Monday, July 4, 2016

2016 BIZ: ART: AnnT: Miniatures. All those interesting objects in virtual worlds are miniatures--if you want them to be.

Miniatures.  All those interesting objects in virtual worlds
 are miniatures--if you want them to be.
Virtual worlds are not new.  We have seen them for centuries.  Beautiful, hand-carved miniatures on coffee tables, bookshelves, display cabinet shelves.  Replicas of trains, planes, ships, automobiles, animals, armies, almost everything.  Now you can make them on a computer and print them in 3D.   
Art piece printed in 3d:
Interlaced Tetrahedra
As you fly around in virtual worlds sometimes try turning off your suspension of disbelief.  What you are seeing is a small replica of something you might see in the "real" world.  Some of these replicas are amazingly good.  But stop admiring the art for a moment and think business.  
You are looking at a computer-generated 3D image.  You can sell this 3D image to people in virtual worlds.  You can also go to Shapeways and have them render it in 3D in the "real" world.  People buy "real" miniatures all the time.  Can you sell miniatures like this at a price people will pay?  Look below the break to hear Ann Tree Prenyour say, "It depends."
***********************************
  • (More after the break)
  • Where is Arcadia?
********************************************************************** 

    • Q: What happened to the Friday event notices you were carrying twice a month?
    • A: They weren't drawing enough interest and alternative sources came online.  I am now running a short  form daily near the top of this blog. A more comprehensive collection is in  Selby's daily news collection.

    Metaverse events, current and upcoming

          ***********************
          *******************************************
          Ann Tree Prenyour: It depends.
          -
          Selby:  Spoken like a confirmed economist. What does it depend on?
          -
          Ann:  The costs of production for these products and the alternatives. And whether printing from virtual worlds can serve a niche not economically served by other sources of 3D printing or other methods of production.  After all, many of these things are made by some form of casting.  That is really just an older form of 3D printing. 
          -
          Selby:  With a mold or a 3D printer, you prepare a master and use it to reproduce the product multiple times.  
          -
          Ann:  The cost per item may be relatively low if the artist can spread the cost of creating the original over many duplicated items.  
          -
          Selby:  In that case, it boils down to cost of making the two kinds of duplicates.  A big difference in costs would pick a winner.  
          -
          Ann:  That is usually the case unless you change the game.  Don't compete on costs.  Compete on something you can do better or on something they can't do at all.
          -
          Selby: Such as?
          -
          Ann: Those three interlocking Tetrahedra.  You can make a mold for a tetrahedron.  You can make three of them.  But how do you get them to interlock?
          -
          Selby:  OK.  But is there a big market for interlocking tetrahedra?   
          -
          Ann:  Probably not.  But there is a market for puzzles.  And one kind of puzzle is made of  things that interlock.   
          -
          Selby: Where else might people sell miniatures made from virtual worlds?  
          -  
          Ann:  What would an avatar be if you recreated in in 3d porcelain? 
          -
          Selby:  A doll, or an end table knick-knack.  
          -
          Ann:  Is there a market for these things?
          -
          Selby:  You're being facetious.
          -
          Ann:  That's the way I deal with questions easily answered with a little ideation.  Look around on end tables and try to find something that couldn't be made in virtual worlds.
          -
          Selby:  So there is a market for lots of things that could be made in a virtual world.  I found some more ideas here: Shapeways Miniatures page.  
          -
          Ann:  The pricing looks like it could be competitive with other forms of reproduction.  Sales might depend on having an attractive, appealing or novel product. A chupacabra skeleton, for example, might appeal to people in Texas.   
          -
          Selby:  These things could be made in Blender, I suspect.   It would not really be necessary to have them in a virtual world.  
          -
          Ann:  There's a couple of things you could get out of a virtual world.  You got other people in a virtual world. They can give you suggestions and marketing ideas.  Maybe even a little promotion in social media.  The other thing you could get is pictures--stills and videos.  Not just the article by itself, but in a scene. Those you could use in social media to promote your products.  
          -
          Selby:  So you get back to you favorite theme.
          -
          Ann: Right.  Making stuff gets you nowhere without marketing.
          **********************************************************************************

          News and Notes

            ***********************

            The Hypergrid WIP Show

            The Hypergrid WIP is a one hour "show & tell" of works in progress or recently completed. All builders from beginner to pro are invited.  Presentations are in voice and text.  For text presentations, best bring the text in a notecard and paste it into chat.  Voice presentations may be captured in video.  Stills and videos from the show may appear in this blog and elsewhere.

            Next WIP show 

            • Next WIP show: Sun. July 24, Noon SLT 
            • Cookie II location (fourth Sunday of the month)
            • HG address below: paste into the World Map next to Find. Click Find, TP
            • grid.kitely.com:8002:Cookie II 
            • in Kitely: paste into Nav (top) bar of Firestorm, Enter.
            • hop://grid.kitely.com:8002/Cookie II/68/369/22
            • Narasnook  location (second Sunday of the month)
            • Pandora allows presenters to run high threat OSSL functions.
            • world.narasnook.com:8900
            • Put the line above in your World Map next to Find.  Click Find. TP
            • At Narasnook, use World Map to search for Pandora
            • Cookie II location (fourth Sunday of the month)
            • HG address below: paste into the World Map next to Find. Click Find, TP
            • grid.kitely.com:8002:Cookie II 
            • in Kitely: paste into Nav (top) bar of Firestorm, Enter.
            • hop://grid.kitely.com:8002/Cookie II/68/369/22

              Previous Articles from the WIP show 

              HG links-- depending on your interests 

              Metaverse beginner help

              Schools in virtual worlds

              • I publish 5 or 6 days a week, skipping 1 or 2 days in midweek
                •
              • For more on topics like this, follow Selby Evans in Google+ 
              • What do we do in Virtual Worlds? 
              • Google search this blog: Search bar, upper left--or:
              • Put site:virtualoutworlding.blogspot.com at the end of the search terms 
              • Annotated screen shots made with Jing
              • All original content on this blog is Creative Commons License, attribution only. 
              • Second Life, Linden, SLurl, and SL are trademarks of Linden Research Inc. 
              • This blog is not affiliated with Second Life or anything else. 
              • Ads are from Google.


              Posted by at
              Labels: , ,

              No comments:

              Post a Comment

              Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.

              Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)