Fae Dragon

At the Isle of Lesbos "Dungeons and Dragons" event today, someone admired my Anubis Dragon Hatchling from the Isle of Wyrms. I tried to find it on the SL Marketplace for them to get some specs but the only "hatchie" there was the Fae Dragon ... and I fell in love. So I had to splurge and get one for my wee pixy alt, Zyx Flux. My goodness, is it cute!

Zyx, surveying her domain, the Secret Garden at the Isle of Lesbos.

The flying animation is awesome! The legs retract unlike the Anubis hatchie that my "regular" avie wears.

It took a while to get the coloring right ... my pixies are usually a certain shade of blue. I love the wings as leaves rather than the dragonfly-style the humanoid pixies have. There is no manual in the box so I'm going to have to guess what a few of the HUD items do. It should be fun experimenting.

Maybe I'll get my "young adult" pixy Zyx Resident the next size up, the Wyrmling .... hmmm.

New Attachment Points

While reading through the Release Notes for today's update of the Official Viewer (see them here), an enhancement to add two new attach points on the avatar -- the Neck and the Root -- is listed. Hooray! Read more about the enhancement here.

Now, if I could install the update without first deleting the old install, I'd be happy.

Projected Light

The other day I ran across "How to Light Second Life Photos the Graphic Dix Way" posted on New World Notes which directed me to a great tutorial on Second Life lighting (direct link here). I had long forgotten about the projected light function of the light prim feature and had get to a sandbox to try it again.

Adding graffiti via Projected Light emphasizes boobies (erm ... s'what the graffiti says)

Since the tutorial is so complete and you are going to read it anyway, I won't go into detail here about how to use projected light, but I would like to make a add a few points, not the least of which is that if you include avatars in the shot your subject(s) needs to have prim eyes. The Lighting and Shadows feature in the Graphics preferences renders texture-only eyes as milky white orbs and that is not attractive to most folks. Additionally, don't be discouraged if the texture picker box in the Edit pane looks X'd out as if you can't choose it. Go ahead and click. Don't like the texture you chose? Then try another one, but I found, however, you have to close the Edit pane for your change to take effect. Also keep in mind that the prim will no longer act as a radiated source so you'll have to rez others to light the rest of the build -- keeping in mind that they also light the projected image and may wash it out. Finally, a legitimate use for Facelights (assuming you don't have more than six light sources in view at the time as Second Life can only show that many at once). While you are on Features tab in the Edit pane, note the FOV function for later and the Focus function. The latter can give your projected image a blurring at the edges. Ambiance has no affect that I can detect. Lastly, if you are trying to project onto a prim that is set to Full Bright, give up. It won't work. Same with Glow.

Last point is about the mechanics of the source prim influence the size and shape of the final projection. Check out this info graphic:

Aside from the position of the prim along it's Z-Axis, rotation is key, too. If you don't rotate the prim at all, it will project on the floor. Setting the Y-Axis to 90 degrees projects the image to the west (thus 270 degrees would be eastward, and so on) and another 90 degrees on the Z-Axis makes text read left-to-right.

So those are my helpful tips. Now get out there and build! Feel free to post links to your pix in the Comments of this post. I'd love to see them.

St. Illuminatious Cathedral

For several days I've been aching to write about St. Illuminatious Cathedral (SLurl) by Abel Dreamscape but have been thwarted by Real Life and other in-world projects. Today I made the time and I hope you make the time after reading about it here to visit this amazing site.

Let's get the basics out of the way. St. Illuminatious Cathedral is some 4075 prims without furniture and easily fills an 64 meter by 120 meter area with a height that almost strains draw distances, just over 102 meters. Like the real world edifices that inspired this structure, it is mind-blowingly big. And the beauty of the build is equal to or greater than it's size. You must see this to believe it. Here is the gratuitous, specially lighted and composed picture you'd expect.

Look very closely and you'll see a nun clad in all white in the main entrance. That is my 1.88m (6.16 ft) avatar. Take a breath and think about the scale here.

I could have taken more beauty shots like that with different Windlight settings and various tweaks and ... frankly, none showed the real beauty. Here are some detail views, with comments, that I hope give a better idea of how gorgeous this build really is.

This could have been a simple texture as it is about 15m above ground level and most folks wouldn't look that closely, but it is all prim. Looking from ground level as you move left-to-right it makes a difference as the block wall shows through the details making the depth real, not implied.

Look at the little "spires" ... they are all over the place. To me, this just shows the builder's love of being faithful to the source. There is a lot of love in this building.

Very skillful use of sculpts. Mr Dreamscape sells the parts in a Builder's Pack, by the way. Not like I'd have the skill to use them. *sigh*

Flying buttresses. Flying Buttresses! Holy Canoli, they are even faithful to Real Life architecture. Sadly, though, there is no "real" rainwater drainage system, gargoyles aside, but adding the little tunnels and all that would raise the prim count horrendously, I imagine.

The towers are stunning inside and outside. Look at the spires and the windows and the slats and the ... I'm having an Architecture-gasm. If you ever see some 'idiot' with binoculars outside a cathedral or other such structure in RL, it might be me. I love looking at all the little details.

One of the towers has bells. Big Bells. When you visit, look closely at the support arms. The clappers are odd, but not something I haven't seen.

Right. You have to climb into the bell tower, stand in a certain place, then cam in to see this detail of the ropes. Builders who bother with this level of detail are really passionate about their craft.

The staircase to the bell tower. There might not be any furniture included with the cathedral if you buy a copy, but the building is not bereft of decorations. Look for all the candles and you'll see what I mean.

Wonderous vaulted ceilings plus fabulous columns equal amazing beauty.

Above the altar space. Impressed yet?

An arcade beside the altar space, true to Real Life architecture again. And there is one outside under the flying buttresses on what is traditionally called The East End.

More beautiful stained glass in the transepts.

Again, this could have been a flat texture, but detail is important in a build of this majesty.

This staircase leads to a walk above the choir area.

Details are important, of course, but when you mind turns to mush you'll go back to saying "wow" as you focus again on  the scale of the cathedral

If you are like me and you really need your own copy of this magnificent build, it is available in-world or on the SL Marketplace for a mere L$45,000 ... about L$44,600 more than I have right now.

V3 is Here

What looked like a simple update to the Official Viewer turned out to be a full update to v3 and the new GUI.

If you like v2 and hate v1, don't upgrade.

It is out of Beta and is running live. Here's the Release Notes with no mention of the GUI change.