< Final - Environment with Character >

This is my finished Environment with my character in it. I have made it into a 30 second movie

< Synopsis - Second Life Diary >

My Second Life diary is an exploration of myself in the virtual world. The diary consist of my exploits in Second Life over the last four weeks and what I have found out about myself by visiting and interacting to things and people that relate to me. Its also about expressing myself in a way that I wouldn’t in real life.

< Evaluation – Second Life >

I spent four weeks in Second Life , attempting to understand my identity in the virtual world. I found that second life was hugely entertaining, parts of it were scary, but as you'll discover from my diary below there was never a dull moment.

The best thing I taught about Second life was its main strength which is its user generated content . The content is at a high level at times and most of it is created by residents, but like in the real world most of it is junk on walls. Personally I didn’t really care for it.

I also found that without members second life would not exist because most of its content has been built by its member allowing them to build objects, industries and communities that would have never been there otherwise.

I discovered that everything in second life was one click away which made me interact more with it. This was because it had more than enough content that I found interesting and related specifically to me. This links back to people helping the program because without people added their own person touch not everyone could have been catered for.

In conclusion, my feelings on Second Life is I found it to be a form of escapism. I enjoyed exploring and talking to people from different countries and aloud me to literally live a ‘Second Life’ in the online world where I could do the things that I can’t do in the real world like flying.

< Character - Final >

This is my completed character that I created in 3D Max.

< Second Life Diary – Week 4 >

It seems that every week I see something new and interesting in Second Life. Someone’s must have spent a lot of time of their avatar to make it look like this. I saw this character in the ‘Orgy’ island.

While I was in the island I taught I might as well give dancing ago but at least this time I wasn’t controlling the dancing but from the picture I don’t think it was a good idea. It wasn’t pretty.

I meet a new friend this week. I was just walking and he was new to second life and kept asking me questions. I felt bad because I didn’t know most of the answers. I’ve added him to my friend list so hopefully will talk some more soon.

< Environment - Final >

These pictures are of my completed environment that my character will be in. I am still working on my character so when I have finished that I will put them together and render it.

< Project Update >

I’ve started to model my character in 3D Max. I’ve tried to make it as close to my design ideas but it is hard everything perfect because I’m inexperienced using 3D Max.

< Second Life Diary – Week 3 >

This week I fancied a change. I was walking around and I wasn’t really happy with the way my avatar was looking, so I decided to change it. I gave my avatar more muscles. Also I changed his hair.

I was making a lot of friends this week because I took an intrest in everyone I meet this week . But their one in particluar person that intrested me . She was sitting on the sofa and every time I talked to her she sayed ‘Tell me a joke’ I dunno if it was the computer playin tricks but talk about beung weird.

My favorite island this week was with people walking down the run way like models which I taught id give a ago but I was getting out classed by the girls.

< Research - Character Design >

These are pictures of my character design that I have done.

< Project Update >

I’ve started to make my environment in 3D max. I started by making the sand and water. I then added some rocks. I used a sphere to make a sky.

I then made some palm trees. After that I cloned the palm tree and to make more trees.

This is what I’ve made looks like. I’m not finished just yet with the environment. I’ve got a little more to put in included my character.

< Second Life Diary – Week 2 >

This week was exciting because I enjoyed flying around like superman. Its faster than walking around exploring things, if I see anything interesting I can land. But I have to say my flying skills are not up to date because I found the controls very unresponsive and kept bumping into objects. Also I can never land on your feet, my avatar kind of just falls out of the sky and falls face first. If you want to call that a landing.

While I was exploring a new island this week I came over something really interesting. All I saw was people queuing and bowing to this avatar sitting on the orange chair. I didn’t really know what was going on because I was in the Italian island and couldn’t really understand what everyone was saying.

This week was action packed in second life for me. I saw some cool and some weird things. I was walking around where I saw a collection of exotic cars that u probably never see in the real world. I saw Ferraris and other supercars parked next to a monster truck.

I also saw some wired things this week. I was exploring some islands when I came across this person that was completely naked. At first I taught my computer was rendering the program fast enough then a couple of other people were naked as well. All in all I would saw it was an exciting week in Second life.

< Mood Board >

I wanted my mood board to represent me so I have used relaxing colours which makes it feel laid back like me. blue is my favorite colour so I have used this in the mood board.

< Research - Collages >

I have done as part of my research, a collage of the types of character that best represents me. I have also made a collage of the type of environment I will be making.

< Research - Brainstorm >

To help me choose what sort of environment I will make I have done a brainstorm, I will then develop the idea I have chosen, which is making a beach environment because I feel it represents me. The beach represents me because I’m laid back and chilled out like the beach. I have also chosen to make this sort of environment because my character will fit perfect in it.

< The Century Of The Self - Happiness Machines >

This documentary is about Sigmund Freud and his American nephew, Edward Bernays and how Bernays invented public relation in the 1920s. He took his uncles ideas and used them to manipulate people. He showed big companies how to make people want things that they didn’t even need. In this case women smoking. He did this by linking products to peoples unconscious desires.

He made women think that smoking was a symbol of their independence and freedom. He made women think that if they smoked in public they had the freedom to do it. If women smoked it perceived them to be more powerful and independent.

Edward Bernays did this by using new techniques at the time like celebrity endorsement and outrageous PR stunts.

< Second Life Diary – Week 1 >

After making my avatar and going through the introduction to using second life I didn’t really know what to do because it was the first. So I was playing around with all the button where I found the Teleport button which can take you to different environments and islands. I managed to teleport to dance island where I walked around for while exploring. I started to talk to someone from Greece but she really wasn’t the talking type.

I then went into one of the dance club where like you do at a club I started to dance but not very good. I also struck up a conversation with the people around me. I’m not to sure but I think the better you dance the more money you get but I’m not sure because the everyone one had $ signs above their heads.

Most of the time this week I’ve been teleporting from island to island to see what second life has to offer. I feel that the more I interacted with the environment and people the more rewarding the experience I had. I also found that you meet a wide range of people from different backgrounds.

The best island I found during this week was the lost island armory because I was greeted with a drone that followed you and I had a lot of fun running away from it.

< Ghannt Chart >

To help us mange are time during this project Roma suggested that we make a Ghannt chart. Below is the chart I have made with the tasks and date I have to complete them by :

< Being Connected: becoming an interstitial node >

In the lecture we learnt about being an interstitial node. We were given an introduction to modernism vs post modernism and what it mean for a person. My analysis of the lecture is, for example consider a person as the ‘interstitial node’ than that person is connected to many other points like blogs, second life, facebook, youtube and social networking sites over the internet than ideas and thoughts can be learnt and shared with one another.

At first I was a bit confused but understanding what modernism and post modernism are clears a lot up. Modernism is when some one creates something e.g. a book than that person will take credit for making it. Post Modernism is different because in post modernism the inventor or creator of the e.g. book will be celebrated after even his dead by people feeding off his ideas and harvest and revise them to create something new. This means that information from different backgrounds and points of view can be merged into our own beliefs and can be shared with others.

Sharing ideas and leaning from one another is important because if someone can take and idea and at the own idea to it to make something new than that can only be beneficial to everyone because a new concept has emerged. I think having rhizome theory is important because there’s always going to be more people being attached to the rhizome theory about a subject.

Rhizome

< Technology Prediction >

Technology these days seems to growing faster and faster with new concepts being thought of each an everyday. One new technology is "Moveable Projected Displays using Projector Based Tracking". These a really big mouth full. For those who don’t know what that mean , all will become clear when you watch this video:

This type of technology is really interesting because it can have multiple applications in the real world. One application that I think can be enhanced by this technology could be implementing it into car windshields. As the driver is looking at the road through the windshield information could be displayed to the driver like MPH and other useful information instead of the driver looking down at the dash board to read the information.

< Colour and Light >

I think this picture screams colour and light because the bright lights from the Ferris wheel is enhanced by the black sky which makes the colour and light coming from the wheel brighter. The light draws the eye towards the wheel which is a major focal point of the picture. I took this picture in Nottingham City Centre.

< Tree Mapping >

In week 27 seminar we had to make a tree with leaves on it. After making the tree we had to map it with the textures and colours to make it look like a tree. Because it was he first time mapping I found it very difficult and it took me more than one attempt to complete the tree.

I have also made a little environment to put the tree in.

< Flying Squid >

In the second seminar we had to make a squid and make it fly upwards. This seminar was more challenging because we were using new function in the software and once I got the hand of it I became more confident. I have also added some skin to the squid to make it look better.

< Bouncing Name >

This was my first time using 3D Studio Max. We had to make our names bounce up and down in our first seminar. I am happy with the way it came out. This is the result:

< Who am I..... >

I hadn’t really ever thought of "who am I" but with this new project it should be interesting, what I find out and implement that into my avatar and virtual world. I have started this project out with setting my up my Second Life account and character. I found it interesting when making my avatar, because I was trying to think how I wanted my virtual self to be like and how it was different while also being similar to myself in real life.

This is my avatar in Second Life. I have put my sense of clothing on him but apart from that I have my it different to me and every other way the hair is my favorite because I wish I could pull of a hair style life that.