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I'm the owner of Vista Animations.
My name is Vista Mesh. I do the clothing.
My name is Vista Design. I design the hat.
My name in Second Life is Vista Animations. Motion capture technical.
We have Motion Capture Studio,
dedicated to sell animations from AO movements and dances to coupled interactions.
We have 12 Bicon Bonita cameras.
We use the Bicon software.
Then I use the Motion Milder and Second Life.
So there are over 50 markers, right?
50, 60 markers.
56 plus the hand system.
Calibrate the cameras, calibrate the system,
calibrate the skeleton, the actor, the props.
Then capture the animatron.
You normally add some dances to Oreos.
Wait a minute, did we do any walking?
Well, we can do both too.
Or do you prefer to do first the dance?
Yeah, I don't walk. I just dance, talk and I don't dance.
All I do is talk and talk and talk and talk some more,
and then there's not even an audience.
They're just sort of like cutouts, like cardboard,
and I just talk and...
Motion capture, it's evolving really fast.
We started in 2008, we've gone sweet.
It was something like $45,000.
Last year we have purchased like a Chinese version of it.
It costs something like $2,000.
It's crazy.
Everything these days in Second Life.
Wait a minute, I have to interrupt.
No, you can't start it like that.
What do you mean no? Of course I can't.
We have actors that come here, or dancers.
And more people act with the face, not with the body.
And they don't use to wear in the suit.
Do you want to play with it?
Yes, a guitar.
That's the best guitar I ever owned.
I don't own it.
Your avatar, it becomes you.
Animations and clothing and everything.
It could be really different, but at the end it's you.
At the beginning I was the actor for the melee art.
So I went to the disco and I see people dancing
with my mother.
And she was like,
I don't know, I don't know, I don't know.
So I went to the disco and I see people dancing
with my movement.
It was a little bit strange to see so many clones around.
We opened the office in Arrense Mar
because it was where I live.
It allows me to spend lots of time with my family.
The second life has changed my life in, I think, in all ways.
Does your family think you're crazy?
It's true that my family don't understand what I do.
My mother say, the people who buy this animatron,
they have it.
No, they have it for the day avatar.
Do you ever do the female animation?
No, I don't do anything with mock-up suit.
Why not?
It's a little embarrassing.
See, it's like being naked and it's strange.
Other people, they can't see something of you,
your personality.
It's no more cold freeze.
It's like you put a pixel from you in there.
My daughter fell sick.
She was worried about losing her.
I needed to do something.
I started to make a story for her
and it was the Susa bubble story.
Life is a mystery.
A mirror in a mirror.
A game within a game.
The Susa bubble is about good and bad.
Despite the fact that they want to do good,
they do bad things.
They are jealous and they cheat.
Why? Is there nothing?
The only thing you can experience is being in this universe.
You are not allowed at this market.
Entering it with an avatar.
You have to wear a yellow ribbon.
You identify with it like I identify with Rose.
I still would like to convince you
that you are going to film Rose, my avatar and not me.
Because Rose is handsome and she is slim.
I have a charming accent.
Rose is much more sympathetic as an image.
The visitors also have that background.
They do all create their own image.
You experience when you go inside that world
with the avatar you love that character you've made.
Therefore I think the experience is intense.
At the moment I am working on several real life projects.
The Sex and the Sea installation in Rotterdam.
It is very nice to have a table and a bar.
In a few weeks we open an exhibition in Basel in Switzerland.
They are strongly involved with the new media.
With projection, video, sounds.
At the same time I am now making the concept
for an exhibition in Moscow.
I build all the models for the real life installations
inside Second Life.
The possibility to play in it
and to relate myself as an avatar towards the art.
For me it's like a studio.
I do precisely the same in my performance
as what I do in Second Life.
Because I take it very seriously,
others will take it very seriously.
I've had now 15,000 visitors.
It is wider audience than an audience you will get in a museum.
And if you are inside the art world
then you should know what's going on.
I always turn it around
and make them feel stupid about it.
This is a different world.
This is a future of art.
Especially people who love what I am making.
I make them feel they miss something
if they do not visit this part of my art as well.
I say my God, where have you been?
My project works with amputees
for the United States.
They struggle to get back on their feet.
It's hard to lose a limb and bounce back.
There's nothing that would make me happier
than to bring together an amputee in Miami
and an amputee in Philadelphia
and one from Sudan
who walked into a land mine
and let them embrace each other.
We should be sharing our experiences.
We should be sharing stories.
That's how you resolve the emotional trauma.
Second life is the perfect place for this material.
My name is Emi Kaplini.
I work for Virtual Ability.
Virtual Ability Incorporated.
They're doing our development work.
When the participant comes in world
I can make their avatar do the exercises.
There's scientific evidence
that what the avatar does
can translate to real life.
One of the videos illustrates
someone putting their wheelchair in the car.
They'll be able to stand up
and their avatar will put their wheelchair in the car
just like they see in the video.
The more the avatar resembles the person
the better the translation is.
It feels like you're really there.
And it's not our imagination.
We know that individuals with balanced challenges
who can walk in second life
can walk better in real life.
The information that your visual system is taking in
you are living that.
The immersive environment is so important
for people with disabilities.
If they're homebound they can get out
and do something.
They can have a social life.
And the whole idea of phantom pain
is perhaps related to you lose a limb
and suddenly the brain doesn't know what to do.
Now that's a very oversimplified version.
But then you get on the jet ski
and you're using your arms,
you're using your legs
and the brain may think
it's all put back together again.
My mom is one of the wisest
and most inspirational
and most resilient women that I have met.
There's not many 86-year-olds
that come into second life.
She's in there, you know.
And what we had observed
is that the more time she's spent in second life
the younger she seemed to become in real life.
My name in second life is Fran Serenade.
My name in second life gave the emotional experience
back to her.
I have been in the world for years
just like my daughter.
My name in second life is Barbie Alchemy.
I am the founder of Creations for Parkinson's.
I wanted to recreate environments
free of stress.
We have horseback riding.
We have ice skating.
People go dancing.
There's a lack of dopamine
that comes into your brain
when you have Parkinson's.
So these activities,
they're great for my condition
because they're fun.
Play in the water.
People dive underwater
and become mermaids
and explore
through beautiful caves and caverns.
As a mermaid,
it is great to be able to use
my muscles like that.
The thing that really grabbed me
was that ability to create,
as you did as a child,
creating your mind
and then it could become your reality.
It changes who we are
from the inside out.
My name in second life is Absinthe
and my avatar is a relatively well-known model.
I noticed that so many models
were looking like Barbie dolls.
I thought if I'm going to be unique,
I'm just going to go for an avatar
that wouldn't necessarily be
the conform beauty.
My avatar is white
and I'm African-American in real life.
Growing up,
I didn't really see color.
My dad was in the Air Force.
I was surrounded by all cultures.
I've lived in Japan,
Korea, Germany, France.
For me,
I still don't see Absi as being white.
She's just a reflection
of a quirky, goofy part of me.
And I love her.
The second life fashion industry is so big.
We have designers who make and sell clothing.
There are people just like you and me
who are using tools that are built
into the game.
Sometimes they use 3D software
outside of the game.
But the point is that everything
is made by the users
and that's absolutely everything.
Being a model means you learn
how to navigate the runways.
You need to have several walking animations,
poses, hairs and accessories.
Your hands are sweating.
Your heart's pumping.
Because you're about to go out on stage.
Even though you're just pressing arrow keys,
it's still that performance anxiety.
You can own as many shoes as a Mildemarko,
more clothes than a Kardashian.
Oh my God, this is like total escapism.
This is bad, Eddie.
No, the world would be a better place
if more people had a little escapism in their life
because real life is hard
and your second life should definitely be fun.
My name is Second Life.
It's Ebony Khan.
I create clothing and accessories
for female avatars.
I have a store and my store
is called Hoochee.
What?
The name is a play on words
and it was a joke as I was shifting away
from being like a nerd haven
and people were complaining about
all these Hoochee's.
So I thought well why not take Gucci
and mix it with Hoochee and it sounds the same.
Okay, that clears it up.
Second Life has such a low barrier
to market entry.
You don't have that in any other kind of business.
You can come in on your first day
and set up shop.
It's basically the perfect proving ground
for international business.
The GDP, the amount of residents,
you know, Second Life is 90 games.
The average item in my store is a dollar or less
but I earn a livable income
and it's just because the people buy
so many items and you make the money on volume.
This wasn't at all planned that you would become
this fashion designer in a virtual world.
You went to college, you got a regular job.
I went to management information system school.
I used to be an IT manager.
And then?
And then I would lay it off for my job.
If it wasn't for Second Life,
I don't know how it would have made it through the recession.
How about your son?
You were a single mother of a young child then.
How old is he now?
My son is 20 and he's a college sophomore.
I used to do a lot of my work in Second Life
after he went to sleep because the house is quiet.
I'm done with my motherly duties.
And I think that Second Life has empowered
a lot of mothers this way
where you can be an involved mother
but you can also earn your own income.
It's a level playing field for content creation.
I'm not sure what he tells his friends that I do.
I know he tells them that I work from home
but I actually need to ask him
what he tells them exactly what I do.
Mom, I told him one thing and one thing only.
And this I'm very proud of you.
Thank you for watching.
