FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

January 20, 2012- Sand Castle Studios, LLC is pleased to announce that Hunger in Los Angeles, a virtual immersive journalism experience, will debut this week at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival.

Written by artist Nonny de la Peña (who recorded the actual event) and commissioned by the USC’s Annenberg School of Communication & Journalism in conjunction with MxR Lab, Hunger in Los Angeles  virtually recreates an eyewitness account of an actual incident in a food bank line at the First Unitarian Church in Los Angeles, in order to call attention to the growing issue of hunger in the United States.

Sand Castle Studios modeled virtual replicas of the church and scene and used the Unity 3D development platform to to bring the project to life.  Premiering at Sundance, participants can suit up and use a head-mounted goggle display to walk around and interact with other characters in the fully immersive virtual reality simulation.  They will have the opportunity to experience a virtual reproduction, with audio from the actual incident, during which the Church’s available food runs out, provoking anguish and frustration among some of those gathered. Meanwhile, a man in line falls to the ground in a diabetic coma. An ambulance and two paramedics arrive to assist.

About Sand Castle Studios

Sand Castle Studios is a full service creative company dedicated to helping organizations maximize the full potential of virtual worlds and immersive media by creating interactive, social, and 3D experiences. Our strategic, creative, and technical teams are made up of some of the most experienced and talented minds in the world working to create unique and interactive user experiences.

For more information contact:

Kimberly Winnington (SL: Gianna Borgnine)

Sand Castle Studios, LLC

www.changingworldsbuildingdreams.com

kim@changingworldsbuildingdreams.com

1-302-559-5230

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It’s a new year, and my day has been filled with new resolutions, new hopes, and new prospective clients.  However, this new air of opportunity was temporarily put on pause when I read a blog post from Gene Yoon (aka Ginsu Linden), who was formerly Vice President of Corporate Development at Linden Lab (and General Counsel at the Lab before that).

In his post, Ginsu honestly and almost poetically takes responsibility for his role in the failure of Second Life.   While I refuse to agree that a platform which has so powerfully changed users lives for the better is a failure, I can completely understand and respect Ginsu’s assertion that “failure can only be judged by the ones who were trying to succeed.”

For anyone who has been invested in Second Life for several years, it’s no secret that the platform did not fulfill the dreams it’s core team had for it.  While my own reflections can never begin to compare to the “intensely personal” ghosts that seem to haunt Ginsu, I myself have spent countless hours anguishing over when the Linden Lab core team turned that corner, who gave up and let it happen, why they let it happen, etc, but there are two thoughts that always set my mind at ease:

1. Second Life is astonishing.

To the Lindens past -

I know the Second Life we have now is not the one you dreamed of and aspired to.  I, an outsider, can’t even pretend to understand what that means or how that feels, but as a human I know that we are all fragile.  We set out on noble missions larger than ourselves and sometimes get lost along the way.  We make mistakes and choices we come to regret that result in unfulfilled dreams.  While there’s nothing I can say to change that, I need you to know one thing.  Second Life is astonishing.  As a whole, it may not be what you dreamed of or set out to create, but a part of your mission can still be found there.  Your struggles and losses were not for nothing. Right now, the things that happen in SL are seemly ordinary and only touch a select few when compared to it’s once dreamed of potential.  It’s magic is easy to miss, still unknown to many, and far less tantalizing to those with other motives, but it’s there.  Second Life changes lives.  It’s far to powerful to explain with words.  For those that have experienced it, every journey is different and personal.  We grow and find ourselves. We turn off the external noise of our daily lives and lose ourselves.  We get inspired, we inspire.  We question,  we learn,  we teach.   We listen, and speak freely.  We fall in love.  We share our stories and create new ones.

I know I have the luxury of not being chased by the ghosts that haunt Ginsu, but I am thankful for the experience we have even if Second Life’s true destiny is unfulfilled.

But honestly, I think Second Life (even with it’s aforementioned unfulfilled destiny), was before it’s time.  Many don’t understand it’s magic.   I often relate the experience to that of “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.”  The Violet’s and Augustus’ of the world don’t get it.  Undoubtedly, they are most likely the ones that pushed the original core team away from their goals in the first place.  I think Second Life is very much the “World of Pure Imagination” that Willy Wonka spoke of and we need a Charlie to keep the dream alive.

2. The dream is still alive.

To the Lindens present -

It’s all in your hands now.   You are the only ones with the power to turn the car around.  Second Life could have been so much more, but it still can be, can’t it?   It’s not just about bug fixes or the best way to market SL.  It’s time to think bigger.  Learn from the mistakes of the past.  Put the higher goals above personal greed.  Encourage your teams, don’t silence them.  Have fun again!  Inspire to be great!   We live in a time where anything is possible.  Games are literally changing the world.  YOU can too.

Anything you want to, do it.
Want to change the world? There’s nothing to it.
There is no life I know to compare with pure imagination.
Living there, you’ll be free if you truly wish to be.

Linden Lab has an extensive history of launching their marketing and advertising campaigns for Second Life to mixed reviews, and their most recent attempts have been no different.

Back in 2009, Linden Lab launched a new campaign on the Second Life website featuring the following ad:

At the time it was launched, I considered this ad to be a major upgrade from the stale, low quality past promotions and I was thrilled that it finally showcased a visually stunning Second Life experience, but others argued that the experience painted by this video was unrealistic and featured impossible instantaneous shopping experiences and interactions without gestures or animations.  Regardless, I have since then comfortably sent individuals who were completely unfamiliar with Second Life to the SecondLife.com website and/or shared this ad with them in order to give them a general view of SL.  That is until last week.

Last week, I noticed Linden Lab had started revamping the SecondLife.com website with new photos and ads.  Apparently, according to Sl.com, Second Life is about vampires.

To be fair, the website also showcases the new Linden Realms game and another female avatar, but the first thing you see is this vampire ad.

I didn’t complain when Linden Lab came out with it’s vampire based Google AdSense campaign as I’m sure it’s a popular theme and I wouldn’t even mind them using it as a secondary display on the webiste, but featuring it alone as the dominant first thing you see on SecondLife.com is sending a distorted and incorrect message about Second Life.

In addition, the image (as well as the other main images you can scroll through) is of poor quality.   Not only are the images not visually stunning, but they fall far short of what Second Life alone (without retouching) can achieve.  The images also feature avatars in stiff, rigid, and unnatural poses with blank stares that are too lifeless and dead for the vampire to pull off.   These images are not at all reflective of the potential of the Second Life platform (as-is) which is capable of producing brilliant, emotion evoking, photorealistic images with striking lighting, shadows, and depth of field, yet they are what potential users will first encounter.

Along with these new web images, Linden Lab has newly debuted the below machinima campaign.

This campaign is much closer to portraying a wider picture of SL, but it is still a far stretch from what Second Life is visually capable of producing.  However, while the biggest complaints about the video are that it misrepresents Second Life, the complaints refer again to things like the animated interactions and not the visual quality.

With Second Life constantly being compared graphically to popular games I would think that Linden Lab would want to show Second Life in the best light, right?

So then, why is Linden Lab underselling Second Life and why does the community want it to?

As my guests and I mentioned on last week’s MetaReality Podcast, many of the advertisements put out by the leading game developers (for games that Second Life is often compared to) aren’t exactly unretouched screen captures.

Take for example this “The Sims 3” ad below:

Last time I played “The Sims 3” it didn’t look anything like that.  The avatars weren’t nearly as realistic or cleanly modeled and I certainly don’t remember that street view.  Maybe it’s just that one ad.  Here’s another ad for “The Sims 3”:

Wow! In “The Sims 3,” I can “create EVERYTHING I EVER WANTED?”   It even, in a way, sounds like it could be an ad for Second Life even though it is much more limited and predefined than Second Life.

Maybe “The Sims” is a bad example.  At this point, everyone knows what “The Sims” is like, right?  Check out this ad for one of the hottest games this year, “Skyrim.”

Whoa, I knew Skyrim had amazing graphics, but real human actors and live action!  Why doesn’t my version of Skyrim look anything like this?

Advertising is an industry that has been built on selling a vision or dream rather than just a product.  While my “Sims 3” and “Skyrim” game play experiences weren’t really anything like their ads, I enjoyed them for what they were and generally understood that before purchasing them.  On the other hand, my Second Life experience may not be exactly like the ad because not everything is so easy or instantaneous, but I honestly find my Second Life experience to be better than its ad.

The ad can’t explain that when I’m in Second Life, I enjoy fashion and shopping even though it’s not instantaneous, and that even though I don’t really experience seamless animations I am so immersed in the moment that a *high-five* or *cheers* in chat feels the same.  The ad doesn’t quite portray the endless possibilities.. in my case, it doesn’t begin to cover the businesses I’ve built, the organizations I’ve helped, the issues I’ve brought awareness to, the once in a lifetime experiences I’ve had,  the friendships I’ve made, etc.  The ad doesn’t tell you that you too can discover the explainable magic of Second Life.

So I ask again:

Why is Linden Lab underselling Second Life and why does the community want it to?

.

This past weekend, August 12th-14th, marked the 7th Annual Second Life Community Convention (SLCC), which was held in Oakland, California this year and virtually in Second Life while being streamed over UStream.

I have to applaud Avacon, the conference’s organizers, as in my opinion this was the best the conference has been for virtual attendees.  The in-world SIMs were beautiful and well organized and the team made sure each of the 33 presentations were clearly streamed in-world and online.

In addition to the many community presentations, there were several Linden panels.

Linden Lab CEO Rod Humble gave a keynote address announcing:

• 16,000 people a day are signing up for and joining Second Life
• Linden Lab will be working on other new products in addition to Second Life.  Specifically they are working on other shared creativity tools/spaces, and addressing tablets and mobile markets as well.
• Linden Lab is focusing their current Second Life efforts on improving usability, lag, and service.
• Linden Lab is looking at several future new features including a Linden made curated area, ending the need for HUDs, improvements to UI/sidebar, more in-world creatitivy tools and more.
• Read more and watch Humble’s full keynote

Linden Lab’s product team announced several new ways they are trying to address community needs:

• the team created a prototype game in order to learn about building and better understand limitations and problems in order to work on solutions
• Linden Lab may develop a gamified new user experience
• the team has been focused on improving usability and engagement
• each member of the team is becoming a subject matter expert in order to understand and support those communities better
• Read more and watch the product team’s full presentation

Linden Lab’s mesh team addressed several key concerns:

• Meshes (and objects with a physics shape type) will use the newly introduced prim equivalent to measure impact and count against land prim capacity
• theft and IP concerns  are unlikely
• meshes offers several advantages over sculpted prims, but traditional prims are still an important part of Second Life
• Read more and watch the full mesh panel

Brett Atwood/Brett Linden presented on updates to the Destination Guide:

• the Destination Guide now has dynamic, time sensitive channels that feature hot events and locations as they are going on
• the Destination Guide is intelligently removing a location if it becomes too crowded
• the Destination Guide has an Linkshare affiliate program through which you can create a widget for your location and place it on your blog or website allowing you to earn money for visitors derived from your site
• the Destination Guide now appears on the front page of the new Second Life login screen
• the team monitors resident suggestions, blog activity, and social media for new locations
• they are looking for high quality locations with broad appeal, active communities, and unique locations
• in order for your Destination Guide submission to be approved you need to include a compelling and visually interesting screenshot and text that accurately describes your location
• your submission could also be denied if it is a duplicate, your location currently violates the SL Terms of Service, your snapshot contains promotional text over the image, or the text is incoherent or inaccurate
• Destination Guide entries are non-paid; they are not meant to be classified ads
• View the slides then watch Brett’s full presentation on the Destination Guide

The commerce team presented on economical and commercial concerns:

• the Lab has been focused on new users, registration, usability, service, performance, and growth to drive traffic and increase sales for merchants
• Q2 stats show positive growth in several areas
• Marketplace moving towards direct delivery
• users will receive purchases as a folder hierarchy directly in their inventory (without the need to unpack items)
• merchants will no longer need to use a magic box, but will simply have to drag their folders into an outbox
• users will receive notifications of deliveries and will not need to be online to accept them, they will be pushed into inventory
• eventually there will be guided warnings to aid new users (use this item right away, you need land for this item, etc)
• Linden Lab looking to expand the LindenX to additional countries/currencies to in to serve more and increase sales
• View the slides then watch the commerce team’s full presentation

Marc Viale/Viale Linden presented on social experiences and communities:

• the lab is moving away from Linden run events like “Kiss a Linden” towards “sustainable communities” like the American Cancer Society’s Relay for Life and LEA’s Month of Machinima
• community gateways have not disappeared and are highlighted in the Destination Guide
• Viale says Linden Lab respects privacy declaring “we don’t care what your parents named you, you can be whoever you want to be in Second Life”
• Watch Viale’s full presentation on social experiences and communities

For a closer look at the more funny and social aspects of the SLCC experience check out Draxtor’s footage from the event below:

Mesh support was formally announced at last year’s Second Life Community Convention (SLCC).  Since then we have learned more details about mesh, and Linden Lab officially began rolling out the feature to the main grid in July, with the promise for it to be completed by the end of August.  So, it was fitting that Charlar Linden opened this year’s SLCC mesh presentation by declaring “The future of mesh is now.”

During this presentation Charlie Hite/Charlar Linden and Dave Parks/Runitai Linden made several key points:

1. Traditional prim count vs. the newly introduced prim equivalent

Charlar explained that there is really “no relationship between prim count and the actual impact that objects have.”  As an example he said that a torus has more impact than a cube even though they are both one prim.  Therefore, to help residents better understand how an object will impact performance, Linden Lab have introduced prim equivalent (PE) as a easy way to display the computational/resource weight of an object in terms of traditional prims.  All mesh objects (and all objects with a physics shape type) will have a PE weight that will be subtracted from a land parcel or regions prim capacity.

PE is automatically determined by the highest weight of 3 performance factors:

• download weight (how much bandwidth is required to download and view the object)
• physics weight (the complexity of the object’s physics mode)
• server weight (the impact an object has on Second Life’s server resources)

To better help you understand here are some in-world examples:

This Buddha statue created by our own Reed Steamroller is only 1 prim, but because of the detail it is equivalent to an object made of 72 prims, therefore, it is 72 PE.

This adorable boat created by Bunnie Mills is 20 prims, but 133 PE because of it’s hidden details and scripts.

2. Theft/IP

Charlar addressed concerns of content being pulled from sites like Turbosquid and brought into SL in the masses by assuring the audience that this is unlikely because these meshes would “not look good” in Second Life.  Charlar further explained these meshes are often not efficient, result in bad performance, are missing physics and LODs which are then auto generated by SL making the objects look like “crap” when you zoom out, etc.

Charlar emphasized that content creation is “a craft and an art… it’s not magic”  He said creating mesh objects requires work and skill.    Charlar also pointed out that the Lab has put several other features in place to protect against theft by requiring uploaders to have payment information on file, complete a quiz, and pay additional upload fees for mesh objects.

3. Prims vs. sculpties vs. meshes

Charlar also reassured concerned content creators and artists who are afraid of prims being replaced by meshes that the Lab still loves the idea of prims and in-world tools (CEO Rod Humble echoed these same sediments during his keynote address, even stating they were interested in adding additional in-world tools in the future), he did however state that they would be encouraging residents to use meshes over sculpted prims because meshes offer several advantages:

• custom UV mapping
• custom LOD
• physics support
• rigging to the avatar skeleton
• more control

You can view the entire “Future of Mesh” panel below:

What do you think of the Mesh panel, PE, theft, and the other announcement by this team?

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The product team (John Laurence/Durian Linden, Sarah Kuehnle/ Esbee Linden and Michael Gesner/Gez Linden) announced at this year’s Second Life Community Convention (SLCC) that they have been building, exploring, and working on a prototype game in order to learn more and examine the current limits and problems that come up when creating in Second Life.

The game requires you to collect and place puzzle pieces in order to gain access to new areas.  While doing this you encounter box monsters and turrets that can “kill you” and send you back to the beginning of the games.

The team says the game uses point and click controls, but with the physical aspects of Second Life, they would like to examine click and drag in the future.  They also faced difficulties working in a “live environment” where for example a turret would be above on a platform, didn’t respect distance, and begin shooting at them and returning them to the beginning of the game while they were trying to work.  They also dealt with building complications where for example the buildings were originally more plain and they decided to add black outlines to give them more detail and then discovered they would have to change every texture on every face of every building by hand in order to update them.

This particular game is separate from the curated area that CEO Rod Humble spoke of, and is not currently part of any new user experience. Gez Linden addressed concerns about the game stating that the Lab does not plan on releasing the game, they just wanted to show users the work they are doing to learn more in order to better serve and address the communities needs.  Gez did however express that he thinks something like this game would be useful in acclimating new users to the Second Life platform:

“I do think that there is some value in creating an experience that is simpler, it’s more guided, it gives you prompts, it gives you almost quests or achievements, things that tell you what you need to be able to do to learn how to use Second Life, but I will completely agree with the fact that Second Life, itself, is not a game.  However, you can make some great games inside of Second Life, and you can use game mechanics, and game tutorials, and game systems to help people become more engaged and comfortable in Second Life.  So, we recognize that there are a number of different experiences that you can create in SL, we’re always in awe of the things that you’ve created, but we are trying to find a way to get people over that initial hurdle of using the software and taking our gaming experience to help get people over that.”

In addition to working on the game, the product team explained LL has been focused on two main areas:

1. Usability

• rez times (including avatars appearing as a cloud and prioritization of rezzing)
• avatar customization
• basic/advanced modes
• sidebar of Viewer 2
• direct delivery from the marketplace
• inventory management

2. Engagement

• mesh support  (the mesh team also presented updates at SLCC)
• creating and selling
• NPC (non-player characters)
• web profiles, interests, groups

The team also pointed out that to further understand and support the community each member of the team has an area which the are subject matter experts:

• Art – Durian Linden
• Gaming & Breedables – Gez Linden
• Roleplaying – Esbee Linden
• Adult - Charlar Linden
• Education – Geo Linden
• Music - Nya Linden
• Fashion - Cassandra Linden

View their the full panel presentation below

What do you think of the work the product team is doing to better address the communities needs?

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Linden Lab CEO, Rod Humble, gave a keynote address today at this year’s Second Life Community Convention (SLCC) revealing more about his current and future goals for Second Life and Linden Lab.

In addition to being informative,  Humble was also quite entertaining and humorous even joking about his own “inevitable firing” sometime next year.

Here are some of the key points he made:

1. There were 4 key elements that attracted Humble to Second Life

• Strength – Second Life is still growing!  Humble says there are about 16,000 people a day signing up for and joining Second Life.     Humble says that the fact that after 8-10 years there is still this huge level of interest in Second Life is an “amazing achievement” that you never see with other MMORPG’s.
• Creativity – Everything in Second Life is created by its users and Humble finds this to be a “phenomenally important and powerful thing.”  He says there is “no better feeling in the world” then you get when creating something.
• Shared Space – Not only can you create in SL, but Humble loves that you can do so in shared space and it can be a shared experience.
• Identity – Humble says he believes in and supports “the right for you to choose your identity and the ability for you to put barriers between various identities, particularly on the internet.”

2. Linden Lab is currently working on other new products

Linden Lab is a company, Second Life is ONE of it’s products.

Humble says the elements that attracted him to Second Life (listed above) are powerful, needed, and have a large audience.

With that in mind, Linden Lab is currently creating a new product (separate from Second Life). While this new product doesn’t have a proper name yet, Humble referred it it as “shared creative spaces”  or “shared creativity tools.”

Humble also said the Lab will be “addressing tablets in part and some mobile stuff as well” with these new products.

Even with the new products, Humble said Linden Lab’s role and goals will remain the same and that the Lab will continue to

• put customer privacy first
• allow customers to make the content (while only creating themselves in order to learn how to make tools to help their customers)
• develop spaces that are shared and social.

3.  Humble’s goal for Second Life is halfway complete

Humble wants a computer user of average intelligence to be able to get-in, use SL, and be grateful to have been introduce to it.  In order to achieve this Humble said the Lab focused their efforts in 3 main areas:

• Usability – In order to make the product more useful, the Lab created “basic mode” for new users.  Humble says they originally created this mode separately so that they could make changes quickly without annoying current customers, but that it will eventually be merged back into the regular viewer.
• Lag – Humble says you can already feel many of the changes in this area including a larger cache, improved chat and group chat experiences, progress with search, and better SIM crossing among other things.
• Service – Humble says customer service was improved, ticket times have gone down, and better quality service is coming.  In addition to these changes with customer service, Humble says in the near future they are working on “making life unpleasant for griefers, in an inhumane way.”

Humble says Second Life was losing 15,000 new users a day before these changes were complete.  He says originally most people wouldn’t even make it through the registration process.  Once they added a new signup page/process they found users couldn’t understand basic concepts such as movement and camera controls, but Basic Mode changed this.  Once users understood how to explore the virtual world, they couldn’t find places to go, but the new and improved Destination Guide now highlights areas of interest.   Humble says the Lab will now focus making shopping, buying, wearing, and creating easier for new users.

4. New features and upgrades are coming to Second Life

While Linden Lab is focused on the above aspects to improve the SL experience for new and current users, Humble also gave us some insight into some new features and upgrades that will be coming to SL in the future.

• Linden made curated area – Humble says the Lindens created this area for newbies in order to learn and make tools that would improve the SL experience.  One example of something they are looking into is one permission request/button that would allow you to define an area and remove the need for additional permission/controls or HUDs.
• Marketing Campaign and PR push to bring in more users – Humble said this should help merchants and service providers and assured them that LL doesn’t plan on “taking a cut” from their sales.
• Improvements to the Viewer 2 User Interface.   Humble conceded that it’s “not an ideal UI,” but said that there are “so many new bits of tech embedded in that new code (that they) just can’t give up on it (they) have to somehow fix it.”    Humble also said that he doesn’t “like the way that whole sidebar thing works” and is working to improve that as well, but don’t expect that until sometime next year.
• New features for Premium users (without additional costs)
• More in-world creativity tools
• Addressing Intellectual Property (IP) theft and Piracy in Second Life
• Continued balance of Open Source and Proprietary
• Improved and additional social aspects/features (including to web profiles and groups)

5.  Humble wants to be accountable/available

“The only reason I’m on twitter is because you guys asked me to be,” said Humble.  He pointed out that the best ways to contact him were his SL profile, twitter, and SL Universe.

You can watch Humble’s full keynote address below.

What did you think of Humble’s address and the changes/improvements he announced?

-

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

July 19, 2011- Sand Castle Studios, LLC is pleased to announce that The Virtual Mine has been nominated for an Emmy Award for New Approaches to News and Documentary Programming .

The Virtual Mine (SLURL) is an immersive, interactive, and educational 3D experience located in the virtual world of Second Life®. It was created to to educate, explore, and examine our nation’s struggle with mountain top removal coal mines, coal fired power production, and alternative energies in support of the documentary film, Deep Down, by filmmakers Jen Gilomen and Sally Rubin with funding from the MacArthur Foundation, the Independent Television Service (ITVS), and the Bay Area Video Coalition (BAVC).

The Virtual Mine allows visitors to take a closer look at the challenges of balancing the environment, power demands, and economic interests by inviting them to take part in a story as it unfolds through a series of three games.  While it was created with educators and students in mind, the games can be played in groups or by individuals alike.

Deep Down and the Virtual Mine first debuted on the Emmy-award winning PBS series Independent Lens.

“We are so honored to be singled out in our industry and recognized for the Virtual Mine with this Emmy nomination,” said Kimberly Winnington (SL:Gianna Borgnine), Chief Executive Officer of Sand Castle Studios, LLC.  “This nomination is a proud achievement, and a testament to all of the incredible hard work put in by our very talented team including myself, William Reed Seal-Foss (Content Creation) and Karl Stiefvater (Software Engineer).  It also solidifies how powerful virtual worlds are as way to connect with others, examine problems, and participate in activities in order to learn more about them in a way that might not otherwise be possible.”

About Sand Castle Studios

Sand Castle Studios is a full service creative company dedicated to helping organizations maximize the full potential of virtual worlds and immersive media by creating interactive, social, and 3D experiences. Our strategic, creative, and technical teams are made up of some of the most experienced and talented minds in the world working to create unique and interactive user experiences.

For more information contact:

Kimberly Winnington (SL: Gianna Borgnine)

Sand Castle Studios, LLC

www.changingworldsbuildingdreams.com

kim@changingworldsbuildingdreams.com

302-559-5230

###

Sand Castle Studios Creative Director, Reed Steamroller, took some time out to share his thoughts on avatar rigging with you in this guest post.

With mesh support coming there are still many unanswered questions for much of the Second Life community. A buzzword I think we’ve all heard so far is “rigging.”  More specifically, rigging has been mentioned in context to the Second Life avatar. What all this means brings up more questions than answers.

First, what is a polygon mesh? Polygon mesh support will be another way for artists to get their content into Second Life. Mesh is sort of a standard across game and game-like platforms for content creation, that until recently has been absent from Second Life. As I write this article, however, the Second Life developers are working diligently at getting the software for this implemented on the Second Life grid. For more on this subject you can read my previous article on the subject.

Secondly, what is an armature/skeleton? These two buzzwords have been floating around the grid now for a while as well. They’re two words for the same thing, essentially. A skeleton allows you to build a series of joints with the intention that they modify a polygon mesh in a particular way. How they will end up modifying the mesh is up to their position and orientation. Skeletons can be humanoid in appearance, or something completely abstract.

So, what does this have to avatar rigging?

Well, avatar rigging refers to binding a polygon mesh to a skeleton. That’s it; that is all it means. You make a monkey, you make a monkey skeleton, and then you bind the monkey to it’s skeleton. That’s rigging. There’s some more technical work that goes into the process such as “weight painting” (here you go, another buzzword) to get things right, though.

What does all this mean? This means that artists in Second Life can now build polygon mesh objects and have the ability to bind them to the second life skeleton. Take a scarf for instance, and imagine that it wouldn’t just sit on top of the Second Life avatar, but that the scarf would bend and move with the avatar as it did. Simple items of clothing or similar can be rigged to the Second Life avatar, all the way up to full avatar replacements.

What does this mean to Second Life?

Much richer content in Second Life will come with the support for rigged, polygon mesh objects to be certain. There will be all new categories of content to be bought and sold on the Second Life Marketplace. These features may even attract a new wave of resident artists to the world, which is never a bad thing.

Environmental Documentary Deep Down Launches Interactive Virtual Mine in Second Life for Communities and Educators to Take Action in Solving the Power Crisis

November 23, 2010 – Virtual worlds can provide a comprehensive environment for education, storytelling, collaboration, and problem solving relating to real world issues. Sand Castle Studios, LLC announced today the creation of a project to educate, explore, and examine our nation’s struggle with mountain top removal coal mines, coal fired power production, and alternative energies in support of the documentary film, Deep Down, by filmmakers Jen Gilomen and Sally Rubin with funding from the MacArthur Foundation, the Independent Television Service (ITVS), and the Bay Area Video Coalition (BAVC).

“Virtual worlds are a powerful way to connect with others, examine real world problems, and participate in activities in order to learn more about them in a way that might not otherwise be possible,” said Kimberly Winnington (SL: Gianna Borgnine), Chief Executive Officer of Sand Castle Studios, LLC. “This project will establish new ways for communities and students to explore and examine the complex struggle many of our towns are facing as they experience the situations first hand while working to solve the problem of fueling our nation.”

Deep Down’s Virtual Mine project is an immersive, interactive, and educational 3D experience. Located in the virtual world of Second Life®, it will further explore the challenges of balancing the environment, power demands, and economic interests raised in the film by inviting players to take part in a story as it unfolds through a series of three games. Players will be asked to complete a series of tasks including clearing a section of land and blowing up mountains; going through the town to turn off as many electric items as possible and reduce the demand; building a sustainable grid with solar and wind power terminals; and ultimately trying to solve the power crisis in this virtual town. If successful in solving all three problems, participants will then be invited to a Community Jam, celebrating the culture and music of Appalachia complete with line dancing.

Resources for those new to Second Life are available to accompany the game. An Educators Guide outlines how the game can be used in the classroom, and includes tips for entering and participating in Second Life, short videos, discussion questions, suggested activities, and online resources for each of the games. However, while created with educators and students in mind, the games can be played in groups or by individuals alike.

The film Deep Down debuts tonight on the Emmy-award winning PBS series Independent Lens at 10pm EST (check local listings). In a first for PBS, the film will be followed by a short segment introducing viewers to Second Life and the Virtual Mine and inviting them to log in and explore it for themselves. The film will also be screened throughout the nation including a special virtual interactive screening and discussion hosted by the filmmakers on Ustream and in the Virtual Mine. The Virtual Mine will also continue to host events and provide a venue for town hall style meetings to discuss the impacts of mountain top coal removal.

For more information on Deep Down, The Virtual Mine, screenings and events, please see www.deepdownfilm.org

About Deep Down

Deep Down follows one small community in Eastern Kentucky as it is divided by a proposed mountaintop removal coal mine. Through this story of people connected deeply to the mountains and to each other, we learn about Appalachia’s complex contemporary struggle with the black rock that fuels our nation.

About Sand Castle Studios

Sand Castle Studios is a full service creative company dedicated to helping organizations maximize the full potential of virtual worlds and immersive media by creating interactive, social, and 3D experiences. Our strategic, creative, and technical teams are made up of some of the most experienced and talented minds in the world working to create unique and interactive user experiences.

For more information contact:

Kimberly Winnington (SL: Gianna Borgnine)

Sand Castle Studios, LLC

www.changingworldsbuildingdreams.com

kim@changingworldsbuildingdreams.com

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We have more tutorials coming, and we will be offering classes as well!  The announcement detailing these classes will be up in the next few days, but we plan to feature classes on:

1. Maya
2. Basic Polygon Mesh Modeling (including Generation of Levels of Detail)
3. Basic Texturing (including UV Layout)
4. Advanced Polygon Modeling
5. Advanced Polygon Mesh Texturing and Shading
6. Second Life Avatar Modeling
7. Second Life Avatar Rigging

Today Linden Lab gave Second Life users an update on mesh support and lifted the NDA for current beta testers.  I can now tell you that for about the last year, we here at Sand Castle Studios have been deeply involved in working with the Lindens to bring mesh support to Second Life.

A Brief History

Mesh support was first announced at SLCC back in 2009.  Back then we wrote a detailed post defining mesh support and how it would change Second Life.  In a nutshell, mesh support allows content created in professional 3D modeling software, such as Maya or Blender, to be imported directly into Second Life.  This feature gives content creators new levels of freedom and therefore will bring creations with new levels of detail and realism to Second life.

The Progress of Mesh

The Lindens have been working extremely hard and mesh in SL has come a long way since we here at Sand Castle Studios first began beta testing.

Here are some of the technical details of mesh as it stands now:

* Import format is COLLADA (other formats may be available in the future)

* Meshes will need specifically made textures.

* Meshes will have custom UV maps.

* There are no scale restrictions on mesh objects.

A scale conversion of 1:1 for mesh objects when being brought into Second Life is available. This means that if your mesh asset is 25x15x30 (beyond the usual Second Life scale restrictions of 10x10x10), once in world it will retain the size, shape, and scale reflected in the third party 3D modeling software used to create it.

* Each mesh will consist of five component meshes: four for different Levels Of Detail and one for collisions (for Havok).

Levels of detail will be needed for each object, as they cannot be generated on the fly (as they are with sculpted prims). This means modelers will need to create four versions of the same object. Starting with the most detailed version of the asset, each decrement will need to consist of around a 50% less polygons than the previous level. These levels of detail can technically be generated by the Second Life client’s mesh import tools, but this takes exact control out of the hands of the user.

* COLLADA allows rigging which makes it possible to have entire avatar replacements that bend with animations.

Once rigged to the Second Life avatar skeleton, a worn mesh is able to move along with the movements of an avatar in-world. Rigged mesh objects can be worn as simple attachments such as jewelry, more complex objects such as clothing or hair, and can even replace the entire Second Life avatar if desired.

In its present state, the rigging system does not allow the creation of arbitrary skeletons or bone offsets (moving the joints around). Mesh objects must be bound and rigged to the default Second Life avatar skeleton AS IS. Essentially, this requires artists to build their assets around the skeleton, instead of building their assets and putting the skeleton into position accordingly. However, Linden Lab is presently working on adding these features.

* Like other in-world objects, mesh objects will have an associated prim cost.  The prim count of mesh objects is determined by the file size of the highest level of detail, or the physics cost, whichever is higher.

As it stands, the mesh economy is governed by virtual prim count associated with each mesh object. This prim count is based on the storage (memory) size of a given object, a rough translation being the higher amount of polygons an object consists of, the greater its prim count will be. However, other aspects of a mesh object can also play a role in its associated storage size, such as smooth versus hard-edged normals. There is a hard limit of ~60k polygons per mesh object, although such an object would cost a great deal of prims.

* There is no set upload fee for mesh objects as of now.

It is speculated that fees could be in the ball park of L$10 per prim.

Open Beta Coming Soon

During Philip Rosedale’s keynote at this year’s SLCC , he committed to bringing mesh imports to Second Life before the end of the year.  As of today, Linden Lab says that they are planning for mesh to go into open beta in about two weeks.  In order to access this, users will need to download a specific Project Viewer that will allow them access to a development grid where mesh is enabled.

The Possibilities

Mesh has some incredibly exciting implications for content creators, and I have no doubt that the Lindens want to get as much feedback as possible.  Some possible implications from the addition of mesh imports may be:

• More detailed, realistic looking content
• Less lag, increased performance
• Virtual content market and economy growth
• Ability to legitimately back up content inside and outside of Second Life
• and More!

Linden Lab has opened a door where the potential of possibilities are endless.

Take a look at myself (Gianna Borgnine) and SCS’s Chief Creative Officer, Reed Steamroller, as we introduce Draxtor Despres to our mesh creations.

You can view more videos of our work and others on Second Life’s YouTube page.

There has been quite some noise in the Euro blogosphere about the latest European Parliament project, Citzalia.  Citzalia is a new virtual world and social networking forum developed for the EU assembly by the European Service Network (ESN) to boost citizens’ understanding of how the EU works.

Participants can create an avatar, interact, network, debate topical issues, propose and vote on legislation, etc.  EU officials hope the game will provide a platform for debate and discussion of the issues that have been, are or can be addressed by the European Parliament.

Ahmed ElAmin, Citzalia project editor at ESN, stated that goal of the project is “to get EU citizens debating and talking about [European law] and get people to participate on the issues the [European] Parliament debates. ElAmin maintains that there will be no censorship in Citzalia, but acknowledged that there is a “huge risk that misinformation could be fed in”.  To address this, current Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) and European officials will be on hand to guide users through the procedures and provide background information.   The officials will “correct” mistakes about the EU only. ElAmin says “they won’t be editing for views, but having these people in can sort of correct things.”

That sounds pretty good, right?  Wrong. Meet Citzalia.

While the concept of Citzalia may have sounded good on paper, the demonstration leaves something to be desired (to say the least).  It’s not just the graphics either.  Many Euro-bloggers, including prominent Brussels blogger Jon Worth, have expressed concerns about the whole project.  “I really fear this is going to become a virtual ghost European Parliament with high costs and very few users,” Worth says.

I have to say I share his concerns.  With the initial cost of the project being quoted around  €275,000 ( about $350,000 USD) I can’t help, but feel the ESN got it wrong with Citzalia.  In fact, I feel the project would be much better suited in a virtual environment like Second Life.

Not only could Second Life provide an “experimental” project like Citzalia a much needed audience with over 200,000 active EU Residents in SL (according to July 2010 metrics), but for a fraction of the cost.   Second Life also already has an large and active government community of international agencies working together, sharing ideas, and exploring possibilities for education, collaboration, and outreach in virtual spaces.

Eric Hackathorn (Hackshaven Harford in SL), virtual worlds program manager at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), has been lauded as the first person to establish a virtual government presence on Second Life in 2005 and he’s been active in virtual worlds ever since.  His work in SL provides people with the ability to learn about and communicate with NOAA in a two-way conversation, behind the corporate firewall.  Hackathorn sees the growing government community in SL as an asset. “It helps that we’re all neighbors.” he said. “We get more leverage out of doing things collectively than individually.”

I think Citzalia was a missed opportunity for the ESN and the EU as well as for Second Life.   Citzalia is currently accepting beta users before it goes live later this year. Time will tell.

In addition to Linden Lab’s official viewer, users can access the virtual world of Second Life through a number of customized third party viewers.  This has created much debate throughout the Second Life community as to whether these third party viewers are safe to use.

While Linden Lab does provide a Viewer Directory that highlights viewers that have self-certified their compliance with the Lab’s Policy on Third Party Viewers (TPV), they have also stated that it is the responsibility of the user to take reasonable precautions, before installing or using a third-party viewer as it is the user (as well as the developer) who is accountable for all risks, expenses, and actions while using a third party viewer.

While these rules and risks apply to all third party viewers, the Emerald viewer has been surrounded in far more controversy and concern than all the viewers put together.  However, it is also believed to be the most popular third party viewer.  While we don’t know for sure the number of users who access Second Life using the Emerald Viewer, most estimates place the figures around 20-30% of all users.

Emerald Controversies

For those who are unfamiliar, the controversy around Emerald begins with the actions of a number of the developers behind the viewer.

Initial apprehension stemmed from the fact that several of the developers were well known griefers and had previous accounts permanently banned from Second Life.  These concern were then followed by a slew of others such as:

• privacy concerns
• reports that developers were data mining and had compiled a database of avatar names, IP addresses, and geo-location information for SL users
• controversy over Onyx and the Client Detection System (CDS)

In addition, last week,  (now former) Emerald developer LordGregGreg published a sharp-tongued post questioning Emerald’s integrity and the moral compass of it’s developers, citing issues such hidden code “that braodcasted your viewers title bar and executable path in a obfuscated manner” and stating ”To the people who have took my word on emerald’s credibility, I apologize deeply for my claims.”

Denial of Service and the TPV

As if that wasn’t enough over the weekend news came to light that Emerald lead developer Fractured Crystal, committed a crime by launching a distributed denial of service attack (DDOS) and used the computers, bandwidth, and (blind faith) trust of every Emerald user to do so.

Emerald PR representative Arabella Steadham denied the attack stating that is was just a prank or “shenanigans” as she called it.

“This idea was to target a blog owned by a creator of a malicious viewer, and boast of the traffic Emerald has captured. The method for doing this was to add links to the Emerald log in page linked to said blog. Each time anyone logged in, our page loaded up and also the other page loaded up – simply to show off our volume of traffic.

This was not a DDoS. This was a poor attempt at boasting that failed miserably. Once we discovered this, these links were deleted and the dev concerned was disciplined.

The entire Emerald Team offers it’s sincere apologies for concern, panic, worry, mistrust and disappointment felt by our users because of this. I can most strongly assure you that this will not happen again.”

As news spread on Twitter under the hashtag #EmeraldGate, Linden Lab began to take notice.  The Security Technical Lead for Lab, Brian McGroarty (aka Soft Linden) responded by stating:

“’Crosslinking’ drops the context of hiding gibberish requests to a critic’s website in a hidden frame that will never be revealed to the user. This isn’t a mere hyperlink to another page or naively stealing someone else’s image hosting.

My read (but I’m no lawyer) is that this looks like 2.d.iii of http://secondlife.com/corporate/tpv.php and we’re already having that discussion. If anyone can come up with specific reasons why this might have had legitimate reason to be there, or how this one could be yet another oversight or mistake, that would be helpful. I sure haven’t heard any to date.”

The TPV policy section referred to states:

“d. iii. You must not launch Denial of Service (“DoS”) attacks, engage in griefing, or distribute other functionality that Linden Lab considers harmful or disruptive to Second Life or the Second Life community.”

Some time later, the Emerald Viewer was silently removed from the viewer directory by Linden Lab.

Eventually Fractured Crystal admitted the DDOS, removed himself from the project,  and transferred control of the project and the web server to Arabella Steadham.

A New Emerald

New owner Arabella Steadham and Emerald Quality Assurance officer Jessica Lyons appeared on the Tonight Show with Paisley Beebe to discuss the entire cluster of events as well as to announce that the Emerald team had undergone a massive restructuring and would be applying again to the viewer directory.

Today the new Emerald site went live.

Trust Issues

While the appearance on Tonight Live was reassuring to some users, many are still questioning  whether the Emerald team can be trusted.

As of this date, the Emerald viewer has not be re-included in the viewer directory, despite the fact that it advertises the listing on the About page of the new site.

Is the Emerald Viewer compliant with the Second Life Terms of Service? Yes, Emerald is compliant with the ToS, the Community Standards, and the Third Party Viewer Policy. We are also listed in Linden Lab’s Viewer Directory.

In addition, while it was announced that the development team was restructured the new site’s team list includes previously scandal-plagued members Skills Hax and Lonely Bluebird (aka Phox).

New owner Arabella Steadham has now also come into question.  During her appearance on Tonight Live she told host Paisley Beebe that she did not lie when she called the DDOS a prank.  She states that she herself was lied to about the attack.  Her lack of technical knowledge has led many to question how she can ensure Emerald’s integrity.  Ms. Beebe also asked her if she would now be accountable to users by providing real world contact information.  She declined stating that she was accountable to Linden Lab and “they know who she is”.

In fact all that Arabella Steadham could offer Emerald users was her apology and her word.

But is that enough?

Project Snowstorm

Third Party Viewers aren’t the only ones who receive criticism.  While users of official Second Life viewer have no concerns about security, privacy, or ethics, they do have trust issues.  Many users anxiously waited for the new elusive Viewer 2 while Linden Lab worked on it behind closed doors.  When it debuted many were not only disappointed, but annoyed by the changes.  In fact, it was these changes that led many to download a third party viewer.

At this year’s Second Life Community Convention (SLCC) Linden Lab announced several significant changes including Project Snowstorm.  Project Snowstorm hopes not only to improve the viewer, but CEO Philip Rosedale says that the Lab wants to “win back the lead”, and have the best viewer overall.  With Emerald users wary of the Emerald viewer, Linden Lab is positioned to do just that, but first they will also have to regain user’s trust.

Project Snowstorm is prepared to begin rebuilding that trust by promising transparency and allowing users to participate in the process.  It sounds like a good plan, but many users are still skeptical that the Lab will follow through with what they say.

Rebuilding

It seems like both Emerald and Linden Lab have a lot of work to do if they want to gain back their users trust.

My suggestions:

1. “Acta, non verba”  - I borrowed this phrase from Crap Mariner who applied it to both Emerald and Linden Lab.  Declaring trust does not create trust. It’s not what you say, it’s what you do that counts.  If you want your users to trust you, show them by your actions.  You are what you do.
2. Lead the debate, don’t hide from it – In our new culture of social media, we now have the ability to identify and address potential crises as they surface.  Users are listening to what you have to say and are eager to hear your response.  Defensive posture implies that you have something to hide.  However, when you are silent, others can create the truths about you.
3. Be Accountable – Trustworthy messages must come from a trustworthy source. Say what you mean and mean what you say.  If you were wrong, or made a mistake, admit it.  Give users a way to communicate.  Robert Scoble is the perfect example of this. Here’s a guy who is an internet celebrity, worked at Microsoft, has just as many haters as followers, and was willing to put his cell phone number on his website.

Update 2:20pm - This afternoon at I received an email from Linden Lab CEO Philip Rosedale that informed Second Life users of the denial-of-service attack and that Emerald had been removed from the viewer directory.  Philip explained that the Lab takes take privacy, safety, and security very seriously and work to protect it.  You can read the for email on (which has been posted on the official blog as well) here.  I applaud Linden Lab for their action throughout this manner.

As users the ball is back in our court.

Who do you trust more?

Can you trust Emerald again?

Are you willing to trust the avatar Arabella Steadham?

Has Project Snowstorm met your expectations?  Have you participated?