New World Notes

Do Time in the "Hot Tub Time Machine" Prison in Second Life (For a Limited Time)!

Remember the Second Life jail featured in Hot Tub Time Machine? Why of course you do. This week, reports TROI Timtam, who co-developed the site for the movie's producers, you can actually visit it in-world, and even do hard time like Jacob in the movie. (That's me doing push-ups in the hoosegow.) "Anyone who is interested can check the Hot Tub Time Machine group in SL and follow the trail to the build," Ms. Timtam says. You may even spot Jacob himself in-world -- he's Jacob Morlim, and his avatar profile tells a sad tale of hard luck suitable for a Johnny Cash folk ballad, or maybe a furry ballet re-enactment.

Linden Lab Launches New First Hour Experience: Feels Like Being in an Apple Store Selling Microsoft Products

After a couple years of development, Linden Lab is unveiling its revamped "first hour" user experience today. Now after new Residents create an account, they'll get an updated suite of base avatars to choose from, then get sent to two new isles accessible only to noobs and Lindens: Welcome Island and Discovery Island. The Lindens were nice enough to give me an advance look last night.

My quick take: It's a definite improvement to the existing on-ramp experience, and should improve user retention rates to some degree. As you would expect from a Linden executive team counting veterans of design-centric companies like Adobe, TiVo, and Pixar, it's a sleek and streamlined presentation. At the same time, I think it still doesn't address many of the fundamental frictions noobs have with Second Life, and the overall result is a beautiful frame added around those more vexing UI issues. Or to put it another way: It feels like walking into an Apple Store that's selling Microsoft products.

Maybe I'm being overly skeptical. Let me show some highlights from the experience, and you can judge the results for yourself:

Lainy Voom's "Dagon", Magnificent Second Life Machinima of H.P. Lovecraft Short Story

It's been many months since Lainy Voom uploaded a personal machinima project, but as it turns out, the Second Life machinima master (and an occasional collaborator of mine) has been hard at work on something astoundingly ambitious: a machinima-based retelling of H.P. Lovecraft's short story "Dagon", a tale of madness and mad discoveries. Put aside ten minutes where you can shut off all distractions, and watch:

Dagon - HP Lovecraft from Lainy Voom on Vimeo.

As she always does, Lainy's composition and photography is awesome. Add to this the resonant sound design (often an overlooked element in other machinima productions) provided by the Free Sound Project, and you're watching another landmark in virtual world narrative.

Hat tip to Gala Charron for pointing me to Lainy's latest!

Hot Tub Time Machinima: How Second Life Was Incorporated Into the New John Cusack Comedy

Hot Tub Time Machine, the wacky new comedy starring John Cusack which opened fairly well last weekend, has a lead character with a second life. Specifically, he plays Second Life as a roleplaying game where his character is trapped in a virtual jail, and he takes it really really seriously:

"Jacob, played by Clark Duke, is the nephew of Adam, played by John Cusack," explains Steve Nelson, the Second Life developer who created the SL content for the production. "He’s living in Adam’s basement because his mom has a new boyfriend. He spends most of the time in Second Life, in jail, awaiting a court date. He can’t leave the basement because he can’t leave Second Life. He can’t leave Second Life because he doesn’t want to miss his court date, which would be a real problem."

To depict all that for the movie, Nelson (known in Second Life as Kiwini Oe), created several minutes of machinima, which the Hot Tub creators incorporated into the movie. (Using a similar technique as the Paul Rudd movie Role Models, which also integrated SL machinima into a scene.)

"We got detailed notes from the associate producer on this one, describing the characters, setting, and action, and they wanted 3-4 minutes of footage," says Oe. His partner Troi Timtam built an elaborate set and designed the avatars. "We shared some test shots with the producer and got good feedback on details. The final shoot included four of us, in Berkeley, Walnut Creek and Copenhagen. I directed, filmed and edited; Troi drove the main character; and our daughter and her boyfriend ran two extras (that didn’t make the final movie.)

"[T]he Second Life footage actually used included two brief shots of Jacob in jail, walking around his cell, and doing pushups," says Nelson. "There’s also related dialog between Adam and Jacob when you see the back of the laptop. We had a copy of this section of the shooting script, and they pretty much stuck to it, so we knew that the script didn’t call for extensive use of the SL footage. The longer machinima we delivered afforded two things: it gave the director and editor a wider range of footage to select the clips to use on screen. It also delivered the fuller backstory for the director and actors to better inform their performance."

They shipped the results to the producers last April, but weren't sure if their work had made the final cut. Until, that is, they started reading about previews of the movie earlier this year.

Finding Nemo (The SL Steampunk City, Not the Pixar Fish)

Nemo, the glorious underwater steampunk city I blogged about last week, has been moved to a new location: Go here to get in. Bring a harpoon, or maybe an avatar who looks like Kirk Douglas.

Award-Winning Architects To Showcase Their Housing Plans in OpenSim (Update, Added Interview with the Developers)

Very interesting news via the Arch Network: A group of award-winning architect/design studios called Hometta are about to launch "H-Town," a virtual world showcase of their real world building designs. It's been developed in OpenSim, and unless I'm mistaken, it's the most prominent real world commercial application of Second Life's open source spinoff so far. (At least in the West.) Not just a platform for 3D model displays, H-Town will also let prospective Hometta clients experiment with different paint, furniture, and landscape choices. Much more here.

Update, 3/30: Just received some more details from Hometta's Ann Chou:

Hamlet Au: What inspired you guys to use OpenSim? Why not Second Life?

AC: While we currently use OpenSim, we may expand in the future. The purpose of our virtual world, H-Town, is to give our customers an additional tool in visualizing their prospective home. Although Second Life and OpenSim have a lot of similarities, there are several reasons why we chose OpenSim over SecondLife. We intend for H-Town to create a design community, whereas a real estate market has already been developed in Second Life. In order to build this kind of development project, we have to invest quite a bit to acquire several lots. Under OpenSim, the basic [SL] rate could provide four sims.

In order to simulate the real houses, the houses in H-Town must attain a certain level of detail. In Second Life, we have a prim limit of 117 prims in 512 m2, as well as the texture uploaded fee.

OpenSim seems more appropriate for H-Town's purpose, as it allows to develop a private community. Of course, Second Life has a lot of traffic. We see Second Life as a potential outlet for Hometta in the future.

Coley's World: Exploring Lunamaruna, a New Cartoon City Wonderland

ColeMarie Soleil sees Second Life's arts scene from her unique point of view

What happens when you mix Dr. Seuss, Van Gogh, and Antoni Gaudi? You might get Second Life builder Scottius Polke. His creations are very stylistic, created with care and detail; his new build, Lunamaruna, is really unique and fun to explore, with vibrant colors and a cohesive comic-like theme. [Direct SLurl teleport to Lunamaruna at this link]

If you run around long enough as I did during a sneak preview with some friends, you are bound to find a few interactive bits here and there. I really enjoy bouncing around on the launch pads and hanging out on the Mantra Rays. Yes, Mantra Rays:

If you've seen previous Scottius work, you might notice similiarities from his mushROOM in the new build. How everything is all very cartoonish, with a hand-drawn feel. They are very different in many ways, but if you appreciated mushROOM, you will enjoy Lunamaruna. With it, Scottius created a unique playground for the eyes.

ColeMarie Soleil covers the Second Life arts scene for New World Notes when inspiration strikes. Before joining SL, she was a studio musician, a wandering gypsy, a graphic designer, and a solo artist who's performed at Whiskey a Go Go in Los Angeles and the Apollo in Manhattan. See more of her machinima here.

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Top Seven New World Notes Posts From Last Week

• Lyric Lundquist's Machinima is "Boundless" -- Notes on the Latest From a Master of Expressionist Second Life Machinima
• Second Life Featured in Hot Tub Time Machine!
• Jesse Schell, Get Real: Accessibility, Not Reality, Is the Big Force Driving Games and Virtual Worlds Today
• Svarga, Artificial Ecosystem Island, Is Back in Second Life! (It Was Purchased by Linden Lab)
• iPhone's "Pocket Metaverse" App Streams Second Life Parcel Media: Listen to Live SL Music On Your iPhone!
• Nemo Rises: Awe-Inspiring Underwater Steampunk City
• Can 9 Seconds of Communal Focus in Second Life Change Your Real Life?

Weekend Open Forum: Blatantly Self-Promote the Second Life Activity of You and Your Friends Here!

The floor is open! Post anything here as long as it's related to Second Life or OpenSim, and it blatantly promotes your in-world activities, or those of friends/Residents you admire. Include links and SLurls where available!