Answer to question number 3...
"How can virtual worlds like Second Life enhance the teaching and learning experiences for students?"
By creating virtual environments depicting actual environments Second Life offers the possibility of a “next best thing” option when it comes to teaching opportunities. Imagine cardiology students touring a virtual heart or computer science students exploring the inner workings of a computer and experiencing near first hand how the various subsystems interact. The multi media approach – sight, sound, feel and even smell – has been shown to cement complicated subject matter into the brains of students far better than the text book approach.
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Answer to question number 1...
"In World vs. Real World: How is the virtual society different than our real world society?"
It was funny but I had only two encounters with other avatars in SL and one was positive and the other was negative. The positive experience was with a female avatar who offered to help me navigate my way around once she found out that I was new to SL. The negative experience was described in my Wedding Crasher Blog which I was apparently an uninvited guest at a wedding beneath the Eiffel Tower. I guess the virtual world is similar to the real world in that you can encounter someone or something which does not always result in a pleasant experience. It could be a rude cashier at a convenience store or an obnoxious driver. There may be a particular server at a restaurant who really makes dinner a pleasureable experience. Like my Grandmother used to say, "it takes all kinds of people to make the world go round."
"In World vs. Real World: How is the virtual society different than our real world society?"
It was funny but I had only two encounters with other avatars in SL and one was positive and the other was negative. The positive experience was with a female avatar who offered to help me navigate my way around once she found out that I was new to SL. The negative experience was described in my Wedding Crasher Blog which I was apparently an uninvited guest at a wedding beneath the Eiffel Tower. I guess the virtual world is similar to the real world in that you can encounter someone or something which does not always result in a pleasant experience. It could be a rude cashier at a convenience store or an obnoxious driver. There may be a particular server at a restaurant who really makes dinner a pleasureable experience. Like my Grandmother used to say, "it takes all kinds of people to make the world go round."
Answer to question number 2...
"Was your group meeting in world different, better or worse than the meeting in Blackboard Vista’s chat groups that your instructors set up for this course? "
It was certainly different. None of our team members had experience with an in world meeting. It seemed to us that meetings that include dialog only, may be equally successful in a chat room or a telephone conference call as they are in world. Business meetings that include presentations can be held successfully using one of the various desktop sharing packages available or video teleconference although Second life is potentially free. Educational meetings where a quality virtual environment maybe toured and discussed would be very effective in Second Life. We found our initial experience to be rather cumbersome as we dealt with unfamiliarity of controlling our avatars.
"Was your group meeting in world different, better or worse than the meeting in Blackboard Vista’s chat groups that your instructors set up for this course? "
It was certainly different. None of our team members had experience with an in world meeting. It seemed to us that meetings that include dialog only, may be equally successful in a chat room or a telephone conference call as they are in world. Business meetings that include presentations can be held successfully using one of the various desktop sharing packages available or video teleconference although Second life is potentially free. Educational meetings where a quality virtual environment maybe toured and discussed would be very effective in Second Life. We found our initial experience to be rather cumbersome as we dealt with unfamiliarity of controlling our avatars.
Second Life is Ugly. But Beautiful. And in a few years maybe even Retro-hip.
Answer to question number 4
"What are the implications for the arts and society?"
Second Life always feels lonely to me, because it always takes hours for the textures to load and it's aesthetically disjointed from island to island. At one point, while walking around the Layachi with The Team, I remarked that I felt like I was walking around a cross between the Dire Straits' "I Want My MTV" video and a first generation Playstation game. What was once the idyllic view of "Virtual Reality" in the late 80's now seems antiquated and, well, downright UGLY.
Is it time for the low-poly look of the 32- and 64-bit generations to take its place with 8- and 16-bit sprites as a legitimate game art style in its own right? Are there artists out there making intentionally austere 3d models, ala pixel art? What are some games that use those big jutting sharp triangles to their advantage? Games with abstract-by-concept aesthetics like Rez aren't a good example, which attempt to represent reality or preconceived art with hopelessly limited/inadequate resources in a effectively abstracted way, as the best pixel art often does.
One thing pixel art has that low-poly graphics never will is precision. Everything fits and has an absolute size and position in a tiny grid of tinier squares. There's something inherently grotesque about triangles bumbling through infinite space in comparison. Perhaps, as pixel art is usually bigger, more colorful, and more stable now than it was in NES days, we'll someday see angular 3d graphics minus all the clipping, pop-in, and camera nightmares that plague your average Second Life experience.
Yet I'm still not completely convinced early 3D could ever be elevated to the level that spritework is, though, simply because 99% of the time it doesn't look anywhere near as deliberate. Blurry textures and jagged lines are almost always objectively ugly, whereas sprites have never really had that glass ceiling to break through - the limitations are more rigidly defined, so the art is easier to appreciate in its own right.
What is really effective about 3D titles from the early days right up until now is creating characters and objects with easy-to-read silhouettes and profiles. Part of why everyone could visually read "StarFox", despite the extremely limited palette, was because every enemy was built out of shapes that anyone could process and interpret as dragons, hopping frogs, butterflies."Panzer Dragoon" completely embraces this idea by populating its world with incredibly alien-looking creatures, yet the player can still visually interpret the abilities and purpose of the games bestiary of bio-organic vehicles and battleships easily. It uses extremely stark, often asymmetrical silhouettes, which stand out against the background, coupled with coloring that heavily contrasts the world (whites and light greys most often, with deep reds and oranges for enemy shots or missiles). Good character design is often constructed by combining basic shapes, so there's no reason this shouldn't carry over to the 3d realm quite naturally. Good low-poly terrain is a bit more difficult, though. It seems to me the era between the ultra-sparse Star Fox/Interstate '76 style and modern hi-res texture bump-mapped clarity hasn't much to recommend in it. The thing about these low-poly models is that they're simple and abstract enough to be iconic in a similar way to early arcade bitmaps: an accurate representation of the idea of the thing, where high-poly models can usually only aspire to be a poor facsimile of the actual thing.
Contemporary art directors are pushing for photorealism an awful lot of the time. Games like "No More Heroes" and ""Team Fortress 2" certainly deserve appreciation for bucking the trends. I like that they jettisoned all semblance of detail or quality out the window in favor of awesomely dynamic shadow and lighting systems.
Early 3D is at its most glorious when things are going horribly wrong, and on the aesthetic level starts collapsing into itself.
Second life is pretty beautiful in all the wrong ways like that.
"What are the implications for the arts and society?"
Second Life always feels lonely to me, because it always takes hours for the textures to load and it's aesthetically disjointed from island to island. At one point, while walking around the Layachi with The Team, I remarked that I felt like I was walking around a cross between the Dire Straits' "I Want My MTV" video and a first generation Playstation game. What was once the idyllic view of "Virtual Reality" in the late 80's now seems antiquated and, well, downright UGLY.
Is it time for the low-poly look of the 32- and 64-bit generations to take its place with 8- and 16-bit sprites as a legitimate game art style in its own right? Are there artists out there making intentionally austere 3d models, ala pixel art? What are some games that use those big jutting sharp triangles to their advantage? Games with abstract-by-concept aesthetics like Rez aren't a good example, which attempt to represent reality or preconceived art with hopelessly limited/inadequate resources in a effectively abstracted way, as the best pixel art often does.
One thing pixel art has that low-poly graphics never will is precision. Everything fits and has an absolute size and position in a tiny grid of tinier squares. There's something inherently grotesque about triangles bumbling through infinite space in comparison. Perhaps, as pixel art is usually bigger, more colorful, and more stable now than it was in NES days, we'll someday see angular 3d graphics minus all the clipping, pop-in, and camera nightmares that plague your average Second Life experience.
Yet I'm still not completely convinced early 3D could ever be elevated to the level that spritework is, though, simply because 99% of the time it doesn't look anywhere near as deliberate. Blurry textures and jagged lines are almost always objectively ugly, whereas sprites have never really had that glass ceiling to break through - the limitations are more rigidly defined, so the art is easier to appreciate in its own right.
What is really effective about 3D titles from the early days right up until now is creating characters and objects with easy-to-read silhouettes and profiles. Part of why everyone could visually read "StarFox", despite the extremely limited palette, was because every enemy was built out of shapes that anyone could process and interpret as dragons, hopping frogs, butterflies."Panzer Dragoon" completely embraces this idea by populating its world with incredibly alien-looking creatures, yet the player can still visually interpret the abilities and purpose of the games bestiary of bio-organic vehicles and battleships easily. It uses extremely stark, often asymmetrical silhouettes, which stand out against the background, coupled with coloring that heavily contrasts the world (whites and light greys most often, with deep reds and oranges for enemy shots or missiles). Good character design is often constructed by combining basic shapes, so there's no reason this shouldn't carry over to the 3d realm quite naturally. Good low-poly terrain is a bit more difficult, though. It seems to me the era between the ultra-sparse Star Fox/Interstate '76 style and modern hi-res texture bump-mapped clarity hasn't much to recommend in it. The thing about these low-poly models is that they're simple and abstract enough to be iconic in a similar way to early arcade bitmaps: an accurate representation of the idea of the thing, where high-poly models can usually only aspire to be a poor facsimile of the actual thing.
Contemporary art directors are pushing for photorealism an awful lot of the time. Games like "No More Heroes" and ""Team Fortress 2" certainly deserve appreciation for bucking the trends. I like that they jettisoned all semblance of detail or quality out the window in favor of awesomely dynamic shadow and lighting systems.
Early 3D is at its most glorious when things are going horribly wrong, and on the aesthetic level starts collapsing into itself.
Second life is pretty beautiful in all the wrong ways like that.
Poolside
This is Badministratortom hanging out by the pool. Unfortunately, I didn't have time to change into a swim suit and take a dip. I'm not sure how I ended up here but as you can see it is a very colorful place.
War Memorial
This is Badministratortom at a War Memorial dedicated to Vietnam and Iraqi War veterans who gave their life in those respective wars. I was greeted at this site by a female avatar who was very friendly and offered to show me around SL.
Wedding Crasher
This is Badministratortom crashing a wedding at the Eiffel Tower. I sat down on a bench next to a female avatar and was immediately approached by a "Batman" avatar. Batman was soon joined by the Bride and Groom and I was surrounded by what seemed like very unfriendly avatars. The female avatar stood up and walked away so I followed her just to get under the skin of the others. Pretty funny. I'm pretty sure that I wasn't welcome to the reception.
Hot Air Balloon Over Africa
This is Badministratortom in a hot air balloon over Africa. To me this was the most interesting thing that I have done in SL. Although the graphics were not very good because I was so high up in the air the information given by the tour guide was really informative. I saw a leopard hunting, a white rhino and a Hippopotus along with herds of Zebra, Antelope and Girraffes. There were numerous amounts of birds and vegetation.
Relaxing by the Fire in Canada
This is Badministratortom relaxing by the fire in Canada and enjoying a Labatts beer. The building in the background is a Tim Horton's restaurant. This is a chain and can be found throughout Canada. I've been to Canada a few times and have eaten in these restaurants so I thought it was pretty neat when I came across this site.
Sunday, March 1, 2009
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