Harbinger Haven Sandbox Closed

Clichés about loss are running through my mind but this is not a time for platitudes. The Harbinger Haven Sandbox (SLurl) is closed. Another Second Life institution is gone. In a note card dated 11 July 2014 at almost half-past 11 PM SLT, the owners made the announcement. Visiting a little more than 12 hours later, most of the land has been cleared and given some attractive landscaping. 32,064m² for L$250,000 (L$7.8/m²), well beyond what I can afford up front and in tier costs. 

I would have left it exactly as it was last seen, right down to the last prim.

Here's the announcement:

Greetings Harbinger Haven Builders,

It is not without some sadness that we must announce that Bell & I will be selling the property that has hosted Harbinger's Haven Builder's Sandbox for so many years. There are a number of reasons we have decided to do this, but I'm not going to discuss those here. Things change and everything must come to an end sometime and HH's time has come.

It has been a great pleasure for both Bell and I to have provided a safe and educational place for Second Life residents to build or just hang out. We have met a lot of wonderful people and made some enduring friends. We have always thought of our builders as part of a big family and so it is not easy to move on, but we must.

It is my hope (dream) that whoever buys the property will carry on our tradition of altruism for the sake of a better SL for all, but there is no guarantee of that and it's probably quite unlikely. However, if any one or group of you would like to buy the land and assume its tier to keep it a sandbox or other altruistic endeavor, then I would love to discuss a deal with you in which I will offer a discounted price on the property. The tier I can do nothing about unfortunately. Please contact me vie IM as soon as possible if such a deal interests you.

Meanwhile, you will no doubt notice as things start to be removed from the parcels in the coming weeks (we're not sure how long the process will take). Please feel free to come here to build right up until the property is sold. Once the property is sold the Harbinger's Haven Builder's Sandbox and Harbinger's Haven Mavens groups will be dissolved, which may involve ejecting members who have not left voluntarily at that point. If you have questions, please direct them toward Adrian and he will attempt to reply as promptly as he can.

Both Bell and I are grateful for the time we operated Harbinger's Haven Builder's Sandbox and will always remember it and you with great fondness.

Very Best Regards,
Adrian Harbinger & Bellissa Dion
Owners Harbinger Haven Builder's Sandbox

Topless Tuesday with Pixelmator

After creating a simple but still nice set in an adult sandbox, choosing a pose and wardrobe, tweaking the lighting just right and then breaking it all down and logging out to put some final tweaks on what could have been a very nice Topless Tuesday pic ....

I saw the shadows. Right there on the flat backdrop that I had intended to blur out. Shadows that wouldn't have appeared if I had used a 3D background instead of a textured prim.

Instead of popping into Acorn, a fast and simple photo editor that I love, and doing the minor tweaks I knew the image would need I decided it was time to finally learn the feature for which I bought Pixelmator, the "paint to select" feature to remove the unexpected and hitherto un-noticed problem. If you have any experience with image editors then you know that making complex selections is hard and removing elements is well-nigh impossible. People who can afford Adobe Photoshop can wave a "wand" and poof the unwanted bits are gone, perfectly blended with the rest of the image. A great feature for $9.99/month. I bought Pixelmator for $29.99 total. Once. And it does the same thing, as you can see below.

Click to embiggen any image or visit this one on Flickr in the Topless Tuesday in SL group.

Happy Topless Tuesday!!

Etv @ the Arboretum

One of the fun uses of MySecondLife.com is to quickly tell a story. If you saw these photos below posted on the site today, though, you would have seen them out of sequence. That is a frequent bug of late but at least the service is working.

Am I on?

Where are you pointing that thing?

(*whispers* in three ... two) A new exhibit at the Bay City Arboretum of Rather Atypical Vegetation has some residents worried. A new plant frightening in appareance is outside the main entrance.

So I asked the plant, who identified himself as Phil O'Dendren, "Are you, ineed, dangerous?"

Reporting from the Arboretum in Bay City - Dennis for Etv News, this ..... erggffff

(silence)

Arboretum News

Zyx Flux, the Chief Gardener at the Bay City Arboretum of Rather Atypical Vegetation (SLurl), sent this picture to me in email this morning with a note:

The delivery I was expecting was left out front instead of at the service entrance. I think it ate the palm tree that was there. I'm looking for volunteers to move it inside because I'm not going near it. We should probably put up some caution tape or something?

You never know what you'll find at the Arboretum. Have you explored Bay City lately?

Topless Tuesday Boob Confusion

Happy Topless Tuesday! This week I thought that I'd feature a full-body mesh shape from The Shops (SLurl) a Beta release body and clothing system. My first impression was "Holy Carp! This is one needlessly complicated shopping experience in a slow-rezzing shop." First you have to get a shopping HUD, then you have to buy "coins" if you want to purchase anything that isn't free unless you buy some "pay-what-you-wish" items that would likely be free in other shops.

But the picture above can probably tell you what my second impression was after I got the system set up: "Holy Carp I'm friggin' hot!!" Like other mesh bodies this one is "Fitted" so the shape changes as you adjust some of the controls in the standard Second Life shape editor. When I leaped in with my "standard medium mesh" shape based on the parameters (see here) set by a consortium of designers so that "rigged" mesh clothes would fit consistently from creator to creator I found that all the clothes I had setup for the shape no longer fit well. I had to tweak everything totally breaking the so-called standard numbers (also found the case with the SLink mesh body called Physique) or my clothes wouldn't fit. Even with the tweaks quite a few items still didn't fit will because while someone thinks their item meets specified parameters practice tells us different.

Sure, the blocky nature of the default body (which is actually a form of mesh but we'll call a System body) is smoothed out for a better look while joints (knees, especially) don't "break" when bent in certain poses, using a mesh body seems like an awful lot of work. I get the impression that while The Skinnery (SLurl), maker of my fave skins, apparently has appliers for the body from The Shops I can't figure out how to find it. The default skins included with the body match pretty well with them and skins from Unbra (SLurl) unless I purchase a mesh head for several thousand $Lindens or wear the collar you see above, there's a nasty seam at the neck. Maybe having a matched skin would help, but I can't figure out how to get one. Plus, my investment in SLink hands/feet would then be moot.

I tried the SLink body, too, and it is far less curvy than the one above (and I'm assuming less curvy than the now extinct Wowmeh body) so while Colleen Criss tells me that breasts set to a size of 75 or larger on the shape editor sliders count toward being busty enough for Busted Magazine, the result really don't look much similar.

The animated GIF above shows what the two bodies look like (the SLink body has the Demo tatts) with the exact same shape. While the height difference could be attributed to the difference in foot shapers, and if you ignore some skin tone differences, you can see clear discrepancies in how each body renders shoulders, breasts, muscles, and body fat.

So I'm confused. I don't like the seam that so-called Implants leave and a mesh body would let me drop my Three Breast System for a Two Breast System (one for rigged clothes and one for fitted clothes) but there are other complications, many of which vary greatly depending which body system is used. And then all the clothes I have would be fairly useless unless updated and that's probably not happening.

But for free (remember, it's Beta), the body from The Shop looks great on a nude beach and I'll keep it for that until the whole fitted mesh body issue is worked out. I'd love to hear what you thins, so hit up the Comments below. Maybe I'm missing something that you can teach me or you might have other recommendations. Be sure to visit the Topless Tuesday in SL Flickr group, too!