Frenzoo. Games with Style.

Frenzoo.com Launches Furniture Creation in the Cloud

Mesh import from 3D Max, Collada supported on new Unity powered tool

HONG KONG, June 24, 2010 - Today web 3d world Frenzoo.com launches a browser-based furniture creator. 

The easy-to-use inbuilt tool allows users to make and sell virtual items, without needing separate software or design experience.  The tool gives freedom to add and mix details, patterns and transparencies using templates which are uploaded by Pro creators.

"Frenzoo has always been a fun place to enjoy creating 3d fashion and avatar looks.  Now we're expanding to furniture and props." said Simon Newstead, CEO & Co-Founder of Frenzoo.  "From sofas to swimming pools this will mean more choice in the shop, more atmospheric scenes and for creators, a new category of item to sell."

Mesh import with native 3D Max and Collada interface
Pro 3D creators can now start uploading any type of mesh to be a furniture templates.  Templates support mesh as well as animations and avatar spots.  For example, an animated cat template complete with petting animation could be uploaded, for other users to derive from. Templates can be imported from native 3D Max plugins as well as via a Collada interface, supported on Maya, Blender, Sketchup and other packages. 

Texture upload option
VIP creators can also choose to upload their own textures for these furniture templates, as an alternative to using the inbuilt tool.  This is ideal for those experienced designers who prefer to use their own software such as Photoshop or GIMP.

Availability
The new furniture tool is now in live beta at frenzoo.com/beta/create.php 

About Frenzoo

In development since 2008, Frenzoo Ltd. (www.frenzoo.com), is the first 3d online world with user generated content on the web.  The destination allows users to create their avatar, meet people & 3d chat in animated virtual scenes, express their style and create content, all within their Internet browser.  Mod sims and 3d asset import from packages such as 3D Max and Blender are also supported.  The Frenzoo team is based in Hong Kong, and has been developed with seed investment from Ambient Sound Investments, established in 2003 as an equal partnership by four founding engineers at Skype Technologies.  Frenzoo has a partnership with leading virtual content producer Anshe Chung Studios (ACS).  Frenzoo leverages the power of the Unity 3d engine, used by leading entertainment companies such as Electronic Arts and Cartoon Networks.  The lightweight plugin installs in seconds without any reload of the browser, and enables Frenzoo to deliver rich 3D content rendered in hardware, enabling high quality graphics, avatars and animations.

Press Contact
Simon Newstead, Co-Founder & CEO
Email: simon@frenzoo.com
Skype: simon-hk

Frenzoo: simon_is_yeti

Free Creator Pass Trial - limited time offer!

To celebrate the launch of the new male avatar on Frenzoo, we're launching a special program.

Now experienced creators can try out to create and sell items on Frenzoo free for a month.  

During the trial creators can upload textures and derive from templates, on their own account.

Creators also will have their own permanent shop and will keep all proceeds from sales, forever.

Earned Gold coins can be kept on Frenzoo, transferred or converted into real money or other virtual currencies on AnsheX / FMX.

Requirement
- You have created items items on other 3d worlds or have high quality textures that you have made.
- You agree to submit at least 2 items during the trial.
- There is no need for payment or credit card, shop submissions can be made using free silver coins.
- There is no peer review process, items are available for sale instantly

Notes
- Trial creators will NOT receive all benefits of the normal VIP, including gold coins allowance, however they will be able to upload and sell items.
- The free trial will last a period of 1 month from date of first submission to allow a for a creator to add to the Frenzoo catalogue.
- To be eligible a creator must show an example of their work, or have their work available for the Frenzoo team to check.

Duration
- This program will open for entry in June and July 2010 only.
- The program is eligible for the first 20 qualified creators only.

Get your free trial now!
- Email your username example item to creators@frenzoo.com

Sculptris - amazing free new 3d creation tool that imports to Frenzoo

It's a hot topic around creator and virtual world circles at the moment.

A week ago, a fantastic tool called Sculptris was released as a free download.  Unlike more complicated 3d packages, this lightweight program makes creation intuitive and easy to pick up, akin to modelling virtual clay. Check out what can be done with it:

If you're a keen gamer you'll probably notice similarities to the awesome Spore creature creator from EA, except this can be generalized to any type of mesh, not just creatures.

The good news is that it outputs a format that is easy to import into other packages and then imported into the Frenzoo.com web 3d world.  In fact within 20 minutes of installing the tool we had created our first mask from scratch and it was live in world:

 

Made in minutes. Scary huh?

 

Imported to max, polys reduced then uploaded (no texture, just testing)

Bingo, it's live in Frenzoo, ready to scare noobs

It's exciting to see these types of user friendly 3d tools starting to permeate around the net.  No doubt we'll see lots of weird and wonderful Sculptris works showing up in Frenzoo.com soon...

Long live creativity!

Lose yourself in a Wonderland...

How can you not, with this delightfully soft and sublime piece of art...

Discovered on the monoartiztic blog

ps - in the theme, there is also a new "inspired by Tim Burton" contest (just started, 12 days to enter)

Gaze into my 3d avatars eyes...

Eyes convey emotions, capture attention, they are a spotlight onto the soul...

You can't change the eyes you were born with but you can in virtual online worlds.

A new contest on Frenzoo has you making your own avatar, making your eyes look striking and capturing the look in a great snapshot...

The variety of entries has been fascinating...some created their own custom eyes using the 3d web design tool, others bought from the great creator collections in our VIP shop...

The looks ranged from Monstrous Victorian...

Contest Entry by Dr Octagonapus

To Crystal Anime...

Contest Entry by Hugh

To Futuristic Fairy...

Contest entry by Icey

To Dark Clown...

Contest Entry by Kimber

With just under 100 entries, voting was a tough choice, but personally I chose the look by Kimber for its wild and outrageous take on the theme.  Winners will be announced next week, it should be a close race!

if you haven't already, create a free account and join in with your take on eyes!

Make your own avatar makeup!

A world first at our new online world of 3d avatars, Frenzoo...

For a while Frenzooians have been able to play the fashion designer game and make clothes and accessories, even virtual hairstyles. That's great, but there was always some similarities in faces, some spark of uniqueness was missing... well not anymore.

Now we have taken the leap and opened up avatar face & skin creation for everyone, for free!

Makeup, tattoo and eyes created for free by Frenzoo members

This is the first web 3d makeup creation tool, how cool is that?! It's only been released for under one week, and as you can see in the pic, we've already we've seen some brilliant creations from the community.

To use it, simply log into Frenzoo and head over to the "create" section.  There you can pick from different templates and then use our web creation tool to arrange graphics and create your look, and save when you're done.

Makeup creation web tool on Frenzoo

VIPs can also bypass the web tool and directly import their own completed texture files, which they have created in Photoshop or GIMP for example. 

Speaking of VIPs, one of our new VIPs (and IMVU creator) RisaLisa is also pretty happy about the news and blogged about it: "Face Fings For Frenzoo":

"I’m so glad we can make face tats/eye contacts on Frenzoo. I like making add-on makeups!" - Risa

Well, we're happy too!  Massive ups for makeup creation..woot!

Selling Gold Coins and Monetizing Creativity

Creating for fun, and now for profit!

A big step here in 3D avatar world, Frenzoo, you're now able to sell and trade Gold Coins through virtual currency trading websites.

For a while now creators have been able to import, create and sell items and animations on Frenzoo and gain Gold Coins from their efforts.  It's now possible on reputable third party sites to sell Frenzoo Gold Coins  into real money, or exchange it into other virtual currencies.

To start with, there are two excellent & trustworthy websites that are now offering this:

AnsheX by Anshe Chung Studios

First Meta Exchange

We're already seeing the first creators who have cashed out into real money for the Gold Coins they have earned, selling fashions in the Frenzoo shop...

It's still early in our journey to build the best web avatar community and marketplace, but we're pretty excited by this huge step forward!

Creating your avatar fashion - and saving it!

Another big news day on our free virtual chat and 3D design community...

Lots of people use our site to create fashions for their 3D avatars, but one of the biggest requests from nearly everyone has is to be able to save their creations.

Often it's so they can go to the shop and buy more graphics to complete their work, or to resume designing the next day if they run out of time on that pariticular item. Or just to be safe and avoid any dropped Internet connections - we've all been there right?

Whatever the reason, we agree and have been working hard and have just launched our new "save" feature in our web "create" tool.  Everyone can now save and resume their work at any time, and best of all it's free.. full details on the forum.

Enjoy creating and saving the world!

Avatar: Welcome to the Dark Side of 3D

So we had an interesting debate in the Frenzoo office last week, about the introduction of fantasy / scifi skin colors to our 3D Avatar Community...

This request had originally come from members who wanted more darker skin tones, but our artist karlt, a fan of anime and sci fi culture had mocked up several other different colors including electric blue, apple green, midnight black...

But there were concerns...

On one hand, there was the opinion about wanting to keep the site more realistic and fashion & style oriented.  The way that argument was that: introducing lots of "weird" colors would change the site's feeling and be unappealing to those who like to dress up with beautiful realistic fashion and cosmetics.

Well then on the other hand, we had already started up the marketplace via our Pro program and it would only be a matter of time before we support avatar body and skin imports, so if we didn't add these colors, someone else would, and still those fantasy styles would appear and potentially "put off" others.

The counter argument was that fantasy colors would be more difficult to find in the marketplace compared to directly in the skin adjustment interface, and putting it there would set the wrong impression..

Well after a bit of back and forward, at the end of the day we just thought... "it looks so cool" and if we feel that way, then others probably do as well. So it made sense to release them and give our community the choice to love or hate them.

And the reaction? Great! There are now many of our ztylists who are very happy with the new skin colors and creative possibilities.  And surprisingly very little negative reactions.  I think we all learned a nice little lesson from this: when in doubt, go for more creative freedom - let people make of it what they will.

One of my personal favorite looks from the skin colors is the super dark other-worldly looks that have been popping up... here are some of the highlights from our members: NAME, Kay V and Glittergirl:

 

I wonder what will come next...

Avatar art hits the real world

It's not everyday we hear about virtual avatars leaping into the real world... 

  

When we heard about the project of Vera, a member of our Frenzoo 3D avatar community, we knew we had to share it with everyone.

After creating on the site for some time, Vera, an artist in real life, has gone ahead to create a series of paintings for exhibition in Netherlands...we interviewed Vera about this exciting project.

Please introduce and share a little about yourself?
 
Hi, i am Vera, at least on frenzoo i am ;)

I choose this nickname becouse my first dog was named Vera and i still think it is a beautiful name. My real name is Marleen and in real-life i am a painter and i studied artschool from 2003 till 2007 in the Netherlands, mostly i paint big paintings,the bigger the better! But i also love to draw, make collages and use photography. My inspiration comes from all the things i see around me, like the colours, shapes, people, animals, the city and nature.

The artist that i really like are Picasso, Alexander Calder, Lucien Freud, Matisse, Laura Owens, o and ofcourse my favorite: the musician Beck :D

From age 6 i learned to make clothing from my mother, and i make most of my own trousers and shirts, i am not good at jackets and dresses at all haha. So one day i will go follow a course to get better skills and i am still dreaming of making my own collection of fashion in the future. Yes big dreams i know
 
Tell us about the project, what is it?
 
 At this moment i am drawing an frenzoo-inspired art project, i don't have a good name for it yet but the work is going to be a series of avatars, inspired on my avatar Vera and some of the things i designed here on frenzoo.

The best way to explain i guess is: avatar selfportraits. The technique i use is acrylic paint and black crayon on paper with bright colors and dark lines. 

What was your inspiration for the project?
 
The idea for this project came in my head because i find it so strange that you can identify yourself with just a doll on the internet that isn't real and the fact that you can make friends with people you will never get to know in real life. And it fascinates me to see how people dare to be themselves on the internet, because in real-life that is not accepted a lot of the time.

Or in my case, in real-life i don't have the skills to make the clothing i like or have the money to buy them, so i cant wear what i would really like too.

The strange thing is most people see an internet avatar as a fake-you, but most of the people in reallife are not really themselves either, because of lots of things that just wont be accepted by our society.

Why do you use Frenzoo?

Well i started on frenzoo because i was really bored, i had to rest a lot after having had surgery in January and i couldn't really paint or anything at that time, so i really liked being able to be creative through the createtool on frenzoo and i got totally addicted . 

Then in February i could draw again an i made a new collage for an exhibition. In march i had to have a second surgery and had a lot of time again to be on frenzoo. Now i am recovered and i have to combine frenzoo with my real-life again and i cant be online very often anymore, but whenever i have a couple of hours i try to create a few new items for the shop :D

Any suggestions or advice for any other artists or designers out there?

Be creative and don't be afraid to fail because you will learn the most from your mistakes!

Thanks Vera, and we can't wait to see the final exhibition art!