Oh Dear LL

I've just read the latest offering from the Boys, their monthly update, and they really can't blog to save their lives...

There are a few things that Inara Pey has already touched on in her excellent post... here. Like the fact that we heard about the new Library Avis a week ago and that monthly news is always gonna be old news, and let's face it, old news is an oxymoron.

The new avis...well, what can I say? It would seem a bit hypocritical for me to criticise them really and I do welcome a wider range of non-human forms ... so I could just stay silent on the matter. ...but that's unlikely to happen.

The animal range I thought were probably gonna be fairly popular, after all some of my best friends are feline at times and I know great builders who are foxes.... (no dragons there I see) .... and well, we've all met a few robots in our lives tho the ones I've met have been very good builds... but.. cars?? In my 4 years in these worlds I have yet to meet a car. Maybe thats just my limited circle of friends, no balloons either.... oh well we are assured that they are:

" a heck of a lot of fun. " ... hmmmm

Anyway, all this is only a minor issue compared to the most cringe-making part of the whole embarrassing post, the report that chat lag is a thing of the past.

I am used to people making false claims, just last night I saw a shampoo advert on TV claiming that the shampoo would respect my individuality, so that doesn't worry me, after all advertising=lies, for the most part. Just sign on to any medium or large Group and you will find the truth out for yourself.

No, what really worried me was the Tone. The Tone is the sort of manner and style of writing you use in a blog or advert, the Copy, and the way it is delivered..... for example:

"Here’s a little something about that right royal pain, Group Chat Lag. You know how it is: you’re inworld, having a ball chatting with a group of friends, but the chat shows up with words missing or in the wrong order. It’s like a bad roommate, always hanging around and making a mess, interrupting your conversations and ruining your jokes! Some of your friends won’t even try talking while that loser’s around, knowing that their impeccable comic timing will come out looking like free-form poetry."

gulp

"We’d say that we’ll miss the old Group Chat Lag, but that would be a total lie. Instead, as the saying used to go: “door Don’t let the hit you in the butt on the way out.”

double gulp...

I have been lead to believe that the majority of users of Second Life are in the 30 to 70 age group, now, if that is the case, then the belief that offering them the ability to dress up like a car and then talk down to them like a 10 year old is going to endear you to your user group is so far wide of the mark that it is an embarrassment.

Cringe Factor 10.

I am certain that the person who wrote this, the Most Dreadful Copy of the Year, has never experienced chat lag....

....and finally... the increasing attempt by LL to pull people OUT of SL via FB, Marketplace... and now Twitter....

"And, don’t forget to hit Twitter — follow us @Secondlife and tweet using the hashtag #secondlife."

.... as Inara Pey so rightly says..."f you really want feedback and comments on what is happening, then give us the means to do so in as quick and convenient manner as possible.

By that I mean letting us us comment on your blog posts directly. It’s the way almost every other blog in the world operates when comments and feedback are allowed – so why not you? You used to at one time, but then you moved away from this approach, almost as if you were either afraid of what we might say, or didn’t want to hear what we were saying.

But the fact is, if you really want our feedback, you really should consider making it as easy as possible for us to do so, even if it does mean opening up your blog entries for comment once more."

Well, I guess it's just another labour saving device, i.e. laziness ... but it does seem that they don't believe in VW's as much as we do ..

.. oh....any bets on how long it will take LL to discover Google+ ??

:))

Four Years of Soror Nishi

It was four years ago, while showing some of my oil paintings in Lostwithiel, Cornwall, that I got to hear about Second Life and how I could try and sell my paintings online. I soon found out that, better than that I could actually create some of my attempts at portraying archetypal Jungian images, in 3D.

..and so began a long process of learning...

This first image, by the talented photographer Lem Skall shows the build I did for Orange, French Telecom..





...and his image of a sea stack I made on my own beach in Lifstaen...




...and the floating shop I built there where my trees and plants were for sale.





Mab gave me the first chance to do a whole sim of my work.. at Magoo





..filmed by the talented ColeMarie Soleil





At IBM I had an exhibition, called Tree of Trees....and made this slide show...




Then, earlier this year I made my first real machinima of the work that I had done in InWorldz...

I have been helping out with content on a proper film, Vlogger, but that will not be edited before June ... and it's NDA stuff, so I'll have to wait to tell about that...

My machinima of Transubstantiation is still awaiting some music, so, until then, for those who haven't seen it (it closes tonight, Saturday)...




..a few images...




...and now, courtesy of Jeri Rahja, Twisted Isle is my current work in progress over on InWorldz...




...this is the first glimpse...

You'll be seeing a lot more of this build when it gets somewhat nearer completion.

The future, well, I could do with better software, Final Cut X Pro comes out in June at a much more reasonable price.... and zBrush, well, I would need a little windfall for that. If the current worlds we create in don't provide a better resolution in the coming years, I may seriously consider Eve Online, even if I'm not BattleStar Hero material .... we need better graphics for the next step ... maybe .... old fashioned paper and paint work for me too.

I'm not gonna wax lyrical about Content Creation, the hours and energy I have put into 3D worlds more than eloquently expresses my love for the medium ...

...and the help, support and love my friends have provided goes without saying.

:)))

Textures in Second Life......Workshop 5

Well, this is an addition to my previous texture workshops which are very basic. I thought it was time I shared a few more tricks to help get people started on making their own textures for sculpted prims and, of course, the same tricks apply to regular prims.

My previous offerings are available ....

No. 1 here
No. 2 here
No. 3 here
No. 4 here

In this one I thought I would go into the normal ways I make a texture seemless. That means that the two sides or edges tie in perfectly, sometimes all 4 edges need to match up, it depends so much on how it will be used.

Let’s start with a painting, any form of pattern making would do, spraypaint Photoshop or Gimp, or any physical paper colouring instrument could be used, pencil, crayon etc.
So....here are the steps for the easiest seemless tex...

1. scan the painting or drawing onto your computer.




2. increase the contrast, or posterise, or generally clean up, however you like.





3. in filters, under Map in Gimp, select..”make seemless”....scale the image to 512x512 or 1024x1024, and upload to SL as a TGA or PNG file, whatever you prefer.




the downside to this is of course, that with a pattern you loose some or the distinctive features of your original design as pixels get thrown around the page by the filter....Although you can start to work on this further to enhance and improve what you have lost.

..but...there are things you can do....




..increase the contrast and posterise....




...use 'Edge Detect' (Sobel)....



...and Invert and generally bump up the saturation a bit...... and you have an interesting tex.

Now....another method...

Repeat steps 1 and 2 shown above....

then ....3 ... make a duplicate layer.

4. Transform, Flip Horizontal that layer, and make 50% Transparent.

5. Form a new Layer from Visible. (all these names are from Gimp, PS may have slightly different names for the same idea.) and your new image is now symmetrical left/right.

6. Repeat the process but Flip Vertical, ( Transform, Flip Vertical that layer, and make 50% Transparent) and your texture is now symmetrical left/right and above/below. (That's what a seemless texture means.)




and....you can go further...

I would suggest you use Emboss filter rather than bump mapping in SL, you will have a far better result and more control....this is how I do it..

7. make a duplicate layer and choose Emboss from the filters. You will have to play around with the various tools you have there, but my aim (remembering that less is more) is to create a silver coloured embossed image with a slight depth... fool about and see..





8. reduce the transparency on this layer to 50%

9. form a new Layer from Visible, and, opening your colour manipulation thingy, bump up the Saturation to 100%..




Now, that's a nice tex and one you can go on to make into an alpha if you need to.

One more method.... and one I employ when I don't want any loss of definition from my original painting..is to 'butterfly' the image....it's done like this...



1. copy your image onto a new (transparent) file twice as wide as the original..(.and twice as tall)




2. duplicate layer and flip horizontal...




3. duplicate layer and flip vertical....

need to crop a bit to make the white band down the centre a little less obvious... and maybe Emboss....



Please note the deliberate mistake (heheheh...liar) of the slight black line down each side of the tex. This line is formed thro the Emboss filter and is hidden in Gimps default setting where the layer boundary is highlighted with a stupid dotted line. It obviously needs to be removed.....

like so...then...maybe alter the hue a bit...



..and...if that looks OK, you can be sure that Invert will look good too..




so....no excuses now....get creating. From this one texture, thro an imaginative use of Gimp or PS, you can create a dozen useful texs that will last you years, you'll find, often, that they look great on things you had never imagined doing when you first made them...

Get a few hundred of these and you will have a distinctive style....

enjoy...

:))

Increatum

Now, this is a word, and concept that I will be using a bit in the next few weeks, especially with reference to what I hope to build at :::soup Magoo::: so I thought it worth while trying to describe why......

It's fitting to do so this week as, for the first time, Jung's Red Book is being published and it was though reading Jung that I came across this concept.

Paracelsus was the first person to coin this word, using it to define the "uncreated" which is basically what it means.

"Prima materia", an Alchemical concept, is what everything is made of, literally the First Matter. Now, according to alchemists, the Prima materia is what you start The Work with, and through diligence, ritual, and devotion you turn base matter into gold.

Now, as this matter is "the root of itself" (radix ipsius) it bears a (projected) resemblance to the godhead in that it, like Uraborus, "fertilises and gives birth to itself".

It is the Uncreated Creation. A god.

Now....lets fast forward a few hundred years to Second Life..... The Prim.

The Prim is the Prima Materia of Second Life, everything is made of this "stuff", and like alchemy (often called The Art) we can, through diligence, ritual and devotion turn this humble prim into pure gold. "Everything is made by prim and without prim is nothing made that was made."

A slight digression here as a friend, newly arrived in SL, said of my flower-making skills.... "wow, it must be so difficult to make those flowers from a plywood box".

The Prim is an uncreated creation.

The prim "fertilises and gives birth to itself".

The prim is Increatum. ....and by projection.......... the Prim is also a god.

...and as every god deserves a temple and an altar, I hope to be able to build a Temple to the Prim at Magoo...


:)))

Graphix skin, male version

Well, after a request for the male version of the Graphix skin, I got Bean to pose for me so that I could get some photos taken.

He thought he looked pretty cool, but then he thinks he always does....:))

I haven't quite got it out for sale yet, but if anyone wants one... just IM me.

:))

The Angel Orchid

My latest flower, now in the shop, over by the 60's furniture....

Hope you like it....:))

Gardening

Well, I got to do a bit of gardening and sorted out some textures
also you dont fall through the swimming pool into the gallery any more
which is useful,
unfortunately more and more prims go on plants
and my bonsai (20 prims), oh well, its worth it