Off to see the wizard
Several months ago I wrote a post about using the Web to travel the world without ever leaving the comfort of your La-Z Boy recliner. It looks like some innovators have taken that idea a step further, however.
Sites that offer 3D virtual reality experiences open new doors to world travel and adventure, allowing you to see yourself in these settings and doing the things which dreams are made of. Of course, the hitch is you aren’t really there; only an avatar you create of yourself.
Hydrogen-rich soil on Mars shows up as blue on this special NASA camera. Enriched virtuality is the essence of the site called Blue Mars. (AP Photo/NASA JPL)
Two such sites are Blue Mars and Second Life, and both let your imagination take over and propel you into far-off lands, historic events, and adventures. Not a bad way to spend a cold and wet winter afternoon.
Welcome Island
When you enter Second Life for the first time, you’ll start on Welcome Island, according to the company’s web site. This area is designed to quickly teach you the basics of Second Life, including: walking, zooming with your camera, chatting, standing/sitting, flying, and teleporting. Along the way, you’ll be rewarded with a few entertaining surprises.
Once in your second life, you can start exploring exotic places, meet people (much as you would on Facebook or a dating site), go shopping, choose to settle down and live in any place you like, get creative in designing your own products, take on a virtual job in one of a variety of professions, or even use the site as an educational platform to teach classes from or take classes on.
Real and unreal spots
Current hot destinations on Second Life are both real and fantasy creations. For example, one destination is Green Acres Golf Course on the Carmel, California, coastline. A fantasy destination is Ambrea, a large medieval fantasy roleplay environment.
On one of the adventure sites in Second Life, “The Whiz,” you can travel to 47 locations seeking clues to solving a mystery. In another adventure, you can join with others in hunting for a serial killer.
Blue Mars was founded a couple years ago by a company called Avatar Reality “to create a next-generation virtual world platform dedicated to bringing people together on a massive global scale,” according to the Blue Mars web site.
The site’s creators pride themselves on offering unique levels of interactivity, fidelity, and scale. Users and developers can also create their own custom destinations. More on that later.
The Blue Mars platform scales to support thousands of simultaneous users per region along with cutting-edge graphics, games, and social engagements.
Seeking the wizard
The site is easy to use. Just create an account, log on, download the software, choose where you want your avatar to go and what you want it to do (Skiing in the Alps? Golfing on a PGA course?), and you’re off to see the wizard.
Wow. So essentially what we have here is a way to put ourselves in the midst of some of the world’s most fascinating places and adventures without having to endure the hassles of the full-body scan or pat-down at airports, or pay all those extra fees for having the gall to bring a bag along with us.
Count me in.
One of the neat things about Blue Mars is that users and developers can add in their own destinations and adventures, customizing the experience as they go along.
The Great Wall of China is one of the sites virtual-reality avatars can explore as part of 3D sites like Blue Mars or Second Life. (AP Photo/Greg Baker)
A living art gallery
For example, at Ball State University students in the Institute for Digital Intermedia Arts are creating destinations ranging from China’s Yellow River, populated by several Buddhist sculptures, to the Ball State Art Gallery. And this journey takes you beyond a simple tour of the gallery to exploring the original settings where these artifacts would have originally been found.
To create these virtual worlds, students scan pieces from the art gallery and use those scans to create a kind of living art gallery after collaborating with historians to build the virtual environment where they then collaborated with historians to build the virtual environment where the sculpture would have originally resided.
John Fillwalk, director of the IDIA program, says Blue Mars allows users to explore world locations visually more than ever before.
Other apps
Other applications of Blue Mars allow executives to hold business meetings with clients across the country and around the world, and old friends who haven’t seen each other in awhile can rendezvous vicariously in exotic places around the world of their own choosing.
So, if the real world gets boring for you on any given day, you can always open the door to one of these virtual unknowns.
Don’t forget to pack a toothbrush.
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Comments
When I was younger, I used to play Sims city. You could go anywhere and be anything you wanted to be all on a virtual ame. The idea of this is remarkable and a great learning lesson, but I would definitely disagree with it being the best way to enteract with the rest of the world. It is definitely great to get out and have the experience and be able to say, “I’ve been there before.”
Though these virtual worlds sound quite fascinating, in a sense, they are rather disturbing. I would call this the “avatar syndrome.” By conforming to an avatar personality and life, people lose touch with the real world. It is not just a video game when people “live” online–it is much more and the psychological damage involved is unavoidable. So where do we draw the line? How much is enough?
Mariya, I totally agree with you. I know of college students who get so involved with programs like World of Warcraft and Second Life that they completely stop attending class or engaging in their real lives whatsoever. It kind of reminds me of the invention of FaceBook, which is “the entire college experience, only online” as it says in the movie “Social Network.” It’s hard to know what to think about technology such as Blue Mars, because it is such a creative, innovative invention… but what is it going to do to our enjoyment of real, non-digital life?
Mass Comm Reply by Bryan Carson:
while i agree with all of the posts so far, i really do not think that it is any different than children who close off to the outside world because they are engrossed in a book or engrossed in a imaginary scenario that they have constructed in their living room with spoons as swords and the dog as a dragon.
i had a debate about this in my senior seminar class last semester. the thing about these virtual world where you can say and be anything–the reason they are so popular, is because they cater to our most often suppressed imagination. i dont believe that they are any more disturbing than any other thing that causes us to close off from the world (which can be practically anything).
i really truly believe that video games and virtual worlds are just another outlet for imagination, brain activity, and hobby, and just because they are popular and have to do with the “scary” internet people tout them as the evil little sibling to books, facebook, barbie dolls, movies, and the addiction some have to going to the gym. all of these things can be equally as addicting and we all have something.
Mass Comm:
I also used to play the seems when I was younger and can see how this type of thing can be a little addicting. It is very fun and interactive, and definitely a good way to use your imagination to do things you otherwise might not be able to do in your normal life. However, for those individuals that tend to be a little bit more antisocial, this type of interaction doesn’t really help them do anything but become more introverted. They wouldn’t really know how to deal with real people because they are always in their virtual world.
The whole idea of living in a virtual world does seem very exciting. You can go anywhere and be anything. The possibilities are endless. I just think that if people are replacing real world experiences with these virtually created worlds it can be harmful and take away the joys of interacting in the real world. A computer can’t replicate all of the five senses. Looking on the other side I think the sharing capabilities that these platforms bring are really interesting and can enrich everyone’s lives as long as it is in moderation.