Developers in Second Life have built a production flow that allows them to export models to 3DS for full rendering, re-importing the baked textures to Second Life to give builds an astonishing depth and giving a sense of immersion as seen in their sample build, the Neptune Club.
The developers may have hit upon a service that is representative of where commerce in-world is headed, namely services, augmentation, branding, and use of external tools. They offer to render existing builds, added a depth of lighting, reflection and texturing that’s nearly impossible in world without some very patient Photoshop work, and is usually clunky to achieve by building natively in Maya and other applications and then trying to import into SL. The owners of Neptune Lighting charge a fee for this service, and for builders, club owners, and commercial enterprises the value that it adds to in-world work can make a significant difference.
I haven’t talked to the developers yet but look forward to seeing demos of client work to hear how seamless the process is.
They’ve also done some pretty neat tricks with the floor combining glow, a transparent floor, and a reverse version of the build – common enough for experienced builders but done here with a really wonderful subtle effect that push the in-world tools to maximum effect (alpha, glow and transparency).
Wonderful work.
Wow. That look really impressive.
thats kinda lol since you can do that in maya for ages.
the whole scene still looks static and you cant remove pre-rendered furnitures or the illusion is broken. (their shadows remain on the floors/walls.)
of course you can opt to render the building only, but then, placing not baked furns there would make them strike out of the environment.
nonetheless, these designs (like the glass stuck forever on the bar on the image above) help SL look even more dead and haunted than it actually is.
Hey anonymous-not – can you point me to an export utility from SL to Maya? As I mention in the post, you can currently build and render in Maya and import into SL but that’s not always a help to SL-only developers. So if you’re aware of an export to Maya pipeline I would LOVE to hear about it.
As far as whether you like the look or feel I suppose it will be interesting to see what people do with their imagination. I suppose people might only see a glass stuck on a bar where others see opportunities and allow their creative juices to lift off of what is clearly supposed to be a demo. I imagine multiple renders of the same scene at different times of the day, with the textures being swappable based on a detect sun parameter. Aside from a cocktail lounge I’ll place my faith in the residents of SL to explore the possibilities.
As far as ‘dead and haunted’ I’d refer you to my earlier post on the subject and in particular the following:
- In RL, how often is a social group of friends (or even strangers for that matter) available to satisfy our whim to be entertained or ’social’? Social activities don’t happen because we want them to, they take a circle of friends, a network of shared plans, an understanding of each other’s patterns and preferences. Same is true for SL.
Not sure what your experiences have been in SL, or RL for that matter, I can just share my own perspective.