Multimodal Semiotics and Collaborative Design

AmyLee: we have pretty cool logos (made by Xavier and some by RW), we wanted the whole
sim to be part of the visual uniqueness of PAL brand.
Figure 8.31. (left) The PAL logo
Figure 8.32. (right) Entrance to the PAL’s underground club, with colorful textures and PAL logo
Extensive use of colors for specifying interaction spaces represents experiential (i.e. direction) and
interpersonal (i.e. mood) concerns in design of PAL. The landscape is composed of rhythmic
arrangement of cubes with different colors for different areas; and striking colors, such as in the
entrance to the underground club (figure 19), are used to express direction. The co-designers claim
to have used the minimum possible amount of textures, and differentiated the places by colors. If
they do not economize in the use of textures, designing the 600+ cubes would mean using 600+
textures 18 , therefore rendering the whole sim would be overwhelmingly CPU-consuming. Although
most cubes have the same texture, Curiza’s comment below shows that choice of particular colors
as textual elements has its meaningful grounding in signification and appropriation of realism with
preferred semiotic resources:
Curiza: if you look actually in the sim design right now, (…) you will see that AmyLee have
actually put in a lot of those nature textures. You have brown (…) You have green-like plants
and stuff. You have blue like the water. If you look at it, all the colors on all these cubes are
actually based on nature colors. So it was to make a balance between the superficial, the
futuristic stuff and then try to put nature into these environments.
In Curiza’s comment, semiotic effects brought by the appropriation of multimodal signifiers
(including the choice of colors and the landscape) are described as metaphors for the combination
of nature and future. However, in PAL’s earlier design, a different attitude on the shaping effect of
colors on signifying the VE is present, as expressed in Xavier’s comment below:
18
Colors and textures operate differently in SL. While colors are default properties of objects modifiable through the
‘build’ menu, textures are image maps that are embedded on the objects’ surfaces. Texture maps are essentially image
files that are attached to the 3D model, therefore they need be re-visualized every time the object is rezzed.
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