National Institute of Education Singapore

If you've been in group chat you've probably heard me talking about this particular build project. A random person messaged me wanting to know if I could make a grade school for them for what sounded like a massive project for this teacher.. The odd part of this is they had no idea I could build. They had just seen a mountain landscape I made for the PBS Arizona build.

Normally I do not take build projects for anyone. There are a few exceptions such as the Duchess of Skye and I have worked for Nokia-Seimens among other things but I was intrigued by the concept of what they needed the building for.

The NIE is a national board of school authority for many countries but this one was solely focusing on Singapore. It is a project by design that takes potential teachers and teachers aides and brings them together in a virtual world where they role play as children and take turns teaching each other. I thought the idea was ingenious and interesting so I became a slave accepted the request.

To learn more about the NIE please visit: http://www.nie.edu.sg/office-education-research

They wanted a school to resemble the schools of Singapore and one look at what they sent me as a reference had me going 'Oh hell no.' I won't waste your time with a picture, the photos I was given are grey concrete slabs with windows. I warned them repeatedly I do not create modern buildings but they were adamant having me. I looked at potential schools and found one that had the right amount of modern but kept an element of old world I am very used to building.

I found the Nanyang Girls High School that caught my eyes. Instead of grey concrete it had actual brick and colored glass. It is a private secondary school in Singapore for girls. To learn more about Nanyang visit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanyang_Girls'_High_School

The Real Life Nanyang Girl's School

I'm sure they weren't really expecting a building like the one I picked. It was a surprise to them and I'm still not sure they liked what I picked but I like it and its massive. Seriously this is the biggest building I've ever created in SL. I spared no expense with prims either. *mad cackle

To visit the NIE in SL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/EduIsland%209/143/193/26

You can't miss it, its the biggest building on the sim. And oddly enough, smack next door to the other building I created for PBS. Visit them both!

The Virtual High School

Foyer and stairs to the eight classrooms.

The gym.

The "Flag" room

The 'Seuss' Room

The 'Solar System' Room

The Blue Room

Steelhead St Helens

I've always liked St Helens. I've loved it more after I remade it to be a great deal less urban. There's something quiet and calm about it.

We have some available lots in Helens that came up, good ones beside the Columbia River. If you are interested in Helens now is the time to contact me in world.

Mt. St. Helens

Columbia Bridge and 'Bessie' 

Nice photo of Nevermoor

Perception in SL: Study of Depth of Field

Following conversations for the past several years concerning settings really had me wondering how people in SL see the same exact thing. Everything has to do with perception and visualization and in a virtual world it depends on what machine you run, the hardware settings etc...

In a virtual realm it is difficult to compete with RL perceptions. I showed a picture to someone in RL a photo of an regular object one would find in RL. They easily pointed out that it was a virtual photo but when I showed someone else the same photo with all the settings thrown in ultra they saw nothing strange with the photo... nothing different from what they would expect to see in RL that includes shadow, depth and a broader range of things we take for granted in the RL.

Always being stuck in a skybox I never had the focus to appreciate the world through different views. I was stuck in my 'settings' and had not even tried shadows but when I did... SL became a different world altogether.

Study of Depth of Field in SecondLife

Without Depth of Field

With Depth of Field

Background noise in photography. The best way to see it is obviously self portraits. Here I am standing somewhere with a lot of background noise in the photo so one can really understand the concept.

Without Depth of Field

With Depth of Field

Although sometimes we want to bash SL upside the head, regions go down etc. etc... it is a gorgeous game. LL has spent a great deal of time with the latest visualization that SL is capable of. Yes it means using a higher performance machine but as you can see from above, sometimes you and I see the same things in a completely different way.

Photos taken in Steelhead Nevermoor.

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Steelhead%20Nevermoor/42/17/27

Welcome back!

I swear I step out of Steelhead and I see some interesting things. Welcome back to SL Lunar! The names have been blacked out to protect the innocent... and one non innocent.

Cannot Unsee