I took a peak at what I believe are the free homes for premium members. I have to qualify this because like everything else in Second Life it is poorly documented and word of mouth. I received a landmark through a group I belong to and went there to look. But there were no signs to confirm I was in the right place. Nonetheless, I will go with the assumption that I was in the right place.
Molly Linden has created a set of new homes and laid them out on a piece of land. I have to give her credit for good taste in both the home design and he layout. The homes are quite nice and the layout, despite being somewhat dense, does not feel dense. There are enough models laid out with enough variety that it doesn't have that ticky tacky feel of suburban sprawl. So far, it is promising.
I counted the prims in one of the house and came up with around 80. This could be a problem because it leaves the resident with only 37 prims for furnishing. However, I don't know if they plan to hold to the 117 prim rule. So I can't say for sure if this will be a problem.
Most of the homes have huge picture windows which makes them feel bigger and more airy. This is good, but since you can see into everyone's home, there won't be much privacy. This will either hurt the pose ball trade, or force residents to put up curtains which will take up prims. But, I am willing to see how it all works out. My initial impression is quite positive.
I do see two potential problems, though. The first is whether or not residents will be able to modify the builds. Since Second Life tends to inspire one's creativity, residents may be unhappy if they can't make changes to customize their homes. On the other hand, few residents have the good taste that Molly has and if allowed to make changes they are likely to junk up the neighborhood.
The second problem is how neighborhoods are constructed. A hodgepodge of people is worse than a hodgepodge of houses. If neighbors are not selected based on some sort of compatibility it is easy to see how the situation could deteriorate rapidly. Having had neighbors who rival the Saturday Night Live Church lady for moral superiority on one hand, and other neighbors who plumb the depths of depravity on the other, I know what it is like to like in a hodgepodge neighborhood.
But, I don't want to identify problems that have not yet occurred. The houses look nice and the neighborhood looks nice. Hopefully, things will continue along in this positive direction.
Showing posts with label 3D building. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 3D building. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Houses For Premium Members
I received emails for several of my alternative accounts stating that Linden Labs is going to be offering free homes in Second Life for premium accounts. On the surface, this seems to be a good idea. Yet, I can't help but wonder if LL has thought it through. It is a good idea because it addresses several problems with premium accounts in Second Life. First, there is little incentive for people to become premium account holders. Very few people are seduced by the lure of being able to buy land. Basic account holders who want land can rent if they really want a place to call home. So, the 'right' to buy land, especially given the softness in the virtual real estate market, is little incentive. From this perspective, the premium membership is little more than just an added tax on those who want to buy land anyway. Second, showing up in Second Life without knowing anyone is a lot like showing up in New York City without knowing any one. It can be a cold and lonely place. Having homes in communities can provide a sense of belonging that current does not exist.
There was a program several years ago refereed to as 'First Land' where premium residents could buy a 512 square meter piece of land for L$512 and put a home on it. However, it failed and was terminated. The main reason for its failure is that many, if not most, people who bought their first land for L$512 turned right around and sold it for L$9000 feeding the speculative bubble in virtual real estate. The speculators got what they deserved, however, as land prices crashed and are still about half of what they were at the time. And Linden Labs got what they deserved for not having thought this through a little more carefully.
First, consider the math. L$512 is roughly $2 US. L$9000 is roughly $36 yielding a profit of $34. A one month premium member ship cost around $10. So one could spend $10 and make $34. While this is not a huge profit, it is a profit. And when you consider the hype at the time along with the fantasy elements of Second Life, a lot of people felt good (in their fantasies) about making money in virtual real estate. So, the idea that most people would simply buy and sell was entirely predictable. Further, the notion that this buying and selling would create a real estate bubble was also predictable. And the consequence of the bubble bursting at some point was also predictable. So, the First Land initiative turned out to be an unqualified disaster. But, money was not the only reason why it failed.
There were at least three other reasons why this initiative was doomed to failure. First, most new residents do not know enough about building to build a home on their first land. So, nearly everybody put up one of the freebie homes. This was fun for the 45 seconds it took to rezz the freebie home but not much fun after that. Second, 512 square meters with 117 prims is not enough to do anything with. This is like selling somebody a bite of a prime steak for $2 and telling them the second bite (and every bite after that) is $36. Finally, without any kind of a development plan, the hodgepodge of First Land plots gave Second Life the feel of a trailer park without any zoning restrictions.
Hopefully, this new initiative will be thought through a little more careful although I am not optimistic about that prospect. Nonetheless, I will look into some of the key issues next time.
There was a program several years ago refereed to as 'First Land' where premium residents could buy a 512 square meter piece of land for L$512 and put a home on it. However, it failed and was terminated. The main reason for its failure is that many, if not most, people who bought their first land for L$512 turned right around and sold it for L$9000 feeding the speculative bubble in virtual real estate. The speculators got what they deserved, however, as land prices crashed and are still about half of what they were at the time. And Linden Labs got what they deserved for not having thought this through a little more carefully.
First, consider the math. L$512 is roughly $2 US. L$9000 is roughly $36 yielding a profit of $34. A one month premium member ship cost around $10. So one could spend $10 and make $34. While this is not a huge profit, it is a profit. And when you consider the hype at the time along with the fantasy elements of Second Life, a lot of people felt good (in their fantasies) about making money in virtual real estate. So, the idea that most people would simply buy and sell was entirely predictable. Further, the notion that this buying and selling would create a real estate bubble was also predictable. And the consequence of the bubble bursting at some point was also predictable. So, the First Land initiative turned out to be an unqualified disaster. But, money was not the only reason why it failed.
There were at least three other reasons why this initiative was doomed to failure. First, most new residents do not know enough about building to build a home on their first land. So, nearly everybody put up one of the freebie homes. This was fun for the 45 seconds it took to rezz the freebie home but not much fun after that. Second, 512 square meters with 117 prims is not enough to do anything with. This is like selling somebody a bite of a prime steak for $2 and telling them the second bite (and every bite after that) is $36. Finally, without any kind of a development plan, the hodgepodge of First Land plots gave Second Life the feel of a trailer park without any zoning restrictions.
Hopefully, this new initiative will be thought through a little more careful although I am not optimistic about that prospect. Nonetheless, I will look into some of the key issues next time.
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
First, Performance Issues
Second Life is a dynamic environment. If you have the right permissions, you can change the environment on the fly. You can create new objects, change the location and shape of objects. Or apply new textures to objects to give them a new look. In Second Life parlance this is referred to as 'building'. It is the act of creating the 3D environment. You can also change the behavior of objects. If a river is flowing east to west, you can change it to flow west to east. If a door opens on the right, you can change it to open on the left. In Second Life parlance this is referred to as 'scripting'. Both building and scripting make make the Second Life environment extremely dynamic which is why I said earlier that you can think of it as an extension of the imagination. However, there is a cost to all this dynamism. And that cost is performance.
When a simulator is slow to produce the 3D environment or when objects in the 3D environment do not perform their actions quickly enough it is referred to, again in Second Life parlance, as 'lag'. Here are some examples of lag. You might show up at a location and not see the location for a few minutes. You might appear in a crowd of people and not see the people for a few minutes. You might be walking across a room and your avatar looks like it is walking through molasses. You may raise your hand to ask a question and yet your hand does not go up. Or you may type a question into chat but not see the question until several lines later.
Lag is caused by a number of factors including the number of prims to be rezzed, the number of scripts running, and, yes, the number of avatars on the sim. This places a limit on the number of avatars that can be at one location. That number varies depending on how much lag you are willing to accept. However, a ball park figure for a maximum number of avatars in one location is 30. This creates problems if you want to have a meeting or a class or a conference with more than 30 people in attendance. When I teach my class in Second Life, I tell students not to follow me immediately to each location as having that many avatars show up at one location may crash the sim.
The solution here is to trade dynamism for performance. Unless you are having a meeting in which you are demonstrating or teaching building or scripting, you don't need that level of dynamism. Once the Second Life environment is created, it should be compiled down to a static environment and optimized for performance. Not only is it costly to have a sim for each 30 people, it is extremely inconvenience. Further, individual applications, such as meetings, can be optimized for different kinds of performance. For example, meetings should be optimized for gestures and chat, possibly also for displaying images such as PowerPoint slides or other media. A different application, say an amusement park, may be optimized for avatar movement and script performance.
The dynamic quality of the Second Life environment is wonderful for stimulating the imagination. And with imagination you can do almost anything. Unfortunately, with such a dynamic environment you cannot do anything particularly well.
When a simulator is slow to produce the 3D environment or when objects in the 3D environment do not perform their actions quickly enough it is referred to, again in Second Life parlance, as 'lag'. Here are some examples of lag. You might show up at a location and not see the location for a few minutes. You might appear in a crowd of people and not see the people for a few minutes. You might be walking across a room and your avatar looks like it is walking through molasses. You may raise your hand to ask a question and yet your hand does not go up. Or you may type a question into chat but not see the question until several lines later.
Lag is caused by a number of factors including the number of prims to be rezzed, the number of scripts running, and, yes, the number of avatars on the sim. This places a limit on the number of avatars that can be at one location. That number varies depending on how much lag you are willing to accept. However, a ball park figure for a maximum number of avatars in one location is 30. This creates problems if you want to have a meeting or a class or a conference with more than 30 people in attendance. When I teach my class in Second Life, I tell students not to follow me immediately to each location as having that many avatars show up at one location may crash the sim.
The solution here is to trade dynamism for performance. Unless you are having a meeting in which you are demonstrating or teaching building or scripting, you don't need that level of dynamism. Once the Second Life environment is created, it should be compiled down to a static environment and optimized for performance. Not only is it costly to have a sim for each 30 people, it is extremely inconvenience. Further, individual applications, such as meetings, can be optimized for different kinds of performance. For example, meetings should be optimized for gestures and chat, possibly also for displaying images such as PowerPoint slides or other media. A different application, say an amusement park, may be optimized for avatar movement and script performance.
The dynamic quality of the Second Life environment is wonderful for stimulating the imagination. And with imagination you can do almost anything. Unfortunately, with such a dynamic environment you cannot do anything particularly well.
Monday, January 19, 2009
Creating Your Second Life - Part I
The single most impressive feature of Second Life is the capabilities that it provides the user to create their own content within the virtual world. Philosophers of technology claim that technology can always be viewed, in some way, as an extension of the person. In the case of Second Life technology, it can be viewed as a technological extension of the imagination. This is no small claim and the thing that Linden Labs did get right was the power that they put in the hands of their users to create their own worlds in Second Life.
This power to create is referred to as 'building' in Second Life. The user begins by creating a primitive object, called a 'prim' and then by modifying the shape, location of the prim and the images displayed on that prim, all of the content that you see in Second Life is created. There are some minor exceptions to this rather sweeping statement. For example, land is modified through a different editor in a process known as terraforming. And avatar looks are modified in an 'Appearance Editor' which will be discussed in the next post. But, for the most part, the vast majority of what you see in Second Life was created through building.
Building in Second Life is far from perfect. Its major drawback is that it is difficult to learn. All of the in-world tutorials are basically the same. The few available books are basically color glossy repeats of the in-world tutorials. And the in-world classes focus on how to achieve a specific result rather than on understanding building so that you can figure out how to achieve that result on your own. However, my experience with out-of-world graphics editors isn't a great deal better. So, I will give them a pass on that. If you want to learn how to build; you can. It may not be as easy as it could or should be. But any person of moderate intelligence and persistence can learn. And once you learn, what you can do is astonishing. So let's focus on that instead.
People with active imaginations are always picturing things in their minds. In fact, the definition of imagination is to be able to picture something in your mind that was not directly derived from experience. You can picture a unicorn in your mind, for example, even though you have never actually seen a unicorn. The beauty of building in Second Life is that if you can imagine it, you can probably build it. So instead of relying on those fuzzy pictures in your head, you can actually see what your ideas look like when represented in a virtual world. The net result of this is that your imagination and creativity come alive. In the classic movie - The Wizard of Oz - the film switches from black and white to technicolor when Dorothy leaves Kansas and enters the Land of Oz. The analogy is apt. Entering Second Life is like entering the magical World of Oz. It is a realm of the imagination, a place where all things are possible. If you can see it in your head, you can see it on the screen. And, if this were all that building in Second Life allowed you to do, it would be impressive enough. But it is not all.
When you create something in Second Life it is out there for everyone to see. So instead of those pictures being in your head, they are out there in a shared virtual world. You can display the products of your imagination and see the products of other people's imaginations. It reminds me of an old Bob Dylan song called Talkin' World War III Blues in which he says "I'll let you be in my dream if I can be in yours." This is the essence of Second Life - "I'll let you be in my dream if I can be in yours." The ability of users to get the content of their imaginations into the virtual world for others to see and the ability to see the content of the imaginations of others is truly the strength and most impressive accomplishment of Second Life. And the importance of this capability cannot be overstated.
That bears repeating. The importance of this capability cannot be overstated. And if I say anymore, I will only diminish it. So, I will end with that remark.
This power to create is referred to as 'building' in Second Life. The user begins by creating a primitive object, called a 'prim' and then by modifying the shape, location of the prim and the images displayed on that prim, all of the content that you see in Second Life is created. There are some minor exceptions to this rather sweeping statement. For example, land is modified through a different editor in a process known as terraforming. And avatar looks are modified in an 'Appearance Editor' which will be discussed in the next post. But, for the most part, the vast majority of what you see in Second Life was created through building.
Building in Second Life is far from perfect. Its major drawback is that it is difficult to learn. All of the in-world tutorials are basically the same. The few available books are basically color glossy repeats of the in-world tutorials. And the in-world classes focus on how to achieve a specific result rather than on understanding building so that you can figure out how to achieve that result on your own. However, my experience with out-of-world graphics editors isn't a great deal better. So, I will give them a pass on that. If you want to learn how to build; you can. It may not be as easy as it could or should be. But any person of moderate intelligence and persistence can learn. And once you learn, what you can do is astonishing. So let's focus on that instead.
People with active imaginations are always picturing things in their minds. In fact, the definition of imagination is to be able to picture something in your mind that was not directly derived from experience. You can picture a unicorn in your mind, for example, even though you have never actually seen a unicorn. The beauty of building in Second Life is that if you can imagine it, you can probably build it. So instead of relying on those fuzzy pictures in your head, you can actually see what your ideas look like when represented in a virtual world. The net result of this is that your imagination and creativity come alive. In the classic movie - The Wizard of Oz - the film switches from black and white to technicolor when Dorothy leaves Kansas and enters the Land of Oz. The analogy is apt. Entering Second Life is like entering the magical World of Oz. It is a realm of the imagination, a place where all things are possible. If you can see it in your head, you can see it on the screen. And, if this were all that building in Second Life allowed you to do, it would be impressive enough. But it is not all.
When you create something in Second Life it is out there for everyone to see. So instead of those pictures being in your head, they are out there in a shared virtual world. You can display the products of your imagination and see the products of other people's imaginations. It reminds me of an old Bob Dylan song called Talkin' World War III Blues in which he says "I'll let you be in my dream if I can be in yours." This is the essence of Second Life - "I'll let you be in my dream if I can be in yours." The ability of users to get the content of their imaginations into the virtual world for others to see and the ability to see the content of the imaginations of others is truly the strength and most impressive accomplishment of Second Life. And the importance of this capability cannot be overstated.
That bears repeating. The importance of this capability cannot be overstated. And if I say anymore, I will only diminish it. So, I will end with that remark.
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