New World Notes

Why You Should Help Kickstart Wiglets, an Avatar Pioneer's Artificial Life, Augmented Reality Creatures for Mobile

Click here to consider financing Peck Peck's Journey, a real world book which interacts with Wiglets, a pretty brilliant form of artificial life conceived by Linden Lab veteran Jeffrey Ventrella, a leading innovator in avatar creation (see here and also here). "When I was working at Linden," Jeffrey tells me, "I was trying to inject more life into the avatars (and other things). As a software puppeteer, I use more than just basic principles of character animation to inform avatar software design; I also use my expertise in artificial life research." This project, he says, "is all about applying this knowledge and experience towards a new genre of virtual worlds that infuses autonomous agents into a real world context."

How's that work, and why should you, oh lover of all things virtual, help finance it? Read on, read on:

This Watch_Dogs-Inspired Second Life Cosplay Looks as Good as the Game It's Based On

Janine "Iris Ophelia" Hawkins' ongoing review of gaming and virtual world style

You would be forgiven if you mistook Zeke Jestyr's latest picture (shown on the left) for a screenshot from Ubisoft's Watch_Dogs, which was officially released today. With a gun in one hand, a smartphone in the other, a not-so-iconic cap on his head and a slightly more iconic coat enveloping his avatar, Zeke's practically indistinguishable from gruff and grouchy protagonist Aiden Pearce. It's yet another interesting example of avatar-based cosplay, not to mention high-quality post-processing.

Even if reviews for Watch_Dogs itself are mixed, I feel pretty comfortable giving this picture at least a 9/10. View it full-size and find out how to recreate the look yourself on Zeke's blog, Just Jestyr.

(Hat tip: Anemysk Karu)

Master Virtual Reflections Thanks to This Photoshop Plugin Tutorial Courtesy of Blogger Strawberry Singh

Janine "Iris Ophelia" Hawkins' ongoing review of gaming and virtual world style

Water reflections in Second Life are far from unattainable, but even with the perfect settings and a beast of a computer to render everything on things sometimes just don't look right. Maybe it's the physics of the water itself or the way the reflection is handled, but either way it's understandable that a lot of SL artists look elsewhere for the perfect reflection.

Enter Strawberry Singh, queen of the Second Life-oriented video tutorial, with her latest guide on how to use a Photoshop plug-in to add a dose of realistic ripples and reflections to your pictures...

Don't Miss This Second Life Pic Inspired by Classic Poetry

Janine "Iris Ophelia" Hawkins' ongoing review of gaming and virtual world style

If you have a penchant for poetry you'll absolutely want to read the most recent blog post from one of my favorite virtual fashion mavens, Vaki Zenovka. With the help of a few Second Life designers she's recreated the illustration accompanying one of her favorite poems, "Overheard on a Saltmarsh".

The story behind the verse may sound familiar to any fashionista who's dealt with an envious admirer. It the poem, a covetous goblin tries to coerce a nymph to hand over the beautiful green glass beads she's wearing, but she refuses. Vaki's virtual illustration is a page torn right from a classic childhood book and given a digital-age upgrade. As is the case with a lot of Second Life adaptations of art and media it's not a 100% accurate recreation, but it definitely captures the spirit of both the poem and the original artwork.

You can see a slice of her work above, but for the full piece (including her outfit notes and the poem in its entirety) swing by Vaki Zanovka's blog here.

Top Six New World Notes Posts from Last Week

• New on Steam: Transistor, a Stylish Cyberpunk Action Game With a Fabulous Female Lead
• Watch Han & Luke Demonstrate Why Low Latency is Crucial to Avatar Interaction
• Dear Second Life: Morphed Avatar Images Have Absolutely No Place on Your Facebook Page [UPDATE: LL Responds]
• Official Oculus Rift Second Life Viewer Officially Here -- Apparently Addresses Several Problems from Beta Version
• From Caterpillar to Butterfly: Hit Mobile Game Lili Transformed for Steam in Lili: Child of Geos
• Palmer Luckey on Using Oculus Rift with Second Life -- and Using Second Life Himself

Weekend Read: VR Founders Discuss the Future of VR

Here's a long summary of the fascinating SVVR panel on the future of virtual reality with Oculus Rift founder Palmer Luckey and other VR industry leaders. Lots of topics covered, including Their personal "aha" moment with VR, mobile versus desktop, a VR "bubble" and VR's killer app, VR for glasses wearers, standardization, and finally, this fascinating exchange, excerpted below:

SVVR Recap: SL Creator on Second Life's Influence on VR

SL content creator Moe Capp has a good long summary of his experiences at SVVR (sorry I didn't meet you there, Moe), which makes for good long reading over the long weekend. This point in particular stands out:

Second Life seemed to end up dominating several of the panel discussions at the conference. This was both good and bad in some ways. I was glad because often it seems the significance of SL as a gigantic functional virtual world, just waiting for the hardware to catch up with it, gets left out of many VR discussions. But after being at SVVR, I got the impression that Second Life will remain a very relevant part of the VR discussion for now.

That's definitely my impression too. Also this, from the talk with Linden Lab CEO Ebbe Altberg (which I missed):

Anonymous Designer Teases Impressive Unreleased Eyes for Second Life Avatars

Janine "Iris Ophelia" Hawkins' ongoing review of gaming and virtual world style

Plurk, the social network of choice for Second Life's fashion community, has a feature that allows users to post anonymously to their followers feeds. Typically this feature is used for... Well, it's used for a lot of garbage, to be blunt. Drama and dumb questions and things that generally don't add anything to the ecosystem. But recently, an anonymous designer has been using it to tease an upcoming release still in development -- new life-like mesh eyes with animated pupil dilation, and a glossy shine effect courtesy of SL Materials. They've posted multiple still screenshots of the eyes, as well as the rather creepy (but still cool) animated gif shown above.

While these aren't the first set of eyes in Second Life to make use of materials (nor are they the first set to imitate the natural fuctuations of an iris/pupil) the crisp textures (and of course the air of secrecy) have my curiosity piqued. As for the identity of the mystery designer, I suppose well just have to wait and see.

Second Life's New Starter Avatars Aren't Ideal for Newbies, But They Are a Gift to Virtual Photographers

Janine "Iris Ophelia" Hawkins' ongoing review of gaming and virtual world style

When I mentioned how many Second Life users are absolutely enamoured with the mesh zombie avatars added to the SL Library in my piece last week, I wasn't exaggerating. They're certainly my favorites from the bunch, and more than a few virtual world photographers have been using these Materials-enabled undead as models in their work. Magissa Denver's "The Walking Dead" (above) is one of the better examples so far, putting the female zombie in the unlikely role of a post-apoc pin-up. It's not a particularly complex image between the model, the backdrop, and the touch of grass along the bottom, but it's still hauntingly effective. While I don't think mesh bodies are a good starting point for new players, it's hard not to appreciate the work that went into this ghoulish gal, and the mileage that more experienced SL users may be able to get out of her and her friends.

If you've seen any outstanding shots of the new mesh avatars, don't hesitate to share them in the comments below! 

Palmer Luckey on Using Oculus Rift with Second Life -- and Using Second Life Himself

After Oculus Rift founder Palmer Luckey was featured at SVVR talking about the future of VR, I got a chance to briefly meet him in the media room. He's smart, funny, well-spoken, and surprisingly grounded for a 21 year old who's suddenly on the cover of Wired magazine, not mention being worth bazillions. We talked about the idea of whether there really is a moral imperative to create VR, as he argued at SVVR, because "a lot of people in the world don't have as good an experience in real life as we do here". That's a fascinating subject for another post -- and as you might imagine, we also talked about Second Life, and using Second Life with Oculus Rift. And to answer the question NWN readers are surely asking -- Yes, Palmer Luckey has used SL with the Rift, and yes, he's used SL in general. And you won't believe the reason he last used Second Life: