An Old-Fashioned Guitar

Remember back in the day when one built with prims, meticulously cutting and twisting and sizing and torturing then throwing it all way and starting again because "it" wasn't just right? Kinda like when Robbie Dingo made this guitar for Suzanne Vega to play in Second Life nearly a decade ago.

Now try to remember waaaayyyy back to when you checked the Virtual Vagabond blog today (like all the cool kids do, mind you) and saw this free one prim mesh guitar from Ydea.

Makes you want to cry a bit, doesn't it?

All Good Things ... Zyx

Pixies are blue, you know.

No, they aren't really. Depending on the legends you follow, they could be, but generally pixies most people know are of a human shade. My pixies in Second Life, Zyx Flux and Zyx (Resident), are blue because Portia Sin had a great going out of business sale for almost two whole years so I bought almost all her fantasy skins for me, Zyx Flux when she was born, and then her big sister later when I grabbed the name to hold it (read "It's Zyxalutionary"). That's been about five years so I started looking to upgrade skins on the Zyxs so they could have nice mesh feet and hands.

Good luck. Not happening. Can't find a fantasy skin that I like as much as the blue SinSkins. But what about human skins?

No changes to any of her face settings for these pictures, but the skin really affects her character. I like it, mind you, but she no longer has her childlike countenance. Admittedly, this "Anais" option is pretty "adult" even for The Skinnery's regular photorealistic bent (SLurl). Actually, all of the skins from this creator show that almost gritty, flawed look that many other makers eschew. That's why I bought "Sasha" skins for my main character, Uccie.

I wonder about losing the magic, though. Zyx has tried blue (and green) skins from Gauze, the Sugar Garden, Alchemy, and more but nothing seemed right. The human shades are just as different though somehow more palatable than the gaudy choices that didn't fit at all. If I do change, I'll still have Zyx's blue skins (as will her bigger sister and me, too), but maybe it's time for my child avatar to grow up just a little bit.

Got an opinion? Toss in a comment. I'd love to hear from you.

That Awful Quiet Time

May 17, 1997 my father passed away and was buried 15 years ago today. Not very long before that — within about seven months, I guess — I had attended funerals for a grandmother, a couple kids from school, a neighbor, and a couple relatives of one of my sisters-in-law. Not long after that —about seven months, again — I attended my niece's funeral, another neighbor's, and someone that I'm afraid to say can't come to mind right now.

Those times were filled with an awful quiet for me. A time of ... well, empty.

Since then, I've been to a few more funerals — a teacher's, a friend's, another neighbor. Later next week I'll be going to one more. One of my mom's (I hate "step-mom" so I just say "mom") sisters died May 17, 2012. Yes, that date. I looked it up to be sure. Today her husband and seven boys are taking her to a crematorium. This is another awful quiet time as we wait for details of the arrangements of the whole-family service, feeling helpless with nothing to do.

And so it goes. Two of my current neighbors, a husband and wife, have had family at hand 24-7 for almost a week now and I suspect that soon there will be another set of funerals to attend. The quiet again.

It seems May is that sort of month. My friend Honour posted today about an awful quiet in her life, the passing of Kev Sweetwater a few days ago (Web). Yes, I knew Kev, but only in a tertiary fashion. I can't say we ever exchanged more than a few words — probably about bacon. But when my friends hurt, I hurt and I share that awful quiet.

I can't think about this sort of thing in an organized fashion. Dates slip from my mind and become aches prodded by subconscious reminders at the appointed times. It was probably my subconscious that prodded when the other day I was cajoled into applying for a parcel at SL9B. On the application I promised to create a version of the Memorial Park on the Isle of Lesbos to fit an exhibitor parcel, but I let it be known that I'd be more than happy to transport a full-sized copy to take many spaces at the celebration as a memorial to all our friends in Second Life. Perhaps it can bring a bit of peace to the awful quiet.

Retro SL: BSD Archer House

Who doesn't remember wandering Help Island as a noob and marveling at Our World and the idea that you, too, could have a fabulous Free House? Well, anyone who didn't go through that part of Orientation, actually, as so many relatively recent Residents can attest. But you can still visit any Help Island Public and pretend to be a Noob again and grab such a house (SLurl).

The BSD Archer House, as seen in the historic photo included with the house itself. Note how the land refused to rez clearly. Back in the day that was a common problem. The windows change opacity via touch script and the door is lockable. You can mod this build all you want and re-use the scripts in your own builds.

This classic of Second Life architecture, the BSD Archer House, weighs in at 39 prims as boxed and is a size just right to fit on what was once known as First Land, a parcel of 16m x 32m. It was built by Bill Stirling in December 2005 with scripts and some bits for the scripts made by Jo Sartre (no longer in-world, it seems).

If you visit the BSD Mall in Cranberry (SLurl) you can see what Bill is up to today either through his current selection of homes to buy or checking out pictures of his in-world projects. One such is the SS Galaxy, a luxury liner so big it needs three regions just to rez it all (SLurl).

A portrait of the SS Galaxy hangs in the BSD shop. Click it for a landmark to the ship itself or use the SLurl above. According to the ship's Website, it is the largest build in all Second Life. You can see the BSD Archer House history in the ship as they share some textures, such as the railing and the ship's decking is this house's ceiling.

The ship is an example of what I've called Deja Visit (Web) as I remember visiting the ship when it was new back in 2007, but here I run across it today during my serial exploration, starting with the Retro SL house. We live in a very big world that acts very small at times.

Second Life History

Here's some Second Life history for you ... The first Lucky Chair!

• Chair Design by Funaria Moose, created on January 4, 2006.
• Converted to a Lucky Chair by Shep Corvin on January 5, 2006 (modified until Jan 29).
• Sixteen prims and one script (a Lucky Tribe game script was added later).

See it for yourself in the LapGirl store in Broadwater (Adult; SLurl). You can buy a modern Lucky Chair and other familiar merchandising products at the Lucky Designs store (SLurl). You can try all the products and maybe win some cute little prizes. If you see Shep at either location be sure to thank him for starting an important and pervasive part of Second Life culture.

Retro SL: Starter Home

While I was at the sandbox for yesterday's post, I figured I could knock out another house, the September 2003 House in a Box: Starter Home, as 72 prims (finished) its a plain yet attractive structure with lots of possibilities for modding ... if I could get the doors to work. More on that in a moment.

Laying the floor piece with the main positioning pin. I set it at (X=128, Y=128, Z=36.5) in Sandbox Verenda to get started.

I snapped the walls to the same coordinates but found that the Z (altitude) needed to be different.

The Interior Walls and Cabinets had the exact same coordinates as the Outer Walls. A nice surprise. At this point it would have been easier to add the doors, but the directions said to add the Roof.

Better and better, the Roof shares coordinates with the previous two steps.

No position pins for the doors so I noted the X coordinate for the wall then used it for the door, eyeballing the Y and Z. The Front Door shown here is 11 prims. Each Interior door is 5 prims and the French Doors are 10 prims total.

The instructions simply stated "2. Select and reposition each of these in the locations they belong; Front Door at the front of the house with the vertical door handle facing outward, Interior Door inside the house (copy for more doors if you like), and the French Doors at the rear of the house." I put in three, with one that was a hair too small, but that was easily adjusted. 

Ah, the French Doors. Like the other doors, all the fiddling I tried couldn't get any of them to open. The scripts looked okay and I set them to Running, reset them, and more ... nothing. I wonder if there is a function in them that has been depreciated since the script was originally written. If I get the urge and am bored one day, I'll try them again.

Generally speaking this was a very, very simple house to assemble and the prim count was pretty reasonable, too. A dozen extra textures are included so the adventurous or experienced builder has a number of choices. With a little skill some prims could be trimmed to lessen the land impact, but if you have a 1024m² parcel you'd easily have about 160 prims with which to furnish your new home. The instructions you can get by with 576m², but that wouldn't leave room for furniture and you'd have no lawn.

Retro SL: The Wright House

Another Retro SL classic structure is the September 2003 House In A Box: Wright House — 282 prims (finished) inspired by Real Life architect Frank Lloyd Wright's famous house, Falling Water. It is a complicated build from the modern view because it is not in a build rezzer nor is it assembled as an unlinked coalesced object (i.e., you drag it out from your inventory while in Build mode so all the unlinked parts hold together). It is boxed with detailed construction instructions for aligning six "position pins" that are eventually unlinked and deleted. For some reason the instructions don't mention the idea of snapping the first part to a specific point on the grid then entering the same position coordinates for the subsequent pieces. Not that works any better than working by eye, though, as the parts dont align properly when following the directions.

 However, several warnings come first in a note card appears as soon as you rez the box to unpack it:

There are a few things you'll need to know and understand before you begin.

1. This is a fairly large house, and it will cost you a pretty penny to build. Depending on some customization choices, the actual building can cost as much as L$3000, and your maintenance taxes will be considerable. This house is better suited to someone with an established income than a first-time Second Life homeowner. packed before the idea of grabbing a coalesced object existed?

"... cost you a pretty penny to build ..." Remember that at one time, it cost homeowner L$10 per prim just to rez the structure — plus L$10 to rez the packing box just to get the pieces out. Each positioning pin was L$10, too. Total cost from start to finish if you use one copy of the extra decorative lamp: L$2,900 plus land costs (the maintenance costs mentioned).

Eventually the directions tell you to link everything together, except the doors, and run through how to use the window and door controls, then admonishing that you take a backup copy:

As a safety precaution, copy the entire completed, linked house object into your Inventory: Right-click > Acquire > Take Copy. This way if something goes wrong with your customization, you can delete the old house, pull out a new one and start over. 

Which begs the question "Why wasn't it all linked in the first place?" The answer may lie in the ten alternate textures included in the box. Every Resident was a Builder back in the day and Bill Linden the maker of the Wright House, probably thought folks would customize his build. Second life was a frontier and we were all homesteaders taming the wilds. Most regions like my home sim Nangrim didn't even have roads.

At the end of the assembly process, after deleting the position prims, I had to align the windows properly then the doors, and I was still left with what really appears to be a half-finished building with a poorly anchored roof strip, just like a few years ago when I built the first one. I fixed a couple prim overlaps and thought about the changes I made the first time ... adding an elevator, making a proper roof, etc. ... just as Bill Linden probably wanted.

The Wright House was way too prim intensive when it was "new" to use on the wee bit of land that I had at the time, so like today I built it in a sandbox, had my way with it, then deleted it and moved on to other things. And other houses were far nicer and far more land-friendly though I lived in a small cave when I wasn't on the Isle of Lesbos. Even today I wonder why people have houses, but that is another post and I have more structures from the early days to build and blog about.

Retro SL: The Alpine House

Way back in the day, it cost L$10 to rez a prim. Any prim. Marianne McCann reminded me about this once regular fee when she noted the Prim Tax prank in her April 1st blog post, and while I wasn't on the Main Grid to witness that, I remember getting a free Alpine House from a now-defunct freebie board in Waterhead (SLurl to the blank wall where the board used to be) and seeing the box labeled "... only $200L to build" (note the old-style of indicating the L$) which is what it would have cost at the time to rez all 20 prims of the house on your land. On a 117 prim, 512m² "First Land" lot, that was quite a dent in resources.

With a slightly larger than 10m² footprint, this classic building by Lifetime resident Juro Kothari was a regular sight back in the day and can sometimes be seen on most any trip around the Mainland. I've modified copies of this building more times than I can remember, making new houses and skyboxes, using the roof prims for the texture on other builds, or just practicing my building skills. With sculpties, I bet this could easily be re-created with just 8 or 9 prims and a talented Mesh builder could probably re-create it in 1or even 2 prims — maybe 3 with a door, which the original didn't have, either.

Checking out historical architecture at the Astutla Sandbox (SLurl)

I've been combing through my Storage Alt's Inventory and my own Inventory to find other classic builds of days gone by and I'll probably write some posts about them in the future because Retro SL can be as fun as current SL.

SL7B: Time Capsule

Once again, Will Webb has taken time to create a Time Capsule for the Second Life Birthday. Exhibitors are encouraged to donate items that will eventually be examined in generations henceforth ... however long an SL generation is, if anyone knows. Each year a clever build is used for the capsule itself, often something looking like what you might expect a high-tech time capsule to look like. Usually. One year an asteroid was used.

This year, Will was short on time and wanted to honor the event theme, Unexpected Collaborations, so he put out a call for low-prim designs from all the builders. I don't know how many he received, but he showed me a really clever one that was a "time-released cold pill" which spilled out little beads when you clicked it. I thought it was far more clever than the design he eventually chose, but I suppose it used too many prims or wasn't chosen for some other reason. Fortunately for me, I guess, as the one he picked was my design. I liked the "pill" better but I won't complain.

My design was inspired by Star Trek's "Guardian of Forever," the time portal from the original series. Not only was his final choice unexpected, but it turned into an unexpected collaboration, too, because Will asked if he could make some mods, I agreed, and he made it much better. Now the whirly rainbow you see in the picture above fades in and out when touched, for example, and some other changes that helped the over all utility. Unfortunately, if you leap through it there is no affect on your timeline.

Be sure to check out the SL7B Time Capsule exhibit when you visit (SLurl). Previous time capsules are on display and you might even run into Will, one of the original generations of SL Residents. Try "editing" each time capsule there to see the contents and get a flavor of birthday's past. After your visit, use the near by tram station, fly around, or use the Destination Guide (Web) to find other great experiences. More information is available on the official SL7B blog (Web), too.

King Tut in Second Life

I was rather late in getting to King Tut exhibit at King's Rezzable, but I was there for about 30 minutes today and decided that I'd really need a full day to appreciate it all. But here are some initial pix. The first is me posing inside tomb at the dig site portion. The prim work and textures are phenomenal. Tremendous attention to detail everywhere with the only limits being the underlying technologies of Second Life itself. By the way, this is the perfect setting for me to wear my Isis silks from Illusions (sadly, no longer available).

Many of the pieces that you find in the main gallery and dig area are presented in huge form in the Cosmic Gallery. This jewelry set in particular stands out not just for it's beauty, but because it is all under 75 prims. All the pieces are in a fantastic 3D starscape globe filled with multimedia goodness. I won't spoil it with a picture here, but when you first enter the gallery you are presented with an enormous representation of the iconic Tut mask.

The main gallery is also fantastic, though more grounded to what we might consider real life style. Still the grid allows things that a real life museum couldn't such as this animated representation of Tut's sarcophagus, complete with audio.

Coverage from Hamlet Au (Web)

Rezzable Blog (Web)

Memorial Park Memory

When my PC laptop died I had scattered and limited backups so quite a few things are gone forever. This image turned up, much to my giggly pleasure, for this goes way back into my life in our virtual world. The Memorial Park in Nangrim was on it's way to being huge and I had my first in-world girlfriend. We had invited a couple friends to just relax in the Park with some Classical music on the stream. Someone put on wings and started dancing so we all put on wings and danced. Then someone released particles and the clothes started coming off. It was a beautiful night. We danced and made small talk and just enjoyed being there for quite some time. Serendipity. Happy serendipity.