EXPLORING SECOND LIFE : Location #1 : KOWLOON

After opened the big door, this was the first street view of Kowloon.

Well, I'm managed to log in to Second Life, and I'm looking for Kowloon, and yeah, I reached there just by teleporting... so simple... When I first came to this place, I felt surprise cause I can't imagine they can create such an environment in Second Life. It really has a feeling of night street, the only thing is, it was empty all the time. It would be better if there was crowded.

When I was walking on this street, the thing I felt weird is, why they putting "Panda Bear" in a lot of design, such as the items sell in a shop, or the painting on the wall, which looks funny for me. I never been in the real Kowloon, so I don't know whether there were a lot of panda bear design stuffs there (just kidding).

Compared to other Hong Kong night street where I went about 15 years ago, it has some similar style, especially the design of the signboard, I never seen these kind of environment in Malaysia, even Petaling Street didn't look much like this environment. For me, this place is like a combination of 1960s and modern environment in Hong Kong, because the sign boards gave me a feeling that I'm still at 1990~2000s, but the environment, especially the wall of the buildings, the design of the street looks, are very much like what I watched in a drama or movie.



An indoor environment in Kowloon. This seems like a normal environment but it played china style background music, and this environment didn't look so "old" for me.



Well, this picture, with a street road sign, very much like an old backstreet, with some papers (probably notice or advertisement) pasted on the old wall, with ambient sound (dog barking), give me a feeling that I'm in a movie... much like a gangster movie or ghost movie because it looked like something is gonna come out in front of you.... and yeah, this environment is very much like an old movie, which I always seen in old movies.



This was an old style Hong Kong's food stall, very similar with the one I often watched in a Hong Kong drama or movie, but I think this kind of food stall still existed in Hong Kong, perhaps Malaysia have some places like this too.



This is a restaurant, also in old style environment, same as the food stall I mentioned just now, looks like I am at 1960s ~ 1970s Hong Kong street.

What I was experiencing so far when I'm at this place in Second Life, it actually gave me that I'm in this place, it didn't looks like I'm playing game, it's more like I am watching a movie. The position of the street sign boards, backstreet design, and building design, are all very old. I can always see these environment in the movie which has their time set at about 1970s~1990s, and this place has a lot of ambient sound which I can feel myself are in this environment, I looked for some pictures of real Kowloon on internet.



Maybe this is a modern picture of Kowloon, but the sign board can actually show how similar the real Kowloon and the one in Second Life.



This look more like an old street, if Second Life can have this much of people would make it looks much better :)

First Exploration in Second Life

Arrghh, Finally I have time to try Second Life during this one week holiday break, and, I don't know why, seems like many textures are not loading, perhaps my line problem? Well, I seen some of my seniors used Second Life before, and I felt it looks like a Multiplayer Online Game. After explore a few hours in Second Life, I'm still confuse with the controls, and I visited to some places, such as Japan town (forgot name), and its beautifully designed. Since I am still a beginner, I need more time to get use with all the interface and control before I could really explore more in this application.

Week 6 : Visit to PetroSains and Aquaria

This was my first time went to PetroSains and Aquaria. We entered to PetroSains around 12pm at KLCC. Well, the environment inside is really what I expected earlier, but the thing I didn't expect is, there were a lot of school kids in the place too, and we have to wait our turns to go to the next gallery, which is troublesome because we have to gather at Aquaria around 3pm (Of course we can't make it on time because of the people inside).

Well, the first thing I found it interesting in the PetroSains is the heat tracking camera, which can track our body temperature and heat, white and red appeared to be the hottest area in our body, and blue appeared to be the coldest. I guess this is the technology they use to track people body temperature to check whether a person is fever or not? Beside this, the helicopter simulator is a little bit disappointed because I was expecting something fun and not like a walk through, it can't really give a immersion that we are in a helicopter. Somehow, we really don't have enough time in the PetroSains because there were too many people inside. Same as in Aquaria, we only have an hour to walk around in the Aquaria (actually considered enough) because its not so big, I went to similar place like this in Hong Kong long time ago, and It didn't make any difference compare to the one at Hong Kong (maybe I'm still very young that time).

Week 5

Ahh, what a busy week! Tons of assignments and works.

We visited to National Science Centre on Tuesday for Interaction Studies class. Well, the place didn't looks like what I was expected, and felt a little bit boring since the place is not crowded, and some of the interesting objects are not operating, and we going to do a case study as the assignment for Interaction Studies. Next week

Oh well, wednesday Experiential Studies class was quite long compared to the previous classes, cause we are given a lecture about Disney by the Dean Dr Harold. We also watched a documentary on Disney, and finally I knew what actually Disneyland is. I was disappointed when I was at California 6 years ago but unable to visit to Disneyland which I really wanted to go to since I was a kid. After watching the video Dr Harold showed in the class, I became more desperate and hope I am able to visit to Disneyland in the next few years, doesn't matter where it would be.

Next Wednesday we will be going to Aquaria and PetroScience, hope it will be a good experience for us, not like when we visited to IMAX at Time Square few weeks ago.

Week 4
Hmm, this week is a little bit busy for me since we have tons of assignments due next week, but its not difficult. We have a case study assignment which we need to explain about the interactions and space in National Museum. Actually that was my first time went to National Museum, but when I'm thinking of "OH We came here for assignment, not just for fun"...... but I never felt boring when I was there, since there are a lot of exhibition galleries. The one I remembered the most was the Coffin exhibition. In the exhibition there were a lot of coffins from different cultures, some coffins were a little bit scary....

Visit to IMAX theatre

Yea, this was my first experience in IMAX theatre. Before I went there, I asked my friend, hows the IMAX theatre looks like, he told me that the screen was very big, like 3 times bigger than a normal theatre. Well, It's not really looks like what I expected. For me, yeah, the screen is big compared to cinemas I went before.Firstly when I entered the theatre, I thought the screen will be like immense size, it didn't, maybe just a slightly bigger than a regular theatre movie screen". The sound doesn't good, it's not really "high definition sound" which I was expecting. The screen is a little bit curve (maybe for the IMAX film only?).

Well, I'm not usually enter a regular theatre, I went to cinema less than 3 times in 2010, not including the IMAX, that's why I don't have too many movie experience.I was sitting right at the middle of the seats, I enjoyed sitting at this area since most of the time when I went to cinema, my seat was at the side area. Well, its good not having many people in the theatre so that I can randomly sit at the area I wanted to, and yea I was able to sit right at the middle and the position of the movie screen was easier for me to concentrate and watch

The movie "Prince of Persia", I watched it for the first time and it was in IMAX Theatre, although it's was not in IMAX format, but I'm still enjoying the movie. If the movie was in IMAX format, my thought is the movie will be full size and really get us feel like entering to the scene? Well, when movie started, I was concentrate on the movie but it's not like what I am expecting. But, I can still saw someone fell asleep, maybe he/she watched it before ? Or maybe it was the theatre's technical issues? and the surrounding sound was not really clear enough which it supposed to be. I was thinking if the movie is on the regular theatre, its will give better results of this film "Prince of Persia".

The movie was not filmed in IMAX, so I can't really compare difference between an IMAX film and non IMAX film. I wish I could watch a true IMAX film in the future but its a little bit difficult for me since the nearest IMAX theatre is located at Singapore and then Shanghai.

Technologies

Sometimes, my friends ask me "Are you a heavy gamer?". I will probably answer "YES". But, I realized that, I don't play more than 5 games in 5 years time now. The first ever 3D video game I played was Final Fantasy VIII in Ps1 console back in 2002. I remembered I never experienced that kind of graphics. Soon after that, I played Counter Strike, the first 3D action game I played. The feeling was absolutely fantastic for me. But now, when I looks back on these games, I'm thinking like, it's a very outdated technology isn't it?

Back to 10 years ago, I don't really seen much people using handphones, but many of them used those very large handphones, like a big bottle instead of a phone. I started using handphone when I 'm 13 years old. Since the technology is getting better, the phone size, phone design is became more freedom, creativity and more functions to use. Similar things goes to the people, even a 7 years old kid is using handphone. People can use handphones to online in everywhere except for the area which are not in coverage.

Right now I was thinking, will it be good if technology keep getting better? will it give any negative effects in our lifestyle? As for sure we won't know until it happens. For me, I would love to keep on developing myself and enjoy what was invented.

2th week of class, the Dean explained to us about the 3D related space and form lectures, he also showed what is IMAX, which we will be visiting next week. I remember I read some of the notes somewhere else last semester.... To experiencing myself in a 3D environment is always in my though, even watch a 3D movie is fine for me, but since Dean told us that the IMAX theatre at Time Square was no longer broadcasting IMAX film, so I do hope can experience the theatre enviroment next week to imagine how the place will looks like...