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  • Christa Forster 17:56 on 30/12/2013 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: The Planets,   

    Building My Second Self 

    Screen Shot 2013-12-29 at 8.09.57 PMI have been pursuing my second self for the better part of the past 24 hours.

    In my attempt to create my Second Life avatar, I have spent more than three hours getting my hair done, three hours trying to decide what to wear, and at least three more hours trying to figure out how to wear what I have decided to wear. It’s almost as confusing and frustrating and ridiculous as it sounds. I’m doing this because I hope to participate in Vanessa Blaylock’s Dance for Camera: The Planets. The deadline for making my avatar is, like, yesterday, becauseĀ Oceania Planetary Park (LEA 27) CLOSES on 1 January 2014. Alas, we thought we had more time — story of our lives (our first AND second lives).

    The learning process has been tedious, riveting and downright funny. For example, it took me over two hours to go from this, to this, to this and FINALLY — after scouring forums — to this!
    (More …)

     

    • Christa Forster 18:32 on 30/12/2013 Permalink | Reply

      FYI — Vanessa has been a most accommodating and generous teacher. Thank you, Vanessa!

    • Vanessa 19:35 on 30/12/2013 Permalink | Reply

      Go Xta! The way you Dance, Walk, Stand, Pose, Fly, or anything else is by animating the 21 joints of your avatar’s body. You can create your own animations with a free, easy program like QAvimator (unfortunately it may not run (or will freeze) on current Macs) Fine on PCs.
      http://qavimator.org/

      The “how to” tutorial:
      http://youtu.be/h_-3c_aC-O4

      You could also use Poser or any other body modeling software.

      Besides making your own, there are also a zillion animations for sale in SL. “Dances” of every kind from Ballet to Hip Hop and even a few Ninja moves. And lots of “stands” “walks” etc. If you look at SL Marketplace, down the left column of categories, you’ll see animations:
      https://marketplace.secondlife.com/

      You could also search for any specific type of Dance or Walk you’d like. I’ll send you some In-World LM’s for shops where you can go stand on a base and try out lots of different animations.

      • Christa Forster 05:34 on 31/12/2013 Permalink | Reply

        Okay, so I went to a place:http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Thyris/254/60/24, and I created a dance, which I like! The dress works well with the moves. šŸ™‚

        Before I could “take [the] dance,” the notecard told me that I needed to purchase a Dance HUD, so that I could attach the dance I made to it. So I did. Then I went back to my Dance Master Terminal and “took dance.”

        Now, I have no idea what to do. I went to LEA 27 to see if I could dance it (my dance:), but I remembered that I can’t unpack stuff there. So I went to a public sandbox, but when I clicked on the Dance HUD, there was no option to “wear” or “do” the dance.

        So now I’m stuck again.

        Let’s meet tomorrow…I’ll be up available around 9:30 am CST. I’ll check in with you then.

  • Vanessa 21:01 on 24/12/2013 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , The Planets   

    Xta I just learned that Oceania Planetary Park… 

    Xta! I just learned that Oceania Planetary Park CLOSES on 1 January 2014! I’m fine either way on this, so if you want to get something done there in a week, we can, or if it’s too much rush we can skip it.

    With either choice on the physical site… I know you’ve written / recorded some voice on that. We can still do something with that. Where is that BTW? I saw/heard it from a PBR post and meant to comment on it but never had the chance.

    LMK what your pleasure is.
    Ho ho ho, Merry Christ[a]mas!

     

    • xtaforster 04:16 on 25/12/2013 Permalink | Reply

      Well! The nerve. I haven’t even gone in there yet. Gotta get in there. I wanna get something done in there — YES!

      Here’s the link to the ccmixster snippet. There’s been one remix! So cool.
      http://ccmixter.org/people/xtaforster

      Hugh McElveen mentioned that he might wanna remix it, so I will reach out to him to see if he’s still interested.

      I’m with my family right now in CA, but I could probably get in on the 27th or the 29th or the 31st. Around 7:30 PST. Any of those dates work for you?

      xo,
      xta

      • Vanessa 19:39 on 25/12/2013 Permalink | Reply

        Great Xta! All 3 can probably work, but 7:30 PST… AM or PM?

        On the audio: so cool that you got remixed!

        Your recording has a lot of “plosives” in it, which is your breath hitting directly on the microphone diaphragm. On a tiny speaker you might not even hear this, but on speakers with any low end, it tends to be very loud and moves a lot of air mass. The first person to remix it seems to have cleaned that out a little bit, but I think a different mixer could do better…

        Perhaps you’d be up for trying another recording. Without the plosives we might inspire another remix or two. There are a few ways to cut the plosives out. Some microphones have a “low cut” switch which helps. Also, if you aim your breath to go OVER the microphone, and not AT it, that can help a lot. A tool that works great is a “pop filter” which is a hoop with fabric over it. This blocks the big air mass of your plosives, but lets the frequencies of your speech through. You can buy one at most music shops. You can also make one by stretching sheer tights (stockings, pantyhose) over an embroidery hoop and putting that between your mouth and the microphone. You can also try to control how you let your breath out generally and on consonants like “H” and “P”.

        Even though you’d like to eliminate plosives, you still want to be as close to the microphone as you can be. If you back off the mic, you’ll get more and more room tone (it will sound like you’re speaking in a trash can) And a more “dead” room is better. So lots of furniture, sofas, books, fabric, etc will make you sound clearer. A room with lots of hard surfaces, bare walls, etc, will make you sound worse.

        A clean, flat voice track is a gift to a remixer who then has the maximum creative options for their mix. Yay!

    • xtaforster 04:02 on 27/12/2013 Permalink | Reply

      All good ideas. I totally know what you mean by the plosives. It’s a miracle anything got up there at all. That was built for deadline, baby! I’m probably not going to get it rerecorded before the 1st (I can try, but I don’t have a mic out here in California, which is where I am until the 28). So how about we try to meet in SL tomorrow? Let’s shoot for 7:30 a.m. if that works for you.

    • Rebecca 15:11 on 29/12/2013 Permalink | Reply

      What a great topic to be discussing! Never having been much of an online girl, the power and opportunities available through the online medium is something I have come to realize more and more within the past couple years. In realizing this I have attempted to make more of an effort to be present online and connect via the web but I have personally found it very difficult to feel connected when only communicating online, and struggle to get myself committed to such mediums when I find myself more drawn to the physical world in front of me–and I’m of the younger generation.

      I would argue some of it is because, as you both spoke to, many communication sites on the internet can seem so surface level with nothing that enriching coming out of them. But as you both speak about other websites with more intellectual and substantial material I am left to think it is not that the web itself is that banal but the sites that are most known, most frequented and for this reason tend to be the sites people (including myself) gravitate towards unconsciously and easily when online–making people intern want to delete their FB as they don’t want to gravitate towards these cites. The internet has such a wide array of possibilities, and people use it for mindless past-time as well as a way to develop their ideas but it’s all a matter of choice.

      But perhaps one of the benefits, and also the disadvantages, is when online you have the choice of what “watering holes” you will enter. Depending on what you read and where you voice your opinions you are choosing the people you most influence and are influenced by. This can be beneficial because you can be selective to what your needs or desires are, but can’t it also be somewhat dangerous by turning a blind eye to other parts of society that you may not identify with, but are still very much present. Of course this can be done in real life as well but when facing what’s directly in front of you, you don’t have as much of a choice for what comes at you or what “sites”, opinions, or visual imagery you get. The online world seems like a good reactionary and processing place to the real world for me. But I still find it somewhat limited on what you can really learn here and think perhaps your less likely to be surprised as you would in real life experiences. I think. Like you mentioned Michael, people need to be reached off-line as well as online but I think it extends beyond the friends who find such social media websites boring. The thing that makes me, perhaps the best word here is, nervous about this online movement is the amount that it has moved people away from direct contact and interaction. Which I think takes away a lot of little things to be learned, experienced, etc.

      • Vanessa 20:50 on 29/12/2013 Permalink | Reply

        Great Rebecca! On the Physical::Virtual mix, I think that varies a lot by personal taste. I think the wide distribution of preferences on what that mix is, is great. One way that people try to do both, is with Mobile Apps and Augmented Reality. Like an AR app to hold up your phone and see Yelp ratings superimposed on all the food places down the street. That’s definitely useful, but in a way also banal for me. With something like SnapChat, it likely isn’t high-value intellectual content, but it is a personal connection. In a way the radical idea of SnapChat is that it’s a lot about being an “old fashioned” phone conversation.

        I think you’re right about where to go for whatever part of your time you’re going to spend gazing into a flat-screen. Be that a little or a lot of time. Facebook does serve a purpose, but I think a lot of us seem to feel the less FB the better. My real hope is that we can interact here on .Re/act, .Re/search, etc, and build a Conversational Community. I think having a self-selected group who read/react to each other in a space like this can be the best. Our feedback will sometimes be insightful, but even if it isn’t, we’re getting go know a “place” and a group of people and I hope over time that can come to be substantive.

  • Vanessa 18:03 on 02/12/2013 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , , , The Planets   

    Hangout w/ Xta! 

    Hangout-Xta

    In the weekly Blueberry Google Hangout this week I met up with Christa Forster. We had a great chat about our Practice Based Research MOOC, making the most of the resources, continuing the conversation after it wraps up, etc. And we also talked about her participation in The Planets virtual dance for camera project I launched for both the PBR & Site Dance MOOCs. She’s creating a poem / monologue that she’ll record and put up on CCMixter / SoundCloud and see who uses it in a music track, and then we’ll take that work and use it as the score for her Mars “dance.”

     

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