Wagner James Au / New World Notes

Author, strategist, virtual world reporter

Making of Second Life

Making a Metaverse That Matters

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Hypnotic Romance, an SL sim with secluded spaces for couples. Click here to teleport.

The Virtual Worlds Museum. Click here to teleport to their Second Life hub with tribute to sunsetted worlds!

“TV POWWW!” by Tom Boellstorff & Braxton Soderman. Read about the first televised videogame here.

The Fitting Room: Try out new SL fits in a secure, private space. Click here to teleport.

The Virtual Museum Team hosts several museums in Second Life, Wolf Territories Grid and Roblox. Check out all the teleport links here.

Breedables CoOp, helping the SL pet community grow through shared resources. Go here to get started.

  • Zuckerberg Wants Oculus Quest 2 to Sell 10 Million Units. The First Quest Hardly Sold 1 Million.

    Facebook VR Oculus Scoble Apple

    Admittedly I haven't been following the unveiling of Oculus Quest 2 and all of Facebook's other VR/AR-related announcements this week as closely as I once did. (Owing to, you know, their sheer and total Facebook-itude.) But I should note this interesting point CEO Mark Zuckerberg made in an interview with The Verge's Casey Newton:

    Casey Newton: So where are you on this long road to making VR mainstream?

    Mark Zuckerberg: VR, I think is well on its way. We had this milestone in our mind that first we needed to get the technology to the place where you could have a standalone headset, it could be portable, it could be high quality — do the tracking and all that. And Quest was the big milestone on that. Then, from an ecosystem perspective, we believed that if we get to 10 million units active, then that’s kind of a critical magic number.

    At that point, you have a self-sustaining ecosystem. That’s the next big push: how do we get the technology to be more accessible to more people? A big part of that was driving it to be more affordable, and making it more portable. … And we’re not at 10 million yet, but I’m optimistic that over the next few years, we’ll get there. And that will really be a new stage of VR.

    Emphasis mine, because, wow. 10 million active users isn't even large compared to a single video game console. (Total sales of Nintendo Switch, after 3.5 years on the market: 61 million.) Even more key, the first Oculus Quest barely reached 1/10th those numbers:

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  • There’s a Playable, Physics-Enabled Tribute to Fall Guys in Second Life — And You Can Play It With a Group at 1pm PST Today!

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    UPDATE, 2:30pm PT: Added video from today's session of peak wackiness above!

    Click here to teleport to the starting point at or right before 1pm PT today, when the creator and some of his pals are getting together for a match.

    Fall Guys, if you haven't heard, is the massively popular mini-MMO that came out recently — think Fortnite, but way less shooty and far more goofy — and the Second Life-based tribute has the same colorful charm. Created by acclaimed 80s boy genius Loki Eliot, it looks like a fun way for SLers to get interested in the original — and for fans of the original to get interested in SL.

    Compare and contrast with the trailer below: 

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  • Someone Made the Bates Motel & Mansion of Hitchcock’s Psycho in Second Life and Hosts Karaoke Parties There

    Bates Motel virtual world

    Click here to visit, but maybe take a shower beforehand.  SL artist Kaiden Tray made this faithful recreation of the classic cinema location, complete with four free motel rooms (date night, anyone?), and the Bates mansion on the hill. Impressively, he made it from scratch, mainly using the recent TV show spinoff of Psycho for reference.  

    I know you're wondering if Mother is in the basement, or what happens if you step into the shower, or walk like a stupidly curious detective up the mansion stairs. Kaiden declines to answer any of that, but tells me that he plans to turn this into a full Psycho experience on its own sim.

    As for now, there's some social activities. 

    "We have karaoke sometimes," says Kaiden, "or anyone can have their own events they just need to let me know." Because one thing you don't ever want to do is do something on the Bates estate without the owner's permission.

    More pics below, including Kaiden Tray himself doing a halfway decent Anthony Hopkins impression:

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  • TinTin Tuxing Takes SL Photos & Turns Them Into Distinct & Original Images

    little Daisy

    Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

    TinTin Tuxing’s “Little Daisy” just took my breath away. It is a marvelous headshot that vividly displays how showing less gives us more. Only a portion of her face is visible, but we can feel her mood and understand something about her. The use of layers to age the photo and its black and white all add to its effect. But lest you think it’s all romance and flowers and sentimentality, she provides a link to a song for her picture. And if you don’t click through to see it, you will miss half the fun.  

    To see her range, click on through.

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  • How to Create Avatars for Virtual Worlds — An Oculus/Linden Lab Vet’s Advice

    Virtual world avatar advice Oculus Linden Lab

    Avatar pic by Ella Pinellapin

    Continuing his blog series on what he's learned as a lead developer/consultant at Oculus, Eve Online, and of course Linden Lab, Jim "Babbage" Purbrick has a new post on the importance of avatar customization tools in open-ended virtual worlds:

    If you are building a Metaverse which connects every possible virtual world how do you start? How do you please the person who wants to have the perfect tall dark stranger avatar rendered in 3D as well as everyone else? This was the challenge facing Linden Lab when building the avatars for Second Life at the turn of the millennium. While the default avatars could be manipulated into a huge variety of shapes and sizes using the available parameters, the results were often crude and the available wardrobe never strayed far from geeky teen hangout chic. Luckily for Linden Lab the inability of the avatar system to satisfy every whim was a huge opportunity for the entrepreneurs of Second Life.

    Builders quickly realized that they could fashion shoes, hair, clothes and accessories from primitive 3D objects which could be attached to avatars to dramatically increase the gamut of styles that could be realised. Linden Lab enabled another wave of innovation by allowing animations to be uploaded which as well as allowing every conceivable dance move to fill the nightclubs of Second Life also enabled tiny avatars which either folded up the default avatar geometry inside cutely sculpted animal models or moved the default avatar under the floor so it was completely hidden and just served as a platform for a tiny replacement avatar standing on its head. Many years later Linden Lab finally allowed people to entirely replace the default geometry and textures so now it is common for not a single triangle or texel in a Second Life avatar to have been defined by Linden Lab.

    But If a new virtual world is just launching, what avatar options should be available for early adopters? Jim's advice:

    "In my opinion developers should make sure they provide realistic body shapes (not 2 meter tall avatars with impossibly large breasts) and diverse skin tones and facial features so that every potential user can easily build an avatar that looks like them if they choose. Some basic clothes should be provided, but these can be largely left to the community to develop."

    Adding non-human avatar options open up some additional, interesting concerns. As Jim puts it:

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  • Watch: Someone Made a Rap Song About Second Life and it Fricking SLAPS

    For a user-created virtual world that's nearly 20 years old, it's difficult for anyone to create the first something in its category, but Zatch Ixchel has probably done just that: "MESHONME" is the first rap song inspired by Second Life that I'm aware of. And it's actually damn good, with a solid trap beat matched to Zatch's staccato rapping of uniquely clever rap lyrics that only SLers will understand:

    I come thru with a lil sum suttin

    You come thru with a Ruth to the function

    Boy, you better poof, better move it or somethin

    I'm bout to blow thru the damn roof with the dumb shit

    Got a new suit with the HUD shit too

    Only shed blood with a new tattoo  

    They're so on point, I thought he must also rap in real life, but he tells me no.

    "I choose to do it in relative privacy/anonymity, even in real life," as he puts it. "I suppose this is because I see it as a character I am playing. To put my face on something like that would feel inauthentic. In Second Life, I don't have that issue."

    "MESHONME" is very much about SL culture: "I guess I was inspired by the inherent materialism of Second Life," Zach tells me, "which complements the Hip Hop genre rather well. I also thought it would be funny to watch someone try and flex that sort of bravado and wealth in the context of a virtual world."

    Nailed it. As does the video, which stars his RL wife Lucie. Full lyrics below courtesy Mr. Ixchel, who's originally from New York — in case anyone wants to get an East Coast/West Coast avatar rivalry going.

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  • Poignant Images of Sadness Created from Virtual World Screenshots

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    Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

    “I Was Just a Bad Dream” is such an emotionally affecting snapshot. His shoulders are slumped, his hands are clasped, and he looks down in deep reflection. The title comes from a line in the song he links to, “Goodbye” by Apparat:

    “Fold out your hands/Give me a sign/Hold down your lies/Lay down next to me/Don't listen when I scream/Bury your thoughts (doubts)/And fall asleep/Find out/I was just a bad dream.” 

    As you browse Freakshow Zsun’s stream, there is a strong thematic focus on heartbreak and despair. One thing about art, it is a powerful way to express and process your emotions. 

    A great example of music and photography complementing each other next. 

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  • Survey: Most Facebook Employees Don’t Believe Company is Responsible for Preventing Misinformation About US Election on Platform

    Blind anonymous messaging app Facebook election interference

    A majority of Facebook employees do not believe the company is responsible for preventing misinformation about the US election on its platform. That's at least according to an anonymous survey launched last week by the development team of Blind, an anonymous messaging app for tech company staffers. With about 1500 replies registered by employees across many technology companies (100 from the social network), an overwhelming majority of 68% placed the responsibility on Facebook. But only 47% of Facebook employees placed the responsibility on their own company.

    While the survey sample size is small, the response is consistent with recent reports that Facebook staff are largely not responsive to election interference on its platform unless it becomes a major PR issue:

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  • Watch: Half-Life Alyx Running in an Open Source AR Headset (Kinda Sorta)

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    One moment you're in your apartment, and then the next, boom, your reality gets merged with City 17. This clever hack from Bryan Chris Brown, community manager at North Star, an open source AR HMD from Leap Motion.

    "Lots of improvements to do with the SteamVR driver itself," he reports, "but it's so cool seeing it progress this far."

    And yes, you can even control Alyx with hand gestures.

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  • Scylla Rhiadra Uses Virtual Light & Shadow To Turn SL Screenshots Into Art

    Style and Story: Queen of the May

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    Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

    Scylla Rhiadra’s “Queen of May” is a lovely example of light creating mood. I love how she divides the picture into three diagonals with projected  light and shadow. The background is simple and abstracted into black and white so the focus is on her and the colors. It’s really a great fashion photo.

    Wow! The next picture is a stunner:

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