Zen Meditation

Looking around Shimmer Island these days I think the old place is beginning to look a whole lot more comfortable and realistic. I then began to think about maybe including some new features that were not necessarily associated with virtual learning, maybe along the lines of simulations for my visitors. I know that dance areas are popular in Second life, but its not just about the popularity, I wanted something that while being at best of use and at least amusing, I remembered that the oldest of our girls had recently qualified as Yoga teacher, brilliant for that, and I thought this would be a great opportunity to show that the avatar in the family was maybe not as disconnected from life as maybe suspected. The result was a couple of very cheep L$5 Zen yoga cushions from Ei Yue with poses and copy, so I only had to actually buy one even better. Next I purchased the Zen Flow water feature from Myla Carter, just to make for some ambience, and, not bad. If you feel like a teleport over to Shimmer Island for some meditation with poses to the sound of waves and seagulls then please feel free. Of course if you would like to try yoga for real, then drop Amanda an email from her weloveyoga web page.

Bye for now Skipper

New palms

I was watching the screen from xstreetsl scroll through its random products the other day when I saw an add for scupted palms from Tobias Novi. These palms are 2 prims for eight and they can cover 15, 20, 25 and 32 mtrs. If you would like to include an animated shadow, then this is one extra prim, at just under L$500 they seemed a good deal so I teleported over for a closer look. I was immediately impressed by the graphical qaulity of the trees and the shadowing, so went for a couple of models to replace the foliage that I had been assembly over the last year or so for my sim at Shimmer Island. The effect was transforming.
After purchasing some very convincing wave effects recently from Real Waves, seven free roaming seagulls and now the palms, I am beginning to realise that modelling in Second Life is becoming incerasingly realistic and convincing from those early days a few years ago when I first joined.
Please feel free to teleport over at any time for a browse.

Skipper Abel

The game nearly begin

My level 3 students following a Games Development module are currently exploring SL as a platform for developing Games. The storyline requires they collaboratively design and build a castle, and each group has just about completed this. Today they have been busy installing some transparent Sentinel (these are the guardians of knowledge) rezzers, in the grounds. If you would like to teleport over anytime and review the progress or wander around then feel free, though beware as you may be pursued by some rather familiar looking Sentinels.


My level 3 students following a Games Development module are currently exploring SL as a platform for developing Games. The storyline requires they collaboratively design and build a castle, and each group has just about completed this. Today they have been busy installing some transparent Sentinel (these are the guardians of knowledge) rezzers, in the grounds. If you would like to teleport over anytime and review the progress or wander around then feel free, though beware as you may be pursued by some rather familiar looking Sentinels.

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Maritime%20Greenwich/106/24/21

Regards Skipper Abel

Free Plants

Having a stroll along the beach at Shimmer Island the other evening, and I came across a new box of free plants had been washed up onto the shore. Feel free to teleport over anytime and take a copy.

regards Skipper

Making Waves

After completing the work on my Fun with Physics skybox the other day,I started to look around my sim at Shimmer Island and realised that it had been a long time since I last carried out any work on the environment itself. And so I decided to include some waves. There are a lot of wave resources avaliable in SL, some really lost cost or even free options, though these are often little more than moving textured water or water textures on the surface of a rotating cyclinder, OK it looks a bit like a wave but I really wanted something a little more ambitious. As usual with these things, my first reaction is to have a teleport around to find what I am looking for, and then see if I can make something similar, as good, or even better myself. After not too long I soon discovered that you can get some really nice wave effects for very low cost and went for 16x25 Realistic Waves by Antreas Alter, at just under $L200 and copyable, it just was not worth the effect of sourcing textures and scripting. Teleport over any time and take a look.

Bye for now Skipper

Fun with Physics

As part of the Developing Computer Games module for my level 3 students, and following the success of their Second Life Wind Turbine project, I decided once again to make use of the virtual world in the development of a quiz style shoot-em up scenario. While students had carried out some work with Linden Script during the first project, I felt they would appreciate a refresher and a little more depth in their knowledge, and so a few weeks ago I started to produce a series of short tutorials, which are free to access at the main hall on Shimmer Island. It was as I was producing the last in the current series, which looks at some basic physics functions, I realised in order demonstrate how objects behave when they become physical with regard to factors such as material type and applied forces, including the wind, it would be of some value to include a few actual simulations. The outcome is the ‘Fun with Physics’ skybox. I have included the slurl below, so please free to drop over any time and have some fun with physics. The project is I suspect going to be very much a work in progress, and hopefully will include some input from the group.

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Star%20Beach%20Island/193/222/23

Castle Bromlestein good to go

With the work on the Castle Bromlestein progressing well, I decided to upload some video tutorials for the student to view. One to show in a very general way, how the game is played. Then a longer video on the way the SL Forum posting works. You can see the videos in the media room of the main hall at Shimmer Island.

More treasure washes up

More treasure seems to have found its way to the shores of Shimmer Island, with the recent arrival of a crate containing 18 free vehicles. Please feel free to teleport over and help your self to a copy.

Bye for now Skipper

LSL particle tutorial

As you wander around the landscape of Second Life, you will sooner or later come across effects that replicate the appearance of such things as falling rain, snow and leaves, eruptions of smoke and explosions. These features, when inevitably you come across them, will have almost certainly been produced by the client side effect known as Particles. In this tutorial we shall be looking at particles and the means by which they are produced. After completing the tutorial you will have covered:

Appreciate the use, structure and calling of functions
Make use of various particle patterns
Understand the RGB colour coding system
Set the size, rate, speed and colour of particles
Set the location, transparency and colour change of particles
Produce a particle emitter that simulates rain
Produce a particle emitter that simulates smoke
Make use of textures as particles
Make use of particle name-value pairs
Use particle flags

LSL decisions and loops book

I have rezzed a third LSL tutorial book into the main hall of the library learning space area of Shimmer Island, and as with others in the series, please feel free to take advantage of the popup webpage nature of the medium to to take a full copy for your own use.

In this tutorial covers the basic requirements for the implementation of decision or branching structures in a script and then goes on investigate various means by which we can execute instructions through a sequence of iterations in a loop

• 
  The tutorial will cover
  
  Logical Operators and their use
  Relational Operators and their use
  Making simple decisions with the if() structure
  Using the if…else combination
  Using the if…else combination
  Implementing multiple if() statements
  Using nested if() statements
  The for() loop structure and its components
  Implementing nested for() loops
  Making decisions within loops
  The while() loop structure
  The do..while() loop structure
  

LSL Numbers and Operators

The second book in the Linden Script series for my level 3 students is now available in-world. The topics covered here are the various types of mathematical operator and number types used in LSL, which is going to be very reminiscent of those they should already be familiar with in Java, so I anticipate no real problem here. The numbers side looks at the types of numeric variable available in LSL, this is less than those in Java. The means by which we bring variables into existence through either declaration or initialisation is essentailly the same. One area they should feel familiar with is that of casting variable types, though now its almost exclusively in relation to the llSay function, at least as far as my exercises go anyway. I have also taken the opportunity to explore the use of constants such as PI illustrating through example. I have also taken the opportunity to explore the way in which different types of rounding function are applied. Hopefully all this is going to prove of use in the comming project.

Linden Script guides

With my level 3 year 2 students set to commence their new SL project in Games Design this week, I decided to put together some introduction type guides for Linden Script. The first book simply shows them how to use the editor and compile scripts while introducing some of the basic functions and components. I have also managed to locate an online Linden Script interpreter that they can use as a validator for their scripts. This feature will be useful because access to the virtual world is restricted in the college a single computer room, so any script development will have to go on hold until they are either in that room or at home, now they can at least develop and test scripts from any internet connection. There are some more tutorials on the way for Linden Script that build upon my students current understanding of programming in C and Java. The books utilise a web popup, which means the materials can readilly be copied and pasted, so removing the need for a download option.

New Notice Board

As I am continuing to add new facilities to the sim at Shimmer Island, I thought it would be an idea to let everyone that visited know in some way. After looking around xstreetsl for a while I came across a cheap multicolour text display board and hung it in the entrance of the main tutorial hall. Oh yes, and just above is the new REZ magazine vendor; magazine reading seems to be very popular here at Shimmer Island.

SL Game Project

I am about to start a new project with my level 3 students in the design of computer games. The environment for the development will be Second Life and the game will be a combat learning zone, where I hope to see students exploring various strategies in their attempt to get the highest scores while under attack from aliens. I have also installed my SL forum block. My intention is to encourage the students to post essages including emails from the block. I have not used this before but I anticipate seeing the emergence of a 3D forum posting, which in itself may reveal some interesting and possibly meaningful development patterns. Stay in touch for progress...Skipper

Freebee on the beach

A new crate has been washed up on the beach here at Shimmer Island. On close inspection it seems to be full of particle scripts, so if you need any just Teleport over and take a copy.

Social networking vidos

For everyone out there who needs a quick reference to those questions that start, so how do I use or make use of this, here is a site that has collected some really useful introductory videos on a whole batch of social networking sites, worth a watch and bookmark.

Second life and eLearning

Looking around the blogs recently I came across this very encouraging view from David Hopkins eLearning Blog / Dont waste your time..., it reminds me of the comment I read, but cannot recall where exactly now, of the three main advantages that Second Life can offer over other candidates for an engaging eLearning experience, they are Social, Social, Social.

This is what Second Life should be like

I found this on the sled, a fascinating blog and must see video

"This is what Second Life® should be like, (and sometimes is)." at

http://npirl.blogspot.com/2009/03/this-is-what-second-life-should-be-like.html

Edu Faire 2009

I went along to the education faire 2009 and it seemed certainly from my impression though I actually have no statistics to be the largest to date. Some really interesting and unusual exhibits including a group featuring Shakespeare and it seemed a lot of languages. The universities and companies where out in force and there were plenty of freebies to collect and groups to join and people to chat with. These events are always useful as well as being just plain fun, so well done to the organisers and presenters.

Wind Turbine Project Feedback

Following the completion of my SecondLife Wind Turbine project January 09, I have published the raw spreadsheet results as a pdf file that you can access from this link. The project was the result of work carried out by a group of my level 3 students at Bromley College who are currently enrolled on the BTEC National course in Software Development.

At this point in time I have yet to produce any charts of analysis of the results, though a superficial look at the numbers do give some encouraging signs for the use of the Second Life platform in main stream delivery.

You will see form the data that students have not attempted all questions and this may be a reflection on the size of the final survey, which was larger than I originally intended.

The questions I used here represent a subset of those contained in an original student survey produced by Tanya Joosten, Learning Technology Center, Department of Communication, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

If you have any comments or feedback on the data I would be pleased to hear from you barrys@bromley.ac.uk