Beta Technologies Blogs

Warning: eventually very shocking images below!

The year was mid-2004. For anyone who had just registered and joined, it looked like a wonderful, pretty world. Avatars were less cartoonish than, say, on There.com, and with some tweaking they would even look minimally decent.

Well… honestly, that’s how I looked like back then:

All right, I know — you’re not impressed! But this picture shows my own shape, created on my very first day, and the standard, ugly, Linden-created rubber skin. We all were ugly back then, so although this picture gives me the creeps these days, we thought it was actually pretty good, compared to other virtual worlds!

Then in early 2004, people like Namssor Daguerre thought about this very seriously and wondered if there was no way to change the default skin. At that time, remember, all they had to work with was a 2D “clothes template”. If you have seen the ones that Linden Lab publishes, you will quickly see that it’s not obvious where exactly each pixel will ultimately appear. And even if you figure it out, it’s not easy to do a whole skin. Back in 2004, we all thought that it would be “easy” to get some RL pictures of someone and just “distort” them properly so tha they “fit” on the 2D template somehow. Believe me, I’ve tried that; it simply is impossible to do it correctly. In real life, 3D artists would probably project a 2D picture on top of a 3D mesh, and then extract the appropriate 2D map (also called an “UV map”). But, alas, in 2004, Linden Lab did not release the 3D avatar mesh, so this approach was out.

Instead, 3D skin designers would have to do all the work manually. Yes, that’s right: the whole skin had to be carefully painted, pixel by pixel, on top of the template, taking into account that the avatar mesh has a lot more polygons on the face than, say, on hands and feet — which would have “stretched” bits if this wasn’t correctly done. Hand-painting a realistic texture was not for the faint of heart!

This is the result, one month after that other picture, when I bought Namssor Daguerre’s first-generation skin:

Wow, what an improvement! Well, I know this is not an image good enough for 2010 (you can just look at the low quality of the top I’m wearing!) But you can see how the shape did not change. SL didn’t change either, it wasn’t some sudden feature improvement overnight (you can see that on the background). Notice, however, how the face doesn’t look like “rubber” any more. It looks like skin, as it should! There is some detail lacking (specially on the arms) but far, far better than the Linden skin… even for 2005!

Of course we all know that Second Life has improved fantastically (yes, really!) over the years. So the last picture, which is quite recent (from today!), shows Namssor Daguerre’s third and latest generation skin.

Well, of course this is five years later… so no wonder it looks much better It is, after all, a new renderer; a new lighting system; and, of course — far better accessories (like prim hair!!) which have been designed for realism…

Now the surprising revelation: I’m wearing the exact shape I had in early August 2004 on all these pictures! Oh yes! Well, there have been two tweaks — a very minor one on my nose, and, after tons of complains, I reduced my, mmh, bra size… lol. But the rest is pretty much the same! Specially when you compare with the first picture, you’ll see the amazing difference, which is almost unbelievable…

That’s the kind of magic that a skin makes in Second Life. And you’re welcome to look at Namssor Daguerre’s current offerings at his shop on the Beta Business Park, which launches today with a Grand Opening which will last several hours, with models showing off the many choices on the catwalk, nice music, and a friendly environment

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© Gwyneth Llewelyn for Business and Technology in Second Life, 2010. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: namssor daguerre, second skin labs, skins

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Let’s face it: we all were newbies once. While some of us might have immediately plunged into a creative spree like never before, and just remembered after two months that our avatar was in its newbie clothes that they started with, this is hardly the case of the majority of new users…

Sooner or later — often sooner! — a new user will know that they need money. They might have read magazine ads telling them how successful business in Second Life® is. They might have browsed through blogs and forums, catching numbers here and there, on how much money is being transacted in SL, and how some content creators and live music performers make a living here. They might even have come to a conference or two at the Beta Business Park and listened to people talking about their business experience in SL. Or they just looked up on the top of the screen where it says “L$0″ and wondered how to get more.

No matter what the reason was, usually rather early in the process of getting acquainted with Second Life, one of the very, very first questions asked is how to make money in SL (often seconded by “will you give me some L$?”). Unless, of course, you just came in for the dating

Traditionally, the usual answer you give to an intelligent new user is that it’s “as hard as to make money in the real world”, and follow that up with a comparison with making money from Web design. Some helpers just take the trouble to describe what you can create, from buildings to clothes, from scripting to animations, and patiently explain how you develop a brand in SL, make it a successful, and retire on a Caribbean island (even a virtual one!).

The casual user, however, is not interested in how to make money that way. They want to make money fast. They know they’re unskilled, so they hardly expect to become the next super-architect or boots designer in SL, but they still want money. Quickly. Painlessly. Without an effort.

At this point, most helpers just shake their heads and sigh.

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Read the rest of “How do I make money?” (2,051 words)

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© Gwyneth Llewelyn for Business and Technology in Second Life, 2010. | Permalink | 5 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: money, second life

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The Christmas season is over and Second Life®’s shops were teeming with happy new clients and making the Second Life economy rock’n'roll! Or… were they?

I guess that we will only have a definitive answer to that when Linden Lab reveals the transaction data for December 2009, and compares it to last year. My guess is that the difference will be small — enough for Linden Lab to tell everybody that the economy is growing as usual (or as predicted), but it won’t be growing 900% a year, like it did from 2006 to 2007. If it grew 9% this year, it would already be quite nice.

There is, however, something that seems not to be growing at all: the number of residents that remain in Second Life. We are still getting the usual number of signups, close to 10.000 per day. It’s not exactly zero growth! But… none of them stay long enough to make a difference in the number of active users. Linden Lab, for the past few months, have dropped the number of registered users from the statistics and just announce the number of active ones: around a million these days, although I have seen lower figures quoted. The number of users on the login database, however, probably reach 17 million or so, but that’s just my guesstimate.

Where do all those 10.000 users-per-day go? Why don’t we see them around? Why do they leave, often merely minutes after they’ve registered? What’s so fundamentally wrong with Second Life that scares so many users away?
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Read the rest of The First-Hour Experience (6,490 words)

© Gwyneth Llewelyn for Business and Technology in Second Life, 2009. | Permalink | 9 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: interface, new users, newbies, orientation area

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What is the value of content in Second Life®? This might be the most stupid question to ask, but… did you ever ask yourself why things cost what they do?

We have to turn back the clock a few years, to the time Linden Lab introduced the stipends. Every Basic Account used to get L$50 every week they’ve logged in; Premium Accounts got L$500 every week, no matter if they logged in or not.

This set the reference for the price of things in Second Life: content creators targeting newbies (who would start as Basic Accounts) would know that if they priced it from L$0-50, they would get newbies to buy their content. If they wished to go upscale and sell to Premium Accounts, up to L$500 would mean that they’d get a sale per week. That’s why the first generation of outfits (usually just two pieces!) would cost up to L$500, since you expected residents to buy one per week (hopefully!). Skins, or other items that wouldn’t be bought every other week, like vehicles or animation overriders, would cost around L$2000, since you wouldn’t expect them to buy a new one very often. So that’s why things cost what they do

When GOM first introduced their currency exchange for Second Life, a similar question was asked: what would be the “fair” price to charge, in US$, for a handful of L$? Again, we needed a reference. Since the easiest way to get L$ in-world was by being a Premium Account, and that costed US$9.99/month (less if you paid annually!), and this got you L$2000/month, it meant that LL “valued” (indirectly) L$200 to be worth 1 US dollar. Well, almost: since the cheapest way to get L$ was to pay an annual fee — for US$72 — this meant that you could get L$333 for 1 US$. There’s your range — from L$200 to 333. Average it, and you get L$266/US$. Now you know why the L$/US$ ratio has been floating around that “magic” value for so long

Finally, land is also valued used similar baselines, although here the concepts of “speculation” and “location” play a huger role! Still, like in real life, you can see that the cost of land can be compared to the “base welfare stipend” (the original L$2000/month) which included 512 m² of tier on the mainland. The value of land overall is tied to this and is not totally arbitrary.

So knowing the base metrics that define why things cost what they do in Second Life, we can ask ourselves next: what will be considered a good, successful SL-based business? And what will distort the market? And this will finally let us ask us the last question: should Linden lab attempt to “regulate” the market (in the good, European sense of the word) or just let it do whatever it pleases and whatever the results are (in the American sense of the word)?
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Read the rest of The End of Freebies? (6,313 words)

© Gwyneth Llewelyn for Business and Technology in Second Life, 2009. | Permalink | 11 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: freebies

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On the day that Linden Lab launched their major business-oriented product, Second Life Enterprise® (formerly known as “Nebraska”) and its companion site, Second Life Work Marketplace®, Google links to it went up from zero to 14,000 in a few hours (there are now almost half a million as I write this!). Not only the SLogosphere reported on this very thoroughly, but the major news media didn’t miss the opportunity to talk about it either, from the Financial Times to Information Week. According to Amanda Linden, who lead the incredible effort of promoting this new product with her team, during the official launch, done as a mixed-media event in San Francisco and Second Life, the physical location was so crowded that they had to project the session to the exteriors, where many more people were eagerly awaiting the news but unable to enter the room. Inside Second Life®, partnering with Metanomics, the session was viewed live by over 300 residents spread among many locations (I found it very amusing that Metanomics’ Dusan Writer was picked to talk “in the flesh” in San Francisco as the host of this event; then again, who better than Dusan to explain what business in Second Life means?). The video stream apparently peaked at 2,500 viewers or so at the same time (but will probably have many more downloads in the next few days). So, overall, the product launch might have been followed live by some 3,000 people.

This is no mean feat. Obviously there is still some way to go to beat Steve Jobs’ keynote speeches once or twice a year. But nevertheless I believe it was a huge success (Amanda Linden calls it the largest promotional event ever run by Linden Lab in their decade of existence) — it’s no mean feat to have a product launch with 3,000 users. In real life, on a “traditional” product presentation with a press conference, getting 3,000 people to attend is quite rare! It’s also true that huge countries like the US will attract more people — I’m sure that any product launch by, say, Microsoft, will probably feature a similar amount of viewers — but I’m more used to audiences of 30-300 (and the latter number for Fortune 500 product launches!) for a new product. Your experience might be different, but in any case, we’re contrasting the launch from a relatively small company to a big, huge launch by a Fortune 500 company, which is a bit unfair to Linden Lab

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Read the rest of Second Life Enterprise and the Business-Oriented Virtual World (4,718 words)

© Gwyneth Llewelyn for Business and Technology in Second Life, 2009. | Permalink | 9 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Business, second life enterprise, sle

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I was surprised (again!) today by the power of social networking tools, in this case Facebook.

Some months ago, for the 10^th June, Portugal’s Day, Beta Technologies sponsored an event in Second Life for the Museum of the Presidency of Portuguese Republic.

This event was the recriation of an exhibit that the Museum was opening in Lisbon, called “Portugal 12-21 – Identidade” (Identity) – the idea was to feature 10 major pieces, each characterizing each century, from a volume of songs in the ancient Galician-Portuguese language to a Euro coin.

Beta Technologies offered to make the modellation of one piece for the exhibit. The dramatic quality of this led me to pick it:

Cristo Monte Iras - Click the image to see more photos

This piece is a 14^th c. Crucified Christ, called the Cristo de Monte Irás, belonging to S. João da Ribeira Church in Santarém . It is actually a composite piece, the 14^th century statue being mounted on a 18^th century cross. It is a very wonderful Gothic piece, with all the emotional intensity that the style was able to express. The finality of the Dead Christ is so expertly rendered in the long, dropping arm and hand, and the ivory has been exquisitely carved and painted to depict bones, muscles, wounds. It is a very excellent and unique work or art, and I am very proud that Beta Technologies was able to sponsor it.

I want to thank again Damien Fate (the creator of the famous Loco Pocos avatars, plus many other incredible things!)  who used his amazing technique, which can only be called true artistic technique, for producing such a dramatic piece.

But… these were old news. This piece was made in June, after all, and I thought it would have been forgotten already in the big dynamism of Second Life. But today it was seen again, through Facebook! Thanks to Rui Lourenço, who organized the whole SL project, for posting about it, and making it known to his many hundreds of followers all over the world! )

Unfortunately, I don’t have permission to reproduce the photos of the original in this blog, so you could see how Damien’s work is true! This piece – and the amazing exhibit – can still be seen in Second Life: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Alma/118/108/34

What an interesting idea!

Click here to view the embedded video.

When planning urban spaces such as an underground station, two major questions are always present: route planning and turning a no-space into a space.

Route planning is the study of the routes people take/should take in a space (think about an exhibition gallery as a sort of a classical case, though actually route planning should go to such detail as routing inside a house, or a kitchen). An underground station is a paramount problem: you have thousands of people circuiting there everyday. They need to be able to orient themselves (sense of orientation drops amazingly below ground); they need to be able to go quickly inside the station; they need – very importantly – to be able to escape even more quickly in case of accident or fire. In this last case, security measures may force electrical devices such as elevators, escalators, etc, to shut down – this can cause confusion and delay if people try to use them to escape. So something that trains people into preferring stairs to electric devices as their usual route can be very positive.

As for the no-space thingy, well, we all know what it is. It is that uncomfy feeling everyone gets at many public spaces: a place which, belonging to everyone, belongs to nobody simultaneously. Too large, too unreferenced, too confusing… also, sadly so oftenly: too shabby, too uncared  for, too full of grafitti! Interventions like this can help turn a no-space into a space, since people can appropriate the intervention for a bit, make it theirs.

I suddenly thought that a lot of SL spaces are no-spaces. Interesting, why should that be?

I was fiddling here with my blog backoffice, trying to get things right – I must explain that I am generally a bit blog-adverse, so this is a new tech of sorts to me – things don’t just come easy, and I’ll apologize straightaway for some instability on the appearance of the blog, as I conclude that widget X is useful and that I need more categories… I am sure everyone must have passed through the same!

At least I know a basic rule: always have the backoffice in one tab and the blog in another, so that you can see what is happening on with the final result.

And as I was checking the final result, I felt that people may be a bit staggered by the blog… What’s this?! Doesn’t this woman work in Second Life?! Where is the stuff about SL?!

… well, the stuff about SL will no doubt get in here in its own time. But working in SL doesn’t necessarily mean that you breathe SL.

The work that I do in SL is architecture, grossly speaking. Architecture is an art, which means that it is a speculum mundi:  it holds a mirror to life. So this means that a good deal of my day is spent … looking at life, wherever it is. Researching. Reading, because reading is a gateway to the thoughts of other people. Seeing scores and scores of images. Thinking about what I meet, relating, making connections. Because that is what architecture really is: the greatest of arts, the art that connects all the others, and creates space for people in an amazing web of knowledge, experience, living. All that I see will no doubt resurface at some point in my work.

So… this very confused blog is a window on my work, indeed. It just isn’t all about prims and textures, same way as being a chef isn’t all about knowing how to turn on the oven. It is also not just a window on past or present work: it’s a magic window that lets you see the future.

In the same day, two bits news were widespread across the SLogosphere: Philip “Linden” Rosedale is going to start another company and Eshi Otawara, a long-time resident and superb content creator, decided to leave Second Life® forever. All this just before the Burning Life festival started.

We usually expect the captain to be the last one to jump ship when things are not going well. But in this case, is Philip really leaving? Are things really that bad?

How can we then explain the latest press release from Linden Lab (from late September), where it shows a lot of statistics demonstrating how big Second Life actually has become?

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Read the rest of Quo Vadis, Secunda Vita? (2,235 words)

© Gwyneth Llewelyn for Business and Technology in Second Life, 2009. | Permalink | 6 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: eshi otawara, philip linden

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I am a big fan of Queen Victoria, and I read everything I can about her reign. She will appear frequently in this blog, I think.

One thing I always was puzzled about was the bad reception Prince Albert had in the United Kingdom at the time of their marriage.  Granted, he was a foreigner… but the German nobility was so large at the time that it would be extremely difficult, I think, to find a suitable candidate who didn’t have  German ancestry. Queen Victoria herself was genetically German, up to all her great-great-grandparents, and for four generations, the British throne had been held by a German-origined dinasty.

There was a popular mocking rhyme at the time:

He comes the bridegroom of Victoria’s choice

The nominee of Lehzen’s voice; (1)

He comes to take ‘for better or for worse’

England’s fat Queen and England’s fatter purse. (2)

A bit mean,  right?! The power of this bad opinion about Prince Albert’s financial matters was so great that Parliament refused to grant him the same £50.000/year that had been granted to Leopold of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha (3), who had married Charlotte (4), Princess of Wales, some 20 years before. Albert only got £30.000, which aggravated him extremely.

But after finding this picture… some light begins to dawn!

This is Schloss Rosenau, the seat of Albert’s family, in Thuringia, Germany. He was born here in 1819 (this picture was taken in 1900). Now, calling this a schloss is very eulogizing, because this is really quite a biggish cottage. Look in Wikicommons for images of schlosses and you will see fairy-tale buildings, on top of imposing hills… not a modest house in the middle of a pretty garden.  Compare this also to Britain’s nobility’s great seats… it’s quite possible he may have been perceived as a minor princeling intent on a financially advantageous marriage.

But actually this is interesting, because it may explain why Prince Albert had such a distaste for the large palaces in England where he had to live. He hated Buckingham Palace, which had been Victoria’s favourite palace before her marriage. He preferred Windsor Castle, but he insisted in building the more secluded Osborne House, in the Isle of Wight,  and Balmoral Castle,  in Scotland. These two were also rather smallish residences compared to the former, and their attendants used to moan about the inconvenience of these houses: far away from London, small, cold, and the general opinion at their building was also that they were hideous (though this opinion tends to disappear as the Victorian taste grows stronger as the century progresses).

Victoria herself was enchanted when visiting Rosenau for the first time. Quite curiously, she wrote: ‘If I was not who I am, this would have been my real home, but I shall always consider it my second one.’ (2)

So the need for seclusion, for the living of a private life, which is one of the  new domestic paradigms brought by the Victorian Age,  maybe was born too here in this Schloss Rosenau.

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(1) Baroness Lehzen had been the governess of Victoria, and enjoyed her outmost trust, being at the time one of the most important persons in the Household. She too was a polemical figure due to her percepted influence on the Queen.

(2) Quoted in Hibbert, Christopher, Queen Victoria – A Personal History, Harper Collins,  2001, ISBN 0-00-638843-4. A very good book!

(3) Leopold was later Leopold I, King of the Belgians. He was an uncle to both Victoria and Albert.

(4) Charlotte had been an heir-presumptive to the crown, so Leopold could have been Prince Consort if she had lived. She died very tragically in labour, and this event led to ultimately Victoria becoming Queen.