MUV601 - Robin Le Couteur - 2018

MUV601 - Robin Le Couteur - Assignment 1, blog 4 -2018 Blog 4 MUVE Viewers - Alchemy The other viewer I investigated is the Alchemy viewer Alchemy is developed by the following team: Drake Arconis | Project Manager | Lead Developer Cryo  | Linux Developer | Server Administrator Cinder  | Mac Developer Lirusaito  | Feature Fox Electron  | Designer Alchemy has the base functionality of most viewers like Firestorm, and also has the option to log onto OpenSim grids. In fact, unlike Firestorm, Alchemy actively releases updates for OpenSim which is an advantage over Firestorm. When in world all the movement, build, and other controls are pretty much the same, so there's not really any learning curve. the difference is mainly in the menus and UI stuff After using both Alchemy and Firestorm, I felt like Alchemy was easier to use. The interface feels more modern and more comfortable; it's not too cluttered. I found that there was no issues using the in...

MUV601 - Robin Le Couteur - Assignment 1, blog 2 -2018 Blog 2 MUVE Platforms - Second Life The MUVE platform I’ll be talking about in this blog is the MUVE used for this course: Second Life(SL). Second Life was founded in 1999 by Linden Labs. It's a massive virtual world where you can go to a variety of different locations and do various activities.  SL provides a platform for creativity, education, socializing, work, gaming, just relaxing, and many other things.The amount of different things you can use SL for is up to the imagination of the user. Functionality Looking at the functionality of SL, it has a wide range of features.  Avatar First off, lets talk about your avatar. When you first join SL, you chose from a list of default avatars. Once in world, you can then create whatever avatar you want by making your own  body,  clothes, and other accessories. What you can do is almost limited to what you can create so you are free to design...

MUV601 - Robin Le Couteur - Assignment 1, blog 3 -2018 Blog 3 MUVE Viewers - Firestorm The first viewer I will discuss is the viewer we are using for class: Firestorm. Firestorm is developed by The Phoenix Firestorm Project Inc. which is a non-profit organization consisting of about 80 volunteers whose goal is to improve the user experience of people using SL and other virtual worlds like the various OpenSim worlds, by providing users with more features than the basic Linden Labs SL viewer. Functionality Firestorm provides users with the ability to log into the Second Life grid, but also supports OpenSim grids. Because of the lack of users, and difficulty to develop for OpenSim, they no longer actively support it, but it will still work ok with most OpenSim grids. In terms of actual inworld functionality, I found that it was almost the same as the other viewer I tried, Alchemy, and most of the functions are just base features from Linden Labs. When you get in the men...

MUV601 - Robin Le Couteur - Assignment 1, blog 5 - 2018 Blog 2 MUVE Locations - Ivory Tower Library of Primitives F or my first location, I chose the Ivory Tower Library of Primitives. The reason I chose it is because when I first went there with the class, I was quite impressed at the amount of work that had been put into it. I feel like it’s a great place to go if you want to learn about how to build stuff in SL. The amount of resources you can look through is incredible, so it’s great for both newcomers learning how to rez basic things as well as people wishing to expand their knowledge or refresh their memory on how to make complex shapes with primitives. Located in Natoma, ( http://slurl.com/secondlife/Natoma/210/164/28 ) The Ivory Tower Library of Primitives was created by Lumiere Noir who sadly passed away 2 years ago. It was first built in 2004 and got a rebuild in October 2009 and has been a fantastic place to learn ever since.   Looking at what it provides for...

MUV601 - Robin Le Couteur - Assignment 1, blog 2 -2018 Blog 6 MUVE Locations - The Realm of Light The next location I chose to look at was the Realm of Light which can be located here: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Realm%20of%20Light/221/154/24 I chose here as my second location because it amazed me how detailed and beautiful you could make a place using SL’s fairly limited graphics. It felt like a great contrast to the Ivory Tower because unlike how the tower exists for practical and educational reasons, the Realm of Light almost purely exists for aesthetic reasons. When you teleport into the world, you land in an amazingly detailed forest with flying butterflies, fairies, detailed wispy grasses, trees with little glowing particles on them, and many other fantastic things. There’s relaxing sounds of birds, insects, and running water which make it obvious, along with everything else, that this is a place to relax and enjoy the scenery. The forest: There’...

MUV601 - Robin Le Couteur - Assignment 1, blog 1 -2018 Blog 1 MUVE Platforms - OpenSimulator In this first blog I’ll be talking about the first of two MUVE Platforms I have investigated. This platform is called OpenSimulator(OpenSim). OpenSim is not developed by one particular organization like SL, but rather by the community. OpenSim is an open source server platform for setting up virtual worlds, so different worlds are run by different organizations and people. OpenSim is just the software. When a world is set up it can be set up by itself on a single device, or it can be separated with parts of the system with lots of locations on a ‘Grid’. A particular grid will be consistent across locations in the way it functions. Different grids are not always fully compatible with each other because OpenSim is modular meaning that not all grids work the same. OpenSim’s modularity is quite cool because as well as being able to use most of SL’s scripting language, it is possible...