1. Phil,

   I’m right with you. This conference is your venue. If someone doesn’t like it, then they should spend the time and energy it takes putting together their own venue. I don’t seem to remember paying any fee to have you set up a venue, blog or website. So it seems to me that this is your call. If people don’t like SL, then they don’t have to attend.

   I am personally tired of people complaining about things thay don’t pay for. It’s one thing to make make, hopefully, helpful remarks about a free venue (God knows that what I do all the time in the Moviestorm forums). But if they are being hard on something they get for free, then they sholdn’t use it.

   I have my own issues with Second Life. The Voice Chat is for some reason harder for me to use than Skype. (In fact I like to to keep a Skype connection open when I’m on SL so I can speak to anyone else on Skype). But that doesn’t stop me from using SL. What is great about SL is the ability to feel that through an avatar there is an immediate community available. It’s like going down to the local coffee shop where I can usually find someone I know. And in the world of Machinima this is increasing valuable.

   Way back in the 60’s, when I attended USC film school, it was held in the former World War I riding stables. And apart from the “unique” local for the school, the center area, formerly reserved for grooming the horses was set up with picnic tables. There the students could be found trading thoughts and helping out in projects. I think this idea of an informal place to meet and exchange ideas is great. Your conferences are doing just that. SL is the only program that I’ve found were you can have a cup of coffe and talk. I’m not saying that other online worlds don’t do this, but I personally have no interest in games so those venues do not attract me.

   Sorry to rant on like this, but I figure if those who don’t like your conferences to be held where you want to try them, should spend all the hours it takes to put these things together and spend their own cash creating their venue.

   Keep up the good work. Your website is truly a starting point for my day (in the same sense that I read the Hollywood Reporter and Variety every morning before I started work at the studios).

   Now if I can only figure out how to use my Voice Chat - see you soon.

   Cheers
   Mike Joyce

   Comment by Mike Joyce — April 16, 2008 @ 12:20 pm

2. Well said, Phil. Your points are exactly the ones I’d make in defense of using Second Life as a meeting place. I’d only like to add that since the meeting there was the first one in SL, naturally we’d be talking more about SL than we will in the future. Personally, I thought the discussion was wide-ranging and not SL-centric. I understand that people have strong feelings about using SL (although I don’t understand the reasons), but compared to any other free medium that hosts large gatherings using voice/text chat with people around the world, SL just can’t be beat. It seems to me that loading SL and going through the one-time avatar creation is about the same as setting up and playing any major game today as far as technical difficulty is concerned. It’s unfortunate that folks find SL a bothersome experience, but (as Overman says) unless a better technical solution to large group discussion is found, Second Life is the best choice at the present time.

   Comment by Ricky Grove — April 16, 2008 @ 12:23 pm

3. In my experience, some gamers are quite religious about their games and have a real hate-on for Second Life so you will never please/convert them no matter how strong the logic - kinda like protesters who protest a movie or show but have never seen it.

   Comment by HatHead — April 16, 2008 @ 12:37 pm

4. Second Life just doesn’t work for my setup. If it did, I’d certainly give it a try. I’ve been pretty busy lately and I don’t think I attended any of the previous conferences though (they were held over Skype, right?) so my opinion doesn’t hold much weight at all. But this is essentially a free service you’re offering. If anything, you’re doing everyone a tremendous favor by trying to coordinate all of this. If they don’t like SL simply because they don’t like SL, then so be it - they don’t have to use it, like Mike said.

   Comment by kradproductions — April 16, 2008 @ 12:56 pm

5. Even if you wanted to hold the talks in GTASA MultiPlayer, I’d do my best to make it work and get there. As long as my ‘puter can run it and I can figure out how it works, I’ll try just about anything once.

   And since the door’s been open for reminiscing, I’m old enough to remember the rotary dial phone in our home and having to pick up the receiver and ask our neighbor when she planned to finish her conversation and let us have a turn at calling someone. We griped mightily about such party lines back then, and now I think it’s the funniest thing how hard we try to get a similar kind of group gabfest going. I know it’s technically not the same, but that’s the blast from the past I get when I’m trying to connect on a VOIP with more than one other person.

   To paraphrase a modern historic remark: “Can’t we all just game along?”

   Comment by FLeeF — April 16, 2008 @ 8:44 pm

6. I wasn’t going to respond, as your decision seems to be made, yet I’m disappointed that most people have kneejerk Second Life fanboi responses, and have entirely missed the point of what I was saying: that these conferences will inevitably be limiting their scope as a result of this decision.

   To address some of the points raised in response:

   WoW is not free - nor is Second Life. Land must be purchased, and, as I understand it, avatar customisation beyond a certain point is also proprietary - so the notion that ‘You can come dressed as a plate of jelly, people do’ isn’t entirely correct. However, it is not even relevant. I merely used WoW’s Public Test Realm (which, by the way, IS free) as an example - as it makes it obvious that I wouldnt expect you to narrow a machinima discussion to a single platform. Yet because Second life has something of a RL appearance to it, it’s somehow ‘okay’. It is not okay. It is still narrowing oneself to a single platform of machinima content creation, and eventually, due to the nature of those who like or dislike that platform, it will limit discussion.

   I am not ‘religiously’ against SL. I am against the narrowing of what I had hoped, from the conference I attended, would be a broadening of input from all realms of machinimaking. I was to be disappointed.

   It does seem that some can’t see beyond, or are comfortable with, the social conventions - and, above all, social fads and ‘trendiness’ - that Second Life comes laden with - including how one ‘dresses’ oneself. If that’s your interest, so be it, if you like ‘dressing up’ but don’t expect this to turn into anything broader than a Second Life conference.

   I’ll address the rather naive misunderstanding in Kate’s statement regarding plate of jelly avatars separately - clearly she does not understand the purpose of separating physical appearance, software platforms or social convention from broader creative discussion. The point is not that I wish to come ‘dressed up’ as anything, the point is that Second Life brings with it a set of Real Life social conventions - and a whole social ’scene’ of its own - which I do not wish to get in the way of machinima discussion. I Wouldnt wish this discussion to be limited or encroached upon by the conventions of WoW kids, so I wouldnt host it in WoW. Same goes for any other platform.

   Our audio discussions were not subject to these limits, which left us free to be cross platform in our discussion and, above all, in our thinking. If the hosts are happy to go with the status quo, I’m disappointed, but I guess my contribution will not be missed.

   Comment by murkdeeps — April 18, 2008 @ 12:04 am

7. Firstly, let me get this out of the way: Second Life is indeed free. No purchase required, no subscription required (ever). Avatar design has no mandatory costs. One could certainly create an avatar that looks like a plate of jelly without purchasing anything, if one has the aptitude for designing it oneself. Land does indeed have a cost, but not for the conference participants, which is who we were looking out for there. Not so with WoW, you must at least buy the client, and to make extended purposeful use of it you must buy their subscription. This is why WoW was ruled out.

   Now, RE: Kate’s “naivety,” apparently I’m naive too. Because firstly, I thought Kate’s response to you was light, friendly, and welcoming; certainly nothing to warrant an attempt to single her out for derision. And secondly, I think you’re way overthinking this whole avatar business. Second Life is a tool. We’re discussing real-time 3d filmmaking in a real-time 3d environment which users can partake in at no expense. The tool is not going to dictate the conversation, and to claim a sense of inevitability about that is, well, very “fortune cookie.” I speak from the experience of having attended many machinima-related events in SL, and I can tell you definitively that what you describe is not what goes on at these events.

   Interacting with others in a 3d environment is a part of the production process for many of the conference participants, and it’s a practice which dates back to machinima’s and multiplayer gaming’s roots. There’s nothing so novel or overwhelming about the practice, certainly nothing that would entirely consume the conversations of anyone but a gathering of utter simpletons.

   As I said, I don’t know how it is everywhere in Second Life with regard to “social conventions.” Frankly, I couldn’t care less. The avatar-obsessed culture you describe is utterly foreign to these events, a fact which will elude you for as long as you choose not to participate there.

   I will tell you bluntly that the veiled insults you’ve turned up the volume on here will not be missed. At all. But your machinima discussion contribution will. Do you genuinely think that deciding to not do what you want here constitutes a desire to reject your contribution? Your closing statement, coupled with the repeated condescension, strikes me as a rather immature reaction to not getting your way, don’t you think? Come on now.

   Comment by Overman — April 18, 2008 @ 3:05 am

8. I think there are two different perspectives in play here — and while I rarely, if ever say this — I think they both have validity.

   Overman, as conference organizer, is looking at Second Life as a technological solution to his problem of getting people together and allowing them to exchange voice and text in a relatively hassle-free manner.

   Murkdeeps, and to some extent myself, are looking at Second Life as a game that we now need to use to participate in the conference.

   Second Life can be used as a tool, and may have merits as a tool, but I don’t think that one can deny that it will always retain some inherent aspect of itself as a game, if only by association, whether the conference participants are exposed to them or not.

   Hosting the conference in Second Life is in a way asking users to “buy into” the Second Life universe and setting, not financially, but now as players. It is certainly a paradigm shift from using a more simple chat client technology more comparable to a telephone, and I don’t think it’s surprising that there are emotional reactions to that.

   On one hand, Overman, not having been able to find anything more suitable or user friendly, wants to organize the conference using Second Life as a tool, asking that users who dislike the game aspect of Second Life ignore it. On the other, the people dislike the game aspect can’t really ignore it.

   To give it a (somewhat unsound, I suppose) real life analogy, it is rather like a club that decides to move meetings to a local church. To the organizers, it may just be a convenient, well situated building with some free space. To members adverse to Christianity, a church may mean something else entirely, something much more than just a building. You can ask them to just “get over it,” and I suppose logically they should, but I don’t think it is unusual that there would be emotional backlash.

   As gamers, we should know that games often have very complex effects on people — and can be loved or hated, to extreme degrees, for reasons that aren’t readily apparent but rather very deep seated psychologically. In my opinion, Ultima 7: Serpent Isle is one of the best games that was ever created. It appeals to me in all the ways that anything could: it is amazingly interactive, it has a very deep story, and the world is tremendously detailed. You can see that it was a labor of love for the team that made it. I occasionally try to show it to other people, but they Just Don’t Get It. Some people hate the tiled 2D graphics. One person couldn’t get past the /font/ that the game used. Things that just sound really stupid to me, and that I can’t identify with or understand. However, these seemingly minor factors were enough to completely throw people off of the game in the first few hours, even after I had spent at least twice as long telling them how great it was. Then they would go off and play games that had no appeal to me whatsoever.

   One of the issues that seems to be common with Second Life, at least between murkdeeps and I, is the one of avatars, and I think that this is actually one of the more common problems in game design. When you create a virtual world such as Second Life, and have a user manifest themselves within that world, the avatar is their representative. It can be somewhat disturbing to be represented by something that you don’t identify with — or even something that you identify with too much. Some people go through great lengths to be someone different online or in a game, and some strive to create accurate representations of their inner or outer selves. The problem with Second Life is that, at least per the default avatars, it doesn’t offer a wide enough range of choice. Perhaps more unfortunately, the choices are constrained to those that too much resemble the real world, and I think that more people are willing to be something completely different online (e.g. the fantasy characters of WoW, Halo, etc.) than another ordinary looking individual.

   Game writers often seem to go through great lengths to ensure that the player can identify with their virtual representation, whether that be a first person hero, or an MMO citizen, as I think they realize that an unappealing virtual representation of the player can sour the entire game experience.

   But backing out of all this, to the original point — as much as one would like, in this instance, for Second Life to just be a tool or just a platform for communication, the fact of it being a virtual world where users are forced to create virtual representations of themselves can bring along psychological baggage that makes this impossible. It’s going to be about more than just a place to talk, no matter how you look at it.

   We all seem to be communicating somewhat badly here, and that’s unfortunate. I am obviously on one side of the fence, but both sides have honest intentions. Overman can’t find any better tools, and some people can’t ignore the game aspects of Second Life.

   As for myself, per the forums, I’m ready to give it a try (mostly because of what you originally wrote, Overman), if I can represent myself in-game in a way that I’m comfortable with — by importing completely custom, animated character models that don’t involve the originals as a base. If anyone has any information on how to do this, it would seem to solve one major issue causing people to dislike the Second Life environment.

   Comment by Elf — April 18, 2008 @ 5:01 am

9. Also, to the people complaining about the people complaining (i.e. “why are you complaining, it’s free!”) — I think that this something of a fallacy.

   If I were the conference organizer, I would want feedback. I would also be able to deal with people expressing varying degrees of anger and frustration, and translate it into productive information. I think that Overman is one of those types of people that would rather have feedback than not, and he seems to be able to process it intelligently. Telling people not to complain, but rather to just leave, is counterproductive to his purposes.

   It is also, in actuality, flattering to Overman that people are complaining about the venue, rather than the conference itself. They enjoy the conference enough to do so. They don’t /want/ to leave, even if that’s how things end up. It certainly doesn’t make it any easier for him to organize it, but I hope it makes him realize how much his efforts are appreciated.

   Comment by Elf — April 18, 2008 @ 5:15 am

10. “Second Life brings with it a set of Real Life social conventions”. I’m finding it interesting how many creative people within SL find ways to live outside the usual social conventions. I tend to think however, that the machinima talks will stick to real time ‘meeting’ social conventions..people taking turns to speak, having an agreed start time..I’m sure a hypothetical conference on a private WOW server (for instance) would do the same because it’s a way of organising events that many are familiar with, and helps communication on the whole. I do wonder if the feelings and pressures that are anticipated by SL first-timers may turn out to be not so bad as imagined, I certainly hope so.

    Comment by Kate — April 18, 2008 @ 7:08 am

11. Phil,
    For all your efforts and those of others like Ricky, I suggest a web site be set up and a fee be charged. Then you guys can hire an administrator and an accountant to run it. Then there should be exclusive groups like the DGA or SAG that can also charge a fee and restrict membership.

    I would like to also comment on the game aspect of Second Life. I personally hate all games (the last good one was Pong - down at the Straw Hat Pizza Parlor). Second Life may be considered a game, but certainly it’s game conventions are no more differnet than getting up and dealing with a Real Life. The only difference to me is that it is free and you can turn it off.

    Comment by Mike Joyce — April 18, 2008 @ 12:08 pm

12. Oh come on guys, is that the best arguments you can come up with not using the best voice solutions on the internet for a meeting? It would be the same as me saying I don’t want to try WOW because I don’t want to feel culturally pressured into looking like a pixie and being forced into doing nothing but magic spells, because I once heard from someone there were pixies and spells in WOW. If you are going to argue the case against having the meeting in SL at least come up with some points on the technical aspects of voice inside SL or something and not some shallow avatar debate, accompanied by hearsay and presumptions with no basis in fact.

    Second Life was set up to be a 3d version of the internet. That is what it is. It is not a game, it never will be. To call it a game is the same as calling the internet a game.

    If you go on the internet and only look at marieclaire.com or bigjugs.com and then come away and say, ooh, the whole of the internet is just virtual sex and people trying to make themselves beautiful and nothing else, is that a fair assumption of the internet? No. Similarly that is not a fair assumption of SL if someone tried SL and found themselves in a virtual pole dancing club with some dressed up avatars and presumed that is all that it was.

    People inside Second Life do whatever they do on the internet. The culture inside reflects the internet and it reflects real life. So people looking for love, look for love, those that like roleplaying, roleplay, those that want to network, network, those that enjoy art, enjoy art etc.

    Real companies, charities, universities are all over SL. They use it as a communication and teaching tool because it is the best available. That is why second life has voice, streaming sound and media features. That is why Overman chose the venue, not because it’s trendy, but because it’s the best thing out there at this moment in time. The vast portions of avatars that attend meetings, seminars, and teaching sessions in SL are default avatars. This is because the whole point of going into SL is that of teaching, discussing, meeting. This is the purpose of the SL machinima meeting. Not one single person cares what anyone’s avatar will look like, because the purpose is discussing machinima and not a fashion parade as you seem to presume that it is.

    In answer to comments above:

    “land must be purchased”. Can you back that up by pointing to the fact? It is simply not true.

    “Real life appearance to it”. A huge proportion of SL is made up of roleplaying sims, anything from vampires, fantasy dragon type, Cyberpunk, Steampunk, Medievel, Dune, Star Trek, anything imaginable.

    “so the notion that ‘You can come dressed as a plate of jelly, people do’ isn’t entirely correct.” It is entirely correct, actually.

    “users who dislike the game aspect of Second Life ignore it. On the other, the people dislike the game aspect can’t really ignore it.” I’ve never come across the game aspect of Second Life, could you tell me what that is?

    “By importing completely custom, animated character models that don’t involve the originals as a base. If anyone has any information on how to do this, it would seem to solve one major issue causing people to dislike the Second Life environment.”

    You will never find this information because it is irrelevant to how things are created inside SL. It is perfectly possible to have a completely custom, animated character model without using default avatars. I don’t myself always go round in a human type form. Feel free to have a look at some of my avatars, and yes they fully animate through animations, scripts, particles, some are very tiny, some larger, and, I have never had a problem getting round SL or felt culturally pressured by not having a human based avatar.

    http://www.flickr.com/photos/25774442@N02/

    Comment by Trace — April 18, 2008 @ 1:10 pm

13. ““land must be purchased”. Can you back that up by pointing to the fact? It is simply not true.”
    :: In that case, you may want to correct this wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_estate_(Second_Life) (”Premium members (users who pay a monthly fee to Linden Labs) have the ability to own land. Landowners pay no additional fees to Linden Lab if they own 512 m² or less. An owner of larger areas of land must pay an increasing additional fee (what Linden Lab calls “tier”) ranging from US$5 a month up to US$295 a month for an entire 65,536 m² of land or individual island.”). Also, in addition to this page: http://secondlife.com/whatis/landpricing.php

    I suppose purchased is somewhat of a misnomer. Rented, then?

    “Second Life was set up to be a 3d version of the internet. That is what it is. It is not a game, it never will be. To call it a game is the same as calling the internet a game.”
    :: It holds game-like conventions and therefore causes the same problems in people as a game. Whether it is actually a game or not is irrelevant, the point is that people react to it as they would a game.

    “You will never find this information because it is irrelevant to how things are created inside SL. It is perfectly possible to have a completely custom, animated character model without using default avatars.”
    :: Well forgive me for being irrelevant, but this is simply the process whereby custom content is brought into every other game known to man.

    If I were a gambler, I would have no problem betting that Linden Research also used one of the more popular 3D packages to design their original character models — since the control required to make a good looking model from scratch can only be had with the User Interfaces that the creators of these packages have spent years upon years developing. If Second Life is incapable of bringing in animated character data from an external source, then I suppose that answers my question, and you could have just said so.

    “If you are going to argue the case against having the meeting in SL at least come up with some points on the technical aspects of voice inside SL or something and not some shallow avatar debate, accompanied by hearsay and presumptions with no basis in fact.”
    :: So you can continue to deride our concerns, or you could provide me with the rather straightforward bit of technical information that I asked for. I probably won’t respond to you again, as I don’t want to get into a /fight/ about Second Life (whereas before I was having a /discussion/). I spent some time trying to provide people with my perspective; it’s too bad you don’t get it.

    Comment by Elf — April 18, 2008 @ 3:15 pm

14. This whole discussion really just reminds me of a YouTube comment I received recently that said “I really loved your Sims videos, So sad you turned out to be an SL neko” .. such blatant ignorance at the fact that underneath our plates of jelly and elven ears we are *surprise* flesh and blood humans.

    @Elf- Please use your ambition to advance the understanding/promotion of machinima rather than spending your time critiquing the efforts of those that are actually out there trying too. Using the case that people suffer “psychological babbage” over the ‘representations’ of an avatar is just as ignorant as the YouTube poster above. The conference is about machinima, not about the platforms being used to hold a conference. If you can create a better environment than the one being used by RL companies and universities, please save us all from the psychological misrepresentations of our inner selves. Srsly.

    @Phil- This is only a reminder that you can never please every person out there obviously, don’t let it hinder you from pressing forward. A bump in the road is nothing to turn off the engine for.

    @FleeF- “Can’t we all just game along?”…right said!

    Comment by Jovial — April 18, 2008 @ 3:20 pm

15. I think there’s been a bit of a misunderstanding with regard to the topic of land purchases. The issue of land purchase was first raised in the context of Second Life being FREE or not. Purchase of land is wholly optional, it is not required to participate in Second Life. Therefore, basic participation in Second Life (which is all that is required to come to the conferences) is FREE. You do not have to be a landowner or land renter to connect to Second Life and do a wide variety of things - including construction of objects, buildings, etc. Many people do their construction in public sandbox areas and then store their creations in their inventory. Many people learned how to do so using the self-paced interactive tutorials. Many people populate their inventory with pickings from the astoundingly huge variety of free objects, skins, attachments, textures, animations, sounds, etc. No cost is associated with any of these functions.

    No one has stated that land is free, it is only the sense of “MUST” - which implies it is less than optional - that has been disputed. Same goes for custom content for avatars, etc. Yes, they cost money if you buy them… but you are not required to buy them; they can be made. Or custom content can be ignored.

    No one who would come to the conference hosted in Second Life is required to spend ANY money to do so. That was the advantage I was originally attempting to call attention to. The fact that one CAN choose to spend money does not make participation any less expenditure-free for those who would have it so.

    @Jovial- No worries, I’m not discouraged.

    Comment by Overman — April 18, 2008 @ 3:57 pm

16. Well then, forgive me for trying to explain myself. I suppose your lack of empathy with the given explanation makes me ignorant. I certainly won’t make that mistake again.

    In any case some of these responses have certainly cleared up my thinking on the matter. As the one thing that actually isn’t sarcastic in this reply: please do enjoy your future conferences — there is definitely a good thing going, and it seems to have changed a bit, but that’s okay. It’s reaching new audiences, and people seem to be enjoying it. I’ll miss the conferences, but such is life.

    Comment by Elf — April 18, 2008 @ 4:06 pm

17. @Elf: “forgive me for being irrelevant, but this is simply the process whereby custom content is brought into every other game known to man.”

    It is indeed, respectfully dismissing the characterization of SL as part of the subset “games.” But SL is different than any game. Importing a fully constructed /skinned / animated 3d model from an outside source is indeed not relevant to how SL works. SL has a 3d model builder right there in the simulator, with the ability to work with various primitives via rotate / scale / position, combine them into new objects, import and then apply / map textures (including textures which can be brought in as a kind of heightmap to create custom “shaped” prims. Animation can be performed by either using or importing BVH-like animations, or via the elaborate scripting language built in to the world. Construction is intended to take place within the world, not outside of it, and all tools necessary to get the job done are accessible in the world, all in real-time 3d.

    To see the SL building process in action, check out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQL8_HB1HtQ

    To see an example of custom animated characters and scripted object behavior, check out:
    http://www.gamevideos.com/video/id/6841

    Comment by Overman — April 18, 2008 @ 4:13 pm

18. @Overman - ah, ok. Thank you for the video, that explains a bit of it. Is there no way, though, to bring in content from traditional 3D packages? Modeling can be a very difficult process, and I’d feel at a loss without my Maya toolset.

    Also comment #16 was in response to #14, not you; it appears we posted at similar times.

    Comment by Elf — April 18, 2008 @ 4:18 pm

19. @Elf - re: #16 / #14, understood.

    There’s no way to bring it in directly at this time. I *believe* that even the default character models were not imported, but were built in the engine itself. I think this due to the degree of reshaping that is possible - to a degree far more than the relatively simple facial morphs in The Sims 2, for example.

    However, the sculpted prims route does provide a route to getting the shape in there. This tutorial shows the process for a simple model: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzgb2BrOjbw The animations require quite a bit more work. If the animations in question don’t translate well to the BVH framework (which can be imported for characters), then you’ll probably have to get the custom animation done by way of SL scripting. It would be a daunting task for a complicated model, at least for me, but it is doable. I’ve seen all manner of relatively convincing animals running around SL, for example.

    Comment by Overman — April 18, 2008 @ 4:33 pm

20. Ah ok. Thank you for providing these examples; they have increased my understanding of the process by which most of the custom avatars are generated.

    Would it be possible to import the base model via a series of “sculpted prims,” which seem to be static objects, but then animate it as a deformable mesh (in the regular character animation fashion) using the game’s tools? I.e. model externally, rig/animate internally. Another way of stating the question may be: are “sculpted prims,” individually, deformable by existing bone animation the same way any other model built within SL would be?

    Comment by Elf — April 18, 2008 @ 5:19 pm

21. Elf- I’m not as un-empathetic as you might think. I just find it a shame so many people look at the default noobie avatars and write all of SL off completely when its really a beautiful open-sourced project for us all to add to.

    If you are good with sculpties… you would find yourself rich in RL via SL in no time. You cannot animate sculpties (separately from the av) the same way the avatar skeleton is done, but there are scripting programs to animate them and I’ve seen really nice work in that area. Skeletal animation (which is what I do in SL aside from machinima), is something that needs improvement. Right now, there are limitations to the rig itself, ie: no way to animate fingers, or create custom facial animations.. the SL presets are from Poser. If you could bring about a change to the rigging of SL avatars, I’m certain Linden Labs and the SL population would love you for life.

    Don’t look at SL as tho its some sort of finished project that will never gain improvement.. all the necessary keys are there to let people come and improve the world itself.Much like RL technology grows, so does SL’s. Anyone that can add to it is most certainly welcomed with open arms. But change requires ones eyes to be fully open to begin with…even if you don’t like what you see at first, its vision and dedication that makes change.

    Comment by Jovial — April 18, 2008 @ 6:15 pm

22. “Second Life was set up to be a 3d version of the internet. That is what it is. It is not a game, it never will be. To call it a game is the same as calling the internet a game.”
    :: It holds game-like conventions and therefore causes the same problems in people as a game. Whether it is actually a game or not is irrelevant, the point is that people react to it as they would a game.

    ****
    Since I don’t ever play video or computer games, I would have to disagree. And if someone told me that I was trapped in ‘game-like conventions’ whether or not I experienced or perceived it, I would point out that Second Life has no default leveling/scoring scheme nor any imposed objectives/achievements to accomplish. Second Life is simply rudimentary online, real time, 3D internet platform.

    Comment by HatHead — April 18, 2008 @ 8:54 pm

23. I’m late to the party here, Why are y’all obsessing so much about what you look like or whether second like has Game connotations. Aren’t we all in this machinima thing because we’ve all come to the realization that “Games” can be used for other things? and why worry about what you look like if all you’re gonna do in second life is chat for a few hours. Nobody cares if you look like a Giant naked blob man. You’re not there to gawk, you’re just there to chat! Whee!

    Comment by zachariah — April 19, 2008 @ 5:55 pm

24. That’s easy for you to say, Zach! Last time you showed up as Giant Naked Blob Man!

    LOL

    Comment by Overman — April 19, 2008 @ 9:35 pm

25. OMG it’s THAT guy!

    Seriously though, I think Zach is bang on. Install it, show up to wherever we’re doing it, hang and chat for a few hours then leave. Not really seeing why there needs to be such a philosophical discussion about it.

    Effing artists.

    Comment by CJ — April 20, 2008 @ 8:07 am

RSS feed for comments on this post.   TrackBack URI

Leave a comment... or, take it to the forum (click here)