Unfortunately I missed the beginning of the programme, with a presentation from Qarl Linden, but I saw the stupendous presentation by Anjin Meili, inventor of the Snurbomatic sculpty device, where he showed what could be done with converting bump maps into sculpties. The event was pretty crowded, and so the sculpty took a little while to resolve — but when it did! The result was a frieze that looked in SL almost the way it would in real life – it looked substantial and truly 3D, and not at all the same as a flat texture frieze has looked, to date, in world.

That there is a camaraderie between those who specialise in sculpty production in world was evident from the fact that they paid tribute to each other during the talks. Anjin was followed by Cel Edman, developer of sculptypaint, a fantastic free program which I have been using to make sculpties. He explained that he had only been in SL since May this year, but that he is an exceptional SL creator already was clear from his presentation.

We can apparently thank the fact that SL was down and Cel was too new to get into the Beta grid, for the development of Sculptypaint, as he explained. He gave some tips for Sculpty producers, recommending that they pay attention to the LOD (level of detail) rules which means that you see 32 by 32 XYZ up close and 16 by 16 by zooming out. His tip was to make the model 16 by 16 and then put the fine details in 32 by 32.

Cel’s second tip was to use aggressive texturing to make the sculpty look good. Cel was followed by Aminom Marvel, who talked about efficiency in sculpty design, and showed some amazing things. He recommended that creators should look at last-gen games to see how to use meshes in an economical way, and showed some examples of efficient use of sculpty prims.

The sofa shown above is two sculpted prims, which have been used to the maximum effect. The back of the back cushions has not been sculpted, allowing the vertices to be used for the side cushions instead, as it is hidden by the back of the other sculpty prim. He likened the technique to making balloon animals, use the minimum mesh required, then squish off that bit and make the next.

TheBlack Box, next demonstrated an automatic in-world sculpty production system which I had not seen before, and barely understood. It seemed to be good at producing organic shaped sculpties, and is currently for sale for $5000 lindens on SL Exchange. In the listing on SLX, TheBlack Box pays tribute to Cel Edman, Anjin and Elzbiet Meili, and invites others to collaborate to make sculpty-making easier for all. It seems to me that this is the best of SL, collaborating and moving projects forward together, supporting and helping those coming along behind.

The program continued beyond my UK bedtime, but it was obvious that there was an educated and interested audience crammed into the sim convergence on Dr Dobb’s island. The talks seemed to range from the very basics of what sculpties are, to technical approaches to changing the Level of detail which were above my head, and so the speakers appeared to have made an effort to make their talks relevant to every level of attender. I learned that it is possible to see the mesh in SL by pressing control + shift + r, which was an interesting experience! It may not be new to the technically equipped among my readers, but it was new to me.

I was impressed by the range of content, the speakers, and the way the event was handled by Dr Dobb’s staff, who welcomed and introduced each speaker. I have run events like this in SL, and it can be stressful and difficult to make a series of events seamless, but they managed this. I was also impressed with the performance of the sims given the number of people who attended.

Material from the event is going to be set up in the conference centre, but I recommend that you run, don’t walk, to Dr Dobb’s and register for the rest of the week’s programme of events.

I was building in NCC over the weekend, and came across a very annoying thing:  although I was wearing the right tag for the group the land is set to, if I tried to drag an object over a parcel border, I got a constant error message that told me that the parcel didn’t allow objects to be introduced.

It was tremendously annoying — I was building in the air, and couldn’t see the parcel boundaries.  In any case it seemed nonsensical, because I could originate blocks in that parcel, I just couldn’t drag objects across the border.

I had a sudden inspiration though — I had created the original block with a different tag on.  When I set the block to the right group, I was able to slide it over the parcel border again.

As far as I know, this is a change in the way things work … and I am not sure whether it is intended or not.  Currently a parcel owner can choose to allow all residents to build, introduce objects or run scripts, or they can allow only members of the group to do that.  In the past, checking to allow members of the group to build or introduce objects would have allowed anyone with the right group tag to do this.  Now it seems that not only do they have to be wearing the right tag, their objects have to be wearing the right tag too.

And I know that it’s a skill that some have gone through the painstaking documentation(s) to learn. Fortunately for the rest of us noob, we don’t have to do that anymore due to some of the basics being covered by others in nice easy formats. SlTutorials provides a nice one-stop shop to finding your basic design and development fundamentals. Not everything is in video format, but there are a couple of prim basics and advanced tutorials that are done and compiled in flash based videos (aka YouTube).

While the development bug hasn’t bit me yet, this definitely peaks my own interests lot more due to the ease of finding information in one source instead of parading myself all over the Internet to find it.

Have you been curious enough to learn, but haven’t had the inkling of where to begin? Perhaps here’s your chance.

I attended a class at Teazers Isle on how to do a dr. seuss type of hat that using a flex prim. The hat sways when I walk around and it looks quite funny. That was the first object I made with flex prims but wanted to create something by myself and play with the settings a bit.

So I figured out how to make a scarf which moves with the wind and when I move around. I don’t think it looks that great or sways correctly but for my first clothing type thing it’s ok for me. I also tried using the light feature on my scarf so I can see everything around me when it turns dark. The lighting is very easy to understand. Intensity for how bright the light will be. Pick a color for the light to show and the radius it will expand to. I am not too sure what the fallout option means so if someone can explain them or any of the options in the flex it would be very helpful! One thing I noticed is when I sit down my flexible scarf wants to go up sometimes. I’ll have to try some stuff to figure why it does that later.

I found a video that Tao Takashi did for his blog/vlog. Episode 2 shows off the flexible prims and lights in the preview grid before the update was done. He also has a new video of how the lights look inside the main grid after the update at his main page. ]]> http://www.vtoreality.com/2006/flexible-prims-and-lights/176/feed/ 0 http://www.vtoreality.com/2006/more-second-life-experiences/67/ http://www.vtoreality.com/2006/more-second-life-experiences/67/#comments Fri, 10 Mar 2006 10:15:30 +0000 JohnnyRS http://www.vtoreality.com/?p=67 Last post I showed some stuff I made in class. This time I will show some more stuff I made also will be talking a little about skinning. Yes I think I understand a little bit about skinning and making totally different looks. I was on the right track by using tattoos. I also have seen some crazy avatars walking around. I saw a butterfly in class one day and a dinosaur in another. I’ll try to explain how they might have done some of this in this post.

First I want to show off some things I made in class before I get to skinning. The classes I have been taken are from Teazers Island.

This is a working trampoline! It might not look like one but it does work like one! Just walk on it and it will bounce you up and down. The script was provided with the class materials.

This is an actual flying saucer! Get in it and you can fly it up and down. Right or left. Even has sound when it starts up! Everything was provided with the class except for the prims which they teach you how to create on your own. This has a lot of potential to make other flying vehicles.

This is a simple party hat. Was fun making the different shapes. We actually started making a huge hat and then resized it down. One thing I learned was to attach hats to your nose and then position it where you want it on your head so it won’t mess up your hair.

This is a fireworks display. It will shoot out fireworks to the sky when touched. Of course the scripts are provided in the class material. Made with 4 prims and with sound too! This was a lot of fun to make!

Here is a rocket that actually works. This one is a bit different from the firework display because when you touch it it will blast off and won’t come back. So had to make sure we had a copy of it in our inventory before we let it go. Has smoke comming out of it when it blasts off.

Before I finish this post I want to explain a little bit about skins. When I created my face skin I placed it on my face tattoo. Now I went to the templates at second life webpage for the different body templates. I placed the face template on my face tattoo, upper body to the upper body tattoo and lower body to the lower body tatoo. As you can see in the pictures you can see exactly where everything goes on your body! A couple of other things I have learned. You can attach prims on your body to make an entirely different looking person. I found one that turns yourself into a zebra! I have seen some avatars that are smaller than what you can resize your body to. I don’t know how to do those just yet. My best guess is it’s done by some transparency textures.

I have found some other interesting classes at Teazers. I just attended a business class on how to make money in second life. I found it very imformative and will talk about it later. There are scripting, clothes, avatar and particle classes also! Can learn so much!

There is this place called Teazers Island where they have classes on many different subjects. I mostly joined in the classes that taught how to make objects. All the classes are free by the way including all the supplies to make the objects! I’ll show you some stuff you can learn how to make also! Some of this stuff may seem simple to some but I am just learning how to do this and learned some interesting tricks. You can search in the events find window for “teazers” for upcoming classes.

This object is very useful when creating new objects or trying to fit on clothes or other objects! It’s called a “poser stand”, you can stand on it and move the camera around easily without moving your character. The instructor provided the textures and walked you through creating and manipulating the prims!

This is called a “poser ball.” I didn’t know what it was until I took the class. It allows you set up a pose, how you look, when sitting down or just standing in a certain way. Recently I took a class about making a cushion and we used a poser ball to have the character sit in different ways.

This object is from the first class I attended. It’s supposed to be a beachball which bounces around when moved. At this early stage I didn’t know how to stretch correctly so it came out deformed, but it did bounce around. The instructor provided the script for the bouncing to work.

Look it’s a fishbowl with animated fish! I learned how to create the fishbowl and was provided the fish. I don’t know if they have any classes on making fish yet. It was really interesting to see how all the different prims fit together. This one made me excited!

This is a cake that actually gives a user a piece of the cake for them to attach to their hand. This was more complicated than others cause there were two different objects tied together with a script. This was really interesting to me.

This was the coolest thing that I got to learn how to make! It’s a St. Patty’s day hat with clovers comming out of the hat. I was taught how to make the hat by manipulating prims. Once we created the hat we took the script and clover that was provided by the instructor and placed it in the contents of the hat! We didn’t go though too much about how to change the script but was taight how to slow it down. There are other classes which teach scripting.

This one was a bit too confusing for me. I was used to making big objects. The prims to make glasses were so small and I wasn’t good at moving the camera around. I fell behind and at the end of the class I got up to this point. The instructor suggested I should make bigger glasses so I can see how everything fits together easily. I am planning on trying this one again.

I just took this class this morning. An oriental table with cushions to sit on! This class really taught me a lot and shows how to use a poser ball for sitting on the cushions.

Teazers is also looking for instructors to help out. The instructors get paid for doing classes. This really seems an interesting way to make some money and provide a service to the community. I have more experiences to talk about but I think I filled up this space with too much anyway. Till next time!