Second Life "A glorified 3D chat room"

In a recent article on kotaku.com, they compared the new Playstation Home with second life, saying "We've had our doubts that Home may ultimately be nothing more than a prettier Second Life, a glorified 3D chat room, one that only makes getting to the games we actually want to play a bit of a chore.". I would agree, as a consumer that has paid for no additional content, there is very little to do other than talk with other second life users and customise my existing character with a limited selection of UVW maps.

3D Studio Max Progress: Detail

Here is my latest 3d studio max render...



Although This helmet is a lot more detailed than my previous efforts (note the indents on the visor) I am still not happy with it, for example the cap on the top of the helmet could be a lot better. I don't know if I am being too ambitious but every time I recreate the helmet I'm not happy with it and have to remake it, each time getting closer to a worth while replica.

Box Items

I thought of a few things that could go in the box or in this case rise out of the floor. I'll have the music player and a film, then for the game I can create a 3D X-Box 360 that has a screen attached to show my own Halo 3 replays.

Also I could create a 3D drum kit that plays a short drum solo that I can record on my electric kit at home.

Chess Board Concept

I'm finding this chess board idea more and more appealing, although this means I won't rule out any future potential ideas. The first thing that strikes me about the chess board idea is that when you first see it, it appears to be 2D (even though it will be a 3d render) then upon interaction the camera will pan about to reveal it is in fact a 3D object. As Shown.

Also by doing this the camera can go right up close to the chess pieces and make them appear huge, by going from a birds eye view to a worms eye view. This will make people question their initial perceptions, what appeared to be a normal chess board is actually a giant one. I like this idea because too often i find myself to judgmental only to realize the true value of something much later.

Another idea for my chess board is that in order to interact with it you must click on the squares that would be an obvious chess move. The idea behind this is not necessarily that you have to know chess to know me but that I like games and it is through games that I know some of my closest friends. Also I can represent a challenge and sometimes I think I can be challenging person.



Now I just need to think of some interactive pieces to put on the chess board. My idea is that upon clicking on the right squares the chess board panels will fold away to reveal objects that elevate out of the board, for example my avatar could be one of these objects . I know that I want a music player that plays one of my bands songs and a video player that plays one of my favourite films or a clip from a game because obviously media such as music, video and interactives are important to me.

Navigating Identity

The second part of the identity project is titled "navigating your identity". This project is inspired by the work of Joseph Cornell (1903-1972), an American artist who created or found boxes and placed objects of importance of symbolism inside of them, similar to the old cabinets of curiosity. The idea is to make a virtual box and attach interactive elements (as opposed to objects) to the box in order to navigate my identity.


In one of Roma's lectures we were shown a website about Joseph Cornell that works in this manner, a picture of a box divided into several sections, each box was a different link to information about Cornell's work. I could not find this site but i did find a similar one called the Joseph Cornell Box.

I have also now been asked to start thinking of original ideas for my own interactive site. This must include 5 sections, one must include my 3D avatar that I am currently working on and an element of AV. I have a few ideas, for an example a chess board where the squares fold open to reveal interactive elements.

The Century of Self

Yesterday I downloaded the full series of the century of self from the BBC (as shown in Roma's first identities lecture). I have since watch the entire first episode which addresses propaganda in the first world war, the birth of public relations and how this effected America 1930-1940, Nazi Germany and present day living.

During the first world war Sigmund Freud's nephew Edward Bernays was asked to go to Europe and convince the masses to support president Woodrow Wilson in his efforts to support the war effort. After his astounding success he realized that propaganda could be used to control the masses in peace time, he called this public relations and set up an office in America after the first world war. Bernays looked to his uncles studies and took the idea that under the surface of civilized man are strong irrational forces from natural instinct. Bernays advised business that in order to sell their goods or service they must appeal to mans irrational desires rather than the logical mind.

After the success of Bernays techniques politicians began to think if man is irrational, how can he be trusted to vote responsibly within a democracy? Germany seemed to have a solution to these underlying primitive urges, an alternative to democracy, Nazism. It wasn't considered a form of autocratic control but a way of centralizing the desires of the masses to bind the nation together under service not self. In the west the answer was fulfill these desires and make the masses happy and docile, President Hoover called the public "Happiness machines", this meaning that the citizen had become the consumer, driving the economy whilst remaining content and unlikely to revolt.

I see Edward Bernays as a Duchamp figure, he could be considered a great hero or an terrible villain. Bernays is responsible for the emotional link between product and consumer, he incited the idea that one can express themselves through their dress and possessions. Bernays broke down social taboos such as women smoking in public but is equally responsible for the thousands of advertisements aimed towards our irrational wants and desires that we see everyday. Are we really slaves to our most basic instincts, or can we be held responsible for thoughts and actions in a democratic society?

A Shameless Plug?

I thought it would be a good idea to demonstrate my ability to produce a music track, I suppose audio editing will come in use on a multimedia project. This was equally an opportunity to shamelessly plug my band. You can Hear more tracks and see the band art work that I've been working on the myspace page.

Reinventing Ones self

This morning i found a interesting video on Kotaku.com a short 3D animated story about a computer game character who gets fed up with playing the same villain roles all the time. I found this video had significance because it was animated in 3D relating to my work with 3D Max and being about character and identity it links in well with the avatar project.

3DS Max Animation

Here is a short video of my master chief render waving...

Becoming an Interstitial Node

Last week we had a lecture about modernism v post-modernism and what it means to be an interstitial node. Firstly an interstitial node is a point i.e me, a person connected to various other points i.e the rest of the multimedia community. The idea behind this is that by being connected for example via social networking (blogs,facebook,myspace,forums etc.) on the internet creative thinkers can easily share thoughts feelings and ideas and learn from one another.

This is where modernism and post modernism comes into the lecture. Traditionally the concept of modernism centers about the author, the creative individual who will create, invent. This individual will take the credit for the discovery and hopefully it will benefit mankind. Post Modernism however celebrates the death of the author and is about how a society of creative thinkers can feed off others ideas and findings, combine or rework them to create something new. Manuell Castells a post modernist sociologist speaks of the hyper text, a way of linking relevent text in an encyclopedic knowledge (much like wikipedia), he says the hyper text is a vehicle of communication, a provider of shared cultural codes. This means we can gather information from various standpoints and cultural backgrounds and from this we can establish our own beliefs and then share these with others.

Simon Perkins claims that Modernism is much like an old quarry, most of the precious resources have now been extracted and it is now very difficult to think of any new inventions, as if we have reached our original creative pinnacle. Rather than extracted new materials from this metaphorical quarry we can combine our existing resources to create something new and exciting.

I do not feel this is totally true as no idea is truly original, all things are inspired by something right back to nature, post modernism is another perspective. This is pretty much what post modernists believe except working in a collaborative society rather than a individual or a team. Regardless I think post modernism has relevence now more than ever considering the recent leaps and bounds made in social networking thanks to the internet.

3D Studio Max Progress: Complete Model

I finished my attempt at making a complete master chief. I have essentially used the same methods of building as before but using a few slightly advanced techniques for example extruding via polygon as opposed to by face, when making the fingers on the hand. Next week I will try and animate the model and I will continue to improve on this render and make another master chief in the coming week from scratch.

Johnny Lee projector tracking and Wii-mote technology

In one of Deborah Tuck's lectures we were asked what potential infrared tracking had in our society, she showed us a video demonstrating this technology presented by Johnny Lee, a man who's work I had seen before and found very interesting. Here is the video...



The video shows how a projector can project a image onto a specific surface within a projection field at any angle. Johnny demonstrates various practical uses of this technology already, for example, a fully interactive drawing or writing tool that can be projected on to a board (with sensors for the projector to track from) or even a web browser. Also he has a plan photo of a city on a projection field that changes to a map view where a tracking board is held over it, making the map interactive much like in google maps but not on a computer screen.

In a more commercial aspect this technology could be used to project advertisements on to moving objects that pass by a projector field in a public space. The advantages to this being the image can be projected at any angel and various objects i.e buses or trains etc. could carry these tracking boards and a image could be projected on at stations and bus stops where vehicles would move more slowly.

You can find Johnny Lee's other amazing projects using a Nintendo Wii-mote here.

3D Studio Max progress

I have been using 3D Studio Max for about 3 weeks and each week I have tried to recreate master chief from Halo to monitor my progress.



First I was only interested in form, trying to get a basic shape as seen below. There is no attention to colour (master chief isn't even red). I have only used extrude and bend (as used in the first seminar) from the modifiers list, when i was finished i used turbo smooth, This doesn't work very well as master chiefs armour is fairly blocky anyway.



Then the next time I rendered master chief I made just the head so I focus on it in more details. This time I also looked at using the materials editor, using colours and textures to create a more accurate depiction of the helmet. I made the visor yellowy orange and highly and reflective and the helmet green.



In my third render I had a lot more experience with 3D Studio Max so I could create and render a lot faster. I focused on even more detail (the grenades on the belt) and smoothing off surfaces like the sides of the helmet.



I will continue to develop my render up until the 6th week.

Eagle Vs Shark

Yesterday I watched an amazing film called eagle vs shark, a independent film from Zealand. I found it because a actor called Jermaine Clement stars in it who is also in a band called flight of the conchords that I have been listening to lately. Anyway I found a brilliant example of pixilation in it like I did last term.

This film is kind of like an arty version of Napoleon Dynamite and if you haven't seen that I recommend that too.

Second life

I've changed my character, I think I'm happy with my avatar now. It looks nothing like me, I thought I would go for a change like my Habbo character. I also found out I can bypass the training segment of second life, so i didn't have to complete that flying segment that I was having difficulty with. The actual world in second life is very large and rather overwhelming, I really don't know what I should doing. I've walked around a lot but haven't really found anything so I just talk to random people, so it's just like a 3d chat room so far.