SL Writers' Corner
Writers' Corner is for people who love books and reading. Hapno Schomer is currently taking the lead on this project.
Contents
Writing projects
- Write a 350-word tv pitch for Schome.
- Get involved with producing a write-up of the Schome Park project.
- Write some book reviews
Creating SL scenes from books
Starting with Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy or, if you'd rather have a more simple challenge, making a scene from Moby Dick.
Marko has volunteered to help with the building.
Woop to suggest technical solutions.
Could we use optical illusions to reduce prim count?
There's a bunch of info on www.stagework.org.uk about how the stage and scenes were built for the theatre adaptation of His Dark Materials.
A lot of stuff in there on how the set designers made their decsions, plus stuff from the stage director and Philip Pullman on the decisions made in adapting. Might be useful background for recreating a static scene, also I wonder how a an acted scene might be in SL?
- If you are performing I presume you'll be using the library? If not I've got a place you can use for the play. - Mars
- Hey Mars, first, it'd be a great help if you could sign the stuff you write in the wiki. You can do that by typing three of the squiggly things - ~. ;-) We will be using the holodeck for performing things, which will hopefully be situated on the library roof, though thanks for the offer. - Trixxiee
No prob, the only reason I didnt sign my name was because I was in a rush and completely forgot! Sorry :S
Plays and video
Could put on a play, and video it using the SL interface. Can investigate how to run animations in SL.
I think it would be cool if play could be done silently in SL and recorded, then if anyone knows anything about video editing they could play around with it and add actual dialogue from somewhere (e.g. an mp3 of the play, if it exists). Then we could have it on the wiki somewhere. We could be the SPADS (Schome Park Amateur Dramatics Society!)
- I know that Sid Eeerie is v.keen on this sort of thing and has a lot of successful experience in putting on productions-worth an IM -Kieron
It's also very straightforward to do - it's known as 'machinima' and you can do a heap of web searches on it. First stage is to record inworld using the 'record' option in SL and then the resulting animation is edited using some form of video editing software to produce the final machinima. Most folks will have access to either iMovie (Mac) or Windows Movie Maker (PC) which will do the job perfectly well. If anyone wants further video editing resources or info on how to do this I can put some tutorial information up here maybe? Siobhan
Tie in with readers' and writers' sections on the wiki
Library
- Place for bookworms to gather
- Link to classic lit
- sitting area (and of course, hot coffee!)
- Set out like a library where bookcases take you to online books, or, if the project is upgraded, a SL scene where you could explore the interpretations of one SL designer of said book.
Hapno has noted their interest in being involved in a library role. The support team has a member of staff who is a Open University librarian in real life and is interested in exploring possibilities: avatar Kreila Tran.
(I've emailed Kreila to ask her to contact Hapno in the forum and arrange to meet up in SchomePark --Mark Cabaret 13:58, 22 March 2007 (GMT) )
- We were in the Long Library at Trinity College, Dublin today. Massive, two-storey room, lined from floor to ceiling with leather-bound books. The picture on their website doesn't do it justice. "We need Hapno here to check this out", I said. PeterT thought it would be easier to take a snapshot, upload a texture, and bring the whole room over to Schome Park. Fox
Second Life's literary connections
- I haven't read it, but I'm told that some of the ideas behind Second Life came from the science-fiction novel SNOW CRASH by Neal Stephenson. Possible material for a reading group?
- Indeed SL is often closely likened to the Metaverse of Snow Crash. It's a great novel and one I can heartily recommend. Woop
- From Snowcrash: Like any place in Reality, the Street is subject to development. Developers can build their own small streets feeding off of the main one. They can build buildings, parks, signs, as well as things that do not exist in Reality, such as vast hovering overhead light shows, special neighbourhoods, where the rules of three-dimensional spacetime are ignored, and free combat zones where people can go to hunt and kill each other
(The Street in Snowcrash is part of the Metaverse, a place that sounds a lot like SL). I'm quite interested in how writing from the past might also resonate with SL - like Alice in Wonderland even. Martha
- Neuromancer by William Gibson. One of the seminal 'cyberpunk' novels in which Gibson introduces the word 'cyberspace'. There's an Artificial Intelligence in this novel called Wintermute....
- I was reading "The War of the Worlds" (H.G. Wells) and noticed a passage that reminded me of SL users using avatars to create their personalities - so far in Schome Park we've had various humanoids, a brain, a colour-changing gingerbread man, among other things... - Trixxiee
- From 'The War of the Worlds': "They have become practically mere brains, wearing different bodies according to their needs just as men wear suits of clothes and take a bicycle in a hurry or an umbrella in the wet..."
