Caturday Naps

Having a lazy Caturday. I hope you have a good one, too.

zzzZZZz ... cheezeburgr ... zZZZzzz

zzzZZZz ... no no no don' leik mouses ... zZZZzzz

oh. hay, baby. I was dreamin' 'bout you.

Monday Meme: Helpful Tools

My first post in the Monday Meme series for 2014 is going to be short and probably not terribly sweet as, like the "Prank" meme I skipped last week, it barely applies to me sinceI really don't have any special HUDs that I use on a regular basis. Let's backtrack a bit and see what Strawberry Singh has to say on the topic on her blog ...

Meme Instruction: Share a screenshot of your viewer setup and/or a list of tools/HUDS you guys use to make your Second Life experiences better. Don’t forget to leave a comment in this post with a link so we can all come and stalk you. If you share a screenshot, feel free to share them in the Blog Memes flickr group.

... and with that setup, here goes:

Photographed at Splash, a public pool in Bay City (SLurl).

My day-to-day HUDs include an AO and a hugger. Which AO depends on the outfit with some stock from the maker and some cobbled together by me. The hugger is a Meike Hug &Kiss 2.02 Deluxe Full, a fabulous full-perm freebie that at one time sold for some L$450 and I bought one for each of my alts and several friends. About a year later the 100% discount kicked and a year after that it was changed to No Copy and the price bumped up to L$195 (see here). Crazy world, huh? I use the full-perm free one and put the paid-for one in storage.

That's about it, really. I keep the Mini-map open at almost all times though I don't really need it. Just an old habit. I don't use my Mysti-Tool. For pictures I will usually tack on AnyPose Basic HUD v1.52 (L$1500; see here) to adjust the position of body parts and my expression (especially eyes) or the free expression/eyes version (see here). Often, though not always as you can tell by the pic, when I'm in swimwear I attach Siggy's The Swimmer HUD (L$400; see here).

About the only regular HUD I use beyond the AO and the hugger is for my Maine Coon Cat furry avatar. It's for eye color, mouth opening, and ... well, you can see most of it above in the shot that the viewer kept cropping for me no matter how I adjusted things.

So, there you go. Short and dull. I'll try to be more exciting next time.

Happy Furs-Day!

Happy Furs-Day!!

Happy Furs-Day from the New Port Yacht Club (SLurl) where I recently installed a kayak rezzer (not pictured, natch) for public use!

Poultry '12 - Choice

Recently I've been spending quite a bit more time as a Furry Maine Coon Cat, an adorable avatar that really suits who I am. But I'm also very much myself when I'm in my human form. That's why with this election season upon us I'm going to give YOU, Dear Reader, the choice. Vote in Comments for Uccello the Furry (the candidate on the left) or Uccello the Human (the candidate on the right). The winner will reign for as my primary avatar for the next four years or until whenever something comes up. (Chicago residents may vote only once each, even the dead ones. All taxes, gratuities, liabilities, and subsequent fees are probably bogus. The management of this establishment is not responsible. Quando omni flunkus, moritati.)

Furry Uccello promises to "... bring Kyoot to life ebery day! Ebery day will be like Caturday!! Two noms in every pot and belly rubz for eberyone!" While she acknowledges that the Furry community is often discriminated against, she promises that there is no place for enmity in her furrin' relations policy. "We're all people under the mesh," she says. "My wife is a human, you know, though sometimes she's a wolfer and every now and then a ferret. But I love her in any form and I respect whatever form you choose, too."

Human Uccello is also no stranger to changing forms. You'll often see her as a sea dragon in the Blake Sea or soaring over forests as a bird, but basically she's modeled her avatar to look like her Real Life self. "In the end," she says, "we are who we are. I may often wear animal ears and tails like Halloween is every day, but I'm still a simple Irish girl ... pale, freckled, and very ginger." As for what she would like to accomplish during her administration, Uccello the Human had little comment. "I've been pushed by my advisors to 'put the sex back in sexy' but rubbing pixels isn't everything. Basically, I want to build things and participate in the Bay City community as well as the Second Life community as a whole."

There's the basics so the campaign has begun. This blog is negotiating with both camps to set up a debate, arrange appearances, and canvas The Grid. But you can vote now, if you want. Just go to Comments below and choose a candidate. Too soon for you? Leave questions for the candidates to answer. Preferably questions they can answer. Nothing like "What's the covalence of the fermium isotope?" because its clear from just that sentence that they have no clue about chemist trees. So hit up the Comments and let's get this campaign underway.

Just What I Needed

Just what I needed, another avatar. But after not being too happy with Luskwood's July update to their domestic kitty avatar (Web), I figured I should go shopping. But I waited. And waited. And spent money on a gosh-awful-but-worth-it boat (Web). But after watching the video that I featured on this blog late last month (Web), I decided to find the furry striped cat avatar in the video. So here she is ...

My friends at the Lucky Kitty Crew (Web) helped me track it down. Apparently, what you see is really a chinchilla by Uchi Desmoulins of Curious Avatars (SLurl). Yep. Not a cat. Until you apply the mod kit created by Puppy Resident (mod kit & original avatar available at SLurl). I just had to apply some textures, swap out some bits, find some hair and clothes, then tah-daaaahhh! I'm a Maine Coon Cat!!

Which is pretty good as I live in Maine and I like cats (two sleep with me every night). I set the eye color to match those of my RL cats (Web) plus the coloring I picked has shades of what my RL cats have, too. But in this pic I'm not wearing the glasses I adapted so you can be sure to see the beautiful eyes. Pretty good chance that if my wife is not in-world, I'll be wearing this avatar. *thrusts her paws in the air and shouts "I'm adorable!!"*

Sorry, but I have to do this

Normally I don't "do" trendy, but this video is so nicely produced. Thank you, Soni!

 

Updated Luskwood Cat

Quite some time after several new furies were introduced by Luskwood and other species were updated, a staple of the line, the Domestic Cat, has just received an update, too. Version 3 is out and here is a quick comparison.

The edition I acquired in 2007 is absolutely adorable, but there isn't a sculpty bit to be seen anywhere on it. By most any standard it appears to be crude despite some clever prim manipulations.

The hair pictured here is a basic mod of the standard hair. I made several variations and modified several other hair styles from my closet to fit just this head. Note the multiple overlapping prims around the muzzle, a technique necessary to give the required shape. Unfortunately, the prims have different surface angles to the light makes them look odd.

The hair pictured below on the 2012 cat, Version 3, is also standard, but by using sculpties it looks far smoothers and more natural. Same with the hair tufts behind the cheeks and in the ears. In fact, a liberal use of sculpties everywhere makes the cat face far more realistic.

For this picture I used the slitted eyes option, though round pupils are far cuter. Either way, the pupils can dilate randomly or with the region sun setting. The join at the nose bridge is obvious because the head is not one piece, but I've already starting taking advantage of this by modifying various head pieces to make the face unique. I'll also have to modify some extra body parts that I added to the older version if I want to use them with this one because the skin texture is now "furry" instead of solid white. Same with several sets of clothes because v3 offers digigrade legs as an option.

Generally, the new avatar is very nice. The numerous new features and construction methods make this one of the nicest Furry avatars I've seen. Certainly a welcome and long-overdue upgrade. But The smile on the old version is just sooooo adorable that I'll likely keep using that version for some time to come with the new version.

Did you remember?

Did you remember that today was Fursday?

Fursday & Community

Today was to have been Fursday, a unilaterally-delcared (by me) semi-holiday in Second Life dedicated to celebrating the Furries. At one time I tried with some seriousness to be a Furry, this cat avie being my first attempt (later I added the paws and the extra boobies) but found it wasn't for me. I still have quite a few Furry avies, some of which have been noted on this blog, but more so, I still have an appreciation for the Furry community. One of my oldest friends in Our World is a super Furry, enjoying the lifestyle even in Real Life. Her virtual self and suited-real self could almost be twins, right down to the lavender hair. Clearly she gets more out it than I did.

I think it is a sense of community. Sure, there is whimsey, but all the die-hard furries I've met go beyond the dress-up to bond via "common characteristics or interests [to perceive] itself as distinct in some respect from the larger society within which it exists" (source). The community of Tinies in Second Life is very similar and I'm sure both groups share memberships (yes, I have several Tiny avies, too), though I imagine it is rather difficult to "go Tiny" RL compared to being Furry RL.

Both groups make me smile, though, and I'm glad I have lots of Tiny and Furry friends, but the latter has an allure to it that ... hard to describe. In any case, just as I celebrate Caturday by wearing neko bits in SL and RL, I'm going to start celebrating Fursday, at least in Second Life. Join me?

What's in my Closet: Adorable Cow Avie

Technically, this isn't the adorable cow avie I have in my closet, though I do have a couple almost as cute as this one. While working on portraits for Lesbos@SL8B my friend Xandah showed up in an adorable cow avatar from Derp and since I love the critters I had to investigate. For just L$900 you get both male and female bits in your choice of colors (Holstein brown pictured here) and the ladies have a choice for udders or not at time of purchase. I didn't visit Derp's main store in Jia (SLurl), but I was able to find a vendor at Rocket City (SLurl), my first stop whenever I look into furry avies.

She's a beautiful avie over all with not-quite-hooves for hands and a nicely proportioned starter shape. The sculpted bits rez fast and stay rezzed even at a distance. All the textures are sufficiently crisp with no flaws that I could find. The avatar's skin is purely PG, but I imagine that third-party nipples-n-bits would work fine if you need them.

Touch the included hair to switch between four different colors, but a HUD is required to change the eye color. Imagine your eye as three rings, inner, middle, then outer (shadow) around the pupil and you get an idea of how the HUD works. Each ring can be custom colored and each eye can be set independently. An "Infinity" button makes some smart choices if you don't want to do a lot of work. A separate HUD controls eye blink, eyelids, the mouth and the tongue, as well as various positions for the tail. The ear wiggle can't easily be turned off, but the script can be removed from the mod/copy part. If you are wondering, that spot on her forehead is a Bindi since Xandah is, apparently, a sacred cow.

The feet still use invisiprims, but I see they are mod/copy so I'd be tempted to remove them and use the Invisible Feet mask that The Lab has given us in the basic Inventory folder.

My only disappointment is the same one that bothers me with any furry avie, or any avie that isn't a slender, Amazon-tall human: Most animations look terrible. Xanadah's forehooves often disappeared into her chest or her hips and her hindhooves often became one when her feet moved close together. I suppose thats the price one pays to have such beauty, however.

New Avatar: MummiFur from Lost Furrest

Look at what I picked up at Rocket City Fur Meet! This avie soooo rocks! The detailing and textures are superior making this one of the best produced avatars I've seen. Full copy/mod, too, so the user can add thier own creative touches. For example, I changed the eye color and added 'glow' to it as a start. I'm thinking of giving it some faux Ancient Egyptian jewelry, like a pharonic cat.

Actually, my first mod was to remove the BlaBlaBla animation and voice script from the lower jaw. With those in place the avie stopped "typing" during chat and instead waved about drunkenly the way those that have Voice gestures (Web) activated move.

There is no Animation Override (AO) but if I let my sub collar replace part of the neck wrappings I can activate the Zombie AO so that I can stumble around, arms stretched forward like the zombies you see in cartoons.

Of course, Lost Furest always has nice stuff. The Lost Crypt collection my Mummifur avie came from looks very impressive. Click this picture for a closer look or just visit the store (SLurl).