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| Blue Mars - New Features on the Horizon | :: Glenn Sanders, Community Director :: Feb. 08, 2010 |
Many of our community members have requested new features and improvements to Blue Mars. We listen closely to your concrete suggestions. Then we incorporate as many of your ideas as possible and feasible in our roadmap strategy. In addition to suggestions from the community, we are planning a multitude of other enhancements to Blue Mars. Here's a sneak preview of a few of the items we are planning:
UI Improvements:
- Expanded Preferences for chat,
- Enhanced camera movement and controls
- Improved avatar movement
- Avatar name will be displayed above the avatar head.
- Right-click shows Avatar Name and UserID.
- Move the camera control icon out to the menu tray
Communications:
- Clickable hyperlinks in the Chat box
- Select and copiable text in the Chat box
- IM - instant messaging
Avatar Customization:
- New, improved avatar meshes
- Avatar Masks (new face shape and face skin for your avatar)
- Avatar Physiques (new body and face shape and skin for your avatar)
- Cloth editor: edit and upload Hair as an item for sale.
- Avatar tongue model/setup
- Mask and Physique editor
- Avatar attachments and animation rigs
- Animation workflow documentation
- More sliders for the Face Customization UI
Development Tools:
- Avatar Editor:
- Import custom avatar shapes and skins
- Test the imported mesh with standard animations and clothing
- Create displacement morphs (compared to the original mesh shape)Create normals for your custom mesh
- Export your mesh and skin as an item for upload and for sale.
- Allow JPG to be used for a texture to create items (the editors automatically convert it for you)
Places Browser, Downloads:
- Crash management for the Places Browser
- Download Manager for the Places Browser
- Download Manager with background download, notification, and City version checker
- Improved download and streaming of some items.
Developer MyPage:
- Expanded Real Estate Page
- Expanded dev MyPage with:
- Billing history
- Remember login email
- Commands to manage tenants
- Expanded Real Estate page:
- Check files
- Improved dev SDK installer with AR and NEWCO becoming optional installs
- Upload Block, shop, and items for sale.
Expanded User Mypage
- user MyPage with:
- BLU balance display
- Enhanced Friends List
- Messaging
Content, Residences:
- New City updates with a shops where you can purchase items.
- Residences, and residence management
Share your thoughts and suggestions on the Blue Mars - New Features on the Horizon topic on the Blue Mars Forum.
Follow us on twitter: http://twitter.com/bluemarsonline |
| Blue Mars - Changing the Virtual Landscape | :: Glenn Sanders, Community Director :: Jan. 25, 2010 |
Vast Land Size
Blue Mars is changing the way the world thinks about virtual real estate.
Some legacy platforms have huge bandwidth requirements, which affects pricing, land size and content. With our scalable platform, you can make your land as large as you like.
Set your creativity free!
What would you build if you owned a vast virtual estate? Imagine a lush tropical paradise, or a huge floating city. An archipelago, a giant sports center, a Chinese temple, a domed metropolis beneath the sea, or a castle from ancient Japan. How about a futuristic space station in orbit, or a colony of asteroids?
256 square kilometers...seriously?!
Okay, there are practical and technical limits for the city size. The maximum size is 256 square kilometers (16 km x 16 km). (Yes that is kilometers with a K, not meters.) But you get the idea. No longer are you limited by size or arbitrary limits on the number of items on your land.
Pricing that is Out of This World
At USD$30, our pricing packages for leasing a City will put virtual land ownership within the reach of virtually everyone. Why on Earth... Er, rather why on Mars are we doing this? The vitality of any world arises from the content, environments and activities that people can experience, as well as the human interactions in that world.
So what are you waiting for?!? Check out the pricing packages right away, and find one that is perfect for you. Then get started building your own City, and bring your vision of to life!
Share your vision on the Blue Mars - Changing the Virtual Landscape topic on the Blue Mars Forum.
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| The Biggest Blue Mars Release Yet! | ||
| --Glenn Sanders, Community Director :: Dec. 17, 2009 -- Updated Dec. 18. |
Flash in Blue MarsToday we are announcing a breakthrough in virtual worlds – the world’s first system for rendering fully interactive Adobe Flash 10™ content in a high definition massively multiplayer 3D environment. Developers can now create immersive 3D worlds in which thousands of users can experience and interact with Flash™ content simultaneously in any given world. Blue Mars ClientTalk about new features and content! First the content. There are two new Cities, and an update to GridRock City. Below are some screenshots to give you a preview of these new spaces.
New features in the Blue Mars client:
User MyPageAnnouncing the new member MyPage! This is an early version, but it has several useful features. Edit your Avatar name: Yes, it’s true! You can now finally edit your avatar name. I know a number of “anonymous” or “nil” avatars out there who will be delighted to at last have a fitting moniker. User Admin: You can edit your email address, password too. Create your online profile: On the “Top” page you can edit your profile description. In an upcoming version of MyPage you’ll be able to upload an avatar image too. Inventory list: Get a full list of all the items you have bought. This will be more useful once we finish the ecommerce system and item uploads for developers. Coming soon! Friends list: Get a full list of all your friends here. In the future, we plan to enable IM messaging from here. Buy BLU: It’s not working quite yet. Just a few more system components to finish first. But once the system is finished, you’ll be able to buy Blue Mars BLU currency from your MyPage. Dev ToolsWhat’s new for Blue Mars developers in this release? More tools and functionality for developers. Blue Mars City Editor Blue Mars Block Editor Blue Mars Shop Editor Blue Mars Furniture Editor Real Estate PageDevelopers can use our new Real Estate page to buy a Block with BLU. Developer MyPage
The updated developer MyPage
adds several components to the Blue Mars development platform.
City devs can:
Block Devs can upload Block Pak to City Developer. |
Follow us on twitter: http://twitter.com/bluemarsonline |
| Fan Sites and Fan Blogs about Blue Mars | ||
| --Glenn Sanders, Community Director :: Dec. 15, 2009 - updated Feb. 01, 2010 |
| The Blue Mars network of interconnected virtual worlds is filled with content, environments and games that are created by and for the global community. So it's no surprise that members of the Blue Mars family are creating fansites and blogs about Blue Mars. Here are the ones we know about so far. We encourage you to visit them and help spread the word by blogging, tweeting and posting about these awesome sites. |
Fan Sites and Blogs
Flickr Groups
Official Blue Mars group
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bluemarsonline/
Flickr Fan Groups
http://www.flickr.com/groups/blue_mars/
http://www.flickr.com/groups/bluemars/
http://www.flickr.com/groups/1238508@N23/
http://www.flickr.com/groups/blue_mars_video/
http://www.flickr.com/groups/1180650@N25/
Post additional links and discuss this on the Fan Sites and Blogs topic of the Blue Mars Forum.
Follow us on twitter: http://twitter.com/bluemarsonline |
| T-Shirts and Free Apartments for Blue Mars Volunteers | ||
| --Glenn Sanders, Community Director :: Nov. 20, 2009 |
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Let us know what you think on the Blue Mars Forum.
Follow us on twitter: http://twitter.com/bluemarsonline |
| POLL: Names for Blue Mars Volunteers? | --Glenn Sanders, Community Director | Oct. 21, 2009 |
Update: Nov. 4 -- We've made a new poll with the top 3 most popular names for volunteers. Which is your favorite? Oct 21 -- As we gear up for the Blue Mars volunteer program, we're designing a special T-shirt for our beloved volunteers. |
Let us know what you think on the Blue Mars Forum.
Follow us on twitter: http://twitter.com/bluemarsonline |
| Content on a platform technology | --Glenn Sanders, Community Director | Oct. 20, 2009 |
Amateurs... Hmm.... |
Let us know what you think on the Blue Mars Forum.
Follow us on twitter: http://twitter.com/bluemarsonline |
| Blue Mars new features for Sept. 2 | --Glenn Sanders, Community Director | Sept. 1, 2009 |
New Blue Mars Feature #1: Chat History
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| New Blue Mars Feature #2: Menu Tray Our designer created a Menu tray with animated icons. This provides an intuitive way to find what you need. And you can move the Camera icon anywhere you like. The Camera icon lets you select from 4 cam zoom settings: 3rd person, half body view, head and shouders, and 1st person. What features do you want to see? Post about it in our forum. |
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| New Blue Mars Feature #3: Log out button We added Logout button to the bottom right corner of the screen. Use this to log out correctly. Then the server will know you're gone. This would let you log right back in if you need. |
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| New Blue Mars Feature #4: Friends Request Right-click an avatar and choose Friend Request from the menu. This sends an invitation to the avatar. If they click Accept, they are added to your friends list. Can you guess what feature is next? |
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| New Blue Mars Feature #5: Friends List When you click the Friends icon in the Menu Tray, the program will display your friends list at the bottom of your screen. Click the Friends icon again, to turn off the friends list. This list shows your friends names and their online status.A green dot means Online. A gray dot means they are offline. This is an interim design that will change in the next version. |
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| New Blue Mars Feature #6: Home Button There is a new Home button in the top left of the screen. Click this to return to the staging area. From there you can click one of the 5 signs to visit another destination. |
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| New Blue Mars Feature #7: New Bikini for Fem Avatars Female avatars will thrilled when you open your clothing inventory and find a new string bikini. I can see your avatar smiling already. Now you have a new bikini that you can wear at the beach, or lounging in the sun as your avatar gets a nice tan! What kind of clothes would you like to see in Blue Mars? Post your thoughts on our forum. There are many clothing creators who would love to hear what you like. Become a Blue Mars developer! If you create clothing, we invite you to register to become a Blue Mars developer at www.bluemars.com. It is fast, free and easy. |
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New Blue Mars Feature #8: Sample Apartment |
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Let us know what you think on the Blue Mars Forum.
Follow us on twitter: http://twitter.com/bluemarsonline |
| Are you a Blue Mars martian? | --Glenn Sanders, Community Director | Aug. 25, 2009 |
Update 2009-09-01: 
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Let us know what you think on the Blue Mars Forum.
Follow us on twitter: http://twitter.com/bluemarsonline |
| Are you a Blue Mars colonist? | --Glenn Sanders, Community Director | Aug. 24, 2009 |
The first poll is closed. See the blog above for the new poll based on the results of the first one. Do you consider yourself to be a "colonist" of Blue Mars. Or do you prefer the word "denizen"... Hmm, what about the word "native"...? Thanks for voting in the first poll! Here are the results:
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These are the "Other" names that were suggested:
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Let us know what you think on the Blue Mars Forum.
Follow us on twitter: http://twitter.com/bluemarsonline |
| Virtual Interview by Joe Netizen | --Glenn Sanders, Community Director | Aug. 7, 2009 |
Lets clear up some confusion surrounding Blue Mars. Imagine if you will that I'm being inverviewed by Joe Netizen. Joe has read a many comments about Blue Mars, and he wonders what's really going on. So he asks some fairly pointed questions, to which I respond with great equinamity and perspicacity...
Joe: I heard that Blue Mars is only for Windows. Do you guys hate Mac users?
Glenn: Blue Mars is built on the CryEngine2 from Crytek. Currently, the CryEngine is only available for use on Windows computers. Lots of our Avatar Reality developers use Macs at work and at home. We love 'em! (Macs, as well as Mac users)
Joe: Come on, really? Or maybe it's like one guy said, you're secretly connected with Microsoft?... Right?
Lol, that's a good one Joe! But seriously, before we started developing Blue Mars, we looked at many game engines. The CryEngine was the clear choice when we looked at all of the factors we wanted in a graphics engine. These include visual beauty, ability to smoothly render thousands of objects and textures in a scene, scalability, infrastructure costs, maintenance, and viability as a platform for our users to create cities, content, games, and to incorporate multimedia and Web content in-world.
I hate to dash your hopes for a nice, juicy conspiracy, but there were no sinister considerations, or connections with other companies. Just common sense in choosing the best software to match our needs.
Joe: How does Blue Mars work, anyway? What kind of developers are there? How would I create and add content?
Glenn: There are three basic types of developers for Blue Mars. "City Developers" can create and terraform a region in Blue Mars. They can either build all the content for their region and set up their own open spaces, blocks, and shops, or they can rent space out to "Block Developers."
Block devs can build on the section of land that they lease from the City dev. These Block devs can then create shops, residences, or other types of open spaces or other types of buildings.
"Content Developers" can create all sorts of objects. Then they can rent shop space and sell their content. They can also provide services in-world or online.
Joe: Ok, another thing I heard is that there will be little content in Blue Mars because only certain developers will be able to create things. In some other virtual worlds, anyone can create things. That adds to the variety and makes things interesting. Won't the variety of things in Blue Mars be very limited?
Glenn: Content Developers can create pretty much anything they can imagine, including 3D objects, clothing, vehicles, animations, 2D and 3D Flash objects and applications, full-featured video games, Web applications and streaming content of all types. And the cool thing is that anyone can create content for Blue Mars.
Joe: Yah, yah. But won't all of the cities look alike with little variety among them? Don't you guys exert some sort of heavy-handed "corporate" control over all the cities and content that is uploaded to Blue Mars?
Glenn: Blue Mars is a platform technology that enables developers to create to their hearts content. Our Beach City is just an example level that gives developers an idea how to create and script many types of content. The design and content of each city is up to the City, Block and Content developers. If the cities being developed right now are any indication, you can expect a wide variety among the regions.
For example the cities being developed right now represent a wide range of concepts and designs including:
- Futuristic space cities with sparkling chrome
- Virtual Venice with flowing fountains
- Cities based on various historical eras and countries
Players will be able to explore, live, and work in a beautiful, compelling and immersive world full of variety.
Joe: Hmm... I hear that people need a really expensive computer and software to create things for Blue Mars. Is that true?
Glenn: If you were buying a pc today to run Blue Mars, you could put together a fantastic machine for under $600. Most $100 graphics cards on the market today like the ATI 4770 run Blue Mars very well. The performance of the Blue Mars client will scale based on the hardware you have but you shouldn’t expect miracles from hardware that wasn’t build for 3D.
Regarding expensive software, all our tools are free and work well in concert with other free digital content creation tools like Blender and SketchUp.
Joe: Sure, you rich guys can afford new computers. But what about Joe the Plumber (my cousin) who has a cheap old computer? Is there anything he can do to rev up his machine to run Blue Mars?
Glenn: There are a couple of things your cousin can do. If he has a free slot for a video card, he can buy a recent video card from Nvidia or ATI. He can also add more memory (RAM) to his system. Before he spends the money to do this, he should understand that it won't guarantee that he can run Blue Mars. We will publish more specific minimum system specifications in the near future. A good rule of thumb is that you’ll need a dual core cpu and a video card that supports DirectX9 with dedicated video memory for the best Blue Mars experience.
Joe: Ok, ok. But what about the rumor that only rich, professional developers can create content for Blue Mars? Is it a closed system?
Glenn: Ah, that's an easy one. Pretty much any 3D or animation tool can be used to create content for Blue Mars. For example, developers can use the free SketchUp from Google or the free program called Blender. Of course developers can use 3DS Max or Maya to create content for Blue Mars.
The great thing is that developers can use professional tools to create their own mesh, textures, animations, etc. And then import them into Blue Mars. This gives them complete control over the process and the look of their finished product. It also allows them to give full expression to their creativity instead of spending most of their time trying to figure out how to create quality content with a less than optimal system.
Joe: But someone said that only rich ppl can afford to have space in Blue Mars and upload content. What do you say to that?
Glenn: We don't set prices for block or shop space. That pricing will be set by the City Developer. However, we expect the shop rental cost to be about the same as the monthly cost of a typical MMO membership.
Let us know what you think on the Blue Mars Forum.
Follow us on twitter: http://twitter.com/bluemarsonline |
Upcoming blogs: Tweet your questions and rumors to me and we'll do our best to address them in future blogs. We're also setting up a forum for Blue Mars players...
| The Blue Mars Vision | --Glenn Sanders, Community Director | Aug. 6, 2009 |
Welcome the first Blue Mars Blog! We'll post blogs whenever the inspiration hits us. Watch for vlogs about Blue Mars and our team, information about special events, updates, and more. So stay tuned. We're just getting started.
The Net is abuzz with the possibilities offered by Blue Mars. But to be honest, we've been so focused on developing the technology, we neglected the blogosphere. But no more! I jumped at the opportunity to join Avatar Reality and reach out to the community, the world, and the solar system (...well, at least Mars).
I moved 3000 miles to Hawaii to work at Avatar Reality for several reasons. First and foremost is the Avatar Reality team. I did some consulting here before i joined full time, and got to know most of the team. They made me feel right at home, and at the same time impressed me with their skill, intelligence and dedication to bringing Blue Mars to life.
Then there is the technology. I sometimes play the Crysis video game with my sons, so I was already familiar with the CryEngine from Crytek, and am in love with the platform. Having been a Second Life member off and on since 2005, I am intimately familiar with the wonders as well as the pitfalls of virtual worlds. In my opinion, the CryEngine is by far the best platform for creating a virtual world, and including Flash, web content, and full-featured multiplayer games in-world.
Finally, I embrace the vision for Blue Mars that began with our founders Henk Rogers and Kazuyuki "Kaz" Hashimoto. They want to create a next-generation virtual world platform dedicated to bringing people together on a massive global scale. Henk challenges us to create the platform that the developers and members would build if they could design it themselves. That's a vision I can support. Now Jim Sink, our new CEO is helping to bring that vision to life.
Let us know what you think on the Blue Mars Forum.
Follow us on twitter: http://twitter.com/bluemarsonline |
