Having captured the imaginations of online gamers and virtual world residents grid-wide, it appears as if there will be a announcement next Monday, Dec 19, regarding the opening of Space Resort & Club NEVERDIE, the $100,000 virtual space station purchased in late October by Miami-based, independent filmmaker (and still possible developer employee) Jon Jacobs (see my previous posts: Link1 and Link2). As indicated in earlier interviews, there’s also a Hotel NEVERDIE in the works in which players of the Project Entropia MMORPG can store their virtual goods while making use of the space station’s amenities. Apparently there’s also to be reserved suites in this virtual hotel for the real-life musicians and DJ’s being recruited to advertise/perform their music at live streaming-audio shows. I look forward to hearing which acts they book (and how they behave themselves in those hotel rooms).

The above images show early views of the virtual resort; taken from an article in the French magazine Libération (available as PDF files here: Link1 and Link2). The top image is a section of the space port itself. The bottom image is one of the space station’s biodomes where players will be able to hunt game and listen to live music.

I have to admit, I wonder if Jacobs has contacted Sony; he could be handing out Sony-branded listening devices that permitted visitors to listen (I’m not sure if that’s possible, but Sony can use all the good PR it can get right now… unless of course it backfires and they go off and secretly install some DRM code on those virtual devices).

{Image Copyright © 2005 Libération}

Had a great time at the SL Future Salon meeting tonight (by far the best meeting afaic, but then I’m biased by the subject matter). Tonight’s guest, once again supplied by Acceleration Studies Foundation rep Jerry Paffendorf, was the associate editor of MAKE, Phillip Torrone.

Thankfully, our guest speaker didn’t use the glitchy, piped-in audio that up til now has proven to be hit-or-miss in spite of the heroic efforts of some ingenious SL residents. So while the chat was probably a bit messy (due in large part, admittedly, to me), it felt more natural. Until a voice system is implemented and the sim lag is better managed, it’s simply better to go with what we know.

Much of the presentation was actually a series of videos. And the built-in support for Quicktime made that painless. A shame though that every individual in attendence starts the video stream independently; would have been nice if Phillip could have stopped the video in places in order for everyone to be on the same spot and ask questions about what they were seeing (I believe there is some inworld code for this; need to look into that). Videos included a tour of SQUID Labs, some excerpts from a television show (sorry, I forget the name) and maybe something else.

The discussion afterward was a bit shorter than some others it seemed. Maybe it wasn’t but just seemed shorter since things went smoothly. I did manage to ask a question about rapid-prototyping metal parts that turned out to be the subject of one of their current projects, so I look forward to hearing about that in the near future (unfortunately, Phillip wasn’t sure which vendor they were using). I also suggested that someone needed to pull some Second Life Artificial Intelligence code (see this earlier post on that subject) and implant it into MAKE’s “Mousey the Junkbot” (thus creating… Mousey the Lawnmower Bot?). And finally, because I spent some time working on getting the Quake 3 rocket launcher barrel back into SL and making the parts fully “solid” in the process (see earlier post – Link), I asked if he wanted the files. So, I intend to clean up the inside of the barrel (so someone might interface it with the rest of a unit if they build more), scale it to something reasonable and email it off. Although I’m feeling like I should contact Quake 3 developer and owner of the rocket launcher IP, id software, at this point. I don’t think they’ll have a problem with this, but to not do so would be rude.

Oh, and one last thing. Lasers. I’ve not really thought much about lasers in a long, long time (since I was like 10 or 11). But after watching some lasers (purchased ones) on the MAKE videos, I’m considering designing and building one. Could be fun. We’ll see. Too much on my plate already.

I’ve been talking about this machinima music video, “I’m Still Seeing Breen” by Paul Marino, with friends for a little while now. To be honest, I’m not sure why it hasn’t gotten more press – it’s extremely well done. More importantly, it’s without doubt the best example of what the current crop of videogames, with their advanced graphics, can do.

When I was reading the Half-Life 2 forums last year (prior to the game’s release) the biggest thing that caught my attention was mention of Valve’s including an automatic lip-synch feature for modders and machinima folks. I’ve followed the machinima community since the late 90’s, prior to the establishment of the machinima.com website, and the biggest drawback has always been the lack of facial expressions and lip-synch. Valve was going to change that. And they’ve done a fabulous job.

Now that “The French Democracy” (about which I blogged previously – Link) has caused a stir, it seems a good time to show people that there are additional tools already available to make compelling videos. Watch both “The French Democracy“(Link) and “I’m Still Seeing Breen” (Link) to get a taste of the potential for this medium.

{Image Copyright © 2005 Paul Marino}

I really get tired of posting vehicle images. Not that I don’t like vehicles. I do. It’s just that there’s so much more out there. I’ve considered asking people over on the Core77 forum to submit things they’ve done. I think I’ll do that today. Sketches, renders, products, whatever just so long as it’s not another car.

In the meantime, I’m just going to make mention of BusinessWeek’s story, “Putting a Fresh Face on a Ferrari” (Link). It’s student work. It’s okay. Nothing in there that I’d particular care to post an image of anyway. If you don’t want to read the story and just want to see the slideshow, here’s the Link. You might also want to visit the Ferrari website to look for more images. The story mentions that it’s gotten some traffic so maybe there’s more to see there.

I recently found a Link to some screenshots for the upcoming Unreal Tournament 2007 videogame over on CGTalk (thread Link). What is there to say? Tell me Industrial Designers aren’t going to have a field day in the future.

(Cross-posted to the Core77 website)

{Image source: ToTheGame.com}