Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Land Healing: Abandoned By Rn Footman
It's been a long time coming, but this is how the Arbor people know we're winning against the adfarmers.
Monday, May 4, 2009
Speed Build: 'Cinco de Mayo'
The Dreams speed build tonight was themed 'Cinco de Mayo.' I decided to make five giant jars of mayonnaise.
The label on the front says: "Cinco de Mayo (nnaise)" On the back it says "French condiment, Mexican revolution!"
I didn't win. Aww.
The label on the front says: "Cinco de Mayo (nnaise)" On the back it says "French condiment, Mexican revolution!"
I didn't win. Aww.
Sunday, May 3, 2009
Build: Odyssey Exhibit A
Ok, this is a little complicated. :-)
Back when I first showed up on SL, I did a search for 'art' and found two kinds of places: The first was the kind of art gallery where you go to see 'flat art' that people have uploaded into SL. The second was the kind of gallery where the concept of 'gallery' is a little antiquated, and where the art is SL art. That is, art that can really only exist in SL, in any practical sense.
Luckily, one of the first SL art places I found was a sim called Odyssey, looked over by an avatar called Sugar Seville. The sim was (and still is) owned by a company called Dynamis, and set up as a place to nurture SL art. It's one of the oldest art galleries, and thus art-oriented groups on SL. So there's a tremendous sense of history and community around this place.
Recently the sim leadership has had a re-shuffle. And, coinciding with that, an exhibit by Selavy Oh, which always means chaos. So much chaos that when the dust had cleared, the original gallery, called Exhibit A, was half-gone. It looked a bit like this:
Anyway, back when I first showed up on Odyssey, Sugar very patiently gave me the sort of help you give a newbie, and hit me with some landmarks for good art and design places in SL. One of those places was DEsign Island (which is no more at this time). DEsign Island was an architectural experiment by Helfe Inhen, where he'd let people build places within a sort of space-age superstructure called Ville Spatiale. So I went and spent some time there, because Helfe was kind enough to give me build rights, which I didn't utilize nearly enough.
That was all a year ago. Fast forward to a couple weeks ago, and Helfe sends an IM: Would I rebuild Exhibit A?
Of course I would. :-)
So I rebuilt it, mostly from memory, tweaking things here and there, yielding the same basic place, but hopefully reflecting well on me. :-)
The place is very large. The floor is 80x40, and the roof structure is ~55x100. The concrete, wood floor, and roof textures were supplied to me by Helfe. I tweaked the floor a bunch to make it repeating (the earlier build was all 10x10 tiles, with the floor texture stretched in various ways). The whole thing was built over about a week, in very short bursts (I was traveling).
I was thinking: There's a lot of concrete wall here. And what happens to concrete walls? Graffiti. Plus there are graffiti'd walls in a nearby build. So I added a spray can which allows any user to put graffiti on the outside wall. Coding this was the single most time-consuming aspect.
I'm very much glad to have been able to make this full-circle return, and rebuild one of the first places I came to in SL. Especially one that is so rich with community and where so many great SL artists have exhibited.
Web: Odyssey on ning
SLURL: Odyssey Exhibit A, Odyssey sim landing point
And photos:
Back when I first showed up on SL, I did a search for 'art' and found two kinds of places: The first was the kind of art gallery where you go to see 'flat art' that people have uploaded into SL. The second was the kind of gallery where the concept of 'gallery' is a little antiquated, and where the art is SL art. That is, art that can really only exist in SL, in any practical sense.
Luckily, one of the first SL art places I found was a sim called Odyssey, looked over by an avatar called Sugar Seville. The sim was (and still is) owned by a company called Dynamis, and set up as a place to nurture SL art. It's one of the oldest art galleries, and thus art-oriented groups on SL. So there's a tremendous sense of history and community around this place.
Recently the sim leadership has had a re-shuffle. And, coinciding with that, an exhibit by Selavy Oh, which always means chaos. So much chaos that when the dust had cleared, the original gallery, called Exhibit A, was half-gone. It looked a bit like this:
Anyway, back when I first showed up on Odyssey, Sugar very patiently gave me the sort of help you give a newbie, and hit me with some landmarks for good art and design places in SL. One of those places was DEsign Island (which is no more at this time). DEsign Island was an architectural experiment by Helfe Inhen, where he'd let people build places within a sort of space-age superstructure called Ville Spatiale. So I went and spent some time there, because Helfe was kind enough to give me build rights, which I didn't utilize nearly enough.
That was all a year ago. Fast forward to a couple weeks ago, and Helfe sends an IM: Would I rebuild Exhibit A?
Of course I would. :-)
So I rebuilt it, mostly from memory, tweaking things here and there, yielding the same basic place, but hopefully reflecting well on me. :-)
The place is very large. The floor is 80x40, and the roof structure is ~55x100. The concrete, wood floor, and roof textures were supplied to me by Helfe. I tweaked the floor a bunch to make it repeating (the earlier build was all 10x10 tiles, with the floor texture stretched in various ways). The whole thing was built over about a week, in very short bursts (I was traveling).
I was thinking: There's a lot of concrete wall here. And what happens to concrete walls? Graffiti. Plus there are graffiti'd walls in a nearby build. So I added a spray can which allows any user to put graffiti on the outside wall. Coding this was the single most time-consuming aspect.
I'm very much glad to have been able to make this full-circle return, and rebuild one of the first places I came to in SL. Especially one that is so rich with community and where so many great SL artists have exhibited.
Web: Odyssey on ning
SLURL: Odyssey Exhibit A, Odyssey sim landing point
And photos:
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Build: Tomb of the Unknown Adfarmer
Another build by the Association for Whimsical Land Use (which really means me).
This is a one-tombstone cemetery with nearby chapel. The chapel has a tree in it, for some reason that made sense at the time.
Here's the parcel description: "Come pay your (dis)respects. Repent, for the end is nigh, o farmers of ads.... [NOTE: Items are copiable.]"
Visit here: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Myeolchi/58/238/54
This is a one-tombstone cemetery with nearby chapel. The chapel has a tree in it, for some reason that made sense at the time.
Here's the parcel description: "Come pay your (dis)respects. Repent, for the end is nigh, o farmers of ads.... [NOTE: Items are copiable.]"
Visit here: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Myeolchi/58/238/54
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Build: LandZen Zen Land
I 'blogged a few Arbor Project builds here... Before I was involved with the Arbor Project, I started my own project having to do with putting art in the midst of the adfarms. This was a long time ago, back when adfarms were much more of a blight than they are now (by orders of magnitude).
The point being I started up my own SL group called the Association for Whimsical Land Use. The Association still does stuff; at this point it's just me doing 'land healings.'
Some months back I got some land in Picnic sim, for the purpose of healing it or building something within the constraints of junk land. It ended up being the latter.
I call it LandZen Zen Land. Here's the parcel description: "Cut land as zen garden. The wabi-sabi of former adfarms. The landscaping might make more sense if you View -> Property Lines. If you are a neighbor interested in obtaining this land for your own use, IM Cinco Pizzicato"
Basically, I decided to embrace the fractured nature of the land. Some elements of the zen garden are 'disrupted' by the microparcels, such as the water and the rock garden. As pieces became available (with the land cutters selling out or abandoning their land), I left the fractured elements un-fixed.
Most of the elements of this landscaping effort are freebies that I made; one of the buildings in the southern end of the parcel has boxes that will give them to you. I'm especially proud of the 6-prim teahouse. The rocks are sculptie prims unlinked from a juniper tree I bought from Organica.
This junk land has reached equilibrium, in the sense that I can't really buy any more of it, and none of the sellers are going to do me any favors at all. So here it is, empty in its fullness, finished and unfinished.
Visit here:http://slurl.com/secondlife/Picnic/103/140/145. But be sure to turn on View -> Property Lines in order to understand it.
Note: Melodie Darwin wrote a nice piece on this land.
The point being I started up my own SL group called the Association for Whimsical Land Use. The Association still does stuff; at this point it's just me doing 'land healings.'
Some months back I got some land in Picnic sim, for the purpose of healing it or building something within the constraints of junk land. It ended up being the latter.
I call it LandZen Zen Land. Here's the parcel description: "Cut land as zen garden. The wabi-sabi of former adfarms. The landscaping might make more sense if you View -> Property Lines. If you are a neighbor interested in obtaining this land for your own use, IM Cinco Pizzicato"
Basically, I decided to embrace the fractured nature of the land. Some elements of the zen garden are 'disrupted' by the microparcels, such as the water and the rock garden. As pieces became available (with the land cutters selling out or abandoning their land), I left the fractured elements un-fixed.
Most of the elements of this landscaping effort are freebies that I made; one of the buildings in the southern end of the parcel has boxes that will give them to you. I'm especially proud of the 6-prim teahouse. The rocks are sculptie prims unlinked from a juniper tree I bought from Organica.
This junk land has reached equilibrium, in the sense that I can't really buy any more of it, and none of the sellers are going to do me any favors at all. So here it is, empty in its fullness, finished and unfinished.
Visit here:http://slurl.com/secondlife/Picnic/103/140/145. But be sure to turn on View -> Property Lines in order to understand it.
Note: Melodie Darwin wrote a nice piece on this land.
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Build: Valeyard on the Gulf Coast
I've been wanting to build something like this for a while. I come from the Texas gulf coast, and I've been feeling a little homesick for wide flat wetlands and fried shimp.
The land came up for auction, and I won it. A friend of mine really enjoys underwater spaces, which will be the next addition.
For now, it's a fishing shack and dock. Come on down. Bring yer fishin' pole. Try here: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Valeyard/101/47/24 UPDATE: Valeyard is no more.
I wanted to create a little bit of narrative, so there's a solar collector on the roof, hooked to a car battery, and subsequently to a power inverter and then the lights.
Main building was done in a day and a half. Some texture tweaking over another day, spread out, and some custom coding for another couple days, spread out. The shadow under the shelter dissipates as the sun goes down, and reappears when the sun rises. The lights light up at night, and bugs start swarming them. And also there's a water-lapping sound embedded in the build, which can be switched on and off if you know where to click.
The land came up for auction, and I won it. A friend of mine really enjoys underwater spaces, which will be the next addition.
For now, it's a fishing shack and dock. Come on down. Bring yer fishin' pole. Try here: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Valeyard/101/47/24 UPDATE: Valeyard is no more.
I wanted to create a little bit of narrative, so there's a solar collector on the roof, hooked to a car battery, and subsequently to a power inverter and then the lights.
Main building was done in a day and a half. Some texture tweaking over another day, spread out, and some custom coding for another couple days, spread out. The shadow under the shelter dissipates as the sun goes down, and reappears when the sun rises. The lights light up at night, and bugs start swarming them. And also there's a water-lapping sound embedded in the build, which can be switched on and off if you know where to click.
Build: Arbor Project in Zakarisz
Another Arbor Project build I did. This is a sort of exposed sewer that lives on about 368 square meters of land. I did it over the course of a couple of days, off and on.
When I build something like this, it's mostly done within two hours. The rest is tweaking.
When I first built this, all the nearby land was full of terrible junk builds and detritus on land with no autoreturn. Basically the place looked like a metaphorical sewer of ugliness, so I added a more literal sewer.
Since then, the land on three sides has been abandoned, even where you see the little mall next door. Some people will abandon land but leave the vendors.
Visit here: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Zakarisz/220/12/81
When I build something like this, it's mostly done within two hours. The rest is tweaking.
When I first built this, all the nearby land was full of terrible junk builds and detritus on land with no autoreturn. Basically the place looked like a metaphorical sewer of ugliness, so I added a more literal sewer.
Since then, the land on three sides has been abandoned, even where you see the little mall next door. Some people will abandon land but leave the vendors.
Visit here: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Zakarisz/220/12/81
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