3pointD.com

SLBoutique’s FlipperPA Peregrine flags a Slashdot post about the fact that World of Warcraft will be featured in tonight’s season premiere of South Park, of all things. Check out the video clip. As Flip points out, this is probably the first mainstream appearance of machinima. Here’s Blizzard’s press release about the episode, which sees Cartman, Kyle, Kenny et al. charged with saving WoW itself from the depredations of “a renegade player.” A very interesting mashup of virtual worlds as well as entertainment media. And this is just the tip of the iceberg. Ron Howard reportedly has a television show in the works that features a massively multiplayer online game, and James Cameron is said to be making a film that will be shot partly within a virtual world. Look for 3pointD this fall at a theater near you.

Avi Bar-Zeev is one of those guys who quietly works on making stuff happen. As co-founder of Keyhole Inc., he led the development of the software that later became Google Earth. Avi also did work for Linden Lab, developing the 3D rendering engine that runs the virtual world of Second Life. Avi’s latest effort is a thought experiment that seeks to flesh out the concept of Web 3D and how it might be brought about. In a 7-part series, he interviews a couple of Web 3D thinkers and ponders what Web 3D really is and whether we really need it at all. I’ve given it only a light read so far, so I’ll save any specific responses for a future “What is 3pointD?” post, but it’s good stuff, recommended reading for anyone interested in where 3pointD-related technologies may be headed. Nice work, Avi.

Those who’ve been following the 3D printing of my Second Life avatar, Walker Spaight, will be happy to know that Walker has arrived safely in Brooklyn, Capital of the Metaverse, and taken up residence in the offices of 3pointD, as can be seen above. Even cooler than that, though, is the news that Fabjectory, the 3D printing service that was kind enough to fabricate Walker, is now offering to fab other objects designed in Second Life. At the company’s site in Second Life [<-- SL link] you can pick up a virtual model of a basic USB drive housing, customize it within SL, give it back to Fabjectory, and have them 3D print it for $50 - $100. Better yet, 3pointD hears that Fabjectory is working on a model of an iPod dock that will allow you to do the same thing. In any case, you can already ask them to fab any object for you, and they’ll tell you if it can be done and for how much. All very cool. Readers are welcome to submit pics of any objects they’ve had 3D printed to the 3pointD group on Flickr.

Christian of the Electric Sheep Company sends news that Linden Lab, makers of the virtual world of Second Life, will soon allow users to display Web pages in their in-world profiles. According to this blog post from one Linden developer, a new tab will soon be added to users’ profiles (as seen above) that will load from a URL field. “This feature should make it out sometime after this coming release, and to a public preview before then,” according to the post. (more…)