woensdag, juni 18, 2008
SmallWorlds : a second life in your browser
SmallWorlds is a virtual world currently in beta. It runs entirely in your browser, so you don't need to install a client program. (It's based on Adobe Flex technology I believe, so you just need Flash.)It is not made of worlds or islands, but is a collection of rooms. When you sign up for free, you get your own room that you can decorate. On the image you see me and my cat pet shopping for some furniture.
What is cool is how they integrate for exampe YouTube video's: you can have a TV player set, and watch with other avatars to YouTube video. The place is also packed with all kind of games to play, and I think they are working on an API set to include your own games in there. Now, would it not be cool to play trivia quizzes in this virtual world with questions that come from this site? :-) Just dreaming out loud.
Anyway, looked promising...
Labels: Second Life, smallworlds, virtual worlds
zondag, februari 17, 2008
Animatronics: make a movie in Second Life
Lately, we have been experimenting making animatronics. Animatronics are movies that are shot in a virtual world like Second Life or ActiveWorlds, or in a game environment. Our idea is to use Second Life as a cheap environment to make 3D animations for use in e-learning courses. So far the tests look good. The alternatives are to make real-world video or do it all in Flash, but both options tend to be more expensive.
Shooting movies in Second Life or another virtual world are very similar to shooting movies in the real world: you need an avatar to be the camera man, you need an avatar for every actor, and you need to scout for good locations (and maybe ask permission to film there if you don't own them) and make sure nobody runs in the way. But the benefits are that compared to real live shooting, you cut the expensive recording equipment, you eliminate travel, and the avatars can be made to look like any actor you need. The downsides are that the interaction is more limited and expression of emotions (especially facial) is not so good. But for a lot of animations, that isn't a problem.
We have used a very cheap and good software called Fraps (I believe it stands for frames per second) to capture the in-world movie. The built-in video capture of Second Life gives more troubles, and the 37$ you pay for a Fraps license is worth it.
After the raw shooting the editing and voice synchronization remain the same as with other movies.
Here are some links that helped us on the way, and might do the same for you:
Amazingg life blog (in Dutch)
Second Life help: http://secondlife.com/showcase/machinima.php
Second Life Wiki
Shooting movies in Second Life or another virtual world are very similar to shooting movies in the real world: you need an avatar to be the camera man, you need an avatar for every actor, and you need to scout for good locations (and maybe ask permission to film there if you don't own them) and make sure nobody runs in the way. But the benefits are that compared to real live shooting, you cut the expensive recording equipment, you eliminate travel, and the avatars can be made to look like any actor you need. The downsides are that the interaction is more limited and expression of emotions (especially facial) is not so good. But for a lot of animations, that isn't a problem.
We have used a very cheap and good software called Fraps (I believe it stands for frames per second) to capture the in-world movie. The built-in video capture of Second Life gives more troubles, and the 37$ you pay for a Fraps license is worth it.
After the raw shooting the editing and voice synchronization remain the same as with other movies.
Here are some links that helped us on the way, and might do the same for you:
Amazingg life blog (in Dutch)
Second Life help: http://secondlife.com/showcase/machinima.php
Second Life Wiki
Labels: animatronic, Second Life
zondag, februari 03, 2008
Second Life still exists
I've been planning to revisit Second Life ever since I got my more powerful computer. A couple of weeks ago I tried, but of course had forgotten my password. And the online retrieval didn't work, and just referred me to make a US based support call. Right. Not going to happen.Today the password reset did work, so I made my reappearance on Second Life after about 6 months of inactivity. One striking change: you now have to agree to an empty terms and conditions. (See screenshot). I took the risk and was back in. There have been a few improvements in the time I was away. The most remarkable and high on my wish list: they have voice communication now! But Second Life is still a very lonely place unless you make appointments or have events. I teleported to about 10-15 places and found myself all alone on every single one of them. And I can't say the performance is much better than on my older computer, in spite of having a QuadCore processor and 4 GB of RAM memory now. Buildings still reveal themselves very slowly.
The IBM islands have also changed, and there are much more of them. Even a dedicated one to the Benelux region. On one of the IBM islands there is a cool water slide, try it out! And the SOA group (that's acronym talk for Service Oriented Architecture) even made a kind of learning experience / game.
Second Life is still the biggest virtual environment, but not the only one. I've been in ActiveWorlds also lately. For a comparison of different virtual platforms, please visit :
http://www.virtualworldsreview.com/
Labels: Second Life, virtual worlds
maandag, juni 11, 2007
There will be a 3D internet
My company believes that one of the 5 innovations with the most impact for the next 5 years will be the emergence of a 3D Internet.
I've posted enough on Second Life, and Second Life and education. Today I just want to mention 2 other 3D Internet places:
- Club Penguin : this is a 3D environment created for kids. That is not a bad idea if you realise Second Life is a lot about sex & money, as are many Internet places or even real life.
- Active Worlds : there are actually two similar environments just to add to the confusion: there is http://www.active-worlds.com/ and http://www.activeworlds.com. Both are different from the omnipresent Second Life in that they don't offer one virtual world with many islands, but actually a set of worlds you can choose from. The one with the dash (active-world.com) is available in a few languages and looks like a 3D chat. The one without the dash (activeworld.com) is English only and has an interesting section for eduction. For example University of Colorado's Virtual Computer.
I've posted enough on Second Life, and Second Life and education. Today I just want to mention 2 other 3D Internet places:
- Club Penguin : this is a 3D environment created for kids. That is not a bad idea if you realise Second Life is a lot about sex & money, as are many Internet places or even real life.
- Active Worlds : there are actually two similar environments just to add to the confusion: there is http://www.active-worlds.com/ and http://www.activeworlds.com. Both are different from the omnipresent Second Life in that they don't offer one virtual world with many islands, but actually a set of worlds you can choose from. The one with the dash (active-world.com) is available in a few languages and looks like a 3D chat. The one without the dash (activeworld.com) is English only and has an interesting section for eduction. For example University of Colorado's Virtual Computer.
Labels: 3D internet, avatars, Second Life
zondag, mei 20, 2007
Virtual worlds for the enterpise
Told you so: the first intranet experiments for virtual worlds are showing up. Both IBM and Sun are building a corporate kind of Second Life, or metaverse. The principle is the same, but it is within the well protected walls of your own organisation, and within complete control. Time will tell if there is a market for this.
You can read about IBM's and Sun's experiments in this GigaOM article by James Wagner.
You can read about IBM's and Sun's experiments in this GigaOM article by James Wagner.
Labels: metaverse, Second Life, virtual worlds
donderdag, april 05, 2007
Second Life and education: the good, the bad, the ugly
Last time I shared 5 ideas of how SL can be used for learning. Today I'll list some pro/cons for using Second Life for education.
PRO: Second Life is free
This makes a very strong argument! No software to install, no software to purchase. No investment. If you don't like it just walk away. And you can't develop it yourself for that price!
CON: There is a hugh threshold
(Please note I'm writing this from a corporate learning perspective.) There are two big thresholds to using Second Life for learning in companies. One is technical. You need a powerful machine with a rapid graphical processor and plenty of memory to run it properly. In many companies the current PC platform will not allow for a comfortable Second Life experience. The second one is time. (And time is money.) It takes at least 4 hours for an orientation in Second Life. So if you use Second Life for mandatory training, you will spend 4 hours per person just to learn how to move in Second Life an go through the orientation and help islands. It will kill your business case because teleconferencing or face-to-face classroom take 0 time. In schools you might assume students already have a SL account or will get up to speed quickly. In a company you really can only assume basic internet navigation skills.
PRO: Second Life is hot
It doesn't hurt the hip factor of learning to ride on the waves. If people are curious and motivated to be on Second Life, give it to them! Motivation is key in adult learning and anything that helps, just helps. Consider it a form of edutainment.
CON: There is no sound
A big handicap is that Second Life has no voice facilities. You cannot speak, just chat. That means your teacher will either have to type everything and your session becomes an animated chat window, or that you'll use a telephone/skype conference on the side. That is far from ideal. I think takeup of SL and its use for education will go up even much higher at the time Linden Labs bring voice to this virtual world.
PRO: There is money to be made
It is possible and even relatively simple to charge and sell in Second Life. So there is an opportunity for a virtual learning MARKET as well. You can sell classes, rent virtual classrooms to others, etc.
CON: You don't own it
This might sound like a typical 'web 1.0'/capitalist/'big mean corporation' thing to say. But companies want to control the learning environments they use. Second Life is completely owned by Linden Labs. If they decide to kick you or your students or customers out of SL based on their interpretation of the code of conduct, there is nothing you can do about it. And there are no guarantees on security, privacy, availability of the environment. These are typically things companies need and are even willing to pay for. If companies really want to use SL for part of their learning, it cannot crash and it has to adhere to some Service Level Agreements.
Note: in January, Linden Lab put the code under GPL but only when linked to their own servers. So it doesn't really count as 'open' as far as I see it.
PRO: You can fly
Seriously, flying is fun :-) . What I mean is that a virtual environment let's you do more than you could in the real world. For example, in a real setting you can't speak to fellow students and listen to the teacher at the same time. In a virtual setting you can.
CON: It is public
Anything you say can and will be used against you. So do you want your sensitive and costly in-company training given on a public place? Would you organise your sales training in the middle of the city park?
So there is good and bad, as always. I'd like to conclude on a sceptical note taken from a newsletter I got:
"In case any of you are being pressurised to dabble in the online virtual reality game that is 'Second Life', The Register provided a useful analysis this week:
Despite Second Life's claim that it now has 3.1 million residents, there are typically only 15,000 clients logged on at any time. Only 15% of those who became residents last October have ever logged on again after their first 30 days. Less than 50,000 of the residents are premium accounts which are able to start businesses. All of them rely on new users entering Second Life for their income. Although 21,000 of these premium accounts had a positive cashflow last month, only 10,000 of these made more than $10. And that was before the owners, Linden Labs, applied their charges.
Only people with no first live need a second...?
Other sceptics who believe the emperor may well be wearing no clothes include the one-page spoof Website that is http://www.getafirstlife.com/ ."
PRO: Second Life is free
This makes a very strong argument! No software to install, no software to purchase. No investment. If you don't like it just walk away. And you can't develop it yourself for that price!
CON: There is a hugh threshold
(Please note I'm writing this from a corporate learning perspective.) There are two big thresholds to using Second Life for learning in companies. One is technical. You need a powerful machine with a rapid graphical processor and plenty of memory to run it properly. In many companies the current PC platform will not allow for a comfortable Second Life experience. The second one is time. (And time is money.) It takes at least 4 hours for an orientation in Second Life. So if you use Second Life for mandatory training, you will spend 4 hours per person just to learn how to move in Second Life an go through the orientation and help islands. It will kill your business case because teleconferencing or face-to-face classroom take 0 time. In schools you might assume students already have a SL account or will get up to speed quickly. In a company you really can only assume basic internet navigation skills.
PRO: Second Life is hot
It doesn't hurt the hip factor of learning to ride on the waves. If people are curious and motivated to be on Second Life, give it to them! Motivation is key in adult learning and anything that helps, just helps. Consider it a form of edutainment.
CON: There is no sound
A big handicap is that Second Life has no voice facilities. You cannot speak, just chat. That means your teacher will either have to type everything and your session becomes an animated chat window, or that you'll use a telephone/skype conference on the side. That is far from ideal. I think takeup of SL and its use for education will go up even much higher at the time Linden Labs bring voice to this virtual world.
PRO: There is money to be made
It is possible and even relatively simple to charge and sell in Second Life. So there is an opportunity for a virtual learning MARKET as well. You can sell classes, rent virtual classrooms to others, etc.
CON: You don't own it
This might sound like a typical 'web 1.0'/capitalist/'big mean corporation' thing to say. But companies want to control the learning environments they use. Second Life is completely owned by Linden Labs. If they decide to kick you or your students or customers out of SL based on their interpretation of the code of conduct, there is nothing you can do about it. And there are no guarantees on security, privacy, availability of the environment. These are typically things companies need and are even willing to pay for. If companies really want to use SL for part of their learning, it cannot crash and it has to adhere to some Service Level Agreements.
Note: in January, Linden Lab put the code under GPL but only when linked to their own servers. So it doesn't really count as 'open' as far as I see it.
PRO: You can fly
Seriously, flying is fun :-) . What I mean is that a virtual environment let's you do more than you could in the real world. For example, in a real setting you can't speak to fellow students and listen to the teacher at the same time. In a virtual setting you can.
CON: It is public
Anything you say can and will be used against you. So do you want your sensitive and costly in-company training given on a public place? Would you organise your sales training in the middle of the city park?
So there is good and bad, as always. I'd like to conclude on a sceptical note taken from a newsletter I got:
"In case any of you are being pressurised to dabble in the online virtual reality game that is 'Second Life', The Register provided a useful analysis this week:
Despite Second Life's claim that it now has 3.1 million residents, there are typically only 15,000 clients logged on at any time. Only 15% of those who became residents last October have ever logged on again after their first 30 days. Less than 50,000 of the residents are premium accounts which are able to start businesses. All of them rely on new users entering Second Life for their income. Although 21,000 of these premium accounts had a positive cashflow last month, only 10,000 of these made more than $10. And that was before the owners, Linden Labs, applied their charges.
Only people with no first live need a second...?
Other sceptics who believe the emperor may well be wearing no clothes include the one-page spoof Website that is http://www.getafirstlife.com/ ."
Labels: metaverse, Second Life
woensdag, april 04, 2007
Second Life and education: what can we do?
Second Life is hip. Hey, even I've been there. And when someone talks about the 'many uses' of Second Life, somewhere education is in that list. But how exactly can Second Life or a similar multi-player virtual world be used for learning? Here are five of my thoughts:
1- Virtual Class 2.0
One component of the e-learning spectrum has always been the virtual classroom. At this time a virtual classroom is pretty close to a web conference system. You have a list with participants (sometimes in a seating metaphore) who can raise hands and/or show basic emotions. You have a shared whiteboard, a central presentation or polls and questions. You have an instructor and/or a facilitator who speak, sometimes via the tool itself sometimes via a separate telephone conferencing system. And you have a chat window. Centra is one of the popular products in this area.
Second Life-lookalikes could transform this 'Virtual Class 1.0' into what virtual classrooms have always been trying to do: mimic the ever so popular face-to-face classroom as natural as possible, but distant. It might work. People can all teleport to a virtual classroom building and share a learning moment there. As long as the learning is instructional and information sharing only and doesn't involve labs or exercises this will work fine.
A further evolution of this is a Virtual Conference. Lotus for example held part of its January LotusSphere conference both in Orlando ànd in Second Life simultaneously. They are basically the same, except for the number of participants and concurrent events.
Take a look: http://slurl.com/secondlife/ibm%209/34/58/23
2- Research
A second big learning thing with Second Life is learning about Second Life itself. Hey, it is a virtual world and a hugh experiment. Second Life has for example its own virtual economy. I can imagine economists wanting to research if it behaves in the same way as the real world. Will the SL economy collaps if that Chinese lady tries to convert all her money into real dollars?
And there is the dark side. You didn't think SL would be free of terrorists, hackers and freaks did you? Some weeks ago a bomb exploded on SL. Hackers are trying to steal your virtual assets. Just last week I heard about a new problem on SL: child porn. There are no laws against avatars having sex with avatars representing children. I can imagine sociologists will want to research how a society and community in a virtual world evolves. How it regulates itself.
So all of that is valid learning. But it is more research-oriented , so I for one am not interested as my 'thing' is corporate learning. This is for the academics among us.
3- Learning to be someone else
What better way for sensitivity training, role play or diversity training if you actually can change into someone else. How does it feel to be a woman, a black person, or a gay rabbit? Second Life can have its place in any kind of training where you are trying to let participants experience things from the other's point of view.
4- Soft skill simulation and coaching
Second Life can be used to bring coach and coachee together via the net. For example a manager and his coach can meet on Second Life every evening to go over their program. A sales trainee can schedule a one-on-one with a virtual coach to practise selling a product.
5- Images and 3D animation
And if nothing else, Second Life is a cheap way to get quality images and 3D animation movies. Just 'act' in Second Life and let the program capture it. Then include it in your e-learning course. I haven't figured out if Linden Labs (owners of Second Life) prohibits the use of photo's and films taken on SL. I think you are OK if you mention the image or video was taken there and link back.
I did not include putting learning on Second Life billboards in here. For me, that is just the same as putting up a web page or writing a piece of paper on some topic. Second Life doesn't add anything to that.
As a conclusion for today's post, some educational resourses on Second Life:
- TOP 20 EDUCATIONAL LOCATIONS IN SL
http://www.simteach.com/wiki/index.php?title=Top_20_Educational_Locations_in_Second_Life
And some other sources of information on the same topic:
http://greateribm.typepad.com/web_log/2006/10/greater_ibm_vir_1.html
http://www.networkworld.com/news/2007/011107-web-20.html
In one of the next posts I'll talk about pro's and con's of SL.
1- Virtual Class 2.0
One component of the e-learning spectrum has always been the virtual classroom. At this time a virtual classroom is pretty close to a web conference system. You have a list with participants (sometimes in a seating metaphore) who can raise hands and/or show basic emotions. You have a shared whiteboard, a central presentation or polls and questions. You have an instructor and/or a facilitator who speak, sometimes via the tool itself sometimes via a separate telephone conferencing system. And you have a chat window. Centra is one of the popular products in this area.
Second Life-lookalikes could transform this 'Virtual Class 1.0' into what virtual classrooms have always been trying to do: mimic the ever so popular face-to-face classroom as natural as possible, but distant. It might work. People can all teleport to a virtual classroom building and share a learning moment there. As long as the learning is instructional and information sharing only and doesn't involve labs or exercises this will work fine.
A further evolution of this is a Virtual Conference. Lotus for example held part of its January LotusSphere conference both in Orlando ànd in Second Life simultaneously. They are basically the same, except for the number of participants and concurrent events.
Take a look: http://slurl.com/secondlife/ibm%209/34/58/23
2- Research
A second big learning thing with Second Life is learning about Second Life itself. Hey, it is a virtual world and a hugh experiment. Second Life has for example its own virtual economy. I can imagine economists wanting to research if it behaves in the same way as the real world. Will the SL economy collaps if that Chinese lady tries to convert all her money into real dollars?
And there is the dark side. You didn't think SL would be free of terrorists, hackers and freaks did you? Some weeks ago a bomb exploded on SL. Hackers are trying to steal your virtual assets. Just last week I heard about a new problem on SL: child porn. There are no laws against avatars having sex with avatars representing children. I can imagine sociologists will want to research how a society and community in a virtual world evolves. How it regulates itself.
So all of that is valid learning. But it is more research-oriented , so I for one am not interested as my 'thing' is corporate learning. This is for the academics among us.
3- Learning to be someone else
What better way for sensitivity training, role play or diversity training if you actually can change into someone else. How does it feel to be a woman, a black person, or a gay rabbit? Second Life can have its place in any kind of training where you are trying to let participants experience things from the other's point of view.
4- Soft skill simulation and coaching
Second Life can be used to bring coach and coachee together via the net. For example a manager and his coach can meet on Second Life every evening to go over their program. A sales trainee can schedule a one-on-one with a virtual coach to practise selling a product.
5- Images and 3D animation
And if nothing else, Second Life is a cheap way to get quality images and 3D animation movies. Just 'act' in Second Life and let the program capture it. Then include it in your e-learning course. I haven't figured out if Linden Labs (owners of Second Life) prohibits the use of photo's and films taken on SL. I think you are OK if you mention the image or video was taken there and link back.
I did not include putting learning on Second Life billboards in here. For me, that is just the same as putting up a web page or writing a piece of paper on some topic. Second Life doesn't add anything to that.
As a conclusion for today's post, some educational resourses on Second Life:
- TOP 20 EDUCATIONAL LOCATIONS IN SL
http://www.simteach.com/wiki/index.php?title=Top_20_Educational_Locations_in_Second_Life
And some other sources of information on the same topic:
http://greateribm.typepad.com/web_log/2006/10/greater_ibm_vir_1.html
http://www.networkworld.com/news/2007/011107-web-20.html
In one of the next posts I'll talk about pro's and con's of SL.
Labels: metaverse, Second Life
donderdag, maart 22, 2007
IBM helps you out with your Second Life coding
IBM since yesterday helps you out coding on the Second Life platform. For IBM 3D virtual environments are a main focus this year, so it makes sense they help out developing them. There is a new island called IBM Codebase, where you can get help how to program Second Life platforms and objects. The island has a script centre, and a maze (looks like a chip from above) where you can build a robot. I'm not a developer myself, so I just took some touristic screenshots :-)The island is branded with IBM, the Rational software brand and Eclipse, the open Java development platform.
More on:
http://www.informationweek.com/software/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=198100512
And as I was on SL again, I just visited the Forbidden City. When I visited the real thing in Beijing last summer it was packed with people. In the virtual version I was all alone. Gosh, Second Life is a lonely place..
.Labels: IBM, Second Life
vrijdag, februari 23, 2007
First Second Life experience
TIP: If you want to be hip these months, throw in the words 'second life' in your conversations. Adidas sells virtual shoes on SL. Last week my company IBM hosted one of the largest events ever on their island, the Global Innovation meeting. This week a major radio station Q Music organises its first Q parties in Second Life, including avatars of all major DJs. As a result Second Life is all over the radio all of the time and new Belgian SL accounts are booming. Many people I talk to don't want a second life because they lack the time to live their first live properly. A newspaper article two weeks ago mentions that like in real life, SL is all about sex and money. You even need to buy genitals to have sex in SL :-)So I had to give it a try. (Not the genitals, the general SL experience)
In this post I'll tell you about my first experiences. In a later post I'll cover some pro/cons on usage of virtual worlds such as Second Life for educational purposes.
Your first SL encounter should take you about 4 hours.
How to get started?
1. Go to www.secondlife.com and register. Your first account is free. You can select your SL first name, but your last names comes from a predefined list. Take some time to select a good name because it is your unique identifier in your Second Life and cannot be changed. Select some basic characteristics of your avatar such as male/female and basic body shape. Don't spend too much time on this now, you can change everything later. For the free account, don't give our your paypal or VISA details. You will also be asked for e-mail and other details and you need to agree to Second Life's code of conduct. For example, virtual harrassment or violence is not OK in public places. And you can't discriminate in SL because somebodies bits are old, fat, buggy or blue.
2. On the same site, download the Second Life client program to your machine and run the installation program. You need to have Quicktime installed too because SL sounds and video come via QuickTime technology. To run SL properly you want to have 1 GB of RAM memory and a good graphics card in your computer. If you have a firewall enabled make sure the SL is granted access to the network.
3. Now for your first almost-second-life experience: launch the SL client on your computer, and log on. All first time users are automatically 'teleported' to Orientation Island. This is not Second Life yet. Your avatar will be visible (sometimes first naked, but your clothes come on in seconds, don't worry) between 4 gates where you will learn basic SL skills such as communication, moving around (including flying lessons!), changing your appearance, paying, etc. Use the up and down arrow keys to move around and find out how to use the SL program. Follow the signs. When you are done you can click a board to go the another island: help island.
4. After Orientation Island, you are teleported to another almost-second-life place: Help Island. Move around and learn. Be sure to visit the store where you can get all things for free! I got me a free house (but no land because that costs), tshirt and salsa moves :-) .
5. When you are ready to move to the real Second Life, follow the link (green beamer) on Help Island to teleport you to Second Life. Have fun. You might go to Time Square. I did. It was deserted.
After the orientation I explored the IBM islands. IBM has created 4 public islands that are all one after another. The Almaden island is public, so teleport there. They have a great orientation section as well that repeats some of the stuff in the general orientation, but also extra information such as how to sit, take and move objects, view yourself from another camera angle and talk on different channels. After that I took the train for a tour of the IBM islands. Somehow I managed to fall of the train :-). The picture shows my virtual me (Bert Handrick) at the LotusSphere conference building where the first virtual LotusSphere conference was held last january together with the real one in Orlando. (If I had a choice I'd prefer Orlando in my first life anyway :-) )
That wraps up my first encounters on Second Life. As in first life I don't like driving around so luckily one can fly in SL :-).
I regret there is no sound in Second Life, all chatting is through typing. When you are typing, so is your avatar, which is a funny sight.
You will often be alone in Second Life, because it is a big place with only 20000 people in the world simultaneously. So as in FL, you need to find out where to go when. And you probably need some Linden Dollars (the Second Life currency) too.
Labels: IBM, Second Life
