Taking a Deep Breath . . . .

I'm post-dating this entry so it won't show up for a week. I've blogged enough for today, and while my brain is churning I need to SHUT UP so students can write.

Gemmy A. and I are discussing creating a Second Life learning community in Spring. My class would create content, and her class would market it. I'm planning to make a core product line to help us get started. Also I'll hopefully be able to make a store on DCCCD island to sell the finished products. Any money raised would go to a DCCCD scholarship fund.

My big roadblocks are red tape and my woeful lack of knowledge.

I don't even want to think about the red tape. I'll need a ton of help to get around that roadblock. My lack of knowledge, however, is fixable. My goal is to be a jack-of-all-trades. I need to know a little of everything, and quite a bit about a few specific subjects. Here is my list so far:

• LSL Scripting!! So important, and I'm soooo avoiding it. Must be able to script pose balls, facial animations, and vehicles.
  
• Better modeling skills -- practice more than anything
• Imported prims. How to make them, and how to get them into SL. Daz Studio and Blender look like the best bets for this. Maybe SketchUp, too, since SketchUp and Blender can talk to each other now.
  
• Better texture skills. I have the newest Painter X, and Photoshop CS3, and two books on texturing.
• Better figure animation skills. Must practice more with Poser.
• Shortcuts & techniques for constructing clothing for SL.
• Better understanding of combat systems, since that's what men spend money on in SL.

My brain hurts just thinking about it, but my heart is singing. I've needed this push.

Good-Bye Ghostdog

Sad news -- Ben Barnes, Executive Dean of Information Technology at Brookhaven, passed away on Monday. Some of you may have met him on our island in Second Life; his avatar name was Ghostdog Destiny.

I always looked forward to seeing Ghostdog. Every time I saw him he would parade around in avatar outfit after avatar outfit. Superman, Darth Vader . . . no one was safe.

If you go in-world you'll find that the gazebo near the teleport pad has been turned into a memorial. I didn't realize it, but Ghostdog placed the gazebo on the island. (Along with the space pad and the hobbit hut.) I 've been enjoying the gazebo and made it my default "home" location a few weeks ago. It's a nice space to rez into. Now it makes me sad, but I know Ghostdog would want us to continue to enjoy it.

THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!

Wow. The semester is over. Ya'll have been just fantastic. Let's recap:

• SECOND LIFE: Everyone mastered this new environment in record time. Look at everything we've learned in four weeks!!! Look at how cool we are, and at how well we can navigate this new world!
  
• DICTION: Everyone struggled with Shakespeare. Several of you (Leonard, Veneeta, Seema, Max, and others) did outside research to make sure you understood your parts. Several of you displayed a HUGE amount of courage -- I know it's hard for quieter students to perform like that, but ya'll all came through for me. THANK YOU for not being content with your first takes. Justin, Leonard, Vince and Veneeta performed naturally and with enthusiasm. But those of you who really struggled -- Damien, Mario, EJ, Sean -- I am proudest of your work.
  
• BLOGGING: Almost everyone contributed to this blog, and I'm thrilled with the results. It's great to see all the interaction in the comments. The blog allowed every student to voice an opinion on every aspect of our production. It minimized class discussion, and maximized our work time.
  
• BLOCKING: Justin, Vince and Veneeta blocked out most of R&J while I worked with other students. Because of their contributions the entire class could move forward and create animations. Max and Leonard did blocking for the evening class, and what I've seen so far looks very creative. Leonard has a lot of imagination, and the blocking notes are great. Lots of nice details and ideas for us to mine.
  
• ANIMATION: Justin and Vince figured out how to use the Qavimator software and taught the rest of the class. They figured out how to use the props, how to turn off joint limits, and more. Everyone in the day class made animations.
  
• WARDROBE: Amy, Jessica, Seema, Justin, and Veneeta shopped SL like mad. This was particularly difficult because we had endless variety combined with a SLOW shopping experience. When the MSND class decided on colored skins Jessica went beyond our expectations by asking Bodies by Oh to custom tint her skins. We're all thrilled with the results.
• MUSIC: Music for R&J worried me -- where could we possibly get royalty-free music suitable to our production? EJ spent several class sessions in earphones, and found some wonderful stuff.
• VIDEO: Several people were involved in the shoot for MSND -- Farley and Jessica starred, while Max and Amy operated the camera. Jessica, I know you didn't ask for this role (that'll teach you to miss class!!) but your performance is great. Leonard provided crucial directions at a key time. Farley is editing the video and has researched screen capture software and also machinima cams. It's been a big relief to have Farley on our team; I could just turn the video over to him and focus on the animation issues.
  
• CONSTRUCTION: Everyone did a little building, but Amy and Sean are our Master Builders. Sean's sake house is fabulous, lot of great texturing and attention to detail. The sushi barstools are so great!!! Amy's theater is really nice -- I love the rooftop party area. But the stained glass floor is my favorite theater detail. Sean put in a lot of classtime on the build. Amy put in long stretches of time working at night. Ya'll did a great job!!
  
• COMIC RELIEF: Ya'll made class fun. Thank you, Farley, Jessica, Justin, Seema, Mario, Amy, Veneeta, and VINCE who came to class in costume!!!
• DETERMINATION: We didn't finish the project. I was initially upset about that, but in retrospect I'm glad we didn't. Since most of you want to continue working between semesters we'll have time to pull together a more polished piece. And best of all, it gives me the honor and privilege of working with ya'll again. You have been the most fantastic classes I have ever taught.
  

Thank you for jumping off this cliff with me. It's been the best jump ever.

Finding Posts / Comments

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I can not find my first few entries

Avatars in Control

We start filming in about eight hours. I'm excited. Also nervous. What was I thinking, picking Shakespeare? Yes, we needed something royalty-free, but I could have chosen Oscar Wilde. Or GB Shaw. Instead we are filming a play about words with avatars that do not have moving mouths!! What was I thinking?

That small problem aside, we have other issues:

• The main characters all need facial animations, which means buying HUDs for everyone unless I can find a solution in the next couple of hours.
• About half of the R&J animations are ready. I still think the day class will finish the project since so many of you are willing to stay late tomorrow.
  
• The MSND group doesn't have any animations ready. At all. Except for some fairy poses Amy found. We have not spent our time wisely, folks!! Luckily this script is mostly talking, unlike R&J's sword fights, so it should go much more smoothly.
  
• The R&J group has a few animations designed for two plus characters. We can't deploy them separately as moving the avatars into the correct position is difficult -- they often need to move an inch or so to the right, but avatars don't have that degree of control. They can STEP to the right, but it's not a baby step.

Wednesday is going to be interesting. Very interesting.

Screen Capture Testing

I'm first going to say that I hope we can keep the Shakespeare work up on Second Life so I can go back and reference it. It would be good to continue to work with my class on this project even though the class will be over. I hope we can keep this blog open too. I will be willing to do some work until the summer time showing of the Shakespeare show that Sharon will demo.

I've also been working with a couple of programs for Screen Capture. iShowU is one that I've had to pay for that allows screen capture to include video or real-time animation like Second Life. I've not seen an issue yet with my testing but I do know that on some screen capture software that video is sometimes replaced with nothing or a green block. Like I said I haven't see this with iShowU. Don't confuse iShowU with the Second Life recording software.

The other program that I've purchased is the "Flip4Mac WMV Studio" This allows for the converting of a QuickTime MOV file that iShowU will create to a Windows Media WMV file. Doing this just in case I would need to provide a WMV to a Windows user.

I was also playing around with Apple's Keynote for creating some cool effects with text and pictures. As we learned in class you can export these as a QuickTime MOV file to be used in a video podcast. Wish I would have had more time to have done these cool little shorts.