Computer Graphics World

January 2009 30 n n n n Virtual Worlds a very good chance you'll be a good busi- nessman in Entropia," says Simmonds. Most often, MindArk handles the work of creating sites for advertisers in Entropia. e company uses Autodesk's 3ds Max pri- marily to build content for the company's advertisers and clients. However, according to Marco Behrman, Entropia's CTO, com- panies can build their own content and im- port it into Entropia if it meets MindArk's specifications. Despite its strict rules governing content, Entropia continues to evolve. In addition to the new planets from China and Cre- ative Kingdom, MindArk is incorporating the CryEngine 2 from Crytek, which will enable more advanced graphics (and raise the level of computer needed to run Entro- pia). Behrman insists that Entropia is in- terested in creating areas where users might have more freedom to create and share their own content "as long as the overall quality and feel of Entropia is not diluted." In comparison to Entropia, Second Life is the Wild West. In general, if you can fig- ure out how to do it, you can do it in Sec- ond Life, and that extends to skin texture, dance moves, wardrobe, and sex (which in- volves, presumably, plenty of imagination, if not technical knowledge). So, it should not be surprising, then, that Second Life leads the pack in available tools and tutorials. Taking advantage of YouTube, Linden Labs offers tutorials by the ever-enthusiastic character named Tur- ley, who takes everyone from the hapless Noob to the Adept through a series of easy- to-follow steps to create custom avatars and clothes, homes, and furniture. Users pay to upload content into Second Life, but the cost is minimal, and the average visitor can get pretty far without spending a dime. In Second Life, the economies of scale are at work, and the number of visitors to Second Life contributes to the availability of free stuff and things to do at the site. Content can be created in Second Life using basic tools that generate "prims," or primitives. is can be a fairly unreward- ing process for those who have not spent enough time with Turley and his tutorials. ere is also a free tool called Sculpty Paint, which gives users the ability create 3D models with textures and import them into Second Life. It's tricky and not exactly in- tuitive—users save sculpture maps and tex- ture maps, import them, and apply them to prims in Second Life. e approach can be used with other 3D modeling tools as well, but Sculpty was designed to make content creation easy for Second Lifers. ere.com exists somewhere between the tight control of Entropia and the more freewheeling Second Life. Kids, it should be noted, are often just as happy to be pro- tected, and that's the philosophy of ere. com. Michael Wilson, president of Makena, ere.com's parent company, says there are well over a million subscribers to the com- munity, which offers a PG-13 environment that's evident as soon as one sets a digital foot into the realm. Avatars are not quite as well endowed as those in Entropia and Sec- ond Life. ey wear slightly less revealing clothing, and—perhaps as a result—the in- teraction is quite open and friendly. An early visit to ere.com resulted in an interesting chat with a young man (one presumes) who mentioned that he was from Jordan. In regard to content creation, ere.com requires people who want to build things inside the world to sign up for its developer program. e site offers users an easy-to- use tool called Style Maker for generating content, though content created in other 3D modeling software also can be im- ported. Independent of the DCC software used, the model's polygons and vertices are limited because it will affect performance within the world. Other DCC tools are available as well, including a vehicle painter that enables folks to paint objects from a car to a surfboard. However, anything created for ere. com must first be approved by the com- pany before it can be imported into the ere.com world. Content is monitored to be sure it's appropriate and for trademark protection. Furthermore, ere.com is add- ing support for Collada, an open exchange approach developed by the standards body Khronos, which will allow easier integra- tion of outside-created content. Not surprisingly, notes Wilson, the largest sub-economy of ere.com is the market for women's clothes: "ere are about 20,000 different women's clothing items," he says, "and they all fit." e next largest market is for houses. ere.com is also building up its store of tutorials to help keep users engaged, and the site fosters creativity in its users by There.com is not as restrictive as Entropia nor as lenient as Second Life in terms of its virtual activities, which include (from left to right) a fashion show, game show, and amusement park.

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