30 March 2007

New SL books

A new SL book is coming out The Unofficial Tourists' Guide to Second Life

Tim guest has Second Lifes coming out soon.

Aimee Weber has a book coming out on advanced building.

Hamlet Linden is working on his own book to come out soon.

Now all we need is the Phinn Boffin/Vint Falkin coffee table picture book.


A room without books is like a body without a soul - Cicero

1 comment:

▓▒░ TORLEY ░▒▓ said...

I'd like added weight on how Second Life snapshots, both raw and post-processed, are seen by the outside world; for a number of people, it's their first impression of what things look like inworld, and the tasty stuff being cooked up by pioneers like Phinn, Vint, and more have a uniqueness that could've come from SL (as witnessed by cultural tropes like the Linden Dollar riffing on that Flickr group), but broader artistic strokes too.

I've seen several books of computer-generated characters rendered in various 3D programs. Now, a key strength of SL is its spontaneity, so while the avatar models aren't as "sophisticated", we have talented, resourceful people working towards making it better daily. I believe the quality of photos has gone up with better education — something underrated but well-worth sharing.

And how many people are aware that antialiasing in their graphic card's control panel will positively affect SL's quality too? I've seen some Residents with beefy rigs who didn't know about turning that on, since it isn't a built-in preference, but the difference in "smoothing out the jaggies" is stunning.

Always ample room for more enlightenment, so here's to hoping we have many great books about Second Life covering what gets missed all too often; eventually it may be the case that a live music performer's guide is in demand, too. :)