Machinima

Second Life: Interesting Viewer Add-On

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Inara Pey has an article about a program named Reshade that can be used with Second Life™. The author calls it a post-processing injector for games… Post processing simply means processing an image after it is initially rendered or captured. The injection part is about setting the software up to capture images from your game software, in Second Life’s case: the viewer, by adding software to the viewer.

Last Samurai
Last Samurai – (Not via Reshader)

If you Photoshop images (post-process), I do, then this add-on allows you to do much of what you would do with PS but to machinima/video. I’ll call this software a baby sister to Adobe’s After Effects. It is limited compared to After Effects. But, is a great tool for almost free.

See: Reshade: post-processing Second Life in real time 

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Second Life Week 32

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WoW Losing Subscribers

For years I have heard how Second Life is losing subscribers. It is true, but the new users and returning users keep the number of people in SL about the same. SL has gone from 1 million plus to about 900,000 from 2007 to 2015.

Blizzcon – Official World of Warcraft Art // Illidan Stormrage
Blizzcon – Official World of Warcraft Art // Illidan Stormrage

Let’s try to put some perspective on that. Take a look at World of Warcraft’s numbers. In Q4-2014 there were 10 million subscribers. By the end of Q1-2015 it was down to 7.1 and now at the end of Q2-2015 it is 5.6. That is almost half the users in 6 months. (Reference – nice graph) In December 2005, 15 months after starting WoW, they passed 5.6 million. In October 2010 they were at 12.0 million, the peak I think. 

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Second Life: The Meaning of…

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The Lindens made a post in the Second Life™ blog asking residents to make videos about the meaning of SL. To get answers rolling, they have included some videos:

Xiola Linden is also the author of the post requesting the videos.

There are 6 videos on the blog page. See: The “What Second Life Means to Me” Video Share Project.

I think Torley wins hands down on use of color.

You may have already seen Draxtor’s video, if you follow him.

Kaya Angel is new to me. The manor is awesome.

Gentle Heron is about helping people with disabilities.

What will you say SL means to you?

Making Video

If you have not been into making video in SL, look at the two pieces of software Xiola mentions; Camtasia or Fraps. Both are retail versions with free trials. Camasia is US$299, but that includes video editing. FRAPS is US$37, but it is only an image/video capture tool. One could use Adobe’s Premiere Elements (US$120) for video editing.

There are free capture and editing tools. To learn more Google on: second Life machinima tutorial.

Second Life Camera Scripts

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I haven’t tried these nor do I know much about scripting Second Life™ cameras or making machinima. Yumi Murakami however seems to know a bunch. Yumi has posted scripts for the Bijocam on her Wiki User Page. See: User: Yumi Murakami/Bijocam And Other Camera Scripts. Scroll down to get to the scripts.

[vimeo 65670465]

M.A.G., Machinima Artist Guild, has an article about the BijoCam Construction System. This is an old article from back in 2009. At one time the Bijocam was in XStreet, the old market place for SL. You won’t find it on the current SL Market Place. Yumi released the source code August 7, 2013 and no longer sells the camera system.

In world I find the NeoVictoria SkyMall has a 3 part video tutorial on using the camera and controls. Visit the Machinima InfoHUB. These appear to be old video from the way things appear in SL. But, then the camera is old too.

You’ll find explanations of what the various LSL functions in the script do with the camera in the Wiki Category: LSL Camera.

Yumi added some new code, or at least newer code that was not in the BijoCam package.

I would think this would be something handy for any Machinimist. I am certain I’ve seen machinima made using these camera controls…