News From Arch Virtual
The latest in architectural visualization and virtual reality application development.
Dynamic Shadows in Second Life
[update: over at NWN, this post includes an explanation of how to get dynamic shadows running on your machine, as well as some ideas regarding the potential troubles and opportunities associated with dynamic shadows] I noticed this over on Torley's blog. Dynamic shade...
Wikitecture 3.0 Wins both Founder’s Award and 3rd Place!
From Studio Wikitecture blog: It is with great pleasure I bring you the news that Studio Wikitecture’s entry in the Open Architecture Network Challenge was awarded the ‘Founder’s Award’ as well as ‘3rd Place’ for our design of the Nyaya Tele-Medicine facility in...
Opening of Real Life +Second Life Museum Exhibition at The Tech: Keynote by Philip Rosedale
Earlier this year, The Tech Museum of Innovation invited Second Life residents to collaborate around the design of exhibits for their real life museum in San Jose for an upcoming exhibition, 'Art, Film & Music'. They had already built a replica of their physical...
The ARCH Listed as Number 14 of 25 Most Popular Architecture-Related Blogs
Eikongraphia recently published MoPo 2008 , listing The Arch as number 14 on the list! We're in good company too! 1. BLDGBLOG 2. City of Sound 3. Archidose 4. Pruned 5. Interactive Architecture 6. Architecture.mnp 7. Subtopia 8. Life Without Buildings 9. Tropolism 10....
Tutorial: How to Replicate a Real Life Building in Second Life [updated]
One of the most frequently requested services I receive as a freelance builder and consultant in Second Life is to replicate real-life buildings. While I've written a lot (here, and here) about the potential for a new (non-replica) language of purely virtual...
Second Life’s Enterprise Boom
Here are a few tremors from this week's roundup from the virtual frontier: BusinessWeek - "Moving beyond Second Life marketing, many companies are infiltrating virtual worlds for employee meetings, mixers, and recruiting."...
Smart Buildings – Strategies for Saving Costs & Generating Revenue: Streaming Live into Second Life from the Serious Games Institute
"Integrating Physical and Virtual Worlds to Add Real Value to Buildings" Serious Games Institute Technology Workshop - Smart Buildings - Strategies for Saving Costs & Generating Revenue This coming Wednesday , May 14th at 4:30am SL-time, an event taking place in...
Exodus to the Virtual Workplace, Part 3
Assuming I have established a viable case for the 3D virtual workplace in post 1 and 2, what about the actual planning, design and virtual architecture required to support it? What are the new characteristics of this environment that deserve consideration when...
Exodus to the Virtual Workplace, Part 2
Lets start with a brief thought trial before I get too far. Take a look at this familiar list of just some of the businesses who have, at some point, had a presence in Second Life: Accenture, AccuWeather, ABN AMRO, Aegon, Ajax Football Club, Alcatel Lucent, AMD,...
Exodus to the Virtual Workplace, Part 1
[see also part 2 and part 3] I'm often asked if it is actually possible to make a living practicing virtual architecture in Second Life. As it turns out, I have indeed become quite a virtual Bedouin lately, and have been lucky enough to derive an equal or greater...
Casting Shadows
These past few months have brought about a rather exciting surge of announcements and renewed energy around the OpenSIM project, the open source virtual world platform. Though it is still alpha level code, the future potential is obvious, especially for those of us...
Second Life Tutorials
I never realized just how much I actually didn't know about Second Life until I watched Torley Linden's Second Life Tutorials. Not only are they crystal clear in direction, but Torley keeps them entertaining and upbeat as well. If you're totally new, start on Volume 1...
Video of Wikitecture Presentation at Metaverse U Now Available
If you can't tell, I was more than a little nervous, and couldn't quite shake my midwestern accent! =) Many thanks to Henrik Bennetsen, Stanford University and everyone who helped make Metaverse U so successful (see more videos HERE). We did receive a lot of positive...
All the Splendor of the Mayan World in Second Life
I tried to snag a few teaser screenshots for this post, but I don't think they really convey the quality of this build the way a personal visit would. You'll just have to go see it for yourself! Here's the release: You are cordially invited to the GRAND OPENING of...
New SLurl for the Gallery of Reflexive Architecture
Still the same content, just moved a bit to the west... http://slurl.com/secondlife/architecture/189/112/601/?title=Gallery%20of%20Reflexive%20Architecture
Modeling Real Life in Virtual Worlds
We've been wondering lately - in terms of public virtual worlds, which will be more robust and populous in 5 years, mirror world replication of our real life environment or fantasy-based environments? Should Second Life developers, or even Linden Lab itself, be more...