LaBicyclette

Closing Shop

2010-07-30T15:02:00.000-07:00

Peace On Earth, Good Will to All!

2009-12-24T15:54:00.001-08:00

Whatever your theistic persuasion, let us all take a moment to wish for a joyous next year and give thanks for the blessings of the last one (and no doubt, tribulations, but really, we all got through, didn't we?)

Santa's Sleigh is Coming to Town

2009-12-11T00:05:00.000-08:00

Well, he knows if you've been bad or good, but that doesn't signify if you just trot down to the stables and pick up your own sleigh. Why rely on a middleman, is what I always say.

Ought be in the vendors by tomorrow evening.

Last Call for Bustle Bows

2009-11-24T14:36:00.000-08:00

Well, by now even I have heard of Xstreet's upcoming plans to charge everyone for listing items, particularly freebies. I'm a 4 out of 10 on the miffed scale, for whilst on one hand I can see something of their point, the counterpoint is that it's going to be a large pain in the bustle for me to pull the necessary items.

It's not just freebies, actually-- there's a large number of items I've made over the years that sell two or three a year :P I'm just not part of the fashion set, and while I still like some of my older outfits such as the bicycle outfit and Lady Lancer (a lady's version of my more popular 21st Lancer uniform), add all of them up and they still don't cover the aggregate fees for the lot. I left them up because I liked them, and Xstreet was free aside from commissions.

So, I'm taking down all my slow items. The clothes will still be available in the Eyre and Port Caledon shops (some are now freebies, such as aforementioned bicycle ensemble, as well as all my older cycles).

And, I'm pulling my last remaining freebie on Xstreet-- the ever popular (as in 10 or so a day) sculpted bustle bow. If you don't have one, now is the time to saunter on over and grab it at https://xstreetsl.com/modules.php?name=Marketplace&file=item&ItemID=161449

As an aside, I couldn't help but notice a handful of low ratings on the silly thing (most did seem to like it, though for an overall 4 star). It looks like the picture, and sits on one's rump. What else did they expect for 0L, a free download of Maya Unlimited? Ah well, that's merchanting :D

On Merchanting

2009-10-06T10:29:00.000-07:00

Some of you may have heard by now that my friend Ilsa Munro of Munro Imaginary Motors has decided to shut her Second Life business down in response to a rather over the top customer. The short of the whole nasty affair was that the individual filed an AR on her for failing to respond to an IM in under two hours during her RL workday. He then proceeded to set up an autospammer outside my Eyre shops to "warn" customers not shop there. My short communication with the individual was...less than satisfactory. Among other charming turns of phrase, he expressed hopes that my horses would be copybotted and that our businesses would fail. Mind you, that was after he got a full refund in under three hours. It's a select group, the Caledon ban list is. You'd be surprised how short it is. I suppose the chap ought feel proud of himself.

I wince at writing the above, as I don't care to give someone like that much "head space". But the unfortunate truth is that oafs are often successful in making other people unhappy. And for Ilsa, it was just too much: it's not just this one thing, but the whole pain in the bustle bit of trying to run a business in Second Life. Unhinged customers are thankfully rare, at least in the horse and vehicle business (my friend Kamilah Hauptmann has many a story about the animation market, though). But there are a whole host of other annoyances, from SL updates that break scripts, to vendor maintenance, to monitoring ads, and just to the daily customer service. And all this for rates that make minimum wage look fair good, once the hours spent are all added up.

So why on Earth do we do it?

Some of us don't, actually. That's Ilsa's answer. And it's a common one in Second Life. One shows up, discovers building is fun, and makes a few whimsical things. Someone says "O hai, by Ceiling Cat, this is great! You ought to be in show business!" And you knock out a wall of your cottage and put a couple of vendors up. Or sans chateau, there is always Xstreet. And a few Lindens roll in (the money sort, not the Torley/Robin sort). And it's terrific! Yay! No more are you paying tier. When your RL spouse leans over your shoulder and wonders at that Victorian dress you're buying, you simply say "Pfft, paid for it myself, do toddle off and play kill-the-orcs on your own computer, m'kay?"

And then disillusionment sets in, when all the other slings and arrows of outrageous customer service rear their ugly heads. You're tempted to put them all out as freebies, but I'm here to say that freebies take as much time to deal with as anything else, if not more so. After all, freebies are beloved by new people, who are the first not to understand how to use a vehicle or even adjust a skirt. Mind you, 99% of them are fun to chat with, but it's still time consuming. You start noticing things like you haven't changed your outfit in over a week. Um, your avatar's outfit, that is.

So, like Ilsa, many look at the ledger and find it wanting. On one side is the SL income, which is rarely all that much. On the other side are all those things that one might rather be doing in SL-- exploring, playing games, going to virtual balls, or just socializing without being interrupted by an IM every five minutes. The thought occurs that if one has a job, one can afford the thirty or so USD for a hobby. And you'll be able to continue to build, perhaps even more freely sans an eye to what will be popular.

But then there's those of us who continue to build and sell things here. And why is that? Well, I won't be disingenuous here. For one, I do fairly well in Second Life. My silly horses are quite popular, and while my income isn't on par with the better known designers, I'm still paying for art school with it. Still, there are other things I could be doing. I recently got my first freelance RL 3D design job, and discovered that the going rate was...let us say on par with more than a few horses.

So, it has to be something more than the money. And this is going to sound silly-goofy, but really, it's all of you. This weekend, after talking about The Incident with Ilsa, I thought to myself about all the customers who've written me about how much fun with their toys (for that is what I really am, a virtual toy maker). People I don't know have smiled, perhaps even laughed (hopefully with glee) at my humble efforts.

How many of you are out there? Rough guess puts my horse sales at several thousand, and that's not including all the outfits and vehicles-- much less the freebies and demos. I've managed to make thousands happy, if only for a few minutes. That's worth a lot, isn't it? How many people get to say that?

I'm not going to encourage people to try to change Ilsa's mind about quitting her business. She has solid reasons for reapportioning her time. But I would like to ask those of you who've played with her creations and liked them to take a moment and tell her that you had fun. Because in the end, that's really what we're here for, isn't it?

Fun.

Free Cycles and Outfits

2009-07-31T14:51:00.000-07:00

Some of you might not realize this (or care :P) but before Cheval Verite was La Bicyclette. I got my start making Victorian cycles and active wear (such as those liberating cycling and bathing costumes), and they've always been my spiritual "fountainhead" here.

Well, they've been on the market long enough that I'd like to offer them to all as freebies. I've only put them out for sale in the Port right now, as that was my first plot of land and reminds me of all those early happy days zipping about those hills on my unicycle.

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Port%20Caledon/84/142/23

Four cycles (including a non-depicted unicycle) as well as my old Victorian Bicycling outfits are out there now. Have fun, and try not to hit anyone!

New Freebie Bustle Bow

2009-06-30T17:02:00.000-07:00

Well, I actually looked at my ever popular bustle bow the other day. It's not horrid, but it looks like what it is: one of the first things I ever made in Second Life. So I fired up Maya and spent a few moments making this.

Hardly a work of art, either, but it's free, and worth every penny :D Mod/copy, so if you wish to make a few hundred to adorn your hair, horse or house with, feel free. Drop by the Eyre Carriage house and look for it in the back by the Horseshoe bar.

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Caledon%20Eyre/48%20/183/23/

Horse Gallop Test

2009-06-27T14:23:00.000-07:00

Another breathlessly exciting 12 second animation clip :P Like the pennyfarthing, this is more of a "proof of concept" than anything I can import into a game engine just yet. But I'm learning :)

Cutest Clank Ever!

2009-06-12T08:03:00.000-07:00

Poor Little Wheel! He lives on a planet of happy clanks, doing clank things in a clanky way. But then one day the plug (or rather, The Plug) that hooks up the main generator to everything falls out. Well, perhaps Planet Clank would have profited from a smidge of redundancy in their power source, but that's all as nevermind now. Fortunately, a lightning bolt raises Little Wheel back from his powered down state and now it is up to him to save the day.

No hard puzzles here, just click on the circles in some logical order or another. And do keep the sound on, the jazz soundtrack is wonderful :)

Play This Game

ZHorsie

2009-06-01T13:23:00.000-07:00

Just fiddling about with Maya and Zbrush again. And, yes, his mane looks a bit...Romance novel coveresque. Believe it or not, I based his colourations and muscles on Mrs. Peterman's RL faithful steed, Woody. There is perhaps still a family resemblance, but I ended up with a bit more of a leggy fellow:

Ah well

2009-05-20T12:49:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago, I heard that the Linden Lab was looking for "moles" to create builds for new sims. Wildlife/ecosystems were specifically mentioned. I dutifully put together a portfolio of my work on the Aviara project, badgers, snakes, antelopes and all. But today I got the "does not meet our needs at this time" form letter :/

Well, it's not as if I don't have enough projects to occupy my time, but I still have the usual post-rejection letter feelings. Anyway, if you actually like my critters and want to see them waddling about, it looks as if for now, you'll just have to visit the Caledon sims.

My submitted work:

Birdies For Sale

2009-05-17T09:18:00.000-07:00

Yes, take home a ridable Bird of Prey today! (click here for the video). Comes with a lifetime supply of newspaper :)

Now on sale at Munro Imaginary Motors in Loch Avi:
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Caledon%20Loch%20Avie/147/148/130

And the Eyre Carriage House in Caledon Eyre:
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Caledon%20Eyre/48%20/183/23/

Congratulations Vi and Marc!

2009-05-15T08:02:00.000-07:00

Some of you may remember "Vi Paravane", intrepid steampunk girl and stalwart gun bunny. She isn't on Second Life much these days, thanks to a slower computer and more happily, a very busy Real Life.

How busy? Well, she still blogs her life in comic strip form over on www.bitstrips.com, so I shall let her tell you :)

Bird of Prey

2009-05-14T12:13:00.001-07:00

Done and done! Will be on the market as soon as Miss Munro comes back from holiday.

Watch more videos of Second Life

Falling in love again

2009-05-07T13:25:00.000-07:00

We went to the shelter and a border collie bounced into our lives.

I'll never forget Puppy, but I've made room in my heart for Mopsy. And I think she needs an awful lot of room.

Jet Pack Dreams for Vi

2009-05-06T10:13:00.000-07:00

My friend Vi Paravane kindly commented on my yesterday's post:

How I wish I could ride one of those in SL. Alas, even if LL could do it, my poor old machine would probably choke on it.

But the truth is, amazing things are possible with current game technology. So for Vi, and for anyone else who loves flying lizards, may I present a browser based game, with amazing 3D animation. And, oh by the way, it is absolutely and utterly free. And absurdly beautiful:

JETPACK BRONTOSAURUS!!!!
(well, he's an Aptosaurus. But his name is Brontosaurus, you see. It's in the introduction)

Cute, wonderfully animated, and lots of places to explore with his magical Jet Pack. And, not to hammer at the point too much, all done with fairly low polygon models and heavy use of simple procedural textures.

But enough negativity! Go have fun!

http://blurst.com/jetpack-brontosaurus/play

Edit: if you don't have it, you will need to download the free Unity plug in for this game.

http://unity3d.com/unity-web-player-2.x.html

Fiddling about with 3D

2009-05-05T12:30:00.000-07:00

Not to teaze, but I will be making an announcement about a collaboration with Miss Ilsa Munro fair soon. Hint: it makes good use of her amazing skills with fun flying flivvers and my obsession with cute animals. Well, perhaps not so much cute as dignified in this case, but that might be Miss Munro's influence.

But we want to check it all out before releasing it, so not just yet, sorry!

I'm also finishing up my first year of design in RL. I've learnt an awful lot, and I have to admit there are more than a few days in which I really, truly, painfully wish that I could do some basic things in SecondLife such as import meshes (rather than just the base sphere sculpts are), and create and animate skeletons for them. Not to whimper too much, but the technology for bumpmap importation (not just the stock Linden ones in the edit window) has been around for quite a while--and yet even something that simple has yet to happen.

Le sigh.

So, in the meantime, I fiddle about with projects outside of SL, sometimes for class, sometimes to amuse myself. The following is an example of my workflow for a somewhat science fictional dragon I imagined-- it has no legs, being primarily a flying creature, with hydrogen filled bladders that keep it aloft (akin to a fishes' swim bladder).

Here's my basic "concept art", which mostly demonstrates my inability to draw. But when I squint, I at least could see what I had in mind:

Next I blocked it out in Maya, fiddled a bit, and came up with this:

Next, I added the wing membranes, textured in Zbrush and Photoshop and added a basic bumpmap (greyscale leather from a Maya procedural texture):

Note that this one is about the polygon count of four sculpts in Secondlife. Or (please reference earlier whimpering), we could have shapes like this if they'd just set up mesh importation.

Finally, because this was really just to amuse myself with, I sent the silly thing to Zbrush, bumped the polygon count up to erm...1.4 million, and had fun with all those lovely different brushes that aren't that useful at lower resolutions like the clay and rake brushes. Then a few different render passes and off to Photoshop for compositing:

And here he is, Stormy the Dragon--

I like to think I managed a touch of dignity in his eyes...

ANZAC Day

2009-04-25T15:31:00.000-07:00

May the tired old heroes from a forgotten war have the peace they were not granted in life.

Holidaze...

2009-04-07T09:41:00.000-07:00

I apologize for the lack of updates on this silly blog, although rest be assured, I have been fair busy with the Aviara animals and the upcoming flying Eagle (with the talented Miss Ilsa Munro).

Lazy though I may be, I am nonetheless taking a bit of a holiday until the 22nd. I'll be popping online today, albeit briefly, to take care of final housekeeping. Then it is off to pack, mostly planning on driving aimlessly about with our RL bicycles in tow. It's getting warm enough to allow for that sort of thing, so I ought take advantage of the moment between "too hot" and "too cold", and enjoy the "just right".

Yours etc,

Goldilocks

Kitty Cuteness!!!!!!

2009-03-11T21:15:00.000-07:00

Inspired by the fact that I am suffering from extreme fuzz deprivation, but also need to keep the spirits (and my blog ranking) up, I share the following with you:

Streaming .TV shows by Ustream

Puppy

2009-02-23T12:13:00.000-08:00

My RL dog passed away today. I wish I could say more, something eloquent, something that explained how much a part of our lives she was, or how she was my fuzzy relief in some terribly difficult times. More prosaically, she was the inspiration and model for many of my SecondLife animals. Her myriad of expressions live on through my clumsy hands that way, at least.

But words fail me. In the end, she was a dog, and dogs are love. In my better moments, I hope to be half as goodhearted and cheerful as she was. I owe her that, I think.

Bay Trekehner Horse

2009-02-11T12:18:00.000-08:00

Still have to get this fellow into his box, but in the meantime, I took him for a ride in the "badlands" below Grendle's avatar shop (also known as Aviara). For those of you who haven't seen the area, it's well worth the trip. There's also a game called the Aviaran expedition, which has you rooting about for things to make other things, things to feed things to get things to make things, and in general have a good time wandering about. There are rumours that this game may soon find its way to Caledon, with a special steampunk twist...

When the Hurly Burly's Done

2009-01-27T10:20:00.000-08:00

I know everyone is all aflutter about the New Babbage Mayoral campaign, with its wonderful campaign advertisements, but surely those kingdoms who aren't in the throes of an election can have Fun Posters as well?

Sighted around Lionsgate

2009-01-17T11:59:00.000-08:00

I truly don't know what to make of these tattered photographs that I found washed up on the beaches of Lionsgate. Someone apparently took these with their trusty Brownie somewhere just to the Northeast of Port Caledon, judging by the buildings one can see in the background of the first. The second photograph is even more inexplicable, as it seems to have been taken underwater--no doubt by one of our local Intrepid Explorers with some clever Aquatic Submersible Conveyance.

But why were these photographs so casually discarded? And more to the point, what on Earth are they of? I fear these questions may have to be unanswered at this time, but all I know is that sailor would not be unwise to exercise All Due Caution when navigating the waters of the Middlesea.

American Warmbloods

2009-01-09T12:12:00.000-08:00

I found some lovely photographs of a spirited horse with the cutest look in his eye, and just had to take him (virtually) home. The problem is, the photo wasn't labeled with the breed. So, I called up Mrs. Nabila Nadir Peterman, who jousts in RL and is a bit of a horse expert (if not entirely sane), and after consultation with another one of her jousting friends, they decided that "Chester" was a specimen of the American Warmblood type--a breed more focused on sport performance than any particular bloodline. I hope I've managed to capture some of the "spunk" the Warmblood has.

I have made both a riding and a static version. The riding version has all the usual features of my horses, the static version flickers its ears and makes periodic noises (and is only 16 prims).

Both are on sale at the Carriage House in Caledon Eyre:
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Caledon%20Eyre/48%20/183/23/

or on the XStreet Exchange

Au Revoir, New Toulouse :(

2009-01-07T19:08:00.000-08:00

Perhaps it shouldn't surprise us, when so many sims are facing hard times, but I still had to bite my lip--

Group Notice From: Carricre Wind

As much as I am pained by this, I have to sell the New Toulouse sims.

For months now I've been keeping them afloat out of pocket and I'm frankly going broke. There are several factors that have caused this, to many to really go into.

I'm listing them for sale for $350usd each, with the buyer paying LL's transfer fee. If one of you lovely residents is interested in taking over as it were, then I'd happily do everything I can to help.

I just can't upkeep it anymore.

I really wish I could...

Mama Cree

They are brilliant sims. I hung about in New Toulouse when it wasn't even New Toulouse yet, but just a prototype on half a sim. I was honoured to be among the first residents there. From late night dancing at the speakeasy next door, to racing my horse down the back streets and over the fences, to the art exhibitions and bohemian SL's I've come to count as friends, it's a magical place.

I truly hope it continues--that's a break even price Mrs. Wind is asking for, frankly.

I'll leave with a silly video

Watch more video games and play free games at WeGame.

The Library Blimp is Coming!

2009-01-05T09:04:00.000-08:00

Yes, hot on the heels of creating entirely too much trouble with my sleighs in Eyre, the Caledon Librarian asked me to create a suitable "Book Blimp" to ferry the literate and careless of their lives to and from the various branches. It's a bit faster than the usual inter-library loan, albeit a tad more draughty.

Once I work out a suitable path through the various full parcels of the region, service will be starting at the Victoria City Branch and landing at Mayfair. More routes to follow, time and foolishness permitting.

Happy Holidays!

2008-12-24T18:13:00.001-08:00

And Peace on Earth, Goodwill to All! And perhaps too much candy, besides :)

Touring Sleigh is Here!!!

2008-12-15T08:27:00.001-08:00

HOLIDAY SPECIAL!! I'm selling the sleigh tour system for only 1500L until mid-January. Similar systems run over twice as much, or even more. I truthfully believe it is the best horse drawn touring system on the market right now, but I want people to get a chance to use it and show it off to friends and visitors. Besides, it's Christmas!

I know, I know. You can just go to Eyre and ride it around for free. But for those of you who Brave the Wilds of Other Sims, you might think about taking advantage of my Christmas Sale to have a sleigh tour of your very own! The sleighs can be set to become temp rez when a passenger sits on them, so you only need to have a free prim on your own parcel.

In World at the Carriage House:
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Caledon%20E ... 20/183/23/

Or online at:
http://www.xstreetsl.com/modules.php?na ... ID=1074883

This beautiful sleigh and horse will take visitors for a guided tour that you create. Smooth motion and amazingly realistic animation combine to create an true winter wonderland experience. The Cheval Verite touring script is easy to use, but permits customization such as automatic announcements, delays, stops and rotations to face scenic outlooks. Create a permanent touring vehicle, or use the temp vehicle which turns to a temp-rez object (does not count against parcel prims) when passengers sit on it.

Come see it in action at the Cheval Verite Carriage House in Caledon Eyre:

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Caledon%20E ... 20/183/23/

Sleigh Features include:

--Sculpted prim animation. No "missing legs" or stiff prim rotations.
--Horses wiggle their ears, occasionally stamp their feet when paused and make horsie noises.
--Cheerful Jingle Bell sound.
--Copy/Mod, so you can create as many vehicles as you like, and add custom features such as your own poseballs or decorations.
--Prim limited? No worries! Simply set the sleigh to temp rez and put it in the rezzer. Visitors then can touch the rezzer to get a vehicle to ride. This means you only need one prim available.
--Or leave the sleigh out. When someone sits on it, it becomes temp rez (ZERO parcel prims) heads off, and the rezzer automatically rezzes another sleigh in its place.
--OR use the permanent sleigh, and just have it loop about on a tour.
--Sleigh can be set to sit still at any designated waypoint until a passenger sits on it
--Sleigh can be set to self destruct at the end of the tour (no sleighs need clutter up your sim!)

About the Cheval Verite Touring System--
--Smooth motion, with no pauses at waypoints (unless programmed in)
--Uses Global Coordinates, which makes for smooth and easy sim crossings.
--Coordinates are entered on the notecard in easy to understand Local format.
--Drop down menu accesses the position detector, which allows for precision coordinates with no guess work.
--Preloaded Notecard system combines the low lag feature of notecardless systems with the easy of use and customizability you get from storing the route on a notecard. Want another vehicle to follow the same route? Simply copy and drop the notecard into it!
--Automatically points in direction of travel (but can be set to rotate to a specific direction at a waypoint if you like)
--Automatically tilts up and down when climbing or descending.
--At each waypoint, can be preprogrammed to wait for a specified period of time, wait until someone gets on, rotate to face a specific direction, say anything you like in chat, or self destruct at the end of the tour (quietly!).

If you have any questions at all, please send me a notecard/IM and I'll be happy to answer you!

-Miss Virrginia Tombola
Owner, Cheval Verite/La Bicyclette

Real Victorian Horsie Walking

2008-11-26T18:42:00.000-08:00

More fun with GIF animations :) This is from the 1887 work by Muybridge, the very first (and still a very important) stop motion study of animals in motion. I've used it extensively in my own horse animations, and now through the magic of freebie software bundled with Photoshop, I strung his photographs of a horse walking together into what I modestly consider almost a passable animation.

Grrrr...GIF

2008-11-25T08:27:00.001-08:00

Edit: Thanks, Dia! Of course now it seems perfectly obvious. Blogger does not support animation. So, the way to do the animation is to host it on another site (I use Photobucket) and enter a direct link there.

La! One silly animated Seahorse :))

Sleigh Rides

2008-11-24T14:35:00.000-08:00

Oh, jingle bells, jingle bells
Jingle all the way
Oh, what fun it is to ride
In a one horse open sleigh
Jingle bells, jingle bells
Jingle all the way
Oh, what fun it is to ride
In a one horse open sleigh

Well, as those of you who experienced the Great Sleigh Infestation in Caledon Eyre might know, the last few days have had me busy as the Dickens (/rimshot) making sleighs for the Holidays. I do apologize to those whose houses were overrun on Friday with the replicating Touring Sleighs!

I've made two types of sleighs. The first is the Victorian, two horse sleigh which uses the same vehicle engine that I made for the Royal Carriages. Most of the animations remain the same, but thanks to Jaeger M. Szondi, it also makes snow :) And instead of a wheel sound, it has the obligatory jingle bells.

The other sleigh is not quite ready for sale yet (mostly, I need to make it more user friendly). It's a Touring Sleigh, which automatically will wend its way about a prearranged course. It can be set to be either permanent or temp-rez, the latter meaning it doesn't take require more prim space than the one prim rezzer! Still, I kept the prims fairly low by using sculpted animation for the horse's legs.

I actually extremely proud of this one, so if you wish to assuage my vanity, please drop by the Carriage House and touch the picture of the sleigh. It will rez a sleigh which will then take you on a guided tour of Eyre and Regency. I hope to expand that and have it range its way from Kittiwick to Penzance with time (I'm trying to provide service in the trainless sections of Caledon). When the snows melt, I plan to turn it back to Hansom cabs.

2008-11-19T22:33:00.000-08:00

In the warmth
Twining about my limbs and soul
The lazy winter wind
Nestles snugly in the core
of
nothing

Seahorses are HERE!!!

2008-11-18T09:22:00.000-08:00

Care to sport about the Firth a bit? We're absurdly proud of this one. The Vicerine really outdid herself with the engine--this is NOT simply an animated attachment, it propels you forward at astonishing speeds (or can be slowed to a crawl), leaps out of the water in a fully animated dolphin leap, climbs/dives, and will automatically shoot to the surface or bottom on command. Or you can put it in fly mode.

I did my usual foolishness with design--the eyes blink and look around, the tail wiggles, it looks like a seahorse.

With no further ado, onto ad copy ;)

Inworld at Lionsgate or the Carriage House:
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Caledon%20Lionsgate/85/10/30
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Caledon%20Eyre/48%20/183/23/

On the XStreet Exchange (formerly the SL Exchange):
http://www.xstreetsl.com/modules.php?name=Marketplace&file=item&ItemID=1024229

For Mers and Landlubbers alike!

Explore the World, below and above the waves, with your amazing Seahorse. Not just an animation override, it uses the unique P.I.E. engine which combines vehicle-like maneuverability and speed with the reliability of an attachment vehicle. Swim or fly at speeds ranging from a turtle’s stroll to a dolphin’s sprint. Leap out of the water in a spray of water. See your seahorse climb and dive, or just bob along contentedly while you take in the scenery.

-Worn as an attachment, the seahorse does not count against parcel prims, and will go with you when you teleport.
-HUD controlled for instant and easy access to all functions.
-Includes regular (astride), sidesaddle and mermaid/man riding poses. Poses can be changed via the HUD.
-Climbing, diving and jumping animations.
-Sculpted prim construction, with animated tail and fin (can be turned off).
-Periodically bubbles from the mouth with a bubbly sound (can be turned off).
-Eyes look around and the eyelids smoothly blink together at random times.
-Real life seahorses can change colours, but yours can also individually change eye, harness, tack and saddle colours. Easy to use colour change HUD allows for a near limitless variety of colours to suit your tastes.
-Leaps at the surface in a realistic arc with spray and sound.
-Free swim mode allows the seahorse to ignore the water level and fly wherever you like!
-Water level can be changed to allow for swimming/leaping in non-Linden water (such as swimming pools)
-Variable speed controlled by a slider on the HUD.

Come visit the tropical island of Lionsgate and take a demo for a swim today!
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Caledon%20Lionsgate/85/10/30

yrs, etc

Kamilah Hauptmann, Posture Is Everything Animations
Virrginia Tombola, Cheval Verite/La Bicyclette Horses

Never Forget

2008-11-11T09:34:00.000-08:00

Dulce Et Decorum Est

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of disappointed shells that dropped behind.

GAS! Gas! Quick, boys!-- An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And floundering like a man in fire or lime.--
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,--
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie:

Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

-Wilfred Owen

Thank you, Susan B.

2008-10-28T16:56:00.000-07:00

And all the rest of you who were ridiculed, ostracized, even imprisoned and mistreated for daring to say that your voice was as important as a man's.

So, for those of you who are U.S. citizens, mail in your ballot today, or trot down to the polls on the 4th. Don't ever forget how hard the right was to win. Most of our great great grans have passed on now, but let's not let them down.

P.S. Boys should vote, too.

Low Prim Static Appaloosa

2008-10-15T15:08:00.000-07:00

I apologize for not putting this on the market sooner, and I'm sure I have a good excuse :) Anyway, he's only 16 prims, actually 3 less than his Static Arabian cousin. I gave him a "heads up" posture, perfect for alertly sticking his snuzzle out of his paddock.

As always, you can find it on sale at the Carriage House in Caledon Eyre:
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Caledon%20Eyre/48%20/183/23/

Thoughts From Those Who Ought Not Drink Coffee

2008-10-06T23:21:00.000-07:00

We are all constantly reaching a certain age
When the Door to the Kingdom shuts behind us
And we half glance over our shoulder to see
That it’s too late, really

We know of that Other Girl in the choir
Who is asked to step up for the solo
And her family coos and the reception people smile
And we ourselves aren’t asked back the next year

And we fall off the balance beam
To the merriment of all
And the world tells us that no matter how we try
We’ll never be the sparkle make-up wearing ingénue
Arching tall upon the mat as the crowds cheer

And so we shuffle our way forwards
Wondering if the next year might hold
A turn in the woods
Beyond which lies
A gold stone path

And the day comes
When we are too old to be Dorothy
We will never meet the Wizard
But then again
We don’t fear the Monkeys

For the world loves the young
To cherish
And to eat
But only the choice ones are taken
And the rest are let alone on the kerb

With my plain mucked shoes dangling
Over the gutter water of time
I pull my feet underneath myself
And step into the rain
To drown
Perchance to dream

The Piano

2008-10-06T18:06:00.001-07:00

Nothing to do with anything, save I love the piece, and the movie haunts me in many ways.

The Next Project....

2008-10-03T16:50:00.000-07:00

For the last day or so, I've been working with the Mistress of Tinies, Ms. Martini Discovolante on downsizing. Fortunately, in our Virtual World, that word has pleasanter connotations than it might in the workaday environs. Here, it simply means that those poor Badger might not find themselves constantly blurring those bitty feet to catch up with everyone else!

Have a Batty October

2008-09-29T10:03:00.000-07:00

I am giving away Battys for FREE throughout the month of October. He's a silly thing, really, but I like him. Wear him as an attachment (he won't wander away) He bobs about and flaps his wings--you can also make him talk if you wish.

Just look for the sign to the left as you enter the Carriage House:
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Caledon%20Eyre/48%20/183/23/

Have a Batty Halloween!

Edit: YAY! I just found my inspiration on YouTube!!! I WUV TEH INTERNETS!!!

Picture, Not From in an Exhibition

2008-09-27T11:12:00.000-07:00

A huge thank you to Vicerine Kamilah Hauptmann who had this done for me. I try not to indulge my vanity by having sketches done of myself or my avatar, but having one done by someone else is more than welcome :)

(Lord, not for the first time do I wish I could get my RL hair to look like that...but I can't fly in RL either!)

Oh Fine, Another Meme

2008-09-15T09:01:00.000-07:00

What, no Girl Gadgeteer photo? Hrmph....

Your result for The Steampunk Style Test...

The Gadgeteer

You are the Gadgeteer, the embodiment of steampunk technology. Ironically, many of the things that most define your style are probably too large to easily carry about, but given the opportunity you would prefer to be seen surrounded by boiler engines, gear-driven calculators, and incredible automata. Of all the steampunk fashion styles, you place the greatest emphasis on technological accessories, and you are the most likely to create elaborate gadgets that are as much a part of your outfit as your clothes. You probably have goggles, but unlike most people you consider them to be for more than decoration. Whereas most people might look odd carrying a satchel of tools around, for you they may well be essential. Above all, you remind everyone that what sets the genre apart from Victoriana is simply the level of technology.

It tells me that I am 36% Elegant, 52% Technological, 50% Historical, 24% Adventurous and 40% Playful, which sounds about right. Possibly a tad high on the Technological, as these days I spend more time with Fuzzy Beasts than Silly Gadgets. But I do love my Silly Gadgets, too.

If you care to take the test yourself, do find it here:
http://www.helloquizzy.com/tests/the-steampunk-style-test

Skulls About the Town

2008-09-09T08:14:00.000-07:00

Well, I'm pleased to say that the skulls have been selling very well. It's really wonderful to hear about the creative things people have been doing with them.

Here's a couple of snapshots I received recently, the first from a Ms. Fallacy DeCuir of FDS designs who made one that emits glowing skull shaped particles, and the obligatory candle skulls:

And everyone's favourite Evil Overlord cum Mad Scientist, Dr. Obolensky, has created this little vacation retreat in Clockspire cove:

Finally, a bit of "Haunted Mansion" style fun from Cald Stine. He was kind enough to send me the haunted grave--I must say the chuckle is rather unnerving!

As always, hearing that people are having fun with my toys really makes me happy :) So if you have pictures of you and your skulls, horses, or unsafe modes of transportation, do drop me a line :)

Home Again, Home Again

2008-08-18T23:06:00.000-07:00

Over 100 IMs O_O. Well, good to know I was somewhat missed. Now feel free to lob such missives as need lobbing at me!

On Holiday

2008-08-09T17:39:00.000-07:00

Hello all, my valise (well, beat up plastic roll aboard) is laid out in front of me and I am ready to depart tomorrow morning on a Grand Adventure. More of a working vacation than anything else (I plan on doing a fair bit of writing), but it will be fun enough. Who knows, it may lead to Paths of Glory. Or at least get me out of the house for a week.

In any event, shall be back the week of the 18th, so if anyone has any product requests or issues, I'm afraid it will have to wait until then as I have made the decision Not To Check Email. I need a bit of mind clearing time, so no email, reading LOLCats, watching videos, reading the paper, and decidedly no Second Lifing. I hope I survive the experience!

Until then!

Skulls for Sale! Getcha Craniums 'Ere!

2008-08-07T19:13:00.000-07:00

Well, not everyone has the time to sculpt their own skulls (link!), so I am now selling my skulls on the open market, specifically at the Dark Victorian Emporium in Caledon Tanglewood. Do stop by there if your tastes run towards black taffetta--there are some amazing works there by some top notch creators (i.e. not just my silly skulls).

The pricier one here is the full perm set, for use by vendors who wish to incorporate them in their own builds:

I am also selling no-copy versions which come with four skulls (for private use), or copy versions (for those who want to build with them, but don't intend to sell their builds).

I am also selling this silly set:

Touch the skull and the Raven squawks "Nevermore!" as voiced by our own talented Mr. Hotspur O'Toole (for some reason, I always did imagine that bird having a bit of a husky Northeastern US accent).

Again, all these and many more things by far more talented designers than I are available at the Dark Victorian Emporium (including a lovely Poppins avatar created by Mr. AM Radio).

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Caledon%20Tanglewood////

And....coming soon (but probably after I return from holiday, as one never knows with scripted items):

Oooh, yet another online test

2008-07-18T08:19:00.000-07:00

Well, not sure about the accuracy of this one, but I liked the card:

You are The Empress

Beauty, happiness, pleasure, success, luxury, dissipation.

The Empress is associated with Venus, the feminine planet, so it represents,
beauty, charm, pleasure, luxury, and delight. You may be good at home
decorating, art or anything to do with making things beautiful.

The Empress is a creator, be it creation of life, of romance, of art or business. While the Magician is the primal spark, the idea made real, and the High Priestess is the one who gives the idea a form, the Empress is the womb where it gestates and grows till it is ready to be born. This is why her symbol is Venus, goddess of beautiful things as well as love. Even so, the Empress is more Demeter, goddess of abundance, then sensual Venus. She is the giver of Earthly gifts, yet at the same time, she can, in anger withhold, as Demeter did when her daughter, Persephone, was kidnapped. In fury and grief, she kept the Earth barren till her child was returned to her.

What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.

(Found courtesy of Hibernia On the Skids. Thank for finding yet another bit of internet sillyness, Mr. O'Toole!)

Bitty Wheel Keeps on Turning....

2008-07-17T08:36:00.000-07:00

Timid Mary keeps on smouldering!

A small but amazing well done craft here by Mrs. Carricre Wind (aka "Mama Cree") for the soon to be opened Relay For Life sim in Heroes 34. Visitors will take a Mississippi themed journey, thematically reflecting the experiences of the battle with cancer. AND you get to ride one of these paddlewheels, if you like. I was fortunate enough to see it the other day, as I made a few of the fish for the sim, and trust me, it's beyond amazing already. Just remember to go into the advanced environmental settings and turn the water brown :)

Awwww....

2008-07-11T22:25:00.000-07:00

Mr. Nix Sands fiddled a bit with the cougar avatar I made and created this:

Ker-Splash!

2008-07-10T12:07:00.000-07:00

Well, a bout with a cold led to a flurry of building. I finally learnt how to make skins, and put this avatar together.

A complete avatar, the Purple Beta includes a sculpted tail, skin, modifiable shape, hair, and the sculpted modesty shells. I also included a modesty set of extra scales for strategic areas, as I found that some mermaid sitting poses allowed a bit too much skin to be seen around the shells :P

Thanks to my friend Miss Jacquelin Seisenbacher of Ein Kleineschwein Designs for the wonderful hair work. Frankly the set is probably worth getting just for her hair alone.

I'm selling this for 100L in Relay For Life vendors only, with all proceeds going to the American Cancer Association. Said vendor can be found in Caledon Lionsgate here:
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Caledon%20Lionsgate/158/116/48

While the avatar set does not include an AO, right next to the vendor is another from which you can get Duchess Kamilah Hauptmann's amazing mermaid AO for only a 50L Relay for Life donation. The avatar was designed with this AO in mind--unlike most, it recognizes the water surface and allows for multiple swimming speed and FANTASTIC jumping animations, complete with water spray and sound.

Safe Waters!

Meow!

2008-07-06T14:45:00.001-07:00

Making a Skull in Zbrush: Texturing

2008-07-05T07:47:00.000-07:00

Welcome back! I’m now going to continue where I left off. The following objectives may seem like an awful lot, but really, it's all very simple.

This time around, hopefully you will learn:
*How to set material on your object.
*How to use the Zproject brush to transfer premade textures to the object.
*How to use the color picker to select colors for polypainting.
*How to polypaint, using the different brush strokes and settings.
*How to use alphas to create realistic painting effects.
*How to change said color to a texture, and use said texture for final sculpting.
*How to export that texture and the object for use in Second Life.

If you recall, we had just sculpted a nice red wax skull. We save this as a Ztool (not an object just yet), then watch Vlad Bjornson’s tutorial on how to use Zproject to polypaint :D

Just to recap, however, I will review the use of the Zproject brush here. First we need to change the material of the skull. The material really won’t do anything to the actual texture we create, but it affects what we see in Zbrush. In other words, while the final texture colour is independent of the material colour, whilst we are working on it, the material will change how the texture looks to use. Long explanation short, red wax makes the texture look red, so we want something nice and white such as White Matcap.

Just as we did when we changed the material of the sphere before sculpting, make sure “M” is on, select White Matcap from the materials palette, go up to “color” and “Fill Object”. Now, make a new document (Cntrl-N, or go to “document” at the top). Go to the texture palette and import a nice texture you want to put on the skull, select Flat Color for the material, then crop and fill the texture to the background. I used some copyright free images of skulls that I bought online, but I believe Wikipedia Commons has some nice common domain images of various skulls. It doesn’t have to be human, just look for some nice bone textures and cracks.

Next, select “texture off” on the texture palette, White Matcap on material palette, and select our skull. Draw it out, then go to edit (hotkey T). Open up the geometry palette, and click it five times. If you look at the upper right, you will see that you have about a million active points.

Make sure Rgb is on, and Zadd/Zsubtract/Zcut are all off. Select the Zproject brush and set RgbIntensity to 100 Position the skull over the image, and run the Zproject brush over it. The texture underneath will transfer to the skull. Rotate and scale the skull as needed to cover the key parts of the skull with bone textures. You can also use the transpose handle to more precisely place textures. Go to Move (hotkey W) and then draw the handle from where you want the texture to the part of the texture you wish to transfer (think of Photoshop’s Clone brush). Go back to Draw (hotkey Q) and Zproject away!

After a while, this is what I came up with.

Not bad, but it looks a tad flat and pasted together, not to mention the fact that large parts are still not textured. This is where we go to more traditional style painting in Zbrush.

First, let’s pick a color to paint. There are two basic ways to pick color in Zbrush: either by picking one from the color picker or by using the “eyedropper” to select one from the image. In the lower left corner you will see the color picker.

The outside square is where one picks the color. Click on the desired color, and it becomes the active color. The central box controls luminosity and saturation. Again, click on the desired color. Like Photoshop, there are two colors stored, the active one the brush is using (in the big box below the picker) and the secondary one (in the small box). You can swap between those two colors whenever you wish by clicking “SwitchColor”.

Personally, though, I find myself using the eyedropper more, as it guarantees a good match. Click on the box in the color picker, then drag the mouse/pen over to any point on the object or background, then release the button (lift the pen). The color at that point will become the active color.

So, let’s pretty the skull up. First, select the Standard brush, which is what one uses for painting most of the time. Make sure only the Rgb button is selected on top, set the RgbIntensity to about 30 and the size to about 35. Underneath the brush type you will see the icon for the stroke, which is probably still at the default “dots”. Click on this and select “Drag Rec”. This is a nifty brush that will draw out a rectangle as you run it over the object. Try it, and you’ll see what I mean.

So, I selected various colours from the skull and started filling in the empty spots and increasing the shading underneath the skull (remember, once a color is selected, you can adjust luminosity and saturation). The key to making things look realistic is multiple washes. Natural things are rarely one blocky colour. So, take your time, pick a few different colours and set them at a medium RgbIntensity.

Now, let’s do some final touch up. Here’s some things I did. The nose shading got a bit outside, so I picked a color next to it to cover it up. But again, I didn’t want a blocky look, so I need a way to break up the texture. Here is where I used “alphas”. Think of these like the nozzle on a pastry bag—they screen off the brush, creating interesting effects. Here, I just wanted a pebbly look, so I clicked on Alpha (below the brush type) and selected Alpha 7. I went back to the dot brush, and started lightly painting around the nose.

Finally, I wanted a bit of a porous look to the bone, so I picked a dark shade and a low RgbIntensity. But I wanted even more variation, so I selected “color spray” out of the brush types, which automatically provides a bit of variation in color. I worked my way over the skull to make it look nice and rough.

And there we have our basic texture! In the texture subpalette in the tool palette on the right, select “Col>Txr”. You will see a picture of the texture appear on the left under “texture” (I really, really hate the way Pixologic reuses names for different palettes!!!! Whoops, I said that before). Click on that and select “Export”. Now your texture is saved as a PSD file.

We can now do a few final tweaks to our skull, using the texture as a reference. Open up our original saved Ztool of the skull, from just before we divided its geometry in order to paint. Set the material to Matcap White if it isn’t, and go the texture palette on the left, and select the skull texture we just made. It will look a bit blockier, as it hasn’t the resolution of the Ztool we used to create the texture. So, we may have to adjust it slightly using our sculpting tools. I frequently will use the Move brush and Nudge brush to make sure ridges (such as the brows) have a nice row of vertices running along them. Notice that when you switch brush types, the texture disappears. To get it to reappear, simply open the texture palette and reselect the texture. It then becomes that brush’s texture, and you can proceed as before.

Once you’re satisfied, save the new skull as a Ztool. I discussed Sculpty Maker in my tutorial on animation, and it will work just fine here, too. To use that, simply export the Ztool as an Obj file, then open SculptyMaker, browse to the object file and click “make sculpty”. It will create a BMP sculpty file. If you haven't used Sculpty Maker before, I have a more detailed explanation here

Believe it or not, there’s an even easier way to do this now. 2K Suisei created a plug in for ZBrush called ZSculpty. Go here to download it:
http://www.mediafire.com/?ixxoxsizyx0

Then, using your unzipping thingee (I use WinZip these days), unzip the files to something that looks like this:
C:\Program Files\Pixologic\ZBrush3\ZStartup\ZPlugs
(it might not be exactly there on your computer, just make sure you send it to the ZPlugs folder)

Then restart ZBrush and load your skull, draw it out, then go to edit mode. On the right hand Tool palette, all the way at the bottom, you will see “Sculpty”. Just click on that and you will see this palette:

Click on the “Sculpty” button to turn it on, and set the SMRes to your desired sculptmap size. I’ve been using 128 lately with good results and load times, even when not lossless. Note that 2K has also set this up so that you may export the object’s texture as well as a normal map (which is a bit like the bumpmaps we use in Second Life, but not really. One will note I didn’t say I understood them!). Anyway, once set, click “export” and it will create a BMP sculpt map for the selected object. Said sculpt map can be found in the ZSculpty Maps folder, also located in the Zplugs folder. If it gets too cluttered there, you can click “flush” and ZSculpty will delete all the sculpt maps inside.

So, there we have it: a lovely little skull, all textured and everything. Next time, I will talk about how to use a program called Material Baker to create additional shading for our skull, which will make it look even spiffer!

Making a Skull in Zbrush

2008-07-03T09:49:00.000-07:00

Hullo, the following is part one of a skull tutorial I am working on. Hopefully, after pawing your way through the following, you should be able to:

*Use a reference image to assist with modeling
*Use different levels of division to create an organized sculpting workflow
*Use the subtool menu to group objects together, and be able to manipulate them and edit them individually
*Understand the difference between texture and color, and color individual subtools
*Use symmetry when sculpting
*Use the various sculpting brushes for their various purposes
*Make a cute skull

Before beginning, I really recommend you either already know the basics about how to load up Zbrush and create a basic object, or watch part one of Vlad Bjornson's excellent tutorial here:

http://www.shiny-life.com/2008/02/12/video-creating-sculpted-prims-with-zbrush-3/

Final note, should you wish to see any of the pictures below up close, click on them to get the full size image.

Onto the tutorial!

*****

I have been working through the tutorials in the book “Introducing Zbrush” by Keller of late, and I cannot recommend the book highly enough. More than simply explaining what all the buttons do, it also covers the basics of sculpting and creating. Part of making good 3D characters (such as horses!) is understanding the underlying anatomical structure, and to that end, he has a terrific tutorial on crafting a human skull. Yes, perhaps a bit macabre, but we’ve all got one underneath our coiffures, so there is no sense in being overly squeamish.

While I certainly recommend getting the book, none of the tutorials in it are importable to Second Life, outside of creating a PSD file and importing the image as a texture (Oh, go ahead and frame that lovely seascape on the wall of your home :)). So, I’ve attempted to cover the same ground as the skull tutorial, but oriented towards an object file that will be usable in Second Life. Essentially, it means working with a Sphere3D instead of the PolySpheres, less sculpted detail and a greater reliance on texturing to convey depth and roughness.

With no further ado, let’s get started. First things first, we ought look at multiple pictures of skulls from different angles (don’t we love Google images?) and from those create reference images of a front and side. It really helps to have at least a picture of the skull up in the background to look at, but as you will see, our sketch will help enormously in shaping. It needn’t be beautiful, it is simply for reference.

After we sketch the sides, go to the graphics program of your choice and open up the file “imagePlaneX.PSD”, located in the Ztools directory (the one that looks like the one below):

Then, in another layer, put the front and side view of the skull and move them about until they are centred on the words “FRONT” and “SIDE”. Make sure the front and side views are to scale and at the right height. Guidelines with the rulers visible will help here. Hide the background layer with the words on it and save the file as a PSD file. You may feel free to use my example, if you like.

Now onto Zbrush! First, select “Fast Shader” in the materials palette on the left, and make sure the texture is off. Then go to the tools palette, load a Sphere3D, draw it on the canvas, go to Edit mode (hotkey T) and initialize the sphere to HDivide 8 and VDivide 9, and then click “Make Polymesh”. (If this sounds like gibberish, do trot over to Vlad Bjornson’s Shiny Things site and watch the introduction to Zbrush tutorial. Unlike mine, his has nice music ;)).

Now, go back to the tool palette, and “load tool”. In the Ztools folder, select “imagePlaneX”. Our sphere will turn into an X. You will notice that if we rotate this around, it will sometimes disappear. That is because planes only have one side. To keep the sides always visible, go to “display properties” on the right hand side, fourth up from the bottom (it’s part of the tool palette). Expand that and click “double” and you will see both sides of the plane surfaces.

Now, go to “Texture”, import texture, and select our reference image.

La!

Now, lets get our sphere that we will be sculpting on. Underneath the Tool subpalette in the tool palette (Pixologic REALLY needs to work on not reusing names!), find the subtool palette and open it. Click “append” and select our 8x9 Sphere3D (not the default one, which has a kagillion vertices).

Problem one, your sphere is probably not lined up with our reference planes. To fix this, click on the sphere icon in the subtool palette (make sure both eyeball icons are on, so you can see both of the objects). It will be highlighted with a dark rectangle around it, meaning that is the tool you will be able to modify.

Next, go to our old friend the deformations palette (you did watch Vlad’s tutorial, didn’t you?), and look at the Unify command. Make sure x, y and z are all selected and click it. Both tools now have the same pivot, orientation and size. In English, they are lined up.

But wait, they both have the same texture! Now we could sculpt on the sphere with the reference image stretched over it, but that would be silly and confusing. Instead we need to understand the difference betwixt TEXTURE and COLOR. A texture is overlaid on top of an object, and is not influenced by the painting tools. Its resolution is a function of how many pixels it was saved as, and is independent of the underlying object. Think of it as gift wrapping stretched tightly over our object. A color is actually part of the object. Each vertex has a color, which is then applied to the neighboring polygons. So, the more polygons, the greater the resolution of a color.

The key thing for our current concern is that all subtools share a texture, but can have different colors (or colours. But Pixologic is non-U, as the Hon. Nancy Mitford might put it). So, short story long, we need to change this texture to a color.

First, click on the PlaneX icon in the subtool menu to make it the active tool. Next, click on the eyeball next to the sphere to make that tool disappear (otherwise the texture will be turned into a color for it, too).

Now, remember that resolution of the color depends on the number of vertices. Go to the geometry subpalette in the tools palette, and make sure “Smt” is turned off (the button next to “divide”). If Smt (smooth) is active, it will “smooth” the object as we give it detail, which will make our planes rounded. Click the divide button five times so we have plenty of available detail. Open up the texture subpalette on the right side (not to be confused with the texture palette on the top. See earlier complaint about reuse of names...). Click “Txr>Clr”. The texture is now a color. The only change you are likely to see is that the texture icon on the Left side (not to be confused with either the texture palette or subpalette) will no longer display the texture but simply say “texture off”.

Click on the eyeball next to the sphere icon on the subtool menu, and you will see the sphere. But really, fast shader isn’t my favourite material for sculpting, and I want some contrast with the reference planes. So, let’s change the material!

First, make the sphere the active tool, then turn off the visibility for the plane (ie, click the eyeball). Now for the cute part. On the top bar, to the right of the Move/Scale/Rotate controls make the “M” is highlighted, and not “Mrgb” or “Rgb”. On the left, click the material and select something easy to work with that contrasts with grayish white (red clay or wax is good). On the VERY top line, third from the left, click on color, and find “fill object”. Click it.

Go back to the subtool menu and unhide the planeX. You should see this:

(I know, this was a lot of work, but it makes the actual process SO much easier when you get going)

There is one final issue before we start sculpting. You will notice that the “poles” of the sphere are facing us. The problem with that is that the poles tend to scrunch textures up and are hard to make look right when doing detailed sculpting. And we’ve got one right in the face, quite literally. We’d rather have the poles on the low detail top of the skull and hidden underneath.

First, rotate the whole tool by dragging off of it on the canvas, while holding the shift key down. The tool will “snap” to an orthogonal position (in other words, it isn’t crooked). Now we will rotate the sphere alone.

Click on “rotate” (hotkey R), then double tap/click on the very front vertex, as shown in the above picture.

Then go to the side of the tool, and click on one of the circles and drag it to the centre of the skull. You have now set up a “transpose handle”. I discuss this a bit more in my animation tutorial, but here, the basic idea is that one end of this line becomes the pivot point. Click on the outside circle and drag it so the pole rotates nicely to the middle of the “X” of the planes.

And there you have it. Believe it or not, this was really the hard part. Like so many things, Zbrush sculpting is 76% preparation. The rest of this will be pure fun, so stick with me!

You may have wondered why we started with an 8x9 sphere, rather than a 32x33 sphere. After all, the latter has much more detail available to use. It’s a tad hard to answer directly, but the thing is that in all forms of art, one starts with big blocks and adds detail later. We see overall shape and form first, and if we haven’t laid the fundamentals of that down from the beginning, the overall composition will suffer. I admit to being quite the student when it comes to visual art, and had never really done this before a few months ago. But then I read a few books (what a startling concept!) I started making roughs out, then filling them in with placeholder outlines, and then finally filling in the detail. And I am here to say that it is MUCH easier that way. Similarly, whilst working on this project, even at the blocky levels of things, do not concentrate on one part at a time. Constantly rotate the object while sketching it out. Again, this will help you preserve the overall form of things.

Enough theory! Go to the top, and select the Move brush from the brush palette. Click OFF those Mrgb, Rgb, M, Zadd and Zcut buttons, and click Zadd ON. Whenever you switch brushes, make sure that is the configuration they are in. Go to the transformation palette and click symmetry, X and M (for mirrored on the X axis). Now, any alterations you make to one side of the skull will be done to the other.

Go to the brush palette on the very top (not the one with the brush picture, but the word “brush” between “alpha” and “color”). Open it, find “backface mask” and click it on. Now changes will only happen on the side of the object you can see.

Now we want to be able to see our reference image, so let’s make the subtool semi-transparent by clicking on the “transp” button on the bottom of the right shelf. You can now see through the sphere to plane. At this stage of things, I find it helpful to see all the vertices, so while you are there, click on “frame”, located next to the transparency button. You will see all the vertices, as well as the lines that connect them.

Go to the subtool palette and click on the sphere to make it active. Now all changes will be applied to the sphere ONLY. This is the important part of using subtools! Note that moving, rotation and scale (via dragging the mouse or using the right shelf buttons) will still be applied to all the subtools. To move, rotate or scale an individual subtool requires use of a transpose handle, as we saw when we rotated the pole.

Now, let’s sculpt! On the right top, next to the Zadd button, you will see the brush settings. We will start with big changes, so let’s set “Z intensity” all the way up at 100 and brush size at 50. Leave focal shift for now, it controls the amount of “falloff” and is basically like the hardness control on a Photoshop brush. “Rgb intensity” will be greyed out, as we turned Rgb off since we aren’t painting yet. When it is on, it works like the opacity setting on a Photoshop Brush.

Now, using the move brush gently pull the vertices in line with our image. Start with the vertices closest to you, then work your way outwards towards the edges. Resist the temptation to “mash” things. Small strokes are the way to win the day (and if you didn’t want a tablet before, you will when you are done with this).

Once you have the outline, try to get the frame lines lined up with your features. Look at how the vertices roughly trace the outlines of the nose, eyes and upper jaw in this picture:

On the side, push in the temple a bit (there is this really frightening looking hollow there!) by switching to the standard brush and holding the alt key down. Make sure the lines follow the zygomatic bone (that bone that starts at the eye and goes backwards, outlining the temporal depression).

From the top, the head should resemble a rounded wedge

Now, let’s add a tad more detail. Go to the geometry palette and click “divide”. You will want to reduce the brush size to about 35 and strength to about 25.

The smooth brush can be instantly activated by holding down the shift key. It averages out the vertices, literally “smoothing” them. This is very useful for making nice even, lined up frame lines and vertices (which we want for good texturing and sculpting). 100 will obliterate most detail, however, so to decrease the strength of the smooth brush, select it and change Z intensity to 20.

Now, go back to moving the vertices, taking care to keep them in line with the features of the skull. Try to outline the nose and teeth, and start a shallow depression over the eyes. Bring out the cheekbones and the rough outline of the zygomatic bone. Gently curve the lines over the brow, and lightly touch the Standard brush there (be careful not to make our skull look too cavemanish :P)

Now, let’s do the final touches, to really make this object look skullish. At this point, we really don’t need the reference plane anymore, so go ahead and open the subtool menu and turn the eyeball next to the plane off. Deactivate frame and add any final touches. You may find you need to occasionally toggle off symmetry should you need to work on one side of the skull only.

Now, go to the geometry subpalette and click divide one last time. You are now at the number of vertices you need for object import into Second Life. In the upper right, next to “draw size” you will see that it says “Total Points 1056”. If you are ever in doubt as to whether you are at the right number of vertices for exporting the object file, take a look up there and adjust your division level accordingly.

Also note that you can feel free at any time to go back down to a lower division level to make big changes, then go back up to the higher level. Just move the division slider to the left to go down, right to go back up. Our workflow is to start large and work towards more detail, but nothing is written in stone.

Now, hopefully with a few pictures of real skull to look at we add more detail. I can’t tell you exactly which brush strokes to use, or which brushes. Just keep trying different brushes at different settings, and find out what works for you. A Z intensity of 25 to 50 seems to work well, with finishing touches at 5 to 10. Brush size will vary from 15 for grabbing a single vertex to 50 for large area changes (but be careful with those!). To change the brush size instantly, use the bracket keys ( “[“ and “]”) to size it up and down.

If you ever want a quick overview of a brush, hover your cursor over its icon and hold the control key. Zbrush will give you a pop up window explaining what it does.

Most of the time, you will use the Standard brush, which pulls the object surface out, or if the alt key is held, pushes it in. Use that to create the hollows for the nose, eyes, and underneath, the foramen magnum (the hole the spinal cord goes into).

The Move brush will continue to get a good workout, but also think about the Nudge brush, which moves vertices parallel to the surface of the skin. It literally can “nudge” a feature into position.

Final touches can now be provided. The Flatten brush will make the various plane surfaces less pillowy and more skullish. The Pinch brush will sharpen edges by bringing vertices together. The Inflat brush will inflate things (or deflate with the Alt key). Use it at a low Z intensity of 10 or less to lightly round the top of the skull. Finally, smooth where necessary. Whatever you do, avoid crossing the skin over itself, that will look simply ugly when you import the skull to Second Life, and is blessed near impossible to texture correctly.

Well, there we have our base skull! I’m going to have a rest now, but next time I will talk a bit about how to texture using the brush tools and the Material Baker plugin. If you haven’t seen it, go see Vlad Bjornson’s tutorial on texturing in Zbrush on his Shiny Life website, as I will assume you already have the basics of that down pat.

Till then!

Woooooooooo....SCARY SKULLL!!!!!

Yet more filter sillyness

2008-07-02T14:23:00.000-07:00

I would spare you, but my refrigerator is out of room for new pictures at the moment ;)

YeeeeHAW!!!

2008-07-01T12:38:00.000-07:00

The first Western Saddle Horses are DONE! A huge thanks to Ms. CoyoteAngel Dimsum who sculpted the saddles for these. I've added a low prim static display horse for both (17 and 19 prims) as well as the standard display horse, and included both a presized man and woman's horse (though you can further mod them as you need).

I also added a "dismount" feature, which detaches your horse and rezzes a static horse next to you. Said static horse disappears when you reattach your horse.

So, strap on your spurs, and mosey on down, and saddle up!
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Caledon%20Eyre/48%20/183/23/

Picture from an Exhibition

2008-06-29T12:40:00.000-07:00

If you haven't popped by the Eyre Commons lately, you may be surprised to see these glowing patches of light scattered about the place. At first glance, they look akin to a particle experiment gone awry or even a griefing incident (with an uncharacteristic taint of good taste)

But as one comes closer, one sees the intricate variations in glow and colour, all slowly moving, and a sort of mesmeritic state begins.

It is all an exhibition by Mr. LawnDart Curtis, who encourages visitors to stand INSIDE the balls of light and take a picture. The light changes one's avatar in surprising ways. My new friend Mr. Bones and I could not resist (and this image has not been photoshopped at all):

Fishees!

2008-06-26T11:55:00.000-07:00

YAY FISHEES!

Well, after a few weeks of testing these fellows, I feel satisfied that they perform well in the nightmare that is the Second Life environment (gah, sim boundry protection, backups for when the fishee got stuck in tight quarters, what to do if it is chasing someone and they crash, etc)

But, they are animated, they are obedient and they are here!

Beta Fish

Butterfly Fish

The Cnidarium (not EXACTLY a fish. Frankly not sure exactly WHAT it is :P)

Steelhead Trout

Now you can have your own pet fish that will follow your commands! Animated sculpted prim construction means this highly detailed, photorealistic fish is only TWO prims.

COPY/MOD Make as many copies as you like, sized as you like. HAve a whole school, or just one faithful companion

Swishes its tail and bubbles happily whilst swimming around.

Yes, you can sit on the fish :) Great fun if you have it following someone!

Not just a wandering animal, the fish has multiple modes you can command via chat.

* ROAM: The fish will wander in a sphere centered around its rez point. The center point may be reset, and the sphere size adjusted. In addition to the standard water only mode, it can be set for "free swim" (it will swim through the air) or "flat swim" (no climbing or diving, useful for above ground pools)

*FOLLOW: The fish will follow either you, or someone you tell it to follow.

*ATTACK: The fish will "attack" someone you tell it to. It is not a damage attack, more of a sharp nudge, but it conveys the idea

*GUARD: The fish will patrol about as in Roam Mode, but will attack anyone who isn't the owner or in the owner's group.

*STAY: Stays put until you release the fish by saying "roam" or "follow".

*LURK: A "lurk place" is included (and you can make your own, too). In Roam Mode, if the fish sees the lurk place, it will sometimes go over and lurk underneath, attacking who gets too close (unless they are the owner or in the owner's group)

To see them in person (animated, but not roaming), do drop the Marketplace in the underwater city of Aquaria:
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Easy%20Living/86/250/0

While you're there get a free sculpted goldfish (not as fancy, but does swim around in a circle)

Safe Waters!

Miss Virrginia Tombola, owner and mermaid
Cheval Verite/La Bicyclette

Meme'd again

2008-06-26T11:49:00.000-07:00

Oh, fine, Mr. O'Toole. I stand tagged. Today's meme is to create a title of one's hypothetical memoirs using six words.

Not feeling terribly original, I shall go with:

"The Bicycle Diaries: Her Victorian Days"

Now, onto fishees :)

In no way, shape or form related to ANYTHING

2008-06-24T11:13:00.000-07:00

Save for my love of silly twee games :) My favourite flashgame designer, Ferry Halim, now has a new game entitled "Sunny Day". Think of it as "Tanglewood Tiny goes to visit the Mainland but doesn't let it dampen his tiny but stout heart as he has a Magic Umbrella and an Infectious Soundtrack".

Or, perhaps some other, more concise description. Here it is:
http://www.ferryhalim.com/orisinal/g3/sunny.htm

Oh, the game play. Mr Halim fails to explain much, but essentially, one clicks to open the umbrella. Then Teddy swoops up above the traffic below. Land on top of the traffic, not between it (no worries, Teddy always survives, even maintaining some dignity). Opening and closing rapidly swoops one higher. Seek the fruit, avoid the duckies. Mind the bar in the upper right, as it shows "umbrella power" which slowly drains. Land again to recover (with points for smooth landings)

C'est tout!

On the road again...

2008-06-20T13:47:00.000-07:00

For a couple of days, once again hoping the little lappie will still be able to maintain a connexion so I can at least do basic customer service.

But in the meantime, here is LOLCATFISH! (as an aside, do pop by Lovelace to see the latest batch of channel cats swimming about)

More fun with Photoshop Filters

2008-06-13T09:05:00.000-07:00

Truthfully, the closest I have ever got to oil painting is the splattery mess on my stove when I stir fry things. Watercolour? Isn't that what happens when you forget to put a coaster down? But I am happy to abuse Photoshop filters to simulate having artistic talent! Here are a examples of Adobe fun (click on the picture for a full size photo--the filter effects are rather lost in the thumbnails):

In all seriousness, playing about with Zbrush lately has made me think more about creating dioramas in Second Life. A bit of a poor woman's Bryce, as it were. Import the three dimensional models and textures, some of which can be added later on in Photoshop. And of course, unlike Bryce, one can waddle about in one's diorama later on! Hardly original thinking--brilliant artists such as AM Radio and the NPIRL set have been doing this for some time already. But for me, it is opening up some ideas for future fun :)

Creating Animated Sculpts with Zbrush

2008-06-10T18:38:00.000-07:00

(13 June: I've updated the workflow for SubTool Master, so you may wish to look at it again. The short version is each subtool needs a different name)

Well, I decided to try to have a go at another tutorial. I do apologize as always for my lack of experience with this sort of thing—I’m hardly a Natalia Zelmanov or Vlad Bjornson.

Speaking of the latter gentleman in question, I understand that he is working on a tutorial regarding creating multipart objects in Zbrush, then assembling them inworld using 2K Suisei’s newest version of his excellent “Sculpty Maker”, which is possibly the most user friendly importer I have seen to date in Second Life.

So, I have decided to have a go at explaining how to use Zbrush subtools and Mr. S’s importer to create animated sculpts. Truly, it isn’t that hard!

The first thing you need to do is learn how to use Zbrush! Fortunately, you can get your feet wet for nothing at all. Pixologic has a free thirty day trial that you can download here:
http://www.pixologic.com/zbrush/trial/

After downloading the trial, pop over to Vlad’s site and play about with making textured sculpties. He has many good tutorials there, but for the purposes of this exercise, you will only need to know how to make a basic sculpt with texturing, as shown in this tutorial:
http://www.shiny-life.com/2008/02/12/video-creating-sculpted-prims-with-zbrush-3/

Now, you will need to download the Sculpty Maker:
http://www.mediafire.com/?23dx9xoemmg

There isn’t much to look at there! It’s an extremely streamlined interface. After unzipping it, all you will have is a folder marked Sculpty Maker (if you don’t know how to unzip programs, you can get a free 45 day trial of WinZip here: http://www.winzip.com/downwz.htm). The icon marked “Sculpty Maker.exe” is the one you will click on to start the program. More on that later.

Next you will need a “plug in” from Pixologic called SubTool Master. Go here and download it:
http://www.zbrushcentral.com/zbc/showthread.php?t=057154

I found installation of the SubTool Master to be techy. For some reason, my regular unzip program (7-zip) didn’t work, and I ended up using WinZip instead. Make sure you have “use folder names” enabled, which I could only find on the classic interface format for WinZip. I admit to have gotten help with this!). Then find the Pixologic/ZBrush3\ZStartup\ZPlugs folder and drag the entire Subtool Master folder into it. THEN close Zbrush and start it up again. Look for the word “zplugin” on the top of the page, click on it and you should see SubTool Master there. If not, find someone to help you, too ;)

Well, that was fun! I really hate computers somedays. But when they’re working, we get to do fun things like sculpt. So, go forth and sculpt!

Sculpt sculpt sculpt texture texture texture.

I made a fish:

Well, pretty enough, if I do say so myself. But I want it to be fishy and flop its fishy tail and such.

Sooooo....first I save the fish as a Ztool. NOTE!!! I learnt this the hard way!!! Don’t think you can save the Ztool as an Object file and then reimport it to Zbrush, work on it and export it again. Little errors in positioning creep in, and when you animate it, the sculpt will move around a bit.

Now, I rotate the fish so I can see the top, whilst holding down the SHIFT key. This will “snap” the Ztool to a nice up/down alignment, making sure our fish isn’t crooked in SL. Later on, this will be a view I use for aligning the animation.

Next, let’s bend the fish a bit.

First mask off the section that you do NOT want bent (again, watch Vlad’s tutorial to see how to mask things). You may want to blur it, depending on how sharp you want the bend. I didn’t here, but blurring would certainly be apropos for a snake or some other sort of smooth bending thingee. To blur, hold control and click outside the document, or select blur on the mask palette on the right hand side where the geometry and tools palettes are.

Then click on the “rotate” icon up top, near the Edit and Draw buttons you have been using. You will now get the transpose line. You may have used this in Vlad’s tutorial to move textures, but as you will see the more you use Zbrush, it has about a hundred or so uses. Well, at least five. Anyway, here, drag it from the tip of the nose to the base of the tail. This is creating a “bone” for posing purposes, by which the movement of the rest of the model is figured. “Hrum?” you say. Just wait and watch :)

Next, make sure the transpose handle is clearly IN the fish, and not to the side. Rotate the Ztool to make sure this is the case. If you need to move it, click on one of the CIRCLES (not the line itself) and drag it as needed.

Now, to actually pose, click on the middle of the circle, hold the ALT key and drag the mouse or tablet pen. Spiff, eh? It moves like a real creature, even calculating things like skin folds.

If you don’t want Zbrush to calculate anatomical modeling (say, you have a robot), instead drag the line across the unmasked areas. Drag the far end of the transpose handle and you will see the unmasked part rotate, using the other end as the pivot point.

If you need to move the part (if it drifts, for example), you can click on “move” next to the rotate button. Now dragging the transpose handle will move the entire part.

Now my fish is posed how I like, so I save it as a Ztool under a different name, here “bfly left”. Do the same for any other poses.

On to subtools! Subtools are great fun, once you get the hang of them. They allow you to have multiple sculpts all together in the edit window, so that you can see how they fit, and even work with them. For animation, this means we can look at our different poses, one after another, and also make sure that they are in the same space.

So, first go to “load tool” and load the first Ztool (here, the unbent fish I made). Then go to the side menu and open up “subtools”, click “append” then pick the next pose you wish to use. Then do the same for all the poses.

Addendum: 2K Suisei suggests that, rather than make each subtool then later on loading them one by one, simply use the "clone" button on the Tool Palette (just below all the pictures of your tools. This creates a copy of the currently selected subtool. Then pose that one as you like (remember to select that layer by clicking on the subtool), then make another clone, pose that and so on. You could see how this technique would make animating a continuously moving sculpt a breeze!

Addendum: When using SubTool Master to merge subtools for export, it is VERY important to give each subtool a different name. If two tools have the same name, only one will be exported! If you are using the "clone" function to create copies of the tool, it will automatically give each one a new name (CuteSquid #1, CuteSquid #2, etc).

I may wish to do a bit of editing. Here, I decide at the last minute that I want the side fins to flop forward and back, by having them forward in the middle frame. I click on the eyeballs next to all the subtools except the middle frame. Only the middle frame is now visible. This works JUST like layers in Photoshop. Oh, just like layers, click and highlight the subtool you wish to work on.

So, I move the fins forward using the move brush (I could have also have used the transpose handles, but for small bits, the brush is faster). I set the brush size wide, then make sure I am in “draw”, Zadd on (look for the icon next to the brush size at the top). I also have found that I need to select the texture for the object for each tool, to make it a "brush texture", otherwise the tool blanks the texture, and all you will see is the background material (such as matcap white) Then I use my brush to move them forward. Click, push, la (btw, I really have no idea how anyone does this without a tablet pen, but it can be done)

You can also use this time to make sure all the poses are “lined up”. If not, move them with the transpose handle. Now my three fish poses are right on top.

Finally to export!

Turn all the subtools to visible, then go up to the “Zplugin” menu and select Subtool Master. You will get this picture on the left:

Click on “merge”. Save as a Ztool (just in case), then export as an object file.

Close Zbrush (but don’t cry, you’ll be back. Trust me on this).

Now, startup Sculpty Maker, click on Object, navigate in that computer navigable way to the merged object file (it will say Mrg#1_name.OBJ or some such). Then make sure both scale and centre are not clicked, and then click “make sculpty”. Sculpty Maker will inform you that it has made sculpt maps and put them in the same folder as the object file.

Let’s go to SecondLife! We are soooo close.
Download the sculpt maps, at the low low price of 10 Lindens each. I HATE to say this, but make sure “lossless” is unchecked. There is a bug right now, and lossless sculpts take too long to rez for animation purposes.

Now make an object. Texture it with your texture you made for your object. Next, edit the object, go to the contents tab, drag the new sculpt maps into the contents, and click “new script”.

Why, hello to you, too, Mr. Prim :P

Then open the new script, and copy paste the following script by 2K Suisei into it, overwriting the base script that is in there:

// Animates a sculpty by cycling through the sculptmaps within the contents folder

integer Frame=0;
integer FramesAmount;
integer c=1;

// Animation mode can be "Ping Pong" or "Loop"
string Mode="Ping Pong";

default
{
state_entry()
{
FramesAmount=llGetInventoryNumber(INVENTORY_TEXTURE);
llSetTimerEvent(0.3);
}

timer()
{
if (llToLower(Mode)=="loop")
{
Frame=Frame+1;
if (Frame>=FramesAmount)
{
Frame=0;
}
}
else
{
Frame=Frame+c;
if (Frame>=(FramesAmount-1))
{
c=-1;
}
else if (Frame<=0)
{
c=1;
}
}

string Texture=llGetInventoryName(INVENTORY_TEXTURE,Frame);
llSetPrimitiveParams([PRIM_TYPE,PRIM_TYPE_SCULPT,Texture,PRIM_SCULPT_TYPE_SPHERE]);
}
}

Click “save” and close the script. The sculpt should be animating, going from one frame to another every .3 seconds. 2K Suisei had it at every .1 seconds, but to be honest, I find that in laggy sims, it seemed to well, lag. One trick to speed up rez time is to take the sculpt map textures and put them on the side of a small prim (a cube has room for 6). Then bury that cube in the animated sculpt. This will “pre-load” the sculpt textures, making them rez faster.

If you want to be able to list the sculpts in the precise order you want, right click on the textures in inventory and copy the UUIDs. Then paste them in order in the following script:

string sculptmap;
list SCULPTS[“sculptUUID1”,”sculptUUID2”,”etc”];
integer Count;
float speed=0.3;//Speed in seconds

default
{

state_entry()
{
llSetTimerEvent(speed);
}

timer()
{
if (Count=llGetListLength(SCULPTS))Count=0;
sculptmap=llList2String(SCULPTS, Count);
llSetPrimitiveParams([PRIM_TYPE, PRIM_TYPE_SCULPT, sculptmap, PRIM_SCULPT_TYPE_SPHERE]);
Count++;
}
}

Happy Sculpting!

Look, up in the sky, it's a Boid!

2008-06-06T16:14:00.000-07:00

Well, being under the waves doesn't mean no building for me :) Good Lord, no, I might end up socializing or some such. So instead, I decided to play with Boids.

What on earth is a Boid? Ms. CoyoteAngel Dimsum mentioned it to me the other day, and showed me this link to a fun discussion about them:
http://www.red3d.com/cwr/boids/

Basically, they are what the animation industry uses to model fish schools and bird flocks. The basic algorithm (if I may use such a word in public) has each creature heading towards a point exactly midway between the two nearest other creatures. Then if it collides, it bounces in exactly the opposite direction.

A bit of head scratching and searching later, I found out (fortunately for my math challenged brain) that a few years back, Mr. Apotheus Silverman had created an LSL script replicating the basic Boid model.

A bit of tweaking later, I added it to a few sculpted fish and created a "Fish School Rezzer", here displaying the Water Only mode in the cool lagoon of Lionsgate:

In the spirit of the capitalistic age in which we find ourselves ;), I will be putting these rezzers out for sale soon at the Carriage House.

From the Depths

2008-05-28T10:28:00.000-07:00

Still need to add mermaid animations to this, and perhaps teach it a few tricks, but I am overly pleased with the appearance :)

Again a huge thanks to Mr. Vlad Bjornson for his wonderful Zbrush tutorials at http://www.shiny-life.com/, without which I would no doubt still be wondering how to create an object file!

I'd like to be...under the sea...

2008-05-27T12:29:00.000-07:00

Well, in fact, I have been spending a fair bit of time underwater lately, thanks largely to Vicerine Kamilah Hauptmann's wonderful mermaid AO she recently put out. It's truly amazing--it does not simply run the animations, but controls and augments movement as. Hard to describe easily, suffice to say, it allows for incredibly acrobatic leaps (with particle effects). Better yet, swing by Lionsgate, dive off the platform to the beach below and pick up one for 50 Linden. No, NOT a typo, she is "selling" them for a 50L donation to the Relay For Life American Cancer Society fund raiser.

A more explicit blog entry with lovely pictures is here on her blog:
http://kamilahhauptmann.blogspot.com/2008/05/beta-launch-of-navigator-mermaid.html

One of the best things about knowing mad geniuses is the fact that oft one gets to test their toys before the general public gets to see them. Assuming one does not perish in the testing of same, in general a good time is had by all.

And in fact, I have been having a delightful time. I haven't really been that fishy since I sold my Tanglewood plot and lost my grotto, and I'd forgotten how fun it is. There is a whole hidden world beneath the waves I have been neglecting. Well, I knew about the Vernian Sea in Babbage, of course, but did you know there is an underwater temple off the narrow coastline of Regency? No, shan't tell you where, you must look :)

Well, I am inspired by all this, and whilst I enjoy being finny, I did miss my horses. Oddly enough, I haven't seen this in Second Life yet, but I really think a Sea Horse mount would be beyond fun. Besides, I'm fascinated by all the bumps and curves of the wee little beasties. So, call this a sneak preview:

Stay tuned :)

hippocampally yours,

Miss Virrginia Tombola

Things I've Been Up To

2008-05-24T16:02:00.000-07:00

Good day all! Should you detest shameless huckstering, do avert your eyes from this entry and trot on over to the Brass Goggles blog or some other such online confection.

In the meantime, should you find yourself about the stables in Eyre, and you find yourself with an inexplicable need for a chicken, well away, for 100L (beg pardon, I mean the "low low price of 100L, lord only knows how long this screaming deal shall last") you may have a mod copy hen and fuzzy offspring:

Also in the "look but do not ride" category is this grazing Arabian (or drinking, or what have you) for 300L:

I was rather pleased with this one, actually. That is the head that I created as my first Zbrush product.

There will be an animated, ridable version of the Arabian. I am only waiting on a new saddle. It will be part of the Western line, along with the Appaloosa. Here's a few "sneak previews" of the Appy. He's a bit ratty, but I think he's cute :)

That's about it for now. I've a few projects on the "back burner" right now, such as the long awaited sculpted centaurs (Miss Seisenbacher has made some wonderful hair for them!), and some more carriages with options. So, as they say, do watch this space!

Miss Virrginia "Snake Oil Salesgirl" Tombola

Happy Birthday, Miss Paravane!

2008-05-01T10:29:00.000-07:00

Happy Birthday to Vi
Happy Birthday to Vi
Happy Birthday, Dear Miss Paravane
(And also to meeeeeeee :P)

Hee, yes, it's both of our RL birthdays, one of life's coincidences. We're even the same RL age (which is old enough to know better, but still young enough not to care, as the saying goes).

So, play horsies on the shelf for the day, I'm off for some real life cake for lunch. No fete in SL, but if you see either of us on this evening, do pop by for a cup of tea (which may do a biblical and transform into wine after 10 or so SLT).

Turn, step, kick, step, step, step, POSE

2008-04-19T11:39:00.000-07:00

Oh, it's been an Obsessive Compulsive Geeky week, yes it has. Of course, Zbrush would have built in functions for posing models....

Mama's got a Zbrush....

2008-04-15T12:57:00.000-07:00

And she was up all night long :)

It's not the MOST user friendly program out there (at least for we Luddites)--I remember reading their online help which started with something akin to "The principles of Zbrush are inherently simple due to being based upon simple polygonic uvmap circularities in 2.5 dimensions (alterable to 3 if you need). Furthermore, beeplebapple snork snork!"

Or words to the effect. But there is no denying that it is an incredibly powerful program. And thankfully, Mssrs Vlad Bjornson and 2K Susei were more than understanding on the forums (The Shiny Life tutorials are a definite first stop for future Zbrushers)

But after the dust settles, I am still astonished at what I can do, and I've only used a few brushes so far. It allows one to sculpt RIGHT onto the object, and paint as well (two different methods for that- which is still perplexing me, but I will get on, I'm sure)

Here's my practice head I've been working on (please ignore the texturing issues)--

Shire Horse Jumping Demonstration

2008-04-11T13:03:00.000-07:00

Well, yet another tedious commercial :) Here I am, back in New Toulouse, demonstrating the jumping animation on the new Shire Horse. Hmmm...perhaps a stirring soundtrack might be in order next time?

WeGame.com - Second Life Videos

Presented Sans Comment

2008-04-09T13:53:00.000-07:00

Shire Horse is Done!

2008-04-07T11:25:00.000-07:00

For those looking for a stouter (erm, big boned) steed, here's the mount for you! Shire horses are the direct descendants of the English Great Horse, and they have all their ancestor's size and stolidity (although they have a more pleasant disposition than the original war horses probably did).

Here's the two "model horses" I was basing mine on. I so loved the pink noses!

A special thank you to Her Grace CoyoteAngel Dimsum who made the sculpt map for the new saddle :)

I've been continuing to update the horse scripts, and added a few new features whilst I was working on the Shire:

- a three stage jump animation (I put an altimeter in the horses, so they sense when they are about to touch down and do a "prelanding" animation)
- a "fatigue" feature where the horses get tired after about five minutes of galloping, slows to a trot and pants, whereupon it needs to be cooled down via walking (you can toggle this off if you like)
-gallop boost, which makes the horse gallop faster (this can be turned off, making the gallop only as fast as the trot)
-pose mode now can be used with the horse rezzed on the ground (before you had to wear it). Rearing won't animate unless you are wearing the horse, but the legs will pose and you can edit it into position.
-prance mode (which I used for the leg demonstration video) which runs the selected leg animation regardless of whether the avatar is moving (so you can prance in place, should you like)
-A few more sounds and ear twitches. The ears now cock back sometimes, as if the horse was actually paying attention to the rider :)
-For those with older graphics cards, the leg animations can be turned to half speed.
-Script reset now does a reset of all scripts on the horse, not just main animation script.
-I fixed all reported bugs, such as the strange one where the horse would get stuck in a rear if it started flying whilst rearing. As always, if you find ANYTHING strange with the horse, please write to me.
-in general, more reliable and smoother animations (I use mostly key capture now, rather than relying on LL's occasionally erratic animations to activate).

All these updates should be coming out for the older horses as well in the next few days, do call if you don't get the 2.5 update (to receive it, simply rez your old horse, and my update server should send you a new one)

How I Learnt to Stop Worrying and Love the Tablet

2008-04-01T08:36:00.001-07:00

I finally got round to buying a tablet. Everyone I know who has one swears by it, and even my Photoshop tutorial book made snide comments about we mousers. And even after over four years of owning a mouse (I used a trackball before, actually), I still found it clunky for the fine work.

I was truly hoping to get a reconditioned tablet, but they seem to get snapped up faster than freebie dresses in Victoria City. So, I went ahead and swallowed seriously and repeatedly, then considered the idea of actually buying it at retail.

Well, it must still be spring, because a certain gentleman shopped, found and ordered it for me :)) Perhaps he was simply tired of hearing me agonize over it.

A verrrrryy long week after, this came in the mail, with an amazingly terse instruction manual (helpfully bilingual in Portuguese):

I wish I could say it was all sunshine and long walks through rose gardens from there, but in fact, it was a pain in a blessed half to use at first. Those of you who read the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy might recall a section where the two headed man is trying to use a radio that changes stations with the merest twitch of the arm--thereby requiring one to hold Stock Still whilst listening to the show one is listening to! Well, that was the first two days on the Wacom. That, and I wasn't clear on what part of the ergonomic button to click to achieve right clickedness. PLEASE tech manual writers, do take a class on writing. I am all for the modern Hemingwayish "get to the point" style of writing (at least for other people :P) but, one must include all necessary information.

But I forced myself to learn, and yes, it is amazingly precise for painting on textures. I find myself doing less of the "clip/paste/distort" method of texture creation and more simply brushing on colours left and right. Eyedropper, grab a pixel, then I proceed to imagine myself a later day Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun. The before ignored airbrush has become a staple of my repertoire.

In short, after a tumultuous first week, we have achieved a certain level of love :)

Oh, final tidbit--there are a surprising lack of practical tutorials out there on tablet usage. Perhaps it is simply because they are so prevalent that graphic artists think of explaining it as akin to explaining how to use a charcoal pencil. Or perhaps it's because one can't really explain much beyond how to turn it on and customize the buttons. Instead, one must simply dive in and work with it. As a wise Muppet once said, "Try not. Do or do not, there is no try."

But...I found a lovely little videogame for practise :D

http://www.ferryhalim.com/orisinal/g3/floats.htm

One simply has to draw a circle about floats of the same colour, then they merge and become a bigger float, and so on until only one big float of each colour remains. One's circle must have only floats of one colour to work, so precision and speed are rewarded (that, and there is a timer!).

Simply put, it is a game MADE for a tablet pen. 15 (*cough* or so) minutes twice a day for a week, and now it feels as natural as a mouse to me.

Thank you Ferry Halim, creator of wonderfully fun, non-violent flashgames!

Back to Bitstrips :)

2008-03-28T16:31:00.001-07:00

The character on the right is Mrs Peterman, equestrienne extraordinare in RL, and now a convert to the Bitstrip sillyness :) (go read hers, if you haven't already!)

Version 2.4 Release Notes

2008-03-27T08:54:00.001-07:00

I DID tell everyone I was working on horses, and not just making Bitstrips :P

The 2.4 update should be automatically delivered if you rez your older horse. I have been beta testing it for about two weeks now, and honestly believe I've got all the various weird things that SL throws at one taken care of. The old "lock up" glitch would would sometimes happen if SL crashed has been eliminated, as have some of the transient "permission not granted" error messages you would get if you detached and reattached the horse quickly (basically, SL didn't always immediately recognize that it had granted permission--I ended up "asking" it three times before animating the horse).

I hope you like the changes I've made (if you don't, let me know!). I really want to thank you all for your your patronage and suggestions, many of which made it into this upgrade. Those of you who wrote to tell me how much you liked the horses REALLY make my day--I have loved being able to create these and share them with you.

Well, with no further ado, here are the changes--

Leg Animations--I doubled the frame rate, and hopefully things should be MUCH smoother. Without getting into technicalities, the sim impact is actually less now, even though I sped the animation up

Jump Animation--smoother, and is now the full jump depicted in the Muybridge animal motion studies. The horse also now prepares to land by tucking his rear legs and extending his forelegs (the prelanding anim is only for the ground, I'm afraid as sensing when a prim was approaching created too much lag).

Gallop Boost--In Gallop mode, there is a little extra boost making the gallop faster than the trot. You can toggle this off and on if you like by going to gait>boost

Prance Mode--In this mode (reached through pose mode), the horse will move its legs continuously using the gait of your choice, even when standing still. It might be useful if you feel like simulating dressage :) It's also an easy way to watch your horse's leg animations.

Key capture reliability--I eliminated the horse's most of the horse's dependence on Linden Lab animations, meaning that the horse now responds faster to key inputs.

Global Reset--"Reset Script" now resets all scripts in the horse (such as the leg scripts and the ear twitch scripts), not just the main scripts.

Hard Crash protection--hard crashes in which the horse needed to be manually reset should be greatly reduced (I'd say eliminated, but SL never fails to surprise me).

Various glitches--The spurious script error when rezzing a horse on the ground to work on it has been eliminated. If you crash in pose or saddled mode, the horse reverts to regular mode when you start SL again.

Dual Rider improvement--The Dual Rider should no longer tilt (unless you are going up an embankment, for example). The Rider with the sidesaddle horses now defaults to the sidesaddle posture (you can still select English if you like).

Sidesaddle Pommel- is now a sculpt (I had to make it slightly lower than actual ones, as otherwise it stuck through the skirt mesh) BIG thanks to Miss CoyoteAngel Dimsum who created that for me.

That's it for now! Next projects include a sculpted centaur avatar and a Shire Horse (BIG pony :)). I'm working with the Armour Store for barding for said Shire (that's horse armour) for those medieval sorts out there.

Happy Trails!

Miss Virrginia Tombola
Equestrienne and Proprietress
La Bicyclette

No, Really, I'm Working on Horses

2008-03-27T08:51:00.000-07:00

Good Lord, Make Her Stop....

2008-03-26T11:57:00.000-07:00

And Another....

2008-03-25T20:37:00.000-07:00

Well, I do believe that I've discovered my timewaster of the week :)

Praise the Lord and Pass the Chocolate

2008-03-23T15:39:00.000-07:00

Reality Sets In

2008-03-22T21:32:00.000-07:00

Well, far be it for me to ignore an internet meme, no matter how silly (oh, let us be honest, the sillier the better). The latest seems to be comic strips based upon the happenings in our virtual reality. As always, any resemblance to any blog owner living or dead is...

Oh, just read the foolish thing ;)

Pudgy Ponies

2008-03-18T12:30:00.001-07:00

Well, I've always been partial to the slim, not scary looking riding horses. But I've had more than a few requests for bigger horses, particularly from the set who wish to ride into battle with the thankfully virtual slings and arrows of outrageous avatars buzzing about their ears.

Well, Mrs. Wind mentioned shire horses, so it was time to dive into the horse books again:

Allow me to emphasize that this is very much a draft draught horsie! As you can see, the textures need a bit of cleaning up, and I have yet to model all the various leg positions. I probably will change the textured eyes into prim eyes to allow for blinking, as well. But I'm pleased enough with it as a start, and at 15 prims, I may sell copies of this for people who don't have the necessary 80 odd prims for the other static horses.

And I have to admit, despite my love for friendly looking dappled greys, despite their size, Shires really do have the sweetest snuzzles :D

Animation Demonstration

2008-03-11T12:23:00.001-07:00

Well, here are the preliminary new gaits for the horses. I apologize for the sound quality--somehow in the upload process the soundtrack went askew with the video. Not quite sure why, as the AVI file I have is all nice and properly synched.

Edit: I uploaded to YouTube, and it works better now. I really like the WeGame community, but they are still ironing out a few glitches (mind you, it is completely free, so one cannot complain too much)

As you can see, I'm using the new "Prance" option, which allows one to have the horse continue to move its legs regardless of your avatar's position. Frankly, it was useful for me in the process of finetuning the animations, so I simply left it. I'm not QUITE sure how useful it may be in reality, unless one wishes to have SL dressage competitions.

Well, Now Time For the Upcoming Horse Update

2008-03-05T15:06:00.000-08:00

I was very pleased with the new horse scripts when I finished stapling the last line of code to the bottom of the script back in January (was it really only two months ago?). I truly believe that at the time, the horses provided the most realistic animations in Second Life, all bundled up in a user friendly package with cute snuzzles.

But at the same time, I don't have so many laurels as to make for a comfy seat. And I've disliked the 0.4 sec timer rate for animations I had to work with. So, I cracked open the script again, and made some modifications Her Grace Kamileh Hauptmann suggested. Put simply, in general, I cut the number of function "calls" down significantly. I ran the new horse in an empty sim, and even with a timer set at twice the speed, the sim load is actually LESS than it was before!

Armed with this, as well as a pack of prim conserving sculpts, I went to work pursuing the Holy Muybridge Grail of animation.

Who is Muybridge? If you've ever wanted to create an animation of a horse, you've heard of him, if not, probably not. In short, he was a pioneer in stop motion photography, who did the first serious studies of animals in motion in 1878. If you've been to the Carriage House in Eyre, the movie of the galloping horse I have on display there is from his work.

Twenty four frames of a horse walking was still a bit too much, but by judicious interpolation, as well as some "fool the eye" tricks Ms. Vicki Christensen of Second Frame Animation told me about, I was able to create a fair believable walking animation at 4-5 fps. The trot and the canter/gallop finally look as energetic as the horse ought to be. In short, it's a far cry from a mere "up/down" leg animations, or even the current animations I use for my horses (which can look a bit like an old fashioned movie at times, I admit)

My only real concern is whether it will look good in all situations (specifically, I need check to ensure it is lag robust). I will therefore be holding off release for about a week, as I ride my new horsies about everywhere. Then it will be out to the public. If any of you out there who own a horse already would like to help with the "beta testing" of this, please do let me know!

Upcoming Products, Hurrah!

2008-03-05T14:32:00.000-08:00

This is one of those sadly self congratulatory posts, but despite what appearances may seem, I haven't actually been spending ALL my time lounging about making WeGame videos and playing Space Pirate :) I've actually been working on a number of projects which will hopefully see fruition this week.

First things first, if ANYONE is having trouble at all with my old style one prim vendors, please, please let me know. I've been unsuccessfully trying to get my unscripted vendors in Eyre to work, and in one case I know of, money was taken and no product given. The main, larger vendors (the multi items) are working just fine, so that at least was some relief. However, the ones that relied on the prim setting of "Sell contents" have completely "borked".

Needless to say, I will be getting rid of the old vendors and replacing them with Hippotech Vendors, which rely on an offline server to dispense products, and thus are about as reliable as anything in SL ever is. I tried to update them today, but I'm on the road and a hotel connexion combined with my rodent powered little laptop moved me into redmap zone. It is the first thing on my list of "to dos" tomorrow.

Now for happier news. I've made a few more horses. The Nightmare that was featured in the below video is now for sale, and I've also made a sidesaddle version of same. The sidesaddle is not in a vendor yet (see earlier paragraph :/), but if you'd like one, do give me a shout.

I also created my first Cheval Verite flexible maned horses, the English and Sidesaddle Greys with Black stockings. I rather like them, shaggy little beasts that they are. I had to fiddle a bit with the manes to get them to both look realistic and provide flex. I've never been that satisfied with the look of the flex manes of Second Life horses (I include my old line here, lest you think I am fling stones!). They're all well and good for a "fantasy" look, but looked out of place on photorealistic sculpts. So for these, I made the manes more unruly than the other horses, and used a mix of regular and flexi prims. the overall effect makes them look in need of a good grooming, but I think it works with Greys.

I am also completely reworking the centaurs. Based on inputs from customers, I'm releasing these as a "right click/wear" avatar. In other words, the shapes, skins, hair and animations are tailored for that avatar. I don't mind fiddling, but I've discovered that the average customer out there is uninterested in fussing with prim modification. For those of you who DO enjoy that sort of thing, rest assured that these will be full mod, so you can freely alter your favourite shape to be the human half, tint the centaur body, wear another skin, etc.

The new centaurs are based on the sculpted roan body (with some significant modifications :)), but if they become popular, I'll probably release them in other colours as well. They also will include a centaur Dual Rider, which will allow for friends to ride their centaur friend.

I've also got some rather exciting news regarding the CURRENT horses (or rather, the upcoming updates for them). But that shall need wait for the next missive.....

The Woman Who Fell to the Moon

2008-02-28T15:49:00.000-08:00

I admit it freely, I have come to love movie making. And now I can even edit!

Here I am, taking a bit of time off in the Privateer Space sim. A beyond fantastic sim, truly one of the great wonders of the SL world. Hopefully, this video will encourage you to make the pilgrimage (BTW, the other night, Venus opened. A PROPER Venus, all swampy and hot. Hopefully with a few dinosaurs soon!)

WeGame.com - Gaming Videos

P.S. I am happily surrounded by fellow geeks in Second Life, so I put it to the general audience--do you recognize the implicit reference in my outfit? Hint: the same movie is referenced elsewhere in this clip. There is a free flying Steampiggy for the first person to guess correctly here :)

Peggy's Evil Twin

2008-02-14T20:18:00.000-08:00

Yes, yet more Machima! After the last SL update, WeGame stopped working for me, and after the fourth exchange with the tech support fellows, I think they gave up on me (a tad annoying, as I went to the trouble of running some diagnostic thingees for them, but oh well. Fun while it lasted and all that). So, I shook the piggy bank again and came up with enough for the FRAPS screen capture program. A bit easier to use, but I still haven't found an Win2000 compatible editor.

So, I am using this odd little free program called Jumpcut, run by Yahoo. It has...issues, not the least of which was the hour long upload to the site. And it isn't a real editor, as it doesn't actually alter one's own video file, but rather how it is presented. But, it shares with the late and lamented WeGame one outstanding virtue. It's free.

So, with no further grumpy ado, here is yet another Silly Flying Horse Video. Hope you enjoy it, and the salesgirl in me must say, it should be on the market this weekend.

A Farewell to Prims

2008-02-07T13:44:00.000-08:00

I have truly loved my old style, mostly non-sculpted horses (the head was borrowed with permission from a sculptie contest). They were something I originally made specifically for my new place in Eyre: I just couldn't imagine the English Countryside sans small little run about carriages and riding horses with proper sidesaddles and English saddles. I could smell the moist green dirt while I puttered on the beasties.

And for the tools I had back then, I am not ashamed of them:

But, the tools in Second Life have changed, as have mine. I finally saved up enough to crack the piggy bank, and ran out and picked up Photoshop after a year of texturing. More importantly, I sat down and force taught myself 3D modeling (a huge thanks to Miss Natalia Zelmanov for her wonderful tutorials, as well as Mr Omei Turnbull for his Wings3D importer!). And truthfully, I've learnt MUCH more about scripting since the early days.

I realized this as I was pulling the old Pegasus off the market today. One might compare today's release with the old:

So, the short of it is, as of today, I'm pulling all the old horses in favour of the new. I had considered keeping the old as a "discount" model (I freely admit the new ones are twice as much as the old), but that doesn't make me feel comfortable. I want the BEST horses on the market out there, and truthfully, the old ones no longer are.

I will think with fondness about all my rides on the old beasties, and I like to think that they are now gnawing about sweet virtual grass in the pastures of my inventory. I hope you've all had fun with them, and of course, I hope that if the time comes for you to look for a new riding companion, you'll drop by the Carriage House in Eyre:
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Caledon%20Eyre/48%20/183/23/

Good lord, not more Machima!

2008-02-06T08:30:00.000-08:00

Well, this is my blog :) I do promise more horse posts soon.

But in the meantime.....DUELING BANJOS!! Well, in truth, I am dueling myself here, which may be all to the best as anyone who has seen me stumble about the En Garde piste would acknowledge as true.

Lovely work on the banjo by Mr Griptape Pro (only 100L!). Nice fellow--and I'm not saying that simply because he gave me a musical jug after he saw this video ;)

And yes, New Toulouse will be opening soon! So, reserve your shanty on the bayou before the sim fills up! (talk to Mrs Carricre Wind, I'm merely a happy bystander in this)

Lionsgate from the Air

2008-01-29T11:48:00.000-08:00

Well, it is true. I am growing a bit addicted to making home videos. Blame Miss Connolly, who introduced me to WeGame. I promise not to inflict EVERY one I make upon the unsuspecting public.

But I am a bit proud of this one, I admit. Much to my astonishment, it made the home page of the WeGame site! Essentially, I put that down to the stunning views of Duchess Hauptmann's incredible airship, as well as my luck in catching appropriate music on the parcel stream (I haven't learned to edit yet :P)

Oh, the Pegasus in the shop is the old, non sculpted Pegasus, without the swooping and banking animations you see here. This one is still in beta--I need to fix some issues it develops if the lag gets high (the wings start flapping out of synch, mostly). Call it about a week before I push the little fellow out of the nest, so to speak.

All Work and No Play Makes For a Dull Girl

2008-01-26T15:25:00.000-08:00

With the title's admonitions in mind, last night I put aside the projects I've been working on and headed over to Antiquity, where Duke AngusGraeme Caelwin was sponsoring a horse race. He had just finished the final touches on the Antiquity Equestrian Center (in Antiquity Forest, if I weren't brain dead, I would have a ready SLURL), and we lined up shoulder to wither to start off. Much to my great astonishment, I managed to win the first heat, then we REVERSED directions (oh, my poor brain!) for the second, which I have captured here for all immortality:

Erm, yes. I took the crest of that hill just a little too quickly, then promptly flailed about trying to jump back on course. As you can see, 16 odd heavily scripted attachments at full gallop makes for a bit of lag, but a fun time was had by all.

Well, afterward, I had to make my excuses and head back to the shop to meet up with the Hippotech people. My server wasn't delivering updates, and we all had a good head scratch about that. Then we (or I should say they) discovered the script was off. Ack! The LSL equivalent of "did you plug it in?". In my defense, there is a known SL bug in which scripts will turn off if the object is copied, but still.... Anyway, apology cards were sent out, with instructions on how to turn it on. If you did NOT get a card, check to see if the running box is checked on the zht_OnRezUpdate script in the contents of the horse. It is the box in the lower left corner of the script (note that you can't see the script, but CAN access the box)

Whew! Well, fortunately I caught this early on, and not after a few hundred horses were on the market. So--off to play again, this time with the Caledon Troopers. Had a splendid ride through a snow bound ski resort, finishing with a sliding gallop downhill! Absolutely beautiful, and a great thanks to Miss Vulpine for organizing the ride (I was having too much fun to take pictures, but I understand someone did and they ought be out soon).

Well, back to the shop today. Oh, and that RL apartment which need be cleaned up for my Sunday guests....

Modifying Your Horse

2008-01-25T12:28:00.000-08:00

Hullo, I'm taking a bit of a stab at another tutorial. This time, I shall speak about modifying a prim attachment, using one of my horses as an example. The principles here can apply to any other multiprim attachment of yours that you have modify rights to.

First things first, you want to MAKE A COPY. I cannot emphasize how important that is! You don't want to experiment without being able to make mistakes. I admit to fiddling with things without doing this, but I've got a bit of building experience, and even then I often regret it :P

So, find a place you can rez bunches of prims (98 to be precise). If you don't have a skyplat or sandbox, I highly recommend the IBM sandbox, which is nice and free of griefer nonsense. You won't be able to animate there though, so you'll have to go elsewhere to make adjustments whilst wearing your horse (remember, when worn, the horse does not count against the parcel prim limit).

Rez the horse on the ground. There! That's a copy :) If you want an extra copy of the horse, you can do this at this time by right clicking on the horse, select "more" (to the left of "edit") then "take a copy".

Next, right click on the horse, then select edit by left clicking on the word "edit".

You should now see the edit window up.

TO CHANGE THE HORSE'S NAME:
The object name is in the box I circled. Simply delete that and type in what you want. Here, I know my modified horse will now be listed as "Pudding" in inventory. Also, when he talks, chat will read "Pudding: I love you!" vice "Cheval Verite Dappled Grey 2.1: Please give me a better name!". BTW, since the scripts in horse are no modify, SL will not permit you to change the horse's name unless it's rezzed. Just one of those Second Life thingees.

TO MAKE YOUR HORSE BIGGER OR SMALLER:

Now, hold down the control and shift keys at the same time (I think Mac is CMD and shift, but I honestly am not sure). You will see little grey/white boxes as depicted above. Mouse over any one of them, and it will get bigger, like the one I circled. Now, move your mouse while holding the left button down (called "dragging"). Look, the horse changed size, depending on which way you moved the box! Fiddle until the horse is the size you like.

TO CHANGE JUST ONE PART OF THE HORSE:
Well, I made Pudding bigger. But I want the reins to reach me, so I will have to lengthen them. To select just one prim to edit, I check the box labeled "edit linked parts". Then left click on the reins.

Now the reins, and only the reins will be highlighted. Shift Control again, and you will see the sizing boxes. Since only one prim is selected, you will also see multiple colored boxes--they stretch the selected prim in that direction only. So, here, I drag the green box to the right to lengthen the reins (btw, make sure "Stretch Both Sides is NOT checked. That makes it stretch in the opposite direction at the same time).

If you want to rotate the prim, just hold control down, and you will see "wheels" like this.

Just left click and drag one of the wheels in a circle (as if you were to spin it) and it will rotate the prim in the plane it is in (hum...that wasn't very clear. Just try and it will make sense :))

Similarly, if you don't hold any key down, you will see arrows (look at the above picture depicting when you first selected edit) To move the prim up, down or sidewise, drag the arrowhead pointing in the direction you wish it to go.

Terrific! Now I just hop on Pudding!

Well, looks like we need to adjust some things :P

First things first, if we need to sit properly on the saddle, right click and edit again, then use those arrows to move your horse about until your bum is squarely on the saddle. Don't worry about it if his legs are in the ground or hooves are floating in the air. We'll get to that.

Next, lets fix the stirrups and bring them up. The trouble is, the stirrups are three prims each. Now, we could move each prim up, then fiddle and adjust, but I'm fair lazy. I want to move the whole stirrup at once. So, I select one prim in the stirrup (doesn't matter which one), then HOLD the shift key down while left clicking on the other two prims. La! It is all selected, and I can move and rotate the whole stirrup together.

Now, to fix the "legs in the ground". LEFT click (touch) your horse to get the Options Menu. Click on "Rider Adjust"

Then click on "raise". If he was floating, I would select "lower". You may need to do this a couple of times, depending on how high or low your horse is. "Default" resets his height to the original level.

There we go! For one last bit of customizing, I want to tint his mane a bit.

I select all the hair prims and tail prims by left clicking one then holding the shift key down and left clicking all the others I want to tint, just as I selected all the prims in the stirrup. Next, I click on the tab marked "texture" in the edit window, then click on the box marked "color". You will see a window like this, with lots of colors to click on.

Playing around a bit, I decide on a brownish, then click select.

That's about it for now! Hopefully, this will get you started on customizing. Experienced builders may even want to play with things like the mane style, eye color, adding things like ribbons and bows, or even change the saddle. It's all possible with a bit of practice.

Happy Trails!

Miss Virrginia Tombola and Pudding

Royal Carriage

2008-01-24T22:13:00.001-08:00

Should have this one in the shops soon. It is the descendant of the one I made for Versailles a bit ago, but with some WONDERFUL baroque textures courtesy of Miss Persephone Gallindo (of Penzance theatre fame), as well as tapestry textures I borrowed from a certain Austrian girl who married a French fellow named Louis some years ago.

I am reaching the point where I think I might redo all the old carriages--they were fine for their day, but sculpties just open SO many new worlds. But with no further ado, here is yet another example of my inability to edit :)

Trekking in Toulouse

2008-01-19T20:32:00.000-08:00

Lord, I cannot believe that I left that amazingly silly "Kant Attack Ad" video up as the last post for so long. But, I've been spending my online time fiddling. And so have my friends. More on the horses later, but here is a video filmed in Mrs. Carricre Wind's soon to be opened New Toulouse sim--based on the Louisiana at the beginning of the twentieth century. The horse I am riding is what I've been up on the skyplat with--my new "Cheval Verite" line (I do wish I knew how to do the accent marks on my e's!). Fully sculpted, tightened scripting, more features, etc etc. More on that later.

Now to the video, filmed using WeGame, which Miss Zoe Connoly so kindly introduced me to. The quality may be an artifact of my connexion at home, I am not sure.

And Now For Something Completely Different:

2007-12-10T13:06:00.000-08:00

Under the rubric of "it's my blog and I shall post what I like":

Of Shoes and Ships and Sealing Wax, of Internety Memes....

2007-12-05T12:43:00.000-08:00

As some may have noticed, this blog has gone from the mad, frenzied, post-or-two-a-day affair that it once was to more of an occasional post board for ideas and occasional new releases of possible interest to one or two. I find this a comfortable state of things as, though I do sit down at the keyboard for an hour or so a day, that activity creates but rough drafty things that I really don’t care to share with the general public. A blog might be a non-professional, and in my case anonymous, forum, but nonetheless I feel a certain need to not just post pure blather. Though, I admit, what festoons these electronic pages is oft just that!

Well away, it does take a certain amount of time to write even the nonsense I post here, and the presence of a post general means that I’ve had a bit of time on my hands. Such is the happy state of affairs today for the second morning in a row. Yesterday, I popped over to Second Life in my AM and finally got to a fair number of projects that I had been truly meaning to get around to. I put up three new 17th and 18th century outfits I had promised long ago to the Duc et Duchesse du Languedoc, of the Languedoc sim.

I finally followed up with the uniform for the Middlesea Fleet, which Mr. O’Toole has graciously over praised on his blog.
http://hiberniaskids.blogspot.com/2007/12/caledon-middlesea-fleet-uniform-arrives.html

And I went about my various land holdings, cleaned them of prim litter and put a few more quarters in the parking meters.

I don’t know how much longer I will enjoy this state of things, so I am restraining myself from over committing. Besides, I still have a number of projects such as dual saddles for the centaurs and flying horses, a cavalry marching device, scripting for the Sky Galleon (I shall be incorporating the combat system that MrBunwah Murakami uses for his excellent Civil War Ironclads), and a bit more building for my part of the Penzance airfield. Oh, and probably more Versailles dresses. I love sacque dresses, what other excuse can I offer for creating a full line of obscure historical outfits? Just to be fair, I need make a justacorps for the fellows, too.

I must confess, the impetus for writing another entry today by Her Grace Eva Bellambi, Duchess of Loch Avi. No doubt, by now you have heard of the internet meme (if that is the word) about the eight little facts. Copied from Her Grace’s blog, here are the rules:

(1) Each player starts with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
(2) People who are tagged need to write a post on their own blog (about their eight things) and post these rules.
(3) At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.
(4) Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog

And thus, I find myself “tagged” by the aforementioned peer. But I find that I am unable to speak of trivia about myself without indulging first in the obligatory post rez day introspection first. To wit, this is the first entry after I became one year old in SL Terms. And thus, I find myself stymied with a bit of writer’s block about the whole affair. I mean to say, I have this overwhelming feeling that I should be saying something important. SL is such an amazingly strange experience—a year really does feel like five or six. I want to write about each and everyone of you, about the creative projects we’ve done, about the sillyness we’ve seen and created, and all the times we’ve laughed (I rarely type “LOL”, but I have done so on more than one occasion). And too, I think of the very real truths many have shared with me, the bareness of our souls that I believe is hard to reproduce in the “real world” where we wear our day to day masks. If I have laughed at my keyboard, sometimes I have cried too. But, I honestly believe that to be a good thing.

Yet, I am unable to speak of any of that right now. Perhaps I have no head for profundity. I may simply have to do a blog photo montage sometime, and hope my silly snapshots speak for me better than my poor fingers can explain. In the meantime, I suppose Her Grace is right. I ought return to whimsy, with a dollop of self revelation.

So, cutting that little preamble short, here are eight random facts about myself:

1) I was born in the United States on the east coast, but have lived mostly in the middle of the country and the southwest, with only the odd summer abroad. My accent is therefore the typical nasal twang that you might expect. I do not speak in quasi 19th century dialect in my day to day life. But my internal narration voice (come now, you have one too) speaks in a sort of circa-1900 Received Pronunciation, coloured by a touch of Yankee. I suspect it has to do with my love of pre WWII literature, but I do have to keep a check on it lest I start trying to talk like that in earnest. My coworkers find me eccentric enough.

2) That one was long, wasn’t it? How about this: I own, or rather live with, an Alsatian mix that I found at the shelter. I live in a one bedroom flat, but she had the BIGGEST brown eyes, you see. Fortunately, there is usually someone around to take her for multiple walks every day.

3) I wasn’t an avid bicyclist until I made my penny-farthing in Second Life. Then I decided if I enjoyed something virtual, it might be worth pursuing in Real Life (sadly, I can’t afford horses). A year later, I ride about ten to fifteen miles every day that I am home.

4) Despite this, I could stand to lose 10 to 15 pounds :( My favorite chocolate is Cadbury’s Fruit and Nut, which is one of the few English candy bars readily available near where I live: there’s a liquor store that carries it and is open to midnight. *sigh* Well, if it wasn’t that, it would be something else. Back on the bicycle!

5) I own an absurdly authentic late Elizabethan outfit. Linen cap, wool hat, fulled wool jacket, linen kirtle with buckram boning, linen chemise, wool overdress with cartridge pleating. It’s trimmed with bits of silk, wool piping, and lace (machine lace with cotton thread, I’m afraid). Internal seams were done on a machine, but all visible stitching was done by hand, using linen thread I waxed with beewax. Yes, I did it all myself. I will likely never do anything like that again.

6) I once was in an surplus Russian aerobatic airplane and we “pulled” eight and a half positive and three negative “gees”. I will likely never do anything like that again.

7) I stopped watching television when I was about ten. I have never owned a television. I have not been to a movie theatre this year. Yet, I’m hardly “pure” as I watch at least five or so DVDs a month on my computer and am addicted to flash videogames like the ones on the Ferry Halim site: http://www.ferryhalim.com/orisinal/

8) Despite my affection for historical fashion, I am a complete frump in day to day life. I honestly can’t remember the last time I bought any new clothing item that didn’t come in a little plastic package. My mother, on the other hand, was a model in her early twenties, and has commissioned outfits from designers. Let us just say there was some tension regarding that growing up. No, I haven’t told her I’m a virtual designer. She would take it as a victory, and as much as I love her, I can’t bear it when she gloats.

There you go! Hope that didn’t shatter anyone’s image of me. Now then, I am told I have to name others. Of course, being late to the party, it seems EVERYONE I know has done this already. Well, we shall just have to hope at least some of the following people have not :):

Miss Zoe Connoly, Miss Terry Lightfoot, Professor Alphonso Avalanche, Miss Fuschia Begonia, Mr Roy Smashcan, Mrs Nabila Peterman (nee Nadir), Mr. Ged Larsen (known to Caledonians as the inventor of the LoopRez), and Miss Cy Vandeverre.

Attachment Set Tutorial

2007-10-25T17:29:00.001-07:00

Hullo, and welcome to the Attachment Set Tutorial. This is the first tutorial I’ve ever written, so if there is anything that doesn’t quite make sense, or is simply omitted, well, I suppose it was to be expected. Feel free to drop me a reproving word here or in world via IM.

Attachment Set is a free, open source, full permission script written by the talented and slightly goth Mrs. Carricre Wind. Its primary use is to prevent your prim skirts from falling down when sitting, or from trailing behind whilst walking. Here is the “ad” for it I did for Mrs. Wind (sorry about the rather plain model :P)

Now then, the first thing you need do is run out and get a copy of the script. It is currently available inworld at Mrs. Wind’s Caveat Emporium in New Toulouse . Follow this SLURL to the address.

Caveat Emporium in New Toulouse http://slurl.com/secondlife/New%20Toulouse/120/84/24

Essentially, Attachment set works by monitoring the state that your Second Life avatar is in, and moving the skirt (or any other prim attachment) to a location and rotation you have preset for the skirt.

To make all these adjustments easier, you will want to have a central “pivot prim”. In other words, your skirt should have a prim that the rest of the dress can pivot around like this:

If it does not have one, rez your skirt on the ground. Then right click the ground and select create, click on the sphere icon, then click on the ground to create a sphere. Then right click the sphere, edit, then hold the control and shift keys down together. You will see little white boxes. Drag one of those boxes until the sphere is very small (look on the object page and try to shrink it to about .02. Don’t go to .01, or you will not be able to shrink the skirt later on. Trust me on this ;)). Release the cntrl and shift keys, and you will see the position arrows. Drag on the position arrows until the sphere is in position above the skirt. Then click the skirt, and hold the shift and L keys down.

The sphere is now the “root prim” of the skirt. When you edit the skirt, that central prim should light up yellow, the rest of the skirt blue.

Note that this is not precisely necessary, but it makes it easier to rotate the skirt.

Now, take the skirt back into inventory, don the skirt and right click on it. Select “Edit”, then go to the “Contents” tab. Drag the script marked AttachmentSet OSS from your inventory to the Contents page on the edit window. If you do nothing else now, the skirt will automatically move back to this position in all stances.

But we want the skirt to move as we move. So, first turn on your animation override if you have one (vendors will probably want to just use default Linden settings). Now we will turn off the Attachment set.

Type “/66 suspend” in chat (no quotes). The skirt will say “Skirt animations stopped.”

Next, adjust the skirt to how you want it to be when you are standing. If you know how to do that, skip the next three paragraphs.

Right click the skirt, select Edit from the pie chart, then you will see three arrow representing the three axes you can move the skirt on. Click and drag on the ends of the arrow to move the skirt in that direction.

If you wish to rotate the skirt, hold the Cntrl key down. You will see three circles instead of the arrows. Click and move the cursor along the circles to rotate the skirt. (Trust me, this makes much more sense when you actually do it).

Finally, if you wish to resize the skirt hold the control and shift keys down together. You will see little white boxes. Drag one of those boxes inward or outward until the skirt is the size you like. You will probably need to reposition it after this.

Now you should look something like this:

Type “/66 set stand”. The skirt will say “Standing position and rotation edited and reset.”

Now sit down somewhere.

Terrible looking isn’t it? Saucy expose of knees and stocking will not do. So, edit the skirt as above into position so it looks something like this:

Then type “/66 set sit”. The skirt will say “Sitting position and rotation edited and reset.”

Next, we want to combat the way flexi skirts trail behind us when we walk. So, to do that, we want to tilt the skirt forward a bit when walking. About 10 degrees does the trick for walking, about 15 for running. From the side it will look like this (for a walk position):

Again, once walk is set type “/66 set walk”. The skirt will say “Sitting position and rotation edited and reset.” Once run is set type “/66 set run”. The skirt will say “Running position and rotation edited and reset.”

Finally, you will want to set the ground sit. Sit on the ground (or play the ground sit animation, if you have it in inventory). The stock ground sit is a bit, well, ugly, and takes a bit of a fiddle to get it to look right in a long dress. But here it is:

Once set type “/66 set ground”. The skirt will say “Ground sit position and rotation edited and reset.”

This brings up the subject of animation overrides, also know as AOs. I usually use Mme Kamileh Hauptmann’s excellent Victorian AO. It works fine with the same dress positions as the defaults, except with the ground sit. So, when I fit my dress for me, I do it with the AO on, and set THAT position as the ground sit.

Vendors might wish to keep this in mind for their customers and let them know that if they have a very unusual AO, they might have to do some adjustment.

Now, we’re all set! To start the AttachmentSet working again, type “/66 resume”. The skirt will say “Skirt animations restarted.” Note that since the skirt only notices change in state (in order to keep lag down), you will have to move before it adjusts itself.

Additional notes:

Using the skirt is very simple. Wear it, and it automatically adjusts itself. Note that different sized avatars might need a bit of adjustment, so if you sell skirts with AttachmentSet, you might wish to include instructions (feel free to link to this page, but I’d prefer links to copying).

When making skirts using Attachment Set, you will want at least a short glitch pant, as the skirt will need to rotate forward when sitting, invariably exposing the fundament.

If you use a pose ball, including a dance ball, SL thinks the avatar is sitting. If you don’t wish to have the skirts move to the sit position (such as when dancing), type “/66 suspend” before getting on, then “/66 resume” when getting off.

This is a fairly low lag script. It only moves the skirt when the avatar’s position changes, and uses a slower timer than most AOs. Still, if sim lag is an issue, you might wish to turn it off via “/66 suspend”. When you want it on, you can type “/66 resume” resume again.

If you want the skirt to automatically stop in high lag areas, copy the following code into a script, then drag the script into the contents tab of the skirt (script is derived from a Linden LSL wiki example):

integer paused;
default
{
on_rez(integer s)
{
llResetScript();
}

state_entry()
{
llSetTimerEvent(0.3); //Repeat every 3/10th of a second.
}

timer()
{
float dilation = llGetRegionTimeDilation(); //Get the dilation
if(dilation < 0.65)
{
llOwnerSay("Sim lag is high, pausing skirt animation");
llSetScriptState(“AttachmentSet OSS”,FALSE); //Pause it
paused=TRUE;
}
else
{
//If the dilation is more than 65%
llSetScriptState(“AttachmentSet OSS”,TRUE); //run it
if (paused==TRUE)
{
llOwnerSay("Sim lag is low, restarting skirt animation");
paused=FALSE;
}
}
}
}

This will also tell the owner when the script is stopping and starting.

Finally, don't forget that there are many other things besides skirts that can use this. Mrs. Wind made a clever walking stick that demonstrates how it can be used for a walk and a stand animation: the stick neatly slides into the appropriately jaunty position based on avatar posture. I'm sure the creative can can up with even more examples than this!

Well, off to start fiddling with all my dresses in stock :P

Cleaning Out the Closet

2007-10-25T09:53:00.000-07:00

Well, I have been sewing and tinkering, as I mentioned last week. But truly, I am a lazy person and tend to let things sit about in bins rather than trouble myself to get all the permissions sorted, the items neatly lined up and named a bit catchier than "RDLskirt texture7", a box made, a vendor set up, and don't even mention the ads and the SLEx.

Be as that may, my ego does conflict with the laziness, and besides which, I just bought a new parcel of land in Caledon Penzance, so the avarice is coming into play as well. Such an odd feeling to have those conflicting feelings of vice tilting at each other betwixt one's ears.

So.

I am putting up a few dresses I've been working on. One is a circa 1815 Regency Ballgown, which I will be putting the automatically adjusting AttachmentSet script into (so one's knees won't poke through when sitting). More on that amazing script later, for now, you can pick up a copy at on the freebie cart now in Endless Destruction at the Caveat Emporium.
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Endless%20Destruction/204/169/23

Oh yes, the dress. You may have seen this already, as it was originally a commission for Miss Diamanda Gustafson. Per our agreement, she was entitled to a few balls in it before I released it to the rest of the world. Do hope it worked for you, Miss G!

Next up, I've been working with the Versailles set. I need to get the ad's made on the Gentleman's suit, but there are two dresses I am putting out. The first is a long held favourite of mine, the sacque dress, which appears in the first decade of the 18th and stays popular in various forms all the way through the 60s (and you would still see colonial American women wearing it in the 70s). This particular one is based after an extant 1740 dress:

If there is enough interest, I may release this in different textures. The Sacque is quite versatile, actually. Add enough frills, and you have something suitable for Pompadour :)

Finally, I was asked by Duchesse Dobra Lane to make a dress based on the late 17th century court dress from the movie Angelique.

I will be immodest and say that this one is the most difficult and complex outfit I have ever made. The tie backs were actually the hardest part to make--the use of twisted toruses made my head hurt. They have these odd characteristics such that changing one parameter tends to change ALL the parameters, if that makes any sense (play with a torus a bit, and you will see what I mean). Accordingly, I have two sized prim skirts included, as well as two sizes of bodices (the mesh would "bunch" when downsized).

The neck ruffle was created using Mr Ged Larsen's amazing LinkRez--a device that is to necklaces what LoopRez is to prim skirts. It is so fun to watch in action. I created a few lace ruffles, lined them up and used the templates to fit it around the next. A single chat entry later and I watched it create a whole necklace. Then I had to fit it on the neckline and adjust the bodice to line up with the ruffle, but the tedious part was automated. I also created a non-alpha trim to go there, which adds a bit more glitter to the whole affair (it's optional, should you need that attachment point for a necklace or some such).

Then it was the usual texturing thingees. The lace is from photographs of actual 17th century lace. All in all, I'm fairly pleased with it. Oh, I tossed in some of my embroidered shoes, in case you haven't something nicer to wear.

All of these are up in Eyre now, and once I get on grid, shall place them at the other shops as well.

Storm Winds

2007-10-16T14:33:00.000-07:00

Oh, yet another busy RL week, followed by a surfeit of SL projects I have been working on. I'm happy to say I managed to make a Jager Uniform of the mid 19th (NOT to be confused with a Jagerkin uniform, though I admit similarities). I've spun out a 17th century man's outfit (which is just the thing for pirating, if you ask me), made a circa 1700-1720 saque dress for Versailles, a new carriage after the smaller coaches of that period (not everyone got to ride in Catherine the Great's carriage, after all), started a shop in Babbage, had a lovely birthday party with Miss Lightfoot at the TARDIS yesterday, and continued work on my Sky Galleon.

I really ought put some of those aforementioned things up for sale, but really, I've been a bit lazy about the merchanting side of the house. I really do like commissions, don't have to bother with all that fluferall one gets in the SL Exchange and similar places.

Oh, and just to establish the point, I did not make that exceedingly clever Air Lancer helmet I have been sporting lately, that is the work of the amazing 3D artist Mr. Expedition Offcourse. If you haven't seen his work yet, do drop by his place in Caledon Sky City, at berth #13.

So, with all this (and a few RL writing projects), what is a poor girl to do? Well, there is always cycling, but when the rain comes, as it does with increasing regularity as the days get longer, one takes solace in a good read. But once the girl is married off/achieves self-actualization/blows up the baddies with the help of her Tennesee boyfriend (just read and loved Gibson's All Tomorrow's Parties--the heroine is a former cycle messenger :)), one is left with still a bit of brain mushedness to eliminate....

So, off to the SteamPunk wars!

I do so love flashgames, though I wonder at times about my cheerful reliance upon explosions to unwind at times. Well, so long as such activities don't change my RL outlook (I assure everyone, I feel badly when I need scold my puppy. RL does NOT find me toting Vickers machineguns about)

Here, one is valiantly defending one's Caledonian home from the nasty Middlesea pirates in their flying flivvers and battleships (oh, to be fair, if the lads of Middlesea would simply play more sport, they would not have such an excess of energy) One changes about from station to station, trying to find the best form of proper deterrence against the villainous Air Pirates. At least that is how I read it.

The part that makes this worth more than a singular visit is the strategizing. Not only must you decide which stations need manning, but between waves you must make painful decisions about what things to buy, what things to put into repairs, and where to place everything on your armoured redoubt. All in all fun enough. Now if you will excuse me, I have to nip back the the electronic sewing machine...well, one more round of chittering cannon first. I do hope I can be excused that. :D

Storm Winds, courtesy of Armoured Games:
http://www.armorgames.com/games/stormwinds_game.html

Rickshaw!

2007-09-26T14:50:00.001-07:00

Time for a bit of shameless Commercialism. Miss Christensen and I have thrown together this little flivver for all your touring needs. I based it upon some photographs I found of early twentieth century Rickshaws. I have been told that, for better or worse, most of the pedestrian driven rickshaws have been superseded by bicycle "cyclos" (we have one of those in the works as well :P). Still, I truly think that they don't quite measure up to the charm of an authentic hand pulled cart, virtual though it may be.

Here I am pulling Mr. Sputnik about near the Tea Gardens of Mrs Wind:

It seats up to two passengers, and if you wish to be pulled by someone other than yourself, you can allow others to "drive". It has standing and pulling animations, cheerful wheel sounds, animated wheels and comes with a driver's hat.

I've got it on sale at the carriage house in Caledon Eyre, next to the telehub (also on sale at Second Frame Animations and La Bicyclette in Port Caledon)

Speaking of Caledon Eyre, do pop by and see a marvelous Moviescope I have just received as a present from Sir ArthurConan Doyle. It plays the famous 1878 stop motion photographs of a horse in motion by Muybridge. Not coincidentally, these are the photographs I used to create the leg animations for my horses. Thank you, Sir Arthur!