Back in February Linden Labs released a new Second Life 2.0 Beta Viewer. With all of the talk about the recent Second Life Viewer 2.0 Beta release, I figured I would give it a whirl. After I download and install the viewer upgrade, I am in. Well my experience was that I was now a bald avatar… no auburn color hair to blow in the wind. Not to mention just random talking and music at the location I entered at with some vulgar language mixed in. Those not familiar with virtual worlds and not knowing that SL actually has much more to offer may be tempted to exit the new Beta viewer. I on the other hand decide to stay and give SL the benefit of the doubt. Some type of annoying rock music is playing in the background- so I decide the fastest way is to fly in order to get out of the current environment and go explore wherever I was teleported into. Now you’ve got to remember that when I test out virtual worlds I want to approach the experience as a complete newbie to the virtual world- the less I know about all the new bells and whistles of the Second Life Viewer 2.0 Beta the better. I want to see if I really notice a difference, and be surprised by the cool things I might find rather than looking back at the SL blog or any other of the publicity that the Beta viewer had ramped up. Oh now I just ran into the yellow tape asking for age verification- my mind already feels tainted for the party I walked into when entering Second Life so I decide not to even go there. So my quick observations of my 20 minute test drive of the new Second Life Viewer are as follows:
• Ability to share (web content)
• Cleaner and more user friendly navigation menu
• A viewer as 3D browser for the user interface
• Movement away from strictly Linden scripting language (i.e. Flash, PHP, etc.)

In my opinion these changes won’t lead to a stampede of people signing up for Second Life. For regular SL users the new bells and whistles probably don’t even impress all that much, kind of like getting a newer version of your web browser- not too many noticeable changes although may now be happening behind the scenes. However, I can see more potential with the new viewer for companies and educational outlets to utilize SL. Although it is prettier than the prior releases, it doesn’t really take a giant step for Linden Labs, nor virtual worlds for that matter. A little more intuitive, perhaps a little bit better of a user experience. Improvement of overall work applications and use in SL. Who knows what the future holds with Linden Lab’s recent purchase of the social network, Avatars United, is the next step to go more social?

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By Rudy Helm, Audio and Quality Assurance Tech, Visual Purple, LLC.

This is to fulfill my promise to describe how we were able to develop that functional, copyright free, royalty free, original music that we showcased within the video that we presented in Part 3. Click here for a review of that video, as it is essentially prerequisite viewing to get the most from this article’s tutorial. Yes, this video-blog contains the bona fide instructional ‘how-to’. That is — a fun, informational video show-and-tell regarding the background music-making tool and processes involved with the production in the Part 3 exhibit.

Recall that Exhibit Part 3, embodied a variety of musical styles. In this latest video, Exhibit Part 4, animated avatars will act as both your tour guide and mentors. Also remember that we had promised to discuss the usage of the music tool, with emphasis on reinforcing ‘the 1-4-5 principle’ (we initially introduced that here). But today…well, with this video you can see that principle in action.

We think you will enjoy this. Please don’t hesitate to send us feedback!

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-UTjeCRDSb8

The How-To-Create BGM exhibit (Exhibit Part 4). Learn how we developed the musical elements originally presented in Exhibit Part 3.

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In a prior post I touched briefly on how e-learning tends to be, well, oversold. To follow up on this I wanted to review the relative costs associated with e-learning and compare to other technologies. With nearly one-third of training content being delivered electronically (according to ASTD’s 2008 State of the Industry Report) it’s no wonder it is such an easy go to. While e-learning is often broken into four interactivity levels – Low Interactivity, Moderate Interactivity with Emulation, Intermediate Interaction with Simulation, and Advanced Interaction with Simulation, the vast majority of other options do offer a higher level of interactivity for the user when compared to traditional e-learning. Many organizations used to turn to e-learning options due to the lower cost of development when compared to other methods… well, high virtual world development costs are now a thing of the past.

Other learning methods, such as virtual worlds allow for strategic and analytical thinking, and let’s not forget about the authenticity of utilizing a real learning environment – i.e. mimicking a virtual world to the actual workplace environment. All of this equals the ability to master skills and practice in a safe yet challenging environment. Scenario-based learning and problem-solving scenarios are hot! While 99% of the time e-learning it’s not very engaging. Notice the figure below which shows a rating of 1.20 (Equaling to rarely or never) when survey participants were asked if e-learning programs were authentic, realistic and immersive much like Second Life. Obviously even the current users of e-learning agree it is just a run-of-the-mill type of training instrument that while it may decrease costs of live training it is by no means a 100% solution to training demanding workforces of today.

Image courtesy of ASTD

Money is always a barrier no matter what type of training method is being examined. One must consider the lifespan of the course- can additional content easily be added? Here are just a few of the relative questions you will be asked when developing training (and may influence the price):
• How will the training be delivered?
• Average seat time?
• Where will the source content come from?
• What learner/trainee tracking capabilities will be offered?
• Project timeline?
Some pricing is based per hour of training while other pricing strategies give you an all-in-one package price from start to delivery of the entire project. Some e-learning vendors also charge on a per screen basis, gee isn’t that special?! Let’s keep in mind e-learning technology and content can easily be outdated, can be cumbersome to add additional training content to and doesn’t show a high Return-On-Investment (ROI) when compared to other (and more advanced) training methods. So here’s to out with the old and in with the new. I say virtual worlds and other cutting-edge learning technologies will be becoming more mainstream in the near future mainly due to the cost savings that they offer as well as the higher level of interactivity that they offer the participant….and, perhaps most importantly, their proven ability to affect behavior in a predictable and desirable fashion!

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I just can’t seem to get my head wrapped around why some people think that e-learning is the best thing since sliced bread. Popular in the late 1990’s, I believe that once upon a time it may have been the cat’s meow…but with all of the (newer and more advanced) learning technologies on the market today, not so much. Is an investment in e-learning still beneficial for companies? Sure, e-learning technology may be advancing – but will it ever be good enough? Or do fancier PowerPoints capture the learner in ways that other more advanced learning technology can? The vast majority of companies are looking to lower-cost alternatives while also providing more efficient training. With more and more computer-savvy employees (read digital-natives) the demand for immersive training is here to stay…and only growing! The ability “to-do” something in a virtual environment, rather than the monotonous point and click feature that e-learning offers is a huge benefit across all generations of the workforce. So why are many still stuck in the rut of e-learning? The real answer is:
People don’t know, what they don’t know!

The real challenge is educating decision-makers that better, lower cost and lower life cycle cost alternatives exist now. The decision-makers are usually advised by constituencies heavily vested in traditional e-learning technologies and attendant instructional design philosophies. The biggest hurdle we see is one of getting the instructional design folks up to speed on advanced vw design and proven vw world benefits for learning/training sims. Once they see the light, there is no going back!

The major selling point of e-learning was flexibility – train anytime, anywhere. Now a host of other vw based options offer that same flexibility and much, much more for less. So long boring e-learning, it’s been nice knowing you!

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By Rudy Helm, Audio and Quality Assurance Tech, Visual Purple, LLC.

Well, it’s been a while, so I thought that we should continue with the theme from my previous blog entry. There are many interesting and fun things to learn. You may recall that we were discussing the notion of your project’s background music (BGM) having the desirable attributes of being copyright free, royalty free, and an original composition at that! Those characteristics undoubtedly appeal to virtual-world developers, makers of cutscenes, trailers and Machinima projects. With the tutorials that we present here, there is no reason why even non-musicians can’t generate musically useful results (even for foreground musical elements, but that discussion is for a later time).

This exercise exhibits a variety of musical styles and embodies them into a single animation sequence. The exhibit portrays a conference room where the attendees are gathered to give their ‘boss man’ a report on the TV and film entertainment industry (actually it’s taken from the 2010 Golden Globes). Embedded in this viewable animation we’ll feature synthetic actors with synthetic speech (TTS voice-overs) as foreground elements (click here for a refresher on the technique). With this test-scene we utilize only 2 TTS male and 1 TTS female voice libraries to cover a cast of 11 adult attendees.

The animation sequence was borrowed from one of our past projects. It had been a full-motion video of a dramatized high-level meeting and for this exhibit it has been ‘cartoon-ized’ to mask logos, etc. The original human VO audio discussed issues about how to save the world, but here we have replaced them with a TTS script chattering about the entertainment world. So, obviously the script is intended to be nonsense; the focus of this little project being on ambient background music production, and less on the TTS actors (but don’t worry, we will have some more in-depth tutorials on TTS production in the near future!).

Now, please view and listen to the animation sequence. Imagine that at this meeting there might be a radio playing in the background for this scenario.

“- Link to”
YouTube Visual Purple When Your Musician is a Robot, Part 3 (Can musical assets be free in a Virtual World?)
The Conference Room exhibit –listen to the musical elements as they each segue. Note how well BGM serves the animation and VO.

In part 4 of this series I will discuss the usage of the music tool. Remember these numbers: 1-4-5? (if not, click here). Essentially, it’s all you need to know about music theory to engage in these tutorials.

[to be continued]

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With the constant mention of IMMERSIVE ENVIRONMENTS, I thought it may be fun to take a more in-depth view of the types of immersion. These highly experiential applications offer a higher level of cognition and the benefit of capturing and holding a player’s attention.

From Wikipedia: According to Ernest Adams, author and consulter on game design, immersion can be separated into three main categories:

1) Tactical immersion
Tactical immersion is experienced when performing tactile operations that involve skill. Players feel “in the zone” while perfecting actions that result in success.

2) Strategic immersion
Strategic immersion is more cerebral, and is associated with mental challenge. Chess players experience strategic immersion when choosing a correct solution among a broad array of possibilities.

3) Narrative immersion
Narrative immersion occurs when players become invested in a story, and is similar to what is experienced while reading a book or watching a movie.

Staffan Björk and Jussi Holopainen, in Patterns In Game Design, divide immersion into similar categories, but call them sensory-motoric immersion, cognitive immersion and emotional immersion, respectively. In addition to these, they add three new categories:

1) Spatial immersion
Spatial immersion occurs when a player feels the simulated world is perceptually convincing. The player feels that he or she is really “there” and that a simulated world looks and feels “real”.

2) Psychological immersion
Psychological immersion occurs when a player confuses the game with real life.

3) Sensory immersion
The experience of entering into the three-dimensional environment, and being intellectually stimulated by it. The player experiences a unity of time and space as the player fuses with the image medium, which affects impression and awareness.

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Ever pay the ridiculously outrageous ticket price to watch a much anticipated movie only to walk-away shaking your head…it just wasn’t realistic enough. The plane crash and automobile accident just didn’t seem real. With all of the technology advances out there today, virtual worlds and simulations have come a long way since their respective introductions. Virtual landscapes are becoming more and more realistic; complete with images blurring the line between reality and virtual. This greater realism adds to more believability, especially for those skeptics out there. When looking back just a few years the overall quality has largely, dramatically improved – making even 2008 era productions look outdated. Even Google Earth has come a long way since its ‘early days’ with its 2005 release. Simulations and a host of other training applications are all evolving to more realistic representations and sceneries as well, thus making things appear so real that you feel like you are there, great for those of us that tend not to leave the office much.

Most of us non-graphic types of people never take a moment to think about how much time is really invested into generating realistic graphics (no matter the context – from TV commercials to real-time rendered computer simulations). Yet if you were to enter a synthetic environment complete with real-time rendered imagery, you may find certain things amiss when you see a water fall with water but no water flowing. It’s the realism factor. When watching a NPC speak and the mouth movement is not in sync with the audio one giggles to oneself at how unrealistic the scenario seems simply for the animation being off. While modeling human behavior (i.e. hand gestures) takes a talented hand it is possible to be lifelike. Think for a moment how complex a single environment can be. So the question becomes: How real is too real? I say it needs to be so real it hurts!

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By Ed Heinbockel, President and CEO, Visual Purple, LLC

I keep seeing a myriad of speculation on what Phillip Rosedale is working on within his newly founded company, The Love Machine. Out of the three projects mentioned on the company website, perhaps the third project is the most intriguing “The Brain. Can 10,000 computers become a person?” With little other information forthcoming one can only conjecture what Phillip and his team are actually up to with respect to Artificial Intelligence (AI) in virtual worlds.

The following are a few short remarks I would make on the subject: Hopefully more personality will be able to be infused into VW’s rather than just the run of the mill boring NPC’s and bots that exist out there today. Sure some NPC’s that are stationed in VW’s today provide no more stimuli to the player than talking to a brick wall. I say AI very well could be the next masterpiece to be infused into the virtual world. The caliber of content could be brought to new levels with the revelations that artificially intelligent NPC’s could bring to the table. Although many skeptics remain…Would AI in a virtual world feel more like a glorified ‘smart’ chat room? Is Artificial Intelligence really possible in a virtual world environment? Is there a real possibility of actually confusing another player that is non-human for a real human being? Will these potential AI characters actually be believable enough? Is there a timeline horizon when implementation may take place?

Sure the future of AI in virtual worlds may lie in the hands of Non-Player Characters (NPCs), but what this will actually look and play like remains unknown. This currently untapped market will more than likely see some interesting developments here in the near future. It is my belief that there are currently some covert operations of bringing AI into virtual worlds that just aren’t ready to be publicized yet. Will this new form of ‘humanoid’ be believable enough? Or will humans and AI “lifeforms” exist in the same worldly sphere. Although the inherent complexities of the virtual world are nothing like the real world it still brings a sense of awe to realize that Artificial Intelligence just may in-fact be possible, ultimately increasing the learning opportunities with virtual human interaction. We may someday ask ourselves, is that a real person or a ‘Smart’ NPC…hmmm, now wouldn’t THAT be interesting. Stay tuned…

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A weekly wrap-up on what’s going on within the Virtual World sphere and beyond! Click on any of the below titles to read the full story.

New training in Europe brings reality to virtual worlds

Meet the Sims … and Shoot Them

‘America’s Army’ Blurs Virtual War, ‘Militainment’

Twitter OAuth Comes to Second Life

There.com is closing

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With the virtual world phenomena of recent years and the oh so many virtual world platforms on the market today, what’s the right choice for an organization? License technology and build? Buy a generic off-the-shelf product? Or, pay for a customized solution? Well there is no clear cut right answer here; it is all dependent upon the individual situation. Here are a few things to keep in mind…

1) You know the old saying – “Build it and they will come.” Well first off if you go the route of purchasing technology to build an in-house vw solution, you are buying the technology but not necessarily all of the components to build a full vw simulation. When Visual Purple licenses technology our philosophy is not to hand over the reins and say “here’s the technology, have fun learning how to use it.” Rather we provide training to all core team members on how to use our technology and offer the full gamut of tech support throughout the entire build and implementation processes.

2) Purchasing a generic platform. Let’s buy a license to Second Life and build the training. Well that sounds all fine and dandy but you still have to come up with the assets to place in your plain vanilla world and have a means to control those assets unless you are prepared to have ALL training proctored or “fat fingered” by real people: that costs real dollars every time someone needs to be trained. Not to mention what’s the purpose of the vw? With both of the above listed options there is no clear cut path on building the training material and implementing it. Moreover, there does not yet exist commercially available authoring tools to create true simulations in SL. Although a certain level of customization is available is it all worth the time and manpower and persistent costs to keep trainers in the loop?

3) Onto the customized virtual world solution route. You supply the Subject Matter Experts and content you want the vw sim created around, a timeline is defined and the work gets done. You end up with a real vw sim that costs less to build than traditional e-learning or CBT and saves you money from day one over any other solution. Collaborative, asynchronous or both…hmmm, why wouldn’t you go this route?!

So there you have it, three pragmatic options when considering virtual world platforms and real world approaches to training. Keep in mind this is just a brief overview without getting into all of the nuts and bolts.

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