Wednesday, July 1, 2009

Drama Dolls Dramatic Opening

Warning: Nekos on the beach!

The cat - or should I say the Dolls - are out of the closet. Those of us who have been involved in this project have looked forward to this day for a long time. Indeed, there are some who could not wait and did not refrain from breaking and entry to be the first to report the news:-)

Warning: Drama from the future!

I can hardly blame them. As I said in my previous post, I fell in love the moment I saw them, and looking back at what I got then the Art of Honour has only improved with time.

What are Drama Dolls? To quote Honour herselves:

Have you been dissed in SecondLife? Had a lover cheat on you? Or maybe a perfect stranger held you up to public ridicule by posting your photo on a blog and making fun of your hair/skin/shape or clothes?

Well now you have an alternative to stalking behaviour or public scenes. You can have your pain acknowledged by the perpetrator and, most importantly, get a heartfelt apology.


Words are our basic form of communication. And while our emotions often define how we are, our words tend to define how we want to be.

And they are our means to get there.

The dolls actually respond to your words. OK, you know it’s just a simple computer program, but you can accept that attention of any form helps you feel better when formulating your sentences.

They help you identify the doll with the person hurting you by both taking his/her name and character (we have a large variety of dolls, you should be able to find one that reminds you of the actual person).

You get an apology to acknowledge your hurt.

Lastly, you will watch the doll meet its end. It’s a bit dramaticJ

This is not about revenge, although I am sure some will get a certain satisfaction watching it happen. No, just like the punishments that you may get in a court of law in the outside word, the important thing is getting an acknowledgement. In RL, the society acknowledges your hurt by judging the one responsible. When using Drama Dolls, you get to witness justice be done.

Warning: Elves about to make out on your lawn!

But SL is luckily not all about drama. There is love and friendship in abundance. So of course we have the DollCozies!

I'm here to hug you!

A bit simpler but oh so cute creations you can trust with your message to someone you care about. When clicked they will say your message while it plays some animations to let the recipient know how you feel.

When animating these dolls I first had a vision of making them really look alive, something akin to an AO that makes you shift your weight from leg to leg, turn your head and do other things that may or may not be natural in the situation*. But after some experiments, it really did not feel right, because they are dolls, not avatars. And it would distract from their purpose: To make you attentive to your own emotions, inspire you to formulate them into words, and have an ocean of time to listen attentively to you. So, apart from when they are responding to you, there are only tiny movements


When the dolls are done delivering their apology, they "disappear - quite dramatically! :)" (to quote Honor's specs to me). Actually, they go through quite an ordeal:-) These sequences was fun to make, I am rather excited slash nervous to hear how you like them!

I was very conscious not to animate the dolls as though they where going through agony and pain. You want to use them to move on, not to nurture feelings of revenge. Its more in line with comics: Cat chases mouse, mouse drops a grand piano on the cat, cat shakes it's head and they both start running again.

Because SL, even with all its drama, should be a fun place to be! So take the cab to Drama Dolls and find your favorite!


* Update 08.07.2009: This posting contained a link to the most touching and revealing blog about the joys and perils of living in SL that I know of. Nightflower left SL almost 6 months ago, and now her blog is gone too. I delete it from my blogroll with great sorrow. Take care, Night!

3 comments:

Dale Innis said...

I'm amazed by the amount of thought and skill and clue that went into the design and implementation of these! I was feeling sorry for the one I tested this morning :) while it was apologizing and all, and I was thinking as it caught fire "wow, if it like screams or writhes or anything I'm going to be sad!", but it stood there looking like a burning doll at that point, and that was just perfect. It wasn't like the person was burning, just like the drama, the incident, the bad feelings were symbolically burning.

And the movements made me laugh at just the right times. :)

Have to get a Cozy next!

Emerald Wynn said...

I LOVE THESE! YAY!!! And nice meeting you today! Hey, your blog is fantastic and fun to read! :)

Cristopher Lefavre said...

@Dale: Thanks, so happy you liked them. Means a lot to me.

@Em: You looked nice wo hair too:-) And I have listed your blog, it's way cool!