Five March in Second Life: septembre 2007

dimanche 30 septembre 2007

Museum 12, Technicalities

The main subject of the virtual museum is the history of Rotterdam, not scripting or making sculpties. But some interesting methods are used to make things look alive.

Scripting was used in:

objects in the exhibition, giving comment on touch
special effects, sounds and music when an avatar is near
temp rezzing, giving objects only on a temporary basis
streaming video
some teleportation links
in special objects like a book, giving an abstract
for the quiz, linked to a database
for some tracking of visiting avatars, avatars are registered for statistics
for the HUD, the thing to wear for obtaining coment in a choosen language

techniques using programes outside of Second Life:

for preparing images photoshop was used
for the streaming video i used a MAC with itunes
for making the sculpties BLENDER
for sounds and music, Audacity
the linking to the database is done in PHP pages
the text and comments about the object on display are stored on a server

Notes:

The comments of the items in the exhibition are in the items and are reproduced on touching by the interaction of the HUD, the HUD giving the right language.

This text of the items can be refreshed by a single command, said by an avatar.

The streaming videos were a problem. Not the streaming itself but the streaming of these videos in the group context. I think there is a bug in this group owned streaming video prims construction.

In the museum visiting avatars are counted (database connection) and some statistics of visitors is generated. The average visitor number is 20 a day since the summer of 2007.

The quiz added in December has its own database. Avatars can try up to five questions a day. Questions are randomly chosen from the list of 50 questions.

Outside the museum is a book showing the main subjects of the exhibition, pages can be turned, a bit of comment is added in floating text.

http://www.hmr.rotterdam.nl/

Museum 11, Specials

Special items designed for the museum are

Some umbrella’s, sculpties, one primers, from aeound 1900.
A standing and a hanging old telephone. Sculpties.
A desk chair, which consisted of 50 prims in its first version, reduced to 10 with sculpty tubes.
two Gispen chairs with curved iron tubes.
A streetcar, driving a bit with original noises.
two mannequin models, with shoes
shovels made from one prim
handles made from one prim
the aeolus tower

The poster about Pschorr has a special script, with about 10 old jazz tunes, playing if an avatar is near this part of the exhibition.

Two special showcases were made, representing the new design cups and plates shown first in the pre-war Bijenkorf, later in shops in the Lijnbaan.

The mannequin models were pretty difficult to recreate, but in the end a reasonable resemblance is achieved.

The video projections on the curved surfaces in the end turned out really cool. The streaming video has not too much quality, but it loads fast. The projections in the real museum are also blurred because of their size.

There are as many as 20 videos in the exhibition, real and the virtual, which enhance the experience.

Added are a lot of sounds. Not only the items but also the avatars trigger these sounds. Sounds are very important to let a virtual space come alive.

A quiz was added, to attract people and to see whether the visitors retain something. Of course, seen a global scale the history of Rotterdam is minute, and very specialized. Some funny questions are posed too: the fastest means of transportation for crossing Rotterdam, where can be ordered the worst cappuccino ever...
The questions are situated in a database, only five questions can be answered a day, and of course, although the questions are a random selection, you never get the same question again. The number of questions at the moment is 45. For a good answer you get 2 L$!

There are about 1000 prims in this exhibition.

http://www.hmr.rotterdam.nl/

Museum 10, Outside

First the exhibition was built on one floor, like a scale model. Later on the idea of the surrounding building was added, indicated mainly by its front. (The actual building dating from the 17th century.)
The walls are done in a transparent layer, which is in 'phantom' mode, which means a visiting avatar can visit the place by crossing the wall. The roof is also transparent, but not phantom, one can walk on this roof, and look inside.
This transparent shape indicated the building but makes it possible too that the exhibition can be easily overseen.

In the picture above the building is still having only the upper exhibition floor and the basement is formed by the map of Rotterdam.

The outside is now formed by bricks. The buildings around the virtual museum are huge, and were expected to be huge. This recreates the real surroundings of the real museum. The Schielandhuis is dwarfed by the skyscrapers around it.

Slowly connections are made to neighbours. Streets and pathways are formed between the virtual neighbours.

A garden was added next to museum. And surrounding the museum are bricks.

On the museum a giant butterfly is added, to attract the eye. Some realistic particle effects are added, like smoke, and snow in winter.

http://www.hmr.rotterdam.nl/

Museum 9, Now

It seems strange to say, but nowadays Rotterdam fails to generate more history. Rotterdam is part of Holland and of Europe. What is happening elsewhere is happening in Rotterdam. Big festivals are organized, scandals are revealed, skyscrapers are built. But this is all like it is everywhere else. The end of local history.

Five March: Rotterdam was generating history starting around 1850, by growing incredible quickly, by scandals around the harbour, with figures like Pincoff. Also giant builders like GJ de Jongh, who built the inner harbours, Maashaven, Rijnhaven and Waalhaven, big like former cities. Then the modernization of the city, sacrificing whole popular neighbourhoods and prefering a rather conservative design for a townhall. The war and the destruction and clearing of the inner city. The reconstruction of the harbours after the war. All very exciting. Nowadays we live in peace and more stability. Rotterdam has a local television station and a local whether forcast. But the rains comes from England, and the financial crises from the USA, the oil from the east...

The character of the exhibition is changed in the last rooms. Real historical items are replaced by video screens. Nice chairs and paintings left behind. Events are shown, like the summer carnaval. Reality of objects is replaced by ‘new media’. In fact this can be seen as a preparation for the virtual exhibition on Second Life. Already the way to show the bombardment of Rotterdam in 1940 is done in a way suitable for Second Life. History in this was is as virtual as a virtual world.

http://www.hmr.rotterdam.nl/

Museum 8, 1960

In the 60ties the trend of reconstruction and work work work, was slowly replaced by the feeling of spending money. Parallel to harbour construction, the city centre was changed into a big shopping mall. People were ready for it. The consumer paradise replaced the feelings generated by the war. Indeed solidarity was imperceptible replaced by the egoism of the buyer. "Shop till you drop".

The Gispen chair designs can be seen here, and the Italian design shown in shops in the shopping zone, the Lijnbaan. Rotterdam celebrated work work work in a series of festivals around the reconstruction of the harbour and the city. The first was called Ahoy, in 1950, the second E55 in 1955 of course, then followed C70. A big tower, Euromast overseeing the harbour was built, and slowly, like after the twenties work was partially replaced by amusements.

C70 also had its riots, still about bad housing conditions in the old districts near the centre of Rotterdam.

http://www.hmr.rotterdam.nl/

Museum 7, 1950

After the war Rotterdam finds its way again in work, work, work. The harbours have to be reconstructed and at the same time enlarged. Nowadays these harbours stretch towards the see, and even inside the see, making it possible to unload ships, which don’t even enter the harbour.

Container trade became one of the most important activities in the harbour. It is nearly unthinkable the way the grain and the other trades articles were all loaded and unloaded by hand not even 100 years ago. (Recall the first exhibition room, with all its utensils specially designed for coal and grain barrels.)

Constructing and reconstructing is the joy of the engineer, Rotterdam was a paradise for designers, architects, builders, and it still is. New districts are built around Rotterdam. In the South and in the North. People living in the South of Rotterdam are at half an hour travelling from the centre and children growing up in these new districts don’t even have an idea of living in the ‘real” Rotterdam.

Some dreams of architects turned out not to be heaven to live in, like the big collections of huge flats in the North. Some of these flats are torn down, like in the rest of the world. The development of shop to mall, from mall to shopping centre is also shown in the design of the pedestrian shopping zone the Lijnbaan. The first impact of people visiting this new shopping centre was so big that traffic police had to guide the big crowds visiting this new phenomenon.

http://www.hmr.rotterdam.nl/

Museum 6, 1940

Maybe the time just before the war was the happiest time of Rotterdam. The war ended this in 15 minutes. The centre was destroyed by German bombers to make the Dutch resistance surrender. But even worse for the people of Rotterdam was the last year of the war with Rotterdam near the front and the dissolving of supply lines. The winter was particularly severe. There was little food and fual was scarce. Far more people starved by lack of food and because of the really cold winter of 1945 then were killed in the bombing in 1940.

Other strange facts are that a lot of the remaining buildings in the centre of Rotterdam, which could have been saved, were destroyed and demolished too to make room for ‘a new centre’ of Rotterdam. Even in and around the time of war art (after shopping malls, sport and cinemas) became a part of the city. After the war the famous statue of Zadkine symbolized the city without a heart.

The dream of an architect is realized by the chance to redesign a centre practically from scratch, without any buildings hindering the great ideas about the future. The spirit of Zimmerman, foreseeing a bright future and a modern city is still around and shapes the imagination. Witteveen and van Traa have been working during the 5 years of war to get their ideas about a future city on the map. Their ideas centre around a welfare city, modern, spacious, divided in zones for work and recreation.

Really interesting here is the change of the emotional atmosphere of the exhibition. The amusement and the dancing Pschorr scene is followed by a real dramatic event of the bombing and pictures of starved people. The emotional turn around is complete.

http://www.hmr.rotterdam.nl/

Museum 5, 1930

In the preceding blog, some of these items here were already mentioned. A lot more can be told. Shops were getting really big, from shop to mall. The Bijenkorf was newly built. The Passage, dating from 1879, was a great success. On the other side of life there was the global the crisis and the unemployment. New flats, based on steel skeletons were built and Gispen made his modern designs for chairs. Several Gispen chairs are shown around the exhibition, and to spot the development in these designs is a joy for the eye.

The streetcar in the virtual exhibition can be made to move, and gives original streetcar sounds.
Traffic is getting denser, although a streetcar was still too expensive for a lot of people in Rotterdam.
Rotterdam is still proud to have had a world champion boxer amongst its citizens, Bep van Klaveren. The rise to importance of sport was paralleled by the rise of the cinema’s. Although there is no reference to it in the spoken documentation of the real exhibition, the people visiting the popular cinemas were contemptuously indicated by ‘people belonging to the culture of the hats with the big lids’. Some of these hats are shown.

Rotterdam, the working city, famous for a dancing? Who can imagine that? Indeed it was true: Pschorr was well known in Holland. People from nearby The Hague visiting it and taking back the last train to The Hague form the Hofplein. This last train was called "the perfume tran".

http://www.hmr.rotterdam.nl/

Museum 4, 1920

Second Room, Rotterdam 1920-1930

Around 1920 there have been big changes in the character of Rotterdam. The red light district, famous even in Paris is demolished to make room for the new town hall, a new post office and a new trade centre. This could not have been a real coincidence. The main street of Rotterdam is constructed by making a big road instead of the existing canal, part of the inner harbour which became obsolete. The poor workers lived in appalling conditions and the socialists became involved in new initiatives to improve housing conditions. The money demanded amusements, which was found for instance in dancing Pschorr, which was visited even by people from The Hague. The management of work was improved, necessary because of the huge commerce generated by the new harbours. But also the global world affected Rotterdam, with the international crisis caused by the New York Stock Exchange disaster. The dutch should have had some experience with this, given the fact that they suffered already heavily under the first real speculation crisis around tulips in the 17^th century.

In the exhibition three people are singled out:

Zimmermann the mayor who was responsable for the main street, the Coolsingel, the townhall, the postoffice and the new stock-exchange, and the demolishing of the district, the Zandstraat, wich was necessary to make room for this modenisation.

Koos Speenhoff, the first celebrity singer of Rotterdam. He commented upon all what happened in Rotterdam. He made his songs himself, accompanying himself on the guitar. In the exhibition a few seconds of his songs are included in his guitar and the picture of the newly build tower of the town hall.

Arie Heijkoop, city councellor. He protested against appaling living conditions of the workers and their families and succeeded in planning new garden villages in the south of Rotterdam, made of prefab concrete. These districts are still famous and a joy to live in, having a very human scale and a peaceful atmosphere.

http://www.hmr.rotterdam.nl

Museum 3, 1880

First room of the exhibition.
Rotterdam as a quiet town around 1850 is shown on paintings. Until 1850 ‘progress’ as this is called was kept far from Rotterdam. But the advantages of the position of Rotterdam as a harbour and the technical innovations, like the railway could not be hindered any longer.

Caland planned and engineered the Waterway, a canal connecting Rotterdam to the see. This canal was designed to keep itself clean and deep, by allowing the tide to come on a length of 60 km, so for instance in Gouda, famous for its cheese the tidal effect is felt.

Then with the harbours the people flooded in from the south of Holland where there was a lot of unemployment. And, of course people made fortunes with the new harbours. So there was a mixture of poverty and richness, displayed in items in this first room. Work, the primary item of Rotterdam, is shown in several utensils of the harbour. Work, work, work.

G J de Jongh is shown. He planned the big inner harbours in the south of Rotterdam. Port Rijnhaven, Maashaven and the huge Waalhaven. Although many difficulties had to be solved the expansions of the harbour capacity really boosted Rotterdam to a global trading port.

But also the start of large shops is shown, the first covered shopping street of Rotterdam.

The atmosphere of this time is optimistic and orientated to the future.

In between the first and the second room there is a symbolic reconstruction of the famous shopping street "the Passage", dating from 1879. A street with a roof, like in Paris and London. In the virtual exhibition, there was a chance to enhance this first feast of light and color.

Several small embellishments are made in the virtual exhibition, without changing the character of the exhibition totally.

Special items are the sculpty shovels, indeed here reality is unsurpassed: the real thing of a real tool is so beautiful! So only here a real picture is shown of the exhibition...:-)

http://www.hmr.rotterdam.nl

Museum 2, sculpties

Above picture: parasol openend.
This is a picture which gives 3D information. This info is hidden in the colors. Colors are described by three numbers, our space is too. So in a color map one can have all the information about a shape. All shapes? No. The shapes described here are only shapes which can be obtained by transforming a sphere. No holes are allowed, so a teacup, with a handle is impossible in this coding. But many of the things we use are like the sphere, for instance shovels, parasols, umbrella's, chairs. And even telephones.

The problem with the sculpties is always the interplay between the UV map, providing the 3D information and the texture, the image covering this shape. If the grid on this shape is not realy good, the picture will never fit.

Most of our objects are rather rectangular, for these things sculpties are not very useful, also sinc the resolution is low, the corners are blurred.

Only when the object is really out of the most regular geometric shapes, a sculpty is the solution. Like the telephones and umbrella's.

From the umbrella's some parasols were developed, which were particularly nice when combined with a script to change the textures, and using

transparent textures.
It was also fun making the show cases with the plates, cups, saucers. These items are shown two times, the first in the pre-war Bijenkorf, and the second in a similar setting, only after the war.
Images of luxury goods, with a design deeply rooted in the decades where it comes from.

Two other special sculpties were the mannequins. These are also repeated, The first representing the mannequins wearing dresses for the dancing, the roaring twenties, jazzy dresses and the second group of mannequins on display are the italian puppets seen in the shops of the Lijnbaan, the pedestrian zone in the absolute centre of the city openened in 1952.

samedi 29 septembre 2007

Museum 1, constructing

The virtual museum was created in the summer of 2007.

First the exhibition floor only was created, the 'real' content of the museum. This floor was surrounded by big rusty chains, as can be seen at the image at the bottom of the page. Then it turned out not to be recognizable for visitors. They were also disappointed, because they expected a building. So a building was built around the exhibition floor. The facade was realistic, but the walls and the roof were made transparent. The walls were also 'phantom', that means an avatar can cross them without being stopped. This made access a lot easier. The roof is also transparent, but here an avatar can land, and see the layout of the whole exhibition.

The virtual exhibition in Second Life is a ‘copy’ of the real exhibition, using Seond Life techniques where this was necessary.

In September the exhibition could be visited. And indeed quite a lot of people visited the museum since then, around 20 different names are recorded each day.

There is a guided tour in several languages, English,
Dutch, French and German. To get the sounds and the text a HUD must be worn.

Choosen or touched items of the exhibition light up, grow a bit for a second and information is given, coming from a database.

In November a quiz was added with about 50 questions.

The museum is made in a relatively small space. Small for Second Life standards. So the exhibition rooms feel full of objects. Actually the scale is real, but the avatars in Second Life are bigger than life. The effect is something which is not found in Second Life: the space feels not empty.

The disadvantage is that one has to move carefully and adjust the camera right behind the head of the avatar visiting...

In the end, not only the museum was constructed, but also the neighbours are happy builders. Like in Rotterdam, once the first big building around, the Schielandhuis has become one of the few places which isn't at the height of a skyscraper. The neighbours like the museum, because it attracts avatars to this part of town, and some like it because of the nice view.

http://www.hmr.rotterdam.nl

Five March in Second Life

dimanche 30 septembre 2007

Museum 12, Technicalities

Museum 11, Specials

Museum 10, Outside

Museum 9, Now

Museum 8, 1960

Museum 7, 1950

Museum 6, 1940

Museum 5, 1930

Museum 4, 1920

Museum 3, 1880

Museum 2, sculpties

samedi 29 septembre 2007

Museum 1, constructing

Virtual Museum Schielandhuis

NXT Iphone nds Arduino adventures

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