‘Starfish’ is a new - mixed reality - play by award-winning playwright Judith Johnson, which aims to explore the issues raised by clinical trials. It uses real life actors and Second Life machinima to convey the message. The production will tour schools throughout London in Spring 2008, from Mon 26th January to Fri 13th March. And guess what? Rezzable created the machinima footage. RightasRain ‘Boss’ Rimbaud: “Big thanks to my associate producer in making the machinimas–Meral (aka Lokum). It took hours and burned through all of our collective patience, but we pulled it off! Thanks again for hanging in there with me.” Some excerpts ft. a terribly cute tiny Greenie:

(watch on YouTube)

Each performance is followed by a live debate, utilising electronic voting technology, during which the students will be encouraged to explore what they think and feel about the issues posed by the drama. ‘Starfish’ is targeted at students at KS4 and above (aged 14+). The production is accompanied by a suite of online support materials which will engage directly with science and humanities specifications.

It seems the most time intensive part of shooting the machinima was nailing the ‘avatar’s expression of emotions’ down: “The biggest issue is working with a fairly limited set of facial expressions. Oddly in many ways the non-human avatars can be more expressive–with doing less even. But if someone could build a animation control panel that allowed detailed movement of the face, eyes, body parts independently and then back again as a set–well…call me let’s lunch on that one!” I guess as the VRW Viewer which mirrors your Real Life emotions on your avatar is far from finished, and the Lindens seem to be so busy with ‘enterprise solutions’ that they forgot about avatar puppeteering they promised in 2006, I’d go with my Pandora HUD for such a use. Or are there any other alternatives I haven’t heard from yet (and that are either not to complicated to use, or totally worth the time you spend mastering them ;)) ?

Startfish - Mixed Reality Live Stage on the Rezzable Blog.
Ytouring.org - Starfish

PS. Anybody recognized the location where the “exhibition” takes place? :d

Tags: greenies, London, machinima, mixed reality, rezzable, sl to rl, starfish, theatre

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