The music in the video in my previous post is by ChouChou, a Second Life band devoted to exploring new frontiers of creating music.
That is awesome. Especially since they seem to be part of a movement. Check out the in-world music store where you can buy real MP3s and AIFFs. It even comes with music previews.
You can get ChouChou's songs on iTunes (though if you buy them through Second Life then Apple can't take most of the money on the sale), and check out their "live" concert images.
New animations from CCP, makers of EVE Online, make their new Incarna look very promising.
Not to be greedy or anything, but I want a way to do this in Second Life.
via Massively.
QiQi Studios is a truly awesome Second Life machinima studio out of China. The art work, the production values, and the ideas are all simply awesome.
See their work, be impressed.
You can also find them in Second Life in China and China West sims.
Some flat out awesome architectural CGI via boingboing, including "making of" videos on Vimeo.
Some awesome artwork from the Netherlands. Yes, that really is all just tricks of the light.
via Good Magazine.
I think Fritz Lang's Metropolis is an interesting landmark of sorts. I mean beyond the normal reason. I am more interested the remakes, interpretations and allusions to it.
Here is one done entirely in Second Life, broken down into bite size chapters for your convenience.
An interesting article on why current gaming EULAs are a dead end for virtual worlds and what needs to be done to make virtual world a place where real work can be done.
From
massively.comSome interesting links on a theme:
Project Dragonfly by Autodesk
Now anyone can lay out their own home in a virtual setting. Given the title of the headline at Archinect, it seems that at least some architects are a little concerned about their profession. Though the comments that follow also indicate that they are few in number. Still, if they really are concerned, perhaps they should spend some time in Second Life. It will quickly allay their fears.
On the other hand, it is an interior design tool available for free online, making it accessible to even those who may lack construction paper, scissors, rulers, pencils, tape, and markers or crayons (or even just pencils and paper). If architecture is about controlling the tools and not about the inspiration and talent of the creator in addressing the needs of their clients in an aesthetically pleasing, environmentally friendly, socially responsive, and innovative way, then perhaps there might be a problem. Otherwise we are still good to go.
via the New York Times
As a follow up. I did try it. Pencil and paper is still faster and more flexible. And Second Life wins hands down on pan and zoom and environmental effects.
A interesting story about the intersection of the art world and Second Life, from the New York Times Magazine.
And a little AM Radio for good measure.
An wonderful, short piece called World Builder.
I wish Second Life tools worked like this.
It would definitely be cool if we could build things sketchup style.
After the gold digger, comes the gold farmer. A new career for the 21st century.
One thing the article does fail to address is that the companies that manage these MMORPGs consider gold farming to be a criminal (or at least less than honorable) act, because a. ) it may cause them to be liable for taxes on in-game monetary transactions under various national tax laws, and b.) most probably because they don't get a cut.
Though certainly there are many people trying to make a go of making a living off of Second Life.
I confess to being torn between condemning those who obsessively turn something meant for pleasure into a tool for profiting from others and applauding their initiative and pluck.
Although, in World of Warcraft, the problem is lazy players who want the fastest route to power and thus will pay others to play for them, so they can just run-around with a powerful character and whomp things. I have at least one friend who sold their account for about as much as I make in a month to someone who couldn't be bothered to level up their own characters. If this is the attitude they take with them to the workplace, they are in for disappointment. Or perhaps I am just jealous because I refuse to stoop to that kind of laziness. Easier to just write "I pwned this game!" on the cover and never even bother to install it. Cheaper too.
While in Second Life the problem is those who go beyond industriousness to plain greed. For instance, thinking they can sell small plots of land for more than it costs to by an entire in-game region directly form linden Labs. It is one thing to make something wonderful (or even something mediocre) and sell it, it is another to think you can corner the real estate market in hypothetically infinitely expandable game world. (By the way, for those who haven't figured this out yet, when real estate prices go to high from speculators trying to corner the market, Linden Labs builds more land, until the speculators go broke paying rent on the land they are trying to hoard and sell for prices nobody is willing to pay.)
So I suppose the two really are worlds apart in terms of their relations to people trying to profit of them in real life. Though in both cases, I guess I laud those who earn money or succeed through effort and don't have much respect for those who think they can get money or power easily with some seed capital and no real effort on their part.
Okay, so it is sort of a dystopian story, but they fact that they actually built one ...
Now we just have to avoid the giant killer robots and we're good to go.
Interesting music video on boingboing.
It takes a second to realize that it is real and not a model. And still your eyes want to tell you otherwise.
Some awesome artwork of aliens among us by Dmitry Maximov and via Baekdal.com
For the record, browse the artist's site at your own risk, the ad server that was feeding ads to his pages kept seizing up my browser.
Just because a UFO crashed into your city is no reason to let that futuristic megastructure go to waste ...
Adaptive reuse of crashed starships from Life Without Buildings.
There's hardcore gaming and then there's people who need therapy ... or at least an intervention involving alcohol and a date.
What is real, or what really matters? The example image shows the World of Warcraft game setup bought and created by a player named “Bradster”. Living just a ‘Second Life’ was not enough, so he decided to live 36. His characters constitute a one-man army, giving him the challenge and power he obviously craves - paying $5,711 per year in subscription fees.
From NextNature.
Just to confuse the layers of virtual reference, Second Life New Berlin, a virtual reproduction of Berlin, has its own Web site.
I love it when the real and the virtual start to get intertwined in more and more interesting ways.
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