In a sudden decision over the weekend, I opted to up and move regions. The catalyst for the decision was two-fold: the old region was getting far too busy, plus two adjoining parcels opened-up on a region I’ve had my eye on for a while.
The new parcel
The new home is still unzoned (I’m not ready to take down the store rezzing platform just yet), but is reasonably OK on the landscaping and benefits from a large lake area in the middle which is designated NO BUILD and purely for recreational purposes, leaving it with four 8192sm and four 4096sm around the outside.
The combined parcel is located in the north-west corner of the region, with ocean frontage to two sides. As it is more regular in shape, it’s allowed me better space to lay things out more naturally.
Kelly’s house
I’ve retained my little skystation, as I don’t need that much room, but Kelly wanted a fresh house, so I dug something out of inventory that gives her lots of space and which see seems happy with. I situated that so she’d have water on two sides and can enjoy SL sunsets..
Don’t be Koi…
Alongside of this I’ve added some trees to form a little area of woodland that leads back towards the central lake. A couple of streams wind through the trees from a large pond, where a few Koi and other fish now swim. Flowers range across the ground between Kelly’s house and the first stream and under the trees, hopefully giving the place a nice splash of colour.
Night view
There’s also a bridge where I’m already sitting a contemplating things (aka parking myself), and I’ve added a few lanterns in the trees for a little nocturnal light. As I do have friends sharing the land with me, I hope the trees and streams will be a little corner where we can sit and chill, chat and watch the sun pass overhead.
Birmingham UK, 27th June 2012: Educators and trainers can now create engaging immersive learning exercises more easily and rapidly using an innovative web-based application called OOPAL, developed by learning and visualisation specialists Daden Limited.
OOPAL (Object Orientated Practice and Learning) lets educators and trainers with little technical knowledge use the web to build 3D sets from an existing library of objects, and create, edit and manage the scenarios and simulations entirely from the web. Only when they’re ready to deploy do they need to enter the 3D virtual world and “push the button” to materialise the sets and exercises ready for students to use. With OOPAL, educators – and even students – can create and maintain worth-while learning experiences without needing to be virtual world experts.
Daden have been creating immersive learning experiences since 2008. Built on the success of their award winning virtual learning authoring software PIVOTE, Daden’s second generation system, OOPAL, makes exercise creation and maintenance significantly simpler – making it easier to involve tutors and even students in the design and build process.
David Burden, Daden’s Managing Director says “We found that the easiest way to describe immersive learning experiences was in terms of a drama – thinking about actors and props, the script and their behaviours rather than abstract concepts like nodes and links – and we’ve designed OOPAL to reflect that – considerably easing the process from exercise design to implementation.”
A key feature of OOPAL is that it allows educators to lay out the 3D environment using a simple 2D “kitchen designer” type layout tool. Drawing from a library of props and virtual actors, educators can assign behaviours to each object – how they will react when touched, pushed, spoken to or approached. Dialogues can even be assigned to the virtual actors for use within the simulation. Users can build just a single room or even a whole environment. What’s more – once they have built their set and simulation they can create multiple copies in their virtual world – again at the touch of a button.
Fundamental to the use of OOPAL, within a professional learning environment, is its ability to log and time-stamp every student interaction within the exercise. This can be reviewed within OOPAL, or exported in whole or part to a VLE or LMS. OOPAL also supports scoring mechanisms for in-exercise feedback.
David says “One of the obstacles in the adoption of immersive environments for learning has been the need for educators to be experts – not in their field of study but in building within virtual worlds. OOPAL dramatically reduces that barrier and gives educators and trainers the tools to create real-world learning experiences for their learners in a 3D environment”.
OOPAL can be accessed as a cloud-hosted service from Daden, or installed on an organisations’ own servers. OOPAL currently enables exercises to be developed in both OpenSim and Second Life. Daden plan to release a version for the Unity3D, and a web/iPad player in the next six months.
Today is the last day for people to see what has been the most amazing gathering of talent coming together in one place to celebrate what makes Second Life so diverse, exciting, thought-provoking, fun, relevant, vibrant and – despite all comments to the contrary alive.
If you have not done so already (or even if you have!), please visit the sims before they close: there are some marvels to see, some of which I’ve tried to cover here, and others have as well. Go see the amazing stages; all of them have been marvellous, and I wish the Main (Lotus) Stage and the Lake Stage could be preserved.
I’ll likely have a couple of follow-up posts on SL9B in the near future. Now’s not the time to be analytical though. Just go and enjoy the last few hours!
Thanks once again to everyone who made this all happen. Here’s to SL10B!
Arrehn Oberlander recently contacted me concerning MetaHarpers and the -io- Team’s new Linden Endowment of the Arts installation, The Inspiring Orientation – a smaller version of which was recently displayed at SL9B.
The installation, which opened on June 22nd, is described as: “Part art walk, part tutorial – a vision of a future where new SL citizens are introduced to an interactive combination of gallery and orientation course.”
The inspiring orientation – from the outside
Teleporting to the venue brings you (a little wet-footed, but that seems par for the course at LEA venues!) to a greeting area, where you are welcomed in a wide range of languages and get to meet your guides for the tour – tablet-like creations that display information and instructions on their screens.
A guide
Following the path takes you through various rooms, each with a specific focus on using your viewer and interacting with the world around you, starting with the basics of movement. Each section is quite cleverly put together, and the section on sitting cleverly introduces the idea of sitting on objects directly (scripted or otherwise) and using poseballs. Elsewhere there are lessons on using chat, which uses a range of animals with which to interact on a basic level, and there is a section devoted to camera movement and control.
Talking to the animals: “If I were asked to sing in hippopotamus I’d say “whynotamous?” and I would!!
At the end of the walk there is the opportunity to explore SL itself, with a series of teleport alcoves. These are divided into categories: Music and Stage, Art and Fashion, Exploration, Games, and Social and Chat. Each of these has two (or more) vendor boards visitors can scroll through to see a range of destinations. Clicking on an image brings up the Place Profile floater, allowing the visitor to read more on the destination and, if they like it, click on the Teleport button and go visit.
Each alcove also has a notecard giver that explains a little more about the subject matter, and can provide additional help. The Art and Fashion notecard, for example, defines the major forms of clothing (system, prim/sculpted and mesh) and the differences between them. While one might grumble the presentation of this information could be better, it is nevertheless more informative than anything currently on offer to new arrivals in SL.
Where next?
Most importantly, this area of the installation offers a way back for those that need a little more assistance – something massively lacking in recent orientation offerings from LL, where once you leave, the way back is barred to you in a “Thank you, and good night!” approach.
There isn’t much else beyond this in terms of orientation – but its is enough to give a flavour of what might be achieved.
Not only is the tour a visual experience, it is also very aural: the various sections are filled with a range of atmospheric sounds or music. The section on flight features elements of Glyph Graves’ The Forest of Water and Strangers also Dance, which uses sounds and tones very cleverly and is definitely worth wandering around rather than simply flying straight through. Elsewhere sounds of the jungle accompany the animals in the chat section and Lily of the Lamplight provides an accompaniment as you learn about camera controls.
Given that sound is enabled by default on the official viewer, then the use of music and sounds adds a clear dimension to an orientation experience and helps demonstrate the rich immersive experience one can enjoy with SL.
Glyph Graves’ combined piece deep inside The Inspiring Orientation
Clearly, as a demonstration, the installation only offers up just a sampling of lessons that could be provided in order to provide a feel for the idea. It would seem to naturally lend itself to further lessons being added without over-burdening the new user, so I’m not going to critique the creators on the basis that it doesn’t show X or Y in terms of basic lessons – something easily fixed were this to go into production.
However, I would be a little concerned should the idea be used with some of the graphics as seen in this installation. The animals in the chat area and the cartoon bedroom used to demonstrate sitting and touching objects in-world may look cute – but they also run the risk of giving entirely the wrong first impressions about SL to the newcomer, who ends up simply turning around and walking out in the belief they’ve wandered into something aimed towards younger children, rather than a sophisticated immersive world.
Perhaps a little too much like a cartoon?
While the lessons don’t have to be totally rooted in the “reality” of SL, I can’t help but feel that they should at least have a greater rooting in what SL as actually like in terms of what the new user can reasonably expect to see and encounter once they pass on in-world. Doing so should help build familiarity and confidence in the user, and enable them to better respond to the things they see with greater familiarity.
Another area that isn’t really covered in the exhibit, which is perhaps more important, is that of language. Beyond the many greetings in the welcome area, The Inspiring Orientation is presented entirely in English – and that’s fine for a piece designed to stimulate the mind and demonstrate what might be achieved. But how would it handle multiple languages, given that those coming into SL do so from all over the world? Would multiple “tablet” screens be used? If so, the lesson areas might get a little crowed. Would screens operate in more than one language? That could easily lead to confusion were someone to start reading instructions in German, only to have someone else click the button for the French option to be displayed…
In fairness, the team behind the piece may have already considered this issue and have an answer – if so, it would have been nice to see something presented here, if only to further demonstrate the practicality of the the approach.
As a small aside, it would be nice to see an orientation system that actually points to the assistance that is available in the Viewer – particularly the How To guide, which even LL ignores (in favour of the Destination Guide). It’s a small niggle, but the built-in help is there, and there is no harm in pointing people towards it.
But leaving my niggles aside, The Inspiring Orientation does offer an interesting and entertaining attraction that takes a fair crack at answering a question that has stumped LL to the point where they have seemingly abandoned it entirely: just how do you get users engaged with the viewer and introduce them to Second Life in a visual and informative medium? This exhibit doesn’t have all the answers, but it does offer an immersive and engaging alternative to what has been offered-up recently elsewhere. As such, it is very much a worthwhile visit, whether you enjoy SL art or have an interest in issues of new user orientation.
Updated June 26th 16:30 BST: The discussion on this alternative continues on the SLU Forum thread (recommended reading for anyone interested, as a lot is explained succinctly and clearly). Darien Caldwell has summarised the technical aspects of both solutions (and in not having a deformation capability) in terms of who is the greatest impacted – consumers, creators and / or coders. Similarly, in answering a question posed by Innula Zenovka on the relative advantages / disadvantages to the two ideas (RedPoly’s and the deformer), Adeon Writer commented:
“This trick was created to address major problems with clothing, but it is a patch. And you can see the areas where it’s not patched: this only makes mesh follow a few more sliders, while the rest (especially the face) do nothing.
“Qarl makes mesh work with ALL sliders, even future ones that don’t exist yet. It is the correct solution to the problem, this is a quick workaround.
“Qarl gives the ability to make entire new human meshes fully removed from the system shape that still work with all sliders and avatar physics,
“That is not possible with this.”
This would seem to be a clear-cut differentiator that would suggest that if matters come down to a choice of one approach or the other, continuing with the deformer may well be the preferred course of action. Obviously, nothing further has been said on the matter by LL, but further updates will be posted as they become available.
Nalates Urriah brings news of a potential alternative to the mesh parametric deformer that has been under development by Qarl Fizz, and which has been reported upon extensively by Nalates, myself and others.
I’ll leave the in-depth technical explanation and quotes to Nalates – she broke the story, after all. However, to try to summarise:
The idea is the rather than weighting mesh clothes against the avatar “skeletal frame”, the clothes are weighted against the “collision volumes” – these are (I gather) used to detect when your avatar collides with a physical object in-world, and thus are designed to morph when you adjust your avatar’s shape
The approach isn’t perfect and has a number of limitations (female clothing won’t stretch with breast size changes, for example); extreme sizes cause issues (as they do with the deformer); weight painting during the construction of mesh clothing can be somewhat more problematical
Alpha masks will still be required in certain situations (but then, alphas were never going away anyway).
The developer of the approach, RedPoly Inventor has released a demo version of the approach using a dress, which can obtained from his store. There is also a demo video on YouTube:
RedPoly is the first to admit the approach is not perfect, but has also proposed an additional idea of developing a further set of avatar “bones”, which he calls “cbones” that would allow this approach to work a lot better. According to Nalates’ report on the mesh meeting where this all came out, RedPoly believes the development of such a new system would be relatively simple.
Interestingly, according to AshaSekayi Ra, commenting in an SLU Forum discussion on this development, the idea of using the collision volumes was first raised in the mesh beta last year and that Prep Linden requested samples of clothes rigged to the avatar’s collision volumes, but it is unclear what happened with any tests LL may have carried out.
Right now, this doesn’t mean the end of the deformer, nor does it mean all mesh clothing issues are solved. It does, however, open-up new avenues of exploration and certainly new topics for discussion on the matter.
Reading Nalates’ report, it would appear that the idea has taken LL themselves a little by surprise, despite the fact it may well have been previously discussed, and their reaction is potentially best described as cautious.
As it stands, mesh designers such as AshaSekayi Ra and Ellie Spot will doubtless be looking at the idea, as will those with expertise in the avatar design, as well (one would hope) LL themselves. As Nalates states, there will be further news emerging on this as tests are conducted and feedback given.
The entertainment at SL9B may well be over, but the regions will remain open until 23:59 SLT on the 27th June 2012. If you haven’t visited already, now is the time – there are many great builds still to see and opportunities to learn even more about the rich diversity of SL’s community.
I had hoped to write a couple more pieces on the celebrations and the people over the weekend, but the practicalities of RL coupled with some pressing needs elsewhere in SL meant I had to shelve them. Instead, here’s a quick tour of some of the exhibits I really like – some of which may well form the basis of future articles in this blog.
SL9B marks a turning-point for celebrating SL’s anniversary. Linden Lab no longer involve themselves (although it was good to see members of staff visiting the regions), and festivities are in the hands of the residents of SL. This year’s core event was put together in just a few short weeks and demonstrates exactly what the community can achieve when it sets its collective mind to it. However, there is an understanding that not everything was perhaps done as well as it could be, or there may have been things missed out.
To help understand where the team got things right or wrong, or where things might be improved, everyone who participated in or visited this year’s SL9B regions is invited to provide feedback. Please take a couple of minutes to complete the form and let the organisers know your thoughts. It won’t be possible to respond to every comment received, but do feel free to leave your email in case we do need to talk – but every comment received will be read.
I’ve used “we” several times in my coverage of SL9B (notably in the more “official” announcements leading-up to the event), but the fact is I’ve played a very small role in things. There has been a huge team behind making this happen, all of whom have put in far more effort and work than I. So I’d like to extend my thanks for the event and for undertkaing such a huge task at such short notice to:
Doctor Gascoigne, KT Syakumi, Diana Renoir, Budster Bashly, Saffia Widdershins, Honour McMillian, Crap Mariner, David Abbot, Bo Tiger, Will Webb and all the others in the various core and support teams – the EAs, the greeters, the helpers, the gofers and technical staff – with a special thank you to nEoStreams for the provision of all the required live streams.
Thank you as well to the builders and exhibitors and their sponsors and to all who took the time to visit SL9B and who contributed to the Flickr stream and who wrote about SL9B in blogs and reports.
And a very appreciative and special thank you to the sim sponsors: Dream Seeker Estates, Fruit Islands, Kitty CatS and the anonymous donor of six regions, without your generosity, none of this would have happened.
SL9B by night
And finally, some closing words from the SL9B spooksperson, the Prim Reaper himself…
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 