Virtual Shop Class - This is not a Chair

The IML 104 class is exploring Virtual Worlds this Semester and the past two weeks we've been exploring Second Life. The last class was dedicated to introducing the Honors students to building in Second Life which is unique compared to most Virtual Worlds where the environment is rigidly controlled by the Organizations that run them. Second Life has many places to Learn to build the most popular being the Ivory Tower of Primitive, which leads you through the many steps of learning to build, but these areas can be overwhelming to the new Avatar so I decided to make an extremely condensed crash course introduction to 3D modeling in SL. And as it turns out making a chair puts all of the basic skills into one neat little usable object. The Class learned how to create an object, copy, modify, Link, Texture, and add the Sit Script to it. At the end of the class we all Sat near each other and repositioned them to 500 meters above (something you can't do usually) and looked at the region below. Students were than asked to Share this 3D object with each other and to modify them over the weekend. In 90 minutes students with very little experience in SL and most having never created a 3D object before were able to create make not only a useful virtual item, but one that was personalized as well.

Color by Numbers

There are many different ways to navigate spaces in SL from walking to flying to teleporting and with all of these large spaces sometimes it can get overwhelming and disorientating. Some people like to use maps, but I personally do not want to have an extra window open as I find the SL interface cramped as it is, so I (described in an earlier post) put all of the text/ures on the IML region facing one direction. Unfortunately this led to issues when trying to fly quickly across the campus as most can't read and fly very well. What I wanted was the SPACE itself to communicate to the user WHERE they were located. All of the regions in SL have coordinates Zero to 255 for coordinates X, Y, Z.. just like the color code Zero to 255 for R,G,B...SO... I jumped into the Linden Scripting Language to write my first piece of code and so far it seems to have worked very well. It takes the objects coordinates and translates it into RGB code and now you can say oh I must be near the gallery space because it's yellow...... bzzzrp

Envisioning Information

New Projects on IML Island:

The Tufte Tunnel - Tufte's book 'Envisioning Information' has been wonderful to absorb in it's paper and ink format, but is now put into virtual book form thanks to Thinc Book 2.0. Textures or Snapshots can be loaded into this blank book and creates easily flippable pages. However, we now have a large 3d space in which to navigate and Professor Steve Anderson has requested a tunnel that can be flown through to be made.

the fly through
audio scripting explaining the Tufte Tunnel Concepts will be added later.

Customization

Linden Labs provides the framework and users create and modify the content. This includes the aesthetic of the IML region, the spider legs I replaced my regular avatar legs with, to the screens streaming in media. I am standing with Nicolas Decatur (avatar) who is the designer of the screens we are going to using in the Panopticon for Steve Anderson's class. I need 16 of these screens and buying, modifying, and setting up each of these is quite tedious. I Love designing in Second Life, but sometimes you just can't get past repetitive tasks...Unless.... you meet the creator of said objects and request a solution. Here Nicolas charged me flat cost of 4500 Linden dollars (usually 300 but I need at least 16) to provide the same object, but instead made the object copyable. This will save me a lot of work in the long run. bzzzrp

Restructuring

IML in SL has been under massive construction mostly out of changes required from knowledge gained by the process of customizing the region for specific purposes. The two major activities on the Island have been the use of the 3D representations of the class syllabus' for the 101 and 505 class and the Gone Gitmo Project.

















Above are the Gone Gitmo Project and the 101 syllabus towering out from the region area below. The black cube you are seeing is the entire region enclosed by video screens facing inward. The land was completely flattened for this purpose and all screens pushed to the edges.
The Gone Gitmo Project is our first main project to be showcased here on IML in SL and is a recreation of Guantanamo Bay along with an area for streaming video and discussion.
Peggy Weil is the leader of this project and information can be found here.
Tech Soup also wrote an article.
Machinima Reporter Bernhard Drax posts a video on YouTube.


BuhBuhKuh Fairchild who was one the main programmer for the Gone Gitmo project was extremely helpful in teaching me how to set up correct permissions for our Island to make this project possible.

Day of Event


















Panopticon
Steve Anderson in the process of breaking up there lecture and publishing it across several formats including youtube ended class with Streaming simultaneously projecting video into Second Life and controlling an avatar. The panopticon currently has 16 boxes one for each week of class that has embedded class content in it. This is a constant work in progress as class content is added constantly. New video screens are being added to facilitate multiple video streams.


















Prim Water
In our...ok..MY attempt to remove all of the physical trappings of real life in SL has resulted in the water level being lowered. The water level at 50 was nice, but it made half the sim unusable as it was too dark to do anything. I (pictured below) purchased prim water which lets us separate the levels, but still allows us to travel down below easily.



















Lower Level
This area is currently being used to store works in progress by Honors students. This space is a quarter of the Island.

















Presentation Area
A quarter of the main floor of the IML Island is for presentations and events. Currently in this area is Anne Friedberg's 'The Virtual Window' with the book also being a link to outside information.

Scouting - Public Displays

There are now several hundred educational organizations using Second Life ranging from small non profits to large Universities with an expanding knowledge base. The tools they use to range from straight forward chat and Voice with other citizens to static notecards and displays to completely scripted areas for interaction. The following is some images from other educational areas within SL and how we are incorporating them into the IML region and pedagogy.

Here is a traditional presentation area with video screen and seats at the Berkman Campus.














Here is a large area of the same style at the NMC Campus. Chats are often common in such situations, but is still many receiving information from one and usually not vice versa.















Here are the Group Conference Facility developed by the Terra Incognita Group and Decka Mah. It has a facilitator in the Center controlling the surrounding 'pods' which break off and have separate discussions. When called back the facilitator can rearrange the groups and give feedback through note cards that are dropped in boxes. The IML has purchased one of these and is setting it up in the open classroom area of the campus.















Static Information

Here is a gallery display/example at the NMC of how to build in steps only using visual cues. The Ivory Tower of Prims which is an amazing place to learn how to build has similar displays, but has note card stations everywhere to provide additional reference.














Berkman has a public Sandbox with Giant Billboards showing how to construct different types of prims. This a great reference for those trying to make complex objects.















Scripted, Interactive, and Abstract

NMC Audio Installation with the Source and Content changing depending on your location.














The Port is highly influential on the future design of the IML Campus. Keeping far away from the recreational trends that abound in SL, the port displays information through a somehwhat abstract, but complex set of interactions.

Free Modulation

SL gets a lot of press about the economic aspects and how everyone is out to make their millions. That is not the case and as shown at Freebie Planet by Gamesband you can get almost anything for $L0. Here I am scouting for furniture for our soon to be discussion area.














Sometimes it's not organized neatly and a lot of the boxes have completely unrelated items, but that's fun too because you just might need that gigantic panda avatar sometime in the near future.















Here I am taking a look at the hundred+ pieces of free furniture. The ones that were kept had two qualities... 1) modular: chatting is still a main form of information exchange in SL and avatars like to see each other so seating needs to have the ability to rearrange easily 2) script orbs for sitting - most residents will be new and this just makes it easier.















IML's new discussion area... I'm thinking of switching to the pink though....hmmm..