Stargates & sculpties isl

One of our residents is an active scripter and true community contributor.  He even had an exhibit in Burning Life this year.

Micheil Merlin in Burning Life

Well Micheil is big into Stargates and we love them as a way to explore sl. He also does sculpties, another thing we admire, so we spoke with Micheil:

iliveisl: So tell us about stargates.

Micheil: There are many ways to explore SL, but one of the more interesting ways is to use the random dialing feature of OpenGate, the open Stargate Network. The Network is an open source project created by avatar Doran Zemlja, based on the Stargate movies and TV episodes.

Random locations may be dialed by visiting a gate and saying ‘/d random’ in chat. After the gate connects, a blue wormhole opens in the gate. Click on the wormhole and your SL map will open to the location of the dialed gate. Select teleport.

As long as the teleport location in the selected region has not been set otherwise, you should appear by the destination Stargate.

iliveisl: How many Stargates are isl?

Micheil: The number of active Stargates in this network varies, but is normally around 300. This provides many possible destinations in SL.

iliveisl: Where can we learn more?

Micheil: Information about the network, including source code and documentation, can be found at this link. A complete list of gate locations can be found at this link. Free Stargates may be obtained by teleporting to this link. A gate may also be purchased for $0 from XstreetSL.com.

Over time, the appearance of the gates has changed dramatically. Originally, the textures were fairly flat because the gate function was the primary focus of the development effort.

An important goal has always been to keep the prim count low. Currently the maximum is just 11 prims, which should allow nearly any land owner in SL to have their own Stargate without a large prim commitment.

One change that has been made to provide a more visually appealing gate while keeping the prim count low is the use of sculpty chevrons. Recently, the second iteration of sculpty chevrons have been completed and distributed with the gate.

This version of the sculpty chevron was created with the open source content creation suite, Blender 3D, a free version of which may be obtained from here.

One of Micheil's Stargates in Enerville

iliveisl: Blender 3D is such a great program. We have seen some of your sculptie work and it’s pretty nice, but it looks scary to try. What would you advise?

Micheil: Blender is an extremely powerful program with an unfortunately steep learning curve. Thankfully, there are many tutorials available to assist you in learning how to use the various functions of Blender.

iliveisl: Yay for tutorials, so what would you recommend?

Micheil: In particular, the tutorials of Hussayn Salomon and Gaia Clary are extremely useful and refer specifically to creating sculpties for SL.

Also identified in the tutorials, Blender scripts by Domino Marama  can be used to create SL compatible objects that serve as a starting point for sculpty modeling.

Creating sculpties would be easier if they actually looked in SL the way they do while you are building them. Two things work against you. The first is that things just don’t always look in SL like they do outside of SL. That is one you just have to get used to and learn to work with.

The other difficulty is the way the SL viewer shifts the level of detail (LOD) in relation to object size and distance. You can build a fairly detailed sculpty model outside of SL and then have it pretty much fall apart on you when you stand three meters away from it in SL.

The key here is to not rely on the highest LOD. This version of the OpenGate chevron sculpty was created such that the first two LODs are about the same so the sculpty remains fairly stable as you move away from it.

iliveisl: Yikes! That is pretty techie sounding!

Micheil: Fortunately, Blender can help you with this, using its multires function. Multires (multiple resolution mesh) was developed for blender to allow easier manipulation of complex and detailed meshes by shifting to lower detail. It is useful for scuplties to let you preview what the sculpty will look like as the SL viewer shifts to lower LODs. Generally for sculpties you want to edit at the higher LOD (multires level 3) and just use multires to look at lower LODs. Editing at lower LODs can mess up your sculpty mesh. The scripts available from Domino Marama support the three standard LODs and you can shift between them as you edit your model, gaining a better understanding of how things might look once imported in to SL.

After creating the sculpty you will want to place a surface texture on it. The OpenGate chevron sculpties require a custom surface texture to allow for some styling, in particular the appearance of the chevron lights. This surface texture could be very tricky to create by hand. Again, blender can help and Hussayn’s and Gaia’s tutorials will lead you through the process.

You will likely go through lots of trial and error in creating interesting scuplties. This version of the chevron sculpty started life as a cylinder (created with Domino’s scripts) and went through three major revisions (almost start-over revisions) and several minor ones. As you work with them, you learn better how to place vertices to gain the most detail both in the shape of the sculpty and the sharpness of the surface texture that you eventually may place on top of the sculpty.

iliveisl: Sounds like lot more than just making a nice mesh in Blender.

Micheil: Yes, the shape of the sculpty is one thing. But, if you need detail in the surface texture, you have to keep enough vertices close enough together to give you that detail. Otherwise, you could end up with a nice sculpty shape, but with big blurry splotches on it where you expected a nice detailed texture.

iliveisl: Nice job talking to us about Stargates and sculpties. Any last advice for us?

Micheil: It has taken me a lot of time and effort to learn how to manipulate Blender functionality to create sculpties that work well in SL. I am grateful for the tireless and freely-given work of Doran Zemlja on the OpenGate Network, and the detailed and useful Blender tutorials by people like Hussayn Salomon and Gaia Clary along with the Blender scripts from Domino Marama. People such as these are what make SL the interesting and creative place that it is.

iliveisl: It’s a thrill having you in Enerville (slurl) on the iliveisl estate and thank you for educating us on this.  It’s pretty interesting and a great example of the creativity you have.

give it up (way up) :p

lunarLounge_006, originally uploaded by iliveisl

w00t! as soon as we figure out some dance scripts and public music, we will be set

just another spot to hang out in the iliveisl estate > Energy Hacker Lunar Lounge

and get the KoRn version of Word Up on dizzler

Yo’, pretty ladies around the world
Got a weird thing to show you, so tell all the boys and girls
Tell your brother, your sister and your mamma too
‘Cause we’re about to throw down and you know just what to do

Wave your hands in the air like you don’t care
Glide by the people as they start to look and stare
Do your dance, do your dance, do your dance quick mama
Come on, baby, tell me what’s the word

Word up, everybody say
When you hear the call you’ve got to get it under way
Word up, it’s the code word
No matter where you say it you know that you’ll be heard

Now all you sucker deejays who think you’re fly
There’s got to be a reason and we know the reason why
You try to put on those heirs and you act real cool
But you got to realize that you’re acting like fools

Give us music we can use it, we need to dance
We don’t have the time for psychological romance
No romance, no romance, no romance for me mama
Come on, baby, tell me what’s the word

Word up, everybody say
When you hear the call you’ve got to get it under way, ooh

more virtual meetings

a short interview on a conference is here and it’s a good quick read on the sl blog.  there are challenges to having these inworld, but it’s inevitable that sl will become used more and more for this.  IBM has OpenSim tied into their instant messaging (sametime3D) and once people see it, they will want more like it

OpenSim uses the same viewer, so anyone in it has the same tools that we do isl.  the look is exactly the same, so once you start seeing more people having meetings in it, you’ll start to see more recorded meeting on YouTube.  once it’s out there on the interwebz more, the demand for similar style meetings will start to climb

over at subQuark, they want to partner with us on a new “corporate” venture and use our experience in virtual land to form a corporate offering for land.  many peeps can’t justify $295 a month for an entire sim, so subQ may be on to a niche market (btw, subQ is a partner in iliveisl, but a very silent one!)  =p

making some corporate sims (not part of the iliveisl estate) that guarantee only corporate use might work.  offering a quarter sim for $95 a month and built like we do could be attractive to some corporate users.  still working out details such as having some public land and all that stuff

a very crisp store with great possibilities

tipi_001, originally uploaded by iliveisl

we never have time (it seems) to explore, even our own estate. while hunting down some whacky code making some animal rez and run really fast and disappear, we took a look at what was on an Enercity sim and found this shop

firstly, it’s a great build using megaprims that are precisely placed. secondly, the logo is absolutely fabulous! having worked at a Fortune 1000 creative agency in the past, i can say “it’s a good logo? it really is (just don’t get hung up on anything to do with a teepee, look beyond that for the simplicity and aesthetic balance)

it’s too bad that tipi.com is already taken, this “brand” could be made into a powerful icon within second life. wonder if the blog name is taken?

*hint – tp, if you pushed this out via the web with blogging, forums, xlstreet, etc. you could be one of those people that make decent money from second life. the brand imagery from your store name really is quite powerful*

hooray for Philip Linden!

wow, maybe we are kinda psycho – from being so discouraged with the openspace disater (yes, it was a disaster to us and many of our residents – after all, something like 14,700 OpenSpaces are gone now!)

anyway, from being all “bah” to all “yay”  \o/

maybe it’s cuz Philip is back in action (i’m sure he was busy behind the scenes).  it’s nice to see something that he did that affects us and that is the slurl map.  it used to be a big part of our website until it pooped out like 6 months ago.  even had Guy Linden meet with me inworld to look at it (that was pretty awesome support, submit a ticket and then get with a real Linden for support inworld – impressive)

as the chairman of the board, Philip is the highest ranking officer of the company (yah, and the passion behind it all) and it just felt really good to see his hand back in it again, really boosts our confidence in sl.  thanks Philip!  =)

*waves to philip*

Allison from iliveisl is famous

well, maybe not yet, but she will be.  apart from a fantastic creative eye and a wonderful writing style (read it, it’s great), she is a hella cool airship captain!

her skillful piloting can be seen on subDoofus’ site (i did film that part, but was not mentioned in the credits, neither was the death defying pilot who clearly broke all flight rules with that skillful scene that frankly was the most exciting part of the final video, well i liked the zombies too that were on loan from the park . . .)    :(  *takes a breath from that run on sentence*

subQ does elearning stuff with sl and uses the iliveisl estate for tutorials but it’s important to give a shout out with props from time to time *hint*

so thanks Allison for this and all you do (like make sl a prettier place – by your builds!!! not your build)  :0

originally uploaded by Allisons2ndlife

estate map january 09

estateMap0109, originally uploaded by iliveisl

with the completion of the conversion of 9 openspace sims, the estate plan continues to be the same but will not have any new homestead sims added

most new regions will be full sims but there will be the addition of true openspaces as we grow to create park and water areas similar to Enercity Park (watch out for zombies)

have fun! =D

lol, our status update is way simpler (and mentions zombies) than Linden’s! :p

butterfly?

enercityWeston_011, originally uploaded by iliveisl

can you see the butterfly in Enercity park?

the lake is a representation of the butterfly which, in turn, is representative of

the soul’s emergence from the mundane

=)

Coalesced Objects & Two New Sims

Coalesced Objects, originally uploaded by iliveisl

so the sim conversions went very well, sat on one of the sims till SL booted me off. kinda sad, but also the start of a new chapter, when all was said and done, the estate actually grew by 3/4 of a sim (since 4 OS = 1 full)

seems like peeps like it a lot, certainly a lot of prims, but it also means we can plant more trees too

both converted sims have loads of trees (lol, the tropic one might have like 400 when we are done!) o_O

[15:46] pam N: i love the new location
[15:46] pam N: very nice area
[15:46] pam N: u do great work

thank you pam, and everyone else with for your kind words, it’s you that bring the sims to life and transform them into fantastic and beautiful homes. thank you for being here =)

ps – the pic is what is called a coalesced object in your inventory.  it will happen if you select several itesm and take them at one tiime, in which case the object will be called whatever the last (also called the root) prim that was selected was named.  it also happens if several things get returned at one time, like when the sims were taken offline for the conversion

w00f, conversions done . . .

wow! the conversions went well, and it was bittersweet hanging out on one of those sims until the conversion forced a log off.

BUT! the new sims look pretty nice and the pacific northwest one filled up fast! within 36 hours of being online, 8 of the 9 spots were taken! now we still have loads of tree and bush planting to do . . .

the tropical sim is also very nice with a volcano in the middle as a parcel. palm tree planting is also underway as well and will really set it apart (be like 400+ trees on it) o_O

so anyway, thank you all for being so patient and helpful and creative. the next project is for a group of really dedicated residents who are pulling together a sim so they can be neighbors, that one should be coming very soon

thank you all, you make sl lots of fun :)

thank you for the support

wow, as you may know, we have been stressing so badly over this conversion stuff but . . . it’s wonderful how supportive everyone has been.  yesterday was a bumming day as we went to the 7 sims getting wiped on Monday and it was really sad removing all the trees, butterflies, waterfalls, ferns and even rocks.  our first open space one was the hardest, i remember getting it and the on it’s first night making a really tall mountain with a ledge to watch the moonrise.  magical

but out of all of these, like the phoenix, we will all rise and create even nicer places to call home.  that sentiment is so nicely stated by a wonderful resident this morning:

Morning Ener all is clear from my place…exciting time coming :-) Hugs, Claire

wow! makes it all worthwhile  :)  thank you Claire

some more quotes that touched us:

you’ve made us a beautiful place here and i know we all love it. BR

Thank you for the note card Ener and your timeless energy and efforts you do in making SL a positive possible experience for us all. I feel very blessed to be a part of your sims. Chow, CL

Thank you for beautiful landscape! I’ll remember the life here forever though it will physically disappear from SL world. MN

so that only proves that you, not us, are what make this fantastic.  people like you that take the time to drop us a note are what make sl so magical and fun. you are the ones that make up the community, all we do is plant a few trees  :)

Here’s the new tropic sim

9LotTropicVolcano_002, originally uploaded by iliveisl

since we are paying for so many sims sitting empty, figured why not terraform them and save the raw files.  this is kinda neat with a dormant volcano in the centre as a parcel.

it does not have any trees on it, but the real one will be loaded with palms and ferns and should feel private (plus there is a lot of public space between the lots) :)

4,096 square metres | 1,451 prims | $10,500 L a month ($9,450 if ya pay 4 months in advance)

the price per prim is great, shop around and check it out.  this one should be ready to go on Tuesday or Wednesday (lol, call me speedy)

Openspace conversion on Monday, Jan. 5th

o_O Linden Lab really starts the New Year right!

holy cow!  for all the badmouthing that so many do about Second Life, including some from us with the Openspace changes (and anytime that a significant monetary impact is made, criticism is bound to occur, and we defend those that do speak their mind), we must note that 2009 starts with a massively great impression of Linden Lab’s customer service! 

thanks TJ Linden - your attention, judgement, questions, and flexibility have helped this transition (TJ could have simply converted the sims today, but we know many have not had a chance to prepare their stuff yet)

what we fully expected would take weeks was responded to within 12 hours of creating a work ticket.

as we have previously discussed, we planned to submit these conversion tickets between Jan 2nd and 4th in order to avoid an unplanned expense of several hundred dollars (not Lindens, but USD) 

so . . . sim conversions (as listed in the previous post) will occur on Monday.

Openspace conversion order placed

the order for converting Ener Westar, Ener Skerry, Enercraig Vesper, Enercraig, Ener Hesperus, Ener Sound, and Enercay Midkey has been placed

everyone currently on those sims was given a notecard tonite.  Linden Lab is unable to provide an exact date and say they will do it within 10 business days (latest blog post).  If you leave your things on any of those sims they will be returned (in theory) to your lost and found folder, typically as coalesced objects.

LAST MINUTE EDIT:
Linden Labs is able to convert the sims today and many of you have not had time to move your items. I have asked for a delay till Sunday nite and await their response.

thank you for all of your support, it is humbling how sweet you have been in all of this turmoil.  it’s also exciting to set up the new sims as soon as they get here and the estate is actually growing by a quarter of a full sim (7 are getting converted into 2 full sims which is the same as 8 openspace, lol, but we still pay an additional $250 USD to make up for the “missing” sim)  edit to the edit: Monday Jan 5th is the date

the notecard goes over this same info plus has some specific info for those affected.

you are the reason sl is so wonderful and pics of all the sims are online at our flickr site, truly incredible builds and we know that even more fantastic ones will come soon  :)

and on another note, here is a comment that made our day, it’s awesome to have such great friendships and feedback:

Just wanted to say.. thanks for all your work on the iliveisl website, blogs, and Flick pics.
I do love keeping up with SL and your sims, and you make it easy… and beautiful.

Thanks DW  =D

Looking back to look ahead

phew, what a year!

M Linden wrote nicely about the past year and new goals and now we will too  :)

enerville was the first sim on the estate and sat empty for a long time.  often we wondered if we would ever see anyone *crickets and tumbleweeds*  now we have so many fantastic residents that have built so many wonderful things o_O (411 pics)

and there have been some trying times as well.  the openspace dealio really rocked us and you badly.  but . . . (and it’s a big but – derrr) . . .  out of that will come greater stability and value.  it forced us to take a hard look at our options, and decisions were based on what would help the estate thrive and grow (meaning how can we keep peeps happy or even make them happier).  before the openspaces ever even existed in Second Life, we had published our estate plans.  and now we are back on track with those original plans.

and yes, it does mean losing many of our pretty sims (not to mention both your work and ours in shaping them) but that is old history now.  it’s up to us as individuals to decide how to frame it all. *blue pill or red pill*

sure, we could be bitter:

• “ahh, all that time terraforming gone”,
• “bah, this sux donkey b@!!s”,
• “holy cr@p, we are losing how much $$$ this month!!!”

but why not be:

• “hey, it was great for a while”,
• “it’ll be fun to rebuild and better too”,
• “maybe i should try megaprims out, at least that will shut Ener up”.

so with all of that, 2009 will be even better and more fun and just plain kick @$$, but that’s up to you and me

on that note, the snowman competition was most excellent!

Happy New Year from us and SL!  =D

iliveisl site gets content update

findingLand, originally uploaded by iliveisl

\o/ despite stoopid drama this afternoon (we are sooo lucky to not have much of that, thank god cuz it sux) we redid the content of the iliveisl website.

some had to be changed cuz of openspace changes in the next few weeks and some just needed updating

this page was added to help peeps find land for sale, but remember that the inworld map takes a like a day (seems like more at times) to update

anyway, have fun! *save the drama for your mama* :p

new sl splash page

finally saw the new sl site and it looks good! the sl blog gives more info here. as we said earlier, these types of moves are necessary for sl to stay out in front of the inevitable competition out there.  sometimes we get frustrated with Linden Labs (hard not too when it almost makes us go broke and we lose weeks of planning – both on the business front as well as time terraforming) BUT . . . in reading the book The Making of Second Life.  when you read it you realize that Linden Labs is making it up as they go along.  and that makes senses, who do they have to follow?  they are the leader in virtual worlds and moves like the website redesign are vital to stay fresh and drive new users

however, as flash people since 1999 or so, the page is not innovative (but still great).  it is reminiscent of the Barney’s sliding menu of like 2003.  everyone in the flash world went nuts for the sliding side to side action back in the day.  this is an oversimplification of what big spaceship has built so far, but for old timey flashers like us, it was not very “ooh and ahh”  :p

still well done though and should create a little bit of buzz (although we are fans of uber simplified interfaces – think Google)

Estate changes in January

it seems that i keep falling short on explaining the changes (see past posts) so here is goes . . .

1) Linden Labs openspace sim prices are going up by 70% (no extra prims, new scripting limits, and a 20 avatar limit)

2) Linden Labs is allowing us to convert openspace sims into full sims (like Enerville and Enercity sims) for free until January 5th (4 os sims make a full sim)

3) converted sims get wiped clean or disappear (four sims turn into one, meaning that three sims go away).  all items on those sims are auto-returned by Linden to your inventory as a coalesced object (unless you take them back first)

4) the conversion process takes up to 10+ business days and we have no way of knowing what day it will be

5) we will place conversion orders between Jan 2nd and 4th

6) it takes us a full day or two to prepare the new sim

what does that mean for you on some of the OS sims? we have spoken to everyone and many of you are open to the options

your sim is intact until sometime after January 5th (best guess is January 14th – 18th)

we are moving ahead with sim growth, in fact we added two new Enercity sims last month.  we will probably always have some OS sims because they are wonderful, it’s just that they will cost more and we must offer a great value to you

we set aside a sim as a model so that you can see what turns out to be a better value than we had thought possible

here is how we define value: price per prim followed by parcel layout (never have two parcels touching and always public space between lots).  take the monthly tier price and divide by the prims to get the price per prim.  you really buy prims and not square metres

we have the model slurl here and some pictures here (this sim is only up through the first week of January)

here is why it’s a good value compared to the new OS sim prices:  the lots are 4,096 sm to keep a wide public buffer between lots (use View > Property Lines to see that) and have 1,451 prims!  compare that to the 1,006 prims on current OS sims.  the tier is $10,500 (compare to $12,500 for OS) and if you pay 4 months you get 10% off so it’s $9,450 L per month

$6.51 per prim vs. $12.43 per prim (that’s a HUGE diff in value!!!)

here are the details:

Ener Caldera and Enercay Eastkey have already been converted into a city sim

Enercity Park was converted into a true OS sim (750 prims, 10 avatars)

Ener Westar, Ener Skerry, Enercraig Vesper, and Enercraig will be converted into a new full residential sim that will be where Ener Skerry is now (it will look almost identical to the sample sim in the slurl above)

Ener Hesperus, Ener Sound, and Enercay Midkey will be converted into a tropical sim in Midkey’s location (thank you brandi for your support!)  =)

if you live on any of those sims and stay, you will get a free month added to your tier.  if your tier comes due in January, or later, it will be at the new rate of $10.500 per month. we are softies and that loses money for us, but we would rather lose some money than lose you

the estate is actually growing with all of this (lol, trust us – our tier to LL is growing!)  :p

it’s up to all of us to decide what sl is individually to us.  we can look at this as an opportunity or as a big fat suckie thing.  we like to smile and look at this positively  =)

most affected tier boxes are locked and don’t worry about that for now, we want you to see the new layout before you pay.  if you are staying for sure, talk to us; 4 parcels are already reserved out of the nine coming and we will add another full one as needed

as always, have fun isl, even if you don’t stay with us, we wish you the very best in all your endeavors  :)

Winter is here!

sheesh it’s cold where we are!  20 degrees F in one spot and -15 C in the other!!!

but even so, winter is a pretty time of the year and sl is no exception.  Winterfaire is in full swing and you HAVE to go see the snowman building contest on the 22nd!  last year’s was fabulous (and lots of freebie stuff too).

and don’t miss the residents versus Lindens snowball fight either! so use that winterfaire link to get all the slurls and go explore a bit, you’ll see some fantastic and creative stuff.  and who knows . . . maybe you’ll enter the snowman building contest!  good luck and stay warm!  =D

Linden Labs continues to push forward

eager anticipation for the new sl web page by big spaceship! the initial user experience is super critical, in fact, a person makes up their mind about a website in a few milliseconds.  of course, sl is diff than a normal site cuz most peeps are specifically going there to try sl

but those first few milliseconds do affect the impression a new person forms of sl. why does it matter?  and why are they doing this and not working on the viewer? 

it matters for the overall success of SL and it’s naive to take a simple approach and think that the viewer is not being worked on.  as a biz, Linden Labs works on many, many fronts.  from the viewer to the way peeps communicate on the sl site to pricing to this, and way more

and in this economic time it would be easy for them to say “stop” we can’t spend right now, but the successful companies continue to move forward and that says a lot about Linden’s vison and passion.  and you can’t beat passion

so hats off to LL and they are working on ensuring they stay number one in virtual worlds  =D