Who will win the 3D war?

So there are some interesting options out there for 3D viewing:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16582-format-war-looms-over-3d-tv.html

The question is which will win out? At the moment, the technology of polarized images being sent to each eye requires either the wearing of special glasses or it appears that now screens are being created that do the polarization for you. This will probably be at least one possible winner. I cannot see the average consumer being accepting of wearing special glasses just because they want to watch a show or sporting event in 3D.

Kind of makes me wish I was somewhere like Japan where I'd have more of a chance to see some of this technology before it hits mainstream in Canada.

Other than that (and the cold), living in Canada is pretty good :)

3D opportunities in SecondLife

I've been spending a lot of time in SecondLife (SL) lately, and if you are interested in 3D graphics at all then it is something you should definitely look into. People are making money in SecondLife, and content providers who can create 3D objects and textures are just the people who are set to make the most money.

SecondLife residents (called avatars) need two things just like we do in the real world (or our FirstLife, or RL... Real Life).

• Shelter
• Clothing

Luckily, they don't *need* food, but you can definitely make some coin if you sell 3D representations of food, drinks... anything that looks good and people would want. I'll focus on clothing here, then discuss shelter in the future. Mainly because people is SecondLife always want new clothes, but they rarely need more than one place to live.

There are plenty of places where people can get clothing for free. These free clothing items are usually in the form of simple textures that appear over the avatar's body. Oh yes, and if you can create photo-realistic skin like those available for DAZ|Studio or Poser then you can definitely make some good money! To the left, you can see an image of an avatar wearing a texture shirt. Not complicated, and Robin Wood has a great template for creating free t-shirts at her site.

Of course if you're selling shirts, don't use her template... you mooch.

The clothing that comes available as textures doesn't have the flexibility that clothing made out of primitive shapes, or "prims" do. Prim clothing is where the real money exists in SecondLife.
On the right, you'll see a cute little outfit made of prims. Prim shoes, prim ears, a flexi prim dress and tail set the outfit off great.

The major problem with creating objects in SecondLife deals with the horrid user interface of creating objects "in-world"... that is, while you are connected to SecondLife through the SL viewer.

To combat this problem, LindenLabs (the creators of SecondLife) recently made changes to the viewer that allow objects / clothing to be uploaded as a texture called a "sculpty". A sculpty is a 2D "texture" (a collection of coloured dots as RGB triples) that get converted into a 3D object (a collection of x,y,z coordinates)! There are a number of packages out there that allow you to create sculpties so you can upload them to SecondLife. BTW: Uploading textures, objects and even animations (yes, so dust off those .bvh files you created) cost $10L or $10 Linden dollars... the in-world currency that you can buy yourself with real money or find ways to make it in-world. So if you are testing a lot, make sure you have some money and you're stuff is good enough that you'll be able to make it back when you sell it.

Some software:

• Wings3D has a plug-in to create sculpties (see the tutorial on the SecondLife Wiki)
• Blender is an interesting Open Source 3D program I'm just learning more about. There is a tutorial at SecondLifeArtist but frankly, once I figure out how to use Blender I can write a better tutorial myself
• Even DAZ|Studio has a new setting that allows you to export poses as .bvh files into a format recognized by SL, so your new outfits will look best with your custom poses. I've tried it. It doesn't work... yet. But perhaps I'll check the manual and try again.
  

So there you have it. A quick overview of SecondLife, ideas on how to make money (both real and virtual) as well as software (that you might already know) to help you with getting your feet wet in SecondLife.

Oh yes, and check the background for the first image I posted. Someone had to model the building, the glasses, the dino (actually, I think someone at DAZ did that... they have an Island in SL you know) and then had to texture it all as well.

So post a comment and let me know what you do in SecondLife with your graphics skillz!

Great community with DAZ3D Artzone

I've finally found some time with this crazy schedule of mine to get back into using DAZStudio and Terragen. If you haven't heard about Terragen, I simply can't say enough of it. I've been a fan for years, and maybe I'll get to post some tutorials here. It can create photo-realistic landscapes like this one:




I absolutely love DS, even though my computer has always been underpowered to really run it, and I've never had the right video card. Hopefully I can make some extra blog money somehow to get a nVidia graphics card, instead of always getting stuck with an ATI Rage the way things are now. But I digress...

I've gotten myself back into Daz because it is one of the only things that I find relaxes me... even with the occasional crashes, and the fact that I can't use the newest characters and have to create imagery with stuff I downloaded 2 years ago, or old Poser models.


By checking the Daz site occasionally for inspiration (and free models!) I signed up for Artzone a couple of months ago and finally made an effort to check back on my profile. I'm able to post images, see other artists work, and its been one day and I already have 1 new friend!

Here are a couple of more images I've created, and you can see more at my profile at the Daz3D Artzone.

CNN Holograms of the future?

I never caught it during my view of the election coverage for the 2008 US Presidential Election race.. actually because I didn't see any of it, but apparently CNN tried to tell us they had perfected hologram technology. But they didn't.

http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2008/11/05/tech-holograms.html

Good try though.
[ed: Stupid Digg script!]

Great art on ShareCG

I was checking out some of the new features in Daz ArtZone when I came across a link to another site: http://www.sharecg.com/

A great user site with profiles, galleries and really talented artist. I was really impressed by the fact that it has a VR section, as well as tutorials in 2D and 3D art along with DazStudio, Bryce, Autocad, Photoshop... and probably tonnes of others.

Makes me wish I had:

1. More time to spend on this kind of work: I find it relaxes me and I enjoy it.
2. A better computer, to render more things!

Seriously, check out the site and find me in the ArtZone community. Stop by and say "Hi!"

3D collection of proteins and other molecules

A friend just directed me to this link discussing the usefulness of Proteopedia, a Wiki that collects interactive, 3D models of molecules, proteins.

This picture, by the way, is taken from the JMOL site, which is the interactive, 3D molecular visualizer used on Proteopedia... and OpenSource! Ooo... I'm getting ideas... yay!

We got on this discussion because we were discussing the creation of our own 3D viewing system (possibly using shutter glasses, that sort of thing).

Hmm, I'll have to get a picture of me in my VR helmet and post it on here. Garage VR was a favourite topic of mine back in the 90's and maybe I can dust of some old ideas and post them here. What was old is new again as they say!