Glitch and Happenstance: Part II: Problems with Rendering

Written 25 January, 2011

Glitch and Happenstance

Part II: Problems with Rendering

Full frontal Sweetie

Sweetie arrives at Mouse World in a Barrel

Her bling arrives before she does

Alpha problem

Sweetie told me not to push that button!

Zooming  the camera in is not without its problems...

Beware the pixel-eating bacteria!

"I hate it when my date shows off!"

You young whippersnappers don't know how good
you have it! Back in my day we lost
our attachments whenever we teleported.
But at least we knew where to find them!

Hey, babe. I bet you think I'm hot.

Who are these gray people?

Our friend Boof gets Ruthed

Does anyone else remember the black sun?

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Glitch and Happenstance: Part I: Capturing the Moment

Written 25 January, 2011

Glitch and Happenstance

Part I: Capturing the Moment

Here's a collection of photos I've taken over the years, showing badly rezzed avatars, tricks of the video card, fortuitious placement of avatars, and the occasional staged shot for this blog.  Enjoy.

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Now It Can Be Told

J. in His Original Incarnation

Written 25 January, 2011

Now It Can Be Told

More than two years ago-- in mid 2008-- Sweetie and I went grid-jumping and found a friend.I'll call him J..

J. was but a couple of weeks in world and had been hanging out in a sim called The World. He soon visited us on Whimsy and before long was spending considerable time there. We were building the robot sanatorium, which he particularly liked, and he was kind enough to make and send me the voice announcements that  play every minute or so at the robot sanatorium.

Please don’t ask the celebribots for their autographs. Some of them have no arms, and we've confiscated the pens of the ones that do.

Under no circumstances is Bender to be given alcohol. We don’t want a repeat of last Thursday’s incident.

J. was a furry-- a fox-- and would occasionally bring his friends-- also furries-- to play on the land. He was soon a constant feature on Whimsy.

Because of his behavior and in particular his frequent use of :3 to denote laughter, Sweetie and I knew J..was young-- we figured about twenty years old-- but we were shocked when he came to us and told us he was just shy of his 14th birthday.

J. said he had been feeling guilty about misrepresenting his age so he could be on the main grid and asked us for advice.

We told him to follow his conscience, but it was clear what his conscience was telling him. Privately, we prepared to ask him to stay away from Whimsy until his 18th birthday.

J. wrestled with his conscience for a brief time-- it must have been horrible, for he had made friends and was having a great time-- then told us he had decided to deactivate his account and move to the teen grid.

J. asked me if I would hold his creations-- he was forever building and scripting-- until his return. I told him of course I would, but since he would have another avatar he should set permissions to full. He did, and I put one copy of the box he gave me on my prim storage platform (it's a place to offload stuff I infrequently need, keeping my inventory count low). I kept a second copy of J.'s box in my inventory.

And then J. was gone.

Two years and three months went by. J. would check in every once in a while via e-mail to say he had made lots of friends on the teen grid and was having a great time. I would tell him his box was waiting for his triumphant return at age 18.

And then, last week, the teen grid closed and J., now 16, returned to the main grid two years earlier than either he or we had anticipated.His last name is different, of course, but it's the same old J.

I wasted no time dropping his box on him, then deleted my copies from prim storage and inventory.

When we first created Whimsy I set the land rating to mature, but since there's no adult content on the sim, I  reset it to PG when I heard of the teen grid's impending closure. J. is now free to roam our sims. He's spending his time re-exploring. He told me the other day how proud he was to have been able to contribute to the robot sanatorium.

Well, Sweetie and I are proud of J., too. Two years and three months ago, faced with an agonizing decision, he made, we think, the right choice

Welcome back, friend!

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The Judicious Use of Full Bright

Written 24 January, 2011

The Judicious Use of Full Bright

The ability to set prims to full bright is a good thing, but the overuse of full bright most definitely isn't.

Judiciously used, full bright will attract the eye, drawing attention to landscape or building features.

Here, for instance, is a single strand of lights on Whimsy Kaboom.

Most of the mainland is blighted by overuse of full bright, as so:

Of course, the mainland doesn't need help to be ugly. Here's a typical scene:

But when you throw in full bright  flat trees, it gets worse:

Here are some dos and don'ts for full bright.

1. When it makes sense, DO use full bright

2. DON'T use full bright when there's absolutely no reason to do so.

3. DO make things full bright to draw attention.

4. DON'T create visual confusion by overusing full bright.

5. DO use full bright to highlight water and lava.

6. DON'T use this as an excuse for fuglification.

7. DO use full bright to highlight things that would ordinarily be lit-- signs, lamps, streetlights.

8. DON'T highlight things that should remain in the background.

9. DO use full bright to make subtle highlights.

10. DON'T ruin a beautiful scene with full bright.

11. DO enhance dark spaces with a spot of full bright.

12: DON'T use full bright on every prim in your parcel.

13. DO use glow and full bright together for subtle effects.

14. DON'T be a glowtard.

15. DO use local lights in combination with full bright...

...or instead of full bright.

Properly used, full bright will make your land more appealing. Improperly used...

Let's just say friends don't let friend overuse full bright.

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Mr. Tiki Endures

Written 24 January, 2011

Mr. Tiki Endures

The other iconic larger-than-life structure on Whimsy (Bob the granite drinking bird being the one who gets the most attention in this blog) is Mr. Tiki, a great tiki statue, also made of granite.

In early 2007, when Sweetie and I lived in Dreamland, Sweetie conceived Mr. Tiki and began building, but quit when she reached an impasse. I thought about Mr. Tiki for a day or two and added shear to his outer shell, giving him his signature rakish look. Sweetie added an earring, and voila, he had personality!

An Early Version of Mr. Tiki

We ran Kitto Flora's steam train right down his gullet.

The train emerges from Mr. Tiki. The dive into Mr. Tiki's mouth isn't nearly as dramatic as it once was.

When we moved to Whimsy nearly three years ago, of course we brought Mr. Tiki with us. And of course we once again routed the train through him.

We added a historic marker to explain the route.

Whimsy's Historic Markers Create a Fictitious History of the Sim, In This Case Noting 
The Whimsy Transportation Authority's Outrageous Decision To Route the Rail Line 
Down the Gullet of an Archeological Relic

Mr. Tiki commands good views of the beach...

... and gardens.

A rope bridge connects him to the land...

... and the flat top of his head is a convenient resting place for footsore avatars.

Mr. Tiki isn't as big a drama queen as is Bob (for instance, we didn't have to contrive a kidnapping to keep him happy); he just quietly endures.

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