Avi Choice Awards | SL’s Christmas Expo: Lotsa Steelheaders Nominated!

The Avi Choice Awards is the premier annual awards presentation recognizing the people and talent of SL’s amazing creations, completely chosen and voted on by SL residents. 2011 Avi Choice Awards response was tremendous and the websites saw an amazing 35000 visits and an staggering number of votes.The Avi Choice Awards will be presented during the Avi Choice Program held at The Christmas Expo, in the Auditorium, on Friday evening, December 14th, at 6pm SLT. NOTE: This is a black tie/formal event.

via Avi Choice Awards | SL’s Christmas Expo

A number of my friends and neighbors in Steelhead are up for nominations in the Avi Choice awards – they’re great people and the competition is fierce, because some of them are up against very well known Second Life avis in their categories.

Whoever your favorite creators, builders, entertainers, and other folks are, be sure to drop by and vote.

Kipling Rock on the Clackamas River: Add Rock, Blend Well

After watching, re-watching, and re-re-watching “how to use Blender in Second Life” videos, mostly from Machinimatrix.org, and then trying to practice making blobs, I had something of a breakdown the other day… and then a breakthrough.

First the breakdown: I tried and failed numerous times to create and bake a simple sculptmap of a blob. It was just a practice blob, and I got it to work ONCE, which was encouraging. But every other time, the steps seemed to be different. Things weren’t on the menu that had been there before. My inner volcano erupted, and much screaming, bad language, and tears of frustration ensued (luckily no one else was home except the cat, who wisely chose to remain upstairs).

Finally, exhausted, I nearly took to my bed in despair – frustration has been the end of many a project. But then I thought, “well, it can’t hurt to just ask for help in the Blender group inworld.”

Much to my surprise, my plaintive question was answered by Gaia Clary herself, who made most of the videos I’d been watching on and off for the last 3 days (and for months and years before THAT). And I was given encouragement by Eleanora Newell, who teaches many Blender (and other building-related) classes inworld.

It was a simple bug – I had downloaded and installed Blender 2.64 (with the Primstar-2 addon scripts for Second Life sculpties). There’s a bug that prevents the sculpt map from rendering in the program (which I had actually read about in various blogs). The solution is to re-install a slightly earlier version, 2.63a – and WA-LA, I could make sculpt maps. I literally cried for joy, because this… blockage of mine with Blender has really been holding me back for quite a while.

It was like “shriek! shriek! shriek! bellow! holler! cry! cry!” followed by resignation and simply asking for help from people who know more than you do, and then there’s that “ohhhhh” moment when you calm down and realize you were DOIN IT WORNG all along. And then it’s all better.

So then, I had to deal with the frustrating issue of my own lack of skill as a modeler in Blender – the controls are odd and take some getting used to. But I realized that the only way to learn the thing is to treat it like… music or sewing lessons. You have to repeat, repeat, repeat until the motion is natural, the note is pure. If not, you rip it out, you stop and do it again. So rather than beating up on myself (literally) I just kept trying, watching videos, repeating, and trying again.

Gradually, slowly, I realized that some of the things I’d been trying to learn were finally being retained and integrated. Other concepts were starting to make a kind of sense. So now, finally, I’m making slow progress.

The view from the side…

The view from the shore end… you have to wade out to climb up on the rock.

In the course of this struggle, I managed to learn how to load background images, and more importantly, how to get them to appear (hint: you have to be in the orthographic view orientation, because they are displayed only in that mode).

Yes, it’s a rough approximation. I’ve saved the file a couple of different ways and I’ll keep working on it to make it look as much like the original, roughly shaped sedimentary rock as possible. I’ve already got a “fishing” animation script or two, and will be setting the rock in the pool near Dhughan’s parcel, with a couple of poseballs for sitting on the rock fishing, and perhaps sunning oneself. It looks like I might even have a spot to put an exploding seagull (landlady Tensai has flocks of exploding seagulls, they’re a local curiousity). But in any case, PROGRESS. Strangely enough, after playing around with much more complex “ready-made” shapes within Blender, it was a simple 6-face cube that gave me a starting point. That, and a tutorial for building mesh or sculpted virtual shoes, but it was helpful for showing how a simple box could be extruded, subdivided, cut, pushed, pulled, squashed, copied, and mirrored.

You should know that although I’ve tinkered with Blender for at least 2 years, and I’ve taken quite a few classes, I have never actually been able to make much of anything. This is mostly because my unwillingness to tackle this legendarily complex program has made me feel very… intimidated and anxious about trying to do something with it. I could sort of follow in class, but not work in Blender. But if I tried to work and take the class at the same time, I’d get frustrated and angry, and often “rage-quit!” GRRR!! Also, it was partly because the basic classes I needed most were the ones I never could seem to catch. It’s very frustrating when you see a class is being offered, get there about 5 minutes in, and the instructor refuses to give the link to the “shared media” to anyone that didn’t get there 10 minutes in advance, or to anyone that missed the “Blender Basics N00bs Only” class that’s rarely offered at all. That was another source of frustration.

Yet I felt the need to actually make things that were MY things, and not someone else’s creation (although I will say I’m pretty good at texturing someone else’s purchased or gifted sculpt map). I’ve also flirted with Tokoroten and Rokuro, 2 pretty weird Japanese sculpted prim programs, and I tried and failed to make heads nor tails of poor old Sculptypaint, which I’ve only been able to use to make rocks and flowers and maybe stairs. I mean, I’ve never managed to make much headway with any of these programs, and I’ve probably watched dozens of videos and written notes and taken classes.

Finally, this project seems to have fallen into my lap from the heavens. For several reasons, I have a personal connection to this interesting little detail of a literary giant’s life: it’s just an ordinary rock in an ordinary river, in the state that inspired my home town in Second Life, Steelhead St Helens. A chance conversation with a friend led me to this interesting fact: Rudyard Kipling had a good time fishing on the Clackamas River one day. He wrote about it, went on to write more wonderful things, won the Nobel Prize for literature, and entered into literary glory. Meanwhile, back on the ordinary river, the people in the area remembered the funny writer-man Kipling and how he had fished the river, and somehow a big rock became known locally as “Kipling Rock.” A friend doing research on other aspects of Kipling’s life realized that Kipling had a connection to specific places in Oregon, and that Kipling was familiar with Northwest Coastal Indian culture and myths. The story of the rock and how it was connected to Kipling’s travel writing was brought to the attention of the geographical movers and shakers in the state, and now it’s officially “on the map” as a place name.

The rest of the weekend will be spent modeling to get the basic shape more like the original, experimenting by uploading “test rocks” (for free) to my Open Sim grid I have on my desktop computer, and learning how to get the textures assigned, mappped, whatever.

At this point I’m not sure if this will be a “sculptie,” (there’s an option to “sculptify” a model made with non-sculpty base shapes) or if it will actually end up being (gulp) mesh. That’s something I’ve never dared think of trying, but… well, I’ve been watching more videos. At this point, my “Kipling Block” is just that, very blocky. But I should be able to make it look better in a few days. Of course, I could grab a couple of open-source sculpted rocks from the pre-fab build I have on the Open Sim grid, and squash them around into a vague approximation of the shape. However, to do justice to the research and hard work done by so many people, not to mention the great writer himself, it seems best if I overcome my squeamishness with Blender and make something really worth doing. In addition to that, there will be a book to put together (there are these flip-books that can be read inworld, very interesting) and some texturing to work on in GIMP to make things look nice (some of my own photos from Oregon road trips may come in handy). Finally, I’ll have to deal with making the sculpt or mesh “walkable,” which is no problem.

It’s actually been pleasant working with Blender today, in contrast with yesterday’s desk-pounding screaming-meemee nervous breakdown. It’s a good thing I made the breakthrough before something got broken.

Getting Back Inworld… Real Soon or Immediately Right Now

Yes, there’s been a lot going on in my First Life. Nothing bad, just stuff that was interesting or engaging. Of course, the election news was good for me and other reality-based life forms. And also mundane things like new episodes of favorite television programs, family get-togethers on weekends, and one or two very sad events that really brought everything to a halt for a while. After that, it was easier to just watch TV and read news and blogs.

I’m inworld now, goofing around in Cafe Wellstone watching the People’s Bailout show with Lizz Winstead. I just happened to get in while it was happening. Interesting event. Especially when the Catholic nuns got on stage and kind of recited statements in favor of debt relief to the cheers of the techno-hipster crowd.

Also, that female mariachi band WAS AWESOME.

New #SecondLife Premium Membership Gift Aeroplane – Also 50% Off Membership

Hmm, this little one-seater biplane looks pretty sweet, and I’m told the animations are cute. Second Life has been working lately to make being a Resident fun again (aside from the bug reports that aren’t interactive anymore and the lack of communication by the Markeptplace team with Merchants.

Anyway, this gift is free to paid members and people with “concierge” level membership (ie they own entire islands and estates and pay a boatload of monthly tier (which most try to make up with rents or product sales).I might have to check it out using one of my viewers that has an enhanced mini-map (it’s either Dolphin or Singularity or Firestorm….)

Link: Take to The Skies of Second Life in Your Airplane,… – Second Life

Category Changes for Second Life Marketplace – Virtual Food Categories NOMNOMNOM

An interesting development – Ciaran Laval noted that Second Life Marketplace is running some kind of contest to name new Female Skins subcategories – the prize is $L2489, enough to pay for a month of front page ads.

Of more specific interest – some of the things I make (fountains, floor lamps and desk lamps) are going to have their own categories.

My friend Mistletoe might possibly be interested in the new expanded Food and Drink categories. Hmm.

Recreation and Entertainment/Food and Drink
Add “Food”. Under “Food”, add the following
:

  • Add “Fruits & Vegetables”
  • Add “Vegetables”
  • Add “Meat, Fowl & Seafood”
  • Add “Desserts”
  • Add “Cookies & Snacks”
  • Add “Breads”
  • Add “Breakfasts and Cereal”
  • Add “Canned Goods”
  • Add “Candy”
  • Add “Full Meals”
  • Add “Dairy”
  • Add “Grains & Pasta”
  • Add “Condiments”
  • Add “Spices & Baking”
  • Add “Sandwiches”
  • Add “Fast Food”

Add “Drinks” Under “Drinks”, add the following:

  • Add “Coffee & Tea”
  • Add “Soda”

Add “Alcoholic Beverages”. Under “Alcoholic Beverages”, add the following:

  • Add “Beer”
  • Add “Wine”
  • Add “Liquor”
  • Add “Water”
  • Add “Juice”
  • Add “Milk”

via Marketplace/2012 Category Changes – Second Life Wiki

Grant the God-Fearing, Tooth-Challenged, Cousin-Wives and Uncle-Husbands of Texas’ Petition to Secede from the US

Earlier, my friend the General @JC_Christian filed a petition. He asks that:

The People of the Great State of Texas are tired of the Government of the United States coming around here with their fancy, high-falutin notions about dental care, non-cousin-marrying, nasal breathing, Lubbock invading, and tolerance toward the unheartlandishly-hued, sodomitarians, and not-men.A petition has been filed with White House to "peacefully grant the State of Texas to withdraw from the United States of America and create its own NEW government." Currently, that petition has 8,646 signatures. That’s nearly half the population of the United States according to God-fearing conservative statistician Dick Morris.

via Grant the God-Fearing, Tooth-Challenged, Cousin-Wives and Uncle-Husbands of Texas' Petition to Secede from the US | We the People: Your Voice in Our Government

The Term for Steam Train In Japanese is Esu Eru, Or SL

Fun fact: as I’m interested in Japanese culture, steam powered rail, AND I’m a Second Life (SL) resident it amuses me to stumble onto this: the slang or colloquial term for “steam train in Japanese is “esu eru” which is a transliteration of the letters “SL” which probably stand for “steam locomotive” in English. Weird, but fun, right?

SL esu eru, short for steam locomotive – steam train

The hiragana (Japanese syllabary characters used for foreign words for this is:

きしゃ

That’s it, just a little germinatin’ going on.

via How the Japanese chop up English | Teflnet

Also, check out this fashion blog I ran across: STEAMPANKU! (Steampunk!)

Kipling Rock on the Clackamas River: Virtual Project for Steelhead St Helens in Second Life

My building skills are pretty rusty at the moment, and I need something to inspire and motivate me. A chance conversation with a friend led me to this:

Kipling Rock on the Clackamas River in Oregon

Hands bloodied and soaked from the waist down, Rudyard Kipling was happy. Not just happy, “utterly, supremely, and consummately happy,” the famed author wrote, lying on the bank of the Clackamas River next to the first salmon he’d ever caught.

Today, historians and fishermen say it was actually steelhead Kipling and his two companions nabbed that day in June 1889, but it’s a minor discrepancy in an otherwise fondly written account of the trip that has resonated with anglers and local residents for more than a century.

On Saturday, Kipling’s famously happy day on the Clackamas River near Carver will be commemorated when the Oregon Geographic Names Board is set to officially name a landmark boulder near where he fished “Kipling Rock.”

Link: Kipling Rock on the Clackamas River to be officially named in honor of famed author’s fishing trip | OregonLive.com

Let’s see: Oregon, steelhead, Carver… there’s a project in there somewhere.

I think my rusty but adequate building skills are up to the task to making a rock. And some water. And maybe some feesh, and a feeshpole. It would look nice on either my bit of land in Steelhead St Helens on the river side, or on Dhughan’s bit where he’s got parkland on the lake by a running stream. I could add an information signboard with links to the scholarly stuff my friend pointed out to me, and maybe create a readable book with the Oregon chapters of Kipling’s travelogue (his work is out of copyright). The time period is right, there’s historical photos galore, and it fits with another project I’ve had in mind for my little bit of Steelhead.

Now maybe I’ll finally figure out how to make a blobby sort of rock thing in Blender, and texture it. Seems simple enough…


UPDATE: November 19

Having some success with Blender at last, and just now ran across the official Oregon Geographical Naming Board meeting page with more information about Kipling Rock (and a much larger version of the color photo). It appears that this project can go forward over the Thanksgiving holiday. Thanks to Ms. Debra Wynn’s research and perseverance, a literary landmark exists in a small but pretty place in Oregon, and I hope to create a similar landmark in virtual form in Second Life.

Wish me luck, I’m off to crash the server!

In the meantime, there’s a pretty amusing and interesting biographical sketch here.

Nice article about @rodvik and #LindenLabs and #SecondLife and Creativity and STUFF!

As it happens, it’s my fifth rezday today, but the silly typist had some ridiculous singing practice thing and then was procrastinating on a web project.

But hey, here’s another example of “good press” for Rod Humble, Linden Labs, Creatorverse, Patterns, and oh, yeah, Second Life.

It makes perfect sense that Humble would wind up at Linden Lab, the company best known for the virtual world Second Life. It’s as successful a canvas for the communal creation of a virtual world as there’s been. It’s been a viable digital canvas for about a decade now has been populated by users who make their own buildings and vehicles, who design contraptions, contort physics, stage elaborate events, form societies, and pioneer the art of inhabiting elaborate second skins that express inner or otherwise impossible creativity and desires.

Humble became CEO at Linden Lab almost two years ago. The release of Patterns is the first product of his tenure there. It’s a $10 download for now. It’s very early on, but buying now ensures people—"founders"—will get the updates and eventually the finished thing. It’s the Minecraft model.

via Forget Playing Games. Meet the Man Who Wants to Empower You to Make Games

I like the description of SL, and a commenter notes,

Bravo Kotaku, the first Second Life article I have read here that didn’t refer to anything sordid.

Rod Humble is doing great stuff at LL, I for one have been thoroughly enjoying Patterns and cannot wait to try Creatorverse.