Second Life: Freya Ophelia

I had been trying to create animations with QAvimator but, even after much research and contemplation, I still felt like the project needed more direction. Astro Pow suggested tapping into other features of Sl that an avatar could respond to, such as the landscape, or the proximity of other avatars. I asked one of my SL friends if it was possible for avatars to sense such things, and he gave me a great object, which, lo and behold, also had the script up for viewing. The object is a radar that can be worn on your avatar. Once worn, you can click on other avatars and the radar will tell you their proximity and also the proximity of the other avatars around. This means CG and I could create different animations as responses to the proximity and number of other avatars around. For example, we could make an animation of an avatar fainting, and tell that animation to automatically play when "x" number of avatars are "y" distance away. It's a slight shift from the study of movement to the study of personal space, but the objective of creating unique animations and implementing them through scripting still applies. We have our work cut out for us, but now that we have a strong sense of direction I feel like we can tackle it.

To add some substance to our final project I've started researching how movement (specifically walking) has evolved over time. I figure understanding and possibly recreating the stages of movement through animations could help me understand what a future way of walking may entail. I have to be careful not to stay too true to reality though. Second Life is unique in that it's NOT limited to reality. Plus, if I was simply trying to predict and animate how a human may walk in the future, I certainly wouldn't use a program as simple as Avimator, I would use something like magentic based motion capture. What I'm hoping is that this research will give me a base of knowledge and spur some ideas of how to create a unique state of movement relative to the virtual SL environment.

On a side note, check out these adult siblings who can only walk on all fours that I stumbled across while researching. It's like reverse evolution. Hum.

So I found a script that reassigns the avatar movement keys (up and down arrows) to control an object instead of an avatar. Though I don't know exactly how to use it, I think this is going to be key in our project. With this script we can, hopefully, assign the movement keys to control the playing/stopping of an animation.



if ( change & held & CONTROL_FWD )
{ // the "move forward" control has been activated.
if( position.z < (startPosition.z + 10.0) )
{
llSetPos( llGetPos() + < 0, 0, 1.0 >); // move up
}
}
else if ( change & held & CONTROL_BACK )
{ // the "move backward" key has been activated.
if( position.z > groundLevel + 1.0 )
{
llSetPos( llGetPos() + < 0, 0, -1.0 >); // move down
}

This final project is kind of looming over my head. I met up with Chris to discuss it (in real life…I would rather talk to real Chris than a panda bear) and we decided to work on altering states of movement. So, for example, instead of walking everywhere on your feet, your avatar would back flip everywhere, or walk on their hands everywhere. I think our environment has an interesting effect on our bodies and our motion. The first “human” beings on earth had a much different stature and way of moment, tailored to their environment and needs. Years later, in the present day and age, our bodies have morphed to fit our current environment and needs. No longer hunters and gatherers, our entire way of moving has changed. What are the implications of a virtual environment on movement? Seemingly none, in SL anyway. The movement is pretty arbitrary; you can walk or you can fly. But then again, a lot of environmental conditions are the same in SL as they are in RL, resulting in similar needs, and, I suppose, similar ways of movement. To me this is strange, because the world of SL seems so limitless, yet we’re all very limited in movement. I’m not talking about gestures (though those seem to mostly mimic real life as well) but the actual way the avatars get from place to place.

I think the way to change the way an avatar walks is to create a new animation, in Poser probably, then attach that animation to the avatar (maybe through an object?) Chris noticed that when an avatar holds a cup that they constant lift their arm to their mouth to drink. This gives hope to what we want to do…it is possible to attach a script/animation to an object that changes the motion of an avatar. I found the actual animation for walking in SL today. Though I can’t see the properties, the animation does have an owner, and a message to him is as good a place to start as any.

Freya was no help at all during my search for a start on this project…she kept wandering off to freebie boxes or to play piano or something…..it’s so hard to stay on task in SL!!!

"Buckbee, who is initially focusing on creating 3- to 7-inch statuettes of Second Life avatars, meets clients as his in-game persona, "Hal9k Andalso," and takes the screenshots necessary to turn their digital selves into polymer using the rapid prototyping machines common in industrial design firms. "

...are you SERIOUS? A little statue of your avatar? Come on!? I thought the point of SL was to escape reality, and here we have someone turning the virtual back into the real. I guess people are more attached to their avatars than I thought. Identity has always been a strong pull of SL though. When asked what draws people to second life, the creator of SL said: "Identity ... If you went to Australia, you could be a new you. The thing about "Second Life" is, it's a pretty potent offering that way, right? In the real world you can't change the way you look when you walk in."

So I suppose if people are drawn to the change in identity, they would want that virtual identity to become as much of a reality as possible, hence the real life avatar statue...but still...isn't the main draw of having a virtual identity the ability for infinite change? A statue of your avatar is always going to look the same. I don't know, the whole thing sounds preposterous to me.

I’ve been rooting for SL from the start. I think learning and meeting virtually is the way of the future. But one thing the classroom has that SL doesn’t is dependability. The classroom is never down for maintenance. The classroom is never lagged. The classroom, as much as I hate it, is always there. Second life, on the other hand, seems to be riddled with problems. Before we can take meeting in a virtual environment for educational purposes seriously, we need to take a long hard look at technical difficulties.

My group and I also had difficulties getting our project together because of the stipulations SL puts on objects. We each made our separate parts, but when it came down to having one person pick them all up, the trouble began. In the end, I had made such a debacle of our project Tyler said “you just keep working on that” and he snuck off and started over. Maybe I just don’t understand the settings for sharing objects, or maybe SL really was making it difficult, but either way, the experience was frustrating.

I saw an art showing under "events" in SL the other day. Upon arriving I was very confused...I knew I teleported to the right place, but I didn't see any art. Another avatar tipped me off when he said "this is a really nice piece" while standing in front what I had previously dismissed as part of the landscape. These were the pieces in the show?



This art show, much like the power point presentation I spoke about in an earlier blog, is a sad misuse of Second Life. This artist took what is normally conisdered "art" in the real world and translated it to SL, and did a poor job at that. The pieces generally consisted of one prim, and a photograph taken in real life was used as the texture. I understand that simplicity is sometimes brilliant, but these pieces were simple in a way that didn't work. Why not exploit all the assets of SL that don't exist in the real world? Why poorly recreate reality? I can't wait until our class starts working on their final projects. We're going to blow this "artist" out of the water.