25
Last week we read on some news site’s that Google launched a new virtual reality environment called “Lively”. On Webwereld.nl they called it a combination of The Sims and Second Life, which is an appropriate description I think. We gave the beta version of Lively a first closer look.
After having logged in with our Google account, we could make an avatar. The basic avatars variate from cartoon-like figures to “normal” looking avatars. Once we had an avatar we began making a room…
When making a room you can choose from several designs, again with a width variation; from a tropical island to an apartment. We choose the last type, and started decorating. In our inventory, we found some furniture, but not exactly what a modern minded guy would use in his apartment. Therefore we went shopping in the Lively shop, which is web-based. You buy something there, and afterwards it appears in your inventory.
This was something we found a little disturbing; the fact you continuously had to switch windows (or tabs in your browser), going from the shop page to your lively interface. We had opened the Lively interface in a single window at first (a kind of pop-up that is), but when clicking the button to go shopping, suddenly it switched back to the browser window.
Once we had found everything we wanted to put in our apartment, we started placing our brand new virtual furniture. The interface used for the placement and rotation of objects was good, although we would suggest adding a kind of “snap to grid”-system, as also a clear indication when something is turned 90 degrees. At this moment when you place your furniture and have to rotate it, you think you have putted it down right, but when looking from another point of view, suddenly it all seems to be standing wrong… So you start over again… This would be easier (and in my opinion not necessary) when you had that grid and 90 degrees option.
One suggestion however we still haven’t talked about: we would like to see that also the keyboard is a possibility to navigate your avatar around in the virtual environment. At this moment, everything is controlled by your mouse, which isn’t always as handy as it sounds… Surely when you use Second Life a lot, or just are a game player, it suddenly is strange to do everything with the mouse, where in those two situations you use a combination of mouse and keyboard.
Generally seen, we had a good experience with this beta, and think there is a lot of potential in it. Surely because they announced that in some time it would become possible to make user generated content… We’re looking forward to the following update.
Leave a Reply