Second Life Extra Credit Questions

In case my Cc didn't work.

Did you use Second Life before the class?

No, I had only heard about it on the news and in passing.

Did you socialize with other residents in Second Life?

Not really, I talked with other students in the class mostly.

Did you notice any difference socializing with other residents who you did not know verses your classmates?

The few I did talk to did not seem very friendly nor very helpful whereas all my classmates I talked to were always willing to answer questions for me.

**added by Roger** Do you have any suggestions on what the Library could do with it’s Second Life island?

Continuing to add books and films is a really good idea, also if they had events in Second Life that were advertised at the University as Utah campus as well as online would be a neat way to get people together.

Getting Started in Second Life

Marriott Library
Thurs, April 24th 1-3pm
More Info

This was by far the worst of the three extra credit assignments, I was under the impression we were going to a lecture in Second Life and for a tour of the virtual Mariott Library. Only twenty minutes of the two hour ordeal was for the lecture... the rest of the time was spent getting people up and going in Second Life by creating characters, doing tutorials and finding their way to the library's island.

It was a huge waste of time for those of us who had taken Game Development, we had already had months of experience with the basics of Second Life and we had created games in Second Life, we in fact took tours of the games we had created. Alex and I were significantly younger than anyone else taking the class, most the people in it had never used Second Life and were on average about 45ish and female. The woman in front of me and the woman beside me were so excited that they could talk while they were both at work, I don't think either of them knew instant messengers exist.

The class was really geared towards an older crowd as well as a less experienced crowd, but that didn't stop them all from being impressed by my Kool-Aid man outfit.

This class could have been made much better if it would have been geared towards anyone wanting to know more about Second Life rather than just beginners. Also if they had shown people other things in Second Life such as buying outfits, cars and other stuff, they were all given money but not really told where to go to buy things.

For a first time user and this being the first of a class like this, it would have been very interesting and entertaining but I would not suggest assigning something like this again for students who have used Second Life already so more people who have never used it would've had an opportunity to use the class.

Machinimafest '08

WPRA Auditorium (OSH Building)
April 23rd 3:30pm

Machinimafest was a display of students work that combined both film and computer animations, it really was different than anything I'd seen before. Some were defiantly more entertaining than others but most of them were really well made. Some had some serious audio problems but maybe that was due to last minute editing or something.

The Passion of McCain was about John McCain and Hilary Clinton's love affair as they tried to hide it, the best part was the voices were not mimicked, the people who made the film used real clips of their voices and cut them into pieces. It made the film even funnier knowing that every word was something they had actually said at one point just not with the words in this order.

Higher Than Noon was a spoof on typical westerns, it was really funny and often the whole auditorium seemed to be laughing.

My personal favorite was Villains Anonymous, it was essentially an alcoholics anonymous meeting but for villains with problems. It was a really funny mix of characters from Darth Vader to the monster from Doom. Some of the films defiantly seemed to drag on for me but even though this was one of the longest I was a little sad when it was over.

Personally the films like The Nameless Traveler and other more serious films did not hold my interest as well as the spoofs or funny ones did.

It was really impressive knowing that they made all of these using the Half Life 2 engine, I honestly had no idea things like that were possible.

Fiction Finished

I searched and searched for friends for Sarah on blogger but it didn't work out so well, I thought afterwards that doing a myspace page and blogging on that may have been a better idea.
Sarah

Fine Arts Technology Gallery Opening Extra Credit

New Media Wing
Monday, April 21 5-8 pm

This was a really interesting and exciting extra credit assignment, the gallery opening featured University of Utah's students capstone projects. One of the projects was a game called Curupira, the whole basis of it was to send a message about saving the rain forests. The game was played like a typical side scrolling platformer with you playing a character given a bow and arrows to defend your rain forests with.

I really liked this game, it looked really good with bright colors and fluid animations it also played well, I told Travis that if it was a Nintendo DS game I would have bought it. The game was entertaining but it also very clearly gave its message about the rain forests including some information about rain forests at the end. I was also really impressed when he said the game had been made in about a month, it really did look like it would've taken longer than that(although I suppose if they worked long hours every day for a month it would make sense).

Another students project was based on the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator Test that works kind of like a personality test. Her project consisted of pictures that had different options for the user to click(it was done on a computer) and based on the pictures they chose it would basically give the user a summary of their personality traits. Travis had taken the Myers-Briggs test a few weeks before this gallery and got the same results on both tests. My results pegged me as The Inspirer which after seeing the traits and reading more online is very accurate for my personality. I was really impressed with her ability to create something like this that requires someone to use their subconscious attraction to images to help understand their personality.

There were also three other projects to see but they didn't captured my attention like these two did. I was so intrigued by the Myers-Briggs Test that I've spent plenty of time online reading more about it.

fake sarah blog

I'm going to make the majority of the posts on saturday night to try and make the blog more believable.
sarah

Step three

Sarah- A high school student, giddy about finally getting to go to prom with her crush. Her motivation is to tell Adam how she feels, and her goal being to become Adams girlfriend. Her conflict is that she and Adam have been friends for so long she's worried he will not see her as a girlfriend. Her epiphany is that Adam is not really the person she thought he was, and that he is not nearly as sensitive as she thought he was.

Sarah is a highly motivated student, who plans on going to college and making something of herself. As graduation nears she worries that she will never be able to tell Adam how she has been feeling, so she asks him to go to prom with her in hopes that she will be able to open up to him. Sarah has been so infatuated with him that she has over looked many of his short comings, but comes to realize this when he stands her up on prom night to go with another girl at their high school instead.