New World Notes

Real Life Opera Singer Performs Over Second Life Machinima

This is a uniquely beautiful SL machinima from Cassie Middles, not just for its swooping camerawork, its wonderful use of focus effects and its dynamic lighting/shadow, but also because of Cassie herself -- in real life she's a veteran opera singer, and she sings into her mic while moving around her avatar. ("Green Finch and Linnet Bird", in this case, from Sweeney Todd.)

BinaryVR to Dem Face Tracking Tech in High Fidelity This Thursday

Click here to RSVP: This Thursday (Feb. 2nd, 3-4pm California time.) As you probably guessed, you need High Fidelity pre-installed to catch the demo, and ideally, long in wearing a Rift or Vive. This is specially a demo of BinaryVR's new face tracking HMD plugin, which makes this possible:

Second Life Photo Inspired by Wong Kar Wai's In the Mood for Love

Thank you Ms. Odette, for creating this gorgeous Second Life image inspired by a gorgeous film: In the Mood for Love, Wong Kar Wai's masterpiece of romantic longing in the heart of 60's Hong Kong. Compare and contrast with a scene from the 2000 film:

Survey: When Will Linden Lab "nudge" Second Life users to use Sansar?

Since last Friday's post on this topic garnered so much conversation, here's a related survey: When will Linden Lab "nudge" Second Life users to use Sansar? Note that I'm not asking when Linden Lab will announce or advertise Sansar to SL users (they've basically already done that), but when they'll offer targeted incentives to them:

Sony Playstation VR Sales & Usage Underwhelming So Far

Virtual Winter is coming, if it's not already here:

[T]here’s early evidence that the PSVR’s sales figures may not have been to the company’s liking. There was little mention of VR or upcoming VR titles at the PlayStation Experience last month, and Sony’s Kaz Hirai has refused to give concrete figures, saying: “We’ve always said it’s going to be a slow start, unfortunately, we did produce a lot of units but we ran out of stock in some retailers, but I think based on reports coming out of the holiday season, we’re actually happy with the numbers. One of the reasons we’re not talking about the numbers so much is because we don’t want the numbers to take a life of their own.” Independent tracking firm SuperData Research has revised their estimate of PSVR sales to 750,000, down from 2.6 million, though that initial figure was extremely optimistic...

It's not just that sales are slow, but most hardcore gamers who are supposed to be VR's first market don't seem especially enthused:

SL Flickr of the Day: Virtual World Resistance to Real Life Trump Culture

This powerful image from Daeberethwen Arbenlow is the perfect way to start a Monday after a weekend of country-wide protests against the Trump Administration's now-embattled Muslim refugee ban. Ms. Arbenlow actually created it for Shiloh Selene-Goldlust's Flickr to illustrate resistance to the misogyny and bigotry unleashed and encouraged by the Trump era, but that was a whole week ago, and a new wave of resistance has launched since then. 

Top Seven New World Notes Posts from Last Week!

• Will Linden Lab Ever "Force" Second Life Users Into Sansar?
• Virtual World Vets Debate Key "Holy Grail" Feature Of Social VR
• High Fidelity User Information Potentially Exposed After E-Mail Breach, CEO Philip Rosedale Announces
• How To Import Avatar Outfits Hand-Made In Tilt Brush To Wear In High Fidelity
• Trump-Appointed FCC Head Poses Direct Threat To Second Life & Other Virtual Worlds/Online Games
• Surprising Stat: Majority Of Second Life Users Surveyed Not Interested In Joining High Fidelity
• You Can Get A Free Women's March Pussy Hat For Your SL Avatar

Will Linden Lab Ever "Force" Second Life Users Into Sansar?

Gwyneth in an SL utopian community in 2006 (which of course fell into acrimony and DMCA filings)

Interesting comment from metaverse developer Gwyneth Llewelyn, who's been doing ambitious SL projects for over a decade, on the appeal of Sansar versus High Fidelity for the Second Life user community:

I can see both the appeal of an open-source, open-ended platform, as well as one that is a closed garden ran by a company which has been doing exactly that for 14 years; and I can also see the appeal for high-end gamers with their homes furnished with all sort of VR gear, versus the social user who, at best, has a high-end laptop to log in. Both platforms will appeal to each kind of user in very different ways. Personally I think that both platforms will find their niche markets (around the 10-100K users), and there will be a lot of experimenting by the academic community on High Fidelity (because it's free and open-source), but Second Life will still remain a 'first choice' for the casual, social users.

That's why I still think that Linden Lab, at some point, will have no choice but to 'force' people to switch over to Sansar — maybe starting to find clever ways to port content, especially meshed content (which ought to actually be easier to move over) — merely from a business perspective: it might simply be too costly to keep two separate teams on two platforms at the same time, and enhancing SL will become harder and harder every day. They have been saying 'no' for quite a while now, but... for how long will they be able to keep that promise?

Provocative question for conversation this weekend! My own answer would go something like this:

Everything You Need to Know About SL Gachas (But Were Too Afraid to Ask)

Asia Ristow has a good and thorough introduction to Second Life-based gacha machines, including related resources like the Seraphim HUD listing gacha events.

SL Flickr of the Day: Cinematic Male Fashion by Brandon Taselian

brandon taselian's Flickr feed like Kazicle last Wednesday is a real and welcome addition to the small selection of dudely metaverse imagery and fashion. Here's another with dramatic use of 3D effects and the frozen motion of falling leaves: