The DDM Collective - in the Metaverse

Shared Media in Second Life Viewer 2

2010-03-06T09:23:00.002Z

Trying out the new shared media - `web on a prim` with our Moodle course in the new Second Life viewer 2.0.

Game Art Module in Second Life

2010-02-23T13:37:00.004Z

Newish Term, Newish module to use Second Life, where we are introducing 1st years to explore Virtual Environments.

So far, using Megaprims to divvy up the college's island, using scaled floorplans of their project to determine the size of their building zone. The students have been introduced to the basics of second life, from texturing and modelling with SL prims and Maya for Scuplties to customising and creating animations for their avatar, concurrently as they've been developing concept art / and schematics for a prototype of a game level / virtual world space.

The students choose from several environment option, which was to give a breadth of different ways an online 3D world could be used.

1) - a Cthulu-esque Sunken Temple - "At the Mountains of Madness" - designing concepts for a Tomb Raider type puzzle quest area for a single player

2) a floating Steampunk Island village - for a MMORPG

3) a 3D virtual walkthrough of a future Internation Space Station in the year 2050

4) an educational collabrotive game to teach Electricity (keystage 2/3 ) with the theme of Frankenstien's Castle.

The reasons for choosing these's types of environments, was to take benefit of working vertically on the Second Life island. So Cave Temple on Ground, Floating Islands 200ms up - Space Stations 500ms up - so there was less overlapping of building projects.

Anyway , early days, hopefully over the next few weeks start seeing stuff appear.

Slideshow Presenter on Reaction Grid

2010-02-05T20:48:00.003Z

Finally, got round to copying a version of my whiteboard across to ReactionGrid.
This version lacks the overlay tools, but now has a nifty touchdetection control for the pointer instead.
One of the advantages of ReactionGrid (or other Opensims) is that this slideshow board can be resized beyond Second Life's usual 10m prim limit - the version in the image is 30ms wide ... with nothing stopping me making it as wide as the sim :)

( gee that's powerpoint on terrifying scale! )

Video Streaming on the Collective Island

2009-11-18T18:29:00.001Z

With our college getting a Quicktime Streaming Server up and running, I can finally look at some ideas of how to combine Live Video with Second Life activities.
Certainly it starts opening up the opportunity of broadcasting live performance works at the college into a SL gallery context, as well as RL/SL mashup performances.
I certainly want to look at ways of getting the students to take ownership of it - as a way of creating live shows / and mixed reality events.

What's good is the server is constantly on ( well if it doesn't crash ) - and the streams are accessible from outside the college firewall. Presently live broadcasts have to be done from within the college, so we'll have to see if in the future we can get access to the Quicktime server when we're offsite.

Something I'm quite excited about exploring in the future, is how it can also be tied into Life Long Learning & Creative Industry events - by streaming guest speakers from the college into SL - to be accessible by far a field Alumni, and 'friends' of the college who can't attend in RL.

Anyway , that's the new toy to play with for a while....

Exploring Shot Composition Basics with SL

2009-10-12T11:08:00.007Z

I've played with creating some Photography Grid HUD's before, and I thought I'd refine it into a post comparing two classic principles.

Rule of Thirds

The Rule of Thirds, is the division of the frame into equal thirds vertically and horizontally. The intersection of the lines are considered focus of interests, and the lines themselves can help balance out the element of the shot.

The focus of interest here is the face - which falls into the topright intersection. The body ( mainly head and spine ) falls on the right vertically third. and the ground lies along the bottom third.

The Final Shot -
more info on Rule of Thirds here

Dynamic Symmetry

Dynamic Symmetry is based on the Golden Section. Draw lines diagonally from each corner of the frame, then draw lines perpendicular to the first lines that go back to the opposite corners. Again the intersections of the lines are the hotspots of interest.

Again the focus of interest is the face, falling into the top right intersection. The body falls vertically between the two areas of interest, and the ground runs through the areas of interest on the bottom.

The Final Shot.
Some further info on Golden Section / Phi 1.618 here -
and quite a creepy video on Golden Mean here - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zWivbG0RIo

With either principle of composition, it is important to keep things simple - particularly having only ONE focus of interest.

Personally I prefer the dynamic symmetry layout - which seems more visually exciting when applied to a HD video framing.

Design for Digital Media - End of Year Show 2009 in Second Life

2009-06-21T12:23:00.004Z

Now open to the public - The Collective Island is host to the Leeds College of Art's - End of Year Show for the BA(Hons) Design for Digital Media course..

In the studio building, you can find examples of Development work and Screenshots from Final Year Project work, plus links to their web-portfolios.

Streaming in the second room of the studio building, is a 15 min showreel of Moving image work... on it you'll find a Personal tale about Epilepsy, 3D Animation, and Music Videos...
plus its got a nifty reflective floor... :)

The big part of the SL exhibition is the work of Jetsunami Duell ( Rob Kirk in RL ) - who's built a half sim medieval city inspired by the Discworld books. It is designed for Virtual World Community Role players, as opposed to being a game level. The work has its own distinct look - with all textures been hand rendered... giving it a cartoony look...

The Show will be up for several weeks, but once is gone - it'll be gone... wiped clean for a new semester of teaching.

SLURL - http://slurl.com/secondlife/The%20Collective/189/33/36

Exploring Blue Mars

2009-06-03T17:48:00.008Z

Blue Mars by Avatar - is another MMORPG/VW environment on the block. Eventually giving developers a big set of tools to create a wide range of online experiences. Blue Mars creates a unified login system, allowing your avatar to move between diverse Virtual Spaces using the same tech.

Montage of the Blue Mars demo spaces, showing how the technology can be used for a community spaces and games. It uses CryEngine 2 for the graphics, giving some impressive shaders for high quality graphics in a VW. Lots of potential for developers to create rich environments and online game content.

For Educators, this is no SL replacement in terms of casual idea development and experimenting.. it is a Dev Heavy technology, but has bags of potential for some Serious Games, or creating visually rich virtual campuses.

Also its now a good opportunity to consider bringing in students/staff on Games Design / Digital Media courses to help develop content for other departements.

Its hard to judge how useful Blue Mars will be based on these Demo's, as ultimately you can create whatever space you want, so its now down to some exciting developers and community building stuff going on, if it is to succeed.

Of the short time I've played with it , and looked at the other BM preview tools, my vibe is that it is more comparable with Multiverse - http://www.multiverse.net/index.html , than Second Life.

Also if you want to get a good feel for Blue Mars - you could also get a copy of Crysis for your PC ( which you can find in the bargin bin now ) - as it comes with the Sandbox Editor modding tools, that allows for machinima making too. - here's an example - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8R_i-0lZoj4

Virtual Environments Module - Year One

2009-05-26T16:50:00.008Z

In the future I'll write a proper longer post about this module, but for now, here's some pics and link to a flickr set for a Virtual Environments module that finished last week.

www.flickr.com

Flickr Set of Projects

In the module, the students were set a brief to create a prototype experience based around an area from the DirectGov website . The students were advised to focus their projects on the themes of 'Environment & Greener Living' or 'Health and Wellbeing'

It was decided to take this module into a more corporate use of Virtual Worlds, rather than a more personal immersive experience, so the students could experience and reflect on designing for a broader audience and content creation issues. It was also an introduction to how games and VW's could be used for serious subject matter.

Building a new 'lighter' Communal Whiteboard

2009-04-26T20:47:00.004Z

Its nearly been 3 years since I made my last whiteboard, and I thought it was time to do some tweaking to make a more 'lighter' version.

This 'lighter' version removes the troublesome overlay tools, that seemed rarely used... and focused on just one 'Pointer'.
It uses the newish - llDetectedTouch functions - which allows a user to touch anywhere on the image - and the pointer will move to it. This is so much more friendly than before, originally I had to take control of the avatar - and use arrow keys to move the pointer around, which was made worse when the SL client had the 'Release Keys' button removed.

The new whiteboard can also be turned to any angle, without effecting this function... again the original used sim co-ords, so you had to stick the Board either North,South,East or West facing, and soooo many people wanted it at 45 degrees in the corner of a room.

You can also 'Scale' the board to fit your place, without any adverse action to the Aspect Ratio button on the board - which now set to be proportionate of the scaled board's size. So resize the board down to 2ms wide if you want it in your office, or keep it 10ms wide for the lecture hall.

It still keeps the most important thing though .... group access.

Allowing other avatars to add images to the board by holding down the CTRL key while dragging images/textures over it and also allow other avatars to delete images from the board's slideshow.

A simple addition but it allows a group to add to and edit a group slideshow / photoessay.

If you are more of the didactic nature, you can always switch on the Lock, which only allows the Owner to work with the board.

So, just giving it a little roadtest first, and then in a week or so... put it out in the wild.

Creating Content in Second Life ( slideshow )

2009-04-22T17:10:00.003Z

Presentation from Learning in Virtual World Conference at Sunderland on 21st April 2009 - supported by RSC-Jisc Northern and HE Academy.

Creating Content in Second Life

View more presentations from angrybeth.

This slideshow is aimed at people with little to no knowledge of content creation tools in Second Life.

Using the Multi-Cam Machinima Switcher

2009-04-22T13:58:00.014Z

A while ago, I built a multi-camera switcher in Second Life, when the new CameraParameters function was added to LSL....[link] , a little while later I updated it - with cam points the user could move, via editing the linked prims...[link] and then eventually I got round to writing a blog post about it. ( amazing what you can achieve in 3 years ... )

WHAT is the Multi-Cam Machinima Camera Switcher (MSMCS)?

This tool creates instant vision cutting between 8 camera setups much like a TV Vision Mixer swtiching between multiple cameras in a studio. Using the MSMCS you can block out a range of camera positions, that when you go into production, you can jump between. This is particularly suited for when Machinima is streamed LIVE out of Second Life particularly Interviews style shows, allowing the camera operator to cut from Closeups of Avatars to a wider shot of the stage etc.

For educators, this tool can also be used to exlpore conventions of Film and Video production, particularly Crossing the Line ( 180 degree rule ) or Jump Cuts. As well as developing an understanding of Multi-Camera shoots, when access to Real Life equipment is limited. Also it could be used as a way of quickly developing animatics for video productions.

For Machinima Filmmakers - understand the limitations of this tool, it may be useful for some circumstances and not for others.

HOW to USE the Multi-Cam Machinima Camera Switcher. (MCMCS)

1. Build your Set, Stage, Interview Room.....

2. Rez the MCMCS - and place the big grey square so its somewhere in the middle of your set.

3. Whilst in 'Edit Mode' - move the MCMCS vertically down until the big grey block is under your set...

4. Now to edit the individual cameras - in edit mode panel - click on edit linked parts --- ( click on image below to enlarge it )

5. Each Camera is identified by Colour and settext above it... ( red is camera one ) - the sphere prim is the camera's position , the cube prim the camera's target (ie. where you want to look). Whilst in edit linked parts mode, move the sphere and cube prims to set up the camera shot.

6. Sit on the camera to see what the shot looks like... ( sitting on the camera makes all the cam prims and particles disappear )

7. Camera One ( the red one we just edited ) is selected by pressing the Up Arrow, and your camera view should be updated like so...

8. Stand up your avatar , and go back to point 4, and repeat the process with all the other coloured pairs, to give you upto 8 different camera shot framings.
Each Camera Prim has floating text above them denoting the camera number and the corrosponding arrow key that needs to be pressed.

-------

If you think this is useful for you - you can pick up a copy outside my TechGrrl Store for L$ 25
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Gourdneck/197/233/67

How Big is the Mono Lisa?

2009-04-16T16:22:00.010Z

Mona Lisa, 1503-1506, Leonardo da Vinci

unless you've been to The Louvre, most of us have experienced this painting through books, the web and student posters... but actually how big is it?

Basically I'm having some thoughts on how to entice the Critical and Contextual Studies dept onto our Second Life island...

A quick straw poll of students around the college when asked how big was the Mona Lisa, only a few could give an accurate size. Though all are familar with the history of the painting, the feeling for its real size is, I suspect, skewed by props on TV & Film, seeing the picture on the web, and proportionate to its famousness.

The Mona Lisa is 77cms x 53cm ( 30inch x 20 7/8inch )

One thing I've always liked about Second Life galleries is you can get a sense of scale of a painting or image (as the artist may or maynot of intended), something that's lacking when you see the same image embedded in a webpage or powerpoint presentation.

Having the avatar to scale the art against at least starts lending itself to an understanding of the intentions of the artist..

Here's Pablo Picasso's Guernica, again you can get some engagment with the scale of the piece, which would be lacking from a book or web-based picture.

With a bit of skill, a tutor, rather than using a powerpoint presentation, could present a virtual tour of a gallery space ( be it as a group, or simply a tutor's view presented on a video projector ) could create even more opportunities to discuss the art works.

I'm using fine art works as an example - but the same principle could also be applied to graphic design and advertising - looking at the use of scale with posters & billboards, by placing them in galleries as well as simulated spaces (eg. shopping mall ) - ( hmm, maybe a corporate example, but hopefully you get the point ) - allows for a critical discussion of how the image works in the space and its intended audience. Particularly useful for spaces, that students might not get ready access to.

Secondary, having a 3D online gallery to place work in, is also a great tool to explore some of the curatorial skills of a putting an exhibition together. Not only does a student have to sort out the collection of images, but can think about how they are placed within the space, and against each other. This can translate to a real life show - allowing several options to be considered before hanging the work.

One thing to take into account is Second Life's propensity for taller than average height avatars,
and the default camera position - does make things feel smaller than reality, so playing with the camera ( viewing in mouselook ) and using other props that allow for a sense of real world scale will compensate for this.

Personally, I still think its important to go on the physical field trips to a gallery when one can, but its great to see projects like this arriving in Second Life - a replica of The Old Masters Pictures Gallery, Dresden - that's only a TP away..

SLURL - http://slurl.com/secondlife/Dresden Gallery/128/128/27

Playing with Processing, Pachube and Second Life

2009-03-29T14:46:00.004Z

Continuing my play with pachube - which is really handy if you want to quickly prototype something that connects SL and RL stuff.

A Camera tracking script in Processing, updating info in Second Life, to rez a prim at similar position.

Playing with Pachube

2009-03-28T12:35:00.006Z

Finally had a little time to investigate a web-based service called Pachube. For those that have not heard of it, Pachube is a service that enables users to share and connect real time sensor data from objects, devices and environments both real and virtual.

The key aim is to facilitate interaction between remote environments, both physical and virtual. Apart from enabling direct connections between any two environments, it can also be used to facilitate many-to-many connections: just like a physical "patch bay" (or telephone switchboard) Pachube enables any participating project to "plug-in" to any other participating project in real time so that, for example, buildings, interactive installations or blogs can "talk" and "respond" to each other.
from Pachube website

It is currently in beta, so I had a little play to get an idea of the fundamentals. To make full use of the service you need to be given an API key, to allow you to access outputs and create inputs.

This windsock object in Second Life, is connected to an Output feed from a Weather Station in Grimsby, that returns data as a comma seperated values.
The windspeed data, is used to effect the tension of the flexiprim that makes the windsock, making it visualise windspeed in a more familiar fashion.

Anyway, this was a simple exercise to see how Pachube works with an object in SL.

Using this principle, Second Life environments can be controlled or respond to realworld realtime data through Pachube, for example an Arduino Microcontroller, that allows for some physical interactive object/wearable computer to control Virtual Content. The reverse is true, and objects in Second Life can be used to send data to a Pachube feed to be shared, allowing for an avatar - to make a realworld installation change.

In my experimentation, I had a play with Processing, and created a simple sketch that was effected by Second Life data on a input feed I created. It is important that if you are using Pachube with Processing you download the EEML Library.

Whilst Pachube is in beta, data is refreshed every 5 secs, so GET(ing) and POST(ing) data to a feed, can't be any faster. So for the moment, don't expect to create dynamic updating several times a second... ( which would be great if I was pulling Avatar data into some Motion Graphics program in Processing )

Whats great with Pachube though, is that its a community of shared data, so many users could take the data and use it in different ways.... particularly for myself, I may take real world information simply to be part of some generative artwork in SL, whilst others may want to visualise the same data in another way. From this, interesting and unexpected results could happen..

UCreative - Second Life Island

2009-03-12T18:11:00.003Z

Back in Summer of 2008, I was asked to build a Second Life presence for University of Creative Arts - (a specialist art uni, which is an amalgamation of five UK based colleges in Kent and Surrey ). As the campus was split across several towns, SL was being explored as a potential way of creating a virtual community of practice, where graduate and post-graduate students could get together.

I was commissioned to create a basic low prim scaffolding for an interdisciplinary island of arts, and also create something that gave a imaginative flavor of what could be achieved in virtual worlds, rather than slavishly re-creating the realworld campus.
The build was designed to get people navigating and around a 3D space fast especially by flying, but a teleport system was also in place to get around quicker, or those still learning to control their avatar.

The approach I went for, was to create a Giant Tree, where the foundations of its base, formed the main lecture theater spaces, as well as public areas of exhibition and marketing - a scuplture/art garden, a more traditional white cube gallery space, and a sandbox area, on the ground.

Very simplified tree branches formed platforms, that would be given over to specific areas, eg. moving image, fashion, communication design, and also staff development. Finally high up above the clouds was a private sandbox area.
This use of height within a sim, was to make efficient use of the island, rather than everything flat on the ground.
Hopefully this system also keeps information/areas apart, but not completely compartmentalised. As it was a shared island, discpline areas could share space and resources - creating opportunities for students to work across courses.

Avatar Skin and Clothes Map

2009-03-08T21:22:00.003Z

Avatar skin and clothes map for workshop in content creation in Second Life for 1st Years. Feel free if you think its useful.

Download

Avatar Attachment Points

2009-03-08T19:52:00.003Z

Map of Avatar Attachment Points... for workshop teaching SL content creation to 1st Years. Feel free to download a copy if you find it useful.

Download

WoW educators on Twitter

2009-02-22T17:10:00.005Z

Educator?
on Twitter?
play World of Warcraft?

then join us on http://twittgroups.com/group/eduwow

or if flickr is your social media tool of choice
then share your pics at

Educators in World of Warcraft flickr Pool

DDM Collective 3rd Year Lineup

2009-02-13T12:18:00.002Z

First impressions of PS3's HOME

2008-12-14T12:12:00.007Z

Eventually I managed to log into HOME (open beta) - playstation 3's new virtual world - at 5am GMT on the 12th Dec... until then it seemed the PS Network was taking a hammering.

My initial response was to compare it more to Twinity , than a true Second Life alternative... ie. private apartments and group spaces, linked to a central hub world, no 3D or scripted user generated content (yet) , and a lack of sophisticated camera controls that will make it a pain to create interesting machinima with its beautifully rendered world - ( but hey, that's part of the challange of machinima )).
Its a very sanitised experience, perpetually a bright midday summer's day ( which actually gives me a migrine ), avatars that can only be human and in peak condition (ok I'll grant you can be slightly chubby and have worry lines ) and a controlled branded experience of Sony and partner products ( which was to be expected. )

My curiosity of this new Virtual World has been peaked for several months (watching the lucky ones running around in a closed Beta), and I was always interested to see if it offered any educational benefits or opportunities. Particularly it was the Group tool and Clubhouse space that caught my eye. As this offers the opportunity of creating a small community within HOME.
Initially you are given a private apartment ( a lovely oceanside flat ), but this is a space only you can manage, not give shared control.

A Club is an option you can purchase for £3.59.. this gives you administration of a group title ( choose wisely - as you can't change it later ) - to which you can invite or people can request to join. Along with the group, you are given a default Clubhouse, where your friends can meet, even if you are not online.
When you purchase, Sony imply that in the future, there could be monthly costs to running a group.. but during this open beta ( till end of march '09 ) its a one off payment.

At present, the default clubhouse is a dojo style interior, but from the greyed out option in the clubadmin tools, it looks like in the future you will be able to purchase new spaces.
It also seems you can only create One Club per avatar which you have ownership of, so again think before you create. I have yet to see if there is a limit to the number of other clubs you can join, in Second Life it is annoying that you can only join 25 groups, so I wonder if the same is true here, but at the moment, it's free to join someone else's club.
As admin you can allow other members to help administrate the group and content of clubhouse. ( similar to flatmates in a Twinity apartment )

Within the clubhouse, you can add furniture, to a limit of 40 items... this could easily be used up, particularly as I'm interested in using the Clubhouse as an Art Gallery, and I can foresee that I will need picture frames for each photo or image I upload into the space.
At present you can't purchase any media or image frames ( I'm assuming as this is the start of an open beta, Sony are probably wanting to present a positive image, so avoiding the user's opportunity to post copyrighted material up in spaces, or the inevitable clubhouse or private space full of Porn Pictures, or simply they are trying to avoid the server's been jammed up with content. ), but I have seen images from the closed beta that show their existence - linky to a photo from edpredator - http://www.flickr.com/photos/epredator/2117246451/in/pool-924121@N20

Within the Clubhouse, you have a bulletin board tool by default...

Sadly the bulletin board is a tad disappointing. Posts are limited to a subject line of 32 characters, and a message of around Twitter length. Only admins can post messages to the board, so at best its more like having sticky notes on a fridge, or a simple way of announcing group meetup dates.
The Posts are also censored - you can only used approved words - ie. no swearing, and it also denies you posting up Telephone numbers.
I tried putting in web links, which appear, but are not clickable. So you can't use the bulletin board as a portal to web content.

----

I'll reserve a final judgement, as the Open beta rolls out new 'Appliances', 'Picture frames' and new content hopefully over the next few months.

Things I would love to see appear in the future are :

Use PS3 webcam to send a videostream into the Clubhouse, be a simple way of presenting a conference or similar.
Stream Audio, or at least play audio content that's uploaded. ( I'm assuming a PS3 Internet Radio Station is on the cards, if not - they're missing a trick ) - a pragmatic solution is to use the pre-existing voice chat for now.
Objects or Tools, to link up outside webpages.

--

Anywho - if you're an educator exploring HOME - my avatar's name is Annabeth

Using Camera controls in Second Life

2008-10-28T12:23:00.010Z

As I'm doing a workshop on using Second Life to teach video production skills at Stirling University this week. I thought it would be useful to create some images to explain the camera controls in Second Life.
Feel free to take a copies and upload into Second Life if you find it useful.
Flickr set here

or teleport to http://slurl.com/secondlife/The%20Collective/98/42/34

Exploring the 'rule of thirds' in Second Life

2008-09-23T08:44:00.007Z

Whilst doing a real life digital camera induction, I had some thoughts about creating some tools to help explore some of the conventions of photography composition, particularly a rule of thumb called 'Rule of Thirds'.
This led to making a HUD overlay, that presents a grid, dividing up the screen into thirds. ( if you change your screen resolution, edit the HUD so it stretches to the edge of the screen )
The lines and intersections of these lines, are regarded as the sweet points of balancing a composition.

A Rule of Thirds - HUD - used to aid balance of elements in a photographic composition

The Beach and Sea fall along the horizontal lines, whilst Angrybeth falls along the left vertical line.

Though its a simple tool, what excites me, is that it shows Second Life can be used to explore some photographic fundamentals... which if you are based at an institution that may lack a breadth of equipment to do this practically in Real Life, gives us a Virtual opportunity. ( thankfully at our college we have enough equipment, so each student can have a camera, but I know of other places where this resource can be a limited access )
Also I'm interested in using Second Life as an 'interdisciplinary' space, here the tool could be used by students exploring Game Art and Design, who may not traditionally do a project with photography or video , but maybe are exploring shotframing and composition within 'cutscenes' within a video game.
For those that dabble with a range of digital media, Second Life is a great place to reinforce ideas and skills of video / photography production that transfer well to 3D animation or virtual environments.

Embedding - Just Leap In - 3D scene into Moodle

2008-07-16T11:01:00.005Z

Having a play with the new closed beta of Just Leap in, a web browser based virtual world. Like Google Lively, you can embed the player into your own webpage. So to have a dabble, I embedded the Just Leap in code into a label into Moodle.

Now more of these web-based virtual worlds are starting to emerge, might be a second wave of interest in virtual world teaching and learning. I hope some of these web-based VW's start to allow scripting and content creation on par with Second Life, and then it'll really start to get some synthesis

End of Year sandbox

2008-07-01T15:02:00.007Z

As part of end of year let hair down, a few of the more SL engaged students continued to develop some extra curricula personal work in the Collective Sandbox. Here's some pics....

Rob's fantasy build...

Phil's mad scientist lab...

Steve's maze temple...

The DDM Students in SL - Machinima

2008-04-10T11:13:00.006Z

A casual vox-pops catching the thoughts and interests of the DDM students using Second Life. This short machinima documentary was created by 2nd Year student Steve Searle, as part of the optional pathway in Moving Image.
I thought I'd share it with you...

Play - a collection of sound sketches

2008-04-03T22:24:00.004Z

Play - brings together all the sound sketches (toys) that I've created in Second Life™ World over the last few years. Each an exploration of the Scripting Language and other properties of the Second Life world.

This collection was presented at the People : Place : Prescence conference and exhibition on 2nd April at Foundation for Art and Creative Technology in Liverpool.

The collection can be found here >> SLURL - and will stay up till the End of April '08.

Though most of these works - could be recreated in other software, it is the social aspect of the virtual world, that makes me stick to working in Second Life or similar. Seeing groups of online people experiment and collaborate on producing music with my pieces, is more rewarding than a more solo experience on a flash based website or similar. And I still get goosebumps when I watch a group of international avatars all playing together telepresently, yet seemingly all together in one place and presence.

Play - a way of learning, Play - to be actively engaged, and Play - to perform .

Twinity - Using URL's in a Picture

2008-03-27T11:10:00.008Z

Link to higher quality mp4 file

A 3 minute video of how to place a Picture to display a webpage. This video shows a link to blip.tv - which demonstrates how to bring Video streaming into Twinity by embedding the media within a webpage. Quicktime does not seem to be supported, but flash based material like blip.tv and youtube works fine. For now this show's you can present a video exhibition inside Twinity.

Using Chatterous Persistant Chatroom in Twinity.

With the aid of Chance Abattoir and Jurin Juran, we had a play with the URL on a Picture object. This was set to display a Chatterous room. We could input text to the chat room with no problems thru interaction with the picture in Twinity, including Pasting text ... ( though copying text from the Twinity webpage didn't seem to work ).
It seemed for us inworld we saw our own web pages, especially at Login, rather than the watching one operator surfing the web. This could be a problem if a tutor, wants to take a group on a guided tour thru flat based - webmaterial, ie. Slideshare.

For a webpage that required login (ie. Moodle), when I swapped from one avatar to another - I didn't need to login again. It seemed that the Twinity Client was keeping the computer logged into a website, rather than against a avatar account, which could be a real problem with multiple people using the same computer to access learning materials thru Twinity. ( I will investigate this further.... )

Twinity Beta - Art Installation - 'Mirror World'

2008-03-23T22:25:00.004Z

After a few hours of playing with Twinity, I got round to making a simple Art installation using the given shop items. Useful items were the radio which I set to stream in the ambient music from Somafm's 'DroneZone'
The mirror's are fun, but freak out when you have toooo many of them.
Twinity seems potentially ok for machinima - though I'd have to use another avatar as a camera, as the view-controls are limited to orbiting the user.

I kinda like the way light works in Twinity - Night and Day is set to the timezone your apartment is in.. Years ago in Second Life you couldn't control the sun position, so it reminded my of those nostalgic days.. but in the context here, as a Mirrorworld it is behaving correctly.

Anywho - if you can log into Twinity - check out the apartment by searching for - Annabeth's Art Gallery.

First 30mins in Twinity

2008-03-23T12:20:00.006Z

I'm always looking at what other Virtual Worlds are available for use in Education or Art Exhibition. Recently my beta account for Twinity came thru, so I booted up a PC to give it a whirl.

There is little client documentation to get you into making your 'apartment' your own look. So with a bit of experimentation I threw myself into making some attempt at customising the space I was given.

a very uncluttered interface...

As I was more focused on seeing how I could get work displayed. I concentrated on the picture objects that could be added to the environment.
It was a pleasent suprise to find I could do HTML on a Prim :) - by setting the picture frame to a URL rather than an uploaded image. This webpicture (though clunky to operate) - I could navigate the website on the wall or switch to fullscreen browsing mode as well. ( I'll have to get a group of people in to try to see if they see the same webpage whilst its being browsed by someone else ).

Manipulating objects at first is a bit fiddly and limited.... but not dissimilar to IMVU. Give it a few more hours, and I'll be throwing stuff about - ah feeling like a newb again.

Within 10 minutes of creating my location, a Twinity support avatar popped in to say 'hi', - how nice I feel like I had neighbours ;)

the obligatory virtual world shrug snapshot

First impressions, I'll give it more time to explore. It immediately proved that I could use an 'apartment' as an 'Flat based / Weblinked' Art Portfolio.
But the furniture ( apart from lights ) I can't interact with ( eg. sitdown ) - perhaps in the next patch..

Building and scripting 3D content though doesn't seem immediately obvious, ( I think a trawl thru the forum is required. ) - Though Manon (the Twinity support avatar) said end-users couldn't script yet.
So we'll have to see what the future brings...

Anyway if you get into Twinity - search for Leeds College of Art and Design

Easter Break - New Gadget Play

2008-03-19T15:58:00.008Z

I finally got round to getting an Asus EeePC 4Gb/512Mb Linux mini-laptop, ( which I've fallen in love with it's bagsized nature ).
Though the inbuilt 'Easy Desktop' software, is more than enough for most cases, especially web-surfing, word processing and blogging, I wanted to push out the boat to see what else I could get running.. So after a day of tweaking, I got GIMP, Inkscape, Processing, Audacity and NVu installed, which gives a little more productivity when I'm on the move.

Finally I got round to installing SecondLife, particularly the Linux 1.19.1 ReleaseCandidate client.

Following some of the instructions from this really helpful post at -> link I got it up and running.

For the moment, I've not tweaked the client so it runs within the window of the Asus, but got desktop mirroring at 1024x768 instead.

So,
Frame rate wise, SL's between 2-5 fps, that was on both an empty island and a sim with about 18 people in.
I'm running the graphic details down to lowest and draw distance at 64m.
It helps that I'm plugged into the college network, and being the holidays - its running really fast.

If you're not expecting to build in SL, and do lots of walking about.. it seems fine for IMing people, listening to a lecture, inventory sorting or a bit of scripting.

Though this is first impressions, I'll see how I feel after a few days...

Anyhow, I got the Asus for a bit of persona gadgetry, but it has got me thinking about cheap and cheerful computers that are affordable for students. At the moment, I can't fault this little machine, as a useful tool for blogging, which is something we are encouraging our Art and Design students to do.

HTML on a PRIM (Sort of)

2008-03-09T13:55:00.008Z

With the new Second Life Release Client 1.19.1, we get a chance to see a feature that will be implemented soon, HTML Pages displayed thru the media streaming texture.

As its kinda useful to some projects I'm doing , I rattled up some basic code last night to slideshow webpages with clickthru to their URL. Feel free to amend and add functionality if useful.


list URLs = ["http://www.leeds-art.ac.uk","http://www.annamorphic.co.uk","http://bbc.co.uk"];  //List of URLS
list Desc = ["Leeds College Website","Angrybeth's Page","BBC homepage"]; //List of URL descriptions - keep in order of List of URLs...

integer slides;
integer slidecount = 0;
string SETURL;
string URLDESC;
default
{
state_entry()
{
llSetTimerEvent(20.0); //Change this for timing of sequence, obviously....
slides = llGetListLength(URLs);

}
timer()
{
if (slidecount == slides)
{
    slidecount = 0;
}

SETURL = llList2String(URLs, slidecount);
URLDESC = llList2String(Desc,slidecount);
llParcelMediaCommandList([
PARCEL_MEDIA_COMMAND_TYPE, "text/html",
PARCEL_MEDIA_COMMAND_URL, SETURL]);
slidecount ++;
}

touch_start(integer touched)
{
key who = llDetectedKey(0);
llLoadURL(who,URLDESC,SETURL);
}
}

Obviously, stick this script inside the prim that is displaying the media texture...

One thing I do like is that llLoadURL - opens the inclient web-browser like the OnRez client. But at the moment it doesn't support Flash

But, when you load a webpage with Quicktime media embedded, it shows up on the Avatars HUD rather than on the webpage.
Joyness!!!

Using Second Life with a Whiteboard

2007-12-09T16:35:00.001Z

overlay tools allowed visual annotation over SL during crits.

With a recently installed Promethean ActiveBoard in the studio, we tried a recording of a crit during a studio session.
This was our first opportunity of explore Second Life controlled by the activeboard kit, as well as another way of bringing SL into a blended learning environment.

Click To Play
extract from recorded crit

Using the popup movement and camera controls within SecondLife, the avatar could be controlled via a pen or activeslate. With both a user operating at the board, and an activeslate being passed around, several users could puppeteer an avatar.
The inbuilt screen capture software, recorded both the onscreen action and the group's voices via the laptops microphone.

As first thoughts, this technology quickly enabled us to do a walkthrough of a SL work, with a student evaluating or commenting on the work in realtime. This would be a great way to evidence the process and learning outcomes of the student in a Second Life project. It also creates a video file for use by Second Markers or External examiners - that have no experience of using SL.

as this was a first attempt it revealed issues to resolve:

i) better microphone - or microphone placement to record a group of students clearly.
ii) some experimentation with video capture settings to get a better frames per second.
iii) set aside some time to show students (and other staff ) how to use the whiteboard tools.

Setting up SLOODLE ( 1st Attempt )

2007-11-27T11:08:00.001Z

Having a spare hour, I had a fiddle with getting SLOODLE up and running on our college MOODLE server. Our very supportive IT dept ( see they do exist ! ), adding the SLOODLE patch and sending prim passwords back and forth, and generating the Notecard needed for the sloodle_config.

Setting the SLOODLE objects up in SL had a few teething problems. With the generic startup set, giving a few errors, when I was trying to get the two worlds connected.
Finally, I ended up rezzing the Avatar Registration Booth from the SLOODLE toolbox, manually updating the notecard in that, and trying to register the avatar with that....
Success!!!!

Then got the Chat Logger up and running, with the Moodle Course Chatroom.

One thing I found, ( and this is probably only my experience ) - I needed to reset the SLOODLE objects manually to get them to work, after they were rezzed by the SLOODLE toolbox.

Anywho - off to find some willing test subjects.

Upping the Ante

2007-11-15T18:10:00.001Z

Its been a while since I've blogged about the Digital Media courses activities within Second Life.

2nd year project, starting of with an SL based sketchbook.

Now a new academic year, and the course moving to new facilities on the Blenhiem Walk Campus, we've decided to jump in deeper with Second Life as part of the course.

Previously, we had rolled out SL as a more tentative venture, using it via Personal Development and Critical Studies - so we could explore Digital Cultures and Emerging Technology. We were very fortunate to also have a project with Penguin, that allow both staff and students to see the Vocational worth of Second Life.

Now the course is into its 2nd Year, we have Specialist Pathway modules in both Moving Image and Interactive Presentation.

For both of these modules, we decided to have a Second Life based brief, they could choose to undertake. The modules started on the 9th Nov.

Interactive Presentation

The Team brief is to create an Art Gallery within Second Life, which can be used by the other students and potential Artist in Residence projects.
The students have to consider curation within a virtual 3D space, the different forms of media that can be shown, how avatars can navigate, explore and engage the work that will be shown, as well as creating signage for the space. Upon this they will create an intergrated CSS template for a Ning based community and Blog.

It is hoped out of this brief, that students can explore and reflect on the differences of Flash or Web based Gallery and information presentation, with this 3D variant. As well as engaging with Social connectivity aspects of both Second Life and web communities like Ning.

Moving Image

The brief is to create a 2 minute Machinima presentation, to promote the Design for Digital Media course's presence and activity on the Collective's Second Life Island.

Hopefully, through this brief both the creative use of machinima can be explored, but tempered with a corporate sensibility. My gut feeling with more corporate presence within Second Life or similar (PS3 Home or There), there will be a new skill set needed for this convergence industry, and I hope this brief starts to address the portfolio needs of graduating students into this industry.
Also the cross-transferable skills back to video production, still means regardless of it being either traditional video or machinima - the students still has to go through the experience of production management, communicating with cast and crew & editing of footage.

---

With the 1st Years, we've had the opportunity of creating a new 10 credit module called 'Digital Cultures and Technologies', a half practical and theoretical module.

This has given us an opportunity to have a more course wide engagement within Second Life. The project set is called 2020, where we ask the students to design a poster to communicate what they speculate could be future digital ( or other ) experiences, commodities or technologies.

These poster will then also uploaded into Second Life, as part of a display - in the new art gallery the 2nd year's are building.

As part of the module, we've had a seminar on Avatars, which allowed practical play via Second Life.

---

All of these projects will run up till Christmas, which we'll hopefully make open to the public. ( though actually the islands always open to the public, so you can pop by and see work in progress - so excuse the clutter - we're a sandbox, not a polished marketing tool.)

Some of the activity that's been blogged by the students...

http://parkinsonliam.blogspot.com/2007/11/second-life-galleries.html
http://fionnualamurphy.blogspot.com/2007/11/new-shiny-work-area.html

As a team, Liam and Fio, have initially created a 3D sketchbook to house both there research and idea development, and a place to try out building prototypes.

( which actually reminds me, I get a few IM's saying that there's seems to be little happening on our island... actually a lot happens its just tends to be up at 500 ms )

here's some posts from the 1st years, after playing with avatar creation for an afternoon.

http://markscrit.blogspot.com/2007/10/second-life.html
http://myworldmylifemytime.blogspot.com/2007/10/second-life.html
http://rockbigdave.blogspot.com/2007/09/second-life-at-uni-we-work-d.html
http://digitalbreak.blogspot.com/2007/10/second-life.html

It's also sparked some critical response,

http://critwall.blogspot.com/2007/09/scary-life.html

Using Second Life to support Moving Image specialism on Design for Digital Media.

2007-07-24T14:26:00.001Z

Moving Image specialism.
Moving image covers all time / screen based work, from live action Video production to 3D / traditional Animation. Projects could include title-sequence design, music videos, short drama and documentary productions.

The production of moving image work using Second Life, other MMO's or Video Game Engines is called Machinima. The practice of Machinima can help re-inforce the practice and theories of professional moving image production, could be used as a form of advanced animatics within a larger moving image production; as well as being a moving image medium in its own right.

A Whale of a Tale, - Angrybeth Shortbread 2006

Transferable skills that can be gained from creating Machinima

Storytelling and Structure
Without a story / narrative / structure / concept , as a starting point, then the machinima will have no co-herent sense or meaning. In the act of creating a machinima, the student's have to work out what they are trying to communicate to the audience, and develop appropriate scripts or storyboards. Dramatic structure and character development can be deeply explored with this technique. As Machinima has very little costs ( well once you have the kit that is ... ) a student can try alternative shot setups and sequences, and explore how they impact on storytelling and meaning.

Shot Compostion / Camera Movement
The camera controls within the Second Life client, are sophisticated enough to allow a student to explore shot framing techniques both moving image and also virtual photography. Lens effects ( field of vision) can be explored to a degree. Scripted objects allow tracking and craning sequences to be explored ( without the considerable cost and health and safety issues that happens in real life ). Focus, exposure techniques and smooth zooming effects are several areas that can't be explored with Second Life machinima at present in realtime.
With the recent addition of dynamic lighting, some exploration of lighting techniques can be applied, especially low-key / chiaroscuro lighting effects. Though shadows at present can't be cast by objects or avatars.

I've slowly been building learning material for shot framing using machinima here. --- link

Post Production
Second Life has no inbuilt tools for editing shots and sequences created in Second Life. Footage will either be recorded directly to the hard-drive of the computer or onto video tape ( if using video-output from the computer to a video deck ).
Editing the footage would need to be done in programs like eg. Final Cut Pro, Adobe Premiere, or Avid. This allows a student to engage with industry software whilst editing the machinima footage into a fine cut for presentation. Working with machinima footage captured via software, also allows students to explore quicktime compression.

Sound Design
The above example machinima 'whale of a tale' is entirely post-produced sound design, with sound effects synced in the post-production software. This technique, allows students to explore foley sound effects, added dialog replacement, and music compostion. Sound can be generated within Second Life, 10 second samples can be triggered, looped or synced with animation gestures. Streaming audio eg. Mp3 , can also be played into the land plot.
For students focusing more on traditional animation techniques, sound - especially dialog would be pre-recorded before animation would be generated. The mac client quicktime output is mute, so to record sync audio at the same time, the video deck option is the best solution. Alternatively using a piece of software like Soundflower can capture sound running through the sound card.

Art Direction / Production Design
Set design, costume design, props, location can be explored with Second Life. The content creation tools within Second Life can build all the assets required for machinima production, re-inforcing the students understanding of 3D modelling techniques ( that in themselves are cross-transferable to Games Design ). Combined with Shot compostion, genre styles can be explored. On a more management level, exploring Second life user created content for adequate assets, like clothes, props, and even locations, allows the students to explore the professionalism and responsiblites of roles like location manager, as well as co-ordinating a budget.

Directing
One distinction between machinima and 3D animation, are the characters ( avatars ) are controlled by other people online. This requires the machinima maker or team, to think of stratagies to co-ordinate a group of people in front of the camera synchronously. Also having to co-ordinate others, means the team have to break down the production into a schedule giving pragmatic experience of time-project management.

Brian Eno drops by The Collective...

2007-07-11T18:14:00.007Z

Outside lecturing, part of my specialist practice is exploring art and design possibilities within Second Life as well as freelance design work, through my avatar - AngryBeth Shortbread.

Commissioned by The Long Now Foundation, thru Blueair.tv, I was asked to translate Brian Eno's 77 Million Paintings into Second Life, to concurrently run with its North American Premiere at Yerba Buena Center For the Arts in San Francisco. This was an interesting project to undertake, as it gave an opportunity to explore curation in a telepresent location. The original work is a very mutable presentation, taking on many forms - from plasma screens to video projection, as well as a DVD version that can be viewed at home on a computer or television.

This idea was carried over into Second Life - with several placements taking different forms of presentation of the work. These installations were spread out amongst the Second Life grid, creating a journey for the second life audience.

Response from other bloggers here -
http://blogs.electricsheepcompany.com/giff/
and
http://www.rikomatic.com/blog/2007/07/

picture by Ze Moo / Text by Cryus Huffhines

I love the image above as it shows the telepresent audience. SL sims may be limiting in the number of concurrent viewers, to a number similar to a real life small art gallery opening.
Though the ability to share at distance an international audience and have the work open 24/7
gives a little back.

Other images from the show can be seen at here - Link

Penguin brief.

2007-06-13T13:51:00.001Z

Through a 'live brief' commissioned by Penguin Books - Digital Publishing Dept, the last two months have given the Digital Media students the opportunity to experience the vocational side of Second Life. As tutor, I took on the role of a Production Manager / Technical Supervisor, with a small team of students brainstorming how the Penguin Brand could be realised as a Metaverse Experience. Using a medium like Second Life, the students are understanding how their skills in 3D CGI, Interactive Presentation and Graphic Design Communication can be brought together in a virtual space, as well an opportunity to consider how an 'audience' would experience and 'read' the content for this form of presentation.

I'm particularly excited, as this is getting student's to engage with possibilities of careers as content creators / designers for MUVE's (Multi-User Virtual Environments), not just for Second Life, but possibly for HOME on the PS3 and other MUVE's like Kaneva and There. Hopefully an industry that will become more the 'norm' when they graduate.

The project also gave us an opportunity to try to develop an idea of a Virtual Sketchbook. A small sandbox was created specifically for the project, divided into four sections: The Brief/client info, Research, Idea Development and Building area. This created a mix of images on Prims and 3D objects. Along with Virtual Portfolios, the idea of using a sandbox to explore the Design Process, is particularly of interest to myself, and something I want to further in the next academic year.

Text based Staircase (Idea in Progress). One of Penguin's requests was to approach the Second Life build more abstractly - rather than recreating something obvious like a 'bookshop' to represent the Brand. The Text staircase was produced by Chris Meredith, giving him an opportunity to explore 3D typography.

Recreation of Roald Dahl's Writing Shed.

The project is ongoing for a few more weeks, during which time representives from Penguin will give us feedback to the overall design approach, and allow for students to reflect on Industry reality. So far this has been a good project for students to practically engage with the issues and possibilites of using this emerging technologiy.

Virtual Art School

2007-05-16T07:13:00.001Z

If we are thinking about and simulating an ideal real life art school, then should we not also be creating the ultimate SL art school? Do we need a school for educating future virtual designers and artists? There are a lot of arguments floating around about this, but I don't think it wouldn't do any harm to have a go at building one. Perhaps the blank canvas approach that our friend at Leeds College of Art & Design, AnnaBeth Robinson (AngryBeth Shortbread), is taking with her students on the Digital Media course is the most appropriate way to tackle this. Art schools have traditionally provided studio space for the creation of artefacts, with staff available to mentor, facilitate and hopefully inspire students. Perhaps the ultimate art-school in Second Life is not a building at all, but an empty island owned by the student group.

comment by Ian Truelove on the Emerge - JISC website

Much consideration was placed into the idea of giving ownership of the island to the student group, when setting up our SIM. The blank canvas approach was an attempt NOT to constrain what ideas and work could be created within an online 3D environment. My personal take on this, is if you replicate too much of the 'Real' or at the other extreme create an Abstract space, the students may consider this is the only way to construct stuff on the island, or try to fit within that framework. Of course stronger students will question, explore and push this paradigm.

Interestingly for the first few weeks, as students created their initial presence on the island, they naturally replicated the real. Aspirational houses / studios decked out with furniture, setting their own boundaries and personal plot of land by creating a 'Home'. Into this space, many began to exhibit their personal and portfolio work.

I found this, not to dissimilar an experience to when I was a student at Art College. As a group we were given a very large studio space, lots of 8x5' panels, and told to construct our own spaces. What resulted was a mix of private booths, the construction of a small village of cubicles, and a section of studio fenced off, for large construction and video work (hmmm like a Real life sandbox ).

As a building exercise, I preferred to sit back and let them explore the building tools through creating recognisable structures. Creating something that's recognisable helps the student to gauge how well they can use the building tools, something akin to drawing exercises.

But within a few days, a few had begun to explore building in the sky, and immediately the parameters of what defines a space and how avatars move around a 3D environment was being experimented with. One particular went the other way, terraforming the land to create a deep 'hobbit hole' home inside a mountain.

Another thing that emerged quite quickly was the creation of 3D Characters, influenced by Designer Toys and Video Game culture. This really demonstrated how some where gaining a confidence in pushing their skills within SL.

Now the students have had their honeymoon period with Second Life, as a vocationally biased Digtial Media course, I've began to push them to consider how Second life, supports their specialist pathways and ultimately how they can utilise their skills for industry. But thats another post for later...... :)

A Week on The Collective Island

2007-04-03T14:13:00.001Z

Keeping track of the activity, after a week of access.
So far 9 students (45% of the course cohort) have created their own presence on the island. ( It is important to note - this is extra curricula activity - not directly part of any course module ) The only input from myself, is that they can only use up 800 prims, and to consider their build a 3D portfolio. The island is not divided into plots, and the students have been encourage to self-govern the space. This seems to have led to some collaborative meeting spaces, amongst their own 'houses'

A Club build initiated by Nos, has work of other students on the wall, and has become one of the congregation points.

Inside Liama's Studio, a mix of work from RL graphic projects and objects made in Second Life.

Fio's space is beginning to bring in a mix of her interests in digital art and photography. The chairs are inspired by one of her favorite films - 2001.

Xissteve's building takes a 'game' apporach, as you explore the maze like building to find his images from previous modules.

The Collective - Simtastic!

2007-03-26T18:30:00.001Z

After a few months of organising with the College, and two weeks of waiting for Linden Labs, the Collective finally has its own island - wait for it called - ' The Collective ', how original heh?
Today it was opened to the course students, with 8 logging in and having a play, though a planned official opening will happen after the Easter break. Already several students are marking out their own spaces, hopefully without too much tutor interjection, they will self-govern the island between them. The only rule applied, is each student can use upto 800 prims. Hopefully this will get them to collaborate a prim budget between themselves to work on larger scale projects.

The mainland gallery will continue to operate on my own plot at Gourdneck. I think it is important that the students have a base to engage with the main grid, and it is also a potential traffic generator to the island sim when we have Exhibitions.

The Activity in the Metaverse begins.....

2007-03-15T19:52:00.001Z

Students play drums as a group in Second Life.

Over the last few weeks, the students have become more confident in building and texturing with Second Life’s 3D content creation tools, with a few dabbling into scripting interactive elements into their builds.

Fio's Geisha doll - self directed building project in Second Life.

In total – 16 ( out of the 20 ) of the 1st year cohort have created a Second Life account.
2 have not joined as they don’t feel it is for them, and 2 don’t have adequate connection to Second Life at home, ( though they have been encouraged to uses it whilst at College )
Of the 16, 7 students are particularly active – logging into Second life at least three times a week. With the rest on average, once a fortnight.

As Second life has been introduced to them as an extra-curricula activity, the students work autonomously with the online environment, choosing to develop their own projects and buddy teaching each other second life skills. Tutor interjection prods individuals towards resources and techniques, which they themselves disseminate to the others in the group.

To date this has included:

Students have been using Second Life as a tool for CMC outside College hours, which has been useful with the course Team briefs in Video that have been set recently.

Collaborative Building project – 6 students have been remodelling the sandbox into a Fantasy Garden. – This is particularly interesting process, as the students are beginning to take ownership of the 3D space they are working in, rather than just their avatars

Co-operative Building – Individual students have been creating their own builds, but sharing resources like textures and scripts between themselves.
Several students have been using Second Life for Research, tie-ing into their Critical studies Essays and recent module in Interactive Presentation - example Link Here
Experimenting with Machinima making ( involving directing other people ). Link Here to work in progress

Recently – a new module called Personal Development has started. This contains a range of ‘live’ and simulated briefs, with several being solvable (or aspects of) via Second Life. This has brought Second Life more into the course structure, specifically allow students to self-direct a project to use their Second life techniques.

Issues to resolve:

Uptake of Second Life, - due to the extra curricula nature of the bringing Second Life into the course, many students do not want to take on more work beyond the course requirements.
With the Collective’s own private island coming online soon, specific activities will be introduced into the course structure, which will be another opportunity to encourage students to engage with Second Life, Particularly a project focused on End of Year Show, that will involve the outgoing 2nd Year HND Interactive Media course.

The island will also be accessible to the students over the summer, where they will be encouraged to create a machinima film for the Bradford Animation Festival.

Students orientate themselves

2007-01-19T16:39:00.002Z

The Collective village, was created during the New Year holiday, and opened to the students to use from the 8th Jan 2007. The intention is to use ( for the immediate future ) Second Life, as an addition to the course content. As a vocational based digital media course, Second Life won't replace the 'industry' based software that is taught during the first year modules, but it does provide an opportunity for the students to critically engage an emerging technology and broaden their research and idea development. As students become more confident with Second Life, they may choose to incorporate it within their Self-Directed projects during the 2nd and 3rd Year.

As part of an extra curricular activity, within the 1st Year Interactive Presentation Module, a small group of students began exploring Second life, as an alternative platform / experience for presenting Interactive / Digital Work. As sometimes the case with first use of second life, many spent time playing with their avatar's apperance, stamping their ownership upon them.

The sandbox gave them an opportunity to start using the basic 3D tools, and play with freebie objects that they had found on their explortations. Doctor Who seemed to be a re-curring theme.

Not only does the Collective Lab exist to help orientate the digital media students, but interested staff from other college departments and courses, drop by to play.

Paul (the fox), Instructor technician, talks to the students inworld, though in reality he's on the other side of the main art building.

The Collective's presence in Second Life

2007-01-19T13:20:00.001Z

The Collective Village, the base of operations, located in Gourdneck.

The Studio Lab - is the public meet and greet section of the Collective village. This area will be consistantly updated with content, showcaseing the student's work in progress and end of module exhibition work. This space allows the students to explore and simulate curation skills, that are transferable to real life, as well as exploring the potential of second life for presentation of digital design work.
One area of ongoing staff research, especially with this section of the village (and Second Life in general ), is to investigate Second life as a potential form of e-portfolio using it to link and show students ongoing design work, and demonstrate their skills in professionalism and critical engagement.

The Cinema - is a special area for showing students' moving image work. The Students engage with Traditional Animation, Computer generated Animation, and Video Production skills throughout the course. The Cinema gives the students an opportunity to show work to a broader audience, and eventually host their own film festival or moving image promotion. It also allows them to pragmatically investigate video / audio streaming.
It also doubles as our ad-hoc lecture theatre, if we need to support and explore any distance learning opportunities.

(inside the cinema)

Floating 700ms above the ground, is the Collective's Sky Park, which consists of...

The Sandbox is probably the most engaging and process led part of the Second Life experience for the design students. This is a small building area (70ms x 30ms), that allows them to
explore the creation tools and scripting within Second life. Working within a tighter constraint of prims, forces the students to consider and problem solve prim efficient 3D work.
Anything larger scale, they would work within a public sandbox like Newcomb.

The Local Teleport Hub, connects the ground and skypark area, as well as quick teleport to the cinema. This area also doubles as a small chat room / congregation area, when student's are logging in from home.

The Meta-Lab, is my personal workspace, to create and investigate educational tools made in Second life.