Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting
Shakilyn Peppermint gives us a slice of trailer park life in “Just a Girl with a Dream.” She has a great set up, though, with her swimming pool and her chickens. She’s unusually lax about allowing that German Shepherd to harry the chicken. I love how naturalistic the dog is. Animals have come a long way in Second Life.
For more Peppermint, click here:
A story from Digiday has been flying all over the Internet since yesterday, because it basically suggests the long-awaited Grand Theft Auto VI will be more like Grand Theft Metaverse:
Rockstar Games has been in discussions with top Roblox and Fortnite creators, as well as dedicated “GTA” content creators, about the potential to create custom experiences inside the upcoming game, according to three industry insiders with knowledge of these meetings, who requested anonymity in order to protect business relationships. These experiences would allow creators to modify the game’s environment and assets to bring their own intellectual property — and potentially their brand sponsors — into “GTA’s” virtual sandbox.
Representatives of Rockstar Games did not respond to requests for comment prior to the publication of this article.
I've reached out to multiple Roblox and Fortnite creative studios to try and confirm this report myself, and will let you know what I learn (if anything). Meantime, I have to make a small victory lap, since this was more or less one of the future forecasts of metaverse evolution from my book in late 2023:
Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting
Adam Arrowmint’s:”Our Magnificent Metaverse” has a graffito that I think we all agree with, “Second Life Forever.” I agree wholeheartedly. This, like his other pictures, tells a story. We see the spray cans on the ground and small paint stains on his shirt. We know who is the artist who painted that oh-so-welcome message.
For more of Adam’s storytelling, click here:
Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting
Charlotta Jackman aka Handdrawn posted this intriguing picture she called “Keep playing with fire…You’ll never be able to handle the heat.” I love this picture. For one, it’s so different from the usual pictures of body or headshots or landscapes. She zoomed in close and is sending a message, a warning to all who would trifle with her.
I found this picture in the group Second Life's Edgy -Different. So what is edgy or different? I spent some time browsing through the group to find out. This is an adults-only group, but don’t worry, if you’re okay with occasional explicitness here or there, it’s a lovely group of photos.
For more edgy and/or different pictures, click here:
New on my Patreon: We've tried for decades to make a physics-enabled game involving a ball that people can play together from around the world in real time. Most attempts end up being comically, unplayably laggy. But a new team-based volleyball game in VRChat, has been good enough to generate not only a large returning audience, but also player leagues, even live sport casters on YouTube. Join for free to read about it first here.
The Virtual Worlds Museum just launched a Kickstarter to expand what's already the most comprehensive — and now award-winning — online resource for information on virtual worlds (in my somewhat biased opinion) into a full-fledged immersive experience and live community hub:
Visitors can interact with immersive, browser-accessible exhibits and experience WebXR and interoperable worlds from their devices on Arrival. Space. Paid tours will provide in-depth insights into milestones, from early web experiments to immersive environments.
You’ll also join MetaTr@versal portal crawls, where avatars explore interconnected worlds through portals. These unique events redefine what it means to travel across digital realms.
Much more here. The top supporter tier, for $9999, is actually quite a bargain for companies and brands to consider:
Collaborate with the Virtual Worlds Museum™ team to create a customizable 3D world in Arrival. Space featuring your product or service. Work closely with our expert 3D artists and receive pro-level consulting throughout the process.
I've been involved in projects like this in multiple virtual worlds, and the cost is usually more like $20,000-50,000.
Here's some examples of branded experiences in Arrival.Space, via VWM founder Julian Reyes:
Casja's column on the great SL photographers on Flickr is being moved to tomorrow, so it's a perfect time to feature some creative accounts on Primfeed, the new Second Life-centric social network. After we put out a call in search of Primfeed talent last week, Graeme Fairelander gave us a glorious list. Here's four of my favorites from that group of twenty-one.
To start, I can't resist a subversive send-up of the famous motorcycle skid from Akira, and Lying Cat (aka @blarn.boo) does one marvelously above. Much more on her feed in this vein, teeming with badass ladies of cyberpunk though she notes, images contain "No AI". (An increasingly frequent artists' note we're seeing on social media images and also machinima video.)
Three more after the break. And much thanks to Dream Seeker Estates (on Primfeed here) for sponsoring this post!
Meta is now laying off thousands of employees while all but announcing that staff working on Meta's Horizon Worlds is next on the chopping block this year. So it's important to note that Rec Room and VRChat — two metaverse platforms which have ironically thrived on Meta's own Quest platform — are currently hiring:
VRChat job openings (selected):
All remote roles, too! That they're hiring is not a surprise, since VRChat has (by their own reporting) 10 million active users, while Rec Room (by my estimate) has well over 20 million users. What is somewhat surprising is that neither company was acquired by Meta, seeing that much or most of that user base — nearly 70%, in VRChat's case — use a Meta Quest headset. But oh well.
In VRChat's case, by the way, I know several staffers were deeply involved in Second Life back in the day, while the founders are very much aware of the platform. Also, I recently chatted with a VRC staffer who got their start as a community developer, and shared some about the VRChat corporate culture and advice on getting hired:
Wagner James Au / New World Notes 