Multimodal Semiotics and Collaborative Design

In terms of the supporting content-creation software, it is possible to distinguish 3D modeling tools
and 2D image-editing software 18 . The perceived affordances and constraints of these tools are
among the primary reasons why the co-designers explore outside SL’s default tools. A popular 3D
modeling tool, which is often used to create sculpted prims SL designers, is a game-design software
called Blender, which was developed by an independent Dutch group called Blender Development
Fund. Compared to SL Blender has many additional functionalities and affordances, the learning of
which requires builders to practice, experiment and build objects that could be imported to SL. I
will discuss these various methods and practices of making multimodal arrangements by the
combinations of 3D objects, images as textures, and scripts as interactive components in detail
within the following sections on design processes and multimodal semiotics in virtual places.
For the PAL team, the virtual world of SL means not only a place for collaborative working but it is
also where they have met each other, had friendships and personal interactions. For Curiza,
spending time in SL is essentially not very different form his time spent in other social media
platforms, socializing while listening to music in a 3D environment can offer similar, or more
advanced, affordances for such navigations. He says he is “logged in to SL as (he is) logged into
Facebook, or (...) Skype.” In Curiza’s (PAL) vision, SL’s real potentials lie in its integration with the
Internet for “connecting both worlds” and finding new ways to access, use and share designs with
wider audiences. He mentions how he has been talking to various artists in SL, and persuading
them to the potentials of expanding their 3D works to the social media audiences. Shaggy
mentions two other examples in his comparison: Google Docs, which is an online collaborative
document editing tool, and Microsoft Office, which a document editor for individual working and
not online collaboration. For Shaggy, SL is very useful in collaborative design as it allows designers
“to see the changes as they’re done”, which is only recently developing in most online technologies.
Shaggy, who suggested the notion of “specificities” for creation of user experience in virtual
environments, technological developments have the potential to chance some of these specificities
and change the way how SL looks in general. With the introduction of Mesh imports, for instance,
Shaggy believes that “creators will have much more freedom for shapes. And THAT might change
a lot how SL looks like.”
In the Workshop case, several students had experience with video games and MMORPGs, which
also enabled them to reflect on the similarities and differences of SL with the particular game
technologies. Comparisons with MMORPGs, gaming experiences and game-design in relation to
interfaces and virtual places of SL were common topics of discussion. For instance, in Venus and
18
These external software include 3D Studio MAX, Rhinoceros, Blender, Sculpted Studio as 3D modeling software;
Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator, MS Paint etc as 2D graphics software; and Sculpted Studio as inworld sculpted prim
generation software. Especially with the introduction of Mesh-imports into SL’s grid, the role and importance of external
content-generation software became much more relevant
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