Poetik by teleporting directly from here, or at Syncretia, by teleporting directly from here and looking for a creamy globe some meters above ground. While the lighting at Syncretia is set to "sunset," Alpha has also created a Windlight preset for "body parts," which is available here.

Many thanks to Naxos Loon for posing for these photographs. Because Alpha is a mix-master when it comes to avatars and clothing, I knew she wouldn’t mind if I adorned my avatar’s body with Hern Worsley’s hair.