New World Notes

I Tell the BBC About the Culture War in Second Life During the Iraq War

Here's a fun new segment from a BBC podcast called The Digital Human, in which I tell longtime Internet culture reporter Aleks Krotoski about the "War of the Jessie Wall" in Second Life, which you can read more about here. (Also briefly mentioned is this story about a virtual mansion built by someone while homeless in real life.) I believe this is a segment to a much larger episode, but in any case, hope you enjoy, and see you next Monday!

Watch Why I Think the VR Game Audica from the Creators of Guitar Hero Becomes a Huge Mixed Reality Hit

When the VR game Beat Saber came out, the pitch for it was often, "It's like Guitar Hero meets light sabers".  Well the game Audica is actually made by the creator of Guitar Hero, and it looks incredibly fun. And even moreso than Beat Saber, the gameplay is integrated with the music, so that the player looks less like he's shooting every beat, but orchestrating it like a DJ, along with an incredibly hypnotic light show. Which is another way of saying this would be a great game feature in dance clubs and at parties, right next to the actual DJ --- or perhaps better yet, Audica players themselves can become the DJ, playing the music in a very literal way.

Cajsa’s Friday Instagram Pick: Eve Kazan Photographs the Best of Sansar

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

Xiola Linden saw our post requesting Sansar pictures and turned me on to Eve Kazan's Instagram. I follow Eve's fabulous Flickr stream and had no idea that her instagram would be anything different, but it is. I love this "Sleeping Giant" and that Eve shot from a more unusual angle, with the foot right up front rather than from the side. It makes it more humorous. [Visit in Sansar here. - ed]

Here in "A city is more than a place in space" she uses the rule of thirds and leading lines to draw us down the street. Her picture invites us to explore.

Nylon Pinkney is Online: Marie Kondo Meets Second Life User Inventory

Listen: "Martha Wayne", A Love Song from Batman's Mom -- Written & Performed by Keiko Takamura & Alice Knows Karate

Perfect listening for Valentine's Day, this is "Martha Wayne" from Alice Knows Karate, the new project from legendary geek pop artist Keiko Takamura. (Stream above, buy a copy from Keiko and crew from many platforms here.) Keiko launched her career as a live singer in Second Life (featured on MTV), and has been creating and performing insanely catchy songs ever since, much of them devoted to characters and stories from beloved games and comics. This one is a sexy, smart, torch songy take on Batman's origin story, as told by an often unacknowledged character: Batman's mom Martha Wayne.

"I wanted to write a song that was like if Lana Del Rey wrote a love ballad for Batman: The Animated Series," Keiko explains.
The show's composer, Shirley Walker, used music to really cement the iconic goth-deco aesthetic -- I wanted to capture a little bit of that as an homage. I also wanted to write a love song that acknowledged the impermanence of life, the inevitability of death (wow, Herzog much?) Choosing to relish that fact rather than avoid it."

And yes, Martha Wayne doesn't exactly have a happy ending, but Keiko insists this is still a song for Valentine's Day:

Bigscreen, Social VR for Consuming Media Together, Gets Big Update

I just mentioned that Bigscreen VR is starting to see some usergrowth, and right on time, the experience-2D-media-together social VR platform just announced a big update:

Over the past year, we’ve been working on a massive new update for Bigscreen with real-time raytracing lighting effects, new environments, new avatars, new VR UI, a Windows audio driver, and more. This update has many user-requested features and fixes some of the biggest bugs & problems that our users have experienced.

Download links at the bottom of the blog post, trailer above. I remain skeptical that there's much of a market to consume passive media in VR, but a lot of Bigscreen's features, like the avatar creation system, are worth a look. Upcoming features also notable, including:

Cajsa’s Flickr Pick Of The Day: Artful Photos of Tom Clancy's The Division 2

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

I like this photostream of gamer Agt. Morgan Creed. Most of the screenshots have been desaturated or changed to black and white which gives them a more dramatic feeling. We are not distracted by color and focus more on the shapes and interplay of light and dark.

I don't know what's happening in Tom Clancy's Division, but it is destructive. Nonetheless, with the focus on sunlight and shadow, even destruction becomes beautiful. According to the description, the picture is taken in Photomode; there is no editing. So, like Second Life, they allow users to choose photofilters in-game to produce artistic effects. The most important element, though, is still the skill in framing the photo.

Here is another unedited picture, artfully framed so that our eyes follow the leading lines of the street, creating bold geometric blocks of light and shade:

How "Syrmor" Became VRChat's Best Embedded Virtual World Reporter

Last year, a 20-something videographer in Toronto was wandering the world of VRChat as an adorable cat when he stumbled into a sexy anime girl who was actually a German Finnish man drunk off his ass having an existential argument with a purple dinosaur.

“I didn't expect to be doing VR interviews,” the young Canadian remembers now. But he hit record and uploaded the Camus-but-blotto conversation that ensued to YouTube (above), where it quickly went viral. “That's when it really clicked in to me how crazy talking to someone from across the planet in VRChat actually was,” he says.

And so began the career of Syrmor, who may be VRChat’s first embedded reporter, and certainly among its most viewed YouTubers. Hundreds of thousands view each of his in-depth, in-world interviews, which by his estimate, are about 1/15th of the actual extended conversations he’s had with the virtual world’s denizens.

“When I first started my channel,” he acknowledges, “it was more just funny compilations.” After all, he once recorded interviews and on-the-street protests in real life. “My real passion was creating stories so the idea of just making gaming videos didn't interest me too much.

"However, as it grew I realized it had potential and I wanted to take it more seriously.”

Tomorrow: Join the Virtual Valentine's Day Fun in Sinespace!

Lots of in-game social events and fun happening tomorrow for Valentine's in Sinespace (a proud NWN media partner!) starting at 3PM PST, including live singing, dancing, and at least a couple outfit contests for big gold prizes. Go here for the details and join the Sinespace Discord for more announcements and discussion.

Cajsa’s SL Flickr Choice Of The Day: Absinthe's Amazingly Detailed Second Life Images Turned Into Perfect Polaroid Shots

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

I love Absinthe's photo "Wish You Were Here" because it is everything it should be: An old black and white Polaroid snap of someone in a specific moment. The train speeds by and the blur she added in Photoshop gives us that movement. So does her skirt and her hair blowing in the gusts of the train.

So, in terms of SL fashion styling, this required finding not just a skirt, but a blowing-in-the-wind skirt, and not just hair but blowing-in-the-wind hair, and both of similar intensity. This takes time and attention to detail -- which you might discover if you browse Flickr for long and find the photos of trees blowing one way and hair blowing another. Other details that are often missed: She took off her shoes and made her feet flat. Her shoes are in her hand. This is someone who didn't just put on an outfit but thought out the implications of her clothing in the photo.

Her Flickr stream is called "Absinthe's Polaroid Moments" because all her pictures reflect that conceit:

How to Display Extremely High-Res Textures In SL's Firestorm Viewer

Click to embiggen: Catwa head texture displayed in normal, 1024K, and 8K (pics via M. Vanmoer)

UPDATE, 2/13: In Comments, some readers have pointed out that this hack might not necessarily work as described, or could cause performance problems for users -- so caveat SLer. (Then again, the top avatar mesh bodies sold in Second Life already have major performance issues.)  Also be sure to read Vanmoer's responses in Comments.

SLer "Frenchbloke Vanmoer" recently told me about a cool Debug setting in the Firestorm viewer that enables extremely high resolution textures to be displayed, with far more detail than is seen by default. (As seen above, and after the break.)

"It's not a bug as far as I know," he tells me, "just that it's hidden away in the Debug settings -- nobody looks in there properly... Some [creators] I have talked to were unaware it existed and were making all their textures for upload from up to 8K sources as 1K uploads."

He says making the change doesn't cause much viewer-side lag: "They are just the usual 1024 x 1024 textures as far as your inventory and viewer is concerned. The main difference is that it looks a lot nicer. It's the same principle as photo resizing as well as audio for broadcast -- the better the quality in, the better it will be when compressed. It's one of the first things you learn when using images -- best to start big and then scale down, than the other way around. I'm curious to see what mesh creators can do with this on uvmapped mesh."

As with any debug adjustment, user beware! Here's the Debug setting Vanmoer is talking about:

Decentraland Launches New Site With Metaverse Messaging, Creator Contest

Big updates to Decentraland, the ambitious, open standards-based social VR world project which raised $25 million in 2017 via Ethereum sales to fund development. The website is new, gorgeous, and decidedly metaversian in its messaging:

Welcome to Decentraland: A virtual world owned by its users. Build, explore, and earn money from your creations. Join a public platform controlled by its community and take a stake in the virtual world. Drive your vision with the tools, tutorials, and support that our community provides. Decentraland’s world is built around MANA, a blockchain-based token used for trading goods and services provided by users.

More on the blog here. On top of that, there's a major update to the Builder, the world's scene builder, and a Creator Contest that's being co-judged by James Dargie, a seasoned 3D artist with an impressive AAA game/Hollywood movie track record. (Metroid Prime, Medal of Honor, the Matrix movies, etc. ) For a glimpse at how the Builder works and what's possible with it, here's a recent-ish tutorial where a simple tower defense game is built in Decentraland:

Seeking Aesthetic Sansar Screenshots for Cajsa's Column on Virtual World Art

Now that Cajsa Lilliehook is expanding her NWN column devoted to great virtual world screenshot art and digital painting beyond Second Life to games like Assassin's Creed and GRIS, she's also looking for artistically composed screenshots from Sansar. So far, she tells me, there isn't much that stands out on Flickr. So if you know of any, please get in touch with her on Flickr or on Twitter.

"Fishing Monsters" by Carthalis Rossini (above) is among the few arresting Sansar images she's come across so far. Her appraisal:

Dutch Readers: Second Life Retrospective Featured on Netherlands' VPRO

Here's a long new article on a frequently recurring subject: "Will Second Life Life Get a Second Life?" Written by Hans van Wetering for VPRO, which I gather is kinda sorta the NPR of the Netherlands, I offer some comments and Bryn Oh art is featured. It's in Dutch ("Krijgt Second Life een tweede leven?"), so if you're a reader fluent in that language, we'd be grateful for a general summary in Comments. Here's the starting paragraphs:

 

Social VR Stats: Concurrency Rates for VRChat & Rec Room Remain Stable -- Big Screen Sees Slight Growth Bump

New stats of social VR usage on Steam (via SteamDB): As of last weekend, the top two next gen leaders, VRChat and Rec Room, are maintaining their peak concurrency rates of high four figures/low five figures and mid three figures, respectively. Vexingly, peak concurrency rates for Sansar and High Fidelity remain in the two figures. Perhaps Sansar's live stand-up comedy event today at 5pm PST, may bump that up a bit. (But with tickets selling for $4.99-9.99, that may be a challenge.)

Another entry worth keeping an eye on is Bigscreen, which turns social VR into a theatrical viewing experience: "Play your favorite PC video games on a huge screen. Hangout in social VR chat rooms. Events like weekly 3D Movie Nights and VR LAN parties." In recent weeks it's been attracting peak daily concurrency rates of 100+, a very slight upward trend of 2-3 dozen users. (Which probably translates into monthly active users in the low four figures.) That might not seem like a lot, but then again, back in the Summer of 2017, VRChat was also getting peak concurrencies of 100+, but only a few months later, those numbers totally changed. That in mind, check out Bigscreen's latest teaser trailer:

High Fidelity Hiring Educator to Teach WWII History in Virtual Reality

New World Notes is lucky to have a lot of readers who are educators interested in the use of virtual worlds/VR as a pedagogic tool, so for many of them, this new position from High Fidelity looks like a dream job:

High Fidelity is looking for a trained historian, seasoned hobbyist, or passionate collector to act as World War II memorabilia docent and educator for a virtual reality project. The project has the potential to run for several months and involve weekly scheduled presentations to online students and learners. This position is ideal for residents local to the Bay Area [see update] with the ability to travel to our San Francisco office during designated tour times...

Required Background: Extensive knowledge of World War II aircrafts, weaponry and tactics to provide an in-depth tour of visual memorabilia. Ability to convey information and answer questions to groups of up to 25.

This position is an extension of High Fidelity's education program, which began with a virtual recreation of a tomb in ancient Egypt. "Jobs in VR are going to a big part of our future," as CEO Philip Rosedale explains. "There are four Egyptologists leading sold out tours, and growing. [Video below.] We thought World War II was the right next thing to try."

Really interested to see what kind of installation High Fidelity is planning. WWII remains a central facet of popular culture, especially as a stage for 3D online games (most recently with Dice/Electronic Arts' Battlefield V, pictured above), so it should draw quite a lot of interest. It would be wonderful if HiFi could find World War II veterans to participate in the program, and bring their precious first-hand memories into this new, immersive platform. (As of late last year, there are about half a million US vets who are still alive, but we lose so many to old age every month.)

Top 5 NWN Posts Last Week: Teaching AIs to Argue, Cartooning VRChat Strangeness, Funding VR Art & More

• Nylon Pinkney Is Online: One Night In VRChat
• Watch: New Trailer To Dual Universe, The Fully Immersive Metaverse
• Watch: DeepMotion Creating AIs Which "Learn" How To Argue With Each Other
• Decade-Old Second Life Innovations Now Embraced As "New" By Mainstream
• Artist Gets Canadian Government Grant To Create VR & Machinima Experiences In Second Life & Sansar

Visit in Second Life This Month: Cica Ghost's Magical Drawn Town

Click here to teleport all through this month (after which it goes away) into the latest gorgeously whimsical experience created by longtime SL-based artist Cica Ghost. It's called Drawn Town, and as that suggests, it's almost like moving through a 3D chalkboard drawing:

"[M]y first public work in Second Life was a black and white world that I called CICA," Ms. Ghost explains. "It was on the Linden Endowment for Arts sim and was mostly black drawings on alpha textures on white background, with some animation script. People liked that place; there are still many who tell me how it was their favorite from all of my work."

But that experience was created quite awhile ago, and she decided to revisit that style: 

Nylon Pinkney is Online: One Night in VRChat

Cajsa’s Flickr Choice Of The Day: Screen Captures of Assassin's Creed & Other Games Turned Into Beautifully Composed Art

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

Fusrodahdude has an interesting eye that sets him apart. I mean this quite literally. In this photo [above] where the diagonal camera view gives momentum and movement to the rider and camel. The wide angle adds the sense of adventure and distance.

Here the picture is shot from beneath which seems to guarantee that the person leaning back will soon be defeated. We always assume the one on top will win.

More from Assassin's Creed below:

Watch: New Trailer to Dual Universe, the Fully Immersive Metaverse

We talked a lot about Dual Universe last year, the upcoming,  crowd-funded, single shard MMO, with some arguing that it was the closest thing we have to a metaverse -- so you'll want to watch the latest trailer above. Featured features include:

• Terraforming/mining
• In-game scripting
• Flight physics
• Community building
• Full voxel-based editing
• Multiplayer ship navigation

I recently had a long demo of Dual Universe with lead developer J.C. Baillie, which is what led me to call this "a fully immersive metaverse" in the title -- in other words, it's everything we associate with a "metaverse", but integrated within the Dual Universe narrative. More details on that soon, but meantime, here's a bit of what Will Burns says about Dual Universe:

Watch: DeepMotion Creating AIs Which "Learn" How to Argue With Each Other

Here's a cool new AI demo from DeepMotion, the company which recently taught an AI how to "learn" the art of dribbling. In this demo, they've simulated a group of AIs infinitely arguing; even if they gesticulate so wildly, they knock each other down, they right get back into the squabble:

With only a few learned skills, the character controllers used in this demo are relatively simple, as are the mechanics of the simulation. When the simulation is played, each character transitions between the three argumentative gestures at random, creating the appearance of a lively debate. When the characters experience external force from a user, the environment, or another character, they fall and then promptly get up. The primary goal is to continue arguing.

Fit a few hundred of these in an auditorium, and you could simulate a session of Congress! (With possibly less pratfalls.)  

"The short term plan," Deep Motion's Chief Scientist Libin Liu tells me, "is to let the characters learn argument and idling actions from those unstructured motion sequences, so that they can perform them freely based on scripts, user commands, or mimic user actions based on sparse input (like 3 point tracking)." 

Most game-focused AI is developed around core mechanics like pathfinding and combat, but Liu and his team believe subtle group interactions like this can do much to make a game world seem that much more real:

Coming Soon to Black Dragon SL Viewer: Full Camera Animation Editor With Keyframing (I.E. Major Feature Machinima)

Black Dragon, the third party Second Life viewer with a cult following among hardcore graphics fans (Discord channel here) has an upcoming features that's ideal for YouTubers, Twitch streamers, and machinima makers: Full camera animation editor with keyframing.

"It will allow you to record, edit, delete, move camera animation keyframes," Black Dragon creator NiranV tells me. "The controls will immediately preview what you are doing as shown in the [video above]. They can also be abused to precisely control position and rotation at any time for a snapshot. Later i'll also add field of view. All if which will be animated from keyframe to keyframe."

This is designed to be far superior to the existing recording options in the official Second Life viewer -- and the biggest update to Black Dragon in awhile:

Cajsa’s SL Flickr Choice Of The Day: Black & White Image Master Clary C.

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

"A new-to-me artist, Clary C. is a master of black and white. 'What about angels sissy?' (above) is an example of how dramatic photos can be with really high contrast. Everything is abstracted but the intimacy of their conversation comes through.

"At the other extreme, there is this photo. Its power comes from its high definition. It is so sharp and a texture overlay increases the impression of definition. Every spot of dirt, every crack and whorl in the wood and the tires. It is also a portrayal of intimacy that is very evocative. It's interesting to compare the emotional effect of this black and white photo with the color photo of the same scene by the man in this photo, Vic Taur." (See below)

Decade-Old Second Life Innovations Now Embraced as "New" by Mainstream

Vega in SL in 2006; Marshmello in 2019

When Marshmello performed in Fortnite last weekend, more than a few people were irked that media outlets like The Verge proclaimed it as a "first" or "unprecedented" -- when in fact, Second Life pioneered live music performances over 13 years ago.  Which is actually not all that long ago! But as reader Madeline Blackbart writes, it took that amount of time for many Second Life innovations to finally seem acceptable to a mass market:

I think as mainstream culture and the average person becomes more and more involved in the virtual world we're going to see a lot more of this retreading of old ground being called "new". Things like virtual "influencers" and virtual popstars and concerts aren't new to those of us who have been playing in virtual worlds like Second Life but they are to mainstream media and the "average" person. To be honest, I'm noticing it more and more, and it's interesting how what used to be something "misfits and shut ins" did (AKA living a virtual life) is just now becoming commonly accepted. I think years from now even if Second Life isn't around anymore we'll still see concepts from it integrated into mainstream life.

This is very true. Along with real world musicians performing virtually, here's a couple other SL-based innovations recently treated by the media as the Next Big Thing:

• Virtual celebrities and models for real life brands (including Kim Kardashian)
• Virtual land rushes and real estate speculation

Best accept the collective amnesia made inevitable by the Internet's eternal present, because we're likely to see many more new (old) innovations arriving (returning) soon. Even though they never really left.