The Weather on Whimsy

The Weather on Whimsy

Written 29 October, 2012

The weather on Whimsy and Whimsy Kaboom is set to mirror that of my real-life location, a little town about thirty miles from New York City.

It's gray here, and for the past hour or so it's been drizzling. Winds are light.

That's how it is on Whimsy, too.

Hurricane Sandy is set to come ashore in southern New Jersey, and winds are picking up there. We're expecting the heavy rains and high winds to start late this morning or early evening and continue for a couple of days.

Whimsy's weather is generated by the great Weather System I bought at Damani for a reasonable price-- especially since it's copyable.

The weather machine can make it snow, rain, or sleet, and can generate impressive lightning storms and tornadoes. It can even rain fire.

Turning on the weather generates temporary prims that rez clouds and rain. It can generate weather effects on the ground-- puddles and snowdrifts, which works great on flat lands and somewhat less well on more-or-less vertical Whimsy. It can also generate ground fog and sunbeams which break through the cloud cover.

Weather can be limited to an area as small as 20 x 20 meters or can be set to cover an entire sim. Due to the Second Life viewer's limitations on particles, rain and clouds are of course more intense in smaller areas, but the system is impressive even when set on a larger area.

The weather system uses only two prims (and lots of temp-on-rez prims), and can be set to show or become inisible.

The system works better on Whimsy Kaboom than on Whimsy; that's because Whimsy has lots of competing sources for particles-- the volcano Pele, assorted waterfalls, and spray from surf, while we have fewer particles set on Kaboom.

A great feature of the Damani weather machine is its ability to mimic the weather at any spot on earth.

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Bracing for the Frankenstorm

Bracing for the Frankenstorm

Written 19 October, 2012

I'm visiting Sweetie in Rockland County, New York. We're about 30 miles from New York City, where public transportation has been shut down and 400,000 people have been evacuated from low-lying areas. The city is expected to get hammered by storm surges which will be exacerbated by the full moon.

High winds and large amounts of rain will affect about 50% of the nation's population, and large areas are expected to lose power, which in some cases might be out for as long as a week.

The weather is coming from Hurricane Sandy, which is moving slowly up the Atlantic Coast, where it will soon turn inland. No one is sure just where, but it's clear we're going to get it here at Chez Sweetie.

Last year Sweetie had to leave her house during Hurricane Irene because of the rising river water, which came within inches of the doorways. When the phoned me (I was home in Georgia), I told her to grab her cats and her laptop and get out of her house. She did, and it took her 4 1/2 hours (due to roads closing down) to drive 25 miles to her friends' house, where she stayed for two days.

It wasn't pretty.

This time I'm facing the weather with her. We're stocked up with food and water and batteries and the car is full of gasoline. We don't expect the level of flooding that came with Irene, but it's likely we'll lose power some time Monday.

I'm thinking of going to Whimsy and keying my Damani weather generator to Sweetie's zip code. That will cause the generators to mirror the weather here. In fact, I'm going to go do just that. Now. Before the winds come.

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It's Not Easy Being a Hard-Luck French Robot Barman

It's Not Easy Being a Hard-Luck French Robot Barman

Written 28 October, 2012

Meet Yves, the newest addition to our staff.

His name, the beret, and his Salvador Dali mustaches suggest he is of French origin-- and that's true. We have a liberal immigration policy here on Whimsy.

Yves is eager to please his customers, but he's a test model and the kinks aren't all worked out. When you touch him you get a blue menu full of drinks (all French, of course). When you select one he acknowledges your choice, then moves away to make it. All goes well until his arm falls to the top of the bar with a clatter.

Let's let Yves speak for himself.

"Ah, bounjour messeuers et madames. Enter. May I make you a delicious apertif? Just touch me for a menu.

"Ah, cognac! Excelent choice!  We have Vieille Réserve from the famous Fins Bols-- rare and delicieux!

My robot girlfriend once ran out of lubricating oil and substituted Rémy Martin. She ran fine for a while but then her transmission failed. She was too drunk to care.

"I go now to make your delicious libation.

"MON DIEU! MY ARM, SHE HAS FALLEN OFF! BUT I'M OKAY, IT'S ONLY A FLESH WOUND.

"Don't worry. I will still be able to prepare your delicious libation.

"Let us hope this unfortunate incident won't effect my tip!


"I now 'appily make your drink.


"SACRE BLEU! MY HEAD! MY HEAD, SHE HAS TAKEN LEAVE OF MY BODY! ROBOT NEEDS ASSISTANCE!

You can commiserate with Yves at his job station high above Whimsy. Go here for a direct teleport, but it's more fun to start here. Summon the elevator bot and ride to the top of the blimp tower, then walk the ramps and rez a little train to ride to our PG Den of Iniquity. You'll find Yves just through the doorway, eager to please. He won't succeed.

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The Descender

For some reason I'm no longer able to take snapshots in Second Life-- 

in either Phoenix or Firestorm. Things just freeze up.  For this article 

I  resorted to screen captures until I realized I could e-mail snapshots to myself.

The Descender

Written 26 October, 2012

How did Sweetie and I managed to get ourselves below the grid of Second Life?

I'm glad you asked. We did it in The Descender.


The Descender is modeled after the bathysphere, the first deep ocean submersible. It's considerably larger than the real baythsphere because, lets face it, we avatars like our creature comforts. My bathysphere features a silver bucket that holds a bottle of champagne, a pot-bellied stove for warmth, and a large windshield for viewing-- and it's large enough not to trap the camera.

The bathsyphere was conceived by the American naturalist William Beebe and designed by American engineer Otis Barton. It made its test dive on 27 May, 1930 to only 45 feet, but it set increasing depth records, reaching more than 3000 feet in 1934.

Before the bathysphere, the deepest human divers had gone was about 100 feet; deeper dives weren't possible because of the tremendous pressure. Submarines had reached 328 feet and a diver in an armored suit had descended 538 feet, but the submarine had no windows for viewing and the armored suit allowed only minimum vision and movement. The round shape of the bathysphere was able to withstand pressures far below those depths and three windows made of 3" thick fused quartz provided views.

The steel walls of the bathysphere were made of 1" thick cast steel. The vessel was just 4 3/4 feet in diameter and weighed 2 1/4 tons of out the water and 1.4 tons in the water. It was unpowered, lowered from a ship-based crane by cable. Oxygen was supplied from canisters inside the bathysphere, and communication with the mother vessel was possible through wires attached to the cable.

Today's deep-sea submersibles operate under their own power, without cables, and reach depths in excess of 12,000 feet. That's about the same vertical distance as it is from 0 meters in Second Life to the top build height-- 4096 meters (13,438 feet).

Unlike the bathysphere, my Descender is self-powered-- but like it, The Descender gets its oxygen from a cylinder. It's made of brass rather than steel (because, let's face it, brass is so much more steampunk), and has a large windshield and two round ports.

Brass Rocks. Note the Rungs at Left. They Allow Acess to the Motors at Top

I could have scripted The Descender to operate with the arrow keys on the keyboard, but I chose to instead use touch controls mounted to the vehicle. They can be a bit difficult to grab while in motion, but I like that.

The Descender can move up and down, forward and back, and from side to side. It can turn left and right, tilt up and down, and can teleport to locations set by the owner. It can be set to operate by owner only, group, or anyone.

A button starts the engines, but the engines work only if an avatar is seated; that way The Descender won't sail off into the sunset, as an early version did after a particularly rough sim crossing. Buttons operate the door (when open, a ramp appears), interior and exterior lights, the sonar, and the stove, and the window can be resized. Other buttons turn on sounds and a creature rezzer; these function only when the vehicle is submerged.

When descending, the vehicle will go right past zero meters. Engines stop when the root prim, which is placed as high as possible, goes to zero.

The interior of The Descender is richly appointed with Victorian wallpaper high up and burnished black metal down low. The floor is made of polished wood.

A silver bucket sits between the two back seat. A touch to the bottle of champagne it holds will give passengers an ice-cold drink of bubbly. The Captain, of course, must not drink.

A gas stove provides warmth. A lamp (visible above) provides light.

The Descender is fully functional. It's controlled by touching the instrument panel. When it motion that can be a bit problematic, so I've been working on a supplementary HUD.

Environmental controls include:

Door open/close
Interior lights on/off
Exterior lights on/off
Heather on/off
Radar on/off
Motors on/off
Phantom mode on/off
Underwater creature rezzer on/off
Underwater particles on/off
Underwater sounds on/off
Windshield size small/medium/large
Control by owner/group/anyone
Set teleport points 1-6
Jump to teleport points 1-6

Movement controls include

Speed low/high
Face compass points North/East/South/West
Ascend/Descend
Forward/Backward
Left/Right
Right
Turn left/right
Pitch forward/backward

The descender can move in any direction, going as high as 4096 meters and as low as 32 meters below the surface of Second Life (52 meters below sea level on most sims).

Every 24 hours The Descender IMs the owner, giving the sim in which it is located and its coordinates. The owner can turn this function off, but that can be risky if access is set to anyone. Until I got access function working I would sometimes come back to find someone had sailed The Descender away!

Movement is non-physical, so The Descender isn't limited to 30 prims. Its prim count is 95, but much of that is frou-frou-- rungs for climbing, stove, lamp, champagne bucket. If I ever take it to market I'll include a low-prim version with HUD-only control, or perhaps voice control like my Cubey Terra balloon.

I plan to make a special Descender so visitors to Whimsy Kaboom can tour the sim, flying above the water and then submerging to watch the whales, then teleporting to 3000 meters to see our low Earth orbit build, and then jumping to 3500 meters to our famous (or infamous) robot sanitarium. Visitors will have the option to descend below the grid. That's truly a unique experience.

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Descent!

Descent!

Written 25 October

"Let's run the checklist," I said.

"Let's don't and say we did," said Sweetie.

I glared at her. "I insist--" Then I saw her hand was near her katana.

"Never mind,"I said. "Let's go."

"Yay!" I said."We seem to be watertight."

"Look at the altimeter," Sweetie said. I looked. We were fifty feet above sea level.

"Well then, I said, "let's descend."

"This big windshield is great for watching whales," Sweetie said.

"Plus 14 meters," I said.

"Look, an octopus!" Sweetie said.

"Seven meters," I said. "Five. Three. One."

The face of the altimeter turned from green to red.

"Minus one meter, Captain," said Sweetie. "And Philip Linden help me, I've gone blind!"

"Me too," I said. "I can barely see my hand in front of my face!"

"This is creepy," I said.

"Wait a minute!" said Sweetie. "I'm seeing Kenny from South Park!"

"What are you talking about?" I said.

"Turn off your Windlight settings," she said.

I opened Preferences and unchecked the shaders.

"Much better," I said. "But that's not Kenny. That's us."

"Look at the altitude!" Sweetie said. "We're still sinking!"

"It's uncharted territory," I said. "We go where no avatar has gone before."

"Minus 12 meters," Sweetie called. "Look up!"

"Wow! I said. "It's Whimsy from underneath."

"Minus 25," Sweetie called.

"Yikes!" I said. "That whale looks a million miles away."

"Minus 32," said Sweetie.

That's when the motors stopped.

I'm never one to panic. "Uh-oh," I said. "We're doomed!"

After exploration I realized the motors had stopped when the root prim (which is high above the vehicle) had gone below the grid.

"Not to worry," Sweetie said, and selected Edit and pulled us down to -50 meters.

"Wow," she said. And then she was gone.

Before my heart could stop I got her IM.

"I stood up to see if I would stay below the grid," she said. "I had visions of starting an under-the-grid civilization."

"And what happened?"

"I went to zero meters," she said. "My dreams are shattered."

I grabbed the Descender and pulled it to -32 meters. The motors caught and the craft slowly climbed toward the zero mark.

When I passed zero altitude the world suddenly got brighter.

Back at the docking station Sweetie joined me and we opened a bottle of Dom Perignon in celebration. (The Descender is well-stocked).

And there you have it-- our record-breaking trip below the grid, our descent into unknown space.

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The Test Flight at the Vernian Sea Goes Subtly Wrong

The Test Flight at the Vernian Sea Goes Subtly Wrong

Written 24 October, 2012

It was entirely my fault.

I should have known Sweetie and I would be distracted by the many wonderful things in the Vernian Sea and its environs.

We, ah, never got around to the actual test of my descent vehicle.

But that's okay, we can always test the Descender on Whimsy Kaboom.

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The Big Cheese

This was meant to go to just after the post showing we had achieved a depth of -79 meters. Oopsie!

Chey, Inspecting the Big Cheese

The Big Cheese

Written 12 October, 2012

Before I built my descent vehicle we did a proof-of-concept, using a huge prim. I mean a HUGE prim. Back then we could stretch prims to only 10 meters, but there were a few legacy prims about with sizes up to 1024 meters. I believed we used a 100 x 100 x 100 meter cube, which we cut and sliced down to a wedge of manageable size.

We couldn't well be seen riding on an untextured plywood prim, so I dug up a swiss cheese texture and pasted it on all sides. That's me, above, giving it a once-over.

With the prim readied, it was time to sit on it-- easier said than done.

We of course dressed appropriately. Sweetie wore the deep-space helmet she had acquired at Privateer Space. That was one of my favorite sims, now gone forever.

Was our trip successful? Let me just say that's where I made the landmark showing an altitude of -79 meters. We went under the grid!

Under the grid, I tell you! On a giant cheese!

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