Steven Pielberg has just signed up for ‘Ready Player One’, the adaptation of one of the biggest and well known books on Virtual Reality of the same name.
He will also produce the movie.
This is great news, at least if you’re a Spielberg fan, and I am.
It means that it will become a big budget movie and it will look swell.
And what perfect timing!
Everyone is talking about VR at the moment and by the time this film comes out the Oculus Rift will very likely already be used in quite a few households.
Wouldn’t it be rather wonderful if Second Life Next Generation will be made public at the same time…
Either way, everyone will be comparing the Virtual World Spielberg is going to create and the one Linden Lab is working on, so it better be good!
Many, if not most users in Second Life love to be anyone but themselves in Virtual Reality.
But some of us, including myself, would actually love to have their avatar, or at least one of their avatars, look like an exact or only slightly improved versions of their real life selves.
And if VR is going as big as some of us think it will be, we may eventually end up using our avatars for more than Second Life.
Imagine one day using your avatar (Second Life, High Fidelity or Facebook World) to go visit your family who live on the other side of the world.
I bet your aunt might not be too keen to see you appear in her virtual living room covered in scars waving a sword around and wearing a suit or armour, or see you the way you looked when you were dancing on a bar in a ‘special interest’ kind of club last night…
She’d want to see you look the way you do.
And one day when we use VR to do all sorts of things, you may even be invited for a job interview or a chat with a bank manager in VR, again a situation where you may not want to show up looking like Satan or a kitten with a hat on.
Even though nobody can say no to kittens with hats on.
Either way, I think it would be fantastic if Second Life Next Generation would have a tool that makes it al lot easier to make your avatar look like you and in a discussion on the SLUniverse forums I bumped into the two videos below that show some rather cool tech doing just that.
I think that even for people who do not want their avatar to look like them, this could be very interesting.
Because if by using a camera or even a motion sensor device such as Kinect or Leap Motion, you could create an avatar in SL, you would at least end up with a realistic proportioned avatar as a foundation.
Turning it then into a giant, elf, furry or child would be even more fun and you would always have this real grown up body to use as a template, something to compare your fantasy avatar with.
Or maybe you want to give your fantasy avatar your RL face or parts of it.
Anyway, I just think this is rather interesting and fun stuff that I’d love to use in Second Life, so enjoy;
Thank you Wolkenreiter for posting these on the SLUniverse forums.
The SL Go team keeps up the good job of opening up lines of communication with its users.
They already have a busy inworld group and an island location you can visit but now there is also a SL Go Facebook Group and page!
Although many of us, especially those who are avatars, really dislike Facebook, but it is still one of the best and most used social media tools out there.
The Facebook page will be a great way to stay up to date with the latest news, improvements and special deals, while the Facebook group will be a place where you can share your amazing pictures, ask for help or interact with other SL Go users and the SL Go team.
SL Go has just announced that from now on the Firestorm viewer is available for mobile devices including Android and iOS but not the official Linden Lab viewer.
I quote from the Press release;
OnLive is thrilled to announce today that due to overwhelming demand from our community of SL Go users, we are making the Firestorm Viewer available for mobile devices including Android and iOS. Due to current technical limitations, we are only able to offer one viewer for mobile devices. Our studies have shown that the SL Go community prefers the Firestorm Viewer, and now they can enjoy the same rich experience on their mobile devices.
Of course the LL viewer still works on PC and Mac computers, but for mobile devices you now will have to use Firestorm.
For me this is not a bad thing, I ever only use Firestorm for Second Life and I don’t use any mobile devices anyway.
But for others it means they have one less choice and may even have to start getting used to the Firestorm viewer.
But it is not surprising, although worrying for Linden Lab (or should be) that the majority of viewers prefer the Firestorm viewer.
The SL go team also said that they hope to “bring this same choice to mobile devices soon, but still have some technical hurdles to overcome.”.
As I’ve written, it allows me to enjoy Second Life the way it should be enjoyed in all its visual glory and even on my 6 year old MacBook.
Not to mention that it revitalized my love for virtual photography.
But it costs money, of course it does, there is no escaping that, but well, money is money and as a Dutch person, spending even a cent breaks my heart.
Yes we cloggies are cheap penny pinchers.
Something else that costs money and that doesn’t make me very happy is my Second Life premium account.
I have one, I think because I once needed one to buy land, but it has never been very rewarding.
Now and then I get a gift which, if it isn’t 1920s themed (and it never is) is of no use to me, I get a Linden home, which I’ve never even visited and that most people don’t seem to be very keen on, etc, etc.
I’m sure some people are very happy with it, but it doesn’t do much for me.
The only things I like(d) about the premium account is the live chat support (until they decided to drastically cut the opening hours) and getting some land, even though I of course no longer needed that once I got my own region.
Premium account costs about $9.95, you get a dollar in Lindens back each month, so its roughly $8.70 a month.
SL Go costs $9.95 a month.
And I know it is probably a bit of a silly idea, some wild plan, but I’ve been wondering about combining SL Go with the SL premium account.
Hear me out.
What if… the SL Go team and Linden Lab had a long chat and made a nice deal;
Every one in SL with a premium account gets SL Go for free, or with a huge discount.
I think it would make getting a premium account a lot more interesting for a lot of SL users and although it is not a huge source of income for LL, it is a regular and steady monthly income.
Of course it would also cost money, but I reckon SL Go might be willing to give LL a discount, after all they would be very happy with such a huge amount of new users.
I reckon that some SL Go users might also get interested in other Onlive services and thus create a new source of revenue.
Now I am the first to admit that I have no idea about the business side of how SL Go works or what the premium accounts actually mean to LL, so none of this may make any sense.
The money and business people at Linden Lab have to look at this and see if there is something here or if crazy Dutch woman is dreaming again.
But at this moment, Linden Lab has to host several regions full of houses for premium account holders, houses most of us are not that excited about.
This costs LL money or at least some recourses.
Not to mention the ‘Exclusive Experience’ they build and host for premium users, the gifts and activities.
Premium accounts cost LL some money.
By replacing all these extra’s with one actual useful gift of free SL Go, I think most premium account holders would not only be very happy but it would become very interesting to other SL users to actually get a premium account.
And if I am totally wrong about this, there is one other option that would work for both Sl Go and Linden Lab; The SL Premium Plus account.
In stead of paying $9.95 a month, you pay $15,- and for this you get SL Go on top of your premium account.
So nothing really changes with the premium account, but for 5 bucks extra you get SL go on top of it.
SL Premium Go!
SL Go Pro!
Again, this is just a crazy idea, I have no idea about all the facts and figures, the economical and financial parts of this idea and what kind of deal would make this beneficial for both SL Go AND Linden lab… and us users!
I just think that it would be an interesting idea to see if we can somehow combine these two things.
Making both the SL premium accounts more attractive and allowing more people to enjoy Second Life the way it should be enjoyed, with full ultra graphics, on mobile devices and with next to no lag.
This in the end will also help Linden Lab with improving Second Life’s reputation because us SL Go users are uploading a lot of really amazing screenshots… and who knows, in the future we may even be able to use SL Go to upload video or perhaps even stream it.
Can you imagine the impression all those videos made in SL with ultra graphic settings and almost no lag will make?
I can…
So what do you think?
Crazy and silly idea or is there something interesting here?
Perhaps you have a better idea?
Let us know, share your suggestions in the comments section below!
today on the show = linden ceo ebbe altberg reveals next gen vw secrets & director of sl engineering oz linden [at 35:25] confidently addresses educators at vwbpe.
SL Go keeps improving and trying new things, which makes it rather exciting!
They actually listen to their customers and seem to know what we would like to see and things we want to change.
One of the issues some people have had with the SL Go service is that they had to use their credit card and share personal information when signing up, even for the trial.
I can totally understand that because I don’t even have a credit card!
But now, as a sort of trial, for a limited time, you can actually sign up with a new user account and pay for it INWORLD!
Yep, just go to the SL Go island, find the sign up center and give it a go!
Because of the complexity, the SL Go team are trying this out with a limited number of people, just to how popular it will be.
If everything works out and people enjoy using this easy payment option, they’ll probably make it an official payment option to all.
I wanted to check with them if this could also allow people from countries where SL Go is not yet available (like Germany) could bypass that rule and get to sign up and start using the service anyway, that is why my story is a little late.
To find out what the situation was, I checked with Dennis Harper, the senior product manager.
According to him this option was not a solution for people in Germany as they still have legal restrictions from distributing games in that country.
As a result of my question they have decided to add a disclaimer at the sign up board and they promised to give full L$ refunds to anyone who signed up and just can’t use SL Go.
If this is you, just contact their support team at; support@onlive.com
If you are already a signed up SL Go user, you can’t switch to the inworld account just yet.
SL Go costs about L$650 a week, which is less than a hotel room at the Adlon in my 1920s Berlin sim!
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!
show #61 ![Aech's Chatroom in SL [pic by Austin Tate]](https://joyardley.files.wordpress.com/2015/03/aechs-chatroom-in-sl-pic-by-austin-tate.png)
Aech’s Chatroom in SL [pic by Austin Tate] – but when checked today = no more ready player one reference in sl….
aech’s chat room in sl is no more 
sl official and sl fs go 
another ex-linden at the competition [improbable in this case] – my high fidelity world is up…
