Amazingly, I have been working on something in Blender and actually have something to show for it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’ve been obsessing about Blender lately, but not actually working in Blender. But I needed to get my head and hand back in the game, so here’s what I have so far. It will be a simple thing with a ribbon hatband, and possibly flexi-feathers on the side. I was thinking about doing one, and then saw a local production of the musical “Ragtime,” and was struck by the sight of many wondrous hats (gent’s bowlers, working-man’s bowlers, and 2 different kinds of top hat shapes).

This project started out as a sphere, extruded downward. I was stuck for how to make the brim and had to remind myself how to extrude radially and also how to fix the problem I keep having with “cancelled extrudes result in zero-space faces.” That one I had to fix with something called “clean up/degenerate dissolve” which sounds rather naughty.

In other virtual world news, I had been interested in using Open Sim again, but my old method using either New World Studio (defunct) or Sim on a Stick seemed to be dead. But the amazing Ferd Frederix (Fred Beckhusen)  has a simple solution available from his Outworldz  site. I got it working a few days ago, without the ability to hypergrid (teleport to other grids). And loaded up some old OARs (content) and found some new ones to play with. But then last night I enabled hypergrid, hopped to a few sims, picked up some free stuff, made some new outfits, and even created some skin files from free templates.

And then, sadly, I disabled hypergrid in an excess of caution, and now I can’t get logged in again. Perhaps Ferd will help me out with a little one on one coaching; I did something I shouldn’t have and of course with me a little knowledge leads to either success by sheer dumb luck, or abject failure. It’s something dumb that I happened to do right before but can’t figure out how to recreate whatever I did before that was right. (eyes rolling so hard).

No pictures yet; my workspace area looks much like it did but I’ve torn out most of the ugly old system trees and plan to rebuild my old St Helens shop building in mesh. I had previously exported it but it’s a mess of joined prims and extra faces and vertices, so probably best to start clean and simple. I’ve been reading the SL community forum on mesh creation and have a dim idea of what best practices have evolved to be.

I do plan to revive my “castaway on a desert island” narrative but of course that is the one OAR that I cannot find, from this picture:

For a future building project I’m hoping to advance to where I can recreate a little chapel I visited on a trip once: it would make a nice wedding chapel (online weddings are still a thing?).

For a continuing building project, I’m determined to make a better job of the holiday bunting I made in mesh 2 years ago; my modeling skills (such as they were) get rusty and also I struggle with the mouse options I have (trackball mice are tricky in Blender).

And this new project: it’s a simple hat, I’ve managed to make and then fix some common errors and I only ragequit once. Next, I need to get the hatband added, probably as a separate piece to be turned into something approximating grosgrain ribbon. Will need to do proper LODs and a physics cube (probably a cylinder is overkill for a worn attachment).

Meanwhile, I’m late in getting a March group gift out, but have a feeling it’s going to be green.

In Steelhead Bay, things are rather quiet, but plan on checking in there to see what events are planned this week. I did go to wonderful event to celebrate the opening of Elysium, with music by Gabrielle Riel.

And Dhughan? He’s such a slacker. He’s got mesh madness of his own.