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Transforming Secondlife® Mesh Art into Real Life Sculptures

12/29/2014

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click to enlarge image
In the last half of this year (2014) I have been working on an exciting personal art goal / project that was triggered by a sweet opportunity that fell in my lap earlier in the summer.  This blog is to tell you about my progress to date on this project - the transformation of one of my SecondLife® (SL) mesh art sculptures into a Real Life (RL) art sculpture using 3D Printing.
PictureExample of Mesh / 2D Art in SL
Since January 2012 when Mesh technology was emerging in SL, I have been creating 3D Mesh Art for the SL grid as a way to extend my exploration of artistic creativity beyond my 2D photo art.  To date, I have created several SL art sculptures.  They are on display in my SL Art Gallery as well as exhibited at several SL's fine public art galleries and have been purchased by art loving SL residents.  I also created 2D wall art interpretations for each of my 3D art sculptures.  Wall art provides a unique and deeper interpretation of my sculptures.

But what I have always dreamed of but never thought would be reality would be to transform my 3D SL virtual art sculptures into real life bronzed art sculptures that I could create and sell to my art customers.  To be able to see my art as a tangible tactile object to see and touch in real life would bring so much more meaning to my art !

PictureRaw 3D model image
Then this summer my dream of transforming my SL mesh to RL art was kick started when an unknown art customer messaged me at my ToysoldierThor DeviantArt profile and told me he was interested in actually 3D printing his personal Makerbot 3D printer for personal reasons.

He was referring to my raw SHATTERED 3D art model as I had posted it as a high rez image on my Deviant Art profile (image to the left - click image to see it on my Deviant Art site).  I never thought anyone would see this raw model and want to have access to the actual MODEL for the purpose of 3D printing.  As such, initially I did not know if to give him my model and what to charge him for getting it.

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Then a light went on in my head!  I always wanted a 3D printing of one of my sculptures, so, offer him my model if he would print a copy of Shattered for me as well.  He willingly agree!  In fact he asked if I wanted to print any of my other mesh models instead of Shattered.  I said that Shattered is my favorite art sculpture and I would be happy to have this one printed.  

He also did tell me the purpose for him wanting Shattered.  It would be made as the trophy for the loser of his buddies that play a monthly game of cards.  I laughed.  His story also helped me confirm his intents were legitimate and solely meant for a one time print for personal reasons.  

We agreed to the deal.  I emailed him an exported lower resolution STL formatted file of my Shattered model from my Zbrush and also gave him my mailing address.  Five weeks later a box arrived with my raw 3D print of Shattered in Black ABS plastic.  As you can see from the image on the right, it is actually quite small - 3.5" tall.  The pen laying beside the model gives a good perspective of its size.  If you click to enlarge the image you will see that although the print quality for a personal 3D printer is pretty good, it is still a rather low as you can actually see the layering in places (look closely at the KNEES to see an example of lower resolution 3D prints).  This is expected from this lower end type of 3D printer.

There is good news though to resolve this visible layering of ABS material models.  It is commonly referred to as "Acetone Vapor Smoothing" or Smoothing the model.  I have included a good quick YouTube video (courtesy of "Trenchphysics") example of what it is and how it is done.  There are many variations and techniques to putting your model through an vapor smoothing step - this video just shows one way.

Basically, the rough surfaced ABS plastic model is chemically surface melted by bathing the model in Acetone vapors (yes - fingernail polish remover) until the small ridges on the model sag and blend with the surrounding surface.
You must be careful as you are working with a poisonous and flammable vapor.  Also, you don't want to over smooth it as it will begin removing any smaller details on the model that were meant to be there.  Luckily for my Shattered model, this was not the case since Shattered has not overly intricate design elements that a vapor smoothing bath would hurt.  So, after researching several videos on how this smoothing was accomplished, I came up with my process on how I would do it.
I purchased a large lose-lid glass jar that could hold my model.  I created a thin wire hanger that would suspend my model in the middle of the jar without it touching anything.  I then stuffed a paper towel in the lid knob.

I had a bottle of fingernail polish remover and soaked the paper towel with it. I also poured a 1/4" of this acetone into the jar.  Finally I laid a sheet of paper towel over the jar and soaked it with acetone then put the lid on.

To activate the vapors in the jar I placed the jar on my stove and set the element to the lowest of "keep warm" heat.  Then I watched the magic.  
As you see in the photos, the vapor condensations became visible on the wall of the jar.  Also, the model started melting in the vapors.  Since the vapors can only touch the surface of the model, the model itself will not melt in any way as it is not being heated.  Only the surface of the model is melting and smoothing.  After about 10 minutes I noticed the bottom (i.e. the legs) were becoming very smooth and the top of the model not as much.  But I didn't want to ruin the model by over smoothing it so I stopped the process to assess the situation and decide if I should go longer.  

Well here is where I did a stupid move.  Since the jar had vapors and i didn't want it to escape out of the jar and into the house, I opened the door to my back patio deck and placed the hot glass jar on the deck. Within about 5 seconds the glass jar exploded on the bottom as the hot glass was placed on a very cool deck.  That was the end of my brand new smoothing jar as well as any notion to continue the smoothing. :(  You can see in the last photo in the series what the model looked like after its vapor smoothing bath.  Not that bad even though it could have gone in a bit longer.
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The next step was to re-apply a color and texture to the Shattered model similar to the original BRONZE that I desired it to simulate.  The best I could find was a Tremclad "hammered metal" textured spray paint.  So off Shattered went to be spray painted.

I applied a few coats to the model to attain the glossy look and to allow the paint to further assist in smoothing the model where the vapor smoothing ended (thanks to my goof up move).  After a couple days the model was completely dry to touch.
Although the Shattered model was not actual bronze metal and I made a couple mistakes in the final smoothing process, it turned out better than I would have expected as a 3D print coming from a small low resolution personal 3D printer.  It also has been so satisfying to see my SL virtual world art sculpture actually on its knees at my office desk.

But I decided my Shattered model needed a base to kneel on similar to the one it rests on in my art gallery in SL.  So I started another project to make a stand out of pottery clay - something I have never done before.  

I went to the art store and bought a box of clay, sculpting knives, broken colored glass, paints, and brushes.  Then I started on creating the stand.
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Helps to read the instructions - which I didn't.  I molded the clay over a round metal container thinking this was a great idea.  Well, a day after I finished my base, it cracked all over the place.  I ended up fixing it with more clay until it stopped creating more cracks.  

Finally, I painted the base similar to how i envisioned it in SL.  I think placed my Shattered sculpture on its new stand and took some portrait photos of it in the somber dark lighting it belonged in.

For the photo I provided to the left, I inset a photo of Shattered at my SL Art Gallery so that everyone can see the transformation from 3D SL mesh sculpture, to 2D wall art, to its actual RL sculpture evolution.

WHAT'S NEXT ! ! ? ?
Well a lot is next.  Some of it I have already completed recently.  As I mentioned at the beginning of this blog post, my vision and goal has always been to transform my SL virtual world art to actual metal / bronze sculptures that I could offer to my art customers as realistic priced art in RL.  This first plastic model is not good enough.
As such, I knew that the several 3D print services like SHAPEWAYS can print in several materials from plastic, to steel, sandstone, to even precious metals like silver, gold, and platinum (if you want to play $130K US for a sculpture).

So in the past couple weeks I set up an account, store front, and my first Shattered model on Shapeways.  

Click: TO OPEN LINK TO MY SHAPEWAYS SHATTERED

Although I have yet to print or have sold one of my Shattered models there, Shapeways does provide a simulation of the model if it were printed in one of the materials.  To the right you see Shattered in polished bronze and silver.
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courtesy: Tany Foundry
Then this past week via a response to one of my twitter posts of how my model is now on Shapeways, the potential door opened for me to accomplish my ultimate door.  The owner of a Metal Art Sculptures foundry in China noticed my twitter posting and approached me with what they have to offer in transforming 3D model artworks into actual cast statues of bronze and stainless steel.  

I have been in dialog with the owner to learn more of the process and costs.  The exciting news is that the production costs are far less than producing via 3D printing and it is cast bronze sculptures based on high resolution 3D SLA prints of the master mold.
I have seen examples of their work and if my model were cast in bronze as they recommended, it would have a patina and texture and coloring that perfectly matches my original vision of the Shattered sculpture as it was in my 3D model tool.  The image to the upper left is an example of the texture on a bronzed model they completed.

At the time of this blog post release I am still in the process of working out logistics.  My plan is that if my final landed pricing of the bronze sculptures remains reasonable, my plan is to put a call out to those in my SL community and in my RL community to ask if anyone would be interested in owning my FIRST BRONZED ART SCULPTURE.  It would be a FIRST CASTING they would own.  If I can get a pre-order commitment for the minimum casting quantity of five, I will place an order with this foundry to cast my first art sculptures in bronze

So stay tuned for hopefully some exciting news coming from this work.
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Christmas ExtravaDanza by Euphoria on LEA12 - Spectacular!

12/21/2014

3 Comments

 
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CHRISTMAS EXTRAVADANZA by EUPHORIA Dance Troupe

This week (December 17th - 21st, 2014) has been the spectacular concluding set of four shows by the SecondLife® Euphoria dance troupe that was granted access to Linden Lab's LEA12 sim for the past 3 months.  

Euphoria's CHRISTMAS EXTRAVADANZA production showed that they wanted to leave LEA12 with a super-nova bang that wow'ed all those that experienced it.

Toy was lucky enough to experience the Saturday afternoon show and wanted show you all a small glimpse of this amazing show!

The Christmas ExtravaDanza is a major production / show whereby guests get into and take a magical two hour Santa-guided Christmas sleigh ride tour through the LEA12 sim that was beautifully transformed into multiple Christmas themed stages.  The ride is very similar to taking a long guided ride through a real-life adventure theme park.

The sleigh rode the show guests through the entire sim, stopping at each holiday stage where members of the Euphoria dancers performed a choreographed dance to perfectly selected music.  When the dance completed, our Santa tour guide moved the guest laden sleigh to the next stage to witness the next music / dance / stage performance.  I counted 11 stages where the Euphoria team performed for the sleigh guests !  
The sleigh itself is an amazing feat of SecondLife engineering as it held over 25 riders - some guests actually sat on the reindeer and the edges of the sleigh when there were no more seats!  To create a form of transportation that could even attach and move over 25 laggy avatars is amazing.

The sleigh was pulled by Santa's reindeer and other than a couple laggy hesitations / stops during the rides between stages, it went quite smoothly.  Even when there were unexpected pauses, our Santa tour guide entertained the audience as did the audience itself in fun entertaining local chat!
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Click to enlarge and see the sleigh - stopped at a Toy Factory stage
The entire tour, the selection of all the music between stages, the fantastic choreographed dances by several of the Euphoria members that created and performed, the sim build by the talented RestlessSoul Blackheart, the creation of the entire concept produced by SexyS Quintessa.  It all came together to provide the audience with a spectacular Christmas holiday experience not to be forgotten.  

Here are some photos I captured during our amazing ride through Euphoria's magical Christmas ExtravaDanza....
I have been a HUGE fan of the extremely creative and talented individuals in SecondLife's large an growing community of the staged dance performance community.  Their talents rival what anyone would see on a real life stage or a Hollywood production.  We are blessed to be able to witness their works in SecondLife!  For those in SecondLife that were not aware of this community or that believed it was just some tacky dances of avatars on an animation.... YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU ARE ALL MISSING !


Below is a clip of the official Christmas ExtravaDanza show by the Euphoria Team that includes the show times and all the credits they wished to acknowledge about this amazing production:

No need to pout, cry or shout... Santa Claus IS coming to town AND he is taking YOU for a magical journey on his sleigh! A sim-wide winter wonderland awaits, with reindeer stopping along the way for you to enjoy the splendor of Christmas, celebrated with music and dance!

* A sleigh ride across a winter wonderland of spectacular dances, celebrating Christmas around the world and through time!


* From the North Pole to Whoville, a lighted ice palace to Victorian charm, frozen forest fantasy to rusty Holden utes, this very special show will be a highlight of your holiday season.

* Some of SL's most dedicated dancers have been working very hard to create a Christmas ExtravaDanza for your enjoyment.

* Featuring a sim-wide venue built by RestlessSoul Blackheart! Bring your camera and stay after the show to tour the sim, ice skate, have snow ball fights, and line up to sit on Santa's lap. You are invited to enjoy the sim and take lots of pictures!

WITH CHOREOGRAPHY BY:
SexyS Quintessa
BabyP von Phoenix
Gunner von Phoenix
Aelva
Chandra Meehan
Diawa Bellic
Jilley
Kellan 
Misse Tigerpaw
Setsuna Hirano
Ayita
Winnie
MaarVoLous

PRODUCED BY:
Miss SexyS Quintessa

FOUR SHOWS:
Dec. 17th at 9pm SLT
Dec. 19th at 9pm SLT
Dec. 20th at 1pm SLT
Dec. 21st at 1pm SLT
FINE PRINT: Not all choreographers will perform at every show

This very special holiday presentation is the final offering on LEA12, the sim granted to Euphoria by Linden Endowment for the Arts. In its final month, it features ExtravaDanza, the new dance troupe directed by SexyS Quintessa, in a Christmas around the world and through time production! Mark your calendars and bring your wish list, plan to stay after the show and enjoy the sim... great photo opportunities, snow ball fights, ice skating, and a chance to sit on Santa's lap!

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/LEA12/124/124/40

Believing is seeing!! We got THE GRINCH!!

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Toy is Cat-Q Featured Artist in December 2014 Rez Magazine

12/7/2014

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This past November, Toysoldier Thor was approached by Cat Boccaccio, contributor of the popular Rez Magazine for SecondLife Arts and Life.

Cat is known for her Cat Q series in each issue whereby she poses the same 14 leading questions to a selected Artist in the SecondLife community.  Cat then creates a Q & A article for the next issue.

Toy was honored to be selected by Cat to be her next featured Artist for Cat Q in the December 2014 issue of Rez Magazine.  You can read Toy's responses to the Cat's challenging questions on Pages 6 - 10 of this released issue.  Toy thanks Cat for the being asked.


http://issuu.com/rezslmagazine/docs/december_2014
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Toy's New Inworldz Art Gallery

11/30/2014

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On Tuesday November 26th, Toy opened the doors to his new art gallery on the Inworldz grid.

Located in the Steam City mall and taking over the space of two merged stores, Toy's Art Gallery @ Inworldz exhibits a significant portion of his large eclectic portfolio of 2D photo-art and 3D mesh sculptures.  All his art is available for purchase.

Toy would be honored for Inworldz residents to come explore his art at his new art gallery exhibit. 

Inworldz landmark URL:   http://places.inworldz.com/Adventure%20Island/91/81/798
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Is SecondLife2 LindenLab's "Osborne" Blunder?

6/25/2014

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This past week during a Linden Lab (aka LL) weekly open office meeting LL CEO Ebbe Altberg made a surprise appearance.  But, Ebbe's appearance at the weekly meeting was the least of his surprises he had in store - not only the meeting attendees but also the greater SecondLife® (aka SL) community.

I am not sure if Ebbe's surprising announcements at this meeting were a horrible misstep on his part or if he purposely went into this meeting to release this big news.  Unless you are Ebbe or his senior management, everyone else can only guess and provide their theories as we all don't know.  My guess is that corporate news like the announcement of a major new generation of a product/service does not often come out from a CEO in such an informal "ohh by the way..." manner.  So my guess is that Ebbe let this news slip and did not intend to release this new - it just happened.  Just my theory.

 So HOLD ON !!  What were these big surprises that Ebbe shocked the entire community with?

FIRST - the Biggie - Ebbe revealed that LL is actively working on a completely new SL2 virtual world platform that will be built from the ground up with all the latest in virtual world (VW) technologies, techniques, and I am also sure lessons learned from all the mistakes made during the long life of SL1.  No concrete timelines were given as it is supposedly still in very early development but dates of 2016 are being thrown around.

SECOND - a followup shocker - Ebbe stated that the development of SL2 will NOT have "backward compatibility" to SL1 a development priority.  The explained reason was that they did not want to hold back the full modern day capabilities of SL2 by being forced to be compatible with older limiting inferior technologies and content of and within SL1.

THIRD - development of SL2 would not be Open Source.  It would be a close source code.  This would mean that there would not be spawned competing clones of SL2 as there is with the current SL1 where open source is available.

Not surprisingly, this news right out of Ebbe's lips of a new SL2 being developed by LL spread faster than wildfire throughout the SL blogging community and into the SL forums and social networks.  Also, not surprising AT ALL has been the massive and growing volume of interpretations, speculations, excitement and fears generated from the extremely little that was stated by Ebbe and also Oz regarding SL2 at this meeting.

In a few short days after Ebbe's shockers I have read a lot of concerns, fears, and doom regarding the decisions (more so the "not backward compatible" news).  I have also read many bloggers trying to calm the fears with stated reality checks about how little has been announced to seriously get scared about at this time.  And even bloggers that seemed to have taken on what should be LL's role of damage control from what I believe was a serious LL / Ebbe misstep in announcing such huge customer impacting news so early, so informal / unofficial, and with so little details.  These bloggers have speculated their own "positive spin" theories on why the SL community should not panic and not stop investing in SL1 because of this news.

But before I talk about LL's possible re-enactment of the infamous classic "Osborne Computer" business mistake, let me mention a few of my thoughts on what actually was announced.

Why did LL desire the need to develop an SL2 as opposed to continuing to improve upon the current SL1?  Well I am speaking as a Senior Systems Architect for over 25 years for large enterprises - for both vendors like IBM and multi-national industry segment customers.  When it comes to developing a new I.T. system, product, or service (like the SL sims and supporting systems and clients) it is always an System Architect's dream (as well as Engineers, software developers and even product managers) if they are given the opportunity to develop a NEXT GENERATION solution with no ties to the limitations, backward incompatibilities, and existing needs of the user base from the previous generation.  

I think its obvious for all to understand why, but just in case you are not aware... To develop a new fantastic state-of-the-art solution that must also be shackled with the burden of supporting the existing legacy code, content, user data of old long-in-the-tooth current systems is EXTREMEEEEELY DIFFICULT.  Compromises would have to be made and some great design concepts and technologies would likely have to be abandoned or watered down.  

The first generation of SL that LL keeps enhancing and improving upon is based on an architecture that is over 11 years old.  Many of the foundational components (both technology as well as operating policies and rules) of SL are far out-dated yet near impossible to overhaul without destroying the overall fabric of what makes SL operates as it does now.  It is like a house of cards - it stands but it is fragile and replacing a card at the base is nearly unthinkable.

As such, this dreamy "perfect" development environment of starting from scratch is what LL has decided to bestow upon their SL2 development team.  I envy the LL team for being given this rare opportunity.

YES, I said rare!!  In my 25+ years working on countless solution / system designs and architectures, I have only worked on a handful of large scale projects where the next generation system is allowed to be developed with no priority or regard to the backward compatibility AND user base of the current aging system.  Most times the reason is that the current user base is too valuable to be disrupted, or not trusted to join the new system and lose them, or risk them losing their critical data and start fresh.  

Having no backward compatibility to offer internal or "captured" users is risky enough as the business has some control on this population.  But to to take this risk with an external paying user base - i.e. your primary customer - is either very brave or very stupid.  Only time will tell the final tale of LL was brave or stupid when everyone observes what the current SL user base - primarily the builders / creators of SL - will do.

Building SL2 based on a CLOSED CODE model?  Well there will be those that argue good or bad on this point but I have always been one in the SL community that believes LL should never have embraced open source as the strategy for SL1.  Maybe this decision was made to meet more of a community minded or philanthropic objective that Phillip and/or his initial designers and developers had.  But, I think it was a mistake for business reasons as it openly forced LL to assist in the growth of competing open source grids that took customers away from LL/SL1.  It also was a major reason that griefing was and still is a massive scourge on the SL grid.  Finally it meant LL lost a lot of control of its fat client to 3rd party viewers. Personally this was good for the user base of SL since these viewers introduced competitive spirit and a better viewer, but for LL it was a loss of control of their own destiny of the SL1 product.

So, personally I nod my head and agree with LL's decision to develop SL2 based on closed source.  No one but LL knows to what extent SL2 will be closed.  To me the wise approach would be to close and keep proprietary the SIM and SERVER code but expose a common standard SL2 Client API that 3PVs like Firestorm could use to develop awesome SL2 viewers.  Some have speculated SL2 might not even have a fat client viewer.  I personally do not see this as feasible because I believe an effective SL2 with real time animations and engagement with a VW needs to leverage the shared system resources of both the server and the client PC.  But I could easily be wrong.  We will see.

NOW... regardless of the announcement details that Ebbe appears to have let accidentally slip this week.  The bigger issue is if Ebbe and LL has executed another Osborne Computer Blunder by announcing the next generation of their flagship cash-cow VW service SL2 with such a harsh "no backward compatibility priority" statement so early before its release?

If you have never heard of the "OSBORNE EFFECT" or blunder or business case, then I will provide you a wiki link with all the details CLICK HERE FOR OSBORNE EFFECT DETAILS.  Basically, it is when a company prematurely and with poor timing announces their next generation of product which causes a serious negative impact in customer demand / response (i.e. collapsed sales as they wait for the new version).  For Osborne computers, it bankrupted them as their cashflow dried up before the next version could come to market.

In essence this appears to be what Ebbe and LL has done in similar fashion.  Ebbe announced the next SL2 grid that still appears to be 2 years from showing up and has informed his flagship base of customers that their content and investments in SL1 are not a priority for SL2.  

As mentioned earlier, the explosion of fear and concern by the community should have been expected and are fully warranted concerns.  LL has had a history of making many knee-jerk poor decisions that have often hurt their own SL customer base.  So their track record of protecting or being concerned about the interests of their customers is not stellar.  Therefor I am a bit surprised at bloggers that cannot understand why there is so much fear and concern about Ebbe's surprising early casual announcement of SL2.

I am not the CEO of LL but if I were Ebbe, regardless if he slipped or fully intended to release the news of SL2 to the world, I would seriously be concerned about how my move mimics that of the OSBORNE EFFECT.  I think it does.  If so, I would immediately engage in serious damage control with LL's cash cow SL1 customer base (especially the content creators that are the #1 reason why SL1 is the leader in VW).  I would be making a formal BLOG release on the SL Forums to clarify with much more details the vague information I released at a small weekly user meeting.  I would be having open interviews with the blogging community and media to provide HARD REASONS why the SL community should not be affraid to keep investing in SL1.  Not just the LL "favored" bloggers but even those bloggers that can ask the hard questions.

The time for LL and Ebbe to go into potentially LL saving damage control is now - before LL potentially becomes the next Business Case victim of the OSBORNE EFFECT.
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Time Facebook Fixes "Real Names Only" TOS

6/3/2014

4 Comments

 
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On June 1st an outdated and completely illogical Facebook® (FB) policy that has infuriated 1000's of SecondLife® (SL) users over the years finally hit me - the real person - in the gut.
My "Toysoldier Thor" Facebook

account was disabled

MY FACEBOOK ACCOUNT & COUNTLESS OTHERS WERE DESTROYED
BY AN OLD COMPLETELY OUT-OF-TOUCH FACEBOOK POLICY
IT'S TIME FOR LINDEN LAB AND SECONDLIFE RESIDENTS TO DEMAND A CHANGE
FOR THE GOOD OF ALL  -   INCLUDING FACEBOOK THEMSELVES
I was lured and deceived into setting up my Toysoldier Thor FB account about five years ago when Linden Lab (LL) promoted to its customer base to set up Avatar Facebook accounts (like they did) as a place to interact with them.  I was reluctant at the time to join FB as I didn't see the value of FB for a marketing tool but I wanted to keep in touch with what LL was up to.  So I created my Toysoldier Thor account.  I was later surprised - like many others - that LL never had an agreement with FB to allow us all to violate FB's ill conceived "real names only" TOS.

Also, as has been the case with the vast majority of SL residents, it was and still is an imperative for me to maintain anonymity of my real life (RL) identity.  My Toysoldier avatar name and avatar has his own existence in SL.  More importantly, Toy interacts with the 1000's of my friends and acquaintances who only know me as Toysoldier Thor.  If any of my countless friends and others in the SL community want to find me - they would NEVER EVER look for me nor even know my RL name.  

Is this a situation unique only to the SL virtual world community?  NOT BY A LONG SHOT!  Think of the many other virtual world communities with avatars.  Think of the countless MMOG gaming environments where players are only known by their game name.  Think of the authors, bloggers, and artists that have established "Pen Names".  Think of the RL individuals (such as women & children) that establish anonymous names on the Internet to protect themselves for personal security reasons.  

When you add up all the people within each of these examples, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that any online social networking or online services business would be extremely foolish to NOT ACCOMMODATE wishes / requirements of this huge online user base.  It would be a massive population to to ignore.  And yet, ironically, this is exactly what the largest social media company on the Internet has been doing from its inception.  Yes, FB has a very strict, short sighted, and crystal clear Terms of Service (TOS) policy that does not allow any of its potential Users from using any identity other than their real name that the Government has validated.  Notice I did not say FB's customers as their customers are all the advertisers wanting their ads to be placed on all our user pages to be viewed and even clicked on.  The more user pages and the more active a user page - the more revenue FB gains from its customers.  Remember this for later.

I will get back to why this FB policy is so out of touch and slapping users in the face while hurting themselves.  I first must point out that like the countless SL customers who have set up and spent countless hours to groom and establish heavily followed / viewed pages, I knew there was always a risk that one day the FB Real Name cops would eventually target me and shut down my account.  I saw FB do their SL Avatar Witch Hunts taking down large batches of SL avatars over the years.  Its one of FB's never-ending administrative battles since many SL avatars simply create a new account.  

But this past weekend I was still shocked and devastated when they disabled my account and destroyed the massive time and effort I put into making my Toysoldier Thor account an extremely powerful and effective tool to promote my personal interests in SL as well as promote countless activities, events, milestones, and celebrations of my large community of SL friends (with over 500 followers and friends).  It was the #1 way for me to know what was happening in SL.  Toysoldier's FB account was also my voice to raise interest to important causes in the SL community.  Sadly.... devastatingly.... its all gone.


Now lets talk about the reasons why its finally time to for FB policy makers to make changes that shuts down this discriminating and self-damaging policy.  Its very clear how this FB policy hurts a large population of the online community, but why does it also hurt FB and not make sense for them?

  • Remember again who is the FB customer that is generating the bulk of their revenue?  All those advertisers that pay for their ads to be strategically placed on all our User FB pages.  Like most other ad revenue sites, FB generates more revenue when there are more page views / activities.  The busier and more popular a User page - the more ads being viewed and potentially clicked on.  It doesn't matter to the advertiser if the ad on a User page is a real name or an avatar name - the relevant ads will be placed on our pages when viewed by real humans - regardless of the name.  So why would FB want to shut down all these FB User pages simply because they are not a real name?
  • Lets go one step further on this.  I will use me as an example.  I violated two FB policies.  The other policy is that I actually had two FB accounts.  One was my Toy account.  The other is my RL named account for my RL family and friends.  My Toy FB account had 500 followers / friends and about 100 to 200 views / activities.  My RL account has a couple dozen friends and I log into it once every few weeks.  FB has shut down my Toy account.  Guess which of the two accounts is most valuable for FB to generate ad revenue?  YUP, my Toy account.
  • Lets mention another mis-aligned logic in FB's real names only policy.  Recently Mark Z. of FB decided to spend over $2 Billion to acquire the Oculus Rift technology.  The Rift is clearly an virtual reality (VR) tool best designed for virtual worlds like SecondLife and MMOG's.  One of the clearly primary target markets for FB's new expensive Rift technology will be virtual worlds like SL.  If so, why would Mark Z. maintain a policy that discriminates against the actual user bases of these target markets?  Seems like FB's "real names only" TOS policy is in conflict with their latest Rift acquisition.
  • Finally, think how much wasted effort FB's Real Name Witch Hunters have to expend to find, shut down, and then go through the process of the appeals and debates and efforts from each user that fights the shut down.  Not to mention finding many of these same TOS violators later as most of them have created another account - again in violation of their TOS.  Imagine if FB changed its policy and allowed non real named accounts.  How much staffing effort on administration could be spent time doing better more useful things??

So why should Ebbe Altberg, CEO of LL want to lobby Mark Z. and FB on behalf of all SL's residents to address this FB policy or work with FB to come up with a solution that fairly ends this discrimination?

  • Lets remember that on a few occasions - even recently - LL has tried to integrate FB's service with SL's service.  In fact, even though LL very well knew of FB's TOS against avatar names being used, they still released a new feature in the viewer code that allowed SL residents to post directly from inworld to their respective FB account.  When Firestorm later released the feature, it didn't take long for the spike of activity from SL into FB to be noticed and countless SL resident SL FB accounts were disabled by FB for those that used the feature.  IF Ebbe could negotiate a solution with FB to remove this policy, LL could return this feature and actually start integrating into FB with no guilt or risk of angering their own customers.
  • Secondly, SL has a set of utterly useless social networking tool inworld to allow effective inter-communication / promotion of SL activities, events, happenings, and Avatar promotion to occur.  Their Avatar profiles site is barely used as well since it pales in comparison to the features and capabilities and performance of FB.  Solving this major roadblock by formally outsourcing this external social network to FB would safely allow LL to promote the use of FB to promote SL's inworld activities and make SL more enjoyable which retains and attracts more SL accounts.

So if ending this FB "real names only" policy benefits all, what are a few solutions that Ebbe and Mark could discuss to fix the problem and benefit ALL?

  1. The first idea may seem the most obvious solution but has as issue.  That would be for FB to simply change the policy that allows any new FB user to create any account they want using what ever name they want.  Problem solved - right?  Well not exactly.  FB would know accept the result - one that is similar to the problem that faces LL now.  FB would likely get an onslaught of ALT and BOT FB accounts owned by the same users.  FB would not accept this solution.
  2. So FB could come up with a new technical solution that allows control freedom for FB users to created a couple or three visible FB User Pages but no more.  How?  FB would require all users to register as a REAL LIFE user with a validated credential and then keep this validated account information internal only to them.  Then each of these registered accounts would be allowed to create no more than three independent and full featured User Page profiles.  One of the three accounts must be a real name user page - which would be used by the user to maintain the users main account.  The other two User Pages would only be counters to the first but in ON WAY could anyone else ever find out who the real life user is to these other two accounts.  This solution would require FB development - maybe even extensive.  So maybe FB would not be interested in all this effort to solve the problem.  The long term would be good for FB.
  3. The third option is one I personally think would be the best solution for everyone and the quickest to deploy.  This would be for FB to create a new special instance of FB specifically deployed to service the VIRTUAL WORLD communities.  They could brand this as FACEBOOK-VW or VW-FACBOOK.  Since FB already has agreed after all these years that they were not interested in their main FB service to service non real name accounts, they should not care when a large populous of online users from the VW, MMOG, Pen Named people, etc. would use this new instance.  LL would be able to promote the use of FACEBOOK-VW for their users to register onto and use.  Advertisers would still be very interested in posting ads to this new and more specific base of users on this instance.  AND... SL residents as well as so many others would have a FB service that maintains their privacy.


NOW A CALL TO ACTION FOR EBBE ALTBERG, LINDEN LAB, AND ALL VIRTUAL WORLD USERS THAT WANT TO SEE FACEBOOK FIX THIS OUT OF TOUCH POLICY.....

Share this blog post on twitter, facebook, inworld, or any other way.  Post your own Twitter tweets, write your own blogs, email, IM, and talk about this topic to Ebbe, LL decision makers, Mark Z., FB decision makers, or anyone else that can influence Mark Z. and the FB architectures / decision makers to address this problem.

We need this topic addressed for all our benefits.

What are your thoughts?

Toysoldier Thor
4 Comments

Toy's Art Exhibit & Opening Gala @ Paris Metro Gallery

5/3/2014

1 Comment

 
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Featured Artist  Toysoldier Thor
at  Paris Metro Gallery
"Art Begats Art"
Where Fine Art, Fashion, Dance & Music 
Inspire Each Other

Gala Opening May 4th @ 1pm SLT
featuring
Elysium Amphitheatre Dance Troupe
Artistic Dances on stage inspired by Toy's Art


SECONDLIFE® SLURL Location:
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Paris%20Couture/178/22/23


Toysoldier Thor is extremely honoured to have been invited back to the amazing prestigious SecondLife® Fashion & Art Gallery of  Paris Metro Couture / Gallery to be the featured Artist for May 2014.  Toy has taken this opportunity to coordinate what will likely be one of Paris Metro Gallery's most amazing collaborative theme and Opening Gala ever witnessed by the visiting patrons / guests.

The Theme is  ART BEGATS ART  where Fine Art, Fashion, Dance & Music Inspire Each Other

This theme was directly inspired by Babypea Von Phoenix, one of the most creative and energetic artistic dance and stage creators within the fantastic community of artistic dance in SecondLife®.  In February 2014 Babypea approached Toy with the idea to challenge her Elysium Amphitheatre dance members to create a dance / stage creation based on any one of the artworks on display at Toy's Inworld Art Gallery.  Toy was honoured to be the inspirational source to this artistic challenge of dance - a community that Toy personally has a deep passion to be part of.
The participating Elysium Dancer spent over a month selecting the artwork that inspired them and creating a stage, dance, music, and choreography to be performed on the Elysium Amphitheatre stage at Copperhead Road sim.

Toy blogged all the details of this artistic dance challenge which all can read about.

On March 22nd Elysium perform their beautiful dances.  Toy created a machimina of the entire show that you see to the right.
Shortly after the performance, Toy approached Babypea and invited her and the Elysium team to take on the challenge of integrating the entire performance as part of the hugely popular Paris Metro Art Opening Gala of which not surprisingly Babypea jumped at the chance.  Toy also approached Rose, owner of Paris Metro about the challenging theme of which Rose also agreed to the theme.
The artworks Toy selected for the two floor Paris Metro exhibit are those that were selected by the Elysium Dancers for their show.  It is a mix of 2D wall art and 3D mesh sculptures.

In addition, Toy has also developed a multi-media interactive screen that will allow visitors to the gallery to actually watch the machimina of the March 22rd Elysium performance.  All visitors have to do is ensure their media is enabled and their PC's Flash / Quicktime is up to date.  

Then they double click the play button on the screen and watch the machimina right in the gallery !
As patrons of the Paris Metro Gallery Opening Galas are very aware of and one of the highlights of the galas, Paris Zsun releases the latest of her "Artist Series" fashion line and offers the new dress as a special gift to all guests at the Gala.  

The released dress is special as integrates one of the artworks in the exhibit for the material texture as selected by Paris Zsun.  For Toy's exhibit, his real life photo of a Dandelion was used for the dress.  You can see the resulting fashion created by Paris Zsun that guests will received at the Sunday May 4th Gala.

She has so amazingly integrated the white head of the dandelion to become the top trim of the dress with a beautiful dark grass green flowing bottom of the dress.  This will likely be a new hit for the "Artist Series".
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click to enlarge
Toy believes that by blending Toy's 2D & 3D fine art with the Elysium Dancers artistic dance, music, and stage build, with Paris Metro's dress fashion using Toy's artwork, he has accomplished the goal of the theme of ART BEGATS ART !

Toy, Paris Metro, and the Elysium Dancers all hope you will come May 4th at 1pm SLT to share in what will be one of Paris Metro's most amazing art gala openings ever hosted.
1 Comment

Art Begats Art - Toy's Art Meets SecondLife® Dance

3/15/2014

2 Comments

 
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On March 22nd, 2014 at 1pm SLT, an incredible honour will be played out in front of me and you are all invited to share in this experience.  It is then that members of the artistically creative Elysium Amphitheatre Dancers will interpret their personal selections from my SecondLife® Art Gallery and transform it into spiritual movements of art - DANCE!

An Artist (no matter what form of art) is always given great personal satisfaction when he/she witness their works of art be observed, pondered, interpreted, appreciated.  But for another form of art to interpret and transform his/her work of art into another medium of art is one of the greatest honours!  This is exactly what will happen on March 22nd and it was the brainchild of the amazingly creative BabypeaVonPhoenix Bikergrrl (as she is known in SL).  

Last summer I toured Babypea my art gallery in SL.  Babypea is always a great boost for my ego as she became so absorbed with many of my artworks and the "artist comments" notecards provided with each of my artworks.  After our tour she and I talked about the idea of "Wouldn't it be so cool to if some of these artworks were used as an inspiration to create dance art?". 

It was such an exciting idea for both of us but as months passed, the idea seemed to be one of those that are put on the shelf never to be taken down.  I never imagined Babypea not only would have executed on the idea for one of her own dances but to make an entire dance event that all dancers would create dance inspired by my art.  

In February, Babypea set the challenge to all the Elysium Amphitheatre Dancers to tour my art gallery and use any artwork as an inspiration for a dance routine for the March show.  The title of this challenge created by Babypea is so appropriate:

CREATION BEGATS CREATION   ~   ART BEGATS ART

And now - as of this blog - I excited to introduce each of the participating Dancers as well as the artworks each of them has selected for the March 22nd event.  Without further adieu, here are the Dancers and their selected inspired art they will be interpreting into dance:

Peachie Capalani  (two artworks used)
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"Emergance"
Georgie Amaterasu
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"Killing Fields"
Cyllene (Chrissy Rhiano)
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"Ascension Denied"
Jilley Resident
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"Spiritual Grandeur"
JessLawton Resident  (two artworks used)
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"Misty Mountain Morning"
Winniefred Resident
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"Loves Crush"
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"All He Sees"
LilAngels Resident
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"Frost Forest"
Babypea  (BabypeaVonPhoenix Bikergrrl)
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"Hillbilly Airways"
Bevin  (Bootygirl13 Resident)
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"Princess and the Goblin"
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"Dandelion"
I was so fascinated by the selections to be interpreted by these Dancers and I cannot wait to witness how each of them with transform fine art into an artistic blending of dance, music, and stage set.  As a reader of this blog, if you are interested in understanding the original background and artistic expression of any of these fine artworks, I invite you to visit my art gallery in SecondLife®.  If you click on any of my artworks at my gallery, you will be given an ARTIST'S COMMENT notecard for the artwork that you clicked upon.

Click for SLURL Link:  TOY'S SECONDLIFE ART GALLERY

I also would be honoured - as would all the Elysium Dancers - for your presence for this exciting Art / Dance event.

Click for SLURL Link:  Elysium Amphitheatre - Jewel in the Sky

See you all there!
2 Comments

Great News! Linden Lab Un-Gags The SL JIRA

2/28/2014

1 Comment

 
Great news for those SL Residents that used to be actively involved in creating and diagnostically engaging in SecondLife problems via their JIRA system before it was gagged by Rodvik Linden during his reign!

THIS MORNING LINDEN LAB UN-GAGGED THEIR JIRA SYSTEM !   SL's JIRA "Bug Tracker" has been restored back to being a resident searchable and participating JIRA as it was prior to Rodvik Linden restricting its access/participation.  Here is the formal blog announcement from Linden Lab

http://community.secondlife.com/t5/Tools-and-Technology/Changes-to-Our-JIRA-Implementation/ba-p/2519371

 For many of you SL Residents this likely means nothing to you as you might not even know what the JIRA is - yet it has been and is a critical system to help identify and resolve problems on the Secondlife / marketplace system. What is JIRA? It is the central problems / bug / new features reporting and tracking system heavily used by LL.  The Firestorm team uses an identical JIRA system and to be honest they are even more responsive to the issues than the LL team.

Prior to the Rodvik era of "COMMUNICATION BLACKOUT" the SL JIRA could be openly used by all SL residents not only to create a new problem.  More importantly residents could search the entire database for similar problems and add their comments, experience, knowledge to the problem (as well as vote and watch problems).  This feedback into the JIRA issues was invaluable to quickly identify a new, growing, significant problem in SL as well as provide information to help LL Engineers isolate and resolve the problem.  Although often some more high profile and heavy impact bugs attracted some less useful and more emotionally venting comments, the overall impact of this feedback being possible was a HUGE NET POSITVE. 

Then Rodvik decided to "GAGGED" the JIRA and stop this open participation which frustrated and angered residents and LL staff that found this invaluable in solving and prioritizing bugs.

With the arrival of Ebbe Linden - LL's new CEO - this JIRA GAGGING was one of the top issues that residents and staff wanted Ebbe to address. In his first month - HE HAS DELIVERED !! This is a positive indication of Ebbe's commitment to make positive changes.

Thanks Ebbe Linden !

PS:  I personally hope now that LL might look at the NEW FEATURE issue I created back in 2012 and had huge positive traction by the SL Residents and even had internal LL tech review - will get updated and some attention.  Sadly it is still sitting as unassigned and inactive.


VURTUAL LANDMARKS IN SECONDLIFE
https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/SVC-8082



1 Comment

Toy's Art Exhibit at Mexico MX sim in SecondLife®

2/16/2014

1 Comment

 
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Last week I was invited to exhibit some of my SecondLife® inworld portfolio of art the art district of the MEXICO MX sim. 

As the SL profile for the sim describes...  it allows Spanish speaking people to connect with other Spanish-language SL residents at Mexico MX, a community for shopping, chatting and meeting new people from several areas (such as Mexico, Argentina, Venezuela, Colombia, Guatemala, Brazil, Puerto Rico and Cuba).

The Art Curator is an amazing young lady from Mexico who found my main art gallery and invited me to her sim galleries.

On February 16th, 2014 I completed my setup of the art gallery hall provided to me and the exhibit was opened to the public.  I would invite you to come take a quick look at my exhibit at this amazing themed Spanish Languish MEXICO MX sim.  Also, while there, take a walk about to the other art exhibits and the entire sim.

Here is the SLURL to the exhibit: 

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Mexico%20MX/139/56/20

1 Comment
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    IMPORTANT NOTE
    Old ToyTalk
    Blogs Moved

    On October 19, 2013, Toy released his completely re-branded website and left his old toytalks.weebly.com" site that existed for 3 years.


    Due to limitations on the weebly hosting site, old blog postings could not be migrated .  

    ALL TOYTALK BLOG POSTS PRIOR TO OCT 19 2013
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