Pavl Duke Creates Insane Multi-Particle Video Player

You may have seen online video mash-ups of, say, Rick James, Dave Chapelle, and Paul Simon singing and speaking all at once, but I bet you've never seen it dozens of times all at once, on the walls and flying and around you, like you were in an electronics store that suddenly went zero-G, sending LCD TVs floating off in every direction. That's what Pavl Duke has created in Cisthene, in a night club space that must be experienced to realize the full insane cacophony of the enterprise. (Direct SLurl teleport at this link.)

"It's just video texture on the particles," Mr. Duke tells me as video of an R&B star explodes around him, "it must've been available since particles could have textures." (Quicktime videos in Second Life are streamed by pointing the video at a designated texture in-world.)

"[Because] it's the default texture they pick up whatever [video] stream you've set. The default video texture here is T-white, so anything, including particles, that has transwhite as its texture will show video. It's almost depressingly easy." He tells me he's created up to forty and fifty of the video emitters, "which all rotate and show video themselves, and though it was laggy it was pretty stable." The video mash-ups in Cisthene were taken from a colleague's site Eclectic Method, and they're fun in themselves, and seem suited to this crazy particle effect. "It amazes me people haven't been doing it for ages," Duke muses. "On the other hand, though, not much of the video shown in Second Life is as suited to this as Eclectic Method's mash-ups. Really context is everything, as I am reliably informed."

If you haven't discerned it already, Pavl Duke is a mad inventor, who recently returned to Second Life after a hiatus. He's now at work fiendishly creating eclectic wonders in his workshop in Zale, where another version of the video particle emitter is available for events. While there, be sure to ask Mr. Duke about his automated noob soccer match that will be played for many years.

"[Because] it's the default texture they pick up whatever [video] stream you've set. The default video texture here is T-white, so anything, including particles, that has transwhite as its texture will show video. It's almost depressingly easy." He tells me he's created up to forty and fifty of the video emitters, "which all rotate and show video themselves, and though it was laggy it was pretty stable." The video mash-ups in Cisthene were taken from a colleague's site Eclectic Method, and they're fun in themselves, and seem suited to this crazy particle effect. "It amazes me people haven't been doing it for ages," Duke muses. "On the other hand, though, not much of the video shown in Second Life is as suited to this as Eclectic Method's mash-ups. Really context is everything, as I am reliably informed."

If you haven't discerned it already, Pavl Duke is a mad inventor, who recently returned to Second Life after a hiatus. He's now at work fiendishly creating eclectic wonders in his workshop in Zale, where another version of the video particle emitter is available for events. While there, be sure to ask Mr. Duke about his automated noob soccer match that will be played for many years.

Comments

[Nexus Burbclave]

Not to burst anyone's bubble, but Kala Pixie has been using this effect as part of her particle show for going on a year now. Its nice to see other people making use of it though, as it can certainly add some interesting effects if the video's are well chosen. This just definitely isn't a first.

[Pavl Duke]

Hang on a minute, Nexus - I built this place in 2006!!! That's an old, old bubble....
Look once, look twice, look at the thing you're talking about:)
Pavl

[Nexus Burbclave]

My apologies Pavl. From the story, it sounded like this place was brand new. I'll definitely come by to check it out when I am next in-world. It's a feature that when well used has a lot of potential.

[Rodolpho Teardrop]

The venue hosting it is brand new. Pavl is an old hand.