Changing the Presentation

ppt2sl

Here’s an interesting effort: going from PowerPoint 2D to Second Life 3D (Link). I know next to nothing about PowerPoint; I’m surprised you can even draw lines in it.

Seems strange to think of PowerPoint as a CAD tool, doesn’t it?

Occurs to me that you could go from PowerPoint to solid geometry and from there to manufacturing.

Strange is good.

{Image Copyright © 2006 Dave Braines}

Attracting that One Percent

jhshkintrocomp

If the open source community is actually being provided for by 1% of the crowd, then the organizers behind the Jahshaka real-time editing community have more than their fair share. I’ve mentioned Jahshaka before when the community was voting on designs for the application’s interface (reLink), and now they’re voting on startup screens (Link). How can this application not be a success with such excellent community support?

This gets me to thinking. When I stop to consider all the different open source projects of which I’m aware, there are usually only one or two exceptional efforts per category. For example, if I were to say “open source 3D”, most 3D people would answer “Blender“. If I were to say “open source 2D imaging”, most people would answer “Gimp“.
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(Virtual) Capitalism’s Ugly Side

Yesterday I happened across an unfortunate thread on the soon-to-be-closed Second Life forum (Link) that called out what appear to be real life threats on another, SL-related forum (I won’t be posting links and you should understand why after you read more). Here is one threat posted under a thread titled “Kill Kill Dies Bitch!”:

Did MadmaG go to any SLCC’s? I am going to the next one and if I see her I am whooping her ass if I don’t shoot her first!

Anyone else wanna take a “stab” at her while I hold her down?

Read it ….
BITCH!

For those who are unaware, the “SLCC” is a real world event and has gotten sufficiently large to attract media attention. Here’s another implied threat posted by another user (maybe) as a poll titled “How to rape MadamG Zagato?”

How would you prefer to rape her or see her raped?
Take the poll then discuss.

I’d rather not post the options available.
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Architectural Viz Using Half-Life 2

I often enjoy the Half-Life 2 content people make. And this one is no exception. The video above is a recreation of Frank Lloyd Wright’s “Fallingwater Home” design. Having visited the structure, this looks like a pretty good rendition.

And people wonder why an industrial designer takes an interest in this stuff. Why settle for a model (Link) when you can have both?

For more of what the HL2 engine can do, you might want to check out a video to which I linked last year – Link. When I first saw it I was duly impressed.

via Wonderland