Riel Life Productions – A Real “Second Life” Virtuography

Author: Ecocandle Riel
(Brian Meeks in Real Life | CEO & Owner at Riel Life Productions)

Birth of Ecocandle Riel in Second Life (April 25, 2006)

In early April of 2006, the Washington Post ran an article about this obscure virtual world, where people hang out, chat, dance and even shop.  Several weeks later, on April 25, I decided to give it a try, and so I went to www.secondlife.com and got my first avatar.  I remember that the sign up screen indicated that there were 187,000+ people who had come before me.  That seemed like a pretty big number at the time.  The process was simple; I selected a last name, Riel, from a list and then checked out the first name to see if “Ecocandle” was taken.  It wasn’t, it never is.  Some years before signing up,  I had run a candle manufacturing plant that made candles from soybean oil.   My moniker was Ecocandle back then and it sort of grew on me.  After a couple of more questions, I choose the free option, and Ecocandle Riel was born.

A Bond Builds With Second Life

Many people have tried SL and only about 10% of the people which create an avatar, are active after a month.  This isn’t a good statistic, but the realities are that the world is so massive, that to fully enjoy all which is offered, one must spend a little time learning the ins and outs.  The common thread among the older avatars, is that we all knew someone very early in our experience that would help us get accustomed to the new frontier.  Linden Labs, the company behind SL, provides Introduction Islands, as do companies like Cranial Tap and The Electric Sheep Company, which are designed to explain different aspects of using your new avatar.  These are helpful, but it is the connection which one makes that determines if they will remain.  Within 2 hours I met Lupo Drake, and after 15 minutes of chatting, he introduced me to Gracie Gable and Cavalier Goodnight.  Lupo and Gracie were there for me that first month, answering questions, helping me find out how to build fun things, and teaching me how to wear the cool new hair I had bought.  Today, Lupo and Gracie, are valued team members on my projects.  It is because of them that I stayed and it changed the direction of my life.

I Start Earning in Second Life

There are many ways that people make a living in virtual worlds.  I have a good friend who designs women’s clothing.  He isn’t the top designer but he has made very good money.  There are those who sell furniture, pre-fab houses and buildings, animations, custom textures, skins for avatars, art.  If you can imagine it, it is likely being done in Second Life.  My company is involved in the building of spaces, called sims, in SL, for corporate clients.  I have 7 contract workers who live all over the world, in the U.S., U.K., Belgium, Canada,  and France.  When a project begins we gather, layout the plans and everyone is given their tasks.  Then they start working, according to their schedule.  Because all of them are brilliant designers and hard workers, I don’t worry about the time of day they are working, because I know they will get it done.  This means that the time zone differences (eight of them) don’t get in our way.  It does make for some odd days for me, managing all of it, but I so love what we do, that I wouldn’t have it any other way.

It was 9 months after I discovered SL, that I left my real life job as an auto insurance analyst, to start my company.    With my first big contract in hand, I assembled my team, and we began building a 2 sim space for a major Seattle real estate firm.  They had 2 building, one that was complete, and one that wasn’t started, which they wanted reproduced in SL.  The project was never opened to the public, but merely an R & D project.  They wanted to understand what was possible.  So we created their buildings, the second building, based upon the scale model that they had produced.  The Condominium contained two of the floor plans, completely furnished, and allowed one to tour the space and get a feel for what the real world unit would look like.  They wanted to know if this could be used to give tours to potential buyers.  We included features like click through counters.  If you didn’t like the counter, just click on it, and the surface would change to the next choice.   The CEO and staff declared the experiment a success and maintained the island, for their staff, for a year.

I Expand the Base

            This project led other builds and to an entirely different service.  The first client also wanted to know what it would take to create a video of the project.  I devoted countless hours to learning about something called Machinima, the art of creating film with your computer in virtual worlds or games.   It is different than the more common CGI, which is creating film by rendering scenes, one frame at a time, using a computer.   In Machinima, one actually films, real time, the subject in the virtual world.   Perhaps one of my most enjoyable projects was the “movie trailer” we created for an author in Quebec.  In October of 2007, she was releasing her new children’s book, Terra Incognita.  It is a story about children stranded on an island which has an active volcano.   We created the island in SL, built a volcano, and hired actors to play the parts of the children.   The client gave us the story board and we created the film.  I purchased some royalty free music online and finished the project, which was a huge success and her publisher was thrilled with the response.

                Projects in SL can range in cost, based upon the amount of work required to fill the clients request.  It is typical to see a one sim build cost between $20,000 – $50,000, though incredibly complex builds can be as much as $250,000.  Machinima and custom scripting projects vary greatly, but simple projects can be as little as $500.  There are many ways to approach a project.  Does the client need to have products duplicated in great detail?  Do they need space for events?  Do they want to gather marketing information?  All of this information factors into the cost.  There are some unforeseen benefits to virtual worlds.  Rivers Run Red built a space for Adidas in SL, which they used to promote their brand for a year.  Their goal was to get exposure, but was pleasantly surprised when the build generated over $8000.00 in virtual shoe sales. I have a pair, they are great.

 When I Look Back Now

                When I first started there were roughly 18,000 regular users in SL, today 1.3 million have logged in the last 60 days.   It is remarkable how much it has grown.  My company still creates builds, does custom scripts, and produces films, and I look forward to what every day will bring.  Mitch Kapoor, the founder of Lotus Notes, spoke at the 2006 Second Life Community Convention, and said that he believes that 3D Virtual Worlds are the natural evolution of the internet. 

After 31 months, I am more convinced than ever.

Virtual World Lively’s Plug Is Pulled By Google – Breaking News

 Author: Ecocandle Riel

(Brian Meeks in Real Life \ CEO at Riel Life Productions | Owner at Riel Life Productions)

At 9:04 pm Easter Standard time, one of the most promising ventures into Virtual Worlds, announced that they would be shutting down.  Lively, the Google experiment in virtual worlds, has decided that December 31, 2008 would be the end of the line for their attempt at creating a virtual world.  In their blog post, entitled “Lively No More”, “In July we launched Lively in Google Labs because we wanted users to be able to interact with their friends and express themselves online in new ways. Google has always been supportive of this kind of experimentation because we believe it’s the best way to create groundbreaking products that make a difference to people’s lives. But we’ve also always accepted that when you take these kinds of risks not every bet is going to pay off.”

What does this mean for virtual worlds.  I spent a fair amount of time studying Lively.  In fact, I taught myself 3ds Max in order to be able to create content for them.  It is surely a disappointment, but I don’t feel that it will have a major impact on the growth of virtual worlds.  Second Life, has continued to grow, albeit at a slower pace.  There are several other Virtual Worlds which are still in beta, and IBM is aggressively pursuing their vision.  I feel like the worst part of this news, is that it dashes the hope that someone with very deep pockets, and certainly Google would fit into that category, would dump tons of money into their virtual world, learn from the mistakes of Linden Labs, and create something vastly superior to anything now available.

In the second paragraph they indicate that they are going to focus on their core businesses.  With the global economy on shaky grounds, one can’t fault them for taking such a prudent step.  I guess that, even in a world where only our imagination limits what can be done, the realities of real world economics must still be considered.

Thanks Lively, we enjoyed our brief time together.

 

Source: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/11/lively-no-more.html