Tree of Trees... last 24 hours

Last chance to see, or revisit..
















I'll be sad to see it go, but that's the nature of VWs

:((

Neotoy Story films Tree of Trees.

Many thanks to NeoToy Story for taking the time to record, firstly, the early stages of my build at IBM C... above..






...and later an almost documentary style vid of the Tree or Trees in its final state.

As things come and go so quickly in SL, it is wonderful that someone has taken the time to nail the prims to celuloid ...

:)))

Born Again Pagans rock Tree of Trees

A great night with fireworks and cool tunes courtesy of Hexx and Madame.











It was a nice mix of hardcore fans, friends and new people, the whole thing rocked.

Excellent.

:))

IBM, homology and Goethe.

There’s a thing about nature that I have been trying to express these last three years that is intrinsic to the way nature works.

Nature is economical. It takes matter and sculpts it in the most efficient manner to suit its ends.

Johann Wolfgang Goethe wrote a book in 1790 called The Metamorphosis of Plants, in it he points out how a stem is basically a transformed leaf, as is a petal, as is a root. The basic unit of the plant is simply metamorphosed into different ‘organs’ by, as we now know, a fairly mathematical process of the changing shape and nature of the unit cell.

This process is almost identical to the one I use in Blender. I can only do one thing in Blender, namely change the distance between vertices.

In plants this is called homology and has a lot to do with why my plants in SL look as they do. All my plants have evolved in this manner from a single group of vertices in a Blender file: this is Virtual Homology.

The prim as Increatum was very much the basis of my build at Magoo last year and this subject of homology has been in my mind a lot as I have been building IBM.

....altho...my press release is less philosophical...

"Tree of Trees

This build is an attempt to condense my last three years work in Second Life into an experience which demonstrates my vision of landscaping in virtual worlds.

All 11k prims are sculpties I have made in Blender and coloured with textures which started life as paintings.

I think of myself more as a landscape artist but had to first make the plants and other pieces as there were no satisfactory elements in SL for me to use.

I am very grateful to IBM for their generosity and particularly to Tezcatlipoca Bisiani for making this such an easy thing to arrange."


Avatar Architexture..

..at around 300 meters I have rezzed a little home. It is a sample of the type of building I would imagine avatars inhabiting rather than poor copies of RL houses. My reasons for the general dislike I have of current SL architecture I have given voice to previously.


Look forward to seeing you there...

:))

Tree of Trees

We all know that the tree has been a meeting place, a landmark, shelter and a source of warmth (firewood) and food (fruit) for a very long time and, globally.

It is no real surprise then to read.... “the commonest associations to it’s meaning are growth, life, unfolding of form in a physical and spiritual sense, development, growth from below upwards and from above downwards, the maternal aspect (protection, shade, shelter, nourishing fruits, source of life, solidity, permanence, firm-rootedness, but also being “rooted to the spot”), old age,personality, and finally death and rebirth.” [CGJung].

It was a symbol taken up in many an alchemical treatise to signify the development of The Work, the Opus, and was often called The Philosophical Tree as the gold (goal) was called The Philosophical Gold. It was said to grow out of the salt water with a golden trunk and seven branches with the sun and moon as fruit.

There are not many cultures who do not have a tree included either in a creation myth or a significant fairy story for, presumably, the tree was our first home or shelter. Even in places where no tree grows naturally, their imagery is included in myth.

“In so far as the tree symbolizes the Opus and the transformation process “tam ethice quam physice” (both morally and physically), it also signifies the life process in general. It’s identity with Mercurius, the spiritus vegetativus, confirms this view. Since the Opus is a life, death, and rebirth mystery, the tree as well acquires this significance and in addition the quality of wisdom...” [CGJung].

Well, this is just some philosophical background into why I have called my build at IBM Tree of Trees. Add to that my feeling for trees, in general, and it’s not so hard to see why I have spent three years trying to improve the basic bio-diversity of the very dodgy flora I first encountered when I came to SL.

I think my build at IBM is a sort of milestone, it says, well, this is how far I’ve got so far.

Hope you enjoy it as much as I have building it.

:))

A week of stuff

As many of you don't have the time to trawl thro the blogosphere turning over the digital flotsam and jetsam, I am happy to give a few links to my little cache of goodies and baddies...

The biggest story of the week continues to be the viewer thingy, and I won't even write the E word anymore, so bored am I with the whole saga.

Now, what you call your product is of vital importance and Phoenix is such a corny name, I doubt seriously that I could ever download it onto my computer as the Good Taste Police might get me for violations of aesthetic decency.. and, if you think that position is rather extreme...let me say the Z at the end of InWorldz still worries me...

Anyway, Imprudence has a new trial viewer with some added bits... environmental editor settings can be saved as a notecard (thanks to Kirsten for that feature which we hope will be rolled out to all viewers a.s.a.p.), Google translation, and the ability to load a texture directly from hard drive to prim....not sure what that actually means as I wasn't able to test it, no Mac version being available as yet.

Now, while a lot of emotional stuff has been written on viewers, I love this sort of approach by JayR Cela, The SecondLife Technologist, who has actually taken time out to test 3 viewers and compare them... also note his final paragraph...

"The UI of all 3 of these viewers is absolutely horrible, In all my days of working with computers, since 1984 and the first GUI's. I have never encountered, a more poorly designed, ill concieved, worst implemented, user unfriendly human to computer interface to date! "

Dusan Writer had a lengthy interview with Esbee Linden about SnowStorm... "But things have changed a lot. First, we’ve clearly defined a product owner, which is myself. "...hmmm... owning a pile of shit doesn't change it into a rose bed...

Much weight and lots of words are used in this interview, transparency, transparency, transparency... but the overall feeling I get from this is that it will be AGES before this viewer is usable or acceptable as the Viewer of Choice. Don't hold your breath...

Leaving the Viewer Thing behind... Lab News is that a new Linden has been employed and she's a vet. Now, not apparently of the Animal Nursing kind, nor of the Army... so why the hell call her a vet? I'm a vet, you are a vet, everyone is a vet...stupid use of the english language.
Anyway, Kim Slazer says her specialities are..."Brand Strategy, Digital Marketing (CRM, social media, SEO/SEM), Consumer Insights, Product Management, Advertising, Global Marketing, Pricing Strategy, Promotions, Licensing, P&L Ownership, Packaging"...so...marketing, then... just as well as she's VP of Marketing.

She's been working for gaming companies, apparently, ..full Lab announcement here... now while I have said several times that the Boys should sack whoever is in charge of PR.. and marketing is the same (all Dealers of BS), it seems there hasn't been..anyone...to sack.. So..good idea to try and run a company with no-one in charge of marketing...
Anyway...Kim..
"Q: What are your goals for your new position as VP Marketing at Linden Lab?

A: What I really want to do here is help the Lab figure out what the “X Factor” is going to be for Second Life. When I was working on games, I always tried to choose a single idea to focus on and bring out, an X Factor that helped people get into the game and helped them discover all the rest of the possibilities there. If I can help bring that kind of focus to Second Life, I’ll be happy about how I’m doing my job."

That should be interesting, like the Boys deciding to sell SL to the business world...that went well..

But, no doubt they are thinking a bit more like this... article about virtual worlds and how many billion dollars could be earned... *sigh*...

"SL provides so many great tools to enhance and bring out that creativity, I’m really looking forward to helping foster that as we move into the next phase of the platform’s growth"...* groan*

I have this problem.... I had it last night too at the opening of the Pop Art Lab.. when people stand up and say stuff....(it's always worse on voice too).. and it's difficult for me to express just how painful it is to hear people talking crap. Crap isn't the right word, in fact I love nonsense, but when people, artists, presenters, stand up and start telling you how creative SL is and how amazing it is and how much artistic freedom there is and start using words they don't understand like immersion and interaction and how its been an amazing journey......I just want to scream in pain...

Now, it's not Kim's fault, any more than it was the fault of anyone last night. People expect to see others open their mouths and no word of any importance comes out...."I’m excited about the prospect of helping to build a product that really empowers people to express what they’re about, and that can make a real difference in their lives. I think we’ve only just started to see what can be done here, and I can’t wait to see where we and our Residents can take things from here."

Nothing!! ...and the painful thing is that it is the norm....I am the weirdo... I expect something of interest to be said, or amusing, or ANYTHING...but Inane Newspeak. I'd rather know Kim's favourite film than read this junk. ..grrrrr...

Moving on swiftly from this uncalled-for rant....

We have been waiting, patiently for THIS>>>>



......hehehhehe..... wonderful.

In other news....InWorldz passes the 500 sim mark... 1200 residents.. and Elenia has started her own blog.... which is like one of the Lindens blogging...THAT is 'transparency'.

...and as IWz grows from 250 to 500 sims since July, so SL has lost 500 sims... people are voting with their wallets.

As far as tomorrow (Sunday 5th) is concerned...UWA has its final award day so...pop over and see (even tho I can't thanks to my ISP). Its at 5...and they have raised another 33000L$ in prize money....details here.

...and...on a personal note...I will be opening my sim at IBM on Saturday 11th September at 12 noon, when DoubleDown Tandino will play (the best DJ on the grid)...to be followed at 3PM by the Born Again Pagans (most chilled-out band on the grid)... mark that date in your diary.

Initial reactions from a few people is that is rather good. I'm calling it "Tree of Trees" and it's sort of an 11,000 prim tree.

:))

[footnote:.. my ISP has been down, no broadband...so I rang the status line: they told me my broadband was down (thx) but that their engineers were working hard to rectify the situation and they would update the status when the problem had been solved. Now, firstly I doubt the degree of hard work anyone is gonna put in on a Sunday and secondly no-one is gonna be interested in the status once the problem is solved.....the message then suggested.."Visit our website at www.BTinternet.com/ for more information"... what a great idea.]

At Home at IBM

I've been chilling out at IBM after pulling out my prim hair earlier... I'm now feeling quite at home.

Started arranging some music for the opening which will be saturday week, the 11th September...

Details will of course follow in profusion..

....bed before I drop...

night...

:))