this is the show for the n00b vr enthusiast: if you like to build the vr metaverse of the future, listen carefully to resident, entrepreneur and former linden lab employee cubey terra who is back in the largest user-created virtual world to…well: create some more stuff:
additional reading/viewing material:
– something BIG gonna happen with sl go on tuesday….
– violaine villota’s fairy wings make it onto the rl victoria secret runway
– violaine’s [aka angela’s] etsy store
– daily mail reports on angel wings smacking pop singer [rl for ya!!!]
– samsung gear vr is here to buy [and put a galaxy note 4 into it]
– is gear vr just a cellphone holder? nope, but this thing might be:
![kor fx vest [pic by kor fx]](https://draxfiles.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/kor-fx-game-on.jpg)
– linden lab wants input: why can’t they leave residents alone?
– crowdfunding for yet another hmd: pinc!
– history of abbotts aerodrome
– cubey’s newest product the terra xplorer
– the neurolab n phone hud:
– jo has rebuilt der keller:
– interior decoration with herman zille art
– jayjay zinfanwe from uwa [and their fabulous machinima and sl art curation program] is on radio and tv in oz:
– the other film festival in melbourne [which featured sl art]
the drax files radio hour [with jo yardley] is a weekly production of basicdrax entertainment.
the show is supported by leap motion, sl go [by onlive], stitcher, paradise lost in second life, botgirl’s identity circus, kahruvel design, vika creations, humanoid animations, escapades, botanical, death row designs, nantra, angel red cotoure, fallen gods incorporated, {what’s next}, abranimations, blue moon enterprises and landscapes unlimited!
special thanks to justin esparza for the show thumbnail!
music by bd.
contact the show via skype draxfiles, avatar draxfiles or email radio@draxfiles.com.
the drax files radio hour 
Great show Drax and Jo!
Here’s my opinion on why SL hasn’t really moved forward. In the early days, things moved at lightning speed. Why? Well, there were programers everywhere. A coder percentage of users were coders. This was good and bad, because in the rest of the internet, coders were the hardest to find, or at least get them to work for you.
I gotta tell a story before I go on, just to show where I’m coming from. Before I found SL, I was just a traditional artist. I had used almost every medium tho, except the computer. Some gamer friends were raving about this open world game called Far Cry. I really could not believe what I was hearing, so I got the game, and it was an amazing ride for a game. After I had played the game a few times all the way through, I started looking at what else came with the game. It came with an Editor. Little did I know that I would soon go from not know a dang thing about 3D and games to creating my own game, complete with cutscenes, using the originally famed CryEngine. Me, I was just playing around, but I got obsessed with it.
My point is, that this is where I saw the gaming world going. Games generally have all the same features, and options. It made no sense to keep recreating the wheel. In a matter of a year, some nobody that knew nothing was able to create their own game, just using all the feature already in the engine. When I found SL, I thought it was very similar, but almost backwards. Instead of having your hands on massive complex code to do amazing things, we got simply codes that did basic stuff, and we were expected to write our own code. Being a free market kind of guy, I thought, well good and we’ll get all kinds of unique code.
Back then tho, like I said, we had alot of coders. Today, it’s not like that. If anything, now we just have more people that learned to code, but were not coders before. What I think LL should have done, is they should have wrote most of the really complex codes to create a game with, and done whatever backend work to make it function better and be more intergrated. Then, they should have handed that code to the community, for them to create hundreds of games with that code. The coders of SL would not have been hurt, as they would just go on to edit and create their own version of that original code. Instantly, SL would have been a mecha for playing free game, and creating fun environments. If I had been CEO, I would have had a dedicated team whose only job would have been to write complex gaming codes for the community. It would have been better code, more efficient, and the core features embedded within the viewer.
No, I can’t tell the future, but, to me, this future was obvious. Now we have platforms like Unity, which does pretty much what I thought SL would become. People are creating whole games and then selling that code for others to do what they will with it. You can create you own Street Fighter game for about $65 on Unity, and just switch out the characters and animations. Now Unreal, which used to cost a fortune for the license, has $19/month subscription model, which destroys Unity’s $75/month model. CryEngine then came out with a $9/month subscription model, and they won’t even list the full license for the engine because it is so high. Microsoft is working on Project Sparks, which uses a simplistic picture coding style to more easily create scripts. Unreal uses a node system to create complex code. I have yet to see how the CryEngine 3 is handle code.
Ultimately, what I’m saying is, that there are not enough coders in the world today. We’ll always be in need of coders. If a system is reliant of people creating their own code, then you are not likely going to have that many engaging things to do. LL has coders. Let them have fun writing game code. Then, just give that to the crazy people in SL.
Great show as always, Second Life celebrities! You earn that title every week, (except holidays). I’m excited about more Leaps up for grabs. This show is inspiring me to consider a podcast for my real life gig. Suz
As usual…always some interesting stuff to check out…after I find out about them here! Finally got caught up on 3 weeks of your podcasts. Ü
just to complete the rumors…
http://www.furfest.org/content/press-release-regarding-chemical-incident-midwest-furfest-2014
never mind North Korea hacking Sony!!!!!! But seriously: I’d love to do a story on furry culture – if you have any leads, please contact us!
i wonna know Leap Motions reaction to FaceboOculus buying Leap motion alternative NibleVR?
With regards to the New XP features LL are adding. There is a huge technical gap between casual SL users and Hardcore SL Creators and that gap has got bigger and bigger over time. A lot of new features are Pro users tools. Mesh needs users to know 3D modelling programs, Fitted Mesh needs users to know quantum physics, XP tools still need users to know a lot of LSL scripting.
Usually it’s up to Pro SL users to make things more accessible to casual users, making the clothes in sizes easy to use and customise, creating applications that can convert Prims into mesh. I imagine once XPtools will be no different. we just need some time to fully understand the features of XPtools before we can create something for casual users to create experiences easier.
I already have a few ideas on my list. For instance i was thinking it could be possible to create a system that allows users to plan out adventure stories via a mobile app ,website or inward hud then export to an LSL script that you simply place in a HUD and then you have your very own Adventure HUD you could share with friends.
For me everything is about distilling to its most simplistic form, thats pretty much all that i do in SL.
This is why I’m advocating for more of a node coding system in the New World. Blender has a node coding system for their game engine. Unity has lots of creator that have make node system for it. Project Sparks uses a simplistic node coding system. Unreal Engine uses 1 too.
Currently, I’m working with 3 different game dev teams, and on every single team, we could use another coder. They are hard to find, and this will likely always be the case. If I were Ebbe, I would have 1 creative coder at LL create simple game codes for the community, just to get people started.
I would also eliminate the barriers. With the new features to control what you opt in to, there is no reason to keep these tools from being widely adopted by everyone. You can still be attacked in SL, in numerous ways. I don’t see how these tools make it any worse, and you can make sure you never opt in to that kind of junk in the future.
I forgot to add. These new tools are really only useful if you own land in SL. That means, that the creator will be much less likely to abuse people, because it’s tied to their land. This is also the first time, in a very long time, that LL actually made something that benefited land owners, and made land in SL more valuable. They should promote this like crazy, and open it up to everyone, just because it will sell more sims.