What you’re watching above are the zanily adorable Bearimal Gokarts, from Martin of Secret Weapon Productions, winner of the recent Wicked Witchcraft Challenge from sponsoring media NWN partner Sinespace, a virtual world built on Unity. They’re now available in the shop for 400 Gold (i.e. about $4 USD) for your all your Bearimal go kart racing needs, with the wacky animations featured in the video triggered when the racers get close to each other.
Martin, as it turns out, is also a developer for Second Life, where he creates and sells custom mesh content as Malakina Gummibaum under the Girl Life brand. He tells me it wasn’t too difficult to jump from creating mesh content in SL to doing so in Sinespace:
“Mesh creation in Second Life and Sinespace is not too different at its core,” as he puts it. “Sinespace is a bit more oriented towards general game development; while Second Life does not have modern shader models, it does rely on high polycounts and baked lighting for showcasing a quality product.”
Though both platforms have their advantages and disadvantages, he goes on, “the modern shader models of Unity and custom ones that are supported can result in way better results, such as subsurface scattering or a realistic car paint. This depends more on the quality and time taken on the product than on the platform.”
What advice would he give new creators just starting out in Sinespace?
“Get a hold of the basics of Unity 3D, which are easily accessible through Unity’s forums and YouTube and just let your creativity get wild,” says Martin. “Try to think outside constraints that you possibly previously had and talk to us on the Discord. We can help you to get your vision become reality.” (He’s referring to Sinespace’s Discord for developers here.)
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