Nissan North America, Inc. (NNA) has announced what it terms a ‘ground-breaking collaboration’ with its partner The Electric Sheep Company, the leading creator of 3-D virtual world content and solutions. Nissan will be the first automotive company to provide Second Life residents access to the open-source codes used on the Altima Island contraptions.
The Altima “Scriptyard” and contraptions were created by master builders Kage Seraph, Kanker Greenacre, and Calum Clifton; three renowned Second Life scriptors, one of whom was recently nominated at Linden’s Extraordinary Avatar Exposition for the “2006 Metaverse Notable Avatar” award. Designed to engage and entertain both expert and novice gamers, Nissan will be sharing the secrets to their extremely sophisticated codes so all levels of gamers can learn from the best scriptors in the field and in turn, build their own designs.
“Nissan wanted to provide the Second Life community with a unique, hands-on experience,” says Steve Kerho, director of interactive marketing & media, NNA. “By sharing these open-source codes with everyone, we’ve given them the opportunity to learn and interact more in Second Life and ultimately, within Altima Island.”
Visitors to the Altima Island are first greeted with an impressive 20- story monolith, crowned by a flying Nissan Altima. Encircling the monolith are six clever contraptions based on the 2007 Nissan Altima’s unique features. For example, Second Life gamers can experiment with the Xtronic CVT(TM) Avasphere — a smooth-peddling, all-terrain hamster ball inspired by Altima’s virtually gearless Xtronic CVT(TM) (Continuously Variable Transmission). They also can drive a replica of the Altima above the island on a special gravity- defying Nissan Sky Track.
“The new Altima Island is an automotive amusement park for all types of avatars,” says Giff Constable, founder of The Electric Sheep Company. “Each contraption was purposely built to transport avatars into a mesmerizing world that perfectly balances pseudo- and real-world features.”
Nissan Altima Island arrives as a follow-up to Nissan’s successful launch of the popular Sentra Island — known for its vending machine, loop-de-loop and driving simulators — where over 20,000 virtual Nissan Sentras have been obtained to-date.
