Today we have videos of the QuickStop, in case photos and the writing on it just weren't enough! These were just uploaded so they might still be processing.
Tuesday, 22 January 2008
Sunday, 20 January 2008
Busy Day on the island
It was a busy day on the island, we had several vistors, a few CCH people and several view askewers. Overall people enjoyed the area and I hope that the reaction people like Kevin Smith has is just as good.
Thursday, 17 January 2008
Endorsements
The project has had a warm reception over at the hardcore view askew boards.
spookydukes
Posted: Tue Jan 15, 2008 1:16 pm Post subject:
This project sounds really, really interesting. I've been meaning to check out Second Life for a while now, and when I do I'll be sure to stop by.
Proteus Zero
Location: Tegucigalpa, Honduras Post suject:
Good job, sir.
Streetsim
Location: Hamden, CT Post subject:
I visited it and was amazed at the detail of the store!
CinnamonGrrl Erin
Post subject:
Wow, it looks great!
So far the detail, visual style and general proposal behind the project appear to be valid and with merit! Let's hope this weekend's opening is as succesful.
spookydukes
Posted: Tue Jan 15, 2008 1:16 pm Post subject:
This project sounds really, really interesting. I've been meaning to check out Second Life for a while now, and when I do I'll be sure to stop by.
Proteus Zero
Location: Tegucigalpa, Honduras Post suject:
Good job, sir.
Streetsim
Location: Hamden, CT Post subject:
I visited it and was amazed at the detail of the store!
CinnamonGrrl Erin
Post subject:
Wow, it looks great!
So far the detail, visual style and general proposal behind the project appear to be valid and with merit! Let's hope this weekend's opening is as succesful.
Tuesday, 15 January 2008
Monday, 14 January 2008
New video coming soon!
We've had the same video up since development and people have suggested changing it to something new, perhaps the Clerks 2 trailer, add some colour. I've put in a request to the masters of the island so hopefully we'll see it in the next few days.
Saturday, 12 January 2008
Crossing the Ts and dotting the lower case js
Well, as the project has now gone final, I will put up my metadata. This forms the core information about sources for the project, where textures came from, what was altered, if anything.
The point of metadata like this, I feel, is that when you reach the end of a project such as this you aren't simply left with a model. During a presentation about metadata and recording methods and research it was very well illustrated that the journey was more important than the result by way of the research. If one ended up with only a model when new programs were made and something light years ahead of Second Life is released having a basic model won't help. This data is about demonstrating the resources used and having a record for the future. One of the questions asked in the seminar went along the lines of "well what's the point seeing as in five to ten years it will look as the nintendo 8 bit looks to the nintendo wii?" and the awnser was it doesn't matter because all the project and research data and methods are known so if we wanted to recreate it all we would have to do is use the new software, not conduct the research all over again and so on. The research is the hard part and trying to (in Classics work) reconcile conflicting information. I suppose in film and with reference to a project like this the conflicting information is different cuts. But thankfully we don't have to guess about light and how the sun shone into a roman theatre and where it was built and at what angle. Anyway, here is the metadata:
UPDATE:
January 19th, 2008.
http://www.heise.de/english/newsticker/news/83948
The German collecting society GEMA has obtained from the District Court in Cologne temporary injunctions against the operator of the data exchange services www.rapidshare.de and www.rapidshare.com.
---------
Sorry everybody, this spells trouble. I will find a new place to upload the spreadsheet. Please standby.
New link!
metadata_spreadsheet_QuickStop_AVMAVH.xls
The point of metadata like this, I feel, is that when you reach the end of a project such as this you aren't simply left with a model. During a presentation about metadata and recording methods and research it was very well illustrated that the journey was more important than the result by way of the research. If one ended up with only a model when new programs were made and something light years ahead of Second Life is released having a basic model won't help. This data is about demonstrating the resources used and having a record for the future. One of the questions asked in the seminar went along the lines of "well what's the point seeing as in five to ten years it will look as the nintendo 8 bit looks to the nintendo wii?" and the awnser was it doesn't matter because all the project and research data and methods are known so if we wanted to recreate it all we would have to do is use the new software, not conduct the research all over again and so on. The research is the hard part and trying to (in Classics work) reconcile conflicting information. I suppose in film and with reference to a project like this the conflicting information is different cuts. But thankfully we don't have to guess about light and how the sun shone into a roman theatre and where it was built and at what angle. Anyway, here is the metadata:
UPDATE:
January 19th, 2008.
http://www.heise.de/english/newsticker/news/83948
The German collecting society GEMA has obtained from the District Court in Cologne temporary injunctions against the operator of the data exchange services www.rapidshare.de and www.rapidshare.com.
---------
Sorry everybody, this spells trouble. I will find a new place to upload the spreadsheet. Please standby.
New link!
metadata_spreadsheet_QuickStop_AVMAVH.xls
Friday, 11 January 2008
Paradata
I open the second blog post with a quote of the London Charter from the glossary of terms:
The Charter defines “paradata” as information about human processes of understanding and interpretation of data objects. (Paradata is thus constantly being created, irrespective of whether they are systematically recorded or disseminated.) Example of paradata include a note recording method in a laboratory report, descriptions stored within a structured dataset of how evidence was used to interpret an artefact, or a comment on methodological premises within a research publication. It is closely related, but somewhat different in emphasis, to “contextual metadata”.
This is kind of an odd thing for the QuickStop. One is always trying make things more perfect or editing things slightly. I'll talk a bit about the people who dropped by in the project and the feedback I received plus my thoughts in the development. As it is so close metadata I'll talk and think about mental side of things, the constantly created aspect and talk about the metadata another post.
I found the most influential aspects of "mental" paradata, the stuff that is constantly being created in one's mind, to be the decisions about what to do and what materials to use or create. The plan was to make the QS and a space. It's kind of taken on a life (a second life?).
The changes that were made to this were based on user demand. People said "Where's RST Video?" So that was built. Then the shops were deserted, so clerks were put in. Then I wanted sound to be in compliance with the project plan, so dialogue that was technically suitable was chosen.
So many things happened that I didn't see coming as I lacked experience with Second Life. Items as the walls which were originally using the concrete texture from Second Life. Relying on Second Life wasn't going to work, upon completion I had uploaded 130 textures in total. Each one added as something came up, some accidentally uploaded twice in the wee hours.
Other odd things came up like doing different languages for the note cards. I felt this was a bit of a stretch in regards to the context of the project. No effort was made to exclude others. English was the supported language because the message boards, the vast majority of wiki content and the DVD commentaries are in English. I do not expect a free translator would have done very well.
Adam Rosmer, hahaRepublic King and Betta Palen often came by during development and gave me suggestions. These were users I had not seen in Second Life before and were very interested in the project overall. They formed an unofficial beta user group of fans. Betta Palen and I collaberated on the Dante avatar. Melancholy Graves (Drew) also made several appearences and taught me a few things about how scripting worked. He donated the script which made the clerks always face in your direction. His help was very valuable as I had contemplated making a side and back for the clerks. This was a much more sophisticated and apt solution.
Interpretation of the project was mostly done in the planning phase but as I made things and became more experienced I got new ideas, such as the dump out the back and putting in references to the X-Files and Cloverfield. Things like the products inside the store came down to qualities such as mise en scene and screen accuracy on the metadata table. Things like the Koala Mutant Bear is a direct line from the film as a befuddled customer reads out a headline thus it is screen accuracy, just like the world's fattest man weds world's tiniest woman paper which featured prominently in shots. This differs, for example to things like the Get Fat Pack cereal box which was mise en scene, setting the scene, of the a convenience store.
That brings to mind the aspect of the limits and new areas Second Life gave the project. SL is limited in ways such as the prim count (the building block of all objects are prims) and thus having a massive amount of detail, will slow down the client computer and the network. So a builder is limited to having a sensible/low amount of prims. This prevents one from creating a picture perfect QuickStop.
Navigation is another problem. I don't know why you can't walk around as if you are in a first person shooter. Being able to move around with precision is important inside the virtual realm. I found it terribly frustrating not to be able to have a first person view when building something and when you are in first person you cannot interact with things except for left click.
Other aspects of the project which, in an ideal world, would be different would be linking up the QuickStop with Eden Prairie mall, the setting of Smith's second film, Mallrats. In an cut scene the lead actors drive past the QuickStop. This is where the road leading past the shops would have been going on an infinite time/budget basis. But what would you do there? In Second Life so many people earn a living from selling virtual objects and the Linden dollar is an actual traded currency. A user could make a virtual shopping mall and sell virtual goods or real goods in an Amazon kind of way as an extension of the Internet/brick and mortar shops that Smith runs, called Jay and Silent Bob's secret stash. This would start treading into a Metaverse as in Snowcrash, a brilliant book, or Ghost In The Shell. There are other elements that could be added such as a film RPG type element such as the I Am Legend publicity campaign module that sprung up in Second Life. Elements like these may simply replicate the film in a new medium, which would ultimately be pointless. Some aspects of items originally made for screen are may be converted into a digital paradigm but the purest and most compelling form will likely remain within the film itself.
Next up, metadata.
The Charter defines “paradata” as information about human processes of understanding and interpretation of data objects. (Paradata is thus constantly being created, irrespective of whether they are systematically recorded or disseminated.) Example of paradata include a note recording method in a laboratory report, descriptions stored within a structured dataset of how evidence was used to interpret an artefact, or a comment on methodological premises within a research publication. It is closely related, but somewhat different in emphasis, to “contextual metadata”.
This is kind of an odd thing for the QuickStop. One is always trying make things more perfect or editing things slightly. I'll talk a bit about the people who dropped by in the project and the feedback I received plus my thoughts in the development. As it is so close metadata I'll talk and think about mental side of things, the constantly created aspect and talk about the metadata another post.
I found the most influential aspects of "mental" paradata, the stuff that is constantly being created in one's mind, to be the decisions about what to do and what materials to use or create. The plan was to make the QS and a space. It's kind of taken on a life (a second life?).
The changes that were made to this were based on user demand. People said "Where's RST Video?" So that was built. Then the shops were deserted, so clerks were put in. Then I wanted sound to be in compliance with the project plan, so dialogue that was technically suitable was chosen.
So many things happened that I didn't see coming as I lacked experience with Second Life. Items as the walls which were originally using the concrete texture from Second Life. Relying on Second Life wasn't going to work, upon completion I had uploaded 130 textures in total. Each one added as something came up, some accidentally uploaded twice in the wee hours.
Other odd things came up like doing different languages for the note cards. I felt this was a bit of a stretch in regards to the context of the project. No effort was made to exclude others. English was the supported language because the message boards, the vast majority of wiki content and the DVD commentaries are in English. I do not expect a free translator would have done very well.
Adam Rosmer, hahaRepublic King and Betta Palen often came by during development and gave me suggestions. These were users I had not seen in Second Life before and were very interested in the project overall. They formed an unofficial beta user group of fans. Betta Palen and I collaberated on the Dante avatar. Melancholy Graves (Drew) also made several appearences and taught me a few things about how scripting worked. He donated the script which made the clerks always face in your direction. His help was very valuable as I had contemplated making a side and back for the clerks. This was a much more sophisticated and apt solution.
Interpretation of the project was mostly done in the planning phase but as I made things and became more experienced I got new ideas, such as the dump out the back and putting in references to the X-Files and Cloverfield. Things like the products inside the store came down to qualities such as mise en scene and screen accuracy on the metadata table. Things like the Koala Mutant Bear is a direct line from the film as a befuddled customer reads out a headline thus it is screen accuracy, just like the world's fattest man weds world's tiniest woman paper which featured prominently in shots. This differs, for example to things like the Get Fat Pack cereal box which was mise en scene, setting the scene, of the a convenience store.
That brings to mind the aspect of the limits and new areas Second Life gave the project. SL is limited in ways such as the prim count (the building block of all objects are prims) and thus having a massive amount of detail, will slow down the client computer and the network. So a builder is limited to having a sensible/low amount of prims. This prevents one from creating a picture perfect QuickStop.
Navigation is another problem. I don't know why you can't walk around as if you are in a first person shooter. Being able to move around with precision is important inside the virtual realm. I found it terribly frustrating not to be able to have a first person view when building something and when you are in first person you cannot interact with things except for left click.
Other aspects of the project which, in an ideal world, would be different would be linking up the QuickStop with Eden Prairie mall, the setting of Smith's second film, Mallrats. In an cut scene the lead actors drive past the QuickStop. This is where the road leading past the shops would have been going on an infinite time/budget basis. But what would you do there? In Second Life so many people earn a living from selling virtual objects and the Linden dollar is an actual traded currency. A user could make a virtual shopping mall and sell virtual goods or real goods in an Amazon kind of way as an extension of the Internet/brick and mortar shops that Smith runs, called Jay and Silent Bob's secret stash. This would start treading into a Metaverse as in Snowcrash, a brilliant book, or Ghost In The Shell. There are other elements that could be added such as a film RPG type element such as the I Am Legend publicity campaign module that sprung up in Second Life. Elements like these may simply replicate the film in a new medium, which would ultimately be pointless. Some aspects of items originally made for screen are may be converted into a digital paradigm but the purest and most compelling form will likely remain within the film itself.
Next up, metadata.
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