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Cinemassively: Racing in Second Life
What always amazes us about Second Life is how real the activities are. Sure, lots of those realistic activities, like baking in your virtual kitchen, or washing your hands in your virtual bathroom, are pointless, but some are actually are pretty cool. For example, Italian Formula 1 and Ducati racing. While the site is entirely in Italian, you can get an idea of what goes on. It would appear as if they have regular daily, and monthly, events that one can participate in. This blogger has been the passenger in a race car (NASCAR) and would not do it again, but from the comfort of SL? Bring it on!If you have machinima or movie suggestions from any MMO, please send them to machinima AT massively DOT com, along with any information you might have about them.
Cinemassively: SL as a platform for Augmented Reality
The Georgia Institute of Technology has been studying augmented reality in Second Life. Described as a combination of real world and computer-generated data, it allows you to interact with the objects in real time. If you're confused, check out this video, which explains Georgia Tech's research in SL, as well as shows some examples of what they've been up to. If you're curious and want to learn more, visit Augmented Reality island.If you have machinima or movie suggestions from any MMO, please send them to machinima AT massively DOT com, along with any information you might have about them.
Cinemassively: Stage
Before Robbie Dingo was ever an artist in residence or brought paintings to life in Second Life, he was known as the machinimator that made us cry. With works like Better Life and Stage, he set the tone for deeply emotional machinima. With Stage in particular, he showed the relationship between a father and a son as time passed on. He illustrated this with a train set and a piano. Robbie proves that you don't need a complicated storyline to evoke a response.If you have machinima or movie suggestions from any MMO, please send them to machinima AT massively DOT com, along with any information you might have about them.
Cinemassively: Hospital Replica in Second Life
Play2Train, a virtual company that boasts a town and two hospitals over three sims in Second Life, facilitates training exercises through interactive roleplaying. In this machinima showing off one of the hospitals, they use Google Earth to show exactly where it's at in real life, then quickly switches over to SL to highlight the facility itself. One of the particularly meta aspects of this video is the computer monitor in the virtual hospital that was at the desktop, with a Quicktime video open playing video of the real life hospital![Thanks, Ramesh!]If you have machinima or movie suggestions from any MMO, please send them to machinima AT massively DOT com, along with any information you might have about them.
Cinemassively: Free fun with prim Puppeteer
When we first saw what Puppeteer could do, we were blown away. Now we've found a video of some examples of what other people have done with the product in Second Life. This little gadget allows you to place scripts in prims that will record movement and play it back, or "animate" it. Residents have animated doors, wings, stuffed animals, pets, and many other objects.The best part is that the creator, Todd Borst, has a no transfer version available for free, so that you can animate to your heart's desire. There is also a version for vendors that costs money, but today's post is all about free fun in SL![Via SLEXchange.com]If you have machinima or movie suggestions from any MMO, please send them to machinima AT massively DOT com, along with any information you might have about them.
Cinemassively: Pud and Jel, Episode 5
We previously wrote about Pud and Jel back in February. Their strong bond as friends intrigued us, but we wished that the episodes would last longer. It looks like Steff Ling has responded with a fifth episode, Cherry Rat, that is double the normal length.When Pud loses his cherry, disaster strikes. Can Jel save the cherry from the evil rat? Will they live happily ever after? For some interesting tidbits about the filming of this episode, be sure to check out Steff's blog. In addition, you can find the higher quality version on blip.tv.If you have machinima or movie suggestions from any MMO, please send them to machinima AT massively DOT com, along with any information you might have about them.
Cinemassively: Bodysnatchers
Phil Rice, one of the original machinima oldbies, released a music video for the Aniboom Radiohead music video contest. In the video, he combines Second Life, Moviestorm, Paint Shop Pro, CamStudio, and Virtual Dub to make an impressive anymation piece. For those unaware of the term "anymation," it means using any and all tools you can get your hands on to create a digital expression.Phil involved dancers from SL, sets from Moviestorm, and drawings from Paint Shop Pro in Radiohead: Bodysnatchers. According to his blog, he had 55gb of source footage, a whopping 72 video tracks with an average of 16 compositing layers, spent 250 hours on the video, and rendering it out took 3 hours per minute of final film. Hopefully this will inspire others to break out of the box and combine more platforms.[Via Machinima for Dummies]If you have machinima or movie suggestions from any MMO, please send them to machinima AT massively DOT com, along with any information you might have about them.
Cinemassively: Hosoi Ichiba
Cecil Hirvi created this machinima, Elegantly Forbidden: Hosoi Ichiba, to illustrate the lives of the residents of Hosoi Ichiba in Second Life. Through their normal activities, such as fishing and walking around the village, and with the help of haikus, he effectively captures the emotions that they're feeling. To us, this seems like a story of love that can never be. As for the video itself, Cecil does a great job of utilizing SL's features, including Windlight and bloom, to enhance his work.If you have machinima or movie suggestions from any MMO, please send them to machinima AT massively DOT com, along with any information you might have about them.
Cinemassively: Japanese machinima in Second Life
Bonkkyu Bonetto created this machinima, which, according to Google Translate, comes out roughly titled, "SL beans Hall's promotional style animated movie OP." Regardless of what the title is, the video itself is quite fascinating. It is styled like an animated program, complete with beginning character introductions, action sequences, split screens, and more. Most Second Life machinimas simply try to emulate real movies, so something that is cartoon or anime-like is a special treat.[Thanks, Toirdealbach!]If you have machinima or movie suggestions from any MMO, please send them to machinima AT massively DOT com, along with any information you might have about them.
Cinemassively: DiVAS Season Finale Commercial
On December 2nd, 2007, we featured a promising new series, DiVAS, set in Second Life. The creation of Phaylen Fairchild, it was about a selfish lush of a woman that found herself in awkward situations in every episode. So far, she's been in rehab, been fired, and fought to be on a reality show.On May 31st, this season will come to a close when Episode 6 airs. This commercial serves to highlight some of the best moments of the series, as well as tease us about what will happen in the last episode, which will be a full 20 minutes! For more information on DiVAS, check out their blog.If you have machinima or movie suggestions from any MMO, please send them to machinima AT massively DOT com, along with any information you might have about them.
Cinemassively: Molotov Alva and His Search for the Creator
In 2006, Douglas Gayeton, of Millions of Us, ventured into the virtual world of Second Life as Molotov Alva. Here and there, he made a few friends, and documented the entire process. When he looked back, he had hundreds of hours of footage and began to sift through it to weave a story. After completing it, he posted it to YouTube, where HBO executives took notice, finally premiering it last night on Cinemax.com.Molotov Alva and His Search for the Creator: A Second Life Odyssey is about a man that gives up his real life to escape in a virtual one. With new friend, Orhalla Zander, by his side, they venture forth in a search to meet the Creator of this magical place they're in. Along the way, he is tempted into griefing, tries out relationships, and learns a lot about himself in the process.[Via Cinemax]If you have machinima or movie suggestions from any MMO, please send them to machinima AT massively DOT com, along with any information you might have about them. Read on for more on the series ...
Cinemassively: Current TV talks about A Virtual Recession
Current TV viewer and contributor, Vasilis Siskos, created this look into the virtual economy of Second Life. Curious as to whether the real life recession trickled down into the virtual world, he asked some experts, including Robert Bloomfield, of Metanomics, John Zdanowski, or Zee Linden, the CFO of Linden Lab, and Alliez Mysterio, of d'Alliez Estates. They had some interesting insight on the situation, but ultimately felt that it wouldn't be a problem, as crafty residents would find what worked better next and adapt.[Thanks, Kai!]If you have machinima or movie suggestions from any MMO, please send them to machinima AT massively DOT com, along with any information you might have about them.
Cinemassively: Zee Linden discusses Linden Lab's finances on Metanomics
On April 21st, Robert Bloomfield, better known as Beyers Sellers in Second Life, held his weekly show, Metanomics. His guests, Mitch Wagner, of Information Week, and Steve Prentice, of Gartner, called the future of SL dire. John Zdanowski, also known as Zee Linden, then came on to address the points that Mitch and Steve made.In his two part response, he talks about premium accounts, the Lindex, and the recent lowering of land prices. Only time will tell if the situation is truly severe, but at least you can buy cheap* islands now!* Excluding VAT and $295/mo USD tier fee.If you have machinima or movie suggestions from any MMO, please send them to machinima AT massively DOT com, along with any information you might have about them.
Cinemassively: Inspire Space Park presents "Tormented Twilight"
We remember when machinima was very niche in Second Life. Only a handful of residents were creating it, and now there are probably more voiceover artists that actually cater to the SL medium than there were machinimators back in the day! However, they also appear to be branching out into other hobbies as well.Voicedude Renoir, the multi-talented avatar that he is, put on a special musical performance at Inspire Space Park. With Earth Primbee filming, he used his Roland D70 to entrance the audience as the camera moved around fog, fireworks, and a virtual solar system. If all live music shows looked like this, this blogger might actually attend one!If you have machinima or movie suggestions from any MMO, please send them to machinima AT massively DOT com, along with any information you might have about them.
Cinemassively: Avatar Puppeteering possibly coming to Second Life in 2008
When this blogger first came back to Second Life in 2006, Linden Lab was organizing their first SL Views group. When they flew the focus group to San Francisco, that session was about avatar puppeteering. Residents have not heard much about it since then.However, Jeff Ventrella, who was brought on to LL for this sole purpose (He also invented flexi-prims!), released a quick simulation video on YouTube today, complete with a website link for more information about it. For those unaware, avatar puppeteering involves natural joint movement and ragdoll-physics. Could this mean that it will be introduced in 2008? We can only hope!
