Kinset is a new 3D web program that mixes online shopping with the feel of a store. Download the small program and find yourself in a 3D shopping mall which currently only has 2 stores. (one of which is a bookstore which is the primary reason I go to malls).

Kind of a cool idea, though I have been shopping in other 3D programs for some time now, so it seems redundant. It has the feel of Active Worlds too as the camera moves are a little flaky. It could really benefit as a 3D web embed as discussed below.

It is a curiously cool way to shop at Amazon though, and the web integration with 2D information is first rate.

Metaverse News Amazon, Kinset, shopping, virtual economy, virtual worlds

Less than a month ago I wrote that the next stage of 3D web development is the development of platforms on which the 3D web can be built, and the stage after that would be the development of clients that can handle multiple 3D programs.

Well stage 3 is closer than you think. This week the first true 3rd party client for Second Life was released by Electric Sheep Company as part of their CSI:NY promotion.

The OnRez client is available and can be used as a replacement to the Second Life client. If you are used to the official client you will notice a lot of the buttons have moved. This can be disconcerting at first but you will quickly like the placement, it feels more “natural”. The client is designed for new Second Life users and the simpler interface may help with the high learning curve of second life. My only complaint is the missing “fly” button, but I guess they figured pressing F or PageUp is easy enough, I just miss the indicator.

The release of 3rd party clients is a benefit of Linden Labs releasing the source code for the original viewer. There have been add-on patches like this one or this one, but as far as I know OnRez is the first true licensed 3rd party client.

And it won’t be the last. InDuality is in alpha testing. It is being developed jointly by Pelican Crossing (makers of 3D web software Blink 3D) and IBM as a multiple 3D worlds viewer. The current Alpha version supports Second Life, Blink 3D, Flash, and X3D (formerly VRML) but they hope to add more. InDuality is an embedded client, which means you can run it in your own web browser, or post 3D embeds on your website or blog!!

There you have it folks, the beginning of a true 3D internet.

Virtual Society 3D Web, onrez, secondlife, sl clients, VRML

So the “Necklace Generator” script I posted on my Second Life Page is a huge hit, I get asked about it all the time in Second Life.

Well as a project, I thought it might be fun to use the same principles to create a flexi prim mini-skirt. They are all over Second Life, often expensive, and not all are very good. So here is the skirt I created and a short “how to” to make one yourself.

First, unless you have a large plot of land, you need to find a nice sandbox, as this will generate a 50 prim skirt. Generate a couple of boxes with the following properties:

Box 1 (the belt):
Size: 0.080 0.320 0.320
rotation: 0,0,0

Box 2 (the skirt)
Size: 0.200 0.500 1.200 (increase the z value for longer skirts)
rotation: 0, 350, 0 (the y rotation causes a slight billowing effect you can adjust to your liking)
taper x= -0.65 y= -0.45
Check “Flexible Path”, the default settings are fine.

Put Box 2 on top of box one, it will sag to one side, this is fine

Link the two boxes together as shown in the picture. Name the object “skirtpart” and take it away.

now generate a 3rd prim (does not matter) and create a new script with the following code:

flexiskirt.txt

Touch the prim and watch an upside down skirt materialize before your eyes!

Delete the skirt generator prim then select all of the skirt objects and link them together. Turn the skirt over (x rotation = 180) and use “scale” to shrink it down below 0.5 meters before attaching it to your pelvis. Then you can use position rotation and scale to adjust it as necessary. Because your avie’s hip is not a perfect oval, Feel free to adjust some of the flexi prims individually for a perfect fit.

If you dont want your legs to stick out when you walk, you can create a pair of black pants to wear underneath that match the waist and hem lines.

Virtual Society flexiprims, scripting, secondlife

So today there is an article in the New York Times about a cooperative effort between IBM and Second Life to “standardize” avatars across virtual worlds. It was one of the big announcements in this weeks Virtual Worlds Conference.

I have been advocating this for four years now so I believe I have a good take on this. I have an Ariane, ArianeB or Ariane Brodie avatar in at least 8 different games.

All that is needed is a standardized file that contains specs about your character and a facial map file. Each virtual world game could use as much or as little of this file as needed. The more the better of course.

What I learned from past experience is that in virtual worlds, the head and particularly the face is everything. For the body, all you need is height and basic measurements, plus skin tone. The face you should go out of your way to be complicated. The makers of There and Second Life already know this as the “sliders” for face significantly out number the sliders for body.

Now the problem with standardized avatars is you do not want to make it too simple or it will be out of date in a few years. You want to make it as complicated and as high tech as possible, generating a nice big file, and let the games figure out how best to adapt the file to their application.

Luckily there already is a perect program for this: The Face shaping tool in Poser 5 or higher.

This program can convert portrait and profile pictures to 68 facial settings for Brow Ridge, Cheekbones, Cheeks, chin, eyes, face shape, forehead, jaw, mouth, nose, temples and ears. You can also start with a generic face, (male or female from four different ethnicities) and play with the sliders as you see fit to create a face that way. From the pictures it can also generate a facial map. Its the perfect tool to generate any face you can think of.

Ideally, you make a program similar to the Poser face shaping tool, and give it away. Make the output a XML style text file that can be read with any tool. Then you leave it to the virtual world program makers to take the input of this file and generate a compatible 3D representation in their world. It could be as simple as reading hair, eye, and skin colors and ignoring the morph data, or figure out a way to take the facial map settings and create a close proximity of the face as described.

Basically this creates a transportable virtual identity that you can use from game to game.

Here’s the IBM Press Release, and the Linden Labs blog on this

Virtual Society 3D Web, avatars, opensim, secondlife

If 3D virtual world games mark the first stage toward a “metaverse”, the second stage is platforms for 3D game creation.

A forum friend linked this news item about Forterra launching a platform called OLIVE. If you are not in the know on virtual worlds, Forterra was originally There, inc. the people that built the virtual world There, now run by a seperate company Makena Technologies, which also created Virtual MTV using the same platform.

OLIVE is the software that can be purchased to create your own virtual world whether public or private. It is of course expensive, and will require renting/purchasing servers to run the world, but it opens the possibility of hundreds of similar worlds.

But OLIVE is not alone, not by a long shot. The biggest virtual world out there is Second Life run by Linden Labs. Are they going to just keep their platform for themselves? Until last month, it seemed that way, but they quietly posted a new web site http://secondlifegrid.net/ last month which is in part to help companies have a presence in Second Life, but also it looks to be a means to a “private” second life as well. Linden Labs is actually planning on open sourcing their server platform (video of announcement).

Then you have Multiverse a platform primarily for MMORPG building, which could easily be converted for virtual world building. Worlds.com which has been working on adoptable virtual world platforms for over a decade, the x-rated Red Light Center is based on their platform.

There is also a platform being built by Doppelganger Inc. which built the PCD Lounge which just this summer became vSide. The philosophy of the company is more simplistic, and vSide is obviously geared toward teens. Yet based on screenshots, it is obvious that the Viacom built Virtual Lower East Side (currently in closed alpha testing) is using Doppelganger software. The screenshot above is from vSide.

Virtual Society

So in Second Life, I live on a small 512m plot that I get with my premium account. No monthly tier fees. I run an animation store there selling animations I made using Poser, a program I have been using since Poser 2. Because I have troubles these days staying in SL for very long, I decided to cash out some extra Lindens I have accumulated, a few hundred dollars worth actually.

Currently the only MMORPG I am playing is Guild Wars. Monthly fee: $0. It may not have the following that WoW has, but it is also missing the grind. There’s plenty of content and gorgeous scenery to be had.

I used to spend lots of money on internet games, now I’m living large at no cost and making a small profit here and there too.

Virtual Society guildwars, secondlife, virtual economy