Pan, swoop, rotate, and erm, swivel?

OK, just spent an hour playing with the SpaceNavigator, and while I'm sure it's going to take me a while to get used to it (using my left hand and all), I think it's fabulous for SL camera work!

Please have a look at my test video, let me know what you think.

T

SpaceNavigator - new obsession

Well, I did actually buy a SpaceNavigator, from eBay, and it arrived the next day! I paid about £30 for it.

And... oh em gee! This thing is fantastic! Here's a little picture of it sitting on my desk at work next to my laptop.

It allows you to move pretty freely in 3d space - the prime reason I bought it was to make recording videos in SL easier... and it does that soooo well.

Installing it was pretty simple: plugged it in, installed the drivers from the website (ignored the bundled CD), installed the additional drivers to make it work like a Game Controller, and voila! A french word! I had to map the various axes of the SpaceNavigator to the various axes of the 'pretend' joystick, and then it was all set. I had a quick play with Google Earth and that was fun.

So onto the real reason... Second Life! Fired it up, went into Joystick Flycam, fiddled with the settings and oh em gee... sooooo easy to fly around and do some really cool camera moves.

Expect a test video soon!

Lip flap

Hahaha! Can't believe I've only JUST watched this: Lip Flap

Joystick Flycam

Forgot to mention, I've been looking at 6DOF devices for the Second Life joystick flycam thingy.

I want one of these: 3dconnexion SpaceNavigator.

The question is, does it show up in Vista as a native game controller? If so, it'll work. I've emailed 3dconnexion (I'm not actually expecting a reply, but worth a try hehe).

At under £40 it looks good, though. Plus, I'd be able to use it in other applications! Possibly!
erm... *cough* </gadgetpurchasejustification>

Speaking of buying gadgets, I still have these: eDimensional Wireless 3D Glasses Mr. Stupid here bought them, not realising a. they don't work on laptops, b. no drivers in Vista, even if they did.

Doh!

Ahhhh

It's too tempting to treat this blog like twitter and write SMS style updates...

Anyway, last night I spent some time getting my latest video streamed to my land in Second Life. Pretty easy really, just had to fiddle with Adobe Premiere to find the best settings to save in Quicktime .mov format, and such like. Haven't figured out how to get the movie to play as soon as it starts downloading instead of having to wait, but I'll work on that later.

After that I spent about 3 hours working on the music for my next Second Life dance video! Woohoo... My fingers are SOO sore after playing the guitar, even though most of what I recorded were small effects. I've lots of ideas for the next video, and theortically I'll need quite a few people to 'star' in it as well :D

After *that* I went to bed (without my laptop! the shame!) and finished reading Dean Koontz's "Brother Odd", which I thought was excellent :D, and then I went to sleep.

After reading an actual book I was obviously having technology withdrawal symptoms - I couldn't get to sleep! Solved the problem by connecting my phone via the house WiFi and listening to the Tenestream thru it.

Anyway. Wrote this while I was at work. 54 minutes 'til I can go home. :D

Another video!

Finished work on two things today. Firstly my 'tenevision' logo, which took me hours (haven't used Adobe After Effects for sooo long), and secondly my first Second Life exploration video! Yay!

And here's the video, complete with fancy tenevision intro: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vATbcDBVRRI

I'm a little bit annoyed at myself as well, since I completely forgot I had a USB analogue controller pad. Trust me, the next Second Life exploration video will be shot using Joystick Flycam!

To quote a certain en-springed magician, "Time for bed."

Stuff, and things

Yay! Have been playing with Javascript etc and now have my Twitter updates, Flickr pictures, Youtube video and my very own audio stream (The Tenestream) linked in over there on the right.

Go me!

And... relax

Look at me, writing my very first blog entry!