FRAPS - And Another Clutch of New Islands...

I can't really comment on the following - as they are either too new or closed for construction, with the exception of UTD ArtTech, which is open, though it, too, is under heavy construction.

Anyway - first we have some commercial sites:

• American Honda
• Mobile Objective
• anyMOTION
• Drury Designs

NOTE 21/02/07: Mark at anyMOTION has pointed that I got the wrong URL - now fixed (above). Thanks Mark - and thanks for checking out the blog. The German anyMOTION is: "a classical Multimedia agency and production company."

And now some Academic:

• Elon University - North Carolina
• University of Texas - Austin
• University of Texas - Dallas Art Tech
• University of Texas -Dallas School of Management
• Minnesota State Colleges & Universities - MNSCU

That's yer lot for today... I can't get megaloads of glossy pictures every fishing trip, you know! But now I come to think about it... I do have one I have been meaning to post.
This is the IBM island that is part of the New Media Consortium cluster. I assume, once the construction is finished, it will be opened up - it certainly looks quite tempting! Having flown a bit closer to it than this, I can see that the saucer-like pods on top of each tower have "IBM Innovation Center" on a rolling display around the top.

But like I said, no pictures from today's virtual expedition.

Besides, I needed some time to experiment with FRAPS, the Windows-based inworld machinima software. From the website: "Fraps is a universal Windows application that can be used with games using DirectX or OpenGL graphic technology...Fraps can capture audio and video up to 2560x1600 on dual-core CPUs (1152x864 single-core) at up to 100 frames per second."

I know it's been around for ages but I've only had a first dabble. It records in .avi, but that's easy enough to convert to a more compact format. After my first attempts with it, I would conclude that it does a perfectly decent job (if a tad limited) and I would recommend it to anyone wishing to try out a bit of machinima. It has a relatively tiny "footprint" and is many times better in both quality and performance than the movie function (CTL-SHIFT-A) built in to Second Life. Using the inbuilt function I found SL juddering to a standstill - and of course this was reflected in the resultant movie! It has other useful features - like snapshots (presumably without the tell-tale click/whirr of the camera!).

What is more, you can use Fraps in a wide range of online games - not just SL. In fact, I'm so impressed, I've already upgraded from the freebie suck-it-and-see version to the full monty registered version, for slightly less than 40 USD.