The Alphaville Herald

SL Laser Eyes Worth Looking Into

by Alphaville Herald on 26/02/08 at 5:17 pm

More residents improve vision with heat, X-ray, and lasers

by Siobhan McCallen, metaverse weapons expert

Coherent light leaves Macbeth Shostakovich with a burning sensation

Remember how Superman had that great heat vision, and could just squint a little and turn a bad guy’s gun into a puddle of molten steel, or slice Braniac’s spaceship into pieces with these long, red beams from his baby-blues? I don’t know about you, but that always made me get all quivery inside. I wanted to DO that! I wanted to be able to blast things with my eyes, burn down trees with a hot, seething glance, cut through a steel door with laser-like precision.

Cyclops from the X-Men was pretty good too, but with him it was more of a curse, because he couldn’t open his eyes without blasting away. He had to wear special glasses or goggles to keep from cutting apart homes, furniture, cars, and family pets. Still, it would be neat to be able to flip up your fashionable dark glasses and blow away the bad guys, right?

I looked into whether my dream could come true, and sure enough, you can trot down to your local goodie shop and buy yourself some heat vision. It comes in some interesting varieties, some of it hot and burny, some of it with more of a kick in the teeth sort of punch.

For this little endeavor, I needed to enlist some aid. Shooting at targets is all well and good, but sometimes you just need a willing conspirator to let you blow them away. Hence, my friend and all-around Good Sport, Macbeth Shostakovich, who has agreed to be my crash-test dummy for this and other weapon tests. Say hi, Buster!

Macbeth Shostakovich: “Hi, everyone! Say, Sio, you DID lay in that supply of plastic wood and sandpaper like you said you would, right?”

Hush, dear, I’m talking to the readers. Between Mac here and a supply of physical wooden cubes, I’m going to test a couple of vision weapons I picked up, and see how effective they are.

Laser Eyes by Lillani Lowell

First we have the DictatorShop Laser Eyes by Lillani Lowell. These eyes come packaged as eye attachments, one for the right eyeball, one for the left eyeball. Firing these devices is a simple as going into mouselook, targeting, and clicking the left mouse button. Your eyes will glow red with a startling color change effect for a moment, and red bolts will streak to the target. At the point of contact, temporary flames will blossom. Neither the bolts (actually a type of bullet) nor the flames have any effect outside a damage-enabled sim, but they look neat, and the flames die away in a minute or two. But go to a damage enabled sim, and it’s a much different story. If the shot doesn’t send your target home, a few moments of burning flame will!

I tested this on my little wooden boy in a friendly neighborhood damage-enabled location, to great effect. Death courtesy of the Timeless Underground, http://slurl.com/secondlife/RavKom/49/194/24

With only a single shot, Mac was “killed” and teleported home within 20 seconds of being set ablaze. But fear not, a little spritz of the fire extinguisher, some sanding, some lacquer, and he was good as new! Don’t worry, Mac, we’ll rebuild those eyebrows with some nice teak inlay later today.

I felt a little unsatisfied at this point. I wanted some insight into the motivation behind this weapon. I think it’s a truism that you can’t truly understand a weapon until you understand a little bit about the person who designed it. So I contacted Lillani Lowell, and she took time out of her busy schedule to see me for a brief interview.

The room was tasteful and relatively spartan, but decorated with style. It wasn’t flashy and ornate, nor dark and sullen, it exuded an enigmatic charm and a sense of restrained regal opulence you only get when you take things away rather than add them. Some of the other DictatorShop wares, various D/s equipment, was arranged about. Lillani greeted me warmly, and we seated ourselves at a small table to chat.

talking with Lillani Lowell

Siobhan McCallen: I’m rounding out the story on the laser eyes a bit, and wanted to get a more personal view on them. Can you give me a little insight into why you chose eye lasers in particular?

Lillani Lowell: Generally, when I build a weapon I want it to be unique…nobody else had them, and I figured it’d be a fun creation.

I mused to myself that these laser eyes must have been around a while, as there were now several competing products on the market.

Siobhan McCallen: I’ve had a chance to test them out a bit, and found them a lot of fun. In what sort of context did you expect people to use them?

Lillani Lowell: It’s like most of my weapons, really, I never had any real purpose for their usage. I just do what I do for fun.

I nodded, and thought back to my trip through her store and the things I saw there. One thing I had picked up was a notecard on land leasing in the sim where her store was found. It had some interesting restrictions, including a ban on weapons.

Siobhan McCallen: I did take some time to look around a bit in your shop. And I read through the Matriarch Covenant. Is it unusual that you would create gadgets that cannot be used inside Matriarch, since they are weapons?

Lillani Lowell: Not really, I don’t make many sales of weapons from my store…… usually, they sell from slexchange.com and OnRez.com

Siobhan McCallen: I found that, except for the particle effects, they only have any significant effect upon an avatar in a damage-enabled sim. Was this a conscious choice on your part? If so, what made you choose that direction for it?

Lillani Lowell: I intentionally notched the damage down so they’ll play well with some other combat system out there. Generally, I don’t like deal with safezone combat systems….. but, a few people asked me to tone them down.

Siobhan McCallen: They work exceptionally well in a damage sim…I tested.

I had to smile at this, remembering Mac’s flaming form.

Siobhan McCallen: That was a lot of fun for me and for my tester.

Lillani Lowell grinned back.

Lillani Lowell: Honestly, the laser eyes became a little more popular than I had thought they would and have a fairly high rating on SLX.

You: Can you ascribe that to anything in particular?

Lillani Lowell: Perhaps its the unique nature of the weapon itself. People love “super power” style weapons, sometimes it’s a little better than a gun in your hand.

I had to agree. This matched my own thoughts, and my own motivations for trying the weapons in the first place! I felt I understood this weapon now, and the hand that had made it. If the ability to set things on fire, and kill your friends in damage sims is to your liking, you can pick up these fiery eyeballs at DictatorShop at http://slurl.com/secondlife/Matriarch/128/42/22/.

It was time to head back to the range for some more testing.

Macbeth Shostakovich: Oh no!

Quiet, you.

AlienTech eye-lasers

Second came a different style of eyeball weaponry, the AlienTech eye-lasers. These were a radical departure from the DictatorShop concept, first being equipped on the nose instead of the eyes, and second, by being what appeared to be prim-based push weapons instead of bullet-based fire-damage weapons. Use of the devices are identical, after unpacking, you wear them, which places them invisibly upon your nose. (Actually, while it is equipped on your nose, the device is implanted in your skull. The search is not for the squeamish.) Then go into mouselook, sight upon your target, and press the mouse button. ZAP! Two gleaming red “beams” will burst into existence, skewering your target. (This presupposes that you actually have build rights in your current location. Both devices are dependent upon the ability to rez and for scripts to function, the laser eyes to fire bullets that do damage and implant particle emitters, the eye lasers to rez beams and to send invisible colliders, rather oddly large and slow to call “bullets”, at the target.) But here’s where things get interesting…

As soon as your “beams” contact your target, a significant push is placed upon it, blasting it in the opposite direction. I know, this isn’t truly “heat vision”, but it is a beam weapon of some significance, emitted from your eyes. But how effective is this device? Only one way to find out…experiment!

I tested it first upon a plethora of physical cubes of various sizes, from the default half-meter up to the maximum 10x10x10 behemoth. The little cubes only took a single zap to send them flying, in this case, off-world, since I was at a world edge. The large cubes took a bit more work, sometimes as many as ten or twelve zaps in quick succession, but they, too, would fly off-world. Truly a potent push! But would it work if push was restricted? It just so happened that I could change that setting…a quick trip to the About Land page, and some more tests…why, yes! It works perfectly, even with push restricted.

But what would this do to an avatar? Ohhhh, Buster… Dear little Pinocchio, stand here and let me shoot you with this wonderful little toy, won’t you? That’s a good boy…

Macbeth takes a shot to the chest – followed by a long ride

As you can see, the beams strike Mac directly in the chest. What you can’t see, because this isn’t television, is Mac flying through the air at great speed, to land some hundred meters away on the far shore. But I do have a picture of the tiny Mac, standing dazed, wondering what just hit him.

click image and squint to see where Macbeth landed

He’s that little wooden dot at the center of the picture. I would say the AlienTech eye lasers are pretty effective when used on an avatar target. But there was still the matter of understanding the creator of these devices! I caught up with Mambajambo Rearwin, AlienTech’s creator, at his store in Baku. I had some questions for this weapon designer, too!

Siobhan McCallen: First off, what attracted you to the idea of laser eyes?

Mambajamba Rearwin: There’s a lot of choices in weapons in Second Life, at AlienTech we try to be a little different. So we created Eye Lasers using a powerful laser system that uses a unique Laser Implant Death Ray. It’s more fun to shoot lasers from your eyes than from a pop-gun.

Mambajamba Rearwin says AlienTech’s products aren’t the tools of griefers

He smiled this feckless little grin that let me know this was just a guy who wanted to have, and share, a good laugh. But there is also a serious side to these eye lasers. After all, they work perfectly well in no-push regions. I had to wonder…isn’t that inviting trouble?

Siobhan McCallen: Tell me, what is your definition of griefing, and what do you feel is an appropriate response to it?

Mambajamba Rearwin: Griefing is the act of giving someone a bunch of grief – often without any reason. Eye Lasers aren’t really a griefing tool – but they provide an exceptional mechanism for blasting friend or foe…when griefing is harassment, an appropriate response is similar to how harassment is dealt with. Dealing with griefing is multifaceted. It really depends on the level of grief.

You: Have you received any static from anyone due to the fact that they work so well in no-push areas?

Mambajamba Rearwin: when the technology behind the eye lasers was introduced, the ability to work in No-Push was very new, now it’s a bit more common. I haven’t received any complaints – I’d suggest its because AlienTech’s products aren’t the tools of griefers.

He struck a pose, and suddenly, red beams lanced from his eyes. I braced myself, ready to be hurled across the showroom into a wall, but they waved harmlessly through me. I had to chuckle as I realized they were only simulated beams!

Mambajamba Rearwin: Creating griefing tools would be much easier than creating stuff thats made to be fun.

He showed me several other devices, including a fancy pink convertible that must been experienced to be truly appreciated. You can pick up a set of eye lasers at http://slurl.com/secondlife/The%20Raft/147/182/21, which is where I got mine, or one of his other locations. Both the Alientech and the DictatorShop laser eye devices are available on SL Exchange.

Of course, the darned attorneys require me to inform you of the dangers of misusing such tools. Always use these devices with the full consent and permission of your target, like my dear friend Mac.

Macbeth Shostakovich: “Medic…er…um…carpenter?”

If you use them against unwilling residents, you will be committing a violation of the Community Standards, and as we all know, that’s a big Bozo no-no.

But these well made devices, when used properly, can bring you a great deal of satisfaction.