New World Notes

Physics-Based Remote-Controlled Toy Cars Are the Latest Amazing Thing in VRChat

Remote control cars for VRChat players are the latest amazing user-made innovation in VRChat, and creator Chris B. is not just content to make them amazingly physics-based, but she even shot this pitch-perfect Saturday morning cartoons-style commercial-but-with-furries to promote them too. As the ad mentions, they run on VRChat's internal Udon scripting system (specifically, the C#-to-Udon compiler); and as you can tell by the way they move and bounce, the cars make use of Unity's existing Newtownian mechanics which is also part of VRChat:

"Unity's physics engine has a lot of really neat features that are under-utilized in VRChat," as Chris puts it to me. "Stuff like ragdolls are perfectly possible, but nobody does them for some reason."

More on how she made her cars' physics so satisfying:

This Artist Makes Virtual World Landscapes More Dramatic With Framing

Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

Lien Lowe’s “Mousehole” is a great example of using the foreground as a frame. The poppies circle the tree and also provide a sense of perspective. It’s a beautiful landscape. There is this slightly golden tint to everything giving it a feeling of age that makes it feel almost like a painting.

For more lovely landscapes, click here:

Second Life Gachas' Huge Resale Market Makes Them Much More Likely to Be Regulated as Gambling, Says Legal Expert

Pictured: Gacha resale items listed on the official SL Marketplace at prices between USD $1037.50 and $5165 worth of Linden Dollars.

Reader "Gloom" makes an important point, commenting on last week's post about Second Life gachas being a type of gambling. Typically, it only costs the Linden Dollar equivalent of pocket change to play them -- but that's only part of the story:

Sure you can argue it's just pennies... but people easily drop hundreds of real life money into trying to get gacha sets. Then they turn around and take something that was a L$25 pull - to mark it up 100x the original cost on the Marketplace (I have seen multiple "rare" items going at L$2000 easily from a L$25 gacha). Then it becomes a cut-throat market. 

In fact, the SL Marketplace carries gacha resale items priced as high as thousands of US dollars. (See screencap in this post.)

Vaki, the longtime Second Life user and real life attorney that I cited in last week's post on gachas, tells me that this huge resale market for Gacha items will very much play into any legal determination of whether SL Gachas are defined as gambling by the many jurisdictions which outlaw or regulate the practice:

Next Breakroom Talks: Aerospace Engineer Discusses Coping Strategies for Isolated Astronauts on a Virtual Version of Mars - RSVP Now!

RSVP here for the next Breakroom Talks virtual world session from Sine Wave Entertainment (a sponsoring partner to this blog), which will take place on the lonely landscape of Mars, and feature Dr. Jeevan Perera, a seasoned aerospace engineer who's led risk management for the International Space Station, Orion Spacecraft, and other space missions. His experience working with astronauts in the vast and lonely void of space gives him a unique perspective on something many of us have experienced to a lesser degree while quarantined during the pandemic:

Matthew Ball's Metaverse Framework for Succeeding the Mobile Internet

Strategist/investor Matthew Ball has a must-read primer to a new understanding of the Metaverse which is rather mind-melting, because it compares its coming emergence to the industrialization of electricity over a century ago. From my current perspective, I see many competing platforms we casually call Metaverses (ROBLOX, Fortnite, etc), and assume that several of them will evolve and mature over time, replacing and/or subsuming 3D gaming delivery platforms like Steam, while absorbing more and more non-gaming applications beyond entertainment.

Matthew's fairly brilliant vision, however, is much broader:

Cool Virtual World Beach Photos for a Sweltering Real Life Summer

Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

“Somewhere” appeals to me because after surviving the “Heat Dome” that just fried Portland, I can’t think of a lovelier place to be than on a beach with a lovely ocean breeze, except maybe Antarctica. I love Quinnsley’s ingenuity in taking a couple’s pose and using half of it to get the true swinging pose she wanted. The mood is carefree and casual which is just what the heat doctor ordered. 

For an example of saying a lot with a little, click here:

Second Life's Big Budget Ad is Good, But Won't Grow the User Base Without Major Updates to Second Life's Actual Software (Comment of the Week)

Linden Lab finally posted its big budget commercial we discussed last week on its YouTube channel, so it's a good time to post this long analysis by longtime virtual world user Pulsar on the challenges it faces:

Look at SL presence on social media: it tends to be negligible. Not just on Facebook or Twitter, but you can see that on YouTube too: Novata's videos rarely have more than 10k views and she is among the best SL YouTubers today. Usually SL YouTubers can be happy if they reach few hundred views. Only "outsiders" that cover other games, but sometimes also SL, as Carmen King, get more views. On Reddit too: The r/secondlife sub is much less active than r/VRchat, let alone Roblox. But even r/KerbalSpaceProgram, a creative single player simulation game from 2011 is way, way, more active than SL today...

Related to Pulsar's point, the ad has only been viewed about 5,000 since being posted on June 23 -- suggesting it's getting little or no social virality.

"So, yes, a marketing campaign is certainly a good idea," he goes on, but then goes deeper into the commercial itself -- and what needs to happen so it doesn't seem like bait-and-switch:

Top 7 Posts Last Week Including: VRChat Gets $80M in Funding, Sine Wave & Philip Rosedale's High Fidelity Combine Forces, Second Life Gets a Big Budget Commercial -- But SL Gacha Owners Should Prepare for Regulation

• Breakroom Brings Philip Rosedale's High Fidelity 3D Spatial Audio To Its Highly Immersive Virtual Worlds Streamed On The Browser
• Watch: Second Life's First Big Budget Online Commercial - It Won An Award!
• Why Understanding Virtual World Economies Is Important For Crafting Real World Policies Today
• Visit The Oldest User-Created Content In Second Life -- It Even Existed Before The Virtual World Did
• VRChat Raises $80 Million In Venture Funding, Proving The Metaverse Is So Far VR's Most Successful Application
• Quest Owner Survey: 74% Say They Probably Or Definitely Won't Buy VR Apps Which Have Ads -- But I Doubt Facebook Cares
• Expect A Real Life Crackdown On Second Life Gachas, Says Expert Lawyer

Visit the Oldest User-Created Content in Second Life -- It Even Existed Before the Virtual World Did

Click to embiggen -- Hamlet for scale (in silhouette on the platform at left)

If you're still in the 18th anniversary spirit, why not take a trip to see (and explore) the oldest user-created content in Second Life: The looming beanstalk of Steller Sunshine. 

Click here to teleport.

The beanstalk's goal is to reach by leaping the top of the beanstalk without flying, which requires some serious fancy Super Mario platformer-type skills.

It was created, as it happens, on March 13, 2002 -- over a year before Second Life even exited. During some pre-show chitchat with Philip Rosedale at yesterday's metaverse fireside, he reminded me that it was actually created by Steller in Linden World, SL's experimental predecessor, then migrated over to the SL grid when that was set up.

I told the story of its creation in my first book:

SL Fashion Shopping Tips from Blogger Kyoka Jun

Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

I had to check out this post from Kyoka Jun on her blog, or should I say blogs? She lets her readers filter her content. It’s a unique approach that some readers might appreciate. The post is titled “Sealed Kisses” and I love seeing a gown. Sometimes it feels like nobody blogs clothes anymore, just lingerie and swimwear. That’s not true, of course, but it can feel like a treasure hunt at times. 

I was also incredibly curious about the giant lipstick she was sitting on. Sadly, that was not answered by her post, of course, it could be part of a background somewhere. I am always a bit disappointed when the reason I click through is not answered, but I thought her blog was unique and interesting, so I wanted to share it anyway. The pose comes from a pose HUD that was released for Vintage Fair but that closed Sunday, so look in the store. I like that since she did not use all the poses, she posted the vendor ad for the pose hud so her readers could see all the poses. 

• [[PS]]Noctis Gown<teal green> @ SL18B 
• pose - :studiOneiro: Dixie BENTO set /poses/ HUD

For a pick from another genre, click here: