Love Made In SL - Lacy Muircastle reporting...

...And Second Life© is a wonderland where you can find the magic of love.  Linden Lab / @SecondLife and @draxtor have initiated a mini series - Love Made In SL - #lovemadeinsl.  Take a look at Draxtor's twitter feed for links to the episodes already aired.

Love Made in SL logo created by Marianne McCann with permission from Linden Lab

The series kicked off with the fabulous story of  residents, Teal and Wolf, whose love story crosses time zones and oceans to reach a very exciting chapter...  THEY'RE GETTING MARRIED in real life.

This makes the romance writer in me absolutely extatic.  Take a look:

http://bit.ly/2BrL6fl 

We would love to hear your Love Made In SL story.  You can contact Draxtor - @draxtor via twitter or me at lacy.muircastle@gmail.com.  We look forward to hearing about your #lovemadeinsl stories.

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The Drax Files: World Makers [Episode 23: loz Hyde]

The Drax Files: World Makers - episode 23

Although 3D designer loz Hyde has a creative day job - he is getting paid to breathe digital life into Hollywood blockbusters such as Terminator and Guardians of the Galaxy - the user-created universe of Second Life holds a special place in his heart: "People have tried to analyze why SL is so successful and yes, the environments are beautiful, but I am more touched by the people!"

Among his many contributions to the community of colorful avatars is the now iconic "Arcade" building, which is inspired by the Brighton Pier in loz' native England. The Arcade in SL serves as a beloved destination for many residents during the Gacha series of events. 

loz Hyde runs the "Meshworx" store in Second Life, where he sells his unique furniture and buildings to a global userbase. 

Most "Meshworx" designs feature aspects that originate by loz' real life surroundings in California but in a rather subtle way: loz often goes out to photograph surfaces, materials, mechanical objects as well as details in nature that tell a story.

He then manipulates and layers these images to create dense textures, which he subsequently applies to his virtual designs.

"I promote Second Life like you would not believe" he explains, by showing off snapshots on his mobile phone to colleagues in the VFX community in Hollywood. 

"In SL you can do whatever you want and that is the empowering thing. If more people knew that, more people would use it!"

More info about loz's work at https://www.flickr.com/photos/8424258...

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The Drax Files - Worldmakers [ Episode 22: Virtual Health Adventures]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igl4X8vI0js


“Second Life is the perfect place for amputees to overcome emotional trauma by sharing stories and realizing they are not alone!” says Sandra L. Winkler, assistant professor at NOVA University in Florida, teaching occupational therapy. 

Her Virtual Health Adventures project is using Second Life to find out if virtual reality can offer a better learning environment for amputees than a traditional website. 

Dr. Winkler’s 3-year study is funded by the United States for Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality  and is currently mid-way through the 3-year study period. 

She adds that while it would be too early to state conclusions on the project, preliminary results clearly show that virtual worlds with their unique ability to create a sense of "being-there", are a powerful tool to facilitate a peer-network: a place where amputees from all over the world help others [veterans of wars and non-military amputees alike] and offer emotional peer support to families. 

"Second Life offers a space where clinicians can learn from patients what they might not be able to glean from textbooks", Sandra Winkler says: a space where amputees can share insight into their lives so that able-bodied students or any other interested party can experience what it feels like to lose a limb.

More information at http://www.virtualhealthadventures.org/ [this video will also be presented in modified form athttp://www.icdvrat.reading.ac.uk/2014... ]

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