Category Archives: Game Development

New Second Life Controller Experiment

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A new post popped up on the Linden Blog today: Reaching into Second Life with Leap Motion.

[youtube -8WkyBBwYTI]

I’m not sure this is something I would be interested in. But, it does show the Lab is experimenting with things, which leaves me wondering if it is just pure research or part of some project. I get the idea it is a promotional thing. But, who knows?

They say:

If you have a Leap Motion controller and would like to experiment with the Second Life Viewer, you can find the source code for these experiments at http://bitbucket.org/simon_linden/viewer-rabbit. The indra/newview/llleapmotioncontroller.cpp file contains most new functionality. The Viewer is built to work in several different modes. These modes can be used to control the avatar while flying, send data into Second Life for scripts to intercept, detect hand motions that trigger avatar gestures, or control the camera and avatar movement. To switch between these modes use the “LeapMotionTestMode” value in the Debug Settings, accessible from the Advanced menu.

Second Life and OpenGL

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A question by Loki got me looking at the state of DirectX/Direct3D and OpenGL. We hear Windows runs games faster on Direct3D than on OpenGL. That is supposedly why Second Life™ viewers run slower, fewer Frames Per Second (FPS), than other games using Direct3D. But, some people say otherwise. One of those people is Steam or more accurately the online gaming company Valve.

Valve makes the Source Engine that runs Half Life 2, Left 4 Dead, and Dota 2. Valve is not a Microsoft fan, which I don’t find surprising as Microsoft is known for trying to make Windows a closed shop that keeps other gaming systems at a disadvantage. In testing in August 2012 Valve reported that OpenGL on Ubuntu ran faster than DirectX/Direct3D did on Windows. You can read more about that in: OpenGL is Faster.

This tells us it is not just OpenGL and Direct3D that solely control performance. The OS has quite a bit to do with it also.

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Is 3D Safe for Kids

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I was answering a question in the SL Forum about 3D and Second Life. The involved people seemed short on  info about how 3D works for single screens. So, I was looking for a good explanation of the state of the tech. I came across an article at Tech Crunch.

Title: A Guide to 3D Display Technology: Its Principles, Methods, and Dangers

The word ‘dangers’ caught my attention. How can 3D be dangerous? This is a 2010 article. But, it points out the nature of the human visual system and brain and what fooling it with 3D displays does. Something I had never heard of or thought about.

It seems people coming out of long 3D movies are having problems with depth perception. Oh fun! More incompetent drivers on the road.

The real problem pointed out is for young children. We really have no studies or solid data on the effect. But, the points made in the article seems intuitive, which doesn’t make them right. But, it is a serious consideration for those raising young children and exposing them to 3D TV and games.

Apparently this is enough of a problem that Samsung posted this warning on their site:

READ THE FOLLOWING WARNINGS BEFORE YOU OR YOUR CHILD USE THE 3D FUNCTION.

Update: See VR Matrix Disassociation from Real Life.

 

Improving Second Life Player Retention

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Penny Patton writes thoughtful articles on various aspects of Second Life™. Penny is the one that got me motivated to make a better and more proportional and to scale avatar and she has inspired me to write a few articles. She is currently writing about some of the challenges in Second Life retaining users.

Penny Patton's Latest

Penny Patton’s Latest

The first article is: A Critical Look at Second Life – Part 1 “Presentation”, which I’ll summarize. Read her article to get the full sense of her thoughts.

Player Retention

Penny questions something I seldom think about, why do people leave Second Life? I tend to look for what keeps people in SL. The difference is in whether one looks for things to do more of or things to do less of to keep people interested. Looking at both is a good thing. Whatever, Penny decided to take a ‘comprehensive’ look at the reasons people leave.

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A Strangeling in Second Life

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Strawberry Singh  has a post about a new game, Strangelings, expected to be out the first quarter of 2013. She says the Ozimals team has joined up with two former Lindens and a financial expert to form Flying Monkey Interactive, Inc. The team is developing a product platform called Toto that will run on iPad, the web, iPhone, and Facebook.

Strawberry Singh as a Strangeling

The Magic of Oz region has been remade to create a promotional and information spot in Second Life. It is an all mesh area. Check it out. Also bounce over to Strawberry’s blog and see the video she made. It shows the Strangling in all is awesome cutness: Strangelings & Mesh Oz!  Continue reading →

Linden Lab’s Dio & Versu

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EzY McAlpine tipped me about an article on TechCrunch.com: How Linden Lab Hopes To Find Second Life In Mobile Creative Play. It is short but points out some new aspects of Dio & Versu, games coming from Linden Lab™.

In the article Darrell Etherington quotes Rod Humble, Linden Lab CEO, talking about Dio: “It’s sort of like Second Life without the graphics, or Facebook but trying to be more of a creative space. … So it’s a web experience and you create your space, but within the spaces, everyone has their own avatar and avatars carry inventory. The way you navigate from space to space is via doors, and you can make things like a MUSH [multi-user shared hack] or hobby space very easily.”

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Planet-sized video game

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Every so often I find something about a new level of virtual world. The art and science of creating 3D real time virtual worlds keeps moving forward. Today I saw another demo of a coming platform for gaming.

Planet-sized video game gets its first release – 2 minute video in a short article.

Outerra's Anteword - Fly Forever

There is also an Outerra Tech Demo released! One can download and try it out for free. A torrent download is available in addition to standard downloads. File size is 219mb, a couple of minutes via Torrent.

If you are thinking of downloading it, check the video driver notes first. Be sure you can run it.

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New Things Coming to #SL

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For some time I’ve read the blogs and posts of SL users saying the Lindens developing Second Life needed to spend more time in SL. The idea being that if they used the product rather than just developing what they think we need, SL would be a better place. I think it is a good idea.

It seems Rod and Will think that is a good idea too. Hamlet posted, “Linden Launches Monster-Dodging Game for Premium Users UPDATE: Rod Humble Explains — It Was Made With New Tools Coming Soon for SL Game Developers” which is about a new game in Second Life. He has been chasing down his contacts in the Lab to find out what is up with that.

A quote he got from Rod says they built the game not to be building games, but to learn what tools are needed to be able to build games in Second Life. That pretty much is the idea many of us have put forward for Lindens. Walk in our shoes and you’ll understand. The Lab has now done that. They built a game to find out what we are up against.

Whether walking in our shoes is a better idea than listening to us is yet to be seen. I am more and more certain that the idea of transparency for the Lab’s development is a thing of the past. Much like Obama’s idea of government transparency has faded.

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