Communal Writeboard in Second Life
This in-world collaboration tool for the virtual world of Second Life has been around for a couple of months at least, but 3pointD contributor Chip Poutine just flagged it to me, and it looks so cool I thought I’d flag it here. Its name is self-explanatory: “communal writeboard.” Created by SL resident angrybeth Shortbread and described on her blog, “the main ideas behind its design are to have a slideshow presenter that anyone can add or remove pictures from, plus a range of overlay tools that can be used to annotate or point to areas of interest within an image. These overlay tools can also be used to create simple mindmaps or visual polling events.” (See a shot of the overlay tools after the jump.)
I haven’t checked it out yet, but I’m probably going to put one on my land in Louise at some point, just for kicks. If you want to check it out for yourself, the writeboard is available for L$1 at angrybeth’s Metalab, at Gourdneck (204, 180, 724)” [<-- SL link]. I'd be interested to hear from anyone who's been using this. I'd also love to see a text-based wiki in Second Life, perhaps one that was editable by a list of people. I've been having some fun working on a project on a Schtuff wiki lately with a friend, and it would be cool to be able to bring that into Second Life.
Feeds
Handed out about thirty of these a couple weeks ago I was so inspired. Lovely stuff she is creating! One of my favorite people in SL.
I love going to AngryBeth’s shop and finding all the stuff to tinker with there. I wish I had someone willing to rent her submarine, I’d buy it.
I do find the whole concept of “mindmaps” to be pretty creepy stuff, though, it’s like the dumbing down of minds through Power Point.
Timeless Prototype had made a board some time ago, as did Foolish Frost, but of course, they run up against the problem that you just can’t fit that much text on an object in SL, it won’t let you. So I wonder how she solved that, can’t wait to see.
This is very nicely put together. I’m enjoying it already, and look forward to trying it out collaboratively soon.
Prokofy, I think mindmaps can be pretty powerful. I almost find them the opposite of dumbing down; it’s a way for me to capture the structure of what’s going on in my head in quite an intuitive way. I’ve been a happy user of FreeMind for a while now, initially as a tool for quickly capturing notes. Once I got the hang on the keyboard controls it became a regular part of my work life.
[…] We thought it would be appropriate to start this post with a shot from one of the wildest marionette pieces ever, The Sultan’s Elephant. Why? Because theatre in SL has proven to be a similar endeavor, with a lot of people focused on making an avatar somehow graceful. Monday I talked with SL avatar and actor Lucifer Baphomet while recording his voice-over work on this machinima piece. Remarkable in the exchange was not the fact that we were conducting conversation continents away, but editing his vocal work at the same time. Through hipcast (thanks, Eric) and IM on Second Life, we wrote back and forth from his spot in Glasgow (around midnight his time) and mine in Chicago as he tried to keep recordings quiet for a sleeping family. Coordinating with three actors and director-editor AngryBeth Shortbread, the goal was simply to drop voiceovers into the movie (almost an animatic ) and give more of a sense of what is coming in terms of live performance shoots. Truth be told, I found it hard to sleep after that. To roam late-afternoon Chicago with my laptop while a Scotsman recorded his brogue, repeating the process with other actors in Alabama and Texas and a director in England made me want to watch more film, shoot movies and write out ideas which flood in at moments like these. Four years ago it was a series of new documentaries on making film that convinced me to begin documentary work, in particular what grew to be several twelve-hour trips through digital and real-world processes behind Lord of the Rings. So I sat last night in front of the tv, sketching. To watch these again was to recall it was the sense something basic had changed in filmmaking that first held my attention: detailed discussions on round-the-clock edits bounced by Peter Jackson from LA to Wellington to London have always captivated me. And of course there is Andy Serkis, a model of what’s to come, smothered in nodes radiating from his body, translated into movement (sample above for the game Heavenly Sword). But best, watching these documentaries again, was the Second Unit director of LOTR who said, tongue-in-cheek, “this is the biggest low-budget film on the planet.” He meant, I think, that at that time there was no better place in the world to discover the cutting edge in technology, art and film. For me, all the ideas born of that one project now seem to turn toward Second Life. Intuitively I agree with Giff Constable at Electric Sheep, who points to bunraku, the Philp Huber’s giant marionettes in Being John Malkovich (always thought those would be great to test as larger pieces in a dramatic performance in SL, where it is hard to see avatars anyway), and to Thomas Edison’s silent Great Train Robbery as reference points in the machinima/live performance timeline: the work we can produce best now is akin to these mediums. Behind all of this is a new medium we can only begin to dignify with some of the pieces it needs to be whole, to give real power to exceptional artists masquerading as average users. Someday I look forward not only to the results, but to documentary footage of actors rolling across their living room floors, all the world a stage reborn. In the meantime, to hear voice-overs coming online is a simple thrill that will never tire me. […]