« May 2006 | Main | July 2006 »
In all my annoyance about the stupid Shake 'n' Bake child, I forgot to put up my picture from the SL 3rd Birthday event. This is from Merle Widget's awesome monorail (how many of you have the Simpson's reference going around in your head now?).
During the saving of this snapshot, my client crashed. This was a constant problem for me at the birthday events, even when I wasn't taking photos. I may need to fiddle with my preferences settings once more. :P
Who knew unemployment was so time-consuming? I don't know how I found time to go to work every day! :) Speaking of work, Dan Gerstort, owner of the Lazy Duck, who provides me with free space for a store on his land, requested his very own lazy duck. In the process of making this one, I pulled out an earlier martini project, and managed to wrestle it into some semblance of completion.
I really rather like the olive on the toothpick - I may do a similar set of kebabs or something in honour of BBQ season, which is upon us here in sunny Boston. Well, sunny and BBQ-friendly when we're not inundated with torrential rains.
Once Dan has okayed the final duck, I'll post a pic of it here. I'm rather proud of it so far - I'm getting the hang of prim torture. Not the intense 'first make it a torus, do this, this and this, then convert it to a sphere...' but more being able to visualize what shapes are needed to make a figure, and what prims to use to make the shapes. :) Prim minimalism is always a nice goal to have, too. The martini is four prims. The current version of the duck is 18, but we'll see where it goes.
Other news: as you probably are aware, the SL 3rd birthday celebrations have wrapped up. The sheer scope of the build that Mera and her team of volunteers created is mind-boggling. I helped flatten the terrain in preparation, but I feel like the annoying child in the Shake 'N' Bake commercial ("And I helped!").
I just wasted 30 minutes of my life looking for a link to any info about that bloody commercial. Nothing, except some offhand references. Hate. Hate hate hate. :P Anyhow, the commercial reminds me of "Look Mom! No cavities!" Crest commercials. Makes me realize that Shirley Temple was a better actress than she gets credit for. :)
Bwahahaha! That Pathfinder's such a kooky kid.
I'm now an official SL businessperson, I guess. :D I've sold L$220 worth of stuff through my new store. Granted, with the current in-game conversion rate, that's equivalent to about... $1 US. Woo! Of course, all of my customers have been friends who I'd have otherwise just given the things to, but...
I have had several custom requests, the first being Sumar's request for a Bloody Mary to circulate her head. The drink, not the monarch. She provided the drink object, but I intend, eventually, to make a purpose-built one, to sell in the store.
It's been a lovely outlet to be creative like this. I'm working on a few other suggested items, and I just finished a cranial UFO.
It's for sale in the store as well. :)
For those of you playing along in our home game, as of 5pm EST today, I am unemployed IRL! Woo! Go me!
So, after several folks suggested it, and Dan Gerstort even went so far as to give me space on his land, I went ahead and started setting up a store for myself. It's going to feature a bunch of different head spinner thingies, since those have caught my attention just now. I'm part way through setting up on Dan's land, but the main store is nearly done in one of the skyboxes on my land.
The name, I'll grant you, is a bit goofy. But hey, what am I if not a bit goofy? (don't answer that!)
I don't think I've put a picture up here of the little bee that I made for Hen and Geleki (which also will be sold at the store).
Huh, in uploading that, I realized that I never got around to showing everyone Geleki's neat "house" that replaced the honeycomb after the hot tub incident. I swear I never would have given him the hot tub if I"d known what would happen! Anyway, Henrietta invited me over to see how cool it looked.
In the background, you can see Hen's puddle with her surreal flowers. They look so much better now that I've got shiny enabled - and the grotto looks less like a igloo made of yellow snow. ;)
I helped prep the sims for the 3rd birthday celebration this weekend and learned how to flatten large areas at once. Use the edit land > select function to pick a large-ish area. The center of the area should be the height that you'd like the final result to be at. Then choose the "flatten" radio button and hit "apply to selection" a bunch. And there ya go. Like Downy Wrinkle Releaser for terrain. Sure beats ironing laundry!
Now I remember why I don't take hi-res photos in crowded locations. :D Can you say "crash"? Because I can say "ouch"!
Anyway, this (low-res) shot is of a bunch of folks at the Gathering to see Frogg Marlowe and Jaycatt Nico perform. Or hear, rather. It's so much better than listening to a live stream, because there's the interaction with the crowd. Frogg and Jaycatt were the first two musicians I heard play in SL, and remain two of the best. I bought their CDs, you should too.
As you can see, I'm wearing the head rocket. That's Sumar sitting next to me, checking it out. Yeah, I know, the picture quality sucks. What can you do? Crash, apparently.
They played a new (to their repertoire) James Blunt song, "Tears and Rage". And they maxed out the Iris sim, which happens pretty often for their performances, I think. I have missed hearing them for the last few weeks, due to RL stuff. Unfortunately, mid-way through the song (and the show) their stream cut out. Happily it was restored fairly quick, but you know, it's always something. :)
One more week of my RL job, for those of you following along at home.
There's a bunch of shapshots that I keep meaning to post, so while I'm thinking of it, I'll throw them up here.
First off, this one's from tonight. I helped out at Building Shelter, hosted by the one and only Mera Pixel, and one of the themes contestants were given was "retro-futuristic". Valadimire Dougall came up with this awesome "Tin Ship" space ship. Of course, nothing could stop me from shrinking it down and having it revolve around my head.
Here's a shot from a few days ago when I spread the head cattle through the Shelter. They spread quicker than Mad Cow!
Then, a couple of days ago, I was inspired to make a personal comet (which I decided to document tonight).
While wandering about with the comet circling my head, I got stuck halfway through a wall. I kid you not. I was swimming, and the comet was shaken around. I tried to send my head-circling bee for help, but he wasn't having any of it. I don't know if this picture captures it all that well, but you can definitely see my predicament.
As much as I love the ability to identify the new additions to my inventory, I have to say that the way that all the folders randomly open is making me mental.
Well.
More mental, anyway.
Also topping the list of Most Likely To Send Coal Round The Bend: prim parameters that spontaneously jump back and forth (from new to old to new values). I've had this happen with position, various size/shape parameters and even textures. The latter makes it really hard to scroll through a folder of textures looking to see which one works best.
And when you have two inventory windows open, and move something from window A to window B (which is really the best method when you're tidying your inventory, I find) and the folders in window A all suddenly open. All of them. And all the subfolders. That. That is a pain in the butt.
However. Local lighting still rocks my socks.
I can't believe I just used that phrase.
I'm still making stuff spin 'round my head (and the heads of others). Inspired by her ongoing comments, I made a special "F1" key to spin around Jeska's head, but I'm not sure the inventory transfer went through. I didn't get a message, but I've noticed that the standard "user offline, inventory will be saved" message is inconsistent, particularly when you're sending stuff to Lindenfolk. I don't want to resend it in case it did go through. I know the Lindens all get a boatload of junk (well, okay, not junk, but a boatload of... stuff) flung at them whenever they log in, and I'm trying to give her a gift, not be an annoyance!
I may set up a shop specializing in stuff that spins around your head, since my cow seems to get a lot of compliments. :D One of my neighbours came by and bought a copy of my lamp yesterday. I wasn't even home when it happened! How cool is that? Wow. Capitalism at work. Pop the popcorn and pull up a chair!
Forgot to wish everyone a happy 6-6-6 yesterday. :D
Yeah, I'm weird, this is already established fact, I don't know why you're looking at me like that.
To round out the weirdness, I gave away a bunch of head cattle at the Shelter and at a volunteer meeting (including one to Torley for the revelation that the next update will include some inventory management foofery!). Torley rocks for being the bearer of blissful news. I have pictures of the viral cattle at the Shelter which I forgot to upload, but I'll try to remember tonight. It would have made the stampede spread so much faster if I'd remembered to set them copy-able, but.... hindsight and all that.
Inspired by everyone's amused reaction to the head cattle, I made a head bee (specifically for Henrietta and Geleki and their apicultural fixation), and then a personal comet. The latter I put the finishing touches on this morning. Using local lighting makes it especially freaky at night.
Since making these things is amusing me to no end, the thought occurs that I should stuff them all in a vendor or three and set up a store. Sitting here at work (partway through my 8th-last day at this job, in case you're keeping score) I can easily think up half a dozen other spinny head thingies (yeah, okay, naming is not my strong point) that would be fun to make. I'm going to try my hand at a couple tonight.
There seems to be a fashion, lately, for what I call "head fish". Cute little goldfish that swim around your head. They look especially funny when I wear one, because it swims around my antennae. Or anyway I think it's funny, and since I'm looking at the back of my head more than you are, my opinion's the only one that matters.
Inspired by the little fishie, I wondered if maybe a whole menagerie of rotating items could be made - maybe to coordinate with what I was wearing?
This is why it's not a good thing for me to have spare time on my hands!
The cow in question was inspired the Dancing Cow by Blain (whose last name I'm blanking on... will check when I'm online).
If you'd like some head cattle (a circumcerebral bovine?) of your own, feel free to IM me or drop me a line.
yeah, okay, the title doesn't really work. I have trouble with titles (beats tribbles, I guess)
It occurs to me that it's been a while since I wrote anything here. Oops. And I usually babble excessively! I had intended to spend an extraordinary amount of time on SL this weekend, but it was apparently not to be. :P Instead, I spent none. Sucky, but there ya go. We're not always able to do what we want.
Lately, I've been playing with local lighting and scripting (they go together like peanut butter and chocolate). I've made a torch and three versions of a lamp, all of which are available on SLX. The lamp comes in always on/always white, always on/click to change colour, and click on/off/colour change. What fun. And I sold some more innertbues through them (thank you, Sumar!).
Mera's doing a ton of work on the 3rd birthday of SL and has asked me to chip in (actually, I foisted my services off on her), and I hope my absence this weekend wasn't too much of an annoyance for her, after I insisted on being allowed to help. :D It looks like it could be a really fun celebration, and we had some real fun in brainstorming.
I'm working on an object with chase-style lighting (like you'd see around a marquee). It's going to have a script in each bulb that triggers the next bulb turning on, so I've had to teach myself some more about link messages. Fun fun fun. And not particularly hard. I always find things easier to learn if I can apply them. I think most people do. I'd already learned how to use link messages when I was trying to get the lamp bulb to turn off when it was clicked.
Okay, pet peeve about the local lighting... it doesn't go through transparent/translucent objects. Yes, I get that it would be a pain to make that work. But how cool would it be to have objects that the light would shine through?
Anyway, it's just a thought.
