News From Arch Virtual
The latest in architectural visualization and virtual reality application development.
More Land on Architecture Island Finally Available!
The Architecture Island annex is almost complete, and rental land will be available within the next few days! Over half of it is already spoken for, but we still have a large 1/4 island lots available, as well as a handful of smaller 8,000 sqm parcels, and some...
Arcspace Joins the Second Life Architecture Community!
One of the best parts of being involved with Second Life are those days when something new is announced, or you discover something that just blows you away. Today is one of those days. I just found out that the premiere architecture blog arcspace.com is launching a...
Pining for Energy and Intensity in Virtual Worlds
Here's another great resource for the blogroll: Metaverse Territories From a recent post: "those of us who still have hope that the new territories of social and spatial experimentation that virtual worlds are shaping up to be, are an opportunity to actually build...
We Shape our Virtual Buildings and Afterwards, We Keep Shaping Them
Winston Churchill’s epic statement, "We shape our buildings and afterwards, our buildings shape us," is a fantastic observation of the architectural phenomenon, illuminating the fact that physical architecture is a static artifact and continues to transform us long...
Planning Visualization in Second Life
More deep thoughts from Digital Urban: "What would be great is to see such visualisations and designs moving into worlds such as Second Life, suggesting such issues to regeneration teams and local planners is however notoriously difficult...." I can't get enough of...
Virtual Architecture in the Blogosphere
Here is a narrowed down blogroll of sites that frequently or occasionally post about architecture in virtual environments. Please share yours! I know I'm only scratching the surface. These are in no particular order... Virtual Suburbia Digital Urban transArchitectural...
Collaborative Building in ‘Half-Life 2’
Check out the story at Clickable Culture. First, you need a 'Physics Gun', then you need a 'Tool Gun'. Sounds like they've done a nice job of keeping the toolbox contextual! =)
Exporting Entire Autodesk Maya (and 3DS?) Scenes into Second Life
". . . AND it will generate a primscript file, so that all these pieces and textures come together automatically. use it to export the entire scene." So, the natural question is, can we eventually use something like this to slice up an architectural model into 10m x...
Temporal Machinima
[youtube = http://youtube.com/watch?v=WuFkWCreXqU] This machinima, this essay by Theory Shaw, and a visit to this SLurl tell the whole picture. A great example of reflexivity and responsiveness in virtual architecture.
The Porchdog is Wired
The Porchdog project (link) we built on Architecture Island for Cameron Sinclair's debut appearance in Second Life just showed up in Wired (link to article). Original machinima HERE. "So far, the Porchdog house is the only one that has been replicated -- at least...
On Physical Replication in Virtual Environments
Among the most frequently debated topics related to architecture in virtual reality is the fact that the majority of the content replicates real life. It may initially seem absurd to replicate physical architecture of any kind in a virtual environment, since no amount...
Voice Enabled
Architecture Island is now Voice Enabled! Go to http://secondlife.com/community/firstlook.php, download the First Look Client, get a USB headphone/mic and join in for a chat!
Toward a New Virtual Architecture
This article at Technology Review (via reBang) highlights some very important elements that I believe lie at the core of a broader movement toward a new language of virtual architecture, building on the inherent value and opportunity of virtual worlds, and...
Reflexive Architecture
[youtube = http://youtube.com/watch?v=u-78CzpaCEM] Here is a brief machinima that hopefully describes the Architectural Jazz concept a bit more clearly. The idea is to make the inhabitant an active part of both the musical and architectural composition. In real life,...
Digital Urban’s First Rapid Modelling Build in Second Life
[youtube = http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjuIQdX74W4] Not bad! Whenever you're ready for that permanent plot of land, let us know - we're holding a place for you guys on Architecture Island!
Architectural Jazz, by Keystone Bouchard
(This is Keystone Bouchard's essay submission to the Ctrl-Shift-07 competition on Lebenswelt Island - screenshots also by Keystone. Slideshow HERE.) The cannon blast launching this competition triggered an architectural jam session! The ‘real-time evolution’ called...
