Thoughts on SL-Chester

Thoughts on Second Life

I think second life is a really great medium in terms of creating artwork for artists, and also social networking for general public. This software is amazing because I think the people that created second life are geniuses; this program contains 3D creating software and social networking. I really like how the interface designed in second life, very user-friendly, all the choices of avatars, appearances, clothes, items and so on. 

This software reminds me of Unity 3D, both of them have some sort of creating environment and interact with the surrounding by using either first/third person controllers.

Up until now, I have been to quite some places in second life, clubs, bars, social chatting grounds, haunted houses, item stores etc. I think all of them are very interesting to me because everyone just sort of sitting there and do their own things, it’s kind of strange and mysterious in a way, because you can’t really tell what is actually going on in that scene/area. But it’s a wonderful way to get out of real life and have fun in second life. It is also a create way to hide someone’s true identity from the real world, for someone’s fantasy about having second identity. For people like them can really engage to second life, they will do all kinds of things that they can’t do in the real life.

I have been to one site that created by artist, I can’t remember the name of the artist and the site but it was a fascinating place, everything floating in the air, and there were different stone statues with fountains, a small water pond on the ground, it was just amazing what that artist created in that space.

There were also a lot of sketchy and weird sites that I ran into the other day, it was really bizarre with weird geometry set-up, there were huge amount of teleporting spot that I ran into in that site, and I didn’t even know where I was, I was completely lost, but still it gives me a comparison between how the artist create space compare to a ordinary person created space.

I also have another thought when I was exploring the spaces, was that second life can be a “black hole” kind of thing that just suck you in, because this virtual world is way too interesting than the real world, so people just want to stay in this world as long as they could, maybe they will soon lose interest in the real world and be fully engage in second life.

Right now I have some sort of idea that I want to connect my second life project with the projects that I have done in the past, which was creating ambient alienated characters and spaces using white or light colors, I have created my new SL avatar from my previous Maya projects that I’ve done, and I am really looking forward to see what will come out in the end of semester.