The stunning machinima made by Pepa Comata about The 1920s Berlin Project in Second Life has been watched over 10.000 times since it was uploaded two weeks ago!
It has been picked up by a few websites and shared on Facebook and twitter, reaching an audience beyond those who know and use Second Life already.
A nice article about the video was published on ‘The Creators Project’, you can read it by clicking here.
They have close to a million ‘likes’ on Facebook and amongst these readers quite a few were impressed even if some were surprised to learn Second Life was still even around.
One viewer commented;
I’ve been meaning to uninstall Second Life from my pc. Good thing I didn’t.
On twitter the video was also shared and received a few wonderful compliments;
@RoblemVR@1920sberlin Beautiful piece of art to be experienced. infact this kinda aesthetics are essential & also the missing piece in vr
This shows the power of well made, good looking machinima but of course also of networking and social media.
People are impressed and intrigued, not just with our 1920s Berlin sim but also with Second Life still being around and looking this good.
It also shows why it is so important to try and offer as many users as possible a visually pleasing experience when visiting Second Life.
Right now a minority get to experience our virtual world the way it looks in this video.
Having graphics set to ultra and shadows on is something many computers can’t handle.
That is why I hope Sansar will be able to do that for more users or that LL will at least offer a streaming service.
About a year ago, I wrote an article called ‘Music videos shot in Second Life and why we need more of them.’ and in it I mentioned a video by Pepa Cometa as a good example of what is possible.
I’m so glad she choose to accept my invitation to come to Berlin and make this wonderful video.
Let’s hope many more videos like this one are made, they allow us to show the world that SL CAN look good and is about more than just shopping and hanky panky.
Recently a journalist who wanted to write about Second Life did the right thing, he asked for help.
As soon as reporter Eric Grundhauser realised how massive our virtual world was and how impossible it would be to write a proper article about it without exploring it for many days, he reached out to Linden Lab and asked for a guide.
Linden Lab pointed him in the direction of one of the best guides imaginable, Ziki Questi.
She showed him some of SL’s most impressive sims (but forgetting the best one, mine ;)) and the result is a rather nice, positive article about Second Life.
One to counter all those negative stories with.
But he didn’t forget to mention the more adult side, luckily, unlike with most media, it was not the main focus of his story.
The story was published on a website called ‘Atlas Obscura‘, “the definitive guide to the world’s wondrous and curious places.”, as they describe themselves.
So not a tech website, not a blog about games or virtual reality, but more like a travel guide for those interested in the unusual.
It is very interesting that they choose to publish a story about a virtual destination, I like that a lot.
Make sure you read it, you can find it by clicking here.
But a few days later Wagner James Au on his website ‘New World Notes’, wrote an article about the Atlas Obscura article that was rather surprising to many.
He felt that the adult side of Second Life, ugly outdated sims and things such as lag, old graphics, etc. did not get enough attention and that the article thus “presents a distorted picture of Second Life that ultimately does a disservice to SL and its best creators, while doing nothing to help grow its userbase.”
You can read his entire article by clicking here, make sure you also read the comments below it.
Unsurprisingly many Second Life users were confused, annoyed and angry about his story.
Finally the media writes something positive about our virtual world and now this.
Honour McMillan wrote an interesting reply to Wagner’s story here on her blog and of course there was lots of talking about the subject on Twitter and plurk.
So Drax and I decided to invite Hamlet to our little attic studio in Berlin (AKA Skype) and interviewed him.
I think the result is rather interesting, an edited (for time) version will be part of the Drax Files Radio Hour to go online this Friday and we will also put the complete unedited interview online.
I personally think that just because sims are catagorised as adult, they don’t necessarily are ‘rated Adult for extreme sexual and violent content’.
Interestingly enough yesterday Linden Lab organised a ‘Inworld Linden meet up’ in the adult themed (stunningly wonderful) sim Basilique Town… where public nudity or even (wearing or walking around in?) underwear is not allowed!
And although the place has a few corners here and there where the rules are more relaxed and hanky panky probably goes on somewhere, these areas are for members only.
So their rating as adult may be legitimate, I definitely wouldn’t call it a sex sim, if it was, I wouldn’t even dare visit it, Lindens or no Lindens.
Then again, my rating system would be even worse, I’m such an old fashioned prude, I’d probably rate 99% of SL as perverted.
I mean some women walk around with skirts that don’t cover their knees!
I also think that a lot has to do with the words you use.
For instance Hamlet says Second Life is dying, I’d prefer to say it is declining or even better; evolving into the Next Generation virtual world that Linden Lab is working on now.
Anyway, I’ll leave the rest of my opinions to the interview we did with Wagner, a link to our podcast will be shared here on this blog, and on of course on the Draxfiles website as soon as the show is online.
Even though the fact that many people don’t even know Second Life (still) exists is a big problem for Linden Lab and us who are enthusiastic about this online world, I still think that the bad reputation our virtual place has is also something that needs to be fixed.
And although that may not be possible, or at least not something we can completely get rid of till SL 2.0 comes around, I can’t help thinking about new ideas and schemes that might make it easier for people like me, who are out of the virtual closet, to share the brilliance of that place where I spend so much time with people who don’t know much or anything about Second Life.
That is why I get excited every time I find something that makes Second Life look good, that shows that there really is more to our virtual world than shopping, playing Barbie and Ken or hanky panky
It can be wonderful screenshots, a great documentary series or a stunning music video.
So anyway, one of the things that I think can be wonderful advertising for Second Life is a well made music video.
You know, sometimes these go ‘viral’, as you kids call it these days, as disgusting as that may sound, that is a good thing.
That is why I am asking you, folks in SL who are artistic, who can make good super high quality videos, who can sing, make music, build amazing places, etc, etc, to get together and make stunning music videos.
If your video turns out amazing, everybody wins.
The performer gets publicity, the machinima maker gets publicity and SL gets publicity!
You may all even get little famous.
The internet is full of Second Life videos but most of these are about grieving, drama, getting married, having babies or other sorts of things that either make SL look bad or are just very difficult to understand for outsiders.
I’ve also seen a few music videos but they only show avatars dancing, often half naked, to awful music, there is nothing that appeals to me, that is visually stunning or original.
Or they are interesting but whoever made it used an old computer with bad graphics, visited sims that haven’t been updated since 2007 or weren’t very good at editing, etc.
So go on, artists, performers, machinima makers, get together.
Feel free to use the comments section here to find others to work with and start making music videos.
These are generally not too long, don’t need long complicated stories, can use stunning visuals without having to justify just throwing in a pretty picture and if the video is good it helps the music and if the music is good it helps the video.
Of course you can also use an already well know song as basis for your video, as long as you have permission to use the recording.
In my view a music video is a rather good way to reach a wider audience.
A great example of what I think is absolutely wonderful is this old video I’ve only just discovered.
It was uploaded months ago by Pepa Cometa but only the other day did she also upload a bit of it to Flickr where I stumbled upon it.
So you may have already seen it a million times, it may have been blogged about before, I don’t care, it is new to me.
It was filmed at “H220”, a moody location created by Squonk Levenque and Miuccia Klaar, unfortunately the sim no longer exists.
The song is unfortunately not by an SL artist but by the wonderful Mumford & sons.
I think it is stunning, something I’ll be glad to share with people who’ve never heard of Second Life or have a negative view of it.
I hope to be able to share more amazing Second Life music videos soon, got any, share them in the comments!
Enjoy this wonderful video and start making your own!;
And, thank you Pepa Cometa for the tip, here is another rather wonderful SL music video, this one made by Erythro Asimov, with Cica Ghost;
Another tip, by owldragonash, intoduced me to the wonderful videos by Nina Caplin (Fuchsia nightfire), like this one with music from an actual SL artist BlindBoy Gumbo!
Jo Yardley's Second Life 