I did it!

I defended my thesis today! The thesis, as some of you probably remember, was about Second Life and it really brought lots of good things to me. The title in English would be: Using the virtual world of Second Life in companies and institutions' activities. I'm quite proud of how it turned out, I proved my points and also learned a lot about the business aspect of Second Life (even though I thought I knew it all before ;))). I'm very happy and hopefully will have more time for everything now, including blogging. As I know I'll be receiving my MSc diploma very soon, it's quite scary I'm not a student anymore. On the other hand, I've got so many goals set, and so many projects going on, that I don't think my life could get boring anyway. I'll miss the classes (but not the essays, the exams and all that jazz) but I feel I can really focus on what I want to do now. Yay!

SL'ang Life No. 1 - a sneak peak! [UPDATE]

[UPDATE: March 29, 2010] I removed all SL'ang Life links - they don't lead to SL'ang Life website anymore (since it doesn't exist), but to one you wouldn't want to go to ;)

My copy of SL'ang Life magazine arrived yesterday, so I thought I'd post a sneak-peak photo for those of you who are still waiting for the delivery. Since you already know the cover, I'm posting a picture from the inside. It's actually one of my articles (surprise surprise ;)).

I'm very happy with the magazine and I hope you all will be too. Expect your copy soon, and those who haven't subscribed yet, you know what to do, it's free!

If you have comments on the articles or would like to ask some questions, just recently we opened a forum where you can do that or simply just come to chat.

And don't forget to let us know what you like about the magazine!

Virtually speaking

I've been looking into machinima making recently and I think one of the biggest SL limitations in this field is lack of avatar lips movement while speaking. So far I knew about CrazyTalk (as of programs improving this disadvantage), but just recently I came across this movie:



Does anyone know what program was used to create lips movement in this movie? It seems like the best choice at the moment.

I've been wondering about various alternatives for external programs too, and what I came up with is an idea of a typing overrider (or maybe just some kind of device), that would use built-in avatar face expressions to simulate speaking. This means no lip-sync, just lips movement, but it also means it would be widely available for other SL users, be inexpensive and would make the post-editing less time consuming (most likely). While simple lips movement might not be good enough for some people, I think it would still be more natural than no movement at all. I actually saw a movie that seems to use this technique and it looks pretty good (the movie itself is a pilot of a new promising Second Life TV show "NooB"):



I'm going to play a bit with the idea and see what I can achieve (seems like an interesting challenge). In the meanwhile, feel free to give any comments and suggestions.

1...2...3... of me

I've been tagged by Daedalus, so here are eight random facts about me:

1. I have very clean and legible handwriting. In fact, my RL friends often ask me "Can you print it for me?" instead of "Can you write it down?" :)

2. I read a lot. I'm a very fast reader and can read a whole book during one evening (and I often do if the book is interesting enough).

3. I love all things Japanese, which means music and rhythm games too. Particulary, I'm addicted to StepMania (example video), UltraStar (example video) and Frets On Fire (example video, but watch the tutorial too, it's hilarious). These games are great for parties... and believe me, they're fun!

4. I have way too much ideas in my mind and they come to me really fast. Tell me a concept and a few hours later I'll have a thousand suggestions and ideas for you. I have a txt file where I write down all my ideas for things I want to create in SL. The file is very messy and big. Once I checked and it turned out to be more than 40 A4 pages long.

5. I'm a perfectionist. I notice things (this needs to go on a t-shirt lol). If you make a spelling mistake, I notice it. If your shoe lace is untied, I notice it. I loose so much time because I make things perfect.

6. My favourite web comic is xkcd and it's absolutely the best web comic ever. My favs are the "my hobby" series and I can't help but call blogs their xkcd name - blags :P

7. I quickly get attached to people and places. I don't really like changes. Even if the change is for better, I still have a hard time giving up what I'm used to.

8. I don't like it when people use my computer. And I rarely let them do so. It's one of the very few things they're not supposed to touch.

I don't think there's any blog in SL left for me to tag. But since I should try at least, I tag the first 8 readers of this blog entry to post their random facts :) Post them either in the comments or on your blog if you have one (but please leave a link!).

SL'ang Life is here! [UPDATE]

[UPDATE: March 29, 2010] I removed all SL'ang Life links - they don't lead to SL'ang Life website anymore (since it doesn't exist), but to one you wouldn't want to go to ;)

Dear residents, we finally have a printed RL magazine about Second Life! And I'm proud to be a part of it (as a contributing journalist). Starting January 2008 SL'ang Life magazine will be delivered to subscribers all over the world by post for FREE (no delivery costs either).

The magazine will consist of four major sections: SL Life, SL Culture and Style, SL Economy and SL Entertainment. This means interviews, stories, events, business, music, fashion, art, travel, technical advice and much, much more. As Macciej Schumann (CEO) said during the opening ceremony - the aim is to present opinions and comments about SL expressed by avatars and journalists, both from SL and RL, in a wide international perspective.

If you want to receive a brand-spanking-new 48-page (A4 format) issue every month, visit SL'ang Life island and use one of the vendors there to subscribe. The first unique issue will have a limited distribution and it's filling up fast, so don't wait for the last moment. Subscribe and stay tuned for lots of great articles!

Back!

I've finally finished writing my master thesis, yay! I worked like crazy but it was worth it. I still have some small corrections to make before I hand the thesis in on 19th but this should go really fast. In the meanwhile I'm catching up with my real life, relaxing a lot (it was very hectic lately) and working on/preparing for some new projects. All this time I missed blogging here a lot. I've got thousands of things I want to share, so expect some posts coming up soon!

toothpastefordinner.com

Trick or treat?

Guess who was visiting various Halloween parties yesterday in Second Life? ...TrickOrTreat Linden :) I saw her for a second on one of the parties, but didn't get a chance to take a photo. But I did what everyone would do seeing this name - I asked for sweets. And guess what - I got them, together with some other goodies :) So I got candy and carmel apple, Halloween flashlight and three Linden bears, including the 2007 Halloween Wizard Bear. If you're collecting Linden Bears and you didn't get this one, it's surely a big miss, because it's the cutest Linden Bear I've seen so far. I absolutely love it:



By the way, I'm not going to blog much this month, since I need to work on my thesis and hand in the first draft by the end of the month. Just so you know why it's so quiet here lately ;)