Erik Gordon Bainbridge (Apollo Manga) – Page 14

The darkly post-cyberpunk city of Hangars Liquides

Floating on my Flight Feather in the Hangars Lilquides sim

The Hangars Liquides sim, home of the French music label Hangars Liquides, also known as HL, isn’t yet complete, but it’s already amazing. Djehan Kidd, creator of the sim, describes it as "Post Cyberpunk deconstructions… a huge and tangled cyberpunk city, home of RL avant garde music label Hangars Liquides."

When you first teleport there, you will be in a pitch black room. Before doing anything, look for the floating text "HL readme + free flight assistant". It will give you a notecard with some information about the sim, and most importantly, it will give you a flight assistant. The sim is around 1600 meters above sea level, far above the elevation at which avatars can fly. Immediately look in your inventory and select "Flight Feather" and attach it to some part of your body. It serves two purposes: keeping you from falling when you step over an edge in the darkness, and it illuminates your avatar, a huge help in the darkness that permeates this sim.

One other thing you should do is set your Draw Distance to 512 meters. You’ll find this in Edit/Preferences/Graphics with a checkmark in Custom. Don’t leave it there after you leave the sim, however. It will probably substantially slow down your computer.

Inside Hangars Lilquides darkly mysterious city

If you wander along the dark hallway, you will eventually find yourself in HL’s mysterious city, a place teeming with electric energy yet no life, a haunting place where you can never quite get your bearings.

Make sure you have your audio on. HL describes its music as "flashcore"; Wikipedia describes it as hardcore techno experimental music. Their music is an essential component of the experience.

If you don’t wear your Flight Feather, at some point you will walk off an edge or fall through a hole and fall 1500 meters or more to the bottom of the sea, where you’ll find a conveniently located teleporter for easy transport back to the start.

This sim is already impressive. I can’t wait to see what it offers after it’s been completed. If you’re a Second Life member, you can teleport there by clicking here.

Hangars Liquides teleporter at the bottom of the sea

A taste of old Africa – Nigeria in Second Life

A replica village in Second Life's Nigeria

I discovered Nigeria in Second Life‘s Saminaka sim when CNN‘s iReporter group in Second Life paid it a visit this week. It’s an interesting place that attempts to recreate the feel of parts of traditional Nigeria, the Nigeria that existed before oil, internet scams, and other modern day problems changed how so many view the real Nigeria.

Second Life’s Nigeria is a place of sandy beaches and a baked, cracked mud interior. One of the features is a walled village of round structures, with washing drying and a steamng laundry scrubbing bucket, picture to the right.

Impala and kingfisher in Second Life's Nigeria

Just up from that little village, nestled in a secluded pond at the foot of a waterfall, you’ll find this pier. In the bamboo growing around the pond there is an impala drinking and this kingfisher with a fish squirming in its beak.

As you walk up from the pond towards the commercial area, you’ll pass through some examples of Nigerian wild life: an ant hill with what might be thousands of ants streaming in and out, and two peacocks, including this one who struts in circles, occasionally spreading its tail as its doing in the picture to the right.

African arts & crafts shop in Second Life's Nigeria

The sim also contains a number of shops where you can buy African-themed items that include furniture, avatar skins, jewelry, clothing, and arts and crafts including what’s in the picture to the left, a shop that contains both traditional and contemporary African art.

Second Life members can go there by clicking slurl.com/secondlife/Saminaka/123/142/31

Second Life’s Mighty Atomic Mine Buster roller coaster

Second Life's "Might Atomic Mine Buster" roller coaster

An old fashioned, rickety wooden roller coaster in Second Life? Yes. It’s the "Mighty Atomic Mine Buster" in the Venusian sim. I’ll confess upfront that I’m not a roller coaster fan, either in my first or second lives, but I do appreciate the attention to detail that’s been taken in constructing this 800 meter, rather elaborate roller coaster. The wood is well aged, giving the thing a feeling of danger, as though it could collapse if the coaster cars ever went too fast. Part of it is shown in the picture to the right.

Of course, they don’t go too fast, and in fact if lag is too bad they don’t go at all, as happened in one of my visits, but it’s nonetheless impressive. The creator, Atom Burma, has modeled it on Coney Island’s 1950s Cyclone rollercoaster, and has not only included a roller coaster soundtrack – before riding it, be certain that your speakers are turned on – but also provided animations for the riders.

This picture shows the avatar animation as you’re riding the Mine Buster.

It’s part of a much larger amusement park, the Carnivale Amusement Park, which has over a dozen rides, including two water rides, a spider, a ferris wheel, bumper cars (which I couldn’t get to work on any of my visits), and a tram that gives an aerial tour of the park.

An unusual feature of the park that you certainly won’t find in real life is that all the rides are for sale or rent. Want to give a party on your land? Rent some rides!

A new feature that won’t fully open until August 2009 is "Emerald City", a game based on the "Wizard of Oz". Before you enter, you are given the opportunity to watch a video, pictured here, of a highly condensed version of the story.

There’s much more there. A lot of attention has gone into constructing it. On my last visit there, I even saw what appeared to be a hooker (not affiliated with the Park). In my experience, mornings are the best time to visit. The one time I visited in the evening, the lag was so intense that the rides were unusable.

Second Life members can go there by clicking slurl.com/secondlife/Venusian/88/32/40.

Scene from Emerald City's Wizard of Oz video

World War II hero Raoul Wallenberg saved thousands of Jews

Not all war heroes carry weapons and wear a uniform. A few work quietly, behind the scenes, in nondescript offices, where they work to save lives knowing that every day that today could be the day they pay for it with their own life. This is how it was for Swedish diploment Raoul Wallenberg. Stationed in Budapest, Hungary during the Nazi occupation there, he worked tirelessly to save the lives of thousands of Jews at the risk of his own life.

Sweden’s Virtual Embassy in Second Life has recreated Raoul Wallenberg’s office, seen on this picture, as he left it the day he was captured by the Soviets in January 1945 The office is furnished sparsely, with the only decorations a photograph of Wallenberg at three with his mother, Swedish King Gustav V, a map of Budapest on the opposite wall, and a Budapest tourism poster, the only item of color in the office and also the only item hung crookedly..

The entrance to Raoul Wallenberg’s office is suitably somber. You enter from the brightly lit, modern Swedish Virtual Embassy but walk through a room that is totally black, taking you back in time to the siege of Budapest. Be sure to play the streaming media in the office. You will hear the sounds of Soviet and German forces battling over the city. It was a long and bloody battle, 102 days long, and left 38,000 civilians dead. The picture on the left shows the view out the window over Wallenberg’s typing table, showing shattered and burned buildings.

Wallenberg saved thousands of Jews from German concentration camps, but when the end came, it was the Soviets, not the Germans, who captured him. After capturing Budapest from the Germans, the Soviets seized Wallenberg and placed him in Lubyanka Prison. He was never freed, and disappeared into the Soviet penal system. The Soviets announced that he was executed in 1947, but there were claims by Soviet prisoners of seeing him alive as recently as 1991.

Second Life’s Great Wall of China

You can walk on the Great Wall of China, or at least your avatar can, in Second Life‘s Mao Island, "Home of the Great Wall of China". You can even buy the complete wall, or parts of it, to erect on your Second Life land!

Mao Island, despite having a name that evokes ghosts of China‘s Communist Cultural Revolution, is a decidely non-Communist place that would make old Mao turn in his grave. It’s part of the Hosoi-Ichiba cluster of thoughtfully designed and constructed Asian-themed islands. The other islands are Japanese. I’ll be reporting on them in the future.

My first visit to Second Life’s Great Wall was unsettling. It’s surrounded on all sides by water, not at all like the remote desert and mountain regions of the original Great Wall of China, and a voice within me kept saying, "this isn’t right". That voice soon faded. After all, creating a wall that’s the SL equivalent.of a wall thousands of miles long and guarded by over a million men isn’t reasonable. The Great Wall on Mao Island is an excellent fascimile. Built of 3592 primitives and encircling most of an entire sim, it’s an impressive structure in its own right.

The picture on the right is of the moon rising over part of the Great Wall, seen from the bridge leading from the landing point. The entire wall, including its guard houses, was built in only about two weeks by creator Amiryu Hosoi working alone. She did it as a commission from an RL friend. Before undertaking the project, she searched 3,000 photos of China’s Great Wall to assure the greatest possible accuracy in design and textures.

When you first land on Mao Island, you are in a guard building that houses nearly all the commercialism you’ll find. There are vendors for traditional Asian clothing, buildings, and the Great Wall itself. You can buy the entire thing for 59,500 Lindens, or individual components.

The picture on the left is of a traditional sampan for sale outside the building. You’ll have to jump off the bridge onto the beach to see it close-up.

Any Second Life member wishing to visit the Great Wall can teleport there by clicking slurl.com/secondlife/Mao/150/142/31.

Make a video screen and watch videos on your Second Life land – part two

"About Land" Media box before setting media

Last week in part one I told you how to build a simple screen for watching videos on your land. Today I’m going to show you how to get video actually playing on it.

Second Life only plays Quick Time movies, so this is what you’ll need to look for. If you don’t have your own streaming video server (most of us don’t!), you’ll need to find one. If you’re not certain whether a movie is in Quick Time format, look at the extension on the file name. If it’s “.mov”, it’s Quick Time. You’ll also have to have Quick Time installed on your computer. Before you can watch video in Second Life. Quick Time is free. You can download it at www.apple.com/quicktime.

The next step is to find videos you can play on your land. One source of Quick Time videos that you can play on your land is NASA, which has downloadable videos at www.nasa.gov/multimedia/index.html. We’ll use NASA’s podcast about the Kepler Mission for finding habitable planets as an example. The URL is http://kepler.nasa.gov/media/mpeg_files/ARC-KeplerOverview-480p.mov.

Now that we have a video URL, we’ll set our land to play it. To do this, we right -click anywhere on our land and then click “About Land” in the popup pie chart. The About Land window, will popup; click the Media tab in it. With the Media tab selected, you’ll see “Media Type”, “Media URL”, and “Replace Texture”. The picture at the left shows the Media box for Second Life land before you’ve changed anything..

"About Land" Media box: entering the media URL

The box on the right is where you enter the media URL

The Media box after making your changes

On the right side you’ll see “Set”. Click “Set”. This will open up a new window to the right. Copy and paste “http://kepler.nasa.gov/media/mpeg_files/ARC-KeplerOverview-480p.mov” into it and then click OK. If you’ve done it correctly, the URL automatically appeared in Media URL and “Movie” appeared in “Media Type”, as you’ll see in the picture on the left.

The final step is to set the media texture. We do this similarly to how we did for the screen. First, left-click the texture box (to the right of “Replace Texture”. This opens up the Pick Texture window. Type “default media texture” in the white search box and when it appears in the list of textures, click Select.

Before playing the movie, make certain that you’ve enabled media in your Preferences. Click Edit, then click “Preferences” and click the Audio&Video tab. Make sure there’s a check in the checkbox next to “Play Streaming Media When Available

You are now ready to play your movie! If you’ve done everything right, in the lower right of your Second Life window you’ll see a small icon of an old-fashioned two reel projector with an arrow to its right. Click the arrow. The screen you made should turn black and then in a few moments, the Kepler movie should begin playing on it.

You’ve now created a simple, crude screen. You’ll eventually want one that’s scripted for additional features, and seating that automatically sets your view to the screen, but the screen you’ve just made is a start and will allow you to watch or to test media on your land.

Babel Project machinima (video)

Fernando Pessoa exhibit in Babel Project II

The European Babel Project in Second Life is producing some impressive machinimas. One of them is the absolutely amazing 12 minute machiniema PESSOA, which you can view at rezlibris.com. The picture on the left is in Babel Project’s Fernando Pessoa exhibit. If you’re a Second Life member, you can teleport to it by clicking slurl.com/secondlife/Babel%20Project%20II/228/62/21.

Machinima is essentially a video made in a virtual world such as Second Life. Another of their videos, the 2-1/2 minute Ideagoras, is on YouTube and can be viewed by clicking the play button below. Enjoy!

Scifi and fantasy snapshot contest winners

1st Place - "The Saturday Serial" by Marianne McCann

1st Place SciFi Scene – "The Saturday Serial" by Marianne McCann

The winners of the Second Life Sci-Fi and Fantasy Snapshot Contest have been announced. The winners are:

Sci Fi Scenes
1st Place – "The Saturday Serial" by Marianne McCann
2nd Place – "Star Bed" by Gracee Andel
3rd Place – "Panorama" by Crystal Falcon

Sci Fi Avatars
1st Place – "Starchild" by Marianne McCann
2nd Place -"Aeon Inspiration" by Crystal Falcon
3d Place – "Sands of Time" by Molly Montale

Fantasy Scenes
1st Place – "Fiery" by Gracee Andel

Fantasy Avatars
1st Place – "Fae at Sunrise" by Amalia Broome
2nd Place – "Spring" by Hailee McCaw
3rd Place -"Blue Fairy at Twilight 2009" by Brielle Coronet

Here are the first place winners in each category.

1st Place SciFi Avatar – "Starchild" by Marianne McCann

1st Place Fantasy Avatar – "Fae at Sunrise" by Amalia Broome

1st Place Fantasy Scene – "Fiery" by Gracee Andel

Congratulations to the winners!

Make a video screen and watch videos on your Second Life land – part one

Watching video in Second Life’s Star Trek Museum

Last week I posted a three part series (part one, part two, and part three) about making better Second Life snapshots. Today I’m beginning a series on showing videos on your Second Life land. It’s relatively easy to set up a simple, no-frills system. The biggest problem is finding videos to stream, but they are out there. Here’s a step-by-step guide.

The first step is to have land on which you can change the media settings. Generally this can be done in one of three ways:
1. Buy land
2. Rent land
3. Join a group that owns land and will give you access to changing the land’s media settings.

The next step is to create a screen. A simple screen is easy to make. When you’re on where you’ll be showing videos, move your cursor to a bare spot on your land and right click. A pie chart will open with the word “Create” in the upper right. Click “Create”. You’ll see two lines of shapes in the popup window. Click the cube on the left (directly below the word “Click”, then move your cursor to the spot on the ground where you want to "rez" your screen, then left click. A cube will appear on that spot.

To shape the cube into a screen, left click the cube and in the popup pie chart, click “Edit” Click the “Object” tab in the popup window. Now we’ll set the thickness and dimensions of your screen. In the popup window, on the left side, you’ll see three sets of Z, Y, Z numbers. The sets are labeled “Position”, “Size”, and “Rotation”. We’ll change the Size numbers. Be very careful not to change the wrong numbers – if you change a position number instead of a size number, your screen could end up instantly on the other side of the sim!

The middle number. The Y coordinate, is the thickness of your screen. Set it to .1 (point one). If you want your screen at standard 4:3 TV screen dimensions, then set the X coordinate to 4.0 and the Z coordinate to 3.0. (use other numbers if you want different dimensions).

Your screen will now be 4:3, but it won’t look full size because part of it will be buried in the ground. To raise it, make sure your cursor is still in the Edit window and that the word “Position” near the top of the window has a dot to its left. Then look for the blue arrow on the screen. It points up. Move your cursor to one of the blue arrows, hold down your left mouse button, and use your mouse to drag the screen up until it’s the right height.

Edit window for changing size of screen

Edit window for changing texture on your screen

The next step is to put a media texture on the screen. To do this, move your cursor back into the Edit window and click the “Texture” tab. You will see two boxes. The left box looks like wood grain and is labeled “Texture” on the bottom. Left click it. The Pick-Texture window pops up. Where it says “Type here to search”, type “default media texture”. “Default Media Texture” should then appear in the list. Highlight it and then click “Select”.

The last thing to do is to name your screen so you can find it in your inventory. In the Edit window, click the “General” tab and type the name of your screen in the white box after “Name:”. This is how you will find it in your inventory.

You have now made a basic movie screen! Close the Edit window.

In my next article in this series, I’ll tell you one place to find free videos you can show on your property and how to set up your property and profile settings so you can watch them. In the mean time, build your screen.

Shakespeare Twelfth Night, Act 1 photography contest

Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre in Second Life

There’s a big photography contest going on now in Second Life, with over 100,000 Lindens in prizes. It is the SL Shakespeare Company’s Twelfth Night, Act 1 Photography Contest on Koinup, starting March 1 and lasting through June 15. For more information, visit the SL Shakespeare Company’s blog. If you want to visit Second Life’s Globe Theatre, you can teleport to slurl.com/secondlife/sLiterary/19/33/22.

The following is from the SL Shakespeare Company’s press release about the contest:

Shakespeare, Second Life and Brescia, Italy: The SL Shakespeare Company joins forces with Koinup to launch the world’s first major photography contest featuring a professional theatrical production based entirely in the virtual world of Second Life. Starting March 1, the contest invites participants to attend the SL Shakespeare Company’s open-ended run of Twelfth Night, Act 1 and take photos. Over L$100,000 in prizes will be awarded to the winners.

SL Shakespeare Company poster

The contest consists of a main contest whose final submissions deadline is June 15, 2009. Several mini-contests with weekly or bi-monthly deadlines and prizes will be held starting in April. These mini-contests will be held in conjunction with several “Variations” on the open-ended run, where, for example, an all-female or switched-genders cast interpretation is tried.

To give all participants a chance, the contest introduces a special “Unedited SL Photography” category with its own exclusive prize.

The contest also has a special Avatar Photography category for photography that focus particularly on actor avatars. To help facilitate this specialized component, the SL Shakespeare Company will be holding special actor avatar photography sessions starting in April.

The Globe Threatre seen from the second level seating

The Globe Theatre stage seen from the second level seating

In efforts to recognize photography based not only on artistic merit but also on their appeal to different people, the contest will be judged by a panel of well-known Second Life residents from several different arenas. Judges include Ananda Valeeva, AM Radio, Beyers Sellers, Eshi Otawara, Frolic Mills, Ina Centaur, Jaymes Kjeller, Prad Prathivi, Rightasrain Rimbaud, Sarah Nerd, Tara05 Oh, Vint Falken, Verde Otaared, and others.

Shows occur weekly on Sundays at 1 PM PST and Tuesdays at 6 PM PST at the SL Globe Theatre. Performances are free except for shows on the last Tuesday and Sunday of each month. Donations are gratefully accepted.