The Rockcliffe gateway has been open for nearly a week now.  Time to give an overview of what to expect when you (or your students) arrive.  Don’t let that mention of students mislead you.  Our gateway is open to anyone.  But we do have an educational theme and do see our mission as welcoming people with educational or other serious interests.   

If you are bringing in groups of people for classes, meetings, or something like that, we may be able to arrange for helpers and event welcomers to be at the gateway for specific time periods. Contact Thinkerer Melville to make arrangements.

As I promised in the previous episode, this episode gives detailed instructions on how to bring an advance team into Second Life through the Rockcliffe University Gateway.  Only a few of the details are specific to the Rockcliffe Gateway.  You can modify them to fit another entry point.  The posters and notecards are free to copy at Cookie Visitor Welcome Center.

Instructions for leading the advance team into Second Life

Advance Team:  A leader and a few Skype-capable people.

1. Log on to SL yourself and go to Rockcliffe University Gateway

2. Establish a conference call on Skype to include yourself and the others on the advance team.

3. Send the people to this web page:  Rockcliffe University Consortium, Gateway page 

Welcome back! I'm sure some of you remember my Avimator tutorial which I used to teach you how to create your own poses in Second Life. I'd like to take this opportunity to teach you how to use Qavimator,... basically, Avimator's "big brother". It is slightly more user friendly and much more fuller featured than its Avimator counterpart, and as a bonus, can also be used to create simple animations!

What You'll Need For This Tutorial:

1. Qavimator, downloaded and installed (WIN / MAC)

2. Second Life

3. About 10 minutes. ;)

If you are lost at any time, feel free to check out the Qavimator Wiki for more information and help. Enjoy the video! As usual, I'll do my best to answer questions in the comments section.

We had the great chance to meet the band--Maleficent when we made the firey Mary Mayhem video / machinima featuring their music. (Check it here). Yeah, it is some hot stuff. But so is Maleficent herself, former Royal Ballet ballerina turned singer, rocker. I have not actually seen them peform live--yet, so the upcoming video release party and performance looks like just the ticket to snap up. (and btw this is in the real world in the real London--£'s only no lindos!). And we will be sure to take lots of photos of Maleficent's awesome outfits...

As I hinted last week, a few people are already offering commercial video services with video capture from virtual-reality.  Here is an interview with AWM Mars, who has been doing that for years.  His web site is at  WBA-Advertizing.

This interview was done entirely in Second Life, on the modern equivalent of paper (notecards).  I gave AWM a set of questions and he supplied written responses.  I have only made cuts to focus on the current topic and to avoid subjects that cannot adequately be handled in one article.   I may get back to him in a follow-up interview on some of these topics later.    

This article continues previous articles about the implications of OnLive for the future of Second Life.:

People are known by the communities they keep.  Note that plural.  People rarely live in just one community.  You will immediately think of work and home communities.  Or take my article last week about how video work could be moved to a private grid.  The video production could be moved to a private grid because at that point it does not need a large network like Second Life.  It does need a larger network for a casting call.

Mixagrid  A name I made up for the current state of things.   Part way to hypergrid.

The network effect in Second Life is not as durable as that famous effect that so nurtured AT&T.   Second Life is made up of many networks. It is lumpy.  Communities form strong networks.  But the communities are not all strongly connected.  Some pieces could break off and run their own world. 

This article continues previous articles about the implications of OnLive for the future of Second LIfe.
Future of SL is beyond e-tech. Now on to s-tech
Future of SL Beyond e-tech (continued)
VR in the Cloud

Our previous episodes  described a new player the table, Onlive. 

• Future of SL is beyond e-tech. Now on to s-tech
• Future of SL Beyond e-tech (continued)

Onlive offers the prospect of a major change in the infrastructure used to deliver online games and the virtual reality that they live in.    In this episode, we examine the prospects for this change and some of the futures it may offer.

Recon Report

According to the Onlive website here is how you will use virtual reality (VR) environments in the future:   

Orange Island is a place where we want to share and collaborate with the Second Life community, offering a range of events that not only give opportunities to discuss and explore new ideas and technologies but provide some fun experiences too.

We believe by working together we can do more, so by understanding and exploring new opportunities such as those we recognize within Second Life we can start to consider the tools and services we might be able to offer to support community projects as well as how communities in Second life may be able to help us.

Eva Moon has already gone for blended reality.  She has been performing in Second Life for over a year.  And she has been performing frequently for Thinkerer Studios projects ever since she arrived.  One of her earliest gigs was on Saturdays Wild, at the Forum.  At right is a picture of her performance at the Archon Theater on Cookie.  

Eva has earned enough (according to her press release) to finance a new CD, “Moon Falling Down."  So she and her real life band, the Lunatics, will blend worlds in a simultaneous physical and virtual world release concert for their new CD.  Eva Moon (EvaMoon Ember in SL) is known for her hot music and hilariously sexy, no-holds barred lyrics.  In this release concert, her band will be in both worlds.