My Concluding Thoughts of Second Life.

We ventured into a program that I was very much interested with.  I could see myself using this program a lot in my spare time.  Now that we have reached the end of the semester, I must admit that my feeling have changed about this program.  I think it is a well designed program, but not for me.  I worry about too much things going on in my real life, and I consider that a good thing.  If I were to spend too much time in Second Life, it would effect me possibly in a negative way in real life.  I like the idea of the program because there are people out there who want to live a fantasy life, and this is the perfect opportunity for them.  The customizing is endless and I can see why it remains attractive over some other basic social video games.  I felt like the program was a lot more difficult then it needed to be.  There where way to many options just off the main HUD would send the viewer to go a little crazy.  I have looked at all the options of what I could do in Second Life, and it just seems beyond the norm of what the average person would do.  Again, I'm not bashing on the program, I just don't think its for me.  I am a more hands on kind of guy and I travel everywhere physically in the real world.  The type of artwork that I do would not pertain to Second Life in a great way because I have other options when it comes to other platforms to show my work that have proven to be a lot more effective (such as YouTube).

I really enjoyed getting the time to learn the program inside and out.  I loved how our ARTS 450 class her at CSU Chico decided to take an experimental turn in dealing with the way we present art.  I believe this is what makes CSU Chico's art program so great is because of the risks, as students, we make in these experimental programs.

I have to get going but it has been a great experience and I'll never forget all the art memories I have had in Ayres Hall and for the rest of the California State University, Chico!  Thanks for everything Nan!

Final Class, Final Presentations.

Today was our last class meeting but for the finals.  Today was the day that I showed the theatre off to my class.  Before I showed my project off, Eli went ahead and showed off his artwork.  He created a dumpster that you could actually go inside and see a gallery!  There were pictures of artworks that have sold for millions of dollars, even some that would sell for over $100 million!  Eli made the point that he thought these works were not that professional and don't deserve to be sold for that much.

I then showed off my theatre.  Everyone seemed to gave a good time checking it out, and I ended up showing off a few PREF1X music videos while the class was in Second Life.  Ann, who is a master to us at Second Life, was proud that I accomplished the theatre in as many prims as I did.

Next up was Kate.  We flew into a sphere that had us inside a globe.  Once inside, we saw floating pictures of the artist, along with a web of words (that are her thoughts).  All the words are connected like a brainstorm map, and then there are gears spinning around accompanying the animation.

 XiaoQing created a UFO shaped building that is always rotating, inspired by a case study for a future rotating skyscraper in Dubai.  It was pretty fascinating but because of the technical difficulties, our avatars wee not able to enter the structure.  The work was very sought after, but only a true second life expert may have the possibility of completing this rotating building.

Corrie created a dream bedroom with a lot of high visual imagery that included photos of landscapes, drawings, and mini planets that would rotate.  It was very nice to hear that her inspiration came from a high school and college dream room.  This was basically the translation of what was in her head.  It was very saturated and stimulating.

Lizzy showed us a brain floating in the air with a creepy long tail that would flop back and fourth.  It was suppose to be a recreation of a work she made in real life.  She also had a separate artwork that included a frame that would show off a bunch of her real life paintings.  It would flash every so few seconds with a different work.

Last up was the team of OT1+OT2 (or that's what they like to refer to them selves as.  They created a building that was pretty cute and was made with what I believe was just only a few prims.  But for some reason with my SL viewer, I wasn't able to see a building shape.  I saw a bunch of spheres that made up the building space, but that was it.  Seeing it on a mesh enabled viewer, the building seems completely solid.  It was a very fun concept where the lamb animal cookies play as the characters in this work.  Some of these lambs were floating in the air by a single balloon.  Again, very cute!

It looks like all the Second Life projects have been presented.  What a wonderful semester of exploring a new program.  Very groundbreaking!

Finished Theatre!

Today was a day full of finishing my theatre.  I had so many problems completing this because of the mega prims.  These prims were so tricky because editing them seemed very glitchy.  Plus, I could never adjust the size, so I had to stay with the original size of the walls that Ann gave me.  It was very frustrating but once I started to get all the pieces together, including the roof, I started feeling very confident.  I was able to  add textures, like carpets to all the floors, and fix the curtains for the walls.  I then set the screen up so it would view a trailer of the musician I represent named PREF1X (pronounced prefix).  I added all the outside walls so that it looked like a modern building that I was used to seeing in my hometown of Sacramento, CA (since this theatre was a little bit of inspiration for my finished work).

After much stressing, drawing up blue prints, and putting all the pieces together, I was finally complete with my theatre!

First Wave of Second Life Presentations

Today we went and visited each area for where the ARTS 450 students hosted their Second Life projects.  First we checked out Terrence's live DJ Performance, with strobe lights.  The bottom floor even had a gallery of his other artworks.  He played a bunch of pop music from over the years and remixed those songs with a dubstep flavor.  He had to use a lot of scripts because of the moving graphics for his DJ set up.

Next up was Jamie and Brianne.  They collaborated on a project that showed off the nighty starry sky. , with illustrations of constellations.  It was called "Spark of Heavenly Fire."  The constellations are images of females of the past. , present, and future who excel at roles that men are usually know to have.  There were notecards that told a description of each of the characters.

We then checked out Tara's project.  We arrived at an autumn color space that had a bunch of umbrellas and some that were actually spinning.  Each umbrella seem to offer different textures.  The whole place ended up being around 200 prims!  Some of the umbrellas had interesting transparencies.  Kuya said that their should be chairs for people to sit on, but the problem was solved when people started sitting on all the umbrellas.  There were so many of them that they resembled mushrooms!

Kuya showed us his land that had a basic set up of showing off his artworks.  Now the interesting part of this area is the matter of how you look at these flat artworks.  You would have to sit in a designated chair to get a perspective of an artwork that Kuya created in Photoshop.  You needed to look at it from the right perspective because the layers floated towards the viewer.  Very exciting!

Jenny was up next showing of a gallery that featured works that included 3D sculpting.  There was also even pictures that showed her avatar posing.  Very interesting to take photos of an avatar!  Very nice building that was calm and very inviting.

Karen was last up today.  She showed off a story book that was in her inventory.  She took out the book and we read it as a class.  You can click through the pages and featured all of her original illustrations.  It was very cute!

Until next time, time to finish my theatre for next class!
 

Getting Somewhere...And I'm Lost Again!

I have spent my Thanksgiving Break trying to tackle the idea of why I can't seem to adjust the sizes of the mega prims that were given to me by Ann.  She has had the freedom to play and warp the mega prims, but when I do it myself, on my own viewer, the prims will immediately shrink to 10x10 meters.  The viewer (i=I don't know if it has anything to do with my Second Life Account) has disabled me to make adjustments in terms of shape on these prims.  I have tried to move forward and begin designing the overall feel of the theatre.  It is accompanied with curtains, which I felt gave it an organic feel that I come to appreciate.  The overall feel is coming togther but it's coming down to crunch time and I can't figure out how to resize these prims.  No help on the Internet seems to lead me in the right direction.  I know I don't like to rely on Ann for everything, but for some reason she know's how to fix my particular problem, though I think out of any student in the class, I have made her wonder why certain things don't work in Second Life.

Finally! Progress!

I arrived to class today hoping to see Ann so she could help me with making mega prims.  Fortunately enough, she was here and helped me first.  She ended up having to transfer me prims that were pre made, because it is now not allowed in Second LIfe to make prims that are over 10x10x10 meters.  I was now able to make prims that are over 64x64x64!  This meant the world because now I can create a wall out of 1 prim (instead of making it out of 6 like I was normally doing, which made my theatre easily over 50 prims).    She got me feet wet on getting these prims, so I began to build the actual theatre that would be my final product.  I managed to build 3 walls and a floor out of only 4 prims! (it's a big deal to me I guess lol).  Anyways, also I was taught by Ann how to properly line up these prims.  Before, they would look all jaggy and put together but now I'm learning how to build like a professional in Second Life.  I continued to fall down from my platform and there was no way for me to fly upwards to my theatre.  I finally got my feather  from Professor Nan which allowed me to fly everywhere in the sky.  Now I can progress with my project and hopefully get in near done after the break.  I'm ready to make this building look great an massive.  I need to have even more drawings in order to get my idea out.  To the drawing board!

ARTS 450 Class Filled With Art Visits

Today a lot of students in my ARTS 450 class took us on art tours across Second Life.  We started on Ollyawly's tour by taking us to a small recreation of the Sistine Chapel.  If you look into my posts of my Second Life blog, I have posted pictures of myself being in this exact recreation.  He must of found this place on google as a popular place to go to, just like the way I found it.  He then took us to The Museum of Amazing Illusions and Magic.  There was a lot of silly ideas like tables that would shatter on their own.  Professor Nan also laid on the top of an elephant.  I was playing around and I noticed that the walls were transparent.  Maybe it was part of the illusion.  I could walk in and out of the walls so it made navigation easy if I got lost.  The next visit was the Jonlin Estates: Lin's Art Gallery.  There was a lot of art for sale.  The lady who set this up apparently makes a living on Second Life just by selling work.  She has so much business that she has an assistant too.  This gallery had well over a hundred pieces of work that was displayed in a two story building.  She ended up even selling other people's work.  

Our classmate, Astrodino, took us on a tour to Second House of Sweden.  This place acts as an embassy of Sweden to reflect what Sweden is all about.  I didn't see it but apparently there is IKEA furniture in it.  The embassy building had a large, corporate feel.  It was a boring place in my opinion, just because the place seemed too realistic, something unimpressive that I can experience in real life.  The next place we went to was called "Folkvang Norse Home of The Viking Goddess Freja and her Valkyries"  Yes, that title was certainly a mouthful.  The island was filled with games such a jousting.  There was a nice map that would have teleport markers that made navigation easy.  There was a big gallery that offered a lot of Nordic clothing and buildings.  I teleported to a giant castle, with a bunch of pictures with women in Second Life.  The amount of detail on this castle was amazing, looking like it took forever to make.  Our next visit was to a place called, "Originalia-Adapt or Perrish-Cherry Magna."  This land was filled with enchanting scenes with the nice illuminate if northern lights.  This place looked like it would have a lot of fairy stuff since the trees were glittery.  It took forever for my viewer to res everything in this sim because everything was high detail.  I managed to come by a centaur couple.  You could even sit on them like a horse if your heart desired.    

Our next student, Collideshadows, took us to a place called "Eclipse Art Complex."  This gallery was giant and it featured a bunch of real life abstract paintings and sculpture.  There was also an underwater gallery that featured a bunch of water themed paintings and sculptures.  There was even functional elevators in certain parts of a museum located on the island.  Again, navigation is what made this place great.

The last tour that we were taken on today was by Kuya.  He took us to a place called "Wheatstone - Freedonia - Steampunk Goods for free!"  A bunch of the theme of this world is referred to as "Steam Punk."  I had no idea what that meant so I looked it up.  It basically is an idea of art work, cartoons, stories,  ideas, that are made up of futuristic machines that are made up gas pumping machines.  For example, There is a floating island in the sky that is being propelled in the air with exhaustion pipes.  After I looked up that concept, I could really appreciate the detail on this island.  There were castles and flying ships that were made up of this concept.  There was an underwater part of this place that reminded the class of a high profile video game named "Bio Shock."  Overall, a very spectacular place.  I know what Kuya likes in terms of his hobbies, so him showing us this place made perfect sense.

What a long day of tours!  What a lot to report!

Figuring Out a New Building Strategy

Today I logged into Second Life after deleting all my plans for my theatre.  I really wanted to start from scratch and see what I can do in order to make mega prims, which are prims that can stretch over 10 meters.  If I had that, then I will be able to make all my walls to my theatre with only a select amount of prims.  I couldn't figure it out so I went into Second LIfe thinking if I could manipulate a bunch of 10 meter pieces into a giant wall.  I started making too many prims again.  I ended up getting a visit from Ann again who signed in as "Builder Flux." Her avatar looked like a big headed alien that was a tourist.  She was basically regulating how many prims we are using, but was also offering advice on what we should do with our individual projects.  She started to take a prim and stretch it to around 64 meters.  I was extremely surprised with how much ease she was able to stretch the prim that far after I have been researching forever on how to do that.  She then asked me to stretch the prim to that length but I was unsuccessful, only being able allowed to stretch it at the maximum of 10 meters.  She was surprised and intrigued why I wasn't able to stretch it so much so she was making sure all my settings were correct in the builder's pallet.  I told her everything was correct and she couldn't help me wondering what may be the problem.  She unfortunately had to get running so I wasn't able to get what I needed.  I'll just have to see her next time when I'm in class (to see her in person).  What I've learned about Second Life is that it may be easier to get help from someone in real life if they are physically next to you while you're editing in Second Life.  I looked towards the internet to see if there was anything else I could do in order to find how to build these mega prims.  I searched for so long and no luck.  I have to wait for class I guess :(

No Class

Today we didn't have class in our Arts 450 class at CSU Chico.  The BFA students held their shows in each classroom.  All the students did a great job, and let me remind you that this posting is not about Second Life (it's about reality).  I'll be looking forward to our next class meeting so I can hopefully discuss with Ann on how to make my theatre with using a limited amount of prims.  Is it possible?  We'll just have to wait and see what she says.  I'm currently close to finishing a music video that I can show on my theatre for my class.  It would make my project like far superior to what I envision since I'm combining class related material with extra circular activities.

Frustration and Destruction

So I was in Second Life today and I've been waiting to see Ann to go ahead and help me with my theatre.  I've waited to long so my frustrations have lead me to drawing down ideas.  As you can see in the pictures, I have destroyed my previous theatre.  It was made with so many prims, so the destruction of it took a little bit of time.  I have decided to make this theatre a lot smaller because realistically I don't think I'm going to be able to make it in the amount of prims I'm allowed to use.

Well, I'm back to starting from scratch and I have entered a panic mode because I have no vision right now for what I'm going to present for my final critique in class.  Back to the drawing board.

Our Latest Class Adventure

Today in class we went and checked out the University of Western Australia's Sim.  There was a bunch of projects made by different students that were competing for a wealthy prize, which I can't remember at the moment.  So anyway, this area had a big land and there was even artwork in the air, so naturally the sim provider set up teleport points for us to get around.  The HUD that is on our screen was also incorporated in one of the artworks.  I thought that this was a new way to view art, and potentially interact with it.  You never know about something until you experience it.  These students were very competitive with their projects, so they used many senses other than sight.  They incorporated a lot of music in their work.  There are also projects that you can go inside of, such as a giant head that seems to be pretty creepy (since my avatar seems so insignificant to it).  When you go inside of the head, there seems to be parts of the brain and parts that seems like an anatomy project, very cool at the least bit!  We also noticed as a class that this sim also happens to be a big platform in the sky.  We have always been used to sims that were created on land by water.  Very interesting.

The next student tour we had was a place called Enchanted Tales Sim in Enchanted Forest.  This island had so much detail with such a massive, beautiful forrest.  The trees were so huge, the biggest I've seen in a sim thus far, made my avatar seem so small and insignificant.  I spent most of my time going around the forest getting lost, but it was okay because there was a lot of nice nature landscapes to discover.  There was a lot of architecture that had "No Entry" marks.  Too bad though because it looked like the best part of the island.  There was an underwater area that had a bunch of tropical fish and sharks floating around.  It inspires me to possibly make things not just on land but also on water?  Overall, this island has so much detail from the sky, to the fish in the water.

No Progress for Me in Second Life :(

I wanted to get back to working on my movie theatre that I'm designing in Second Life.  I'm trying to make this theatre huge, like an IMAX theatre.  Apparently we are restricted to using only 25 prims for our project, and I'm already approaching 50!  I'm no where even close to done and I'm basically back to the drawing board.  My new mission is to complete a theatre within 25 prims, so I imagine I'll have to make this theatre a lot smaller, also by eliminating some of the walls.  I'm going to have to meet Anne in my ARTS 450 class that will have some tips in order for me to accomplish my goal of creating this theatre within the prim limit.

I decided to go around to other places in Second Life that could be places of common interest.  I looked all across for places that people can communicate about the hip-hop artist, Eminem.  I kept looking for places all over but I couldn't find a true place that really served him well.  There would be places that set up pictures of him, but nothing that fancy.  I stopped looking after a while because I feel like I was making no progress.  For someone that has the most fans on Facebook, he must have an area on Second Life that pays him proper homage.  I'll have to look around more in the future because I'm interested to see what people make for celebrities.

Anyways, I was playing a fan on Second Life this week, almost acting like a Paparazzi guy trying to snap photos for a story.  Maybe I should enter into some Eminem forum sites that may have something related to a dedicated Second Life sim.  Maybe I should do some research on the demographic of the percentage of Eminem fans that are on Second Life.  There is a stat for everything on the internet, so maybe that should be available if I look?

First Class outside of Chico

Today was the first day we met as a class to conduct a field trip, but this time we were located not in our physical seats at the CSU Chico campus.  I logged in from my hometown of Sacramento, CA, while most other students logged in from Chico, CA.  We met okay.  It took a few minutes to really round up everyone.  We teleported for our trip to The University of Delaware's sim.  Tyde Poole was the student that showed us around.  We managed to finally meet up and then we started to move around the sim.  There were many places to look at art, and even there was traditional art galleries that were available to walk into.  It showed many artworks of Andy Warhol and another exhibit that was focused on black music in the past.  They were mostly paintings and photos that were available to view in high quality.  I started to fly around and I noticed that everyone was traveling towards the ocean.  I tried talking to a few students but then I immediately came up the conclusion that the Second Life viewer must of timed out, or had some other technical difficulty.  I had to log out and come back in, but when I entered back in, I couldn't really find any of my classmates.  I started to look around a little bit more and I noticed there was a crime scene.  Apparently the University of Delaware set up a game where you act as a detective.  I started to travel through the trees and terrain to find a dead woman that had her underwear removed.  I was meant to believe that this body was raped before it was killed.  Oh Second Life drama!  This place had too much detail from my ariel perspective that I will have to come check out later.  I got back to the Chico State campus in Second Life to see people working on their projects and I started going back to work on mine.

Day of Building

This is my first real attempt today at creating architecture in Second Life.  I've screwed around previously just by putting shapes together but never have I really started a project until now.  I have decided to make a movie theatre that many people can come sit and enjoy watching my music videos, or any other content I decide to put up on the web.  When I teleported to my land to build, I accidentally fell off and fell for a very very long time (as you can obviously see in the picture).

I started with what seemed like a blank canvas.  I was all alone on my island and it was surprisingly hard to put my idea together at first.  Just being able to mess around with every prim didn't turn out as I expected it would.  I played around with a lot of ideas that I drew in my notebook, but I figure this project is going to be pretty time consuming by the fact that I plan on adding a lot of detail in this theatre.  I really just spent the majority of my time realizing that the theatre needs to be bigger and bigger from what I originally planned.  So I decided to make more terrain to build on.  The theatre should be able to be functionally if it's on a big platform.  Anyways, the pictures show my progress so far.  It doesn't look like much, but I felt like I've put forever into this project so far!

Day of Touring

Today I showed to the my ARTS 450 class the area I explained all about in my previous posting here.  Everyone seemed to get a kick out of it.  They were finding things that I just hadn't got to exploring yet.  Maybe that is a good thing that there was so much content?  I believe so.  We were playing for a little bit but then we ran out of time because we had to start our tour with an artist we planned with.

As a class we went over to Lennox Hill to visit an artist who goes by the name of Scottius Polke.  He was dressed up as a cute otter for an avatar.  He was a real shy person with his speech, but what he wanted was for us to go around and play with all the interactive objects he has provided.  He created a house that was something out of a cartoon.  Unfortunately I don't have any snapshots since Scottius disabled people from taking pictures.  We were saying as a class that the visuals kind of look like the show, South Park.  There was a lot to do, such as bouncing on a bed, moving trash around in the room, to getting electrocuted by an outlet.  There were also giant socks laying on the ground that once given a sniff, my avatar feel to the ground, paralyzed!  Scottius toke us to another area that replicated a 2D drawing he made.  He created a 3D environment that almost perfectly modeled his painting, and avatars could go around looking for clues to what the story was about.  I looked around for a while but I couldn't really find anything pertaining to the story.  Maybe it was just me.

Finding an Exciting Place!

I started looking for an area I can take my ART450 class to.  I wanted to chose something that had a lot of detail that can have an avatar there for quite some time.  I started roaming around looking for sports affiliated things, because that's what I generally like.  I came across a hockey rink that seem to be pretty impressive that actually offered a league that real people could participate in.  If you look at the pic, the whole arena is made to detail, and there are also corporate sponsors such as Nike, Subway, and Burger King.

So then I decided to look around some more to see what else I could present to the class.  I then thought about looking for art works that were located in cathedrals and historic buildings.  I wanted to take them to replica sites so its as if we were taking a field trip to Rome or something like that.  I was looking around for a while but couldn't really find a great replica place.  The best one I found was a replica of the Sistine Chapel.  The artworks were beautifully crafted on the walls, though I believe the owner if this building could of finished adding more detail.  This work is close to complete.

I finally set my sights on Phaze Demesnes.  This is a magically land that has everything mythical, such as Castles, dragons, and fairies.  This is a giant sim  that has multiple islands that feature content for a lot of people to have fun with.  I actually happen to find the person who set up the sim too!  She was promoting her translation software company as a side project (I would assume its her main purpose of funding for her land).  Either way, the island was what I chose for my class to see.  The amount of detail is insane.  You can scale any wall and just see how high quality the artwork is.  It's really fun to get around too.  Its not as conventional as walking or flying around.  Since flying is disabled, you must either ride dragons around, or enter these little doors (reminds me of Alice in Wonderland)
that teleport you to a different part of the island.  A very big and well developed sim that should have more people visit indeed.  It's great even for couples to visit because there a lot of activities to do such as dancing and giving each other back rubs.

Big Day As A Class For Second Life!

There was a lot on our agenda in ARTS 450 as we ventured into Second Life.  I entered Second Life to find my avatar starting to dance like Michael Jackson's "Thriller."  This happens automatically because someone in my group of friends triggered that action.  Once they trigger it, everyone in a certain radius will begin to do the dance.  In this case, it was the Thriller dance!

We then entered a site that was dedicated to the annual ritual of "Burning Man."  Once called "Burning Life," now is called "Burning 2."  There was a lot to look at and play on, such as swings and hot air ballon rides.  There wasn't a lot of people there really like the real Burning Man.  I wonder why?  Could it be because those people are so high on whatever that they can't seem to use a computer okay?  I shouldn't be one to judge I guess.

We then entered an area guided by Jamie called "(ROMA) - The Original Ancient Roman Themed Estate Since 2006."  This land had a lot of detail to everything that was roman.  There was even people that were even avatars going around that belonged to the area that were dressed in the roman theme clothes; even some with their clothes off!  We ran into people on chariots, to lions, and I even ran into a station where you could even tweet about the area.  That was social marketing I have seen at it's finest so far in this program.  I would love to visit again when I have more free time!  The people behind this place must have studied a lot of roman architecture.  I even was going around and found the three-eyed fish that is in the show, "The Simpsons."  Must be huge fans?

Next, we went to a fairy land named "MayLou Design" presented by Lizzy.  This place was very well detailed and it allowed flying to be fun and adventurous.  This was because there were floating islands that featured content that I would find out of a story book.  The island seemed to offer a lot of properties one can by.  As you can see in one of my pics, my avatar is lounging in a property someone can by.  

Then we took time to visit a simple art gallery that was made out of single prims that one may view the gallery in  It featured a bunch of different artworks made out of different mediums.  Quite an interesting and fun way to put a gallery together.





Terrance took us to an area that featured all sort of globes, called "Fortune Land - Secret Spheres" that you can walk through.  Connecting each sphere was a tube that seemed to be constantly moving (Since the sides were made of a moving gif or something of that matter that I'm not quite educated with yet).  Unfortunately there were no screenshots allowed to be taken in this area so I don't have any to present, sorry.  It is an interesting take of how to connect landscapes in Second Life that someone wouldn't easily think of right off the bat.

Lastly, Karen took us to a haunting place that dealt with purgatory and the levels of hell.  The land was called "Jackson Rhys Gallery."  We were in a sense of Limbo when we entered the land.  Based off the story or tellings of "Dante's Inferno," we traveled as a class through each stage.  It was all pretty creative since we saw haunting images and painful scenes that I would never want to probably walk around in real life.  I'll just let my avatar do the dirty traveling for me!  A very dark place for sure, so I'm glad we got to visit the area in a well let classroom!  After a while of searching around, we eventaully ran into the creator of the land.  We started to ask the creator some question but the creator ended up leaving after a few.  We got the idea that the creator didn't really want to spend time with us.  Whatever, we don't need them anyway.  Overall, today was a big trip since we visited so many places.  Can't wait to get back in Second Life again!

Snooping Around!

As you can see it was night time in real life, as well as the Second Life area.  I wanted to go do some more adventuring.  I started off at the Chico State island and started going in random directions that (basically I wanted to get myself lost and make sure I had no idea where I was going).  I finally flew in a house and I realized it was massive!  I was going from room to room and then I got lost in there.  I couldn't find a way out except for the front door.  I finally got outside and saw three people talking about the house I was in.  Apparently it was a model home for people on Second Life to live in.  I was talking with a couple, who claimed they weren't a couple I guess.  They were dressed as if they were to models.  Their avatars were sexy I must admit!  Anyways, they were going around looking for property, so I told them I already looked around the house and I thought it was very well crafted.  They took my word for it and thanked me for their help.  I felt like I should of got a little bit of commission if they ever ended up getting that house!  I wonder if I should go into Second Life and create property?  As a kid I have always constructed architecture out of building blocks, or designed them on paper.  Maybe this is mu chance to see a creation I have come to life and have actual people take a look at it.  The possibilities of this program are endless!  

More Art Tours!

 Today we visited an artist that goes by the name Ta Loon.  She represented the Second Life island named the Goeth Institute.  We were sent here to look at some highly political messages that were come from minds all the way out in Germany.  I was a little confused though during the artist talk about Ta Loon and what was the real purpose about everything.  It seemed like she kept talking on different aspects of life that had no central theme.  The place she let us visit was a great idea I thought.  It had a lot of vertical room, meaning there were platforms in the area that also had content on it that you can see in the pictures that I posted up.  There was an interest concept of where she wanted us to pick up a block in a massive floating platform.  I believe this was used as a calling card in case we ever want to come back, plus she wanted to reach a goal of clearing all the blocks first.  In my my eyes that's a little bit more of a marketing move than an art project.  Anyways, the visit was a little strange and left me in confusion.  I don't know if I really have any reason to go back.

Screwing Around in Second Life!

Today I was in Second Life without the intent of doing what I ended up doing.  I was checking out the artist land of Tuna Oddfellow again.  I had such a great time experiencing his area, and you can read about my visit in my previous blog posting.  This time I found myself lost and wandering around in the middle of no where.  I thought I was reading my map correctly, but I must of not.  I flew so high in the air and realized after a while that I have no idea how to get back to where I took lift at.  I ended up flying forward for a while to end up in some fantasy world that had a bunch of dragons.  I couldn't believe the detail when I saw these giant dragons roaming around that seem to be maneuvered vy users.  They were asking me if I wanted to play in their Second LIfe RPG game.  I unfortunately didn't have the time, but I was very intrigued.  I wonder if they made a form of "World of Warcraft?"  If so, that means they may have copied the idea of the game, and are playing it in Second Life for free!  This really opens my perspective on the possibilities in Second Life!  (Below is a picture of me talking to people in this area participating in the fantasy RPG game).

A Few more Art Trips!

Today I went with the class to check out work from Sistaglro Wei.  She had set an up an island that was named the Australian Centre of Virtual Art.  The artist was very political with her message, being an aboriginal woman that lives in Australia.  It was an island with a major volcano that we first took a look at. She added these type of credit cards that were used by the Aborigines that limited them what to buy.  She showed us these cards inside the middle of the volcano, and the cards were coming down as if it was raining.  A very interesting way for here to present it.  Then she took us to an area that cleansed our souls that acted as a smoke pit.  It was awesome had she intended to put that in a virtual reference by cleansing our avatars!  She then launched us to a distant area that I would never imagine was possible in Second Life.  We stood in a circle that warped us to a cloud like area that had these nebula looking swirls that went on and on.  It was something truly amazing that I couldn't imagine that would be possible in Second Life.  I tried to take pictures but her land wouldn't allow me to take pictures so sorry folks.

We later with a magician named Tuna Oddfellow.  He really wanted to bring a different experience to Second Life by associating magic.  We all know that physics don't quite play a roll in that world, and he understood that there is still a way to incorporate magic.  We landed in his area, and it was a small cloud like feel that featured a transparent room, where I could see space in the distance.  After he gave the spiel I just mentioned, he flick the magic on and made the complete background and foreground a drug educed adventure.  It seemed like the effects of LSD or something trippy like that.  It seemed like it would be great for clubs and whatever performances he may associate with that, but then he tells us that he has incorporated live musical performance collaborations.  After a while, I seemed happy just to be in his area.  It was very relaxing and quite like nothing I ever experienced in Second Life.  See the pictures below to see what I mean!

Checking out even more cool lands!

Artists I believe are the one's who rule in Second Life.  They defy the laws of physics that we could not even imagine in real life.  They can make landscapes the way they in-vision, and we visited a place that really lived up to it.  We looked at an artist by the name of Moya.  He likes to associate his name in every artwork he makes.  We have visited artists' islands before but this has to be the best ones I have scene to date.  Everything i colorful like a dream and you could literally spend hours playing on the island.  There are so much things to do, like riding a train, or even race cars!  There is just detail after detail, such as the cow I ended up taking a picture next to.

The artist really mastered the Second Life design.  I now may have someone that I can have influence from.  I admit I have some OCD from time to time, but Moya makes that seem okay.  I want to recreate my house in Second Life, since that's what Moya did.  He had every detail done and that's honestly what I focus on: detail.

Making T-Shirts is so Easy and Fun!

We got a little more creative with our avatars today in class.  We went ahead and designed T-shirts to help bring out our Avatar's personality.  I've decided to make a T-Shirt for my artist that I represent.  I figure it would be much cheaper to wear it in Second Life, since the production cost would be very cheap.  I also made the shirt available for anyone to have if they visit the Chico State store in Second Life.  We used a template that our Professor made available to us.  I made an image of my artist and easily applied it to the template.  After that it was a few simple steps and cost was almost nothing.  Shortly after I imported the image, my character is wearing it like very stylish!

The class and I decided to take a picture all together to show our creativity.  As you can clearly see from the image, everyone went a different direction with their T-shirts.  I can honestly say we have a different thinking class that should prove well with collaborations in the future.  We are very organized as a class and want to show the world what we can do.  If we can't accomplish it in this life, then we surely can in Second Life!

Experiencing Live People in Second Life!

As I figure my way through Second Life, I discover the possibilities of talking to real people and see what they do in this virtual.  We first visited an artist talk that I found to be very unusual but exciting.  We visited an art gallery set up by a Stanford University professor that featured many different projects.  He gave a speech on all of his work which ranged mainly in recreating the experience in Second Life.  There were pictures all over the walls that showed an installment of a hotel that the artist rendered into a project.  It dealt with the hotel being filled with dummies and having people go through the experience.  He took all of his notes and recreated what that might of looked like in Second Life using camera controls to get around his subjects and actors.  Very weird stuff but very cool at the same time.

We had another meeting with a guru at Second Life who brought us to a game show type of place.  There she asked us questions where we won real money!  She wanted to express how important the internet age really is.  We talked about how there is a lot of CGI movies being made in virtual realities such as video games and second life.  They have become so popular now that South Park on Comedy Central took this idea and created an episode using the World of Warcraft video game, naming the episode, "Make Love, Not Warcraft."  One of my favorite episodes in fact, so I know it is a successful medium.  Other renditions of this include the popular series "Red vs. Blue" that uses Microsoft's Xbox's Halo video game characters.  I also answered a question correct that won me some money.  I immediately answered the question of how many Youtube videos are watched in one day.  I knew it was 2 Billion.

Pictures below include my visit to the art gallery and being on the game show area.  Keep in mind I'm the green dragon!