0 Machinima Viewer: Take 2 Posted: 9/13/2009

At this point I'm fairly sure its no mystery that the concept of utilizing the Metaverse for machinima fascinates me. While it is still in a awkward stage, I feel that machinima will one day be considered yet another legitimate form of storytelling. The Metaverse holds particular promise as a production platform because unlike other systems, the creation of unique content is widespread, it is stylistically flexible, and it is unconstrained by conceits of what should be done with the platform. This coupled with the ability for widespread collaboration and less draconian copyright policies makes the system ideal for the production of machinima. With that in mind, it is worth highlighting the fact that while the potential for greatness exists, the tools to leverage this potential have yet to be built.

In a previous post, I described a very ambitious viewer project that would have allowed machinimatographers (who I'm going to call 'Toggers from now on for sanity's sake) to capture and edit machinima footage in new and powerful ways. While I still hold that system as an ideal, several months of continued introspection has revealed that the construction of such a system would be a herculanean effort with technical challenges that few are willing to tackle at this point in time. A different approach must be taken as a first step. A 'Togger-friendly viewer is possible with existing code, and advanced functionality could be added as development continues. First, a existing viewer could be stripped down to the functionality relevant to 'Toggers and then enhanced with new functions.

Here's a list of the basic functionality a Togger would need for setting up a scene and shooting:

Avatar movement

Camera controls

Teleportation

Basic communication (Chat, IM)

Inventory access

Object placement and positioning

Advanced Functionality:

Fine control over camera behavior (maximum speed, camera roll, zoom control)

Local camera view bookmarking

Bookmark-to-bookmark camera animation

Timeline-based camera animation controls

Aspect ratio window sizing

Shot composition screen overlays

Easier toggling of interface elements

Triggered animation control over actor's avatars (RestrainedLife API?)

Real-time shadows

Built-in footage capture (ditch FRAPS)

Local texture substitution

There is even more functionality that could be added, but that's for another post. I've restrained myself from giving this one a cheesy psuedo-title in part because I don't want to presume on someone else, and partly because I just can't think of anything else witty right now. Any takers?

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0 (Virtual) World Domination Pointers Posted: 8/17/2009

Alright I've got a serious bee in my bonnet, so please excuse the bluntness. I've been sitting on some of these ideas for far too long. These are some ideas for projects of business ventures in/for the Metaverse. The ones that interest me after this posting might get a more fleshed out dedicated post. Feel free to do whatever you will with these.

SimpleViewer: A Beginner-Friendly Metaverse Viewer

Please, for the love of the FSM, somebody do this. It boggles my mind that despite the myriad of development work being done across the OS viewer scene, all of the development work has only made viewers more complex and feature heavy. If we want the Metaverse or SL to really attract more than the hardcores, we can't keep up like this. Its like giving a industrial-grade metal smelter to a kid who just wanted a EZBake oven. Beginning users don't need or want a lot of power or fancy functionality, they just want to be able to log in and interact with the world without wrestling with cluttered menus and counterintuitive interfaces. Please, someone take Hippo and strip it down to its chasis. Then design a easy, intiutive user interface that won't make granny want to put her fist through the computer. The world will thank you.

MetaJobs: A Job Board for Metaverse Workers

Can somebody please answer me why the Metaverse doesn't have a unified job board? No, XStreetSL's employment section of their forums don't count. I'm talking about something meant to serve both SL and the Opensims. Content isn't quite portable yet, but talent sure is. Anyone who's searched for a job in SL knows what a goosechase that is. Making a one-stop web-shop for all things employment would be a big boon for both potential employees AND employers. It would be pretty easy. So easy it could be done with a PHPbb and a domain name. Yes it could and should be more intricate than that, but its really all you would need to start. I have a hard time believing theres no one out there who doesn't see the money potential.

Convoy: A Secure Marketplace for Pan-Metaverse Commerce

So I just said that content isn't portable between grids yet. That's not completely true, but for the majority of normal Metaverse users its the reality. The truth is the functionality to import/export conent exists. What's missing is the system of trust between content makers and grid operators to allow people to buy things in one grid and move with them to another. This creates a giant mess. So what if a company stepped in with a XStreetSL style marketplace, and a dedication to absolute security? Content creators, trusting the market to not sell to unsafe grids, upload their content to the market and put it on sale. The company accepts applications from grids to gain delivery access to the grid. The company verifies they are running a content-safe server code and enters into a contract with the grid to deliver goods to the grid so long as the server remains kosher. Once verified as safe, customers from that grid can buy from the Marketplace and have the purchased content delivered to their account on their grid. The company could make money any number of ways, including delivery charges, listing upgrades, and other services. Just remember the company's number one service is the trusted bridge it provides for content creaators and grid owners.

I'm sure I have other ideas I've spaced on. I'll write about them later.

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0 Joomla for the Metaverse Posted: 6/29/2009

I recently posted this question on Twitter and Plurk: if Opensim is the Apache of the Metaverse, then what will be the Joomla of the Metaverse?  Clearly I need to work on my grammar when tweeting/plurking, but I was being serious.  This isn't a idle or rhetorical question, its something which has to be answered if Metaverse solutions like Opensim are ever going to truly become the next incarnation of the Web.  

While it is true that the Web grew through its infancy without much in the way of content management software, it has become a essential ingredient to its continued growth.  Even in its early years, the growth of the web was spurred by programs and services like Geocities and Dreamweaver. These served to sufficiently lower the bar of entry into the world of web design to allow those with little or no technical knowledge quickly create a web presence.  This created a primordial sea of amateur designers and content from which the committed and skilled graduated to create bigger and better things.  

Right now the Metaverse scene is currently in the AOL stage, with a few centralized services offering walled garden experiences wherein they hold the monopoly on content and users.  A few pioneers (OSGrid, ReactionGrid, Openlife) cling to the fringes, boldly attempting to create more open alternatives.  However on their own they cannot compete on the scales of content and user population that the walled gardens offer.  This is why the developments in cross grid transportation in Opensim are so widely hailed, because in many ways they are the equivalent to the most powerful element of the Web: the hyperlink.  Once a critical mass of grids become connected and standards arise for commerce and content sharing, this new web of grids will begin to eclipse the walled garden providers.  But this critical mass must exist.

This is where the question of content management becomes so crucial.  Without tools and services to lower the barrier of entry, the growth of the open Metaverse will be stunted.    The open Metaverse will need its Geocities, its Dreamweaver, and its Joomla.  The barrier of entry must be lowered, which means making the deployment and management of entire grids simple, pain-free, and dirt cheap.  When the barrier of entry is lowered, it will open the gates to a stampede of amateur Metaverse creators seeking their slice of the pie.  Now to be clear, most of these amateurs will not create great virtual environments.  Just like the web now, most of the content will be mediocre. 

A Metaverse Geocities will probably offer free hosting for simple one-sim grids, with a simple template-based creation tools.  Revenue will most likely be provided in much the same way Geocities provided it, embedded ads for free accounts, or a monthly cost for those who chose to upgrade.  An astute observer will note some similarities between this and grid services currently provided, sans the advertising.  One of the primary differences will again be in the linking, as users of such a service will occupy a grid of their own, populated only with their own sims and any hypergrid sims that they should choose to link to.  

A Metaverse Dreamweaver will most likely provide a world creation tool set based heavily off of the tool sets currently used by MMOG developers to layout large environments.  When augmented with a marketplace function (much like a pan-grid XStreetSL perhaps), it will facilitate a drag-and-drop style of world creation.  Much in the same way Dreamweaver simplified complex web functionality into a WYSIWYG interface, its Metaverse cousin must do as well.  Commonly occurring complex scripted objects would be abstracted into click-and-place entities.  Any fine tuning of these worlds would most likely be performed in-world, the Metaverse equivalent to hand-rolling HTML and Javascript. 

Finally, a Metaverse Joomla would abstract and simplify the maintenance of large, complex grids in much the same way Joomla simplifies and abstracts the maintenance of large complex websites:  by providing high-level editorial, publishing, and management tools.  In the case of the Metaverse variant, this would entail on-the-fly creation of template based sims, the ability to monitor real-time activity, permissions based administrative controls, and the ability to extend the grid to include third-party functionality and themes.

I cannot begin to stress how important these services will be to the growth of a open Metaverse. I've listed these three comparisons in this order for a reason.  It is most likely the order in which they must occur.  Right now the major battles of cross-grid content transfer loom just over the the horizon, as the first transfer mechanics are just now being created.   While that battle rages, a Metaverse Geocities can be introducing the world at large to the idea of being a virtual world maker.  Inevitably some compromise will be reached, and a Metaverse Dreamweaver would capitalize from whatever content marketplace system emerges.  As these worlds grow and mature, and the need for simple dynamic management of large scale grids emerges, a Metaverse Joomla can fill the need.

So the question remains: if Opensim is the Apache of the Metaverse, what will be its Joomla?

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