Aloft: Starwood in Second Life

3pointD points to another Electric Sheep project, building the Starwood Aloft Hotel in Second Life.

From the post:

"Starwood Hotels is building out a version of their new Aloft hotel brand in the virtual world of Second Life as a way to attract future customers and presumably get some feedback about the brand’s features before it hits the physical world. (It is not meant to be a functional hotel in SL, I’m told.) The SL project is being constructed by the Electric Sheep Company (sponsors of this blog), who are also blogging the process along with Aloft execs."

From Virtual Aloft:

"This September, Starwood Hotels will become the first company in history to open a new hotel brand inside of a virtual world. Prior to opening to the public in 2008, aloft hotels will offer a sneak preview inside of Second Life. As we build our virtual aloft hotel, this weblog will track the progress of the development, giving you an in depth insiders view of how a virtual hotel is created."

Scripting:

"Makaio is currently working on the scripting for the bridge, and I asked him to explain a little bit about this project-with-a-project:

"Im making a timed sensor cube that scans the area around the bridge. It detects if boats and/or people are present, then passes that data to the bridge itself. The bridge is going to have a tiered priority system based on its current status and the data, ie: if boats are present and no people are and its closed, it will open. If its already open, it will remain open if boats AND people are present. It will stay open if its already open for the boats, or if its closed, it'll stay closed until the people are gone."

And more:

"Anyway, back to the build. Once the measurements were worked out - each floor has 6 meter high walls, which is roomy enough for avatars to walk through - the actual construction of the outside went very fast. The repeating elements were created and then duplicated and moved into place. During his construction, I was sitting at the camera position taking photos of the hotel going up. Normally I've been taking photos every 30 minutes as I work on the island itself, but since this went so fast I found myself staying put and grabbing photos every 1-5 minutes, so we can create a smooth looking progression animation."