I really love to take photos in SL and to try to make them look as good as possible. There are some easy things to learn how to improve the quality of your photos. If you haven't read our old articles about high quality photography you find the links here to the left.
I mostly do landscapes and try to document the places I like the most in here. In future articles I will try to dig into how to make as good landscape photos as possible but before that I will dig into my favourite object for my photography passion.... portraits. Below you can see a few example of some of my portraits and in the upcoming article I will try to explain my best tips to be successful in making nice portraits in SL.
I have received a few IM:s with practical questions about photography and machinima in SL and I will write a special article were I try to answer those. But please don't hesitate to ask questions in world, by IM or email or in the comments here....
Right now there is an ongoing mission in Second Life called "Relay for Life". It is about raising money for the research in cancer treatment. Real life in Second Life! So great!
And the sailing community is of course also involved in this and that makes me a bit proud. Right now there are biding going on for a beta-version of the new upcoming version of the ACA33. But you can also bid on lots of other interesting stuff as well and all the money will of course be donated.
Relay for Life has all kind of interesting things on a number of Sims there. This evening there will be fireworks at 10 AM... This is truly a very impressive effort, please go there and explore and we hope you would like to contribute to this.
Look at the map below and observe the incredible amount of visitors at the same time... how wonderful. You just don't want to miss this..
I like to create things in here but I didn't like that the paradise island looks like a junk yard between the building sessions and it is totally boring to clean it up all the time so I decided to do something about it.
This building platform is 100 * 50 meters and is made out of just 5 Megaprims. You cant link all that the normal way so I have used a Rez-Faux-mechanism for making it easy to move and build in new places. The textures on the walls are seamless and the building texture on the floor is great for fitting things together. IM me if you interested in a something like this platform.
Below the platform you can see the Art exhibition hall, and the Stardancer exhibit is still going on there and even further down are the islands.
This post will be about some of the tools I often use for building. Some of them comes from the amazing Skidz Tweak. On the first photo above you can see the very useful Robotic Land Laser. You can rez it at any hight and it shows you very precise the borders of your parcel below.... how useful.
Here you can see two of his other tools, The Skidz Primz and the TNT Primz. They are not cheap but so incredible useful. They are both intended for aligning different prims to each other but have a different twitch each of them. You rezz special prims with scripts inside or you can insert those scripts in regular prims. Skidz Primz works with both Mega and scuplty prims while TNT Primz (to the right here) only works on regular prims, but is on the other hand smoother and less prune to lag.
You use them just by clicking on those red dots and you get perfect alignment extremely fast. Every Saturday there is free of cost classes at the main shop en there are lots of great YouTube-videos showing you the usefulness of these tools. I don't build without them any more.
There is also another alternative called PrimDocker. That is very cheap compared to the Skidz tools and works also with Mega prims... but is not that sleek and fast. In PrimDocker you use a hud and click on that for the adjustments and not just but clicking on the prims them selfs. It is a bit less intuitive but when you have learned it you find that it is very fast and low demanding on resources.
Here you see the manual for PrimDocker on my building platform. On the photo you can also see the MegaPrim search tool even though I prefer http://megaprim.sl/ as it is possible to see the rotation and orientation of the Megas there and I find that extremely useful.
Behind that you can see the PrimFinder tool that lets you create normal prims but with an unusual shape very quickly.
And so... finally.... here is the gem! SculptCrafter! With sculptcrafter you have a reduced set of prims that you can use in a limited number of ways. To the right here you can see a buoy I have built with 29 of those prims. Then with a twist of the magic wand i can convert those into a single prim sculpt map. Totally incredible and extremely useful.
But it is a rather expensive tool and it has a number of limitation, but if you are aware of those it is the most valuable tool I have. If you accept some pointless script errors I have also discovered that it is possible to insert both PrimDocker and Skidz Primz scripts in the SculptCrafter prims and combine the tools. I just love it!
You can make real sculpty prims that you own with the demo. But you can only build them there in the sandbox and you are limited to 10 prims... but the resulting scultpy is real and can be used anywhere.
"Well now I think I will quit writing about the snobbish cultural side of it all... and start writing about..... looks, clothes, sex, shallow behaviour, intrigues, parties, tattoos and... and ... shoes?... SIGH.
Stupid, silly me..... ROFL"
So now is time for my first post about shoes.
Well maybe not the kind of shoes you though I would write about but I really like the detailed work at display here. Look at the engravement on the metal buttons, the stitches, the leather on the heels and beautiful folds. This is really supreme craftsmanship in SL.... how great!
This is the newest person on my friendslist.... Lemondrop! Yes, it is her shoes and tomorrow I will show you the incredible Sim she and her friend has created. If you also liked the shoes, just hold your breath!
Yesterday on february 15 the Tradewinds 2010 Boat Builders Show opened for the public. This is what they write about it on the web page:
"Fostering a friendly and helpful environment for sailboat builders and those who love them, to network and show off their boats. With the idea that together we will all improve. 1) these are boats YOU made or are making
2) they don't have to be finished
3) Although maybe not working yet, the idea is that you intended to get these sailable"
The great thing about this all is that this also marks the release of a totally FREE building kit from Becca Moulliez. How great! There are textures and scripts... all free that you can use for inclusion in your own masterpiece. And you are welcome to expose your creations here even if they are in a very early state.
and if you are a bit overwhelmed by the though, be aware of that even mothers with babies can find the time do this... so surely... it is worth a try.... ;o)
So just run over and get your free building kit... and while you are there... get a free Fizz as well and come sailing with us!
The sailing community here in SL is really a fabulous crowd. In my search to be a better sailor in here I have searched all over the place and to my surprise I have been welcomed everywhere. It is certainly not like that in all the groups...... ;o)
Soon after I got my Fizz somebody told me that the Japanese group of Fizz sailors are some of the very best and as they have weekly practice races I started to sail together with them. The best way of learning is to learn from the best.
I got to know them and Taku who is arranging these sailing (Liv is also one of the arrangers) took a lot of time to explain the rules and the different tactics to the group. He has tought me so many great things and is so incredible patient and friendly. Thanks a lot, mate! Without his N3 navigator I wouldn't had a chance in the Americas Cup.
The Tradewinds Yachtclub is the base for the Japanese sailors and after each day of practice the winner is celebrated there and the winners boat is exposed for all to see.
This day the winner the winner was Mihwa who also competed in the Americas Cup Trophy. The Fizz is very difficult to master as it is so realistic and much more precise to sail than for example the ACA33. I don't have a chance yet against the best ones in the Fizz...
After the races there is always a discussion about the tactical details that made the difference.
