• Understanding Textures
• Editing Audio Files
• Choreographing Animations
• Creating Sculpties

    Mark Biss2007-12-11T00:00:00Should these match the headings in the Chap? e.g ? can't find any further reference to "Sculpties"Second Life (SL) is an extremely popular, massively-multiplayer online game (MMOG). Many consider Second Life to be much more than a game. Second Life is somewhat like the movie "The Matrix," in which people live and work in a simulated world. Second Life is very similar; your computer player, called an avatar, lives in Second Life's 3D world.

    However, unlike "The Matrix," current computer technology is not sufficiently advanced to comprehensively simulate a physical world. This means Second Life has two shortcomings.

    First, you see the world of Second Life through a computer screen, which - even though it uses state-of-the-art 3D graphics - gives the simulation a cartoonish look. Despite this, many areas in Second Life are visually stunning.

    Second, the simulation of Second Life is not a complete physical simulation. Important elements, including gravity, are present. However, you could not completely simulate something as complex as an automobile in Second Life. It's still too difficult to simulate all the aspects of the internal combustion engine and electrical components of a car. Modern computers are not powerful enough to do this. Still, there are cars and many other sorts of vehicles in Second Life. The gap between real physics and Second Life physics is bridged using scripts created in Second Life.