Concentual Hallucinations... VR Holodecks

Students have created documentaries within SL using Machinima for IML classes. However, most used areas created by other residents and many times not under the students' absolute control. After discussing ideas of how to change the SL IML environment to make it more user friendly for these productions it boiled down to wishing we could just push a button and poof! it's done... well ok maybe it take a few buttons, but a solution was found.

Holodecks or Rezzers as often referred to in SL come in a variety of forms. I checked out 3 different Rezzers:

Faux Rez - This has a very nice design. Easy to use visual layout and it shows the objects pulling together as it forms. Feels like I'm watching a scene from Neal Stephenson's 'Diamond Age' as all of the Nanobots construct a city atom by atom.



Hyperstring - For this rez device you touch it and it pulls up a menu that you than select from different items. You have the ability to upgrade and add your own items and if you want upgrade again and be able to sell your own created scenes through their network. What I really like about this was the ability to rez many objects in one space. The Fauz Rez cleared the space between objects.



Horizon - This one is basically the Holodeck. You have a central control panel that when touched pulls down a menu like the Hyperstring rezzer or you can use the chat to Voice commands through the keyboard. I have yet to use the talk options though, but very excited about the idea. It has 3 main modes. Shells which are more permanent outside structures to give it a mood (holodeck, evil scientist lab, cave, etc) and than it has Scenes that are changed more frequently. Panoramas are also an option and are created from extremely high resolution images. You may add any of your own scenes, shells, or panorama's with the creation of crates that stores them within Horizon and allows you to call them when needed. This was purchased for the IML island at a very generous price of less than $L 3000 (about $12 USD).

The Creator giving me a demo (too long to upload to youtube).














A building shell with the origin 'showing'.














A hotel scene rezzed in.














A hotel scene from the outside. Shell still showing.














The hotel was phased out and a classroom rezzed in.














Panorama














This will allow residents to create, retrieve, and save environments for meetings, classrooms, galleries, productions, etc. at any time and without having to traveling to different parts of the region. bzzzrp