Zep, the avatar!

Zep resides on Second Life, a virtual world. Avatars are controlled by carbon-based flesh and blood people (in this case me). Using my mouse and keyboard I can make Zep fly, teleport ( tp. move around any place in the world instantly), talk, dance, drive a car, fly a plane or simulate most kinds of RL (real life). The carbon-based (me) entity owns virtual land on the mainland where I have a virtual studio building and cottage that Zep calls home.

Zep has a pet cat named Seamus that resides in the studio. Seamus is not an avatar. Seamus is an object. For Seamus to be an avatar, the little bundle of joy would require a carbon-based (another person and another computer) to move him around the VR. Seamus, being an object doesn't do much, kind of hangs around and appears to sleep all day (kind alike a real cat). He appears to move because he is made of flexible objects. Zep had to construct the cat, the studio building, and many of the items on the property with primitive 3d objects called prims. The 3d software to build objects with prims is contained within the world. So you do not need any other software. . . but it can help.

Not all avatars have the creativity or like to build things. Some objects in SL are available for sale and you buy them with Lindens, the currency of SL. Lindens can be converted to US dollars. Let me repeat that - Lindens can be converted to US dollars. So in other words, life goes on in SL and goods and services are bought and sold with a cash equivalent on a world that only exists on a segment of a hard drive.

Personally, the carbon-based part of Zep is not interested in spending too much time living life in a virtual world. But, I found that I really LIKE to build stuff on virtual worlds, and I could get paid for doing so! I became familiar with SL from freelance work that I accepted from a business man who was creating a presence on SL. Through this freelance work, I became aware that there are emerging opportunities for graphic designers. Keep in mind that every tree and flower, building, clothes, hair - every object must be built by an avatar backed-up by a "carbon-based creative person". There are millions of avatars that have joined SL and over a million avatars have visited SL in the last 60 days. Avatars need stuff!

Second Life is one of many, many, virtual worlds. If you visit Virtual World Review.com you can get an idea of the explosive growth of VR-Virtual Reality-worlds. There are hundreds of virtual worlds in development and more coming. Check out this website and look at the link Market Research at Virtual Worlds News.com. With the advent of VR and other social networking phenomenon (FaceBook and MySpace) there is a lot of interest in investment in VR. Money, marketing, advertising and training equates to opportunities for digital artists, 3d modelers, and animators like yourselves! It is in your best interest to learn about VR's, because it is possible that a job in your near future may very well require it!

As you can see from the image on the right, much of the graphic design isn't for the faint-hearted. This image shows a texture map for a Zep avatar 3d model (think wire frame). Realistic texture maps are required in SL and other VRs because with the present technology SL can only work with Prims or primitive surfaces like cubes and spheres and not complex 3d models. Many students of Maya 3d may be turned-off and frustrated by the crude toolset that is required for use in internet VR's like SL. In other words to model for internet VR you have to have a very refined skill set for texture mapping but be able to dumb objects models down to create realism with primitive objects. That's a challenge for creatives and there is a learning curve to doing it well!

So you might have heard the buzz about a "get out of jail free card " ( NMTC VCM extra-credit opportunity). You can earn actually two cards that are redeemable in any of my classes. One card for joining SL and a second card for going through the training, building some objects in a
sandbox, rezzing them and taking a snapshot. I am not interested in your travels and experiences in SL. I am interested in what you build. If you want to join another VR instead of SL that would be OK too. The only requirement is that you pick a VR World that allows you to build prims.
The catch is that you must do your virtual world experience off-campus. Unfortunately, most virtual worlds are blocked by WebSense as "gaming" and gaming is blocked on campus. We are working to get it unblocked, but we are still in the process.

If you haven't experienced a virtual world and want to get an idea of what they are like before you commit a major time investment, visit the Lively VR room below. You will have to login and download a client, create an avatar but this VR is by Google and simple to do. Go ahead bang around the room, move furniture, add furniture you won't hurt anything. Give it a try, have fun!