Well, my Second Life talking friends, you can have that too with the Second Life Lipsync Viewer. This is a set of files you download and replace in your original Second Life application (see the bottom of the docs page and the Readme that comes with the download).

Now your lips move with the volume of your voice! Here is a brief test (it did not work with my dog avatar, so I had to play a human)

Read My Lips

If you like this, vote for it to be rolled into the regular viewer.

We had a capacity crowd of 73 for the 10:00 AM demo, and we got so many messages and IMs from people knocked out to the next sim, that Stephane agreed to provide another demo at 12:00pm where we saw an additional 41 eager avatars show up.

As a recap, we have some audio recorded from the first session (sorry, the sound quality is not the best, but hopefully you can appreciate Stephane’s detailed explanation of the technology, its potential, and what he is offering to the educational community.

Virtual Reality Room Demo [38.5 Mb mp3, 42:01]

And see the full set of photos we took today.

The Virtual Reality Room brings an impressive realistic presence into Second Life, and it is almost ironic that we are viewing real world scenes inside a virtual world. The “magic” works via the file format of a cubic panorama photo- generally one takes a series of high resolution photos with a wide angle lens on a tripod that accurately rotates the camera in even increments in a 360 degree circle. Stephane recommended a web site that shows you how to create a QuickTme VR Scene in 10 Minutes.

Special software “stitches them together into a format that actually places them onto surface that represents a cube that has been completely folded open and flat, or a cubic panoramic photo. Stephane uses professional software from RealViz but also recommended some of the open source tools you can find on Google such as Panotools

This is the format used by QuickTimeVR to make a full navigable scene; the computer graphics hardware takes this image plastered inot a cube and renders it to a smooth sphere.

What Stephane has done is to apply this same concept in Second Life by creating a giant cube that we stand inside of, and he has created the logic to project the panoramic photo as textures which create giant immersive scenes to explore.

In this image you can actually see the shadow (bottom right) of Stephane and his tripod!

Stephane also demonstrated other thing you can such as applying static images to the scene, setting walls as “phantom” so people can enter a room easily (there is a great example of a room scene built inside a VRR at Strategies located on Brimsen (196, 59, 302).

But we did say you could get this tool for free. Stephane pioneered this concept over the last 2 years, but felt like ti was not used as widely as he thought it could be. So he decided to put it in the hands of the educational community who might use the scenes and likely build their own, or add applications on top of the technology.

Therefore, in partnership with the New Media Consortium, the Info Island Archipelago, the Commonwealth Islands for not-for-profits, Stephane is providing the tool free for educators.

You can find the vendor machine now at the site of the demo — href=”http://slurl.com/secondlife/Learning/128/128/101/”>Learning (128, 128, 101) and very soon, it will be accessible at multiple locations on NMC Campus.

Because this is a valuable concept and technology, the Virtual Reality Room is scripted to verify it is placed on a sim that is part of an educational organization. At this time, it includes all of the NMC Sims (50+ sims) plus the Info Island Archipelago- meaning an educator could rez one of them anywhere at these places and it will work. If your organization wants to have its own, you should contact Stephane directly. He is eager to share.

The VRR is not limited to cities and nature scenes; there are plenty of opportunities for computer generated scenes, nano-scale scenes, or models. Another interesting example was a world map, and Stephane described how it as augmented with prims that were interactive for offering geographic specific information.

There are other related resources you can purchase from Stephane’s VRR Shop at Solariam (208, 171, 431) including many pre-built scenes and a HUD that allows just a single person to control the scene selection.

This was an utterly amazing day, and we appreciate the more than 114 people show showed up. We close with one of our favorite scenes– if you were in Chicago last August for the SLCC 2007 Conference, you may have ventured over to the park northeast of the hotel to gaze at the shiny Cloud Gate sculpture- this too is rendered as a VRR scene. Here is our audience, looking tiny next to it. And in the reflection we see Stephane taking the photograph:

On behalf of interested educators and the NMC, we extend to Stephane a big thanks for sharing this with us.

Second Life Virtual Reality Room- exploring the forest

Thanks to the partnership between the New Media Consortium, the Info Island Archipelago, the Commonwealth Islands for not-for-profits, and Stephane Desnault (aka Stephane Zugzwang in SL) educators and not-for-profits will be able to obtain free, fully functional Virtual Reality Rooms at Farnsworth Station in the NMC Conference Center sim beginning January 15.

The Virtual Reality Room is an immersive, photo-realistic environment that brings an unprecedented level of realism to Second Life.

Second Life Virtual Reality Room- earth images

There are a variety of scenes available including starscapes, New York, Chicago, Paris and more. With the new version, VRR owners can add their own scenes. It’s one of the most exciting aspects of the partnership: Educators and universities are well equipped to create new scenes, either from photographic panoramas or computer-generated 3D models, and they’re getting the best available technology to use and distribute them in Second Life. Once a scene is created, it can be shared and used by others. (Panoramas are completely compatible with QuickTime VR– QTVR cubic projections.) The NMC will be compiling a collection of educational scenes that will be freely available.

Larry Pixel (aka Dr. Larry Johnson, CEO of the NMC) and Stephane Zugzwang are launching this exciting partnership on Tuesday January 15 (time and location to be announced after January 7)

Stephane Zugzwang, creator of the Virtual Reality Room

Stephane Zugzwang, will introduce the latest version of the Virtual Reality room, and demonstrate its new features, especially how users can now incorporate their own scenes. He will also introduce LOOV, a new initiative designed to foster communication and collaboration in Second Life.

Second Life Virtual Reality Room- New York amphitheater scene

About the Virtual Reality Room

Stephane Zugzwang introduced the Virtual Reality Room in Second Life at the end of 2006. It quickly gained acceptance as one of the cleanest and easiest way to bridge the real and virtual worlds, by immersing Second Life residents in crystal-clear, photo-realistic environments. More than a thousand rooms have already been sold, serving a diverse group of club owners, individual residents and corporations like IBM.

The collection of panoramas available with the Virtual Reality Room is steadily growing: Stephane shoots many pictures himself, while staying on the lookout for original, third party content sold at the VRR shop with the rooms themselves. Yet, says Stephane:

The VRR is not living up to the incredible potential of Second Life: It could do much more to educate and serve the needs of the many non-profit causes that have found a home in SecondLife. The Virtual Reality Room is an easy, cost effective tool to bring reality inside our dream world. This initiative with Info Island is meant to make it useful where it matters most.

About the New Media Consortium

The New Media Consortium (NMC) is an international 501(c)3 not-for-profit consortium of more than 250 learning-focused organizations dedicated to the exploration and use of new media and new technologies. NMC member institutions are found in almost every state in the United States, across Canada, and in Europe, Asia and Australia. Among the membership are an elite list of the most highly regarded colleges and universities in the world, as well as a growing list of innovative museums, research centers, foundations, and forward-thinking companies.

The consortium serves as a catalyst for the development of new applications of technology to support learning and creative expression, and sponsors programs and activities designed to stimulate innovation, encourage collaboration, and recognize excellence among its member institutions. Through its many projects, its comprehensive website, and its series of international conferences, the NMC stimulates dialog and understanding through the exploration of promising ideas, technologies, and applications.

As a central part of its mission, the NMC encourages and supports innovation in the pursuit of effective collaboration, especially in the activities and projects in which it plays a leadership role.

Second Life Virtual Reality Room- river side scenery

Contact Information

For the Virtual Reality Room and LOOV: Stephane Zugzwang (stephane.zugzwang@gmail.com)

For the New Media Consortium: Larry Pixel (dr.larry.pixel@gmail.com)

Among the furry avs paraded was this reporter as well as the very very hairy, Seb Basiat:

Danielle Damone asks Seb Basiat a few questions about his fur.

Asked about his avatar, Seb wrote:

I had been looking at furry avvie because I was hoping to see how I could get a completely new set of interactionfrom people that I ran into tried being a furry for a while but it wasn’t me… I found that furries often get treated poorly by human avvies. so when I saw this avvie which was outside of the normal furry archetype. I fell in love with the avvie and liked its dramatic nature.

Anya showed off her “granny” av and Danielle had the full body tattoo and wings. Tasrill Sieyes a real avatar artist surprised us all with a giant statue-like avatar that know one knew was even there– quoted:

I was inspired to make them when I realized that I could literally be anything. Not simply human or something anthropomorphic like furries or robots but anything I could imagine. I could be art not simply make art.

Tasrill Sieyes amazing avatar (photo credit to Danielle, thanks!)

And lastly, we got to see a bit of the winged and green skin look of In Kenzo:

In Kenzo in wings

In also showed a steel skeleton look as well, “This is death, good for Camp Darfur tours, purchased off the rack, L$300L.”

In Kenzo sporting a skeleton av

Listen in to the podcast for more from the fashion parade…

Fashion Parade: Fashioning the Avatar

We filled our gift bag with various educational and entertainment landmarks and note cards.  Depending on your audience you might want to recommend stores where a new individual to Second Life can acquire some nice clothes, hair, etc.  Some other items that we included where books shared by Larry Pixel (Thinc sells everything necessary to make your own books), an interactive whiteboard (provided by Angrybeth Shortbread), a seating stadium (provided by Jeremy Kabumpo), an event timer, a car, sailboat, parachute, and a BMW.  You can find many of the educational items at the ICT Library – many of the other items can be acquired by simply exploring many of the shops in Second Life. 

What SL tour would be complete without a free T-Shirt?  Luckily a very easy tutorial and template exists on the web that allowed us to create this beautiful Seton Hall pirate t-shirt that would make any undergrad jealous!  Just follow the directions and upload your logo and you can also make T-shirts for your campus.  Thank you Robinwood.com!! http://www.robinwood.com/Catalog/Technical/SL-Tuts/SLTutSet.html

Finally, a welcome sign would be create a warm welcome to the campus.  I created one using a white board that I found at the ICT library.  Again, you could create one with the building tools provided in SL but why reinvent the wheel (especially since you are creating your own gift box, right?). 
 
We will be sure to let you all know who our event turns out.  Stay tuned…