Second Lifers who visit Abbotts Aerodrome regularly have probably seen me at the east landing pad tinkering with this behemoth, so the secret is out -- if it ever really was a secret. The next big thing in Second Life is literally a big thing: it's a truly ginormous blimp.



This whale of the sky owes its existence to three recent technical developments by Linden Lab, the makers of Second Life. First is the introduction of the Havok 4 physics engine, which makes it possible to enable physics on objects larger than ten meters without risking a disastrous sim crash. Second, at the same time that Linden Lab introduced Havok 4, they increased the permitted link distance beyond 30 meters, which opens the door for much larger link sets (like my blimp). The third innovation was the advent of "sculpted prims*". Where previously an irregular shape had to be crafted by linking together several prims to approximate an overall shape, now we can sculpt a shape in a 3D modelling tool and upload that into SL. Because of sculpted prims, instead of using the eight ten-meter prims that I used in my older airship hull, for example, I can use three enormous sculpted prims.

Previously, a physical vehicle of this size was impossible in Second Life. And note that I say "physical", which differentiates it from other large, moving objects that simulate flight by using a rapid-fire succession of llSetPos function calls to stop-motion their way through the sky. These craft "fly" in the same way that Wallace and Grommit's rocket appears to move through the sky in the animated short, "A Grand Day Out": one frame at a time, but fast enough to almost fool the eye. In constrast, an aircraft using the SL physics engine is capable of smooth, fluid motion.

With the confluence of three technical innovations, at last Second Lifers can make lighter-than-air craft in a realistic scale.

My first attempt at a blimp is the Terra Aerius blimp. It seats four avatars in addition to the pilot, and will include an autopilot that lets you "program" a tour route by entering waypoints into a notecard. This means that estate owners can make the blimp fly at regular intervals on a looping route over their islands. It can also transport avatars from one site to another in a one-way journey.

The Aerius blimp is in its beta testing phase right now, but should be available for free flights in Abbotts by the weekend.

It's really fun to say "blimp", isn't it?

(*"Prim" is short for "primitive". A prim is the basic building block of objects in Second Life.)