Non RL Literal Stuff

Hi

Since coming to SL, I have been disappointed that just about everything I see or buy or interact with is a literal version of something in RL. Whether it's a house, or furniture, or a shop, a library, or a dance floor, lots of work has gone into making it look and act like some RL thing.

But why? SL physics bear no resemblance to RL physics! Stuff often has no real mass, even though it looks like it should. You can "attach" a house" to your head and walk around like that, nodding and turning it as though it was - well - your head!

So here's my question: are there designers in SL who embrace the different physics and have come up with stuff that reflects it? I mean, if I want to buy a sofa, I can drive over to the mall in RL. In SL, if I want to buy something that can only exist in SL, where would I start?

Thanks.

One of the obvious answers would be the fantastic AVs, such as furries or dragons or any figure you can imagine.

Start by doing a search for what it is you want. If that returns nothing, then try creating it yourself. I've seen flying carpets, gaint birds you can ride as vehicles, Cars that turn into hovercrafts, magic wands that summon herds of buffalo, and lots of unique things. Granted, they may not be as redily avalible as items designed to mirror real life things, but they do exist. And short of finding them, one can always start playing with the tools availble and create these items themself.

I've been pondering this observation, and I've come to the conclusion that you're missing part of the psychological equation of SL's appeal.

Fantasies come in many forms. For you, the fantastical involves a delight in the suspension of the law of physics, but for other people the fantasy may well involve the suspension of the law of finances. The point is not that you can buy a sofa in SL, it's that you can buy an Italian Villa and furnish it in a extravagant style that is wholly outside one's budget in RL. That scenaior may not hold any appeal for you, but that does not invalidate it as someone's deep desire to be wealthy beyond dreams of avarice, or at least beyond the means of a mundane member of the middle class.

Some people come to SL to socialize, not to alter reality, and these furniture props are way to create a recognizable landscape as a setting for being with people. Again, that's a perfectly valid use for SL.

Everything we build and buy in SL is a prop of some kind. Item by item they hold little meaning, but within a larger context -- which will often not be available for your inspection -- they create a pattern of deeper meaning to someone.

Your disappointment is based on the unrealistic expectation that SL is here for one reason only -- yours -- and that this particular purpose is being underserved. The best way to fill in the gap is to become the creator of what you're looking for. No one else can fill that need as well as you can, after all.

One of the things that always attracted me to sky houses was that the whole idea of a structure hovering in the air was totally SL - these items just cannot exist in the physical real world and thus they are pure fantasy. I've usually found that people either key into the fantasy aspects of design in SL or they key into realistic. For every person who wants an exact replica of a RL house (right down to a toilet) there is somebody who wants a castle or some other fantasy structure.

Back when I used to mentor new residents, one of my favorite things to do was take them on a tour of the old core sims on my Cubey Terra Magic Carpet. I generally found that those who were absolutely enchanted by the idea of zipping around on a pixie-dust spewing carpet were more likely to stay in SL long term than those who were looking for realism.

The problem with finding these things is that you've described a design strategy, not a product strategy. It's like saying in RL that you want to buy something that is built with a CPU without being a general purpose computer. That could be a car, a telephone, an oven, a thermostat, an electric razor, a watch, a heart monitor, etc., etc. Or to put it another way, Sears doesn't put the razors and toaster ovens with CPUs together in one department, and those without in another.

What you'll see instead are products within a product family that ignore physics. Vehicles, particularly flying ones, typically ignore inertia and gravity. There are walls that are clapboard on one side, transparent on the other. You can get holodeck devices that instantly transform a bedroom into a living or back (though the motivation is really to save on prims). Burglar alarms can not only id intruders, but also teleport them home. Some of the B&D stuff allows one person to drag another around without any physical ropes or chains. Needless to say, a lot of the griefer tactics and defenses are physically impossible. There's also stuff you're probably taking for granted, like transporters instead of elevators, or vendors that manufacture inventory on the fly.

Just to focus on a very small point... Some time ago I had built a nice little house that stood about 6 or 7 meters off the ground, on some concrete pillars. I had a little duck pond underneath. Then one day it suddenly 'dawned on me' that the pillars were utterly unecessary - and wasting prims to boot! I'd merely included them because that is the sort of thing we're accustomed to. Without the pillars, it looked wierd...for a day or two. Then it became quite natural to see my 'normal' house floating 20 feet over the ground.

I do like skyboxes, although I don't like the word.. but a box is unfortunately one of the most efficient uses of prim/space. I tried building an upside-down pyramid and it looked great but was very wasteful, space-wise -- very little floor space. Vehicle-wise, the most imaginitive I've seen so far was a flying pig that one could ride.

I think Regan made a really good point - build the sorts of things you want to see. Then you'll be happiest and who knows, maybe you'll start a new trend!

-Atashi

The reason why is pretty simple: the design experiences that creators have are rooted in real life, as are most customers' methods for judging quality.

Essentially trying to design something that's original and only for SL, there's no design precedent to work from, nothing to develop, no established ideas or anything like that, so the only thing you can wind up making is something surreal that no-one's seen before. And that brings about a big risk that people just won't like it.

Well, unless you're an actual architect. Someone I met who was an actual RL architect claims that what you've described is already happening because 60% of the houses in SL would fall down if actually built. But I have a feeling that's not what you meant

You are too young to have been here for Siggy's flying toilet

People tend to keep within certain circles as well, so when you find something that really makes you go "wow," take a look at the profile of the creator. Look at their Picks and look at the groups they belong to. Those are usually good clues to finding other things/people who are similar.

Thanks for all the thoughtful comments! Regan's comment on my expectations of SL to fulfill my own personal desires is spot on. Of course! How could it be any different?

I didn't want to give an impression that I find SL disappointing. Not at all! I'm completely absorbed and enthralled every time I enter. I'm just surprised that the general direction of the designs here is so conventional.

I'm not a designer, but perhaps I'll start a group (another first for me) to explore the implications of SL's physics on the design of everyday objects. Even if it doesn't result in anything sale-able, at least we might have some interesting discussions.

Then too, there may be people here in SL that are using the platform to launch designs of their own in real life whether it be architecture or clothing and that puts certain constraints in place.

I'd like to see some prims arranged in an interesting fashion that wasn't a model of a real world object. Preferably moving around.

I include giant hot dogs and dragons and such as real world objects.

I am interested in non-humanoid avatars. Is there a better way to express our identity than with a cartoon person that mimics walking around? Are representations of robots bound to RL physics much better? How best to enhance communication without eyes to look at, expressions, gestures, etc?

I also wonder at clothing: what is it for, when modesty and protection are non-issues (assuming the standard "Ken doll" anatomy). The same with buildings: can we do something different where temperature, rain, etc. are non-factors?

It would be interesting to start a group for people who experiment along these lines and share their creations with one another.

It might have been a good point but it was packaged up in a very passive-aggressive delivery. Nothing about the OP's phrasing said he wanted the whole of SL to be as he expected - he just wanted to know where to go to get what he's describing.

Personally, I like the different physics, but I think there's also gaps in the approach to some of this stuff. I entirely agree with the observation about the flying carpet - but note that flying carpets have to flap, and emit sparks, and generally display magic or motive effort. Similarily, I'd personally prefer that skyboxes and other things floating in the air have "suspension units" - after all, if you stop flying your av, it falls, and lands with a thud. So in your duckpond example, some wee doodad on the bottom of your house should be showing a "tractor beam" or something - THAT is playing with physics.

For my part, I'm disappointed by how static most stuff is. I grew up with Thunderbirds and Stingray and the like; I don't just want a 200-storey skyscraper, I want one that rises out of an underground chamber on vast hydraulic rams with a whole load of growling pumps and hissing valves, when I hit the hidden trigger. I want invisible doors that slide away Star Trek style (with the hiss); in other words, I want the "real" physics to get even more real. I'm peeved that this seems to be fundamentally difficult to achieve.

There are abstract avatar artists, who make avatars that are, say, a set of cones, spinning metal, all sorts.

There are abstract avatar artists, who make avatars that are, say, a set of cones, spinning metal, all sorts.

...flying spaghetti monster...

Ouch.

That interpretation of my tone was definitely not intended, and I apologize that it had that effect. I found the OP to be a very thought-provoking post and one that I've actually been pondering seriously all weekend. In fact, it has sparked my own SL existential crisis: what am I doing here? How can I push my boundaries?

I'm still a relative newbie and my activities have been very linear and even mundane as I focused on learning the interface, the cultural norms and basic building techniques. But now that I'm comfortable on all those levels, I'm questioning what to do with all these skills. Like the OP, I need to find a way to do things in SL that can't be done in RL, although my interests will probably develop along lines other than physics.

Ever since reading this thread, I don't know where I'm going in SL, but that's a good question to have.

Another thing to consider is that people learning to build will tend to build what they know. Some of the best building tutorials are ones in which you build a replica of chair. Building replicas of RL items is an excellent way to hone your building skills so that when you start getting ready to go off on your own tangent, you have the skills to manipulate prims to achieve your vision.

I find this discussion very heartening.

When I had only been here a few days, and just started learning to torture prims, I created a 1 prim sofa using a torus, which I bet a lot of you could duplicate in about 10 seconds. (I had also just learned how important it was to conserve prims.) I had some wild textures I had made for some non-SL stuff, and was ready to try to sell these crazy. creations. I also laughed when I made them "physical" and they rolled around on the floor. I thought it would be fun to have some guests (ones with a sense of humor, of course), and drop the thing out from under them.

I said to myself "I bet lots of people have done this", and went on an extended furniture window shopping tour. I was soooo shocked to find out that every furniture place I went to confined themselves to RL furniture shapes. I visited about 30 shops, and I didn't see a single piece of furniture that couldn't exist and work well in the real world. Well, a few might have fallen over from being top heavy, but those were very rare.

Because of this, I came to the conclusion that no one would buy furniture if it defied RL physics. Since then, I have confined my building to those "norms" I saw.

From this thread, it looks like I was totally wrong, it's just that most builders are not that adventurous.

I vow that I will now go with my original gut feelings, and make stuff like _I_ want to. To heck with boring RL shapes. I'm gonna have fun with it!

Keep me posted, Serenarra!

I posted somewhere else about the idea of virual reality vs. virtual unreality.

For instance one could spend hours building an impressive and believable hovership that is kept aloft by some mysterious force as yet uknown in RL. So it is fantasy, but believable fantasy. So you take your friends on a maiden flight in it but the whole experience is spoiled when you're overtaken by a Snoopy on a translucent pink cube!

But we're in SL - virtual reality and virtual unreality co-exist side by side - they have to!