I have been trying to post on Second Life for the last week but every time I have something written, new information comes out.  As you may have seen, Linden Labs reduced its head count by about 30% last week. This is never a good sign as they either are not making money or are realizing their business plan needs a lot of work.

That is a blog post in itself but this week saw some people I respect for their insight also react negatively. First, Mitch Wagner says “I’m afraid I don’t see much of a future for Second Life” and much more in his post at ComputerWorld. Then, today, I got an email from Erica Driver from Think Balm saying she is moving on.  If you don’t know Erica, she is one very smart analyst who took a chance providing competent business analysis of the happenings of the virtual world.  I still love her “immersive Internet” terminology and generally prefer it to “virtual world”.

I guess this in’t too big of a surprise.  I voiced some of my own concerns back in December about the slow pace of change.  Lately, if you follow any SL blogs , you see a fractured community with vocal leaders trying to pull it in many directions. Some ideas are good (make it easier to use) but then fail in their implementation (have you tried the new viewer?) The idea to support more advance geometry is nice but the actual result is 10% of what is needed and took 10 times too long to do. In the mean time companies like 3DVIA are doing things like this.

So, to me, Linden Labs has hit bottom.  I’m sure management is hoping to refocus and I strongly agree that is what is needed.  However, those of us who have been around massive staff cuts know that it’s hard to get enthusiasm and energy out of the people left behind. For the remaining folks, I hope you are able to do it and I’m really routing for you despite this negative post.

In the mean time, have you seen what the OpenSim folks are doing?  I hate to lose the idea of a virtual economy but it seems clear where the enthusiasm is today.

There was an interesting post on Massively called  “Is Linden Lab wasting its time on the existing Second Life population? Then John Carter pointed me to some of @DaleInnis ’s posts related to Linden Labs “futzing around with the world”  that also got me thinking (good stuff, follow some of her links)

This is an old problem that many companies have. How do you keep current customers happy when expanding out to reach even more people? You have enthusiasts that help build and market your product that you don’t want to alienate. At the same time you see the competition in your rear view mirror and your product has not caught on like it might.

For Second Life, I’m right in the middle. I’ve been a part of different communities for years. I love art and music and creativity that is so easily expressed there. I love the coming together of minds and discussions on philosophy and psychology (I can talk all day about augmentalist and immersionists). I spend money. The fact you can run a business there and make money is a very powerful feature.

At the same time, in real life, I’m one of those techies or corporate guys that often gets a bad rap in SL. I see so much potential for many of the Second Life technologies to do much more than they do today. It could reach many more people and businesses than it does in its current incarnation. For businesses and education, I see a lot of money that can be saved for people, schools and companies (and money that can be made by virtual world companies). And I’m tired of what sometimes seems to be the continuous focus on the wrong problems, coming at least in part, from the SL community itself. It makes real progress sooooo slow.

So, for now, I’ll just keep using Second Life for fun. Someday I’ll start pushing for it to be used to solve real world problems but at this pace, it is years away.

P.S. Yes, I know there are many examples of virtual worlds  being used in business and there is a lot of enthusiasm for education and training. IMHO, the vector is just not the steep. I also know there are many other Virtual Worlds – I hope the competition triggers a change.

When I was at school at the University of Florida, I was big into both mechanical engineering and computing. In my senior year,  I worked on a hand control for robotics that gave force feedback.  When the robot arm was lifting 500 lbs, it would feel like five lbs to me. When it lifted 1000, it would feel like 10. You could also make it work the other way. Consider a tiny robotic arm for surgery. Bump up against some delicate tissue and it would feel like a pound to the doctor.

In some ways, this was a simple example of “Augmented Reality” so when I read Robert Rice’s blog today I was glad to see some enthusiasm for the future.  Some technologies have longer paths and this has historically been one of them.  Check out his post on “Is it too early for augmented reality”

Being kind of a virtual world guy, one of the videos I like is this combination of  Second Life and the real world done bye Georgia Tech:

I also liked this new Coke commercial I found from Robert’s blog:

In case you haven’t noticed, I use an avatar (cartoon figure) for most of my pictures.  You can even go to the more serious sites like linkedin and find it. If you google “mark burhop”  under images, I don’t even think you will find me there, just my avatar.  Sometimes I get a bit of flack about this…it is hardly professional, right?

Maybe,  maybe not.  In my case, I have a message behind my avatar.  It is time to start thinking about the virtual world.  I don’t mean “Second Life”, “WoW” and other virtual environments although that is included.  I mean all things virtual… virtual product development, virtual architectural design, virtual travel, any real life things you can simulate on a computer.

For businesses, it can save you money.  The CAD industry is based around designing products in a virtual world.  You might say CAM and 3D printing are technologies for taking virtual products into the real world. Testing with a computer simulation (CAE) is much cheaper than building a real life prototype.  

You will hear most universities talk about virtual education and virtual training and I’ve been a part of a number of virtual meetings. How much will businesses save here in travel costs? It is hard to say but it could be substantial.

Even if there is a neutral cost/benefit, virtual technology is still more eco friendly.  The carbon footprint of  virtual products and virtual people are sure to be less than the volume of burnt carbon created flying and driving real me around or building real life prototypes.

One interesting side effect of using an avatar is that it is makes it harder to make judgments about people.  How old  is the person?  Are they disabled?  What color is their skin?  How much do they weigh?  Are they male or female?   In a real life meeting, these are the first things you learn about someone despite being completely unimportant to most discussions. 

Now there is a negative side. You miss out on certain social cues and body language that is so important to effective communication. Some people like to talk face to face. Since we are talking about my static image, a real life picture really isn’t going to help you much here.  The best it will do is give you a hint as to who I am before you have to find me in a croud.

So while being a white, average, middle aged male would not get ME a second look, I’d at least like to provide some token support to those that would prefer not to be judged by their initial appearance.

We established a few posts ago that I am a football expert but did you also know I’m a 3D expert? I can spin 3D CAD models with a flick of my wrist. I fly around Second Life with an avatar. You might say I live in the 3D world. So, when 3D technology meets football, I am THE person to talk about it.

In my case I went to see the BCS title game between the Gators and Sooners in 3D down in Hunstville, Alabama.  Huntsville is at the center of the universe for the SEC and therefore college football.  I was given a set of “Men in Black“  3D glasses to wear ( Note to old people, they are not blue and red anymore, they are clear). I sat in front of a 5000 inch hi-def digital screen with 800 surround sound speakers.  I’m just estimating screen size and number of speakers but it was definitely more than my friends 61 inch LCD and eight speakers (in your face, Bob!).

It was put on at the Rave cinema using technology from 3ality Digital, Sony, and Fox Sports.  Here are my observations and suggestions for any future games:

1. Put your glasses on after you sit down.  DO NOT STAND while watching the show or risk falling into the next row. If you do stand, at least put your drink down.
2. Expect a headache.  I don’t know that this is from the 3D glasses. It might have come from banging my head after those interceptions. In any case, it could have been prevented if the Rave, got their liquor license before the game. 
3. Having the camera on the fields is great!  I felt like I was walking around with Tim Tebow.  I think a few people tried to touch him. One person in a wheelchair may have been healed.
4. The technology is surprisingly good. It was a sharp picture and I had a feeling like I was there. OK, it has it’s glitches like when the camera loses focus and causes the entire crowd to scream in pain from going cross-eyed.  This only happened a few times and most of us were able to walk it off.  I think the problems I did see were 1/3 technology and 2/3 execution (which is good) so lets talk more about that.
5. We had several policemen at the theater. At first, I figured this was normal since it was football in the south and they might not have know the liquor licence was delayed.  I realized later that it was to go after the cell phone users. Phones must be turned off in a theater!  Those darn geeks are always ruining a good game with their PDAs and text message flame wars.
6. Broadcasters do not ask your viewers to text you comments about the experience during the game.  If one of them gets clubbed by the phone police (see above) they will sue you.
7. Cameramen, is this your first time covering football?   Yes, I know there are 24 players on the field but most football fans like to watch the one with the ball. The cuts to the cheerleaders are great, BUT NOT WHILE THE GAME IS BEING PLAYED. Ok, some of this is Oklahoma’s fault with thier hurry offense.
8. More Cameraman suggestions.  The camera on the field between plays or during breaks is good. The camera on the field during the play is bad. I now know why it is so hard to tackle a small back like Demps and Rainey.  It’s hard to see around a 6’6’’ 300 lb lineman to find them.
9. The crowd wanted to know about doing the SuperBowl in 3D. Yes, I hear it is coming.  You should go if you get the chance. Of course some smart aleck in the back wanted to know if it would be the same cameramen (see above).
10. Digital graphics person, Do not make your graphics (score, stats, logo) like they are 10 inches from my face. I get it.  It is 3D and it is cool.  However, I want to watch football.  Imagine you are at a football game focused on something 50 yards away and then have to focus on your cell phone. It takes a second. You don’t have this with 2D TV and I bet you can fix it in 3D by making the graphics show at a greater distance.
11. For the future football players, walk up to the 3D camera pointing. You wouldn’t think having a 20 foot arm coming out of the screen is cool but it is.  In the future, I wonder who will be the first to spit at the camera.
12. For the sound guys doing the production, be sure Michelle is with her friends before starting.  I spent a good part of the game listening to Michelle’s friends calling her name looking for her. Michelle might have also kept her friend form getting drunk and singing “We are the boys of old Florida” off key (that is the end of the 3^rd quarter for non-gator fans). On second thought, just find a better place for the mic.
13. Rave, the price was $25.  Please don’t nickel and dime us to death with $1 raffles. Now don’t get me wrong, the extra attention was nice but I’d rather not be digging through my pockets in a dark theater.  Just let me pay $30, give me some free Nachos or a coke (ok, Rave, you probably have some contract with someone else – complain to them).
14.  At some point, confetti must be thrown in the air for all 3D games.  This is very cool in 3D.  Big Ten teams, this technology is for you when the snow starts.  The SEC and PAC10 can’t compete (unless they start throwing beach sand at the cameras).

Its no secret I’m keen on the potential for Virtual Worlds.  Today, there is enough there to keep me hooked but I don’t think that is true for most people.  Even for me, it leaves a lot to be desired.  Here are some things I want:

Sports simulations!  I’m watching the Florida/Kentucky game now.  I’d love for 3D avatars to be playing in my 3D world doing the same thing the real players are doing.  Let me watch the game from any angle, fly above the field and hang out virtually with my friends.

Engine mechanics.  Really, I want to bring in my own 3D objects.  In my case, I have an old 82 Corvette I work with.  I hang out with some other Corvette folks on line and sometimes get their advice but doing this online can be hard. It sure would be nice to have my engine in-world and have online friends point to the part I need to fix. My son is into the old Volkswagen beetles.  It would be fun to mock up his designs in-world.

Working Virutal World objects.  Sure, we have a few of these now. We have “TV”s, and drivable cars, and sailboats but most are poor imitations of real world devices. The script I can put on my in-world object is nothing compared to the program I can put on my computer, PDA, or even my cell phone.

Real, virtual economy.  Second Life has kind of tapped into the potential. I want to be able to buy and sell services.  I want to be able to buy and sell virtual stuff. Going to the dentist might be hard, but there is no reason I can’t meet with a lawyer, or configure a car before I buy it (Yes, I know some of this has been done but it is still too primitive).  When I buy my Winnebago and start traveling the country, I want to be able to work in a virtual world like I never left.

Virtual World/Software Integration.  When I create a PPT slides, its a pain to take them to a Virtual World. In the old days, we built models. People could come in and watch you work. They could see as your design takes shape and make comments. You could work together.  Now its a solitary job.  Maybe they can look over your sholder as you sit at your computer.  When I do any kind of 3D design on the computer, I want people to be able to walk into my virtual office and see what I am doing just like they could when I was building real 3D models.

I gave a little background on where Second Life is coming from in terms of content creation. Now, let me point you to today’s debate.

If you have an issue with Second Life, you can use their JIRA system to report it. Its a great way for having open communications with the people working on the system. For my last blog, someone mentioned being able to import obj files. This is an old Wavefront technology that comes up a lot with 3D graphics systems and its use in Second Life comes up a lot:  http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-1110

Now I don’t want to get too hung up on obj right now. There are other formats as well and this is just a tiny piece of the big debate. Lets come back to that later.

  Recently  Qarl Linden (creator of the sculpted prim) posted a JIRA to discuss what people wanted more, Mesh import or more inworld tools.  You can access the JIRAS here:

Work on Meshes

http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/MISC-1494

Work on Inworld Tools

http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/MISC-1495

Essentially there are three groups in this argument but this a bit like saying there are only 4 types of life forms-  animals, plants, fungi, and protists – look ant any one group and you will see many subgroups and there are those that are in multiple groups.

Technologists

Our first  group of content creators are those interested in Second Life providing support for much more advanced and detailed forms of geometric representation. For many of these people, this means supporting meshes, kind of a surface defined by a bunch of points (not too much unlike sculpties).  Like there are many types of animals in the animal kingdom, there are other solutions too. Some like having more analytics (more prim types like cylinders, cones, etc.). Some want booleans (ability to subtract one prim from another). There are other solutions too which I’ll talk about later.  but the the basic idea is kind of the same. Prims and scupties are way too limited and we need more expressive formats in Second Life.

Community Builders

The second group is focused more on the community than the technology. If SL supported more advanced geometry, how would current residents create them? There is the problem. If you remember, this is a minor problem with sculpties. What will happen with an even better ways to represent geometry? Would it be a barrier to current resident builders?  In-world building in Second Life is a special thing. Why would we want to force content creators out of second Life in order to create?

Capitalists/Economists

A third group are those focused on the economics. Many content creators sell their creations. CopyBot problems created a community outcry as others could copy and resell someone else design. Imagine the potential economic impact if either more advanced objects can be created or the huge amount of existing 3D geometry could be easily imported into Second Life. For many, an understanding of the economic impact followed by a plan to avoid economic problems must be addressed first. How do we protect these people’s intellectual property?

Now I have some opinions on all this.  I’ll talk more about that next blog.

There is a big debate going on in Second Life® ….  Ok, there is always a big debate going on in Second Life but this one is important  :-) . It is about Second Life content creators and what tools and technologies should be supported in the future.

One of the reasons for success in second life is that “residents” can create their own content. SL supports a set of primitive geometry types such as cube, cones, tori, cylinders and spheres. You can skew or shape or hollow these primitives, give them textures, and combine them to create some really cool designs.  Here’s a video that might help:

Now those of us in the CAD world know that this is nice but pretty limited. You can’t subtract geometry (take away a cylinder in a cube to create a hole). You can’t do too much freeform work. This was addressed a little bit with the creation of “sculpted prims” which allow you to create a kind of freeform surface by specifying a grid of points.

Sculpted prims (sculpties) looked like they had a lot of potential and do solve a lot of problems. Sculpties are different from other prims in that they can’t be created with the existing tools.  The root of today’s debate starts here (well, at least one of them.) A number of software developers created tools to create the sculpties (including myself, see Math Sculptor) or added functionality to existing tools like Blender to help in creating them. 

On one hand, this was good.  The folks at Linden labs don’t have unlimited resources. With the Linden’s creating a standard, all the creative resources of the development community could be brought to bear. There was an explosion of creative and innovative tools for SL sculpties.

On the other hand this was bad. You now had to leave SL to take advantage of sculpties (there are a few in-world tools but they can be limited).  Some of these tools cost money making it harder for the individual builder to compete against a bigger more well funded organization. Or, to compete, the builder would need to learn these external tools, some quite complicated.

In the end, most people found the negatives about sculpties were not that bad. Today, you can still create impressive builds without them and the people that absolutely needed a solution to the original analytical prims had one.  Part of what has reduced the debates is that that Sculpties still have a many limitations.

It is today’s discussion on the next set of improvements for content creators that is triggering today’s far more substantial debate.  More on this next post.