Recently well known Second Life machinima maker Amelie Marcoud made a wonderful almost 17 minutes long video completely filmed in 1920s Berlin in the style of a silent movie.
The end result is very impressive, you can see it here;
Today Amelie announced that the video has been selected for a film festival;
It brings me so much joy to know that The Fiancée has been selected by an international film festival called Lift-Off. The film will be shown on Vimeo-On-Demand next month, amongst other magnificent filmmakers; some of which worked with Disney’s Pixar. I never thought any of my work could make a SL/RL crossover, it feels surreal. Once again thank you to everyone involved in the film and cheers to our first film laurels!
It is very exciting that this wonderful video filmed in our 1920s Berlin Project is now getting the attention it deserves. Congratulations to cast and crew!
Today Linden Lab released a new Sansar video, an official sort of smooth trailer/teaser for the general public.
The narrator speaks English, proper British English, which is always a good idea.
And I’m not just saying that because I’m and anglophile.
She describes Sansar as revolutionary and unlike anything the world has ever seen before, I can almost hear my Second Life avatar slamming her fists on the inside of the computer screen shouting “Hey what about this place then?!”.
Check out the video yourself, I’ll share my thoughts below it.
The narrator tells us that Sansar will take VR to the next level and that its unprecedented technology will allow everyone to create their own social VR experience and that that is no longer limited to the professionals.
This is true and the best thing about Sansar and SL, it is very good that they put emphasis on this, it is what will lure VR enthousiasts to Sansar.
It is up to the Sansar team to make sure the new users then are not disappointed when they perhaps don’t have the freedom they expected or that they need to spend money first to buy stuff or go learn blender to make things.
I hope easy inworld building tools come to Sansar but will they be there when Sansar goes public?
Anyway, I’ve written about that before.
The narrator tells us there will be easy tools to help us make these experiences and share them with everybody.
And she tells us we can use Sansar to recreate history, well that is me sold!
She also talks about all the uses Sansar will have, live events, entertainment, education, etc.
But there is one thing I miss in her story; gaming.
At the moment this is one of the biggest uses for VR and you know many gamers will see this video and decide based on it if they want to try Sansar.
Some of these gamers may have youtube channels with millions of viewers but do you think they spotted something in the video that appeals to them?
Granted there may not be many gaming tools in Sansar yet, but I know that there is a cannon shooting thingy and of course you don’t need special tools for roleplaying.
I would have at least mentioned gaming in the list of possibilities and perhaps show a little bit of gaming madness.
So far the options offered seem perhaps a bit high-brow.
Anyway, the story is sound and appealing.
The visuals are pretty good too and as someone who has been waiting to get into Sansar for ages it is difficult to see if they are also interesting to outsiders because my absorb every bit of new Sansar footage as a sponge.
But I’ll try.
As someone who has been a hardcore gamer since Pong, I try and imagine what a regular VR gamer thinks of the footage and most of the visuals are quite impressive.
We get a good look at the avatars and they look pretty good although, it really depends on the angle they are being seen in.
In some of the shots they look better than in others and the girl with the black hair looks better made than the boy with the blue and white shirt.
But compared to SL, they are all perhaps still a bit dull.
I reckon some of us can’t wait to stick wings and tails on them.
The avatars we see are of course the basic starter ones but looking at the avatars in this video it seems not many users have done a lot of customizing yet, which makes me wonder if we’re going to get many avatar customization options when Sansar opens, I know we will get those eventually, of course!
But I think it is important to get them in place for the first day as they are so important.
The creation tools look good, we know them from SL, same sort of idea, the ring around your prim that you use to rotate, move, etc.
They do make it look easy to move stuff around and well, it will be.
Uploading assets looks easier than it is though, most 3d software will make your brain cry.
Adding lights, special sounds, scripting, it all sounds and looks pretty easy and if new users can indeed easily use these, we’re onto a winner.
It is when people want to actually build things that it becomes a lot more complicated.
We see a few people putting on their headsets but we don’t see anyone using Sansar on a regular screen, well besides people who are creating and building.
As corny as it might have looked, having people also explore an experience on a desktop and maybe even a tablet or something mobile, might have calmed the people down who somehow keep thinking you’ll need a headset for Sansar.
The locations all look rather good, Sansar creators have been real busy lately and it looks like there will already be plenty to explore.
The video ends with a nice close up of a lady wearing a Sansar T-shirt while talking in sync with the narrator.
This may not seem much but for us in SL it is something we can only dream of and in many other VR experiences this is still something quite impressive.
I wish she blinked though.
Conclusion; I think it is a pretty good public relations video, something to show off to outsiders and future users.
Of course there are also things I would do differently, but I’ve been to film school and have made films & TV so I say that about everything, it is one of the reasons nobody wants to watch movies with me.
And at the very end we get a Beta release date! Spring 2017
Which technically means it could be released at any moment between now and June.
I hope I’ve got my new computer by then!
The most important question is; after seeing this, would you like to try Sansar?
Would you as someone who has been in SL for years, as a gamer, as a developer new to VR, as a random housewife, a school teacher, etc.?
Disclaimer; I am in the Sansar program but my computer is too old and I can’t try it, so my article is still written as that of someone who has not yet been in Sansar, because well, I haven’t.
/me cries.
Beau Hindman, a games writer and youtuber, recently visited the 1920s Berlin Project and decided to stream his exploration of our neighbourhood live.
It was fun to watch, Beau is very enthusiastic about Second Life and wants to show his viewers how wonderful our virtual world can be.
He has streamed visits to Second Life before (check out his playlist by clicking here) but of course when he came to Berlin us locals paid even more attention.
See him struggle with the idea of locked doors, peek through windows, bump into a few people, plan to rob our baker and above all, enjoy himself and be impressed with our little city.
Recently Ebbe Altberg, CEO of Linden Lab, was a speaker at the Collision Conference.
During his talk he showed a video about Sansar and a few screenshots were shared online before, also on my blog here.
Just now, minutes ago, Collision uploaded a video of Ebbe’s contribution.
It doesn’t actually show Ebbe talking but the images he used in his presentation.
And of course we’re all sad we can’t see Ebbe and judge whatever he was wearing (anything but a vintage 3 piece suit is acceptable) it is also quite nice because it means we get to see the Sansar video in great detail, in stead of just on a screen behind Ebbe.
The speech itself is good but not much is said that we didn’t know yet.
In short he talks about how big VR is going to be and that users will not just be consumers but also participants.
He explains that Linden Lab has a lot of experience and calls Second Life the biggest virtual world to date.
I am not sure if it is if you’d also count other computer generated worlds we know from some games, but I wouldn’t be surprised and I am of course sure that it is the oldest and biggest user generated online virtual world.
Either way, you can’t remind people too often of this as it seems that the wheel keeps being reinvented.
For instance, just the other day I stumbled upon something called ‘Hypatia‘ by a company called Timefire who claim that they’re building the first Virtual Reality City….
A ridiculous claim of course.
Ebbe talks about how SL is being used for business meetings, helping people who suffer from PTSD, people dealing with phobias, he mentions the lovely Fran who has Parkinson’s but finds much joy from Second Life, as seen in the wonderful Drax Files episode you can see by clicking here.
He talks about Education, the over 500 institutions that use SL (would have been more without the Tier fiasco of a few years back I reckon) for their lessons.
Ebbe talks a bit about the current state of VR, the headsets are coming, expensive but prices are coming down rapidly and of course an Oculus headset is cheaper than a similar VR rig would have cost a few years ago.
The next subject is the democratisation of a medium and that Project Sansar will make it possible for everyone and anyone to create and share.
He explains that most of us do not know how to actually create, just like in RL we live in a world where most of the things around us are made by others.
It always worries me a bit when that is mentioned because I keep wondering if Sansar will have easy building tools.
Being able to build whatever you want in SL, even if it isn’t easy, is one of the best things about SL and I think it is essential for Sansar as well.
Then again, I assume that most SL users are not creators.
Linden Lab has been working on Sansar for 2 and a half years now, a big investment but luckily SL is still “kicking off a lot of money” for them.
There are 75 people working on Sansar.
One of the creations made in the alpha stage of Sansar is a co-project between the Sorbonne University and the Ministry of Antiquities of Egypt, which shows laser scanned 3D models (of 50 million polygons!) of tombs and historical locations which the Sansar team then decreased to 40 thousand polygons and uploaded.
Which is very exciting but it does raise the question; why didn’t they build and upload it themselves in Sansar?
Either way, now anyone, anywhere could explore these tombs in Sansar (once it opens to the public).
A great example of a wonderful educational display.
Next we get some actual Sansar Video footage, the first we’ve seen since that very short video on a screen behind Ebbe at another conference.
First we see someone (Jason) using controllers and a headset (vive) to ‘create’, but what he is really doing is just moving things about and Ebbe says that you don’t really need to know how to actually create those objects, which worries me a bit again.
Because I want to create those objects and Blender isn’t easy.
Nevertheless, it looks cool and very much like I’d imagine it would be, we’re doing our SL moving about of stuff, but with controllers and a headset, even though we of course don’t NEED those for Sansar.
Next we get a smooth video which has been edited and comes with flash music showing quite a few very interesting and I must admit, impressive shots.
Skip to 12:38 if you want to see the footage.
We see a wonderful museum of the Partially excavated Ancient Greek (IV-III B.C.) villa Ortli in Crimea (did they use this model?) which looks very good and contrary to what I thought to see first time; the shadows do fall nicely over the ruins in stead of ignoring them.
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The Egyptian ruins look nice, but very much like a 3d scanned model, which of course it is.
Nevertheless as a history addict with many connections in the world of archeology, I’ve seen this kind of thing before, but it becomes interesting when we see an avatar walking out of the tomb, into the light.
We’ve got working shadows and someone who isn’t walking with the dreaded SL duckwalk.
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She then walks across a winter landscape with wonderful mountains, snow everywhere and a bright sun above.
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Then we move on to the cinema that we’ve seen pictures of before.
It is wonderfully retro Art Deco and I for one would love to go visit it soon.
The film playing is the new ‘Captain America; Civil war’ film, if I am not mistaken.
Let’s assume they were watching the trailer… for copyright’s sake 😉
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Then we find ourselves in some sort of post apocalyptic Mad Max kind of landscape, with more walking avatars and a working kind of cable car system.
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We then see someone diving into the sea, but if you look closely you see some sort of platform in the middle, so I think that what we’re actually seeing is a place where you as an avatar can enjoy a 360° video.
More apocalyptic stuff with a nice windlight setting.
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And finally we see the Golden Gate bridge, which we’ve also seen before but this time without the flying crafts but a lady walking across it.
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If you want to see any of these screenshots a little larger, check them out here on my Flickr account.
According to Ebbe all of what we saw was created with no engineer involved.
He ends with announcing that applications for Project Sansar are now open and the world will be available to everyone later this year.
He concludes with saying that VR will impact almost everything and Project Sansar will allow anyone to create, share, monetise and socialise within these VR experiences.
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.
People all over the world broadcast their game playing online and some make a pretty good living out of it.
Millions of viewers enjoy seeing someone else play a game and in many cases it can entice them into buying the actual game, so game publishers are very happy with all this free advertising.
Game videos have now gotten so big that Youtube now has its special gaming channel.
Second Life also gets a lot of attention on Youtube as well but unfortunately most of these videos are far from good publicity for our virtual world.
Some are meant well but completely alienating to most outsiders (try and explain having a baby in virtual reality) and others just enjoy using Second Life to annoy and harass others and create grieving videos.
The latter apparently being very funny to a huge audience as those seem to get the most attention.
It clearly is important for Second Life to improve its reputation, at least on youtube.
Many people watch these videos and I doubt it makes them want to try SL.
So today I decided to try and stream a bit of SL myself.
For the record, I was using my early 2015 model Macbook Pro and Firestorm on a wireless connection, broadcasting trough Wirecast.
I did not bother to tweak the settings or look into many options, it was just a simple first try.
And I must say that it worked rather well but it can be quite a hassle.
The thing is, you need to tweak bit rate and CPU and keep an eye on all sorts of settings before you find the perfect balance between making it look good and broadcast smoothly.
My CPU pretty much went to the max right away.
SL runs pretty decent on my 2015 Macbook Pro but when the region is laggy and there is a crowd, things slow down and using shadows and such is pretty much out of the question in such situations.
Even people with very good computers often set their viewers only on ultra for making pictures.
But if you can’t show SL at its very best, it is sometimes better to not show it at all.
Spending a lot of time figuring out how to best set everything up is something which many users will not be willing to do or they may not even be able to.
In short, there is no plug & play option.
No “Lets just click broadcast and we’re fine” possibility.
And this is something where LL could perhaps offer their users a really cool service.
One that I’d love to see in Second Life but sort of expect to see in Sansar.
First of all why should LL bother?
As I mentioned, I think it is important to ‘flood’ the media with great images and videos of Second Life, with the best possible quality.
There is no better antidote to the idea that a lot of people still have about SL having bad graphics and has abandoned ugly old sims than showing people how SL can look like.
If LL gets one of the famous youtube gamers to try out SL, they could reach an audience of millions.
Something you’ll pay a fortune for in advertising money.
Also, LL is always trying to get people to become premium members and to be fair, besides getting extra groups, so far they have not offered amazing extras that people got really excited about.
The added option to create or even broadcast video directly from the viewer could be a wonderful incentive for people to become a premium member.
In short; it is in LL’s interest to get lots of good looking and interesting footage out there.
Now, I am not very technical and have no idea what is happening inside Linden Lab, unlike some people seem to think, I am not a regular visitor there, I do not have my own luxury suite and they found all the bugs I hid there.
So my following ideas may be daft or completely impossible.
But, in my perfect world, Linden Lab adds a ‘record’ and/or ‘stream’ button to their viewer that, just like the ‘upload to flickr’ function will allow us to very simply and directly record a video or stream it on youtube.
It would also be nice to have an option to hide the interface but only on the video, not on the actual screen so you can still use the buttons and options but this will not end up op the actual video or stream.
You also have this option in the photo making tool, you tell it to hide the interface on the picture, but you still see it on your screen.
As simple as that.
Of course this may be quite tricky, or even hellish for LL to implement, but I reckon it might be worth it as it would flood the internet with SL videos.
And if only LL could help out the Bright Canopy team or bring the former SL Go team on board and sort out a cheap streaming service for all… then we could start broadcasting amazing high quality videos and show the world what Second Life can look like.
This screenshot may look nice but with everything set to ultra, it became rather laggy.
Twitch is a website that allows you to broadcast video of whatever game you’re playing and when a while back a few people decided to start streaming (thats what kids these days call it) Second Life, the company was shocked and horrified.
Because apparently there is nudity in Second Life.
Did you know that?
It’s news to me.
Now lets see how this applies to Second Life.
I think SL has not been rated by the ‘Entertainment Software Rating Board’, I can’t find it there yet.
Maybe if Linden Lab could get it classified and if they have competent staff there, we could get a sophisticated and sensible rating.
If ESRB would rate it adult, it, according to the ESRB website this would classify the game as;
ADULTS ONLY Content suitable only for adults ages 18 and up. May include prolonged scenes of intense violence, graphic sexual content and/or gambling with real currency.
Maybe it is just me, but that is not my Second Life.
Except for a riot on Mayday, there is very rarely intense violence in 1920s Berlin and as I never visit the local brothel (the action happens on another sim) there is no graphic sexual content in 1920s Berlin (as long as you don’t spy on people in the privacy of their bedroom) and there’s no gambling to be seen, honest gov’nor, I never touched those dice.
These things are also not part of the sims I visit.
Sometimes someone’s clothes don’t rez, but Twitch writes;
Sexually explicit acts or content: Nudity can’t be a core focus or feature of the game in question and modded nudity is disallowed in its entirety. Occurrences in game are okay, so long as you do not make them a primary focus of your stream and only spend as much time as needed in the area to progress the game’s story.
Someone’s clothes not rezzing to me is a glitch, a lag related issue, not something someone does on purpose.
And outside our nudists corner at the beach in a neighbouring region, seeing nude people is rare.
Either way it is not the core or focus of the “game”.
You may mention griefing, sure that still happens in Second Life although generally it is rare, at least as part of my Second Life.
The sim I live in has capable managers who eject or even ban someone, often before they even get to the actual sim.
The last time I was seriously griefed by someone is years ago and the only reason I couldn’t do anything about it was because I had a duty towards my tenants to keep an eye on this person, otherwise simply muting him would have solved it.
I know that videos about griefing and adult entertainment in Second Life has flooded sites like youtube, but that simply does not represent SL as it is to many of its users.
In short, I could easily stream Second Life directly to the internet without there being a risk of nudity, kinky hanky panky, graphic violence, etc.
If I wanted to, I could make a SL video with all those naughty things in it, true.
And I wouldn’t mind Twitch not allowing that.
But I could make videos like that with a lot of other games Twitch does allow…
So not only does their ruling on Second Life not make any sense, it is hypocritical.
Just look at the games they do allow; Minecraft, Counter Strike, The Witcher, GTA 5, etc, etc.
These games CAN have nudity and sex in them, if the gamer wants to.
In GTA 5 it is even a pre-programmed part of it, you can hire a prostitute for a bit of action in your car and then violently murder her.
Which, apparently is fine.
To me some of these games are also a school example of containing “prolonged scenes of intense violence”.
Trust me I know.
I am the equivalent of a 42 year old soccer mum (even though I luckily don’t have kids and if I did I wouldn’t let them play soccer and by the way it is called FOOTBALL), one of the least likely people to be a hardcore gamer.
Yet I regularly play violent games, just the other day I was sniping Hitler in the face.
So, in short, they allow plenty of games that allow adult content in one way or another and banning Second Life for those rules, makes no sense.
They could and should ban individual users who stream such SL content or stuff like that from the games they do allow.
Do we care?
No not really, I never even heard of Twitch till very recently, I don’t really see the entertainment value of streaming game videos and there are other options out there.
Personally I prefer edited videos that show the interesting bits of games or virtual worlds, not just gameplay.
Nevertheless, Twitch is being hypocritical, and I’m allergic to that.
I’m also annoyed when the reputation of Second Life is being dragged trough the dirt again.
Sorry to disappoint everyone but there is no adult content, nudity, griefing or hardcore violence EVERYWHERE in Second Life.
I’ve only witnessed particle griefing once in the last couple of years and people from all over came to have a look.
But seek and ye shall find.
Just because it CAN be part of SL, doesn’t mean it ALWAYS IS part of SL.
And that is the same with some of the games they do allow.
The only thing that should matter is;
Can you easily stream SL onto the internet and avoid nudity, hanky panky and graphic violence? Yes.
Can you easily stream SL onto the internet without breaking the Twitch rules? Yes.
Ipso Facto; Twitch is talking nonsense.
Linden Lab has just uploaded 2 new promotional videos.
The first one is a basic tutorial on how to start your Second Life, I must confess I’m not too excited about this one;
I have shared my displeasure with the current new user experience and it seems that most SL users don’t like it very much either.
So when I see the Learning Islands mentioned I think of all the confused people standing around there not knowing what to do or where to go.
And to be honest, I had to laugh when step 4 mentions connecting with the community and shows people chatting in one of those arrival spots where, if you’ve been there, you know that in stead of a casual ‘connecting with the community’, it is more likely that there are people screaming abuse trough their microphone, you’re being spammed or freakish avatars are making you want to wash your eyes with bleach.
On the plus side, it shows that SL has a LOT to offer, more than just shopping or chatting.
The second video I liked a lot more;
Here they show off what in my eyes is one of the most important things of Second Life; creativity and the freedom to build whatever you can imagine.
They have stuffed a very wide range of things into this video, something I’ve suggested before.
SL is so many things, show that, not just one side of it.
I’m glad they have now done this with this video and they show that you can biuld whatever you want.
Only thing I miss is perhaps a few more steps of the creation process, I’d like to see someone stick a few prims together, texture them, use them.
Not just the very fancy experienced builders making amazing stuff.
But, as I said, I like it.
It shows off what people can do in SL, that we can be creative, that we can sell our stuff and that there is SO much to do and see.
A much better message than suggesting you may come spend some time with babes in bikini.
Jo Yardley's Second Life 