EXCLUSIVE: “Actual” Reality Invades Virtual World
by Alphaville Herald on 05/10/05 at 11:12 pm
by Walker Spaight
Second Life residents view first images from the “real” world
You viewed it here first, folks: The Herald was on hand in Second Life this evening to witness the first live streaming video from a place people have taken to calling “actual” reality or, in some cases, the “real” world.
Avatars Hudson Stryker and Mizuko Stormwind showed off their creation, a live video stream that displays the three-dimensional “typists” behind their avatars (that’s Hudson’s av on the left side of the screen).
The typists exist in a place much like the virtual world of Second Life, an “actual” world where an avatar’s 3D representative can move around just as SL avatars can — though in more limited fashion. (Real-world avatars require a number of expensive attachments in order to achieve flight, for instance.)
Apparently, real-world avatars engage in many of the same activities that can be found in Second Life, though again, most of these, such as building and scripting, are accomplished in more laborious fashion. There are even a number of “actual” currencies in circulation in the real world, many of which can be freely exchanged for Linden dollars on sites like IGE.com and the new SL currency exchange. Many avatars even hold jobs (Hudson and Mizuko’s, for instance, maintain Servercave.com), and some reportedly earn annual incomes that are the equivalent of seven-, eight- or even nine-figure Linden incomes.
Not surprisingly, there is also a thriving dating scene in real life, and avatars have even been known to be “married” in elaborate ceremonies not unlike the ones held in Second Life. And despite the lack of skyboxes, it is even possible to approximate sex in actual reality. Your correspondent plans more research in this area, so look for updates as they develop.
For now, the new technology that lets SL residents view this curious world will be used to stream video into SL of this weekend’s Second Life Community Convention, where many SL residents’ real-world avatars will gather to explore the social interactions that are possible in actual reality. Don’t miss it.
TrannyPet Barmy
Oct 7th, 2005
hate to inform you of this, but this wasn’t a first.
TrannyPet Barmy
Walker Spaight
Oct 8th, 2005
Drat, we seem to have been misinformed.
Urizenus
Oct 8th, 2005
Well then *that’s* the first! I can’t remember the Herald ever getting something wrong before, can you Walker? Certainly nothing this important!
Walker Spaight
Oct 10th, 2005
Anyway, I’m not actually convinced yet that we did get it wrong. TrannyPet, what / when / where / who was this alleged first? The virtual world wants to know!
Davan Camu
Oct 10th, 2005
*clap clap* Love it!
Say, could anyone offer advice on setting up such a viewer to this “actual” or “first life” world? It sounds interesting. Something about Strawberry QuikTime or something?
FlipperPA
Oct 10th, 2005
This was the first. TrannyPet is no longer in SL and didn’t understand the basics of scripting efficiency – don’t believe his nonsense!
TrannyPet Barmy
Dec 7th, 2005
LOL Flipper, coming from someone who, when we spoke, didn’t seem to understand the basics of tcp/ip and the differences between UDP and TCP connectivity(the fact that telnet is tcp(socket) based and UDP is socketless, lol@”telnet to udp server to see if it’s active”, yeah nice one Flipper), i hardly worry to much about the ‘Flipper Rating’.
As for setting up a streaming server with input coming from a webcam, i’d toyed with this whilst doing my investigations into streaming when running the SuperFox show. I played with a number of pieces of software that would allow you to create a stream from a variety of inputs, including your webcam. Helix being one of them that i remember
Media Encoder being what i used to broadcast The Super Fox Show.
So i still say this wasn’t a first, and just as a few other people’s arguements rely solely on the fact that Tranny is out of SL, and can no longer show the facts, yours does to Flipper.
Oh and Flipper, with regard to your “script efficiency” comment, sure when you first spoke to me, as Tranny, regarding scripting, it had been what, 10 days since i’d started using LSL ? I’m sure after you had been scripting LSL for 10 days, you’d only just worked out how to set a variable’s value, let alone write a complete working product !!! So converse to your further comment of “dont beleive his nonsense”, i’d suggest not to pay to much attention to Flipper’s blatent twisting of the truth
Of course, any one who wants the proof, could just visit SecondCentral.com
To Uri & Walker, i don’t dispute it may well be the first reported on, however, it wasn’t the first occurrence of a streamed webcam in SL, i assure you. Surely you can’t claim to know *everything* that happens in SL as and when it happens ?
Cheers
TrannyPet Barmy
The REAL One
Mizuko Stormwind
Jan 11th, 2006
Actually, I was coding multi-hundred-line Cool Things(tm) in LSL inside of 48 hours when I first joined Second Life.
That’s how I got noticed, which landed me my RL job.