Daycare Center - The Possibilites

I was thinking while building in SL the other day (from a new builder perspective) that there were so many possibilities that you're only limited by your imagination and space (prim limit). And even that's not necessarily true, if your willing take your learning outside the realm of SL. There are a multitude of programs, free for use, that can expand what you can do, from building objects, clothing, or animation. But from my new builder perspective, it can be a lot to observe all at once. So I decided to start small and simpler as I was working on the daycare center. In one such case, I was working on the play area inside the center, and I thought to myself can I build toys? How much work would it take to do so, and if so what would I build? I chose for my first toy, the ol' ring stack, both because it would employ many colors and require specific sized objects (prims) to make it look correct. I got so excited with my relative success that I went on to build a little climbing area and put some balls on the shelves.

Another fascination I came across early in my experience in SL was the interactive objects you can incorporate in to your environment. This includes sights and sounds specific to your location, music, powerpoints, and even live TV. As shown to the left, I built a small TV viewing area that could be programmed to stream children friendly programming while the day care is in operation. There are other possibilities with SL as well, in that you can have actual voice chat so that you can speak with participants, tell stories during reading hours, or coordinate sing-a-longs and dancing. The fact that SL allows for a fully functioning environment, I hope, will lead to a successful day care center where students can learn about real pitfalls, foibles, mistakes, and hone their skills into real life action.

Daycare Center - The Pitfalls

Okay, so most of my posts so far have been more about building objects (characters) and not alot about some of the more technical aspects of building in Second Life. About this, I mean, not just rezzing (creating) a primitive (objects in SL) but about how to do more with them to make them interactive as well as functional.

Alot of this has to do with scripting. In Second Life, what brings about the realism that most avatars experience is the ability to apply scripts to objects so that avatars can interact with them. This means you can sit on objects in any numbers of ways, you can drive a car, ride a horse, sleep, fight, dance and so much more (yes, in case your wondering, their are mature areas of SL where even more risque scripts are available).

So as part of the exercise of building a day care center in SL, I knew we would need scripting skills to learn how to animate objects. This includes simple actions such as opening a door, sitting on the floor, playing on the playground and more. Alas, when you're new to scripting in SL it not only takes some learning but practice to understand how scripts will work in the SL environment and as you can see by the snapshot above, things don't always go as planned, lol. I have had some rather comical experiences so far and also some successful ones. One of my favorites is the slide I made on the life sized playground (right).

Daycare - The Interior

One of the more involved parts of building the Second Life day care center model was working on the interior and I found myself thinking alot about character creation. In the actual model, I had to determine ideal locations for the office, the kitchen, where would the children sleep, play, and if I would have a storage area. Then once I had determine how to section the day care center, I had to decide what contents each of these sections would hold.

The process can be the same for character creation. First, you may think about what your characters may look like, how they sound and move, their attitudes. But then you have to delve a little deeper and determine your character's motivations, their history, what other influences will change their actions during the course of a story.

This particular part of this project has been more exacting so far in that you have to think about the objects your creating down to the smallest detail. In Second Life (SL), you use primitives (objects) to do your building. There are various shapes and its up to you the builder (author) to determine what shape will achieve your objective. What will make a better table, a square or a circle? If I choose a hot pink color fabric or a fun vegetable printed one, does my design (story) fail? You're also limited in SL to the number of objects you can use to build with, which means you must make your design effective while minimizing the number of objects (words) you create. The limitation at first may seem off putting, but a builder (author) soon realizes that the final product is more beautifully crafted for the effort.

Day Care Center - From the Ground Up

For right or wrong, I will begin many a story having a rather firm idea of the location already in my head if not on paper. The location of a story can contribute to its believability and the distinctions are not black and white. A paranormal does not require dark, thick woods with slivers of moonlight when a sun that pinches the skin and needles the eyes are just as unsettling. In fact, the more normal the setting, the more terrifying it can be because its more likely to make us feel the story.

In building the setting for the daycare center, besides keeping in mind the ideal requirements, I needed a setting that was welcoming and announced our purpose. Now laying out a mat of grass, or creating a U-shaped driveway, or positioning the sign just so, may seem rather trivial to the overall importance of the story; however, condsider the impact these elements might have. Your characters (or avatars) have a need, maybe something as simple as going to the store (of any type). The store becomes a mini-character while the main characters are there. While the impact of this mini-character may be very minimal (a few lines or so) it will add to the experience of the main characters. Are the characters frustrated by their experience there? Angry? Happy? Sad? Does the store provide a pivotal turn in the plot? If the main characters hadn't gone to the store would the story fall flat? Also, you can consider the alternative, is this mini-character necessary? Do the characters really need to tell about every trip they make to every store?

I recently read a Nocturne in which the main heroine spent quite a bit of time in a bookstore. This added to the plot as a mini-character because every time the door bell rang she worried about who that sound represented. The bookstore became a place or solace and menace at the same time.

Day Care Model - The Beginning

My first foray into Second Life (SL) began as many a story does with research. I spent several days immersing myself in the SL environment to understand how to get around and how to interact with its inhabitants so that I could better understand the challenges and training that would be required of the real life (RL) students and instructors. There are some excellent tutorials (my main recommendation Virtual Ability) that take less than hour to complete and give any budding SL inhabitant the tools they need.

My second research step was to learn about day care centers and some of the recommended criteria for their layout and operation. This included ideal locations, building layout, playground requirements, and the options for service that a day care center can provide like overnight and weekender stays for children.

Finally, the last step was to build a proof of concept model to show that we could build a day care center with all the necessary requirements while fitting into the boundaries of the SL environment. In the next few blogs I will talk about what I have learned while we've built the components along with a few pictures of our progress.

Another Submission Saga

Again, time has gotten away from me so I've delayed posting anything here for awhile. My latest bid to submit a story to Nocturne Bites has not faired well so it's back to the drawing board. I have another story in progress and I will go back and review the submitted one and compare the new one to see if I can better come to grips with how to improve my writing style.

In the meantime, I have a second project ongoing in my life that I've decided to blog about because in some ways it has to do with the essence of story writing and that is creating a convincing other world. In this case, the world I'm referring to is Second Life. For those who may not know, Second Life is a virtual 3D world (not a game) in which any person can create a new reality for themselves. The people you react with in Second Life (SL) are real people located else where in the world, and you can forge a complete different life path while in this environment.

In my particular project, as research for a potentially developed simulation for work, I am creating a proof of concept model of a day care facility to train real life students how to implement their care plans with real life results. In the next few blogs, I'll post some photos and talk about my experience building the SL day care center model.

In Between Holidays

I hadn't realized until this moment just how consuming the holidays can be. I'm currently working on a new story but it's been tough to get out the words with all the interruptions. But that's life.

Sitting in an airport the other day waiting for an arriving plane I did get a chance to read a new Nocturne novel: Scions: Revelation by Patrice Michelle. I am always fascinated by the new twists an author can put on paranormal characters. Vampires, werewolves and other para character types have been around for so long, creating a unique view is a worthwhile challenge. I particularly enjoyed this story for employing a new character type the Velius while distancing werewolves and vampires from their stereotypical norm. It's a good read and worth checking out if you get a chance.

Well, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!