Hammer, Spanner, Second Life

In real life, Ali and I are looking at refurbishing our kitchen, so we downloaded a couple of software tools from Ikea and MFI which allowed us to design a kitchen using their units. As large parts of our existing kitchen are made of brick and would require a sledgehammer to change, we decided to leave them be, but after a frustrating few minutes we found that neither tool would let us include anything that wasn't in their range in the new design. So, we lobbed them in the bin and started up Second Life.

A hour later we had a scale model of our current kitchen which I copied and spent another hour moding to design our new kitchen. Not only were the Second  Life tools much easier to use and let us model anything, we could just tell friends and family to use Second Life to have a look and tell us what they thought. If you'd like to have a look, the old and new kitchens are currently in my bit of the Linden Village in Ambleside (220,40). Let me know what you think by sending me an IM or leaving a comment here. You could even buy a modable copy of the existing kitchen for 0 L$, do your own remix and send it to me.

Although designing RL kitchens is seriously dull and mundane compared to a lot of the amazing things going on in SL, I think it's really cool that SL can be used as an RL tool alongside spanners and hammers. It's also really cool that SL is better than a lot of software tools specifically designed for the job and that its facilities for collaborative creation make it even better. All I need now is a 3D printer to spit out a full size RL kitchen from my SL build. I've got a feeling that nailing the kitchen together in RL is going to be a lot more work than sticking prims together in SL...

UPDATE: Torley has been busy cooking me up a signature watermelon themed kitchen remix, which is now stacked on top of the other 2 kitchens in Ambleside. Although it started as a practical example of how SL can be useful in RL, the tower of kitchens is now starting to resemble a bizarre, abstract art installation that's very Second Life.

Comments

[Torley Wong/Torley Torgeson]

I lurve the part where you say "You could even buy a modable copy of the existing kitchen for 0 L$, do your own remix and send it to me." Kitchen remixing! Hahaha... hey, if you could get a whole bunch of variations on this, you could make an Andy Warholesque piece of art.

This reminds me of a very long time ago, when I was an isolationist who hadn't yet become so social (as I am in Second Life). There was a program called Virtus VR that allowed design in 3D and exploration through the design. At the time, it was kind of a big thing to be able to lay out architecture AND walk through it (a higher-end Virtus program was appropriately dubbed Virtus Walkthrough). So I built these things, walked through 'em... and... felt strangely lonely because no one else was coming to see them. I think there was a module that allowed nodes to be distributed over the Internets, but it wasn't to my liking either and not the most convenience of things.

So I stopped using the program.

Today I'm here.

[782 Naumova]

That's totally awesome, and yet another reason why SL isn't just a game. Calling SL a game is like calling a PC a gaming machine. Gaming is but one of the uses for a PC.

[sheldonschwartz]

Hey there! I can't wait to see what you have there!

My fiancee and I want to rework our bathroom... and I think Second Life may be key.

And then I can warrant all the time I spend there!

:)

Thanks-

Ss