SL Architecture: quaint, conservative, boring?

nice post

Just search "Response" or "Hanover" in Snapzilla and you'll see a bunch. I've been trying to find time to Flickr all my high rez images.

Found some other compare and contrasts....

Sorry didn't mean to hijack the thread. There are lots of incredible and realistic builds out there. Just kind of excited to find some other people's snapzilla photos that match up well with some of the RL photos I've taken.

If you aren't finding it, you need to look harder.

Agreed and quoted for emphasis...

In addition, it has to be understood that the context of a build is almost as important as the build itself..

Why do people come to SL? For some, it is to live out a fantasy... but the nature ofthe fantasy is not for anyone to decide but the one engaging it...

Some people want castles in the sky... great... and I have seen a few. Some well done; some not so.

But what some people want is simply to have all the toys they cannot afford in their first life... symbols of wealth and affluence (No they aren't the same) U live in Sabulella, and for the most part, people there tend toward relatively conservative builds... It looks a lot like South Florida, with a decent variety of custom and prefab homes, but not a whole lot of avant garde builds.

After some in-world discussions with SL veterans, there are also a number of people in world that just want something resembling a normal interaction with other people, in a normal or close to normal setting. The context of the interaction is as important, or moreso, in some cases than the interaction itself. If we cannot accommodate ALL of the fantasies that people have, then we become little more than a 3-D chat room: Irrelevant contexts shifted to the mental background while the real action happens in the chat window.

For Humans to be able to RELATE to what they see on the screen, they must be able to fit it into a context that relates to what they already understand. If we try too hard to break that framework of undertanding, or excape it altogether, then the environs become outlandinsh and difficult to comprehend for those not comfortable with living in "Intuitive Space"; we lose 3/4 of our target audience.

The comments about SL architecture being quaint is a bit silly. We're given grassy, rolling hills, seasides, and fields to build structures on. And in my case, suburban streets with lamp posts. Would a futuristic, spacey structure work there? No.

If LL gave us some "out there" environments, they'd see more "out there" builds. Give us outer space. I'm sure so many residents would love to have a place in space.

When the future gets here, we will still have grassy hills and Rocky Islands and Mountains with snow.

Futuristic is in the perceptions of the onlooker...

To a medieval era person, who also had grassy hillsides and beaches and forests, the structures we build today would be considered "Outlandish" and "Futuristic"...

Take a look at my home on Sabulella (32, 184) and tell me how a person used to Stone fortresses and wattle and daub huts would see it...

Then look at my shop (Not yet completed... Grand opening later this month) in Cass (80, 64). The outside is one appearance... the inside is another...

As far as "Out there" environments are concerned...
I would LOVE to see a "Space sim"
I would love to see a "Rocky world with with unusual mineral colors sim and no water level that can be terraformed to extreme levels. (Anyone for the Mist Canyons on Romulus 3?)
I would like to see "Swamp" available to citizens...
I would like to see "DEEP WATER" available to citizens...
I would like to see a sim with DEEP fjords...
A volcanic region would be fun... Black rock and scrub


These kinds of "Out There" regions might spark more of the creativity, I suppose... or we might just get more of the same propped up on stilts...

It all depends on the creativity of the landowners...

...or the creativity of the content creators they employ.

This all boils down to Linden Lab's focus which is building a world and a community. The innovation of such things as collaborative features (grouping), program development (lsl & rpc), and environment construction facilities (prim types/sizes, meshes et cetera) have been consistently praised as wonderful ideas then immediately relegated to back burner status because they don't contribute to the process of building a world with a community based on an economy.

If we're going to enjoy Second Life, we have to go with the flow of the people that produce it. Everything they develop is focused on the benefits, or possible detriment, to the world and its community.

For all the hype we throw around, LL is not developing the 3D web or metaverse. We eventually have to accept the fact that they are building a world for a specific community of users that are happily satisfied with the few features that pass the test of enhancing the world and its community without any possibility of causing harm to the world and its community.

Good point. And it deserves pointing out that the number of people on this thread who say they're largely satisfied with the way things are, or want better and "more realistic" copies of RL environments, or call the idea of innovative virtual living spaces "silly" is a good indication that LL has made the right corporate call. The product satisfies the majority, and that's never a bad business strategy.

But it's still mundane.

If you're referring to me, I call the comment "silly" because given our frame of reference, ie, rolling hills and grassy fields, we are already hampered by what LL gives us in terms of environments to build in. I would personally love to see a wider variety of environments, which would probably lead to some very creative, innovative builds.

I see no need to expand on the premise that a building architecture reflects the aesthetics and needs of the residents, that point is well made and well taken.

I see two dynamic's going on in SL. One is an aesthetic function, the other a utilitarian function. I terms of aesthetics, SL architecture will refelct the diverse tastes that residents have. Invariably so of this will be good taste, others will be bad. In all honesty there is a lot of bad or indifferent architecture in the real world. This aesthetic is als limited by the abilites of the user, in that they maynot have the expereince or skill working with the construction tools to make something that reflects their true taste.

Secondly there is the pure utility fucntion of a structure: what is it used for. This includes the very real and very defining limitation of prims. There is, particularly at the lower tier levels a huge necessity for keeping stuctures minimalist. There are not the prims for something more elaborate.

Also a big part of how a structure is used pertains to what is in it. As you decorate a place, your prim count skyrockets. So in a 512 lot, a 25 prim bed (including sex balls hehe) eats up close to a quarter of your prim allotment. For people who want to have a house that simulates reality, interior decoration means the structures must be kept fairly simple, no matter how high your prim limit is.

This opens the door to the question of which to people put more effort into-showing of the structure or the objects that fill it?

The other aspect of the utility dynaic is environmental conditions. In SL there is no weather, no wind, no need to eat, no need to manage bodily waste and no need for hygene. So no need for walls windows, kitchens, dinning rooms or bathrooms. Stairs and ramps, in an environment where everyone can fly are a bit pointless, unless syour build is so high in the air a resident can't fly unaided. The inclusion of such things is an aesthetic concern-mostly.

I say mostly because walls serve a fucntion in SL, and that is privacy. People wnat to have sex in sl, and they don't want the world watching their avi's bumping pixels. I don't think intimacy is something we hang onto as a vestigal left over from RL (like say a kitchen is). I think intimacy somethig we need as a natural element of our psyche. Keeping the prying eyes of others out is also a way of keeping the attention focused inward. Walls accomplish this.

Ultimately in SL as in RL cutting edge architecture will remain the province of a few. Compare how many people live in Cookie-cutter tract homes of indifferent architecture to how many people live in Shiageru Ban's paper houses? The SL vernacular is not solidified, but is being pioneered. Some of it borders on the more cutting edge and others fall squarely in the traditional.

We are, in SL pushing the theoretical limts of architecture and design. Part of the exitment of Architecture in SL is that almost every decision is a choice, and not a reflection of some uncontrollable condition. Ths we have the abilty to delve and explore the residents psychological relationship to the space in which they live. But the specatular, adventurous, avant garde builds will always be fewer in number than the ones slapped together to prived a space to bring a date.

Novelty is not superiority.

Granted, we could create an as-of-yet undefined virtual world with unconstrained building tools and completely novel architecture but would we enjoy it? Would we understand how to interact with it? Would it have utility? Would it contribute to the interaction of individuals? Would it facilitate the exchange of goods or stimulate the economy?

Simply being novel is not sufficient nor even necessary to give something worth. Damn SoP judges.

~Ulrika~

This is true. Novelty is not superiority. And I do think the SOP judges utterly missed the point of thier own contest and ignored the rules. I certainly don't mean to detract fron the value of historical archecture. I mean I built a model parthenon in SL. Nothing architecturally avant guard about that. Evne my latest buld is not so avant-guard in execution, though it is in thinking. Buy hey, thats what happens when I read a book on Wabi Sabi Style.

But Ulrika, neither my parthenon, or your N'Berg are really projects that are redefining architecture. They have (in my case had) importance on other levels. And really sometimes it is cool to just make a bavarian village. But we cannot expected top be lauded for our architectural choices when we have chosen to look backward.

But the role of cutting edge architecture is to push the limits of peopel's relationships to space without comprising the person ability to enjoy it or understand it. It would defeat the purpose to make a building without utility, that could be sculpture, not architecture. Part of thinking about space also involves thinking about how to facilitate interaction with people.

After listening to a bit of the panel discussion, it's clear that by the thought process of most of the panelists, Second Life itself is the virtual public space that should have been submitted. It's just a disconnect between what academics consider architecture and space, and what common sense suggests to everyone else. Jargon like that is endemic in any academic field.

My thought on this as a designer in architecture is that picking architects to judge these would lead to the cross-purposes noted in this competition. Architects work with real-world constraints - difficult, static materials; inflexible budgets, unimaginative clients. When they do experiments with CAD and 3-D modeling programs, they are looking to break free of these constraints, so they strive for the ephemeral, for making things as fleeting and in motion as possible.

This contrasts sharply with the constraints we face as denizens of the virtual world. Here, the struggle is always to achieve a sense of solidity and permanence in a place where there is otherwise so little to really feel, and things tend to disappear so quickly.

It's just a lack of understanding of how the cultures differ.

This also explains the three runner-up winners. They all speak the architecture jargon, and explore on the bleeding edge of theory rather than demonstrating a practical application in use by real people.

I think ananda, that the intriguing debate in SL, and the most interesting architectural dymanic is not just in saying SL is different, it is in exploring the parameters unique to SL. Its not just just about understanding comparative culture, is about establishing SL culture.

I often wonder what a virtual world fully originated within Saudi Arabia, or perhaps Sri Lanka, or Polynesia would be like.

Pattern and form are nothing of themselves within the Metaverse, and are only placemarkers that serve to remind us of real world objects - no matter how fantastic or improbable.

A very few things here are functional in and of themselves - scanners perhaps - but all of these simply ease some artificial constraint.



I doubt many would know what I'm speaking of when I mention Geshel -vs- Naderite (from a novel) - but there are very few Geshels here.

Geshel in the sense that few have left behind traditional anthropogenic forms, human-centered thought, human-centered values. Being a fuzzy tiger or a mechie-robot is a short step compared to existence as say, a swarm of sentient, far-flung particles in a dozen sims at once.

So... if human shadows we are on the wall of Plato's cave... let's make it a warm, human shadow existence.

For those who wish to leave humanity behind, many of the tools are already available in Second Life. Would we even recognise those who made that choice? I doubt it.

I decided to blog my feelings on this over on SLOG:

http://secondslog.blogspot.com/2005/10/stairway-to-nest.html

But the long and the short of it is that a project to promote civic engagement AND a project that challenges our need for a familiar environment are not going to work well together.

Hey, nothing wrong with being a robot. Robots are people too.

Then again, I suppose that was your point. =)

In thinking about your example of a sentient cloud of particles av, I admit my curiosity is piqued. Being a rather literal and concrete thinker, I enjoy making mecha avatars. Doing a much more abstract av like a particle cloud might be a valuable exercise. Thanks for the inspiration.

What was the thread topic again...? =P

i think it's very hard for us to escape our humanity. You can have an avatar that is a flock or particles and prims spread out over one or many sims. At the end of the day it's still a mask placed over the human behind the keyboard, and it doesn't matter if that mask is human, furry, robotic, or ... aerosol.. lol

we can't think across multiple sims... we only have one consciousness, a central consciousness, even if we can manipulate limbs or waldos that reach far distances.

Brilliant, BRILLIANT!

And yes as SL gets greater internationalized, we're going to see more culture clashes online. Part of it will come from obvious things like a bunch of new avatars standing in a group typing in Japanese and an English-speaker who's been around awhile feeling left out. Maybe xenophobia will be a gut reaction, before time takes its toll and things—some things, anyway—are gotten used to.

Another aspect comes from what isn't necessarily said (let alone typed out) but still very much present. We may see more bow animations done inworld in proportion to the common waves today, and certain design aesthetics will make inroads. Many personal styles will materialize, and we will still be unique individuals, but there may be shared values and beliefs in a way not unlike the phyles from Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age (an even better read than Snow Crash, IMGO).

Furthermore, it'll be interesting to see what effect this has on negotiations between inworld businesses. If you have seen the absurdly farcial side of the movie Rising Sun, you may already be familiar with a hyperbolic, not accurate, but at times entertaining example. And in addition to Earth cultural traditions established for many hundreds, or even thousands of years, we'll have a swarm of subcults growing, exploring things they could not do offline. Much akin to tagging, most people recognize themselves as more than a single label, but labels can be useful when deployed for accessibility—not self-constriction.

This will likely correspond with what's happening on the SL Forums, with people prefacing posts with things like: "Well, where I'm from, things are different." There's already a degree of this, but it will become increasingly more if SL expands exponentially.

I hope we can all learn from one another as long as the Community Standards are followed, and we communicate as best we can to share our experiences, listening to each in turn.

Well I think they work togetther fine. The problem is that the so-called postmodern intellectuals are so busy performing feats of intellectual masturbation over the wonders of technolgy and the ability of communications media to divorce ourselve from the sense of place, person and time, that they forget that technology is fundamentally a human thing. And that any community is going to be of necessity, a human community.

So the technologists and postulators conveniently creat a world they try to divorce from the human. The odd thing is that it cannot be done. Even an imagined world of robots, is still imagined by a human.

Thus the bile in my mouth from the SOP competion is that they ignored what were useful and vibrant entries, for cold spaces that traded content for concept. And they shoehorned their winners into the stae requirements of the competion. Someone should remind them that the driving force behind the internet is not technological prowess, but human activity.

Far more realistic avatars would be a nice change.

At the very least, an inventory system that works well. For example if you buy a pair of shoes, you should be able to simply wear them and they actually show up on your feet, one on each foot. Apparently that is too much to ask.

The whole game is very unfinished.

Is SL ever going to be out of Beta?

SL will always be beta as its always evolving and changing , nothing online is final.

Final means they will never change anything, how dullll.

If SL ever become "finished" ill quit, as nothing ever change ;P , must...get more tools... for building,, and less lagggggg

We can all agree on SL will never be finished , heck even new games that come out always need a patch nowadays (pc's anyway)

What if the attachment on each foot is the same? what if only one foot has an attachment?