Google gets Second Life. The no. 1 search engine company has launched a 3D virtual space, called Google Lively, that aims to give competition to the popular virtual world hangout Second Life.
The free service which requires no registration and can be accessed through a user's Google account enables people to congregate in fantasy rooms and other computer-manufactured versions of real life.
Lively's users will be able to create an avatar for themselves that can be male, female or even a different species. This avatar can assume a new identity, change clothes or convey emotions with a few clicks of the mouse. Lively also enables users to create different digital environments to roam, from a child's room to an exotic island.
Here's how users can find there way into the Lively world.
How to get going
Start with choosing your avatar. Users can choose from a variety of avatars available and can further personalise them to their liking. Every avatar has different animations and can be dolled up in various outfits and accessories.
Users can also go shopping for their favourite characters, say Logan, Hamlet, Matty bear, Heather, Jane Doe, Hajime, John Doe, Kitty, Ty and Vanessa among the choices available. Many of them are also available for free.
Lively users can then invite their friends and family into their virtual realities, where they can chat, hug, cry, laugh and interact as if they were characters in a video game.
Deck up your avatar!
Users can deck up their avatar to match their style. There are lots of colours and accessories to choose from. Lively users can choose from the clothing like tops, bottoms, shoes, suits, coats, outerwear, hats and gloves. They can also have their choice in skin and hair colours.
To change the outfit, users need to check out the styles available in the wardrobe picker. Browse or search the options in your wardrobe inventory and select items to wear.
In case a user feels that the chosen clothing or accessory doesn't suit his avatar, they can go back to their wardrobe, left-click on the item, and choose Remove Item.
Create your room
Another step is selecting your room. With Google Lively users can create their own space and share it with their friends. The way to go here is to choose a room shell first. This comes in variety of styles and shapes. Some popular rooms are girl's room, fight club, Fashion room and of course Google room.
Users can get the code they want to use to embed their room in a blog or webpage.
Users can also add music to play in their rooms. For this, users need to upload a music file from their computer or select from inventory. Also, you can grant permission if you want your visitors to enjoy.
Personalise your space
This one lets users decorate their rooms and add unique collections. Several choices are available, ranging from girl's room chair, segmented cabinet, superhero chair, tub couch, to Goth paintings and round coffee tables.
To choose furniture and other room decor items, users need to open the furniture picker and browse through the choices available. If they like something, click on the item and click on Add to room. They can also move around the furniture around and decide the placing.
Users can also design their rooms as per the theme of their choice, say nature lover or gizmo freak. The rooms can be decorated large-screen TVs that can be set up to play different clips from YouTube.com, Google's video-sharing service.
Explore further
To explore further, users can click on an object to leave a comment, or to find that item in the catalog.
More interesting, they can also double-click on an object to see if it comes to life!
* Indiatimes News Network dt. 11 7 2008
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