New World Notes

Equimake Update: Free, Real-Time 3D Group Creation On Web Platform Adds User Presence "Avatars" & 900 Free-to-Use Unreal Assets

There's a pretty big new update to Equimake, the free-to-use platform for collaborative real-time 3D creation on the web (and a proud partner to New World Notes): It now comes with 900 free Unreal-based 3D assets to use in your scene-building, and there's a User Presence "avatar" indicator, to make collaborative interaction easier within the 3D world.

The assets are from the Unreal Engine Marketplace, part of the "Permanent Free Collection" which includes a license for use outside of Unreal (I.E., in Equimake), and run the gamut from basic everyday objects to full immersive 3D scenes like a hipster cafe and outdoor park. (At right.) And new assets will be added to the platform library roughly every 1-2 weeks.

The User Presence indicator looks a bit like Google Docs when multiple people are working on the same document, except in 3D. Look:

Please Subscribe to My Patreon -- Top Tiers Get Prominent Ads on New World Notes!

Please follow my Patreon for free! And if you find New World Notes valuable, please consider subscribing! Members at the Supporter level ($5/month) get early/exclusive access to premium articles and a free Kindle copy of Making of Second Life, while subscribers at the Creator and Metaverse level ($50 or $100 month) get many additional benefits -- including a prominent ad for your virtual world/metaverse brand on New World Notes, with 100,000/month visits and an audience highly interested in virtual world/metaverse content, especially Second Life! 

More details here.

What Virtual Worlds Should Be Added to the Virtual Worlds Museum?

This GitHub page is a resource center for The Virtual Worlds Museum (a proud media partner with New World Notes!), an incredibly ambitious project to represent the entire history and present state of virtual worlds.

It's still very much a work in progress that's regularly updated, but there's already dozens upon dozens of worlds being tracked on the Museum's Github -- everything from well-known hits like Roblox and Second Life, to a dizzying number that I'm barely familiar with. (BUD? Edorable? Stageverse?) See the screencap at right for just a small glimpse of what we're already tracking.

And we're still collecting more! If there's a virtual world not on this GitHub list, please send us the details -- either directly on GitHub, in Comments below, or via the Virtual Worlds Museum contact page. We're interested in hearing both from fellow virtual worlds fans and virtual world developers who want to help us build this out, especially as the project expands!

Try the Seraphim HUD (in Beta) for SL Shopping & Events, Get a Free Gift from Bad Unicorn!

New World Notes' media partner Bad Unicorn is helping develop the Seraphim HUD, designed to make in-world shopping and events in Second Life easier and more accessible. Currently in Beta, consider trying it out, sharing feedback with the team -- and get a free gift from Bad Unicorn in the process.

Here's how:

• Click to teleport to Bad Unicorn's in-world store.
• You'll see the "Get the HUD" panel right at the landing point.
• Install the HUD like any other HUD.
• In the HUD, click Brands to Bad Unicorn, and the free gift offer should pop up!

Again, the Seraphim HUD is still in Beta, so please share feedback (good and not-so-good) in Comments below.

Seeking Media / Business Partners as New World Notes Expands Reach!

ANNOUNCEMENT: I'm excited to say New World Notes' reach will be expanding its reach in the next month or two, and I'm looking for media partners who want to be part of that expansion. 

By media partners, I don't just mean "advertisers", but brands and companies in the virtual world/metaverse industry which want to build awareness and engagement at multiple levels of their business. I've been juggling multiple roles like this since my days at Linden Lab, and now that Making a Metaverse That Matters is out, I'm passionate about doing that for the next wave of projects.

Read on for more details and examples:

Watch This Weekend: WebXR Awards (The Polys) Celebrating the Best of the Immersive Web

We’re thrilled to share that our original #WebXR game, The Escape Artist, has picked up some @webxrawards noms: Experience of the Year, Game of the Year, Entertainment Experience of the Year, and Developer of the Year! pic.twitter.com/0ZN7nG4Y7x

— Paradowski Creative (@paracreative) January 26, 2024

Update, 3/3: Event is over but awards are announced on social media.  The Escape Artist from Pardowski Entertainment took Game and Entertainment Experience of the Year.

Streaming on YouTube this Sunday (March 3), starting at 2pm PT, the Polys are announcing the best of the immersive web -- Best Game, Best Education Experience, and so on.  

You'll probably recognize many of the nominees and announcers like Evo Heyning (previously), and it's being co-judged by Julian Reyes of the Virtual Worlds Museum (a proud sponsoring partner to this blog), who's also a Polys co-sponsor through his studio Keyframe Entertainment.

Virtual Worlds Museum Site Launches XR Resource Page For Metaverse Fans, Researchers, and Developers

There's a new XR Resources page of the Virtual Worlds Museum (a proud sponsoring partner to this blog), expanding on founder Julian Reyes' mission to make the site a central community and information hub for people fascinated with the Metaverse and virtual worlds in general.

“Researchers and world builders can visit the VirtualWorlds.museum,” as Julian told me on a recent call, “and find useful information in one place; our XR resources page includes videos, podcasts, use cases, etc. 

"We’re also building a 3D visualizer of immersive platforms and that’s what the crowd funding page is for. The digital museum website will connect all the platforms’ communities, which is our end goal -- there’s not a solution like that anywhere.”

While I'm highly biased, I'm pretty excited by Julian's goal -- reliable information about virtual world history and active user communities around them are hard to connect with on the Internet. (Ironically enough!)

Start exploring here. To get involved, connect with the Museum on Twitter/X.

Join Bad Unicorn's New Discord Server for Fun & Second Life Specials -- Visit the Store for New Holiday Decor!

Bad Unicorn, proud purveyors of creative chaos with Second Life friends (and an awesome sponsoring partner to NWN), has a new Discord server: Join the fun plus SL weekend specials, giveaways, and a L$20K raffle.

Speaking of specials, Bad Unicorn just released several sweet holiday-themed decor items in the mainstore (click here to teleport), with a discounted price of L$60-99:

Have Yourself a Bad Unicorn Christmas With a Weedmas Tree, a Candy Cane Club, and Other Chaotic Yuletide Decor!

Bad Unicorn has a whole Santa's bag full of zany fun items for your chaotic holiday events in Second Life -- starting with this cannabis Christmas tree with seriously dank ornaments. Get it for L$799 at the Kustom9 shopping extravaganza: Click here to teleport!

Also on sale in-world is Bad Unicorn's better version of Elf on the Shelf:

That's right, it's a Sneaky Shelf Elf the owner can hide and challenge friends to find! Going for L$299 at the Frost-E Fest Event: Click here to teleport!

Plus there's much more chaotic Christmas/holidays items in Bad Unicorn's SL Marketplace page, including:

 

Watch: Seamlessly Jumping Through Multiple Worlds in the Virtual Worlds Museum. First Live Group Tour Planned for January!

Watch this sneak peak of the XR wing of the Virtual World Museum (a proud media sponsor to this blog)!  While I'm somewhat biased, it's pretty cool how team lead Julian Reyes is able to seamlessly jump through one virtual world to the next, with no loading screen or log-in page -- even leaping through one virtual world while already in another one.

This is made possible with Arrival Space, the XR platform Julian is working with for this portion of the Virtual Worlds Museum, which aims to be something like an immersive Wikipedia site for the entire virtual world/metaverse ecosystem, past and present. 

A live group tour of this technology is being planned for January 11, and I hope you join us. Visit VirtualWorlds.Museum for more info, and consider contributing to the project's crowdfunder, which is now hosted directly on the site.  

By the way, here's the worlds we visit just in this one six minute tour: