Looking back on the Old and into the New
A New Years wish- Steelers to win the superbowl!!
Hey everyone! It is a new year and with a new year comes new opportunities. Instead of jumping into twenty eleven, I wanted to update you on our whereabouts in 2010:
We had the opportunity to make a machinima about Gronstedt Group’s new hurricane simulation training sim for their client, CUNY:
Link: http://www.vimeo.com/15312707
We then teleported- to a new Virtual World! We made 6 educational videos about Congress to be shared with students in schools around the country. I can’t reveal too much about this, but I will instead be able to share the final cuts in a few weeks- coming soon! Featured videos include the Rotunda, the Capitol Building, House of Representatives, and the Senate.
I also got to work with a medical startup in the ‘burgh. I’m really interested in seeing where the medical world takes machinima, so this was a great opportunity that could extend into some training videos on products. Their “avatar” movie as they liked to call it was presented in place of a Powerpoint, which proved to be successful.
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I went a little paparazzi on #SL7B. Pics from my favorite booths!
I guess you need a big cake to feed all the wonderful artists!
Going to Second Life’s 7th Birthday Fiesta makes me feel a peculiar way.. like peeling off (ok.. going into inventory and detaching) my flip flops and sinking my feet into the grass to people watch all the cool hipsters and their artwork. Every year, Second Life celebrates its birthday by offering a free plot of land to every artist, engineer, scientist, videographer, etc.- basically if you are part of a collaborative effort, you’re in! With that land, you can anything as long as it stays mature and reasonable, but you get a limited number of prims (basically, there’s only so many “objects” you can make on this land). In fact, the prim amount is so low that it’s hard to sacrifice. Sometimes, you have to go a little more simple with your exhibit. Ironically, I see a lot of people going all out too– What is their secret sauce??
Anyways, trying to view all the exhibits is overwhelming! A popular blogger, Dusan Writer once said something along the lines of this, that Second Life is the largest collaborative, creative venture on the planet. Where else can all these different types of people come together and show off their talents? You can visit each booth, and a lot of times you get greeted by the actual artist and they try to give you a lot of free stuff. I went a little paparazzi on the thing today and tried to capture my favorite booths. I’ll share a few snaps with some select words– enjoy!!
Fluidity of Movement in Avatars
At times, puppeteering an avatar for a machinima shoot feels a lot like you’re a mad scientist probing at your Frankenstein creation. Suddenly, your creation comes alive and it looks gorgeous on the exterior, but then it stands up, takes a couple steps, and you realized you’ve created a clumsy disaster.
The standard Second Life animations that come with a newbie avatar are very short of impressive. Their feet kind of slide across the floor, they needlessly spread their legs apart with every position. With machinima, this can turn heads away to tune in elsewhere. How can the audience relate to the characters in the story when those characters use their hands in a dorky typing motion to communicate?
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