Diclonius days

I find Residents who focus on a specific area of content creation and dedicate themselves to excelling at it, then advancing it to a place where it hasn't found itself before. Targeting overlooked niches isn't just a way to get a name for yourself, it's for the benefit of the community when your work gets increasingly noticed because it generates what I call possible maps — options weren't previously considered come into play, and you can do a lot more with that knowledge. For example, my fave trick of sitting on a prim and rotating it while taking snapshots for more dynamic angles. And even within the vast confines of a rapidly-expanding Grid, it reinforces that throughout it all, individual personality, talent, and drive can't be duplicated. The same when be true when we have 10 million registrants (today, we stand at almost 5.8 mil).

In continuing my role of showcasing such uniqueness, I'll share that Sabine Stonebender has attained mastery over animated textures. Seems simple enough: you drop a script in, and tweak a few parameters. But beyond this, when you assemble prims in various geometric alignments, you can create powerful, fluid sculptures which are a feast for your eyes, and bordering on optical illusions. Through Zero Point, a skyward installation not unlike The Crystal Maze, colors and motion run rampant, culminating in visual delights to be enjoyed by all visitors:

A fun thing here is that alone, some of these textures would look like hoary eyesores and not be the desired pattern you'd want to see on your neighbor's house. As animated textures, tho, they're entirely suitable.

Terraforming's also an art. I think it should have its own formal certification, because it's poorly understood: you only get the really exploratory land-shaping on Estates because the Mainland's range is limited, and even in today's big world, there aren't a lot of people who're called upon to terraform island after island. Add in the arcana of RAW files, the secrets of blending between the four height-mappable swatches you get, and it's a cauldron for crustethic cookery.

Intemptesta Nox has really organic terrain in a pleasant atmosphere, resembling a time before recorded history. It's done by Baron Grayson and Sue Stonebender, and they also have their own collections of primwares. On the right is a watermelon couch Baron recently gave to me. Very nice of him, and the texture looks very appetizing; naturally, it fits well with the landscaping he did. And there are more beauties there, as evidenced by my "Tiltshifta" snapshot which has been doing the rounds.

Also consider what open source means to you: to Arcadia Asylum, who's been seen staking out grungy builds 'cross the Grid, it means coming up with kickass taxi cabs and givin' 'em out for free. Arcadia leads a lineage of previous freebies steeped in influences like steampunk cruzz and Dickensian resourcefulness. I recall her once relating to me that her texturing work is done in an old copy of Microsoft Publisher. Quite fitting for this rat-queen of the slums! So yes, if you're looking to see what can be done with brokedown urban environments in Second Life, check out her streets and sewers. As always, I shine a light on these fine examples so more can be inspired.

International Resis continue to rise: Japanese have been beefing it up with the assemblage of their continents. Chief among these is the juggernaut known as Meltingdots. Let me confess my *blush* here because I IMed CEO Hiroshi Asaeda the other day to let him know I was realy enjoying his take on the orientation experience. He in turn told me he enjoys my video tutorials. I've also made friends from Japan who can't really read English, but they enjoy the photos on my blog — which encourages me to do more. Positive feedback loop!

Meltingdots is acquiring mad daily traffic. At 44,000+ when I checked yesterday and visible on the Popular Places list with Mature regions filtered out, it disappoints me that it's not covered more in the English-speaking media. I was also surprised to find no one had previously Snapzilla'd pictures of it, save Seagel Neville, but he's an observant and eclectic chap to begin with. So here I am, camera in hand:

The layout is very clean and easy-to-follow. There's a big sign which drops you in a path like a mice to follow (meant positively). It's intriguing because while the official LL Orientation Islands have moved to a "choose your own adventure" path, this is linear like the OIs of old. Decked around the island are panels with help for Second Life features, like the Preferences, which everyone touches. Gosh knows Meltingdots invested massive lollars, so I hope they're having a good time.

Also on the Japanese front, I came across this very toy-looking "SweetHouse":

I was taken aback by how pretty it looked from one of the teleport stations @ Meltingdots, and had to see it in 3D so I could camscan.

I was also delighted to see the work of Randy Kamaboko's FORCE dev team:

With an eye for this excellence, I recognized the blue interlay of squares on the floor as a certain Filter Forge filter. I IMed Randy, and he graciously told me he also likes FF! Small world — if you're in Second Life and use Filter Forge, be sure to let me know. Randy also likes my vidtuts, so that was a great icebreaker to start chatting. He doesn't have a lot of his builds up on the Grid yet, but with kewl, color-coordinated architecture like this, I'd like to see him do a Cybertronian city, or something in the spirit of Tekwar (I admit I liked that TV series!).

Strolling along, you can see excellent primwork like this:

Come inworld and see if you can figure out how these tricky shapes were done. Unfortunate that it isn't yet easier to do this and apply textures, because it looks kinda flat otherwise.

Speaking of flat, I'm on the watch for good usages of placeholder textures. Wish we could set a default texture, because plywood challenges depth perception and without fading at the edges like great placeholders have, it's difficult to tell where some prims start and others end. During my teleport testing, I came across a very well-built "shopping castle" using a single placeholder texture — the archetypical white square with grayed edges — and wonder if this is going to be the "final cut" or if it'll be painted with a new coat of textures. Reason I ask is because intriguingly enough, placeholder textures can sometimes look clean and compelling enough to be that final cut. Judge for yourself:

This structure vaguely reminded me of that difficult game, Prince of Persia, with its traps and pitfalls.

Kurosawa Sands has a good sense of humor:

Keeping our revised trademark usage guidelines in mind, I can't ever say I've seen our eye-in-hand look so joyous before.

'Course, I'm not just limited to JP creations in my jaunts. Shortly afterwards, I found a very beautiful German town:

I wonder why more noteworthy Second Life machinima isn't being made by now; with shooting locations like this and no need for tax breaks , the world's really your oyster. Then again, as it often is, it just takes the right individuals, or small teams, to create something and have it excel on a much wider basis. Some term this "The Haloid Effect". Trips me out how we can just make something, plunk it down, then others can walk around and comment on it.

I had a good time @ the Dreams Community Fair's Linden Dunk:

When it was my turn up on the tank, I changed avs every time I got sunk. I must've cycled through 7 or 8. I also compiled 21 pictures into a set. Wish we had a one-click way of sending postcards, similar to how we can take snapshots rapidly with Ctrl-`.

Back into the heart of Japan-in-Second-Life, I revisited Metabirds, a fave mall of mine (I wonder if the design is based on a "real" location) for its open-air environment and elegance. The assortment of who's selling what's changed since last time I visited — you never quite know what rare need will be fulfilled.

In Shimokitazawa, it was very quiet, but I observed uniqueness in the city, including intersecting layers of roadway. We don't see busy superhighways, let alone regular 2-laners in SL, so this struck me as very special:

Yup, that's Arcadia's cab in the 2nd shot. Nighttime here felt kinda seedy and dangerous, but that couldn't be confirmed with my lone-ness. My thoughts turn to NPCs, and how they could vitalize empty areas. It'll become more important, I'm sure.

Really nice car models by LUCA Rosmer, an "EM BKT-9" and "EM 69 CAM":

Look at the underside of the left one: I wonder if he was influenced by Francis Chung's pioneering work putting a colored shadow under the aptly-named Dominus Shadow?

Curious Kitties, run by Ameshin Yossarian (also of Japanese extraction) has expanded into Cutie Land, which is engulfed by a giant 256×256 cube with animated textures on it. Watching them make their way across the surface and greening out the sun is quite the sight:

Nearby in Deviant Kitties, I came across more slummage (see, connections!):

I admire the effort it takes to arrange junk. You can't just dump stuff in; it has a certain look. And the textures must be varied enough to break up optical monotony, which looks too computerlike. My early days in SL were spent living in dumpsters, so I know where I'm coming from.

Before we move on, let me just opine that I don't really find Search > Places that useful. Most times, I do technically see results, but it's not the same as actually finding what I'm looking for. Often, the images in Places don't represent a location well, or are essentially a billboard, so it costs resources to TP over and find out. In my earlier days, I did this more, but I'm usually crunched for chrono, so I've learned a more trustworthy means of discovering kewl stuff is looking in Profile > Picks tab. Even if someone lists their friends, this gives you a lead to followup on.

It was thus through the aforementioned LUCA's profile that I came across this fun, low-lag racetrack @ Mooz. I saw him zipping around with some other speed addicts, cars blazing by so fast it was difficult to get a camlock on them. Nevertheless, I eventually prevailed. And in coming here, I got some dramatic action shots:

And yeah, I did some like… you guessed it…

Hee.

Here's something else I haven't seen a lot of: sports action photography. We may not have live zoom blurs, but I've not really seen pictures of cars in motion, or basketball players slam dunkin', or even capturing the audience at a golf game. Clearly, some dynamics are different within SL, but nevertheless, we have so much that's fun to observe in motion: I think part of the challenge is being persistent enough to develop the requisite skills needed to snapshot at high velocities. I often multitask voraciously, more than I'd like to when sending postcards, because my left hand becomes a SUPAH MACRO CLAW! and helps me expedite repetitive functions like taking pictures and… taking more pictures.

On a different note, we don't have enough stores with distinguished color schemes. But I came to Book Off, which is kinda like America's Chapters, and boy do they have color in spades:

No earth tones here, no sirree. From above, they look very SimCity-ish:

It almost sounds like a profanity you'd exclaim at someone, isn't it? "BOOK OFF!" Alas, as I climbed the steps to the upper floors, I found myself in a maze with no apparent purpose. Wonder if they're still under construction and have yet to implement functionality, or if I missed something else. Overall tho, it caught my attention.

And then, I noticed I had a landmark to Cellar Proper in my inv. I don't recall who gave it to me — thanx! — and while I'm not sure of the purpose of this place (I've inquired with Outy Banjo, the proprietor), I like the run-down school atmosphere. It's like a Silent Hill-meets-Buffy-meets-Resident Evil affair.

Outside was happier, tho a creep of gloom fogged over me. I felt like I was the last survivor of a scorched Earth, similar to Stephen King's The Stand. An odd assemblage of roadsides, a decrepit dwelling, and power lines may reveal clues as to what happened to the former inhabitants.

 

If that feels too isolated, you can always join the circus, which now reminds me of another Stephen King tome, It…

… but ya don't have to be pennywise to realize what's happening all around you. Context is often taken for granted, and by heightening your awareness of both the fine details and the overarching structure, the trees AND the forest, your Second Life will be endowed with a more progressive, fun outlook. In doing so and sharing what excites you, you reward yourself, and those you care about.

Tagged as: General, Inworld Exploring