Alcides Fonseca

Tirei o dia de hoje para trabalhar num pequeno projecto que ando a planear há uns tempos, e já que ia decorrer o social 3d worlds, tencionava ir trabalhar para lá. Apesar de o assunto não me interessar assim tanto, acabei por nem trabalhar nada e estar bastante atento às apresentações.

As duas primeiras, da Beta Technologies eram apresentações do Second Life e de alguma programação lá dentro. Esta empresa tem trabalhos muito bons, em concepção de espaços no Second Life, embora eu continue na ideia que isto é hype e as empresas chegarão a descobrir que se calhar o Second Life não lhes interessa assim tanto.

O Tiago levantou uma pergunta interessante sobre a importação de outros formatos como o CAD ou 3D studio Max ou isso. Porquê aprender um novo sistema de modelação quando já existem alguns no qual os profissionais já se entendem? Para ganhar dinheiro em vender formação?

Depois do cofee break tivemos a apresentação do Marcos Marado que falou sobre a evolução dos mundos virtuais, com a sua origem mais remota em Tolkien e evoluindo por RPGs como o DnD (por acaso, malta de Coimbra que queira um joguinho, anyone?) e finalmente para os computadores pelos text-based MUDs. Hoje em dia podem já não ter uma componente de jogo tão grande, como é o caso do SecondLive ou do Sims Online e poderão dar origem a novos conceitos. Fica apenas uma nota assim pequenina que há um web-based MMORPG português de 2003 e outro de 2004 e se passares pelos créditos és capaz de reconhecer o puto de 13 anos. Ah, e não era o telemóvel, só se fosse o macbook…

Finalmente a Paula Simões que falou um pouco da sua investigação na aplicação de mundos virtuais ao e-Learning. Pessoalmente acredito muito mais em plataformas assíncronas como o Moodle, enquanto reuniões no SecondLife serão mais para ocasiões esporádicas, mas se se resumirem apenas ao IM, não vejo a vantagem em relação a um sistema de chat web-based. Há ainda muito que evoluir nesta área.

Foi um evento muito interessante, parabéns ao Pedro Santa e companhia e parece que a minha toread list aumentou :)

This post was inspired by Aral Bakan’s web’08 predictions: the rise of RIAs and the 3D web. It’s a nice writing on what may change in the web next year.

For a long time I am expecting web to gain one more dimension. It’s the natural evolution: at first you have one dimension (this one would be linear text, like telnet), then the two dimension (hypertext) came along and everyone was dazzled. Although hypertext has a long road ahead, I believe we should be jumping now to the next step.

Papervision3D is offering a pretty good solution in the present. I know of examples where it is being used and it will make other websites look pretty common. But I believe we can go farther in this 3D web. With the computer power we have at home nowadays, it’s not hard to launch a 3D browser. A 3D canvas with objects with x,y,z coordinates would allow whole new experiences in websites.

Ok, it may look the same at first, but it’s not. Lindenlabs own the world, and by definition no one owns the Internet. For the good and for the bad, Internet browsing is a anonymous task. Of course you can login in which sites you want, but you can have the freedom to be anonymous and SecondLife doesn’t allow you that. You should also be able to own your own webserver and give what content do you want to, without any rules (but in a standard extensible language, like tHTML). And SL is trying to simulate the real world there, while the 3D websites would be far more abstract (of course a lot of people will emulate the real physics) and allow innovative experiences.

SL is however a good study-case for this 3D ambient. Not everyone seems comfortable with it and it serves only some purposes, mainly playful. When it comes to productivity, I believe 2D is simpler and straightforward. This 3D context should have come first in the Desktop, and we have not one popular example. I am not talking about Compiz’s cube effect, but more about a BumpTop experience.

Is this a bad omen for the 3D internet? Or the new possibilities will overcome that lack of productivity? I look forward to hear new opinions on this subject.

Yes, that’s true! I kicked Scott Adams himself in his nuts! Repeatedly! Read more for (disgusting) details.

For those of you who live in some other dimension, Scott is the author of the famous Dilbert Comic (which btw I subscribe). He is now selling his latest book: Stick to Drawing Comics, Monkey Brain! that is not, as you may think, yet another compilation of Dilbert’s strips, but rather a collection of his best posts in his blog where he makes funny comments on what happens in the world of business (among some other random stuff).

To promote his new book, apart from the traditional book-signing, Scott decided to do a Q&A at Second Life. Last night as I was awake at the time and had SL installed, why not? I teleported myself and I found right in from of me Scott’s avatar (that he made from pictures of himself). The session was quite nice with some interesting questions (like Which is more dangerous: dilbert with a machine gun, dogbert with a garrote, or catbert with a “request denied” rubber stamp?) and trivia about the comic and animated series. And guess what? A movie is coming up!!!

If you are interested, you can read the transcript.

In the end there was a session where you could go up on stage and kick Scott around. I tried some stuff like punching, slapping, but what I found most interesting was kicking him in his FamilyJewels, so I did it over 5 times in a row! Thanks Mr Adams for that pleasure!

I liked the session pretty much (disregarding the fact that I was almost sleeping in from of the pc)! Not that I prefer this kind of presentations more than I like RL‘s but if it’s impossible to be there, SL is good enough. And it can provide some amusement IRC couldn’t do!

When I knew about Second Life I was very interested in the subject, but since I learned about its limits and way of working, I lost interest and thought it was uninteresting. But as I don’t criticize something I don’t know, I decided to download the “game”, create a avatar and give it a try.

So I’m logged in. A pretty hardcore guy. After some appearance hacks and no real effect, I was flying around the tutorial island… After some seconds I was driving around my Segway over some rats. That was exciting! for only 1 minute… It was time to do something productive.

Teleported myself to the SAPO island where I caught the end of Gwyneth Llewelyn presentation on LSL coding. Pretty boring for the newbie there that went for a superman flight inside and around the building. God, I missed Lois Lane’s hand on mine.

That takes me to the next obvious step: SEX! I read about sex on SL and I wanted to give it a try. Searched for “sex” in mature places, a few teleports until I found some nice place and wandered around trying to convince girls to have sex with me. No luck at all, maybe next time. But I saw how the thing worked: Some animation balls where you could assume some position (with movement) and if the other person assumes the position next to yours, you’re having sex with him or her. Not creative at all and so I’m not as interested in trying as I was.

Finally I chatted a bit with the sexy girl on the picture, Cali Zimminy, that was pretty interesting and told me that what kept her coming to SL was the friends she met there. In fact, I see it more as a 3D IRC than a game. I found the 3d art pretty weak comparing to games I am used to play. I don’t see much interested in the content there is and honestly I rather have some old-school chat through MSN or Jabber than using Second Life. But once in a while I may want to do something more exquisite and then I will teleport myself to my Second Life.