Pose Balls. I've talked about them, but as before, I haven't really explained what they are. This is kind of another post for my readers who don't actually use SL (why are you reading my blog, then, weirdos?! No, wait, come back, I'm kidding...).
Put very simply, pose balls are coloured circles usually placed over objects that, when clicked, offer an animation override that will allow you to interact with said object. They are often colour-coded, so pink pose balls are for women, and blue for men. I have occasionally seen yellow pose balls, which I presume are intended to be gender neutral. They usually have text over them, too, suggesting what that specific pose is for, though sometimes their titles can be a little enigmatic. For example, if I walked passed a bench and it had above it a pink pose ball with the text "sit", I could click it and it would make my avatar sit on the bench in a pose it thinks suits my gender. It is not impossible, however, to click the pose balls intended for other genders. Often, I find, they are scripted with very, very stereotypical postures, and they usually make me laugh.
There are also some pose balls that have been scripted with moving animations - beyond the usual, attempt-at-natural fidgeting that most avatars do. Some allow you to carry out dance moves and, perhaps it goes without saying, but pose balls are how avatars in SL go through the motions of having sex.
The first pose balls that I encountered in Second Life were these wonderful pair. The pose balls themselves weren't visible, as they are in the crawl space beneath the floor grating, but make no mistake - those titles are the titles of pose balls. A flatmate of mine who tried SL (once, this time, and never loaded it ever again) clicked them and confirmed that they were fully functioning:
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| I should add that these actions are carried out by tentacles. I kid you not. |
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I was taken here by a friend who offered to show me the ropes. When I found these, my friend quickly explained that it had previously been a sim for tentacle porn/rape roleplay. Two questions went through my head at that moment. How popular is tentacle porn/rape that somebody designed a sim for it, and why did my friend think that this would be a good place to take me to?!
Once you get passed the weird pose balls, the Necronom sim is actually a pretty good build, and the bar is one of the most interesting places I've been to. I've seen avatars in there that have been customised to have dragon-heads, and cat-heads, and I've seen robots and alsorts - such is the extent of the freedom of SL.
So here. Have some more screenshots showing my avatar doing things because I clicked on a pose ball:
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| Like lying awkwardly on a bunk bed in the Botany Bay Space Station |
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| Or sitting in a deck chair on what is supposedly a great replica of Brighton Beach |
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| Okay, so I'm not doing anything in this one. But look at the pose balls on that bath. Do I even what to know what they make you do?! |
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| And finally mimicking Kate Winslet on board the Titantic. Oh, come on! You would have done it, too! |
Pose balls have also allowed me to do what has become one of my favourite things to do in SL - sitting in big chairs! But they deserve a post of their own. Maybe I'll post those screenshots to follow this post...
