Second Life and Virtual Worlds
There is an interesting video about how Oculus VR™ (OVR) is changing the game design paradigms. I came across it in my Facebook browsing. 22 minutes. Nate Mitchell is speaking at GDC 2013 (Game Developers Conference) which ran from March 25 to 29.
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I’ve written about what I think the user interface problems will be. This video really gets into some of the problems and how people are handling them.
In Second Life we tend to use open source products. But, some people use the professional products from Adobe, Photoshop being the best known. I think it has no equal. There are other image editors. But, Photoshop (PS) is the industry standard. If you plan to work for a gaming or other company that works with images, you have to know PS. But, Adobe is making big changes that will radically affect casual users.
Adobe is changing how they deliver their software. Until now they have sold their software in a package with a perpetual license. I can still use an old copy of CS3, CS4, CS5.5, and CS6. (CS = Creative Suite) It isn’t cheap. A new version of PS costs US$800. Updates can be $300 to $400 per version come every 12 to 24 months. People can find PS on Amazon and in stores for $650. But, quite often that is the ‘basic’ version not the ‘Extended’ version.
Daniel Voyager has an article up: Second Life Extensions on Google Chrome.Wow! How neat is that? Check it out. If you are wondering what a ‘browser extension’ is, it is a program that runs in your browser. It adds functionality to the Browser. For instance; to check on which of your friends are online you currently … Read more
There is a good article on FastCoLabs: What’s The Big Problem With Developing Oculus Rift VR?
It seems it is not that hard to integrate into a game. Team Fortress 2 has an Oculus Rift interface now. Valve, the owners and operators of Steam, helped create the interface.
Joe Ludwig, one of the Valve programmers behind the Rift implementation, said, “Figuring out how to combine mouse and keyboard input with head tracking was not very well explored territory, so we had to break some new ground there.”
From the New York Times: The Obama administration, resolving years of internal debate, is on the verge of backing a Federal Bureau of Investigation plan for a sweeping overhaul of surveillance laws that would make it easier to wiretap people who communicate using the Internet rather than by traditional phone services, according to officials familiar with the … Read more
Forbes has an article out today: After Second Life, Can Virtual Worlds Get a Reboot? The article is an interview with Jacki Morie, a virtual world designer in telehealth care. She has been working with injured returning soldiers. We see people interested in virtual worlds and 3D imaging in many places. People are finding uses … Read more