Went for a stroll at Tableau and bumped into an SL hero (Cory Edo)

Last night I was feeling a bit bored, so decided to mooch around the Tableau sim, and see if there was anything new in the shops there. I ended up wandering and spotted a lake, which looked wonderful in the moonlight of Windlight, and rezzed a freebie sail boat on it. I was thinking that I would take a photo of the my sail boat and the light reflecting on the water in the night, and then the sun came up. This was quickly followed by sailing into an area where I was not allowed, and the boat going in an endless loop, like you get with a bad region crossing. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah! While this was going on I noticed the name of Cory Edo pop up on My Mysti Tool radar, and thought wow, I should go and say hi – when I can stop spinning! A good couple of minutes later, after trying to rezz prims and sitballs on the shore, and then trying to sit on them, I think I got out of it with a teleport.

Anyway, I flew over from where I teleported to -I’d already picked up a landmark to Cory’s Trompe L’Oeil store where she has her houses on display – and landed over by Cory. She said hi straight away, which was nice, as I feel a bit guilty in opening up a conversation with busy creators doing their thing. I’ve spoken to Julia Hathor of Creative Fantasy, and to Robin Sojourner/Robin Wood while she was rezzing a kingfisher by a stream at Livingtree. It’s nice in SL when you go to these places to admire the landscape, or check out the things for sale and the creator is happy to talk you. I had the same thing again last week when I bumped into Aley Arai at the Privateer Sim that she created.

I’ve noticed Cory’s name on various occasions in SL, and my blogroll lists her blog for the work she does with the Electric Sheep Company. An ambition I have in SL is to improve my texturing skills, and once one is looking up texturing in SL, Cory’s name starts to crop up. It’s one thing to build something, but when it comes down to it, the real depth to your creation is in the texture applied to it. Also, you can simply use fewer prims and make nicer windows and doors.

We had a little conversation, and I asked a few questions, but mostly I just wanted to compliment her on the work she does. Giggle, this might not have been the most diplomatic of questions but I asked Cory if she was still working for the Electric Sheep Company (there were some redundancies there recently) and she is. I said “phew” and she said “haha yeah big phew,” and that she’d just finished up on the I Am Legend sim to tie in with the film. I’m curious about how people get to do jobs like this, or just develop their skill to that level, even just as a hobby, so I asked Cory whether she went to art school or whether she’d just always liked to draw. Cory said that she’d “always drawn, done photoshop for about 8 years professionally in different jobs” and that SL was “by fair my favourite platform tho “

I said that it was nice that people on SL weren’t too snobby, referring to my meeting Julia Hathor in Creative Fantasy (except I said Juliette Westerburg, clothing designer at Tres Blah, silly me) and Robin Wood. When I mentioned Robin Wood, she said “Oh man Robin is my hero. She’s done so much for SL texturing with her tutorials and information,” and I’ve got to agree with that, as I bookmarked Robin’s website a while back, and got her clothing templates from Livingtree.

If you find this blog because you’re looking for information on texturing, then Cory did a review of a book that I bought with some Christmas present money, and while we chatted I mentioned that I was going to read it. She said that the book is wonderful, and I figure if it helps her, then it will me, once I go back to basics and teach myself more image editing skills.

Here’s a link to an interview with Cory Edo, which funnily enough I was reading the morning before I met her

SLURL to Cory’s house store Trompe L’oeil

SL Machinima keeps on getting better

Just a quick link to a video that New World Notes mentioned today.  Second Life is becoming a place where art is made and displayed in-world, using the building tools, particle effects etc.  Building on this, we’re starting to see more Machinima made with SL.  You can pose people, create the sets and capture video, so now you don’t even have to find a few friends to make an animated movie – or better still you can make a movie with friends who are at different ends of the world.

Here’s the link, and I’m not terribly into the story of this one.  It’s just techincally excellent.

Wowed by the new Privateer Space sim

I was reading New World Notes the other day and found reference to the new space & sci-fi themed sim of Privateer Space. Having made a new year’s resolution to explore more places in SL, this seemed a good start, and I’m pretty bowled over by it. Not only that, I got to meet the playful designer of the whole thing, Aley Arai.

The whole sim seems to be developing at the moment, and I think that there may be teleports put in to take you between particular areas. Right now, I just explored and flew my spaceship through the phantom floor prim that looked like the stars in an endless sky: it’s just brim full of accidental finds and little quirks. This is so what I love about SL:when its at its best, it is a playground for the imagination. Aley Arai is clearly a pretty skilled texture artist and builder who’s been around a lot longer than her account was created. Whatever, she rocks and I don’t give a hoot as to just who is behind her. As busy as she is, she gave a few moments of her time to chat on Sunday morning, and she’s the petite, pigtailed girl in the space-suit chatting with me above. I bumped into her later on, in the depths of the sim, where there was a racetrack and some mining vehicles, as well as a moonlander. She promplty gave me a mining racer buggy and we both tore around the track for a good while. I’d just split my toe open coming out of my RL bathroom, and the laughs kind of took my mind off the pain, so double thanks there! I thanked her and said she was a fun person, and she said that she aimed to put the fun back into SL!

I’ve put a couple of photos in this blog, but I’ve got to say that this is an already huge and still developing sim, so there is loads more to find. Here’s a link to the set on my Flikr feed, with a bunch more. The sim has to be one of the biggest deployments of sculpties that I’ve seen. Robots, chairs, air tanks on the space suit, rocky cave ceilings and floors; tons of them. Where a lot of sci-fi sims would just rip textures from the likes of Quake or Half Life, I think that most of this is custom made. There are tunnels, levels, lifts, bizarre alien toilets and just little surprises around many a corner. The spaceships from Space 1999 tv series, robots begging for power in exchange for doing equations; supposed Linden Labs servers driven by hamsters on wheels! Look, go find. If you get frustrated and don’t find stuff, then maybe try again or ask someone else who’s there. Such depth and curiousity to the place.

I took my friends Anna Zwiers (Anna and me in the Hotel New California) and Siobhan Taylor (Sio’s photo) along for a good old browse, and it was cool to explore a bunch of the rooms, tunnels and just fly around in spaceships. Yay for a hug on the moon, and yay for a free space suit.

OK, did I get you convinced? Here’s the SLURL to the starting place:

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Privateer%20Space/61/208/22

Dolls House at the Black & White sim called Silent

 

 

Me and Anna Zwiers visited the curious sim called Silent last night, which has the buildings, trees and grass all textured in black and white.  It’s fascinating, and has a few curious shops there.  The photos are me and Anna in a shop selling dolls’ houses and furniture to go in them.  I went back this morning to get a picture of me outside the dolls’ house, to give an idea of scale, but it was a cool test of camera look skills to get a photo looking out from its windows.  Arggh, attack of the 30 foot babes!

Here’s the SURL to get to silent:

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Silent/122/117/41

Taking a new friend to Straylight

 

 Yay, I was on a treasure hunt the other weekend and logged back in to the store the following day. Glad I did, because I helped Sascha here find stuff and we made friends. This is us checking out the pretty Straylight sim. SL New Year’s Resolution: explore pretty places and try to find a new one each week.

Ill and silly

I’ve been ill for a few days and when you’re drained, but can’t sleep, it’s either TV or the computer. Sorting my SL inventory with my best friend Anna won, and here’s me sat on a stool from a treasure hunt. I’m in underwear coz I’m putting clothes on and taking them off, seeing what I want to keep. The boots, top hat and bendy straw in mouth? That’s coz I’m bleedin’ ill and feelin’ silly.

Argh, tagged. Random facts about me

I got tagged! Recently I saw an SL blog where a designer said that they had been tagged and they had to state 8 random facts about themselves. I’ve been tagged by my best friend Anna Zwiers . Here’s the rules:

1. Post (on your own blog) 8 random facts about yourself.

2. Tag 8 more people to post, so post their names at the end of your blog post!

3. Be sure to leave a comment in your taggee’s blogs so they know they’re tagged!!

4. Be sure to post these rules in your own post so your victims know what to do!!

OK, so I need to think about who I can tag, as the only SL blogger who I chat with is Anna. Then again, I did bump into CronoCloud Creegan the other day and she wasn’t asleep this time!

8 Random Facts About Me

1. I like hugs, and you could say that SL releases me to be less shy and more likely to talk to people I don’t know. There’s a bit of that IRL, and perhaps more so now that I get to practice this in SL. Only the other day I was stood in a small waiting room, waiting to pick up a parcel and I could see the looks of puzzled disgust on other members of the que as I chatted with the scruffy old guy who smelt of wee, but rides a bike like me and I see around from time to time. Bless!
2. I’m loyal. Giggle, I met my friend Darkstar in a shopping mall, when he was partially Ruthed, and I thought he was a rather pretty and punky looking woman in a Harley Davidson jacket etc. OMG, she’s so pretty and looks feisty, I have to talk to her! Some weeks later Darkstar IMs me and says that he can’t move and is trapped in a box. As the proud owner of a MystiTool, I recognise this feature and ask for a teleport. I right click the box that is trapping him, and use my Mysti to send a light beam to that person in the sim, then trap the bugger. After following the beam to it’s destination, I find a german guy with a nude woman SAT ON HIS FACE and both of them trapped in my Mysti trap! I put on my Babbler, and translate to German: why are you trapping my friend etc, then negotiate a release for a release, then say you look like you’re having fun! Loyalty matters, and I like to look out for my friends
3. I am curious and a bit nosey. It’s great to look about here and there, and I can say that I was one of the people who found the little disco hidden in the water tower at the old Mexican version of the Tableau sim. One time I was at a mall (I won’t mention the name) and flew about or camera looked where others wouldn’t look, and I stumbled on a cannon floating in the sky. So, of course I checked out what turned out to be an avatar cannon, and you know, right click >sit>BOOM!! I go zooming up and it’s perfectly aimed me right into the skybox of the mall owners, and one of them is there. I went back on another day, and unfortunately blasted in on a large bunch of well known SL designers chatting: “I think I will make more guy clothes,” that sort of thing; and one of them on a pose stand tweaking their latest creation. One of them was not happy about me barging in, and I humbly apologised before teleporting away.
4. I love to use the camera-look feature, and I Alt-mouse my camera all over the place, not to mention CTRL etc. There have been various times when I’ve been sat chatting with people and I’m camera looking a few hundred metres away, or building next door, and still contributing to the chat. Then there’s always the old fave of tilting one’s camera through a wall and sitting on an object inside to get in – even if the place is locked. If you don’t do camera look then it’s worth practicing. I can go to a shop with tall walls stacked high with vendor signs and look right up there, where newbies have to fly, and I can straighten my camera angle as if I’m flying right in front of it. Very useful for scavenger hunts and also fun baybee!
5. I don’t do SL sex (much)! OMG, on one of the first nights on SL, search was down and I didn’t have several folders of landmarks to pick from as I do now, so I just flew around. I see this guy in a field, arms out stretched and probably changing his muscle slider to 100 instead of 98, so I descend and have a chat. I speak to him for about two sentences, and of course that means that I must really fancy him, right? He invites me to a sex club and I say, erm alright, I’ll have a look. Nowadays my profile says that I’m transsexual, so it doesn’t happen so much, but to cut a long story short he came on my face the first time, and the second time he announced “all over your tits baby.” Oh yeah, it was also rather comical when I got it on with a lovely woman with beautiful wings, and there’s him sat on the bench and not getting any, and he says “so you like women as well” uh-huh! Funny, he was a professional person IRL, but it never ceases to amaze me how testosterone lowers the capacity for common sense, and how much guys believe those stupid porno fantasies. SL is an interesting window into the human soul sometimes.
6. I like to put together outfits by mixing and matching my clothes. It’s nice now I’ve got clothes from various places, and now I can say oh that new dress will go with those shoes, or this undershirt with a jacket etc.
7. I tend to think ahead to where I want to get, and have various things up in the air. My big goal in SL is to learn how to texture things well, so that I can build houses, maybe furniture and certainly some nice clothing. I’ve got a couple of books to help me learn things, but I also keep picking up second hand books like The Anthology of Ornament or on interior design. Some day they’ll be useful sourcebooks, so where they are useless without the underlying skill to apply the ideas that they inspire, at least I do have a bit of vision as to how I will be able to use them.
8. I am silly. I seem to never get tired of the backflip gesture with the boing sound, and I love my anvil dropper, lemming launcher, custard pie launcher, that sort of thing. I love to try on nice clothes and shoes, love to make my land pretty, but I also like to play at looking bizarre. This kind of carries over into RL, and I did recently try to roll up the RL woman behind FooRoo/Trinity Dejavu with a pillow, singing Katamari Damacy.

Sorry for not getting round to posting this earlier, but fact 9 Anna, I’m a bit lazy! I can’t think of anyone to tag that hasn’t been already, so apologies for that.

Testing another way of putting Flikr photos on my blog

ARgh, need to sort posting photos onto my blog, so that I can just do quick postings and keep blogging up to date. This is an alternative way of posting and involves going into the photo on Flikr, clicking the All Sizes button, then choosing Medium and copying the Flikr URL. You can also paste the HTML code it gives you underneath your photo, so maybe I’ll try that sometime. I got the tip from this page.

Oh, the photo? I was asked to be a flower girl for a wedding, and little did I know that a flower girl was a girl! Still, I was cute and we all had a bloody good laugh!

Kong @ Dreamworld South by Tesla

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Kong @ Dreamworld South by Tesla, originally uploaded by Virtual Analise.

Just a quick test of posting Flikr photos to my WordPress blog. Oh, why can’t you just link to the Flikr URL? Pff, anyway, here’s me and my friend Ella by a lovely statue of King Kong near to the Tesla store at Dreamworld South.

Kong @ Dreamworld South by Tesla

Kong @ Dreamworld South by Tesla

Originally uploaded by Virtual Analise

Just a quick test of posting Flikr photos to my WordPress blog. Oh, why can’t you just link to the Flikr URL? Pff, anyway, here’s me and my friend Ella by a lovely statue of King Kong near to the Tesla store at Dreamworld South.