Metaquette Q41 > On Planet X > #UnrealEngine #LED #Greenscreen #MoCap #NYWIFT #PlanetXstudio

Pooky on Planet X

Tips & Tricks for the Metaverse.......with Pooky Amsterdam

Brooklyn is the island of my birth, and though it has seen many changes since then, it is still the place to find origins. Last week I was able to go to Planet X an amazing LED / Unreal Engine / Greenscreen / Mocap studio space through the auspices of NYWIFT and check out behind the scene, or behind the screen, production facilities. In a refurbished car wash, this new filmset has appeared. Darin Friedman is running a great operation. everything is tightly organized but the results are panoramic. Like The Mandalorian uses the same kind of 20 feet tall LED screen to create places that would be far too expensive to film on, such as Mars or Alpha Centauri. Or even find in this Solar System.

Q: What's next for Metaverse Entertainment?

The incorporation of Unreal Engine into gaming platforms can only help this more and more viable and exciting way of providing backdrops, atmosphere and more. John MacInnes had a "mise en scene" challenge for his followers. All the tools for creating them exist in Unreal Engine. Lighting, character, sets and props.

Today the incredible Jo Redfern just posted an article from Variety on the kind of collaboration that is perfectly aligned for where we are in technology and expression right now. "Hypergalactic" will get a boost from Spaceport, Roblox and Fortnite. It is the edge of tomorrow, today. This allows the millions of players to see a film, to support it and to fan fiction it within the games they both play in and identify with.

User Generated Content is part and parcel of the Metaverse experience. We live our stories as animated characters and can generate stories, creating our own origins and formulating experiences which live vividly in both our imaginations and reality. We identify with what we make, and while our avatars are an ultimate kind of creation, they are separate from our biological self, yet imbued with all the thought, energy and emotions of who we are. 

Being able to create content from a Metaverse platform can create great brand building, playing with an object in a positive way can represent a product moving from virtual good into one's actual closet or refridgerator.

Using the Metaverse as an entertainment platform to create films, video series and real-time game shows is in my core DNA.With over 200 avatar based real-time game shows and a large portfolio of films mainly using the Second Life platform, I might have been an early adopter, but using these kind of vehicles has always made sense to me because they reach people where they are. With VR it's all getting closer.

Brooklyn will also be the home in Fall / Winter 2024 to the first Volumetric Video production facility in New York.  ZeroSpace is coming! Bingeable VRTV is a next step, where we will be able to enter the program, movies and shows alongside the virtual performers. 

I have my 10-part musical series ready to go.

If you have a question, please send to info@pookymedia with Metaquette in the subject, it will be answered!

 

Metaquette Q40 #Metaverse #MetaverseEntertainment #Entertainmentplatform #DigitalHollywood #ContentDrivesAdoption #AppleVisionPro

Tips & Tricks for negotiating the Metaverse.........with Pooky Amsterdam.

For people unsure that they will be able to hear in VR, I would think the reveal of captions available for VisionPro, would bring more people to this device.  Under the category of Content Driving Adoption. this is real breakthrough. 

 Q: Will Content Drive Adoption for VR in The Metaverse? 

I personally became involved with 2.5D avatar based chat rooms over 20 years ago, because I could read what everyone was saying better than I could hear in real life. It became obvious to me in 2003 that those platforms could be used to create theatrical-like productions. 

"Theatrical-like productions" seems so quaint a term in a world where Generative AI Cinema is heavy on the menu for this years Digital Hollywood Festival. While the panels and discussions are attuned to the rise of AI and its existential threat to creative professionals, the jury is still out on how humans will respond to a steady AI diet. Saving money and time are paramount for any profession, how to maximize the best work is often based on a variety of influences and synchronicities.  Better prompting we are finding, creates better, and even more original content, but even us humans "generate a script for a rom-com" in startling similar ways. Boy loves Girl, Boy loses Girl, Boy gets better Robot companion will be done to death.

Movies and TV is the catchall for our entertainment complexes, often with a passive outlook, we sit back and relax while games certainly make up lean forward and engage. What if the Metaverse could serve as a platform for people to be able to make and create their own TV-like and Theatrical-like productions? Allowing that great democratization of content utilizing tools will create vast content, much like YouTube or any of the big platforms (insta, X, TikTok, etc) allows for the public to upload. A massive amount of creativity has been unleashed, and appreciated. We are DIY to the core.

In the coming years, developers can give those kind of tools to those who wish to create entertainment like programs for it's users. YouTube has helped create new forms of shows, commercials are taking their cues from shorts and tiktok creators. Through these social media platforms, recognizable styles are adapted into more mainstream media too. 

Will AppleVisionPro and META take up the challenge for interactive TV? The games which are now played involving zombies or shooting targets are really only one kind of entertainment. In a world which is scary enough, (read the news if you don't believe me) I want games on my own time to serve me. Okay distract me and entertain me, but also make me feel good that I have elected to play them. 

Virtual Worlds, the Metaverse and such, are entertainment platforms as people elect to engage and be entertained there, playing, even creating games within them, meeting friends, shopping, looking at cool stuff etc. But The Metaverse is also an entertainment platform in itself by being a stage set, albeit a virtual one where more classically defined entertainment can take place. Like the Game Shows I've created, with a viewer log-in audience that takes place on a weekly basis for example. 

Other ways that the Metaverse is an entertainment platform is as an animation type of studio, where the 360 degree world of virtual goods and backgrounds can be accessed for real-time film making. 

Which brings me to using the Metaverse as both a subject and location for a film itself, as in Mambo Motel ~ The Metaverse Musical. As an avatar invested in my virtual life, meeting others who have similar interests from across the globe has made the physical world more interesting, colorful and lively. I have penned this exploration of a new world as an exciting, yet cautionary tale of how we find ourselves by losing ourselves within the Metaverse. 

It will only be a short matter of time I believe before volumetric video studios will be able to produce Virtual Reality bingeable TV, with all players and producers under one roof. They will be able to exchange ideas and skills creating programs of various interests for all who put on VR goggles. 

The legendary Trip Hawkins recent post on Medium  made me realize that the studio of the future for VRTV could resemble an older model of a NBC studio kind of set-up, with everyone in the building for top > down and up pipeline positioning.  We all will be there, hopefully with the best working hierarchy we have learned from the past.

Metaquette #Metaverse #VR #Bingeable #Oculus #3DTV #MetaQuest Q39

Tips & Tricks for negotiating the Metaverse with..........Pooky Amsterdam

Streaming services, TV and other channels provide immensely watchable content. People spend 4 hours a day watching, on all platforms, like YouTube. Youtube Shorts alone recently surpassed 50 Billion daily views! 

I want my entertainment to be bingeable, and fun. Right now most of the streaming screens we look at are flat, but increasingly the awesome and compelling view of VR has my interest.  We have lots of examples of concerts done for Virtual Reality as well as sports action, interviews,  training, and animation. VR can also profoundly deliver a you are there experience, witness from this years SIGGRAPH, "You Destroy. We Create" an immersive tour into Ukraine's artists consciousness and reality. Here are more examples of the kind of VR entertainment currently available. 

First Person Shooter games also abound. To be honest I am scared enough, and don't want to kill zombies in my spare time. Personally I don't want to kill anyone or anything for kicks & giggles. I dont want to even "pretend" hit anyone, and I'm not bothered about making baskets, goals, holes or home runs. When I turn on any device for an evening of good programming, I am looking for engagement with characters, storyline and inspiration.

The closer and clearer Volumetric Video becomes to me, the more I see it as the Next Big Thing. Where entertainment is more than a watching experience anymore, but at a whole new level of being there, inside the program.

Q: Can VR in The Metaverse enable immersive entertainment?

I wrote a blog about 13 years ago where someone who wanted to relax and have fun after a long day, entered Second Life to take part in The Dating Casino, a game show. As part of the audience she could send texts, respond to other people in the virtual room and participate as an avatar with a name, face and phygital identity that got noticed. Friend requests and a sign up to be a contestant for a future show had her coming back, but all as the avatar she logged in as, watched on a flat screen, controlled with the keyboard.  This is now old technology, new technology wears a VR headset and has wrap around viewing.

VR content of a theatrical kind is accomplished with something called volumetric video: catch the awesome Diego Priulsky in his TED talk 4 years ago, or see what Arcturus studio is up to here from 4 months ago.  If perception is nine tenths of reality, VR changes so much of what we "see" and take in around us. We can enter a scene, and get the close - ups we want, over the shoulder shots and / or a wide angle sense of our choosing. The dramatic, comedic and even melodic action takes place right in front, behind and around in many degrees of viewing freedom. We can be impacted not just by light, shiny objects and movement, but by depth and the color of human emotion felt in a very personal way.

Naturally, I see some kind of game show, which would be offer a high level of interaction to anyone who logs in to become a contestant and play.  Having fun with a Virtual Reality Puzzle Dash along with other people in the VR Space from all over the world is both exciting and is to come. This space is where I intend to create content, as engagement with VR, even for a limited amount of time is mind opening, and often heart opening, ie. moving in an intimate way. 

With VR, we enter to leave some of the real world behind, just as we watch TV or YouTube to get a break, to get away. In VR we move inside the screen and experience the content in a different way. No longer looking at it as 2D with a flat screen, we are inside 3DTV. With the experiences I see coming, we are involved not with animations made in Unreal Engine, but with real humans who have been filmed in volumetric video. We also have in this, 6DOF, which means we get to walk around and see the action from any point of view (or at least as far as our room space will allow.)

There hasn't been a lot of scripted programming with human actors to take advantage of how compelling VR is. The next step, imho is entertainment you can feel because you are IN the Seinfeld living room, or literally Dancing with the Stars. 

We're going to need well-produced product for this. In the beginning of the TV era, in order to have content for their programs, the broadcast networks had studios where they shot the series which ran. In order to have quality content beyond games, the VR industry needs series-like content for the headset. Content will drive adoption of VR. Entertainment content that can be experienced means a production studio that can deliver it. It needs to combine great narrative, with actors (once everyone gets off strike,) music, a CGI studio to create sets in Unreal Engine and Volumetric Video Capture. PookyMedia has a few properties we are developing for this.

The content has to be good.  A show volumized in the VR Space, entered into by someone wearing a VR Headset has a new level of sensation and interaction with what is going on around them and has to evoke a sense of humor, realness and relatability. The intensity of dramatic encounters and comedic relief is high, a scripted show is not a video game. This is not watching in the traditional sense, but a being part of, with proximity and emotion. We experience the conversation between two people as if we  are part of it. This is an incredible way to be part of a series as everything is heightened in VR, from surround sound to visual immersion, and it enthralls us in a different way. 

This is the next step for PookyMedia,  we look forward to your joining us in them, dancing shoes on of course!

If you have a question, send it to info@pookymedia.com with Metaquette in the Subject line and it will be answered.

Metaquette #VirtualComedy #AvatarComedy #Spatial #KrustyKrab #Metaverse #MetaverseEntertainment #SunkenBlimp #StandupComedy

 Tips & Tricks for negotiating The Metaverse with.....Pooky Amsterdam

Book FREE Tickets here

The Metaverse is a Media Platform, the perfect locus of People, Location, Stage and Convenience.

All you have to do is log in and become part of the show that's going on. The Metaverse is: 

Disease Proof / Gas Price Proof / Clean Laundry & Underwear Proof / Kid Proof / Makeup Proof / Weather Proof and to this day....Personal Hygiene Proof! (no smell check yet!)

If you have electricity and a computer, you can enter and become part of the fun.

Q: Can I see stand-up Comedy without leaving home, but still have the feeling I am in the club itself?

YES you can!! 

In The Metaverse! 

Once I was a former regular at The Comic Strip in New York City, back in the veritable day.  

But I made my first Virtual comedy club performance in 2003, sensing that massive multi-player online worlds would be extremely important to the future of entertainment, I have been putting on all kinds of shows for two decades. 

THIS Thursday the 22nd of June at 1 PM Eastern, I will be breaking new pixels at the Krusty Crab Komedy Klub in Spatial.io 

Book free tickets >here 

Sunken Blimp is hosting the space and it's exciting, be part of the future with us tomorrow!

Come and join the fun, see and hear for yourself how fabulous it is to be part of the action, as only you can be, in the Metaverse. Sure The Voice may allow people to vote for their favorites, but you are just a data point to them my friend, here you are a bona fide presence. 

IMHO, the brands have gotten it wrong in the Metaverse - I was reading a recent Brookings Research report on "Creating Value In The Metaverse"  there is much on how to sell stuff to people and on the hopes to engage the consumer (end user / avatar) with the product. The Metaverse is not just another place to sell stuff to people, it can be that...but it is so much more. It is an Entertainment Platform in the sense that people can take part in shows of all kinds, music, comedy, debate, create your own story, role play etc. And to also form community and friendships around these engaging activities, so people return. This is a key to stickiness!

That is where brands will find the answer - in sponsoring the content which is being created, not necessarily in creating a game where you play whack a mole with branded toilet tissue..... The advertisers will be IN the show and part of it. Think of Youtube and how powerful the content creation is there and how sponsors and advertisers have aligned themselves successfully with actual entertainment video.

*Clears Voice*

*Get me Grey Goose on the line, Tell them I'll drink a virtual martini on the show tomorrow! It doesn't matter if it's 10AM on the West Coast! I'm not driving!*

Plus the content can be streamed / filmed / rebroadcast forever and this reinforces the Media Content and the Sponsors. 

So tomorrow - Log in as a Guest, chat away in text with interesting people and WIN A PRIZE!!!! We are also have a mini quiz / trivial show with a Prize! Brush up on your SpongeBobVerse stuff!

C'mon along and enter a virtual environment where you have a name, no matter how ridiculous it may be, a presence no matter how shiny and people will be talking and interacting with and around you in this immersive journey of fun!

Because Fun is one of life's only rewards......

If you have a question please write to info@pookymedia.com with Metaquette in the subject line and it will be answered!

Metaquette #Virtualcapital #Capital #FWIW Q38

 Tips & Tricks for negotiating The Metaverse with........Pooky Amsterdam

We measure ourselves by a metric of worth in many ways, usually by how much we have and what we can spend. Money is a zero sum game. If I have $100 and I give you $20, I have $80 left. It's no mystery; it's math. There are many things on this Earth which are not a zero sum game though, and can be considered a form of capital. Love, for example, If I give you love, or friendship that doesn't mean I have less of either to give someone else. Time is another form of capital, and one of the resources we have which is not renewable. We often measure time against that other constant of money. But in the gaming world time is itself the new currency, and how much time you spend with and in a game or world or Metaverse will determine how meaningful that experience is to you. Most Metaverse experiences are elective, we are not required to go or to enter a Metaverse, in the same way we are not required to watch Jeopardy, or NCIS. The Metaverse is an elective activity, a choice for entertainment. So what kind of capital can we get out of that?

Q: What kinds of Capital can you get out of The Metaverse?

Capital is the concept of anything of value or benefit to its owners. Money is one. There are many others: Emotional Capital, or the feelings you get out of something; Physical Capital, either physical beauty, athletic prowess or the ability to lift your couch; Intellectual Capital, inspiring thought or the mental gymnastics or dance we perform to figure things out; Virtual capital, AI Capital, from ChatGPT to Lovelace Studios machine solutions will provide by our efforts, and prompts.

While the usual ways to obtain ka-ching from various Web 2.0 / 3.0 are through content creation, coin exchange or real estate, it is the Emotional Capital's general rule, "what you receive is what you invest" that matters. Connections with a complete stranger and a bond over shared interests or a similar sense of humor is one of the great fraternal delights found in a virtual environment. Joining a group of people around a hologram campfire can spark lifelong friendships. it starts when the friend request comes in and you come back the next day to say hi.

Your Physical capital in the Metaverse is one where your actual physical strength means nothing, because you can terraform with your mouse, lift a building with a click and everyone looks great in The Metaverse. It's a great equalizer when everyone is beautiful, it can mean who you are inside is more important than how you look.

Intellectual capital is abundant, an example is the victorious feeling one has upon figuring something out. Learning how to negotiate the terrain of the Metaverse, contributes to our skill sets of what we can do, and because of the proximity of many diverse people doing many different things, entering the Metaverse can lead to gaining knowledge about things we didn't know before. At the very least, getting around, figuring out the UI can be puzzle solving.  And as pre-visualization is a huge strength of the Metaverse, knowing beforehand tricky intricacies of a project by building them first virtually is another form of Intellectual Capital provided by these super platforms.

AI Capital is trumpeted as machine knowledge that will contribute to the growth of this platform. "The future of meetings is 3D and powered by AI." Runs the headline, certainly AI is capable of transactioning a great deal of writing, which could translate to conversation, as we see with ChatGPT. If the Metaverse can build itself, populate itself and make itself attractive to human interest there is a great deal of AI capital to be mined there too. The question of give and take is an interesting one as the more we give AI in terms of knowledge of how we operate the more it can also give us in terms of helping us solution the real and imagined problems we face. 

Enter The Metaverse for an abundance of capital, not all of which you can put into your bank account, but valuable nonetheless.

If you have a question, please email info@pookystudio.com with Metaquette in the subject line and it will be answered!

Metaquette #Metaverse #Empathy #FutureoftheMetaverse #Humanity #Allinthistogether

Tips & Tricks for negotiating The Metaverse with.........Pooky Amsterdam 

One of the great benefits of our modern times is the ability to share information across the world and in real time. A recent discussion on a Telegram thread created by the awesome Remco Sikkema called See You In The Metaverse  😎🚀 has sparked this blog. There was mention of bullying and toxic behavior on Discord and other platforms by someone who has first hand experience with those who create such destructive havoc. Remco said, "Somehow I hope the Metaverse brings back a form of personal safety. Because the internet cannot provide it in the end." And it got me thinking of the future, and the future of The Metaverse.

Q: Can The Metaverse bring back a form of personal safety?

That which enables people to harass, disrespect and harm others during our very short time on Earth is problematic. The moderator who was talking about this kind of egregious behavior made note of mental health issues, which makes sense. Crossing those kinds of borders where "I" think it's okay to anonymously push "you" around is not all right. This point was brought home in a conversation with a friend, who I greatly respect. He said, "'You' have no idea who 'I' am until you have walked a mile in my shoes."  

Which made me think of how the Metaverse can help people understand one another more, and if we understand each other more, maybe we will not be so ready to inflict harm. Because if I hurt you, I hurt myself. And so this is part of the Empathy Trials which The Metaverse can accomplish in ways that any other platform can not. What do I mean by this? Here is an example:

One of my friends in The Metaverse was male irl, but played as a female avatar, for a variety of reasons, he said the shopping experience was much better for one. He also noted to me that before he played as a female, he had no idea the amount of catcall and intimidating type behaviors women and girls are subjected to. His experience as a woman, informed him in ways that just being told...women are harassed on the street, could not. He had an Empathy Trial so to speak, and in that learned something very valuable.

Imagine in the future, as part of the Human Contract with our lifetime, we had to complete a form of certification which showed we understood how other people lived, and how other people felt.  Because if you knew how my life was, and that it had hardship, danger and troubles just like yours, it might reduce any need for aggressive behavior. If you could really feel what I was going through, that is.

In the Metaverse we can take on an avatar of any color, race, sex and / or religion. We could live in an area where our beliefs were not shared by the majority of others around us.  We would have to get out of our echo chambers. We could virtually live in a ghetto or slum or trailer park. We could see what extreme poverty was like and also examine how vulnerable we felt in a variety of different circumstances. Or as a man / male-identifying, one could play as female / female-identifying and vice a versa. All this could help demystify the differences between us and bring us closer together as a human species, for we are more alike, certainly physiologically in so many ways, than we are different.

And we would need to exist in this form for a certain amount of time, a time in which we might begin to identify with that other person, one whom we might not have had any sympathy for otherwise. Imagine we would learn to hate less, and hopefully begin to see ourselves as a part of a greater humanity. These Are the Empathy Trails we could offer in The Metaverse. 

The great Nonny de la Pena has created these kinds of situations virtually, with her Emblematic Group which is a triumph of immersive storytelling. Through her work, people have experienced what it is like in Gitmo, The US/ Mexican Border, Bombing in Syria and Hunger in Los Angeles, for examples. Would we not be better people if we had to face what our horrified reactions are,  how we wanted it to stop and how living someone else's life makes us feel? This opens our eyes and hearts to the "other" among us. And it has helped heal wounds, because if I can help you, I can help heal myself.

Wouldn't it be amazing if in order to go further in a game, or platform we had to participate in some kind of virtual community service as part of the TOS? Or to level up? Or as a consequence for bullying another player in the game, we would have to take on something of their persona for a while, or be banned? 

Clicking a mile in someone else's virtual shoes IS possible in the Metaverse. This should be something we desire to learn, it would make us more rounded, caring, human and less afraid. We have seen what hate, uncontrolled behavior and violence does....tragically. Both anger and fear limit greatly what we can accomplish in our very short lifetimes, we need to embrace the Family Human in all our manifestations. Let us feel better about ourselves and others through The Metaverse.

Bring on The Empathy Trials! 

If you have a question, please send it to info@pookymedia.com with Metaquette in the subject line and it will be answered.

Metaquette #Metaverse #SecondLife #VirtualWorld #Avatar #TOUR #MetaverseExplorers

Tips & Tricks for negotiating The Metaverse with.............Pooky Amsterdam 

Roll up for the Magical Second Life Tour!

Dear peoples of The Metaverse, no matter your degree of interest, Second Life should not have escaped your notice.  Here are 18 Facts of Second Life you might want to know, including that the Second Life GDP is now around $600million. Daniel Van Der Waals the dashing head of the Metaverse Explorers group has asked me to lead the tour into Second Life. 

Second Life is a user created world in many respects, and it is that which makes it so sticky. The residents of Second Life have a stake in this game, we build in this game, we literally and figuratively have skin in this game. Second Life is huge, it has everything, people do everything and anything there, it has tremendous User Generated Content in its marketplace and awesome UGC for a variety of activities and destinations.  Did I say Destinations? This guide has almost 50 separate categories, including something like 10 separate genres for music alone.  This weekend is the 16th Virtual World Best Practice in Education conference with educators from across the globe presenting their insights, methods and how to teach in the Metaverse, programs.  Sweet 16! Worth a look to see the wide variety of topics that are covered!

Second Life has its own currency, the Linden and exchange (Thank you to Tilla) which works incredibly well as people buy and sell in a marketplace with clarity as to the revenue they receive, and which they can easily withdraw too.

There is no one blog that could sum up everything Second Life has to offer, and if you ask the residents of SL, as it is called,  what is the best thing about it, most would say the people we have met, and the great friendships which transcend all platforms.

Q: Second Life will celebrate its 20th Birthday this June, is it still relevant as a Metaverse?

Yes, it is, it is the grand daddy of the Metaverse! Most Metaverses offer the same kind of things, but Second Life due to its longevity, has the experts and the expertise on what really works over time. You can stream movies into SL, you can stream your SL experience out to the rest of the world too. You can buy, rent and sell land, or build a community around your particular interests and you can dance if you want to, there are tons of mocap dancing animations to buy. 

Yes the learning curve is a bit steep, many residents tend to be interested in technology yet unlike Roblox, Minecraft or Fortnite  where most users are tweens and teens, the demographic skews to adults. Second Life is a grown up kind of place where you will meet other grown - ups, even if some of them take on a younger persona, or even a furry one. The many skins  we wear in Second Life are merely soul wrappings to who we are inside, much as our outside skin wraps our own souls. 

By the way, if you are a performer - and want to be part of the Big Birthday party, applications are now open for this! 

The learning curve is something to master though. And there are many many tutorials on how to do that.

Here is one which also includes how to download the preferred viewer for Second Life which is called Firestorm.  And here is a direct link to Firestorm, where you can click on which of the operating systems you use. In the video above, an avatar named Lux takes us through the various windows we click in a Second day. In Second Life you can communicate with the person next to you so no one else hears in whisper, or send text to the amassed audience and even shout across a Sim if needed. You can text, or talk to someone privately in the instant message box and you can use voice too. The communications capabilities are truly awesome and really set a standard for how in-world contact should be.

In a world where Metaverses will come and go, Second Life has that here - to - stay quality where investing in your inventory feels secure.  A few years back PookyMedia was asked to create a video for new users, it still has its charm though the new landing destination has changed: A Year In The Life of Second Life  One's Second Life, like one's physical life is an evolution, we evolve in our Second Lives through the skills we learn on our own and from each other. In Second Life we have the ability to do anything, but more often than not we will help n00bies with learning, no matter how old we are, we were all new once. 

Please join me on a tour of Second Life that will take in a large variety of stunning locations, impressive builds, fabulous shopping and fun activities!

If you want to ahead of the tour friend request me, please do. I am Pooky Amsterdam!

If you have a question please put Metaquette in the subject and send to info@pookymedia.com and it will be answered!