Home General Discussion

Google Lively

polycounter
Offline / Send Message
JacqueChoi polycounter
http://www.lively.com/html/landing.html

Anyone else see the insane potential in this?

According to Gamasutra:

http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=19333

It's embedded into Facebook!

:D


Does anyone know someone at Google, that can find out the possibility for 3D content creation?

Replies

  • rolfness
    Offline / Send Message
    rolfness polycounter lvl 18
    reminds me of second life.. which is awful..
  • Eric Chadwick
    jox wrote: »
    possibility for 3D content creation?

    http://www.lively.com/help/bin/answer.py?answer=98535&topic=13370
    Can I Create Content?

    Most of the avatars, clothing, and objects were created by vendors working for Google. We're also working with a small number of trusted testers, vendors and creative agencies as part of a test for creating custom items.

    We hope to enable user-generated content and even more customization soon, but until then we've given you tons of choices from the catalog to help personalize your Lively experience.
  • Tumerboy
    Offline / Send Message
    Tumerboy polycounter lvl 17
    ya, it's second life. But it's google, so it'll be popular even though there are 500 other things just like it.
  • JacqueChoi
    Offline / Send Message
    JacqueChoi polycounter
    rolfness wrote: »
    reminds me of second life.. which is awful..

    At first glance it seems like that.


    But being linked more closely to social networking, I can see it being more like a 3D Facebook or Myspace.

    Rather than play silly flash based facebook Texas Holdem with your friends, you'll actually play 3D Texas Holdem with your friends, sitting at a virtual table, smoking a virtual cigar at a virtual casino.

    Rather than that food fight application on facebook, you can have a virtual food fight with FPS mechanics.

    Looking at photo's of your friends, could actually entail sitting on a couch, opening up a photo album and flipping through the pages?

    I dunno, seems like a LOT Of possibility. I don't see it as am MMO at all (notably the lack of trolls and racial remarks).

    Something like the FUN-Wall in facebook, could just be a giant wall of grafitti you have in your pad, where people can write or tag something really fast.
  • oobersli
    Offline / Send Message
    oobersli polycounter lvl 17
    i tried it. my character didn't actually walk. it was point and the char goes to that part of the room. plus my avatar was a chic and i couldn't figure out how to change it. its a bunch of fail.
  • WipEout
    Offline / Send Message
    WipEout polycounter lvl 15
    jox wrote: »
    At first glance it seems like that.


    But being linked more closely to social networking, I can see it being more like a 3D Facebook or Myspace.

    Rather than play silly flash based facebook Texas Holdem with your friends, you'll actually play 3D Texas Holdem with your friends, sitting at a virtual table, smoking a virtual cigar at a virtual casino.

    Rather than that food fight application on facebook, you can have a virtual food fight with FPS mechanics.

    Looking at photo's of your friends, could actually entail sitting on a couch, opening up a photo album and flipping through the pages?

    I dunno, seems like a LOT Of possibility. I don't see it as am MMO at all (notably the lack of trolls and racial remarks).

    Something like the FUN-Wall in facebook, could just be a giant wall of grafitti you have in your pad, where people can write or tag something really fast.

    Those were all things that Second Life had in the early betas, if I remember correctly. But when I played a release of SL, it was horrible and missing most of those features that I liked the idea of (or maybe they were buried too deep in the rest of the garbage).
  • JacqueChoi
    Offline / Send Message
    JacqueChoi polycounter
    WipEout wrote: »
    Those were all things that Second Life had in the early betas, if I remember correctly. But when I played a release of SL, it was horrible and missing most of those features that I liked the idea of (or maybe they were buried too deep in the rest of the garbage).

    awwww


    Well, I hope google gets it right.

    I'm hoping I could become a Google Lively Bxjillionaire, by doing something silly like selling crappy virtual shirts, and making zombie avatars.
  • Blaizer
    Offline / Send Message
    Blaizer polycounter
    people must be really bored to "play" with this... too many hours in a computer is bad.

    second life... heh, some people lost their "first life"
  • Slum
    Offline / Send Message
    Slum polycounter lvl 18
    secondlife, there.com, others... Whats wrong with IRC?
  • Neo_God
    Offline / Send Message
    Neo_God polycounter lvl 18
    Blaizer wrote: »
    people must be really bored to "play" with this... too many hours in a computer is bad.

    second life... heh, some people lost their "first life"

    In all fairness, some of the people didn't have much of a "first life" to begin with.
  • acc
    Offline / Send Message
    acc polycounter lvl 18
    It's amazingly horrible. Awful interface, awful controls, awful performance, awful load times, awful as a chat room, awful as a interesting virtual environment, awful as a character customization tool. Dear god, I didn't see a single redeeming quality.
  • pliang
    Offline / Send Message
    pliang polycounter lvl 17
    Google Earth still remains supreme
  • Justin Meisse
    Offline / Send Message
    Justin Meisse polycounter lvl 19
    WipEout wrote: »
    Those were all things that Second Life had in the early betas, if I remember correctly. But when I played a release of SL, it was horrible and missing most of those features that I liked the idea of (or maybe they were buried too deep in the rest of the garbage).

    You're semi-correct, those weren't features of the early beta rather the user base was making various game types. When the game went live it got flooded with people more interested in clothes and sex. I quit playing when my gun shop stopped making money > I guess I made about $400 out of it back in 04-05?
  • JacqueChoi
    Offline / Send Message
    JacqueChoi polycounter
    I guess I'm seeing something that others aren't. Lord knows I could be wrong (and it certainly wouldn't be the first or last time).

    I had a chat with one of the creative directors I work with regarding interactive worlds, and how Video Games seem to be moving into a direction less about a linear controlled story, and into more of an open experience.

    I used this video kind of as a guage to what CAN be done with real-time interactive mediums (not so much about games):

    This is a recreation of Frank Lloyd Wrights Falling water in the Half Life 2 engine.
    [ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tqsk4WARk2I[/ame]
    (Frank Lloyd Wright is one of the most historically influential american architects, and Falling Water is considered his masterpiece).

    fallingwater-1.jpg

    The recreation of this architectural masterpiece in a videogame engine shook a lot of circles with possibilities of what else game engines could possibly do. With realtime shaders being able to mimic surface properties, higher quality lighting, higher quality textures, what ELSE could be created as a virtual experience?

    Why stop at Falling Water? Why not recreate the Louvre? Why not take a virtual field trip to the Mayan pyramids? Why not amalgamate a 3D engine into Google Earth, and take a walk around a virtual Chichen Itza? or Egyptian Pyramids? or a restored Rome (I'm sure nothing beats seeing these in person, but it's a palatable substitute for people who have neither the time nor money to go)?

    Some real-time non-game idea's could be sprung out of this as well?

    As we ALL know what Nintendogs is. Why not a downloadable aquarium on Xbox Live arcade?
    Feed the fishes once a day, put in whatever aquarium decor you want, and whatever fishes you want, turning your TV into an aquarium (with options to setup the lighting similar to how you have it in your room) Not necissarily a game, but something that could be cool to take a look at.

    Andy Warhol once filmed 8 hours of the Empire State Building (as a reference to the 8-hour work day). Warhols film was NOT meant to be a linear story that you were meant to experience in a movie theatre for 8-hours watching it as you do any other movie. He wanted to recreate an experience... which was unfortunately limited greatly by the limitations of the film medium. I think something like THIS would be much more richer as an interactive environment in a real time world. We can (in essence) create interesting virtual aquariums.

    I kind of envisioned Google to do what they always do. Start somewhere, and if it has enough internal popularity, they add onto it, polish it, and continue to refine it, while keeping it completely free and web-based.

    But who knows what else could come out of all of this?

    I could see this being a first step into something bigger and crazier. It's obviously difficult to see past the Second Life comparisons, and who knows, it might end up in the trash bin. But I could also see a LOT of other opportunities this could spawn if it becomes a wildly successful replacement/addon to Facebook.

    Polycount would have an AWESOME chat room, if we could all walk around as our Dominance War entries, and play poker.
  • pior
    Offline / Send Message
    pior grand marshal polycounter
    Hey Jox that's interesting. Never heard of this recreation of Falling Water.

    However, you might think I am weird (as a game art professional who happen to have an architecture degree...) but I would rather watch a filmed walkthrough/documentary about the house rather than WASD my way through it.

    I really love the beginning of the game flythrough tho - since it gave me a great impression of the 'architectural promenade' this house features (as opposed to photographic stills). However I'd rather be guided by a talented filmmaker or architecture critic, than being let free in a space I might miss important details of.

    I imagine this could be enhanced with flashing/rotating commentary hotspot to click for details, ala TF2. But in the end I dunno, it still feels a bit cheap doesn't it?

    Is the map available for download?
  • JacqueChoi
    Offline / Send Message
    JacqueChoi polycounter
    pior wrote: »
    Hey Jox that's interesting. Never heard of this recreation of Falling Water.

    However, you might think I am weird (as a game art professional who happen to have an architecture degree...) but I would rather watch a filmed walkthrough/documentary about the house rather than WASD my way through it.

    I really love the beginning of the game flythrough tho - since it gave me a great impression of the 'architectural promenade' this house features (as opposed to photographic stills). However I'd rather be guided by a talented filmmaker or architecture critic, than being let free in a space I might miss important details of.

    I imagine this could be enhanced with flashing/rotating commentary hotspot to click for details, ala TF2. But in the end I dunno, it still feels a bit cheap doesn't it?

    Is the map available for download?


    awww, I was looking for it everywhere, but I couldn't find it (it used to be hosted on planethalflife).

    I really enjoy a good documentary as well, but I find interacting with something is a much different experience.

    The difference is almost like MGS4 to Half Life 2. One is the cinematic Magnum Opus, and the other immerses you in a way that makes you feel like you're actually escaping City 17.

    They both have their strengths and weaknesses. I kinda feel like games (and interactive mediums in general) are really starting to discover what those are.
  • pior
    Offline / Send Message
    pior grand marshal polycounter
    Yup, that's exactly the problem I have with MGS4. Since everything is cutscene driven, the game provides no feeling of achievement whatsoever. Interestingly enough, the previous games of the series (which could not rely on such movie-quality cutscenes) were by far more successful. Codec conversations were incredibely immersive in MGS1.

    But then again, these are games, hence fun exploration and interaction. I don't think the Louvre would be a fun map to run around in TPV. (better select chapters on a DVD hehe, that thing is BIG :) ).

    Also, about Lively :
    Did you guys notice that the characters are 100% self lit? From a game artist point of view that's nice. No crappy harsh gouraud ala Second Life.
  • LoTekK
    Offline / Send Message
    LoTekK polycounter lvl 17
    The art style is pretty nice, and would be fun to create content for once they open it up. However, I'm not so sure this is such a fantastic thing. I feel like second life, there.com, sony's home, and microsoft's rumored equivalent to home all try and stick too closely to being an analog of real life, instead of leveraging the advantages that virtual spaces have over real life. I think a recent GFW Radio episode summed up my thoughts on the concept. To paraphrase, I'd hate to have to wait for a virtual bus to get to the wikipedia library so I can look something up. That's obviously an exaggeration, but the point it still there.
  • doc rob
    Offline / Send Message
    doc rob polycounter lvl 19
    Most of these things just try and take something that's better done with a 2D interface, like chat, and put it in a 3D world. LIKE OMG 3D MAEKS IT BETTAR@!!!

    User created content is cool - having a 3D world built by the player/user base is a "nice idea." But all of it needs to be built on something that is either USEFUL, or FUN (and fun requires gameplay).

    They need to fill it with mingames, wrap it with a metagame, enable deep connectivity to web content, and the bring unique, useful applications that thrive in 3D.

    Until then, I'm going to just keep ignoring them.
  • Justin Meisse
    Offline / Send Message
    Justin Meisse polycounter lvl 19
    It makes me happy when a bunch of people get together in SL and make something other than spurting penises

    keep your eyes out for some of the mermaid statues, some new feature called sculpt maps so you can go from zbrush > secondlife now
    [ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jlu5QmMWkpY[/ame]
Sign In or Register to comment.