Comic Life and Second Life
02
June
Plasq have recently announced the BETA release of a Windows port of their Comic Life software.
I used a few available images from Second Life® drama classes to piece together an example of the output. I then got to thinking about all the possible uses for this software in learning environments. Combined with Second Life®, Comic Life becomes an incredibly creative tool. At the very least you could combine SL Snapshots from inworld events and use the chat logs as dialogues to create engaging documents of events - think of comic book minutes from meetings - people might actually read them!
In a school context there are many possibilities… and cross-media at that! Think of English classes that use Second Life®/Comic Life to create graphic novels; media classes with storyboards and crossovers; science to document experimental procedures and observations (with or without SL involvement); SOSE to represent historical events, to document cultural encounters, etc; what about 3D visual representations of mathematical concepts and proofs?
These are just initial thoughts - but I can see the possibilities of a really engaging set of learning activities with amazing output that is student created. The boon in this instance is that the Comic Life software is incredibly simple to use but the possibilities for creative expression of fictional and non-fictional narratives are seemingly limitless.
1. Skitch in the classroom at Aus Mac Ed | June 16th, 2007 at 12:47 pm
[…] Skitch is currently Mac only and has the potential to be just as popular with students as ComicLife has been. There is demo video from Plasq available. The guys from Plasq are an interesting bunch. Based in Melbourne with a team of programmers in Tassie, Portland, San Francisco and Norway, they are geographically disparate . The web-based sharing tools of Skitch prompt me to postulate that necessity has been the mother of invention in making Skitch. Being able to quickly share notes on screen-caps is a gap in the software market. A TUAW video interview with a Comic Life’s Chris Pearson here gives some background on Plasq too. Fellow blogger Kim Flintoff has been playing with ComicLife and SecondLife together - neat. I’ve used Kahootz in a similar way in a primary school setting - the 3D worlds facilitate a really quick way of capturing detailed pictures to support plot - Skitch could be used to do the screen caps too. […]
2. Patrick Quinn | November 10th, 2007 at 10:54 pm
Wow! what a brilliant idea - take snapshots in second life to make a comic… Why didn’t I think of that?
3. Kim Flintoff | November 15th, 2007 at 11:14 pm
Hi Patrick,
I’m weighing up whether the comment is being a bit sarcastic or whether its actually a compliment… I hardly thinki its a brillaint idea… just a variant of other things I”ve encountered…
I’m always happy to speculate on possibilities… I’m quite lucky being a fulltime student at the moment that I can attend to whimsy and be extra playful…
I’m assuming a pat on the back is what you intended… so thanks! Would love to see where you take the idea.
Cheers
Kim
4. Richard Horowitz | November 17th, 2007 at 3:10 am
I might be a little lost but is this creating a comic from a virtual world to be read in the real world via the internet in order to elicit an emotional reaction from the inner world of these real life people?
5. Kim Flintoff | November 20th, 2007 at 10:30 pm
Hi Richard,
What I was intending is that the comic is a method of presenting a record of what transpired - it can also be creative output and a reflective tool.. all manner of uses depending upon context and the inventiveness of the teacher. I’m currently p[lanning that part of my PhD thesis will be presented in comic form.
It’s hard to tell if you are lost or not without a few more contextual cues to inform the basios of your reading.
Cheers
Kim
6. Laura Seabrook | February 7th, 2009 at 5:06 pm
I started doing Second Life comics late in 2007 ( though I didn’t use Comic Life - rather I drew bits, used screenshots and put it together using PaintShopPro and Fireworks (for speech balloons etc). I knew I would be the first to make one, and considered it to be a version of fumetti,a comic that uses photos instead of drawings for imagery (which I’ve also done before).
The key factors in doing so with Second Life are being selective with choice of image, cropping, and especially processing that image so that gamma and contrast are optimum. Unprocessed snapshots from SL can suffer from a lack of real life attributes, such as no depth of field and a “sameness” between elements in the image. All of which can be corrected using a graphics editor.
I haven’t used Comic Life, however the sample shown on this page shows problems with placement (the avatar in panel 4 seems to be thing from her chest and not her head) and fine tuning (the words in that thought balloon run into its borders). This may be a matter of familiarity with the program.
7. Kim Flintoff | February 8th, 2009 at 9:24 am
Hi Laura,
The example in the article wasn’t intended to be a highly refined product - it literally took me 60 seconds to create with some random images grabbed from my hard drive.
The points you make about production value have some validity in a publishing model - however in a learning model the focus might be mainly on constructing ideas through the process of creation.
I’ve often found, when introducing materials to teachers and students, that there can be a disincentive to pursue a task if the examples offered seem to be too far beyond their perceived capabilities.
When all is said and done, I’m a drama teacher - I can see some uses for this sort of work in the process of teaching and learning… and yes, I can see it as a publishing platform too… but in the classroom the final product isn’t always the most important thing.
And if you were starting SL comics in 2007 you’re mistaken about being the first to do so - I saw comic strips from SL being created back in 2005 shortly after I started playing in the space.
8. Laura Seabrook | February 8th, 2009 at 4:05 pm
Actually there was a typo in my previous comment. I meant to write wouldn’t be, not would as far as being the first to do an SL comic. I discovered Plywood shortly after starting my own, which can be found at http://www.plywoodcomic.com/strip1.htm
9. Kim Flintoff | February 11th, 2009 at 11:55 am
Murku is designed to facilitate the construction of comics based on content in a Second Life TM, ie SL, environment. Murku will be of interest to those who have always dreamt of creating their own comics but who find the drawing of comics either too challenging or too laborious. For example you might create comics the following way, this is most appropriate for those who are graphic artists:
http://murku.pbwiki.com
10. Laura Seabrook | February 13th, 2009 at 6:36 am
Murku looks really interesting (and I shall definitely try it), though the examples could do with some improvement, as per my comments above. Positioning can be important - see the Blambot article at http://www.blambot.com/grammar.shtml
11. Laura Seabrook | February 13th, 2009 at 6:49 am
I have one other question, which I can’t find answer to on the Murku wiki (no doubt the answer is right there and I keep missing it) - where/how does one get it?