"Insilico Defender" cleverly combines two things Second Life is abundant with -- cyberpunk settings and shopping -- into a unlikely but cool and flashy action short. The fashion and houseware items are from the annual equal10 event.
"I wanted to make something special for Equal10," its creator and co-star, Novata, tells me. "This round we got cool designs by several creators, most of them inspired by Japanese style and cosplay (like the outfit I'm wearing from Ghoul). So, I wanted to make a fight scene like in Kill Bill from Quentin Tarantino."
Mild spoiler after the break, so be sure to watch before proceeding:
At first Novato had trouble recruiting a co-star, but then "I remembered my friend had a costume of a fox girl and in Japan, usually the fox is a character to represent mischief, anger, dark side. So she was perfect to play a villain. That's why in the story she appears first as a friend and then reveal her true intentions."
To shoot the spectacular final combat scene, she came up with a clever hack: "I tried some animations I had free, but it was hard to put it in a stand for two persons. Then I remembered someone once gave me a fighting HUD. It's like the follow HUD for couples, but this one attacks the other avatar. My friend and I run all over the whole sim and anytime we were close the animation was activated."
She's hoping this video inspires others in the SL community:
"Lately I've heard people complaining that SL is becoming all about fashion and events and people only spend money. Before, there used to be more community and people roleplaying. So in a way I tried to mix all that... [m]aybe to motivate others to go visit the place and try to do something like I did.
"Second Life," as Novata puts it, "is a bigger place to do more than dancing or dressing nice."
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