Applications and Tools, Virtual World Platforms

Google’s Lively: Content Creation Tools Beta

Lively puts Google in the metaverse arena but many things it’s not – it’s not a world, it’s not a gaming platform, and it’s not a mash-up with Google Earth. You can’t script, there’s no commerce, and worst of all for users who cut their teeth on the user-generated worlds of Second Life, or even making clothes for their Sims….you can’t make anything.

But Google is renowned for launching and then fixing, adding, and sometimes trashing – and Lively is headed in the same direction.

Over on Game Artist, a link to one content developer’s Lively room (enter below) is meant as a sneak peek of what he’s created using Google’s content creation tools:

“I’m helping beta test the custom content tools for Google’s Lively. I thought I’d try making a portfolio of some of my other projects and putting them into a room. Check it out and let me know what you think of the idea and the work in there. You can leave comments in the room too.”

Well – hard to say if the results are, well, because of the tools or because of the artist. What’s clear, is they’re mesh based and look kind of sloppy sculpts – not unlike Plopp, actually, an application that exports sculpts to Second Life that come out looking like semi-deflated balloons.

Gwyn had noted that Google developers talked about an import tool from 3DS:

Some SL residents managed to talk to the Google Developers, and these said that there was a 3D Max plugin to allow the creation of content into Lively. The plugin works 90% of the time but it can only improve. There is no idea or plan or announcement on if that plugin will be released to the public

The models in this example don’t look much like 3DS. Again, they’re more Plopp than Maya.

While this particular artist’s portfolio isn’t going to leave the content creators on other platform clamoring for the Lively building tools, what’s clear is that they seem to be planning for them. And like the early days of Second Life – the prims might not be pretty, but they’re you’re own.

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