New World Notes

How to Connect Your Kinect to VRChat for Full Body Tracking

Here's the latest clever hack for VRChat: An Xbox One Kinect connected to the virtual world, so the user's real life movement is tracked and mapped onto their avatar.

In this video above, VRCer "Zotteke" is using a Quest 2 to log into VRChat while dancing in front of a Kinect; Zotteke's furry avatar does the rest. The body tracking is fairly decent (especially for an older device that's likely sitting in your closet if you still have one), even accounting for its single camera:

Fifteen Tips for Second Life Style Bloggers: How to Grow Your Readership & Keep Them Coming Back for More

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

I like amplifying SL blogs I admire, and after doing Cajsa’s Choices for over three years now, I have discovered things I would do differently if I were actively blogging Second Life fashions today. I have seen some innovations by bloggers I really like -- and many things I don’t like. 

So here are some tips I have accumulated over the past few years, along with some additional tips from Hamlet: 

Provide information about how you can be contacted and links to your social media. This is usually an About Me page, though many people post a link to their Gravatar, a global avatar with links to all social media if you set it up. Your About Me should include your in-world/legacy name so readers can send you a message, or a creator can drop some samples your way. Some people also include their basic avatar information, the body, head, hands, and skin. If you wear the same in every picture, that makes sense. 

Let your readers get to know you. Too many fashion posts only display the creator credits, which makes for dull reading. It is also a loss for you, because readers don’t really form an attachment to a product list. Instead of just blogging the type of collar or waistline a dress has, you can write about how the outfit makes you feel. Like you can conquer the world? Does it make you feel sexy? Playful? Tell us why you like it so we get to know you. 

Include the creator’s SL name in your credits. That way, if they rebrand or move their in-world store, people can still find them. It also gives you a way for people to find items while complying with Flickr’s TOS for free accounts. I have never valued posting SLurls, because I really hate teleporting to a store that has moved and getting orbited by a hair trigger security device. But when the creator’s name is displayed, I can find their Marketplace and find their most up-to-date SLurls in their profile. (Unless they neglect their profile, and that’s on them.)  

Many more below!

Look: More Fun Turning Avatars Into "Real" People With Artbreeder AI

In case you missed it, here is Ugleh Ulrik's tutorial for using the AI-driven platform Artbreeder to transform avatars. If you have questions about his tutorial, clickthrough here to ask him on YouTube.

On Second Life Friends, a large Facebook group for SLers have been using this tutorial t0 turn their avatars into "real" people. With permission, here's some of my favorite before/after pics:

Tutorial: How to Turn Second Life Avatars Into "Real" People With Artbreeder

Want to turn a Second Life avatar pic into the "photo" of their real life analog? Watch this Artbreeder tutorial from Ugleh Ulrik, the SL creator who first started the whole buzz around using the AI-driven platform to transform avatars.

"I do a lot of experimenting with new AI tech," Ulrik tells me, "and once I saw Artbreeder my first thought went to Pixar characters but then after that I realized making Second Life avatars more real was a possibility and I tried it out on a few close friends and it worked well."

Here's his key tips to keep in mind when using Artbreeder on an avatar:

Real Life Photo or Virtual Image? Tiago's Tutorial To Make It Hard to Tell

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

The pictures by Flickr artist Tiago that I featured last week, especially the one above, sparked some discussion of whether they were taken in Second Life. or in real life. Can you guess?

Click below to find out -- and find out how Tiago creates images like this:

The Black Dragon SL Viewer Has a New Update So Watch This Photography & In-Game Poser Tutorial For Adjusting Your Avatar's 130+ Bones

There's a new update to Black Dragon, the SL viewer with a cult following for making Second Life look like a AAA game and for giving users great features for virtual photography and machinima.

Speaking of which, here's a new Black Dragon photography tutorial from SL YouTuber and apparent Fleabag cast member Boston Blaisdale. It comes to me via NiranV, the tireless sole creator of Black Dragon who has a Patreon for developing the viewer that could seriously use more patronage for all the work he does on it. Niran recently added a $10/month Patreon level for store owners who want a link to their shop -- an extremely good deal, seeing as Black Dragon has roughly 5000 active users.

Niran gives this tutorial a thumbs-up, especially the part around 4:00 minutes in, when Blaisdale gets into using Black Dragon's highly valuable in-game poser:

Fun Second Life User Tutorial by Top Gaming YouTuber Recommends Community-Made Firestorm & Black Dragon Viewers Over Official Software

Here's the latest video by Carmen King, a top gaming YouTuber and with nearly 1 million subscribers, easily the most popular SL Youtuber by far, and it's a handy one (along with having her trademark hilarious sass): A basic tutorial for using Second Life. Ms. King has far, far more viewers than Linden Lab's official YouTube channel (less than 40,000 subscribers), so I have to think anyone at Linden Lab who watches would wince at one of her first tips:

By the way I'm using Firestorm. Do not use the [official] Second Life viewer, nobody uses it. So pick between Firestorm or Black Dragon [which is ] mainly for picture taking and machinima if you want really HD stuff. But I use Firestorm for gameplay because I feel like it's less laggy and easier to use.

Yes: One of the first tips for using Second Life is to not use the software created by the actual company which publishes Second Life. And she's basically right: A Linden Lab developer once acknowledged, 25% or less of the userbase actually uses its software.

As for why Carmen is not using the official viewer herself, her answer to me is pretty simple:

Tutorial: How to Make SL Screenshots Look Like Hand-Drawn Art

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

“Are We There Yet?” by Xaleria Starlight made me laugh out loud with the sempiternal question of childhood travelers. I can picture Moses hearing that question for forty years. Laura and Mary Ingalls probably asked that question hundreds of times from the Big Woods to the shores of silver Lake. Intergalactic travelers will ask that in the distant future. And of course, we have the contemporary car in a very strange place, sheltered under a giant skeleton. 

The picture looks like handmade art and I was curious how Xaleria made it. She graciously uploaded her source photos and explained her method. But first, she had advice on software to use. She uses GNU Image Manipulation Program or GIMP for photo editing. “I highly recommend the G'MIC plugin for GIMP which provides tons of really fantastic predefined filters and effects. Like GIMP, it is open-source and free.”

“Another program I love to recommend is FastStone Image Viewer. It is excellent for organizing and accessing your saved images with large thumbnails. GIMP's file preview is not the greatest, but FastStone's is wonderful and you can drag and drop from it straight into GIMP. FastStone is also free.

Great tips from Xaleria to follow.

Tutorial: How Lizz Palen Transforms SL Screenshots Into Amazing Images

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

When I saw “Extraterrestrial” by Lizz Palen (above), I immediately emailed to ask her if she would share some tips for readers. I love the frenetic energy of her projects. Her entire stream is an exciting exploration of how to enhance Second Life photos with smoke and fire and imagination, but this one seemed particularly powerful. Luckily for us, she was happy to share her process. 

After the cut, Lizz explains how she created Extraterrestrial and shares two videos of her editing other pictures.

How SLer Nova Frankenstein Created This Cool "Matrix Glitch" Look in GIMP

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

When I saw Nova Frankenstein’s “A Glitch in the Matrix”, I just had to ask how she did. It’s such a compelling self-portrait. In the description, she wrote, “Because I'm frustrated with all of my current photo ideas, I'm uploading this photo I did as a test edit for something else.”

As she explained it, It was one of those serendipitous moments where it all comes together. “When I did that photo, I was actually dealing with some mental health stuff while also experimenting with my editing style since I felt all of my photos looked so similar. I like switching things up, you know?” 

She was working in GIMP, trying different filters and she cannot remember exactly how she did it. She used a few adjustment layers, but the primary effect was the result of GIMP’s filter. This made me laugh because it reminded me of the best pumpkin stew I ever made. I was pulling a jar out of the spice rack and it tipped over, spilling out herbs from several of the jars. Rather than throw the herbs and spices away, I tossed them in the stew and it was amazing. I will never have it again. I wrote back sharing my best stew story, She laughed at the similarity. 

“I've had it happen a few times during editing. I love creating and it's my favorite way to pass time since it's so relaxing. And satisfying when I get a photo to look exactly how I imagined it. That one photo, in particular, was just a happy accident though.”

Click through for more GIMP details: