New focus for a bit

Since I"m not teaching this year...I haven't been doing anything in SL with students. So I haven't been posting much. However, I am starting to get into making machinima...movies in SecondLife. I always hoped the students would get into making machinima as a way to use their media making skills combined with what htey learned in SL, but no one ever took me up on it. So, now I"m going to give it a shot. A friend and I have started making an episodic spy movie. We're not filming in order *laughs*...we filmed a bit that was fun, then decided we needed some back story and we'll need some kind of ending. So we're filming around our initial bit. Kind of like writing a research paper...we'll probably need to go back and reshoot the first bit to take advantage of what we've learned along the way.

We're also talking about shooting a video for the machinima contest sponsored by the University of We
Image via Wikipediastern Australia, a college that is really active in SL. We're still kicking around ideas for the story for this video, but probably it will be a drama. You have to start or end your movie at the SL recreation of their famous clocktower, seen in the picture over there (somewhere...look around..you'll find it in this post) We know we're up against very stiff competition. We'll learn a lot about moving making and have fun, both of which are our main goals for the project.

I'm going to play around with green screen so I can put my avatar into RL footage. I took some shots at the beach in florida; I think my avatar will look cool walking on the beach in some boardie shorts and shades. Look for a link to that in the near future.

Here are a couple of links:

• the initial version of our spy video mentioned in the first paragraph..no, the woman's voice is not me - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqAz6I8EhN8
• the official SecondLife channel on YouTube - http://www.youtube.com/user/Secondlife
• videos by Toxic Menges on YouTube (she's an active machinima maker in SL) - http://www.youtube.com/user/toxicmenges
• videos by Chantal Harvey on YouTube (another active machinima maker who organizes annual machinima festivals in SL) - http://www.youtube.com/user/ChantalHarvey

We're playing around with some different toys - camera HUDs, fight systems, animations for holding guns. In the next few posts, I"ll talk about some of them.

Here are some links to other assorted sites and news

Related articles

• Machinima.com - Machinima.com (itunes.apple.com)
• Machinimas at the GAMERZ festival (we-make-money-not-art.com)

End of the semester reactions to SecondLife

The students int eh Games & Society class had to write a final paper with their reactions to being content creators and consumers in SecondLife, plus anything else they wanted to say about their experiences.

Overall, the reactions were pretty positive. Maybe they were just blowing smoke up my skirt (figuratively since I don't wear skirts in class) to get a better grade. But I'm going to take them on face value.

Here's what theyliked
avatar customization
building tools
socializing with people from around the world
ability to host events
ability to create stuff
people were nice to them
people came to their party
people came to their presntations at the end of the semester
haunted mansions at Halloween


Here's what they didn't like
slow servers and software that just acted up occasionally
building took a lot of time
no goals, not clear what to do
no leveling up
limited game play
no good tutorials at the beginning - bad newbie experiences

Some thought SL should focus on builders and developers. Some thought SL should focus more on gamers. Others realized SL's future for business presentations. But they thought about SL and compared it to other things they know. This is a great improvement over some past classes who couldn't get any handle on what SL was. So I'm happy.

In reality, most won't use it again unless they have another class with me in the spring semester. But a few will. I was excited that they all managed to build things, they all went shopping and spent lindens; and they all talked to other people in the virtual world.And they all have had the expeirence of being content creators in a world that values such creators. That was one of my goals. And I think we accomplished that and much more. I was happy with how the semester turned out in terms of SL use. I'd do it again.

Just a thought

Image via Wikipedia

I think I"m going to have the freshmen game students create a Halloween event in SecondLife - dress up a section of the island and host a dance party or something. They have to wear costumes, decorate the space, invite people, be hosts. They could go shopping for the decorations and avies. Make notecards to hand out. Might be fun and good skills. I"ll have to think about that a bit. Unfortunately Halloween is on a Saturday - but we could do it a bit early I think. People in SecondLife never need too much of a push to celebrate.

I have to see if they know any people outside class. Tho maybe we just do the dance during our class - 30 avies all dancing at once = lag lag lag. Still could be fun

At the conference

Here are a couple of notes from the opening - audio problems, the video stream didn't work (they originally were doing something with flash - you can't do flash in SL I think it's just qt)) but they're working on it - but things to learn for any conferences we do - test the audiovisuals before hand

Cool stuff - nice big space so easy to move around and get to the chairs and see the screen, good exhibitor space wiht interesting mix of booths - lots of neat designs for the booths themselves as well as business ideas. They gave all the participants some cash when we signed in the first morning so we could buy some stuff from the vendors. Since a lot of people are brand new to sl this was a very cool idea - they could buy some neat clothes or donate to non-profits and learn a new SL skill.