Why is This a Sulpted Prim?

Written 5 September, 2011

Why is This a Sculpted Prim?

I bought this very nice three-prim electric fan the other day. Last night I finally unpacked it and studied it.

I found myself wondering-- why is this end cap a sculpted prim?

I mean, a regular prim would have looked better.

I didn't have the same texture, but here's a photo of a regular prim in the same place:

Then I really looked at the fan and realized the base, arm, and the cover I disliked were all a single prim:

Oopsie!

Had the same fan been made of regular prims, it would have required, by my count, 13 (11 if the blades were texture on a flat prim). It's wondrous for Whimsy's prim count that the fan could be made in three.

Still, I wish the fan were modifiable so I could add a fourth prim to hide that misshapen cover.

Read More

Attendance Reaches 100 at Mankind Tracer Pink Floyd Acoustic Tribute Concert

Written 5 September, 2011

Attendance Reaches 100 at Mankind Tracer Pink Floyd Acoustic Tribute Concert

Sweetie went to bed early tonight, but before he did she sent me a landmark to a midnight (our time) concert by Second Life musician Mankind Tracer (Seth Regan in real life). It was to be an acoustic set of Pink Floyd songs.

After Sweetie logged I went downstairs to fix a snack and watch some television, leaving Chey hovering in space. The concert completely slipped my mind.

The ding of the IM bell brought me back upstairs just in time to dress and get to the concert. I arrived five minutes early and was lucky to get in.

I know this isn't a fashion blog, but I might as well tell you, I dressed appropriately.

Chey's Retro '60s Look. Not Shown: GoGo Boots

The music was wonderful, and the place was packed. Mankind has been performing for five years in Second Life, has a huge following. At one point Mankind said the region held 100 avatars, as least 25 more than I ever remember seeing on one sim. Here's a photo taken a few minutes earlier of the statistics panel, showing 92 people present:

If it looks as if I have only $193L, please disregard it. It's a glitch. Everyone knows I'm fabulously wealthy in Second Life. I'm telling you, look away! Do it!

Now say to yourself: Chey is fabulously wealthy.

Lag was surprisingly light for so many avatars wearing lots of scripts. I wasn't able to make fancy with the picture-taking because snapping a photo in a crowded area while my camera is zoomed usually makes me crash, but here's a photo showing how crowded it all looked with nametags turned on:

The concert was held at Dark Side of the Rainbow on the La Bella Bonaire simulator. Dark Side is about all things Pink Floyd. The stage was nice, but I don't recommend you visit the sim if you're prone to flashbacks:

Yes, it's that psychedelic.

Read More

Nice Write-Up of My Blog

Written 3 September, 1011

Nice Write-Up of My Blog

I'd like to thank Bliss Windlow of Peoplez for her nice write-up in the August issue of her magazine.

You'll find the magazine along the left column. Go to page 57.

Click on the image below to zoom:

Read More

Why it Makes Financial Sense to Be a Premium Member of Second Life

Written 1 September, 2011

Why it Makes Financial Sense to Be a Premium Member of Second Life

Premium membership in Second Life costs $9.95 USD a month, or $72 if you sign up for a year.

Your premium membership gets you a sign-up bonus of $1000L and $300L a week. At the current rate of exchange of 250L per dollar, that's $66.40 a year. In other words, you get everything but $5.40 US back.

You also get a free Linden house, or, if you prefer, a tier-free 512 square meter lot anywhere on the mainland. If you're smart, you can purchase land for as little as $1L per square meter. You immediately get access to adult areas of Second Life. And, when your avatar won't rez or you can't log onto the grid, you can get support from the Lindens.

If you don't want or need a house you can buy your 512 square meter lot and rent it to someone. Or you can donate that tier to group land. Eight friends pooling their free tier allotment could live for free on a 4096 square meter lot with 934 prims-- or rent it for between $20 US and $30 US a month.

Consider: If you rent that 4095 for $20 a month and split it among eight people, that's $30 USD per person-- which translates to a profit of about $25 a year per person, making that premium membership a very good deal indeed.

And consider: All eight of those people could be YOU-- your main avatar and seven alts. You would make $200 bucks a year over and above the money you would pay to Linden Lab.

Of course you could have eighty alts, or eight hundred...

I started my premium membership in October 2006, when the weekly stipend was $400L. A year earlier it as $500L/year. I make a few bucks a year just by being a premium member. I wish I had signed up my alt Dakota and maybe made a hundred or two additional alts. Within a year or two, by careful trading I could had acquired several mainland sims. By now I could be a land baron or slumlord-- for free!

Ah, hindsight!

Read More

Going Where No Avatar Has Gone Before

Visit this build here.

Read More

Eyelash Shirt

This was clever.

Read More

Robot Sanatorium Re-Do

Written 29 August, 2011

Robot Sanatorium Re-Do

Because of the large scale of the robot sanatorium on Whimsy Kaboom, it was necessary to choose from a limited number of megaprims or use multiple 10-meter prims to span distances. The ramps, for instance, required two prims for the floors and two for each side for each span. The floor was made of 10x and 20x prims; because parts of the floor are solid and parts are steel mesh, it wasn't possible to use a single megaprim. Walls required multiple prims.

I set out to save as many prims as possible by stretching prims, replacing two or three, or in some cases as many as six, with a single prim. In the end, I saved about 140 prims at the sanatorium alone.

Because of its patchwork nature the floor was a challenge, but I saved prims there, too.

 Below the fold you'll find some screen shots of the process.

Here's a ramp. Because it spanned a distance greater than ten meters, it requires two prims. Ramps at upper elevations have sides, and so required six prims.

 Here you can see the two prims for the ramp:

This is the prim I'm going to remove:

In the Edit menu I checked Edit Linked Parts, selected the highlighted prim, unlinked it, and deleted it. See, it's gone.

 Still in Edit Linked Parts, I selected the lower section of ramp and stretched it until the gap was closed. By checking Stretch Textures BEFORE I elongated the prim I didn't have to rescale the texture after stetching.

To avoid prim flicker I would zoom my camera so I could see the joint clearly and close up. I didn't want any unsightly gaps or prim flicker.

Here's a gap I flubbed on the first pass. I noticed it almost immediately and fixed the problem.

Here are three prims in the floor I was able to work with. I eliminated two and stetched the third to cover the distance:

Here I've raised the new single piece of flooring so it can be seen clearly:

I was surprised to discover so many prims could be saved at the robot sanatorium and equally surprised to find so few could be saved elsewhere. 150 additional prims on Kaboom leaves 400 free, giving us some breathing room for who knows-- maybe another ridiculous feature.

Read More