3pointD.com

The latest episode of SecondCast, our podcast about all things Second Life, is now on the air. In episode #32, we hear from SecondCast cast member Torrid Midnight, who reports that she’s leaving Second Life (and SecondCast, unfortunately) for an indefinite amount of time. Her exit was precipitated by a nasty conflict over IP rights in Second Life, during which Torrid was pretty badly abused, by people who didn’t really have a leg to stand on. More after the jump. (more…)

MTV’s Virtual Laguna Beach, the virtual world tied to its hit TV show, gets its official launch this Wednesday, according to an article in The New York Times. The article also reports that MTV plans two other virtual worlds to join VLB in coming months: “VMTV is a music destination where visitors can club-hop among hip neighborhoods, buy music, watch videos, sing karaoke or even start their own bands. The third virtual destination, LogoWorld, an offshoot of Logo, the gay and lesbian cable channel, will be designed entirely by its participants.” Could this be the beginning of the migration we’ve been pointing to here at 3pointD for some time? That is, the migration from flat online community spaces like MySpace and into their 3D counterparts like Second Life and There.com (which provided the underlying technology for VLB). We of course are betting it is, but it could also mark a shift in how such places get funded and built, from start-up companies that need to seek venture capital to stay afloat, to big media companies getting into the space. The 3pointD age is upon us.

Tim Holt (who I need to get in touch with because he’s doing some pretty cool projects in Multiverse), sends along a link to this video demonstrating a program called Teddy, which lets you create globular 3D models via a hand-drawing interface. Just sketch a shape on your screen, and Teddy automatically makes it into a topological sphere. Easily add arms, feet, other weird protuberances, paint the thing, then export the model in .obj format (which means it can be imported into Poser, Maya, Blender, 3D Studio Max and others). It’s a very cool interface, and there’s lots of information about how it works on the site. The free download is only 1.7MB. It’s definitely still experimental, as too much manipulation and painting often results in system-freezing crashes (it took me a long time to get even the simple model above in stable form), but you can have at least a little fun with it if you’re determined. I found I usually ended up with something quite Spore-like. Will Wright would be proud!