The Hypnotree

Basically it happened…

We were going to have MUVEnation fashion show (“MUVEshow as I call it”), so I bought a dress designed by Nicky Ree which was absolutely fantastic. In matter of seconds I fell in love with its wonderful texture and for a while that was all I could think about. After some days I realized that the dress is modifiable, meaning that I can make something out of the pieces of the dress but I would not have the textures that I loved so much….

I thought to myself “why not?, I have already worn that dress, so better to create something new out of it” (recycling J). But even thinking what will be possible to make with such texture was hard….

In the following week, for MUVEnation, I saw a highlight of an in-world session to make trees for near future and that was the trigger for me to make a tree out of the pieces of cloths that I had.

So I started delinking the dress into pieces and change their shape to get the best look of the textures as I could not access the texture itself. Anyway, after long long hours of struggling with both transparent and flexible objects I ended up creating my first ever tree….

I have to admit I am really PROUD of myself…..

I put one in MUVEnation Island but somehow tree was not in harmony with the environment, so I though I can make something for that… went back to Surrey Island and made what I called it as “Fantasy Cube” in dark navy blue colour and that was the time that I really felt everything is all right.

Then it was time to find a name for the tree…. my first feeling about the texture was “water lily” to me and I was thinking to name it like that but then I thought my tree is not looking like a Lotus, so why name it that and next minute I myself building one. After 2 hours wondering how to make best of features, I have my water lilies which could serve even as seats to complete the glory of the fantasy Cube.

Now everything was getting together, the tree, its cube, water lily seats, ghost lights, but still something missing to make this place prefect…. MUSIC…. as I didn’t have the mode to deal with that one I just bought some of the ready in-world and add them to the combination of the items in fantasy cube.

For a day or two that place was only a personal experience to me until friends are started commenting about it J I was really thrilled when people were telling me that “we come to that place to distress ourselves” and “it makes me feel relaxed and happy”. Other than the comments, design of this tree brought me the Title of “Virtaul Designer”; something that I was dreaming about it for a long time J

However, days passed and the tree was only “the tree” for me and others until, my friend Cvetta Nacht put the picture of the pink version of the tree writing the following lines:

“I’m obviously obsessed with this tree…. so much so that I found myself floating among the layers leaves of its fuchsia version. ”

And that was the time when i came up  with the idea of “hypnosis” and been conformed by Cvetta as:

                                 “The Hypntree”

As its put people in a position that they find themselves even not believing the feeling that a simple tree can create within them

So now the tree has a name and a home: you can visit “the hypnotree” and “fantasy cube” in Surrey Island

Not Possible in Second Life

 

I am sure does of you who have some experience in building or scripting have long list of things that is impossible in Second Life.

I usually face such problems, but sometimes I try to convince myself that is my lack of knowledge in SL and not the fact that it is impossible to do it.

You may ask: “what happened that you start nagging again?”

To be honest, you will see me nagging a lot but the reason that this time I’m nagging about this particulate thing is the incident I faced two days ago with I was trying to build a very simple stupid thing (the one that you can see in the picture).

Two days ago, I had this vision of merry-go-round and how it would be possible to build such a thing. As I had no time for playing around as I usually do, I decided to build a version of it that can be used as an advertising kind of stand in the middle of my newly built place (actually modification from another building).

First I broke down the steps; (1) building the base which should rotate (2) cover of the book we need to advertise (3) sticks to link books to the base. There was no need for the sticks to be there but as long as i wanted to create something which would resemble to the RL object, I tried to make it realistic. After building the whole thing it was time to play with some of the variable to make my objects flexible so that they would move outward as the base starts to rotate, just like merry-go-around.

The first thing came to my mind was to play with gravity and wind and tension and the rest of the parameters but that was where I realized there is a problem and this is it:

“there is no way you can have you objects linked with the same flex center so that one will follow the other”

By this I mean, the books that I was trying to link to the flexi stick will not be linked to the end of the sticks as it would be in merry-go-round. I have tried almost everything that i would thing it might work, like putting both as flexi prims, only put one and the change the other one to see how it works but i have to tell u this, i didn’t find any way to give the same visual expression that i really want.

I’m still not sure whether there is any way to do it or not, but it there is please let me know. But what is related to that book on the stick thing…. I’m ganna keep it for a while and see what will happen.

And until finding the solution for that, this effect is “not possible in Second Life” for me.

Is this Madness or what???? No Comment

 

This text is copy of the local chat between me and the Host of the place…. I am deleting the name of the person to not effect her reputation.

Location: Pondessa

Reason: analyzing orientation islands design…

[18:52]  TheHost: hello Viki

[18:53]  Viki Silvansky: hi

 [18:53]  TheHost: ah, you arent new here?

[18:53]  Viki Silvansky: new in Sl?

[18:53]  TheHost: yes

[18:53]  Viki Silvansky: no im not

[18:54]  Viki Silvansky: is this your place?

[18:54]  TheHost: well, this is an orientation island for newbies ok

[18:54]  Viki Silvansky: i know

[18:54]  TheHost: would you like to join our group so you can set your home to Pondi?

[18:54]  Viki Silvansky: no thanx

[18:54]  Viki Silvansky: i was looking to some good design of orientation islands, thats y im visiting different places and observe how they done it

[18:55]  TheHost: oh, you should ask the owner permission first Viki

[18:55]  Viki Silvansky: if observing?

[18:55]  TheHost: yes, these are private islands owned by a company

[18:56]  TheHost: permission is always a good idea

[18:56]  Viki Silvansky: as the island is open for public i guess i am allowed to come and have a look around….

[18:57]  TheHost: that is true, but we have to be careful, and we prefer that only newbies are here ok

[18:57]  Viki Silvansky: yes but if someone wants to do something they can always come with newbies avatar, creating new account only takes 5 min

[18:58]  TheHost: thats true also, unfortunately

[18:58]  Viki Silvansky: if u have this rule its ok for me….

[18:58]  TheHost:

[18:58]  Viki Silvansky: but this is not logical, to ask ppl to leave the island with out any reason

[18:59]  TheHost: of having this only for newbies?

[18:59]  Viki Silvansky: if thats the rule, u should have a sign

[18:59]  TheHost: the reason is that these orientation islands are set up for newbies, not for older avies ok

[19:00]  TheHost: and, we are here to inform

[19:02]  Viki Silvansky: byeee

[19:02]  TheHost: byee

Diaries of Viki Silvansky – A very long lovely Monday, December 8, 2008

Dear Diary

Today I’m ganna try to describe what happened at 8^th December and history behind it.

Let’s start like this … at 8^th of December, University of Idaho was going to have a big news breaking tour of SL for wider range of audience, broadcasting live in their university’s common food court and I ended up being the host of the whole tour.

You may ask “how on earth that happened?”

My answer is “I don’t know”. Not that I completely didn’t know what happened but things happened in a way that I wouldn’t expecting them.

Let’s start the story from the scratch…

Me and Jorjia Blackburn, have a long history of friendship and collaboration.  This started exactly a year ago when I was flying on blue empty skies of educational places, saw a green dot in university of Idaho island, landed there and end up becoming friend with Jorjia… she and her class helped me a lot in my projects and then we arranged a presentation in their university about “machine ethics” which was upstanding really.

Based on this history, about 2 months ago Jorjia send an email to me, telling something like this: “we are going to have an in-world tour for people who don’t know much about SL… would you like to be part of it?” and my answer was simple  “YES” but if you think I had a clue about what I was going to do, you got me wrong… I mean I had some clues at the time but it was not exactly what was going to happen..  I was thinking that they are going to have some students with their newbies avatar and we have to teleport them here and there and show them the places in SL which might be interesting and that was how far my mind could imagine.

In the mean time, Jorjia was talking with a member of the group to arrange things with me which happened to be the designer and owner of VTD (Virtual technology and design centre)  …Eyem Beck… the guy that I admire him for his great creation of art for university of Idaho and other projects around. I can’t remember exactly whether I contacted him or other way around but I had a chance to get to know him… and after some days he was standing next to me in Surrey Island and giving feedback on my creations…. I’m happy that in SL you can’t see RL reflects because I was jumping up and dawn in RL but still trying to act smart in SL (I’m not sure how smart was my fake actions)

Anyway, so the group came together and after a month delay on the programme we were starting to get ready for the tour. As I was in my “happy go lucky character” I didn’t realize much of the points related to the tour until 3 or 4 days left, which suddenly the reality hit me

Hello Viki… wake up…. you are the host of program… they ganna broadcast your broken English, live in university of idaho’s common food court honey….you have to have interviews with Metanomics guys, Lee Frankton from IBM and William The Wise Goodman from Etopia…WOWWWWWWWWWWWW

And that was when I went back to my “control freak” character and trying to make sure about everything even my cloths. And finally we were at a point which we had 5 min before start of the tour.

Cloths —-checked

Mic— checked

List of the places— checked

Background of people— checked

Landmarks— checked

Every one ready —- ACTION—-  you are now on air

WWWWWOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWW

Everything was going great and I started to enjoy the hosting process. We told everyone that we are moving to Metanomic, being hosted by Jane2 McMahon before their Monday discussions with Mr. Seller and Hamlet Linden (one of my idols) starts. We arrived there realizing that Voice is unable because there are due to the start of their Monday show. I couldn’t see things in Idaho but even imagining that sudden silences was enough for me to pass out, however, I didn’t even had that choice because I’ve realize Jorija which had to be there as Backup was frozen (or at least that what I assumed). There was no way to have the voice on while people in university couldn’t read the text so we decided switch to the Monday meeting and let people see the meeting. the next stop was IBM so i decided to change my cloths,  I was trying to relax in the main time that my colths were being rezed when suddenly Echer’s computer which was the camera of the group and the main view of the show went blank and Eyem let me know that we are totally off until Echer can bring his computer and SL back to life…

At that time I was officially dead  from stress as Lee Frankton was waiting for us in IBM and I couldn’t reach Jorjia to ask for advice…those moments were really bad and I can just remember Eyem’s IM’s telling me “DON’T FORGET TO BREATH”…

After some minutes we were back on the track and I started disaster recovery and telling audience what happened, where were we before, where we were at the time and why we didn’t have the voice and then some background of Lee Frankton. He kindly offered use a personal tour of some of their retail places and then give us a tour around the island with automatic machine that had place for two … so we decided that me and Echer as the host and camera will go and I will tell things in the main time….. And this time it was time for my computer the freezeeeeeeeeeee…. basically I had to try 5 times before I could catch the machine and start the tour… I was really upset but then encouragement from others specially Eyem about how things look from their side and that everything is OK, was helping me to stay in control over my voice as the main tool of communication.

After IBM it was time to go to Etopia to see William The Wise Goodman but I don’t know how, we were some minutes earlier and as in Etopia you can’t fly there was no way for me to check out the dots on the island and find William… so we had to come up with things to keep the audience engaged like saying the background of the island and William itself. But then he found us and in matter of seconds his caring and lovely character took over the show and let me breathe for a while. His was so passionate to show and describe things that there was no need for me to say anything other than asking my own question.

After Etopia we went back to university of Idaho for Q&A on their catwalk stage and that was basically the end of the tour and a day full of excitement and experience and I learned my lesson:

“Viki, just be yourself and Surrender the Control, let SL run the show, there is no way you can control SL”

IT WAS AN AMAZING EXPERIANCE AFTER ALL… I didn’t die from the stress but basically passed out and slept for 3 hours afterwards….

 

Only thing left to say: I’m really thankful to everyone that made this happen

A Braclet to Embrace SL tools ;)

 

When educators enter SL there are usually wondering where they should go or what tools they should use for their educational purposes, better to say, “where the hell should I start” kind of sentences. As part of MUVEnation we have been asked to design a tour guide for tools that can be used for education so this is what I designed and the reasoning behind WHY is done so…

Based on my experiences after a year of living my SL, everyone has its own ideas and dreams from joining SL and although they might share the same tools and places they take different approach in using them. As I’m completely against limiting human mind, I decided not to explain the tools and abilities that they might have in details as I believe it will stop peoples’ mind to think of creative ways to use those tools, moreover, there are things that might not be defined as tools but still be used for educational purposes.

After a long long challenge between Anna’s’ logic, MUVEnation’s description and Viki’s imaginative brain, the decision has been made to create something in the middle… let’s say kind of “Treasure hunting thing” but with a different approach. Basically it will give you the guide to the places where the treasures are and show you everything there but then you have to choose whether or not what you see is a treasure.

Picuter: Eyem Beck

Based on that I designed a sample of tour guide in a shape of unisex bracelet which will accompany people to different island that are offering education tools, where there are tours within the island that will show all the opportunities within the islands. This object is very easy to use, it communicates only with owner so it will not bother others and it exchanges dialog best on triggered command from user which will give time to them to take their time and explore things.This sample will cover three islands that are designed for different proposes but tools within them can be used for education.

1. IBM business centres: for computer and business related subjects
2. Boracay: educational island, mainly focusing on self-governed learning
3. Science Friday: for science related subjects

Although each of the island takes a specific approach but there are common shared tools within them, items below mentions some of those tools with a short description about them.

But before reading that let me first clarify “what an educational tool is?” based on my opinion: education tool can be anything that will add a value of knowledge to person or help them in learning things.

• Places for meetings, gatherings, socialization: this places are consider as one of the main tool for informal and colborative learning where people with same or different ideas can get to gather and exchange experience, information and knowledge.
• Lecture rooms, conference rooms and amphitheatres: for one way knowledge transformation or mmore formal discussions these places are the best tools to be used to meet those purposes.
• Objects to show Pictures, slides, audio and video: some of them are one way knowledge transfer which can be used without presence of educator. This is the good way to engage students and provide them with resources that can be helpful. On the other hand, such tools can be used for group activates with both students themselves or in the presence of the educator, as tool to facilitate the discussions about different topics in real time.
• Books, projects and newspapers: these tools can be either interactive or one way communicators. In some of these islands like IBM innovation pod, projects are linked to news on the web as addition source for student’s information and in Boracay some student projects are available (rez on demand) both as resources and group decisions.
• IBM provides meeting with authors that is a unique opportunity for students to discuss with authors of the books, ask their questions and learn from others ideas.
• Boracay provides interactive objects with research background such as design centre and the audio room. Moreover, it provides educators with whiteboards, a chat recorder that will email a transcript to you every few minutes and in the case of people’s consent recording the meeting.
• Science Friday is providing in- world meeting for their Friday radio broadcasts which will allow people to discuss about the subject and share their ideas which is good example of informal learning.

MUVEshow

 7 Dec 2008

Emerge Island, Second Life

there is no word that can descripte that night… GLORY is all i can say…

we had everything that can make a fashion show interesting

• sexy purple cat
• Gold fingre
• pixie
• winter flames
• snow queen
• lady in red
• santa clues
• and so much more

Best thing about the show was you could were whatever you wished and we dances alot after the event….

those who weren’t there… basically you MISSED a lot

below are some glimps of that amazing night

Pyramid Portrait Gallery

This week was all about identity and an art gallery to present what we took out of the experince we had this week, the answers to… who you are? how you look? why you look like that? and all other questions which can claify the reality behind each avatar.

So this is what I have to say about what was this week all about for me…

Questions about “who you are” is hard to answer in SL, however it’s not impossible. So many people believe that you can be “who you want” and “what you want” in SL but I might stand there alone and saying NO…

NO, you can’t be who you want to be… and NO you can’t be what you want to be… You are only who you already are… being who you are might not be physically apparent but mental status. Let’s give an example….

I can’t be Dana Summer… I don’t have the voice

I can’t be Einstein … I don’t have the intelligence

I can’t be Rafaela … I don’t have the talent

So I believe SL is the place to show who you are inside … that appearance can each time reveal a part of your inside…

Second Life look is more about “who you are” than our Real Life because then you don’t have limitation… some will say look at her, she is overweighted in RL but she looks like Madonna in SL… But does anyone asked her what you how you would like to look when she born? What about the guy who has Patrick Dempsey’s hair in SL but actually bald in RL?

I believe SL identity is more REAL that real life, that is why I created the Pyramid Portrait Gallery in SL (muvenation island). A black small pyramid that you can’t see anything unless you go through it and look inside…. Just like our personality… you can’t see anything unless you look through someone and see his/her inside beauty.

Why black?…from outside it is a blocky black pyramid… that is how close minded judgmental people see others, but if someone is brave enough to walk through, they can see the inside beauties. There is no description inside… no names… no identity… it’s up to you want you wanna see… it’s up to your mind to find out the mystery behind each Portrait.

There is a cushion on the ground, a key to see things better, lets call it the  WISE EYE, something that will help you see things better…it goes round and round like life and brings you back to the place you were, to give you another change to make the best perception.

If you have time, go there, Viki is standing there ready to great you.

see you there (MUVEnation, 131,121,201)