Our world - their platform - the metagame

Im still waiting for the Boardgame to come out

Actually I was replying to the quote I inserted above, I was in agreeance with the fact that any RL person behind a character would react more real.


I wouldn't bother going shopping for a boiler suit to see if 'it's comfortable'. Let alone socks, underwear (and I hope ppls don't try that stuff on first before buying anyway).. there is plenty of scope apart from shoes etc..
And as SL improves, it will never catchup with the CGI boys in terms of cost.. so again there is a historic value, which is what the OP was asking about, not present.

If SL really did improve enough that it had the same amount of potential as modern CGI tools, then SL builds _would_ cost the same amount as CGI. No matter how much potential the tools have, you still need a lot of artistic talent and work in order to take advantage of it - and that costs money!

wrt history, I think the biggest contribution SL has to make is in the area of "living history". You know, like the villages where historians have used trained actors to re-create historical life. I could easily see many more "living history" museums in SL than in RL. Of course, you would not need a separate grid for that, just a sim.

RE: Architects using SL for modeling and virtual teams.
Yes, in fact the person I heard it from say it really separates the younger architects from the old nontechnical ones..its a dividing line. You can get your design ideas across much faster than in renderings or very expensive models and they can be changed quickly to adapt to suggestions while keeping a photo record of past models. It is an exquisite tool for this.

Also for prototyping CGI models for film.

Not for scale as much as design. As long as the design in scale to itself, it gets the design ideas across.

No, sorry. Not something it would be appropriate to do; not for public consumption as these are designs in process for clients. But there is an arch society in SL..I was there once..the British Society of Architects.

Brings up the point though that most of the really interesting stuff is going on privately I believe.

One of the things I dreamed of building was a model of Teotuachan, an ancient MesoAmerican site that is now gone but we have a lot of the foundations and art from the walls..would make a great exhibit and teaching tool..

Someday, just don't have the time now..

RL architects have far more powerful 3d content creation tools which are industry standard. SL has a massively long way to go before it can catch up.

Sl includes a chat interface and a multi-avatar ability to walk around teh design. That's the only feature SL has over the industry standard. in terms of features architects need, such as, say, calculating the amount of stress on supporting columns, SL is pretty pathetic.

True Warda, and will always be true ... but I think Dnali was talking about very rapid prototyping for concept development, before actual design.

For that, I would think 3D "play" tools like SL would work, no?

Agreed.. some people get stuck on the Architecture phase of a project, whereas in reality there are multiple layers to go through before that stage is even reached.

SL is a perfect platform for outlining a concept, quick and cheap construction and alterations can be made to the basic build structure and layout. The application to change whole textures etc is easily more acheiveable in SL.

A developer making a presentation for outline planning, or to attract investors, will find SL an attractive platform to get their ideas from the 2d or cardboard cut out, into a VR environment.

Yes, I agree. Being someone who took Civil Engineering for a year before I discovered Art History..but this is for sharing design ideas Warda, not the real renderings. For the creative process..and SL works for that I would think.

But since I heard this 2nd hand, let me ask my my source for more info as it has sparked interest.

Yumi Murakami said....
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Posts: 3,423

Further to the idea of using SL as a modeling tool I found this today:

http://www.portfolio.com/views/blogs/the-tech-observer/2007/09/15/second-life-your-products-through-3dswym

And here is a scale model of the Farnesworth House by van der Rohe which shows pretty clearly what giants we are in SL. Take your smallest AV to check out this architectural model.

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Maximum%20Minimum/238/75/23

I have been designing for and within the Building/Construction industry for some years. 10 years ago, I use a VR standalone software programme, which allowed me relatively and cheaply to produce either new design concepts, or recreating from Architects drawings, a VR representation. Once fully 'contstructed' you could asign yourself a 'avatar' which was a sight height perspective view as you roamed the various elements of the buildings/estates.
You could also make movies of 'fly thrus' and save them to disk for promotions or client/user viewing.

Giving users of the building their own unique perspective on a proposed construction/office block/appartments etc.. complete with their chosen furniture layouts, light switch and electrcial outlets, carpet and wall colours/textures, would sometimes lead to quite fundemental layout/design changes prior to any expensive construction work.

For instance, I created from Architect drawings, a VR environment version. The software allowed you to use actual photographs of the views through windows, even the exact position/location within the world. One function would show how light through windows react/reflect with fixtures and fittings within the proposed building. Upon doing a 12 month weather/sunlight time lapse movie lasting around 15 minutes, the client decided to move the whole accounting department to another part of the building, simply because of the variables of sunlight reflections upon the numerous PC monitors in those rooms (yes you could add almost full office equipment), the rendering engine would literally show reflection reactions across different surfaces. The client also incorporated borrowed lights and widened corridors at that stage and could see the immediate differences/advantages.

You maybe asking, how much did all this cost, well in 1997 the cost of the building was £250,000, the cost of producing the VR version which resulted in the changes £300, cost of alterations to the design prior to build £250. Thats what I call value for money.

I am not suggesting SL has the same capabilities, and that may remain true for the forseeable future, but anything that can give a client a 'feel' for a building and how it 'interacts' with its surroundings, given the relative cheap and yet still precise build/texture abilities, would still have useful creditablilty.

And here is an Architect teacher using SL:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/09/18/scitech/pcanswer/main3271133.shtml?source=RSSattr=SciTech_3271133

For people who are still interested, this is an engineering group using SL much as described in this thread:

http://www.designnews.com/article/CA6490691.html

I did a thread a while ago about my idea of an SL spinoff which I called 'First Life Plus'. This entailed a purchasable, downloadable version of SL platform that was tailored to groups of people who wanted a virtual world for use by people going 'virtual' with their RL names and IDs. So you could have a virtual version of the local pub or bar where friends could hang out when they can't get to the real one, or perhaps disperesed families could create a virtual home where they could meet up to chat about their real lives.

OK, this can be done in SL but it goes against the general SL ethos of a 'second life'. So I'd guess there is, or soon will be, a market for First Life Plus!

You're right, Conifer, there are indeed groups of RL friends who use SL for this. I think there's actually a product idea buried in this idea, for a HUD that would make this even easier by converting SL names to RL names automatically and start an IM or other interaction with the person based on their RL name.

In fact, I could see someone putting together a little consulting business to help RL groups of friends put this together. Build a hangout from photos, guide the group in their land purchase, set up a group whose titles were people's RL names .... a standard package for a fixed fee, additional customizations (bizarre hangout builds, ongoing group maintenance) on a fee-for-service basis.

The tough part would be finding customers, but I have some ideas on that. Contact me via PM or inworld if you're interested in talking more about it.

the real meta game will take a procedurally generated terrain that stretches infinatly in all directions, advanced clustering algorithums that allow for a seamless world with people to be able to interact with the 40-80 closest people at all times(dynamic zoning instead of static zoning like SL's SIM model), the ability to upload java programs(that inherit the games object types), and it would rent out processing time packages instead of sims.