Loki - Digital Mischief Maker

Display Cost of a Prim #SL

2012-01-27T03:01:00.000-08:00

While working on my mesh cabin and rats i was wondering about 'Display Cost' . Display cost is the number calculated by the viewer to represent how much computing power is needed to view an object, The lower the number the more efficient your object is to be displayed.

I did a test on a normal default plywood Prim cube. I originally entertained the idea that by setting the sides to invisible, perhaps the display cost of the prim would shrink. Actually i found the opposite.

Default Prim has a display cost of 389

Setting the faces transparency to 100 added 15 making display cost 404

making just one face 100 transparency ads the same amount of cost

removing the textures deducted 120 from the display cost showing how much a texture can change
the cost your object has.

Changing the size of a prim seems not to change the display cost unlike a mesh object.

Not sure what significance this is or wether it helps anyone, but i found it interesting none the less :-p

Making a Mesh: Recreating a Cabin #SL #SLmesh

2012-01-18T10:52:00.000-08:00

Those following me on Twitter will have seen tweets as i set out to recreate my little Cabin on Escapades Island.

So far with Mesh i have grappled with creating clothing, zombie worms and an AirShip, but i had yet to try making a building out of Mesh. Compared to rigging clothes making a mesh building should be a lot easier :-p

Start with cube

Using the free Blender 2.6 i started creating the initial walls and built up the shape. I created several parts to the new cabin keeping things such as, the cooker, roof, windows and floor planks as separate 'Objects' within the blender file. Each part had it's own UV Texture map.

UV Mapping

UV mapping is a very important part between modelling and texturing. It's an art form in itself and can take up a lot of time to perfect. When you create UV maps for buildings, you want to try and keep UV shapes close to the shape of the walls. It's very easy to 'Un-wrap' a UV and end up with stretched or squished shapes. If this happens you can edit the UV map and reshape UV's to the shape of the surfaces to be textured.

In Blender you can export the UV map as a PNG file. This can be useful
for reference when texturing you model.

When it came to texturing the Walls i discovered i had made them badly making it rather impossible to UV-unwrap nicely so i had to pretty much delete the walls i first made and start again.

This image shows how bad UV-Unwrapping was causing bad texturing.
This was due to bad modelling from the start.

Texturing

I have recently been playing Star Wars: The Old Republic and had be interested in the texturing used in the game. They used quite low detailed soft illustrated textures and so i decided to try a similar style texturing for my cabin. I used reference textures of wood from google search and added bur while modifying with paint strokes to give a more illustrated feel to the textures.

Another benefit of texturing mesh is you have more control over stuff like shadows and lighting. I was able to add a glow from the cooker onto the canon floor and shadows under the table and shelves.

Comparing Old to New

Part of this project was also to see the differences between my old cabin and a new mesh cabin, not just by its visual and prim counts, but also by how much it weighs on the server and your computer.

You have to realise that Mesh is not simply about creating awesome looking detailed objects. It is about creating stuff that is more efficient for you computer to download and display in the Viewer.

In my previous blog post about uploading mesh i explained how i use normal old Prims to create
the Physics shapes. This is because it seems more efficient way to ad Physics to mesh, especially buildings.

It's the Count that Counts!

Linden Lab have added a new tool you may not be aware of. When you open the build/edit window, next to the Objects Land Impact is 'more info'. This opens up another window that calculates numbers to represent aspects of an object you never really think about.

Objects = how many grouped/linked items are selected.

Prims = how many Prims make up the selected item, that includes mesh, sculpts and basic old prims.

Download = represents an estimation oh how much it costs to download i.e. how quick it is to load

Physics = represents how much physical energy it costs. i.e. how much energy used to roll a ball over.

Server = represents how much server attention costs. i.e. how much attention the sever has to spend watching your object.

Display = represents the cost to display your item in the Viewer. i.e. how much processing power your computer uses to display your item.

Land impacts = the new form of counting object costs, replacing Prim counts with Land Impacts.

So comparing the two cabins is quite eye opening. In every category the Mesh Cabin is less than half of the costs of the old cabin. If these numbers are anything to go by, once i convert most of my builds to Mesh, the SL viewer should display them with complete ease while the server runs as smooth as... oh but to dream :-P.

Making a Mesh: Uploading to #SL

2012-01-18T04:49:00.000-08:00

It's great to hear so many of my friends dabbling in Mesh creation now.
They are all levelling up into a world thats going to offer more creative choice in the near future with 3D printing starting to hype it up.

Some of my friends have expressed frustration with the SL mesh uploader, so i have decided to blog how i do it and what i know in order to perhaps make my friends lives easier. There is nothing worst than slaving over a model in Blender only for SL to spit some error message at you on the final hurdle.

Beta Grid
To start with get on the Beta-Grid 'Aditi'. When starting in mesh, it's not kool if your first 100 practices are gonna cost you your Linden Credits. Until you have got a feel for how to optimise the mesh to cost as little as possible with low Land impact.

Mesh Uploader Window
There are a few things the SL viewer needs to generate when uploading you .dae Collada file to the grid.

Click to embiggen

1. Generate Levels Of Detail.

Each level should
be less detail than the
one above

As you move away from an object in SL, the further away you go the less detail you need to see because you are to far away. So 3D worlds and games use a system called 'Levels of Detail'. If you yourself are so far away that you can't see the object in detail then your computer need not waist valuable computing power to render all that detail so far away.

The first in the options tab is the Level of detail Generator. This is very important to how much Land Impact (prims) your mesh will cost/weigh. Proper Pro model creators will create and upload Levels of detail separately, but if you are like me an amateur self taught monkey then you will probably use the built in Levels of Detail Generator.

the LOD (levels of detail) options show four levels Lowest, Low, Medium & High. Each level has tabs of options, but the only options i change are the numbers on the end with the up and down tabs. The higher the number the more detail that level has. The lower the number the less detail and less computing power is needed to render it.

To better see changing a levels detail, click and change the 'Level of Detail Selection' button to the appropriate Level.

TIP FOR LOW LAND IMPACT: Select the Lowest Level of Detail in the LOD preview selection. now go to the Lowest level options and set the numbers to 0 (ZERO). The preview should show a small triangle. I always set the Lowest level of detail to 0. The reason for this i will explain in the next section XD.

Click to embiggen

Go through the other levels options and adjust the numbers as you feel best. What will happen is in SL as people walk away from your uploaded object the Viewer will drop down through the layers. As you walk towards the object the SL Viewer will raise up through the layers until you are stood in front of the object seeing the highest level of detail.... hope this makes sense :-)

2. Physics.
Adding a Physical shape to your object is like adding another invisible level of detail and as with the Levels of detail, the more detailed your physics shape is the more it will ad to the final land Impact (prim count). Using the Physics Options Tab you can select one of the Levels of Detail to use as the basis for your objects Physical shape. Pro Model creators will probably make their own specialised Physics shape to upload.

I have not had much success with Mesh Physics. I'm still finding them a bit crazy in their outcomes so what i tend to do is set the Physics shape to use the lowest level of detail. This basically makes the object an almost NON Physical shape (phantom).

Click to embiggen

TIP FOR LOW LAND IMPACT: Instead of making your mesh object an accurate Physics shape during uploading, use the lowest LOD as set in the previous TIP. "But I want my object to be physical!??", I use the old fashion PRIM. After uploading your low impact mesh you can link it to a normal SL PRIM with usually no additional Land Impact costs. Set the PRIM to 100% transparency and away yu go :)

IMPORTANT: Before moving on to the next section it is important that you remember after selecting your Physics shape to click 'ANALYSE'!

3. Upload Options.
In the Upload Options Tab there are some useful told for extra mesh fun such as Rigging and joints and... well stuff i don't totally understand yet. But the important thing for you is SCALE.

What ever the 3D modelling program you use, getting an idea of the scale of your object is tricky. When first trying mesh i would upload a t-shirt that was big enough for King Kong or Godzilla.

Click to embiggen

The Scale section shows what the in world dimensions will be in metres once uploaded to the grid. Very handy for keeping costs down as you do not want to upload an object unnecessarily huge at a high Linden Credit Cost only to then shrink it down.

4. Calculating and Uploading.
Finally you are ready to click that Calculate Weights & Fees button. It will take a few seconds to calculate before giving you a price and land impact as well as some very handy costs Download/Physics/Server.

Click to embiggen

If you are happy with the calculation you can click upload and after a few seconds it should appear in your inventory.

Click to embiggen

TIP FOR UPLOADING AGAIN: Not everyone knows this but every time you upload a new Mesh Object your SL viewer will automatically save a file on your desktop. This file called a .slm file stores all the configurations for the mesh file associated with it.

This is handy if you uploaded a mesh perfectly on the beta Grid and want to upload the same object with the same settings onto the Main Grid.

WARNING: Although handy for re-uploading previous Mesh Objects, the .slm file can totally screw things up if you modified your object and saved under the same name. In cases like these all you need to do is simply click 'Clear settings & reset form'.

So thats the basics.
It is the way i have learnt to use the Mesh Uploader and there is a lot of stuff i still don't understand yet. I hope this helps my creative friends and anyone else who wants to get into mesh as it really is a levelUP in the creative game. Most of all i hope this allows you to have more fun experimenting XD.

Some other tips about Mesh once uploaded that i have learnt...

1. Changing the Size of the object changes the cost in Land impact (prim cost) dramatically.

2. You can change a mesh objects physics shape to be PRIM, Convex Hull or to NONE. This changes how the physical shape interacts with the world and also dramatically changes the objects land Impact.

3. When making vehicles it's land impact will change dramatically as the object changes from a static object to a physical object. A way around this is to set your mesh objects Physics to NONE in the features tab of the Objects edit options.

Loki's Predictions for #SL 2012

2011-12-30T06:42:00.000-08:00

I spent more time in SL this year
than last year

Predictions for SL have started popping up and for the most part they paint a rather pessimistic view.

I think last year most of my friends and i were tired of the stagnation, but blimey what a year 2011 has been!

So i've decided to list my predictions for SL which will express my optimism that has grown through out 2011.

What ever happens next is built on progress gained from 2011….

1. Content creators will create the biggest and strongest change.

Is it me or are people forgetting that SL is made by US!. When Rodvik first arrived he expressed that Second Life is OUR world and the most interesting part of it is OUR creative energy. If SL is going to grow it'll be in some way down to us creators and what we build. It's up to us to embrace the tools LL have been working on through 2011 and to use them as best we can to create fantastic places, games, experiences, role-play havens or social environments.

2. Market place will become even easier and more efficient.

The new magic-boxless Marketplace is almost here allowing anyone to sell their creations on marketplace directly from their inventory. This will hopefully remove dramas such as crashing before deliveries etc. In world stores will find it difficult, and i saw some very old stores pack it in this year. It's a changing world, the game is changing just like in the real world.

3. More land will be used to host games and experiences to subsidise tier costs.

It was easy to rent out land for people to set up shops. It's not quite that easy to rent out land to set up micro-payment games and experiences. I still do not know exactly how the new gaming tools will be implemented. Will they be new scripting rules, or will they be options available in build edit or land tools? In any case from what Rodvik has blogged the Lab seem to be working on making it easier for you and i to create interactivity in what we make. It'll be up to us weather we use the tools to charge people for entertainment.

4. SL feed integrated into other SL features.

Currently you can follow people, tag your current location and upload snapshots. It would seem silly to have the SLfeed and not have it tied into the destination guide, or on marketplace. I assumed that LL would simply ad a 'love button' by now. It would also be nice to have a simpler way to 'LOVE' your current location with one click.

5. LL will create a mobile project that allows us to share creative aspects with the mobile world.

Cant really predict what this will be. It's interesting what ever it is. The last new product from the Lab was a gated business orientated conference flop and did not involve the current SL user base. What i hope is that what ever Rodvik and his team unveil in 2012 it will thrive on the freedom of creativity the current SL users spill out.

6. Linden lab will fix notifications.

Ok so this is a HOPE more than a prediction. I hate the viewers notification system, i think its dreadful and has been for the past 2 years. I basically use my email client to store and organise offline notifications because SL Viewer lumps it all together in a tiny corner box and sometimes not at all. It just feels like a broken mess, so I'm hoping LL are working on new ways to present, store and organise notifications from groups, receiving items, offline messages, SLfeeds etc.

7. Destination guide will have to evolve into something more universal and dynamic.

Currently Linden Lab see the destination guide as a way to present places of interest to new users. But anyone can see that it is one of the best ways to find a place to visit no matter how many years you have been in SL.

If Linden Lab want people to build and submit more games and experiences, then they will need to create ways to better manage visitors. I can't have over 2000 people arriving at my private region without it causing major lag and a terrible experience. The destination guide will have to change somehow or new users from the login screen will be continuously forwarded to places so full of people they will have the worst first experience.

8. Old users will loose out to those who take hold of new features and brave the lag of progress.

Not much i can really ad to that.

Im very excited about 2012. I do not see SL disappearing, i have to many projects on the go, to many friends enjoying their time in SL. If you think SL is not going to survive 2012, maybe you are just not interested anymore and are just predicting the demise of that interest. And from what i have witnessed through my attempts at making games in SL, there are plenty of people who are still exploring what SL has to offer.

Another Year of Change in My Second Life #SL

2011-12-29T05:17:00.000-08:00

This is not predictions for next year but rather a comparative look at what i wrote this time last year.

1. Land. I spoke about how the old system of renting shopping space to help pay for over priced tier was gone thanks to market place and linden homes.

So what happened during 2011? nothing really, except i have worked really hard to make gaming experiences that bring money back into the land to pay for the tier. Escapades saw a major drop in donations but thanks to the Secret underground base, the Eggmen hunt, Zombie worm massacre and the Dark Aether Falls game i managed to hit Tier targets.

2. Shops. I said last year that Marketplace killed the in world shopping system, and i still believe that. Specifically affiliate sellers.

During 2011 i re built my clothing brand and delved head first into Mesh clothing. I've seen record sales and gained a lot of positive feed back regardless of the deformer drama. But i am aware that i am now working with stuff far beyond simple linked prims. The game of creating a shop, selling quality items is a lot harder now.

3. Viewer2. As you can probably guess i basically said it was crap. I also touched on viewer fragmentation as the long time users refuse to use V2.

So has it been fixed? Well viewer 2 is now Viewer 3, or simply called 'Viewer' now. LL took a good look at making things simpler with a basic viewer mode, then integrating that basic idea and allowing a nice customisable UI which i liked. But fragmentation of the viewer is still as annoying as ever.

If you make stuff in mesh you have have a disclaimer that it's not viewable on all third party viewers, if i use Shared Media i have to have a disclaimer that its not viewable on all viewers. It leads to such frustration as people blame me for not being able to see the virtual world correctly when it is their decision to stick to out of date viewers.

The probable reason third party viewers are faster might have something to do with them not rendering the whole world.

4. Newbies VS Oldbies. I said "Viewer2 is the wedge that deepened the divide between the New and long time residents of SL. "

During 2011 i became almost anti-Newb, i started to see them as a pest. While creating games it was near impossible to cater for them and while using destination guide to promote my experiences it was impossible to get away from them. As a result experiences i made slowed to a crawl.

Oldbies continued to stick to what they know and complain about the changes, never has this been more clear than in 2011. Phoenix viewer finally right at the end of 2011 added mesh support, only for it to be noticeably slower and crash making it a completely pointless viewer. If anything it has convinced many that mesh is evil.

5. Communication. I talked about the group chat FAILs and the horrible notification system.

What changed in 2011? Well they fixed the group chat system which is great, well done for that. They also added the SLfeed which most third party viewer users are oblivious of. Possibly the greatest addition after Mesh the SLfeed allows to say to friends whats been going on, link places, and post pics direct from SL. I did not think i would check out my SL feed as much as i do seeing as i have Facebook and twitter as well, but it really has become a daily need to catch up on what my friends are doing. If you are not on SLfeed then you are BORING.

During the UI facelift the terrible notification system still remains unchanged, all be it is now at the top instead of the bottom. It now shoves SLfeed notifications into it as well to be lost for ever. There is also annoying issues of getting IM's via email and them not appearing once you login.

All in all 2011 saw communication for official SL Viewer improve lots, but the way we receive and display notifications still needs serious makeover.

6. My Island and my friends. i said that 'My biggest aims will be finding a balance between making content & experiences in SL and Doing work in real world.'

Well i could not foresee the problems that would crop up during 2011 but I'm really REALLY grateful for the support i got from my SL friends. A lot of stuff never happened in SL that had been planned but a lot of unplanned stuff did happen and Escapades is still here.

During 2012 i would like to bring the Escapades gang together more as a family and help each other to build Escapades concentrating on what we want the island to be.

I tried roleplaying games on the island, and i tried mini games on the island, made a shop, was placed on destination guide five times. I buried myself in work on SL and failed to make it balance with real world work, so maybe it's time to accept that SL is my work in 2012.

7. Linden Lab. I said i look forward to what those left at LL after the great cull of 2010 come up with in 2011. For me at least it has been a fun year watching the Lab churn out new stuff, trying new ideas. The lab is a lab now, and everything they seem to change keeps changing and improving. The cogs are moving and SL is steaming forward, to where we don't care just as long as it moves! :)

llSay(0,"Roleplaying Games and Trolls and Lag OH MY") #SL

2011-12-28T15:46:00.000-08:00

It's that week between christmas when you sit back and relax with left overs and rubbish tv….

well thats what it's supposed to be. In stead i have been popping into SL every couple of hours to check on SIM performance and dealing with user questions regarding the Dark Aether Falls game.

The Dark Aether Ends

Lets step back a few weeks first. Early december the Dark Aether Falls role-play was in full swing after two months build up. The Mini clue hunt game was finished and served as a side plot for a story explaining who Jason Moriarty was and present a few ideas for why he was so hell bent on the destruction of the town.

The residents of New Babbage loved this small game as a prelude to the final chapter and end of the story which this year entailed a ritual, race against time hunt amongst the clouds to stop the Dark Aether from falling.

Everything was automated this year making it easier for me to do talking parts between NPC's while the machinery clanked away behind me revealing the final monster. This was all thanks to my continued efforts in grasping SL scripting by communicating with brilliant minds on the SL scripting forums.

The story that unfolded was everything i hoped for with the Cloud angels, Moriarty, the Van Creed, the canisters all converging for a climatic end with a building collapsing around the players in a panic. Everything went to plan except as hard as i tried to kill off the main character the players refused to let him die :). So as i close this chapter of my creative story it has been taken out of my hands by those who are so involved with the cannon created that they can't bare to let it die.

The feed back from the residents of New babbage has been phenomenal and extremely positive and although i have said i will not be returning next year with an rp on that scale, I'm sure i will will have something because what i learnt this year is that creating an RP story for a small group is very different and sometimes more rewarding than making a game experience for a mass of people.

The Dark Aether Continues

So what happens when 80 people an hour arrive to play your gaming experience? Let me take another step back to explain how its possible to end up having 80 people an hour arriving at your region.

When i first announced the Dark Aether Falls mini game at the start of december i had only just submitted my game to Destination Guide. Linden Realms was being promoted on the main login screen and all over the front of the Destination guide. I thought at first as you do that they were just using their godly powers to be ahead of everyone else. I now believe it was necessary for them to understand how the destination guide herds n00bs to places en mass and to gage how regions cope with the strain.

I myself enjoyed being placed in the Destination guide at a position that saw low but manageable levels of interest from people who were experienced in SL.

What happens when 80 people an hour arrive at your region?

Then came boxing day and suddenly New Babbage was seeing thousands of people a day arriving to play the Dark Aether Falls mini game. It was soon discovered that the Dark Aether had been placed on the number one slot of the login screen and New babbage was suffering. The SIM crawled to a halt as people continued to arrive at the HUD shop making it impossible to do anything. Not only does movement become impossible but script also start being delayed and so the game HUDS stopped working.

And this is where i am today, overwhelmed by the interest caused by the Login Screen Destination guide, trying to help those i can who have managed to get through the lag to play the game they purchased in SL. For many this is their first experience of SL after going through the orientation and i so wish it wasn't. I feel helpless to do anything.

I requested the destination guide editor to remove the Dark Aether from the number one slot to try and lower the number of visitors which they did and New Babbage is once again playable. Thanks to the LL editor being quick :).

'Be careful what you wish for'

yes i wished for lots of people to be able to experience what i make, and why shouldn't i? I haven't been put off by whats happened in New Babbage, instead i view it as highlighting a very important area in which the Lab NEEDS to be aware of and strive to fix.

The lab has avoided this issue with their Linden Realms game as they created twelve regions. Im not sure how many people can afford £3500 a month tier costs (not including VAT) to run a game in a similar fashion, but the drop off from destination guide will kill you out right. I would like to know how many are still playing Linden Realms now it has dropped off the number one slot.

Linden Lab want us to use new gaming tools to build games in order to bring value back into owning land and encourage new and current users to stick around longer. Combine that with the current destination guide, all you will get is bad experiences like i'm currently going through :).

Egnog shows a fragmented future.

Dark Aether aside, i did one final gaming experience before the end of the year. Egnog the christmas Troll is a character i created for my SL friends. He is not of any faith and simply gives you a present if you want it. Originally created 4 years ago he was made crudely with 24 sculpt prims and this year i decided to recreate him and his winter grotto in MESH. He is now only 10 prims and more detailed.

The grotto is perfect example of all that i have learnt this year in SL. From Mesh modelling and texturing to automated scripted machines and gaming HUDS. Unfortunately the free Egnog game HUD does not work so well, but again i have learnt a lot from making it.

It has highlighted an issue that will plague me and those working in Mesh to make detailed, efficient builds throughout 2012. That is the issue of fragmentation between viewers.

Part of the decision to make Egnog in mesh was because the Phoenix viewer now has mesh support, but the feed back i was getting was that many could not see Egnog because they had changed back to the old phoenix simply because it's a faster viewer. If you remove the ability to render objects, textures sounds and lighting, then yeh your viewer is going to be faster of course, but then you can't complain when you don't see things.

We should be embracing mesh viewers and demanding that LL make it work better.

Anyway Egnogs winter grotto is open to who ever visits Escapades Island or shares between friends and will be around until New Year.

The Dark Aether falls Mini Game of Clue Hunting and Bug Zapping #SL

2011-12-06T06:42:00.001-08:00

This weekend will hopefully see my latest attempt at a game added to SL destination guide (fingers crossed).

Part of a much BIGGER story.

Part of the fifth New Babbage Chronicles Roleplay game in Second Life is is designed as a simple clue hunt game to uncover a small part of the overall story The Dark Aether falls. The Roleplay has already been unfolding for almost two months and is nearing its end dead line and while the residents of New Babbage have been writing lots and lots about their reactions to the story and contributing their own spin off encounters i have been working on this mini game.

The aim of the game is to uncover the truth about why a man is found hanging in the Red Dragon Opium Den. Following Clues and solving riddles while watching machinima cut scenes that explain the story. It is a way for people to get into the spirit of New Babbage who's motto is 'what could possibly go wrong'.

The end is somewhat open ended allowing those who are interested to stick around, talk to other residents of New Babbage and perhaps become addicted as i have to the steam filled smoggy city of Steampunk.

Building on experience.

The game itself is a combination of what i have learnt from past games such as the evil zombie worms and last years The Black Heart. It uses a HUD to allow the user to play the game. It holds all the parts of the story and you basically search the town for the clues which when you click activate the necessary part of the HUD. The HUD also comes with the Dapper Zapper with which you can dispatch annoying evil Aether Bugs that run around in the sewers.

The Dapper Zapper and HUD together cost just L$100 which is about USD$0.50 and i hope people will feel the experience is worth it.

Shared Media woes continue a year later.

It is a shame the new LL gaming tools have not been released yet as they might have helped make the initial start of the game easier for those with little SL Skill. Also i found it really hard to get the Shared Media to work across all versions of SL viewer and on windows.

For some reason on my Mac using Viewer V3 the machinima cut scenes worked perfectly in world. But on windows on Viewer V3 the Videos appeared just grey. Wether this is a Flash plug in issue, or a windows Webkit issue i do not know as I'm not a software engineer.

The shared media video does not work at all on the popular out dated Phoenix viewer so an external video version of the HUD was included allowing people to click a button to pop the video outside into a web browser.

image from Nat's record of battling Aether Crabs

The Writer who's writing a story backwards

Goonys visit the Linden Realms #SL #Slgames

2011-12-05T07:29:00.001-08:00

So i finally got round to visiting the Linden Realms game and wow.

Straight away I'm hit with 'HOW DID THEY DO THAT!???"

Over the last year i have battled with the limitations of second life when making basic gaming experiences that are familiar to those from proper games. Other than the basic cause and effect scripting and the 100% health level of a damage enabled sim, there isn't anything else.

Here is a break down of what Linden Realms does and how the tools could improve games I've already built.

Instant Teleport

In Linden Realms:

The Goonys walked to the Linden Realms Portal which automatically teleported you to the game region. This is the first 'WTF?' moment .

What i have thats similar:

The closest i got to an auto teleport is for people to voluntarily click a board that teleports to the game location. Such as in the secret Underground base i have a hole you have to click to go down into.

Effect on my Games:

You would be able to just walk on the hole and automatically be teleported down the hole.

Will be interesting to see how this can't be used to grief people

Auto Attachments

In Linden Realms:

Next we all automatically had a crystals HUD attached out of no where. I searched high and low for a scripting mechanism that might auto ad a HUD. This was because i wanted news on basic viewer to be able to wear my Bashables HUD so they could operate the bashing sticks.

What i have thats similar:

The Bashables system on Escapades allows you to activate a stick to bash things on the island with one click. Unfortunately once you have been given the HUD and stick you have to find it in your inventory to then wear it.

Effect on my Games:

The New tools could allow for the Bashable HUD's to auto attach making it easier for new people to quickly have fun on Escapades

Deadly Scenery

In Linden Realms:

Then the Goonies went searching for Crystals upon which i Stumbled into a green swamp and promptly drowned and teleported to a respawn point rather than my designated home point.

What i have thats similar:

I tried once in a goony adventure to have a room fill with custard. Those goonies unfortunate enough to get out the room before the door closed ended up growing in custard. With the help of my friend we created a script that would request to teleport them to a location on the island when the custard prim rose high enough to touch them. The drawback of course was it only teleported one at a time and had to wait for each to accept the teleport.

Effect on my Games:

I can drown Goonies on mass!

NPCs

In Linden Realms:

We suddenly became aware of big rock monsters chasing us, and it was really fun as they moved and followed at just the right speed that you could only JUST get away :) If they touched you then you died and teleported to respawn point.

What i have thats similar:

Evil Zombie Worms. They use a basic base script package that i can drop into any monsters making them follow people. These follow in jerky movements as the detect script hurts every second or so to locate nearest resident. Also they do no damage because you need land to be set to damage enabled in order for objects to kill you and send you to your home point.

Effect on my Games:

I could make goblins, worms, and other nasty things a threat to my visitors, not just a nuisance.

Loki faces off a Rock Monster with paper

Im only speculating how the new tools might be able to enhance my own games. As yet LL have not told us exactly what these new gaming feature tools are so some of what i said might not work, it all depends how much is scripting and how much is region level permissions.

Regarding Linden Realms itself, my friend Jesper pointed out that it was not very social game. The Hud gave us tasks to do and places to go, and after dying and re-spawning the group quickly got split up. For anybody thinking of making games in SL my friends and i personally think that group activity is a very important piece of what makes Second Life special and should be considered in the games created from here on.

The Mesh modelling used for the scenery is a good
example of how mesh can produce stylish yet
efficient content. Some might think it to simple.

Goony Adventures In Second Life #SL

2011-12-05T06:58:00.001-08:00

It has been a while since i last posted a Goonies Adventure on my blog,
so here is a quick run down of the places we have visited in Second Life in the past view months before i write a special post about Linden Realms….

One of the hardest things i'm having to deal with on Escapades Island is how to organise the Groups. First there was the Goonies group, then came the homestead called Goony island, then came the Full Sim Escapades witch welcomed everyone not just Kid Avatars, then came the MyEscapades group.

Now the Goonies is a separate group of adventure and its closely tide to Nemo Beach which is part of Escapades. But it's a kid avatar only group essentially and not suitable for everyday stuff regarding escapades island.

The only solution is to start treating MyEscapades as the main group for notifications etc, which means getting rid of surplus members of the gooneys group and getting everyone to join MyEscapades for updates on escapades activities. This could end up being mildly disruptive but needs to be done.

Anyways on with the adventures starting with….

COCOON-Hope - July

Very odd place this, a real arty place to explore starting at an old school bus. We discovered elephants, strange TV screens and a giant walking… thing… A dreamscape.

Folkvang - August

This was a PROPER adventure and i recommend EVERYONE go here to play Frejas Quest. You have to follow the clues and unlock the treasure chests. This was brilliant as not only dd you get free viking armour and jewellery you also were taken to the mythical land of the ice giants via a boat tour. All the Goonies were VERY impressed with this place which at the start did not seem all that much. Great example of how BIG adventures can be had in small places.

Haunted Hotel in Bay City? - October

As is tradition the Goonies went on a mission to photograph ghosts as part of the october season. We first visited a Haunted hotel, i can't remember the name of. It was full of ghosts or at least spooky goings on. I even got a free tricycle!

After the hotel was swept for ghosts, the Goonies then headed over to a haunted castle where i found a rather awesome spiral slide WEEEEEEEEEE!!!!

Some sort of Library & Bonifacio - November

The first place i can't remember the name of, It was an interesting arty place similar to Cacoon Hope but this place had a great big library with waterfall inside.

We then ventured to a place called Bonifacio where the tall buildings with light reminded me of the film Tron. We finished the adventure by getting on my Airship and looking for my brother who was somehow stuck int he floor .. again..... then we crashed and the adventure was over LOL.

My little brother Gemini loves to get melded with ground.

So now we are up to date on the Adventures of the Goonies. We next visited Linden Realms but ill blog about that in my next post!. Soon it will snow on Escapades and with it more tom foolery from the SL Goonies gang of misfits!

Where it all began #SL #slkids

2011-11-08T06:27:00.000-08:00

There are not many places in SL that i can be associated with 'the beginning'.

2006

I know some associate their beginnings with Nemo Beach, the Vortex, or SLC centre. But one place many will remember even if they did not realise it still existed is 'Inner Child Depot'.

Created by Fawn Haley and Apple Pinkney back before 2006, it is in many eyes the first place devoted to the inner child and birthplace of the Child Avatar craze. But sadly all things come to an end and the drop in inworld browsing commonly associated with the steady popularity of SLmarketplace has left Inner Child Depot a husk of it's former glory. As a result Apple Pinkney has no choice but to close the mall and sell off the mainland sim.

2007

Where by the inner adventure and gathering of Child Avatars started at devoted clubs, adventure islands and scout camps, It was the Inner Child Depot that most visited first to build their inner child inventory. From complete avatar designs, to bed room furniture, tree houses, pogo sticks and games, it was the place to go for all things child avatar.

I myself have had a small store there since the start of my clothing and avatar designs which helped me to afford my first plot which would eventually become Nemo Beach. Back then you could not sell anything unless you had a spot in a mall.

2008 - 2009

Inner Child Depot helped kick off many content creators virtual brands to which we owe it to ourselves to recognise the wonderful work Apple and Fawn put into organising and supporting our fledgling community.

I want to personally thank Apple Pinkney for giving us Inner Child Depot without which a lot of us would not have seen the success we did. I hope she finds fresh new areas to explore and is proud of what she has achieved.

2011

I'd like to thank also Fawn Haley, where ever she may be now after disappearing from SL to care for her real world husband. She was always a inspirational young soul and i really hope she knows how important she has been to the Child Avatar community in SL.

The loss of Inner Child Depot is a clear sign to those of us who have been here a while of the changing times, but we'll never forget how important it was.

Apple Pinkney is currently looking to sell her mainland plot and hopefully before the 14th of November.

It is a 63312sq plot on moderate rated mainland called 'Fletcher'.

If you are interested in purchasing this plot please contact 'Apple Pinkney' in world.

Like wise if you have any advice or guidance in selling her land, please give her a friendly IM.

The Fletcher Mainland Sim

#SL Mini Games, Visibility & Targeting

2011-11-02T10:30:00.000-07:00

The plan was quite simple. Donations to land Tier were down so i needed to make Linden Credits quickly to stoke up the donations thermometer.

Previously i attempted to create a Mini SL game called the 'Secret Underground Base' which did very well in bringing in credits to subsidise the donation target. But as i've already written after a week the initial 50 paying residents a day dwindled to below 5 and now zero.

I'd assumed initially that this was due to Destination guide placement moving off the front page of the website, i now also think that the lack of the 'Games' category in the new Login screen destination guide helped in making my Mini game less visible.

So with interactive destinations currently loosing interest with visitors over a small period, permanent mini games seem a bad idea. Instead i would need to create short term Mini Game Experiences that got a large crowd for the first week and made a pile of credits before the lifespan of interest OR visibility died.

So with this in mind i created the 'Escapades Evil Zombie Worm Massacre'.

"Save the Puppy from the enchanted cage up on the mountain by finding the 5 magic words by killing Giant Evil Zombie Worms by summoning them from the 5 giant Musical keys on the island marked out on a map."

Does that sound simple enough? it turns out it was not.

The generation of Linden Credits came from selling the Chainsaw, HUD & map at L$200 (just under USD$1) which you needed if you were going to kill the worms.

I submitted to the Destination Guide with instructions and the note saying it cost L$200 to play, and to my shock it was placed as the featured destination for three or four days. But things were not going to plan. The first day i had a visitor count of almost 600 but only sold 8 chainsaws, so 600 people arrived at the game, and only 8 bought the ability to play the game.

So armed with my best alt i mingled with the visitors to see what was going on.

First thing i learnt was that almost everyone arriving was new to SL and using Basic Viewer, so they had not the ability to buy the chainsaw and had no idea how to change to advanced.

"Pretty easy really, all you have to do is quit SL, then start SL, then change the mode to Advanced, then quit SL then start SL, then Login, then click BUY and spend some real money to get credits, then buy the chainsaw, SIMPLEZ!"

Secondly there was an issue with the way i had set up the Chainsaw to be bought. As my friend Nat pointed out, there are certain universal things we do when viewing a website, a rule to browsing content. When designing a website you stray from these rules at your own peril. The same it seems can be applied to virtual 3D worlds.

I had a sign stating 'BUY THIS CHAINSAW TO START THE GAME', next to which was a chainsaw on a stand which you clicked to buy. What i discovered was that people were clicking the 'sign' instead of the chainsaw and walking away thinking it was broke. I could not do anything about the Basic Mode using n00bs but i could at least correct this issue of intuitive user habit. Making the sign an option to buy the chainsaw improved the participating of the game a lot and my goal of meeting the Tier Target was finally reached just in time.

So the game is over and it brought up many thoughts an questions for making future games and using destination guide to promote them.

1.How can we sustain interest in a destination.

It reminded me of something i read about the lifespan of a 'Tweet' and wondered if destinations on the destination guide followed the same premiss. Is there anything i can do to sustain longer visibility, or is the period of visibility dependant on the mechanics of the destination guide?

2. Should i have allowed n00bs to my mini game?

I had a specific goal, to make money by offering entertainment. With n00bs arriving in droves with the inability to purchase and lack of basic skills, should they have been their at all?

The game was targeted at people who already had basic knowledge of SL, who could immerse themselves and of course the ability to buy stuff. All the n00bs ended up being was a nuisance and immersion killers not to mention the lag caused by them all arriving en mass.

"i can't find the evil worms, can i kill this mountain of n00bs instead?"

3. How can we target Sl users of a certain level of experience?

Currently the way SL communicates there is no mass quick way to share destinations inside SL other than say sharing a landmark with a friend and posting on your SL feed a location. Perhaps a re-share function could be added to help people share destinations between friends via SL Feed?

Destination guide is a good place to be listed for a flash flood of n00bs, but the drop off is quick and the

functionality is perhaps to simple.

What i would like to see from Destination guide in future.

Destination guide seems geared to the n00b. Once it has showcased places to the n00b it then lacks any further helpful options.

Once you move from n00b to light experienced user it would be good if the destination guide changed to suit your skills. Such as simply allowing you to post destinations from the guide on to your SL feed, why this isn't an option along side the Facebook 'like' button is puzzling.

I started a discussion on my SL feed with a few friends about targeting SL users of a specific skill set or interest and how that could possibly be achieved. ideas like a skills rating system for destinations. Places that are suited to n00bs are rated for n00bs, and those with a bit more experience can find places that are more challenging.

Another idea was to then allow users to adjust their profile settings to express their skill level, where n00bs were set to 'learner' and more experienced users could change it to 'experienced', or the settings could change automatically depending on how old your avatar is or how much time you have spent in SL. The result being that the destination guide could taylor a guide based on your skill settings. This could even go further by comparing destinations with your profiles listed interests.

The idea being that you get an SL destination guide unique to YOU and i get the sort of people i targeted visiting my mini game.

Is region server sharing resource impact a myth?

2011-10-20T13:33:00.001-07:00

What ever happend to the argument Linden Lab used to justify the price hikes that many angry customers described as the great 'bait and switch'.

If I remember right during the blog and forum flame wars that followed LL's announcement to up tier and reduce prim allowance, there was a revelation or story that openspace regions shared a server with four others. The idea being that an open space was a quarter of the resources of a full sim and while a full region enjoyed the resources of one server, four open spaces shared resources of on server. The story was that after Linden Lab made a descission to offer more prim allowance on open spaces, people started using them to creat resource hogs that took server resources away from regions sharing the server.

So LL decided to tackle their lack of foresight by renaming the current open space configuration to 'homestead' then uppimg the price, while capping the amount of concurrent visitors to just 20 and threatening script limitations.... It was a bitter time, that still hurts, dam them.

But things are moving on and LL are all different now possibly. But while looking into lag spikes on my full private region I discovered LL now put a full region on a server with up to thirteen others. I can imagine times have changed and servers improved, but would the same argument for the price hike be valid now?

By using the excuse they gave back then I end up wondering is my regions performance at the mercy of the seven other regions on the same server as me? What do Linden Lab do to make sure the service I pay a large amount for every month is not impeded by my server neighnours? Or i. or has it always just been an urban myth conjured by the lab to justify the great 'bait and switch'.

Updated my Loki Blog at last #SL

2011-10-19T07:49:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since i updated my Loki Blog. Needed to make it wider and update the images. I also decided to change the name of the blog since it's no longer about the SL Goonies, thats not to say there will not be any SL Goony related tom-foolery in future.

I had a look at the Dynamic Templates Google are offering on Blogger, they were fun but lack customisation and widgets. They seemed ok for the tumblr folk.

Anyways i decided on just using a basic template with a customised back ground, nothing special. XD

And to finish this short post off, i opened SL to login in today to see myself on the login screen. My Zombie Worm game made front page LOL. Luckily my face was behind a spooky mask :-P

#LL Destination Guide hides hidden underground base #SL

2011-09-29T08:02:00.000-07:00

Mesh clothes selling well, it's been a long time coming but I'm sailing Linden Labs economic system and appear to be doing a rather spiffing job of it at the moment.

i am pleased with the outcome and it has boosted my confidence in Second Life..

Thats more than can be said about my in world experience project. I wrote maybe a month ago about how initially my Underground Adventure seemed to be working swimmingly. I had noted also that the visitors suddenly dropped off. Now I'm lucky to get one visitor a day to a place that is listed on the destination guide. And The underground base is not the only one as The John King experience is also listed on the destination guide. Yet Rickety Town centre is still getting an average 30 visitors a day which utterly vexes me. For starters rickety Town is listed as a general non specific destination unlike the other two which are dedicated experiences. Why do people decide more over to visit a place that does not specify an activity over ones that do?

Also Rickety Town is only has 23 Facebook Likes compared to Underground Bases 105, and John Kings 92 likes.

So what gives? why are my two experience based destinations loosing out to the general non specific destination?

Truth is i do not know, i only have assumptions at the time.

Assumption 1: Rickety Town is the first of the 3 destinations you will come across.

Rickety Town appears on the first page of the 'Adventure & Fantasy' page. It could simply be a case of laziness to read through the list. The Adventure base is on the first page of the 'Games' section which is right at the bottom of the destination guides list.

Assumption 2: People use the built in Destination guide.

By this i mean the Login screens destination guide or the Basic viewer version of destination guide which you will notice does not list the 'Games' category at all. So thats hidden my hidden Underground Base game from a large majority of users. My advice is now to make sure you submit your destination to a category that is listed in all versions of the destination guide.

Assumption 3: People like to visit places without knowing what they want to do.

Well in this case maybe i can do something. I could perhaps redevelop Rickety Town centre to better offer the other two destination experiences. Maybe i can heard Rickety Town visitors to the other places.

What ever the cause is for the visitor drop offs, i need to find away to improve it if i am ever to rely on visitors for help in combating the high priced Linden Lab monthly maintenance tier.

Perhaps LL could look at SL destinations and value them as much as they do Marketplace products. Market place products get extras to help promote items, they get buttons to tweet, plunk or facebook items. It's about time Land owners, in world places got some serious tools for promoting their places?

[UPDATE]
i realise that perhaps i should maybe look into how to improve things on in world search. There is a challenge here to improve visitors and so let the games begin!.

[UPDATE2]
I have been searching and searching the deep recesses of google sphere and found and interesting blog post on 'Living in the modem world' with highlights of the SLCC keynote from Linden Lab staff about Destination guide. At the bottom is a video and also a slideshow. The team seemed quite focused on helping destinations get out there. Perhaps all i have to do is wait?

The slideshow shows top 10 categories for both on the SL website and inside the viewer.

Mesh & freedom to choose: How mesh is just another choice in #SecondLife ever changing culture #SL

2011-09-25T05:03:00.000-07:00

Nat loves his mesh clothes

Some people like mesh clothes because they like how it fits them.

Some do not like mesh cloths because they have not found an item they like yet.

Some like to poke fun at others by pretending to wear mesh clothes but instead are wearing textured prim spheres, and watch and giggle as their friends relog 100 times :-p.

Fact is some people will love Mesh Clothes, and others will not, just like any clothes in SL. There is NO set way of creating and selling any clothes in SL, its a free open environment. There are some favoured ways for designers to create, but it is not a standard.

Mesh clothes, the designs, how they may fit and what sorts of people they may fit is no different from any other types of clothing. If you have a Horse avatar, your going to have a hard time finding a dress that fits. Like wise if you are a child Avatar not every piece of pre-mesh era clothing is going to magically fit and not every item will be modifiable.

Mesh clothing is just another addition to the ever evolving choices in Second Life, and as for SL's culture, since when has that ever stayed static?

Fantasising about a Second Life Ecosystem #SL

2011-09-24T07:07:00.000-07:00

Taking a break from my mesh clothing to write about one of my other favourite subjects 'Second Life's Future'. This has become such a fun subject since Rodvik arrived on the scene.

It was said that Linden Lab would be looking hard into getting on the mobile market. Just how they may plan to do this is fun to speculate.

I've already had a go at conceptualising a mobile app for SL. I think it's generally accepted that you can not have the full SL Grid experience on an Tablet or Smart Phone. A year or so ago i wrote somewhere that if LL were going to do a mobile version of SL then it would need to think outside the SL box and focus on something related to SL that benefits its users.

The Avatar is most important.

Especially now as we head towards a Multi-situated Second Life. What i mean is that right now we have our beloved avatars which we create, learn to customise and grow to cherish, but we are stuck on the Main Grid. If we look at SL another way we could separate the Market place and avatar customisation from the exploring of the Main Grid and list them as two different situations of Second Life. Now we also have the SL Social profiles which are pretty much a third Second Life Situation. Looking at SL this way makes it easier to envision new Second Life situations such as mobile apps.

There have been recent announcements such as 'Shaker' that claim to be like Second Life (but is not), allowing people on Facebook to enter a 3D immersive chatroom bar (more like IMVU perhaps) and discover new Facebook friends while meeting up with same old friends. While i probably won't use such a thing, i can't help but wish i could with my SL avatar. And this is where my mind exploded.

Linden Lab could be growing a social pseudonym creative user content driven gaming ecosystem!!!!!!

The SL Ecosystem

An ecosystem where people can casually engage in socialising in a way thats alternative to Facebook and Google+, using mobile apps that allow you to select an avatar, hook up with friends, perhaps invite friends from Facebook or google via an SL integrated app similar to IMVU or even the much hyped Shaker. This SL social app would not be recognised as having anything to do with the Main Grid or the virtual land of SL, it's soul purpose would be to gather users and get them socialising in a stand alone situation.

Maybe these SL mobile social apps can display your actual SL avatar. It would be great if through the social app people could accessories their avatar in app, but I've not drank enough coffee yet for my brain to figure how that might be possible given the erratic nature of SL clothing. They would have to categorise items for avatar wearing only and sort our inventory or something major. But marketplace is a part of the SL ecosystem, and maybe SL Social Users can be encouraged to login world, maybe to special customisation areas created specifically for people to customise their avatars for displaying in their SL Social App.

As a stand alone Social Network, how appealing
is SL to people? Could it stand up to the likes of Facebook & Google+,
or would it need to implament Facebook api's allowing Facebook accounts to
create SL avatars in some way?

The Next area in the SL Ecosystem is the destination guide, it is SUCH an important part of SL i find. Hopefully LL will see sense and start integrating SL guide with SL social profile feeds instead of Facebook. Suddenly we will have a Social feature geared towards sharing 'loves' of destination guide pages that will encourage SL Social App users to 'Get In' more and explore the other SL Situation 'The Main Grid'

I start to wonder how important the main grid is to casual social users. What do people really think when they get in world? what will people who join SL just to socialise ala Facebook style think of entering a 3D world with their avatar? Is it now simply a large expensive sandbox for creating content? I actually absolutely understand the value of in world immersive spaces, but i'll be dammed if i can explain it to a new Grid Walker. You either get it or you don't, but by this time they will already be using SL to socialise wether they enter grid or not. WINNING!

Last but not least you have the content creation situation, and by jove it is VAST. From clothes design, to moving vehicles, roleplaying experiences, gaming and conceptualisation experiments, it's a 3D creative platform like no other and anyone can access it. As a content creator myself i have found myself starting off with no 3D modelling experience at all, starting with the basics of Primative construction, levelling up to Sculpty Prims before finally ending up working with mesh and understanding Pro 3D modelling terms. Did the SL community teach me how to do 3D modelling, or did it merely encourage me, and which is more important? Market place allows user generated content to be sold for micro payments and it's possible to charge people to take part in in world experiences. To me this is akin to in game payments on iOS games or Facebook games.

New type of SL content?

A recent rumour suggested that LL might be looking into text based user generated gaming. That is so vague to the point of WTF?!?11 but it did make me think, if LL can't offer your typical SL grid generated 3D content within a Mobile App, perhaps they will work on a new type of content for its dedicated content creators to share or sell on an SL mobile app.

I'd like to think in future my Loki Avatar will leave the grid and given opportunities to socialise and have fun in other forms such as mobile. XD

END RAMBLING

Escapades Island Anniversary Weekend - 1 whole year of adventure #SL

2011-09-12T07:49:00.000-07:00

It has now been a full year since we upgraded Goony Island homestead to Escapades Island full region. And what a year it has been. To start with we have never had all the plots rented on the island but thanks to the kind passionate followers we have always somehow met the tier costs.

It was touch and go at various points with so many of us having unexpected troubles real world to deal with loved ones and economy. It makes the Island and what it represents for those proud few who through it all find comfort with each other on Escapades. Thank you all those who comforted me and encouraged me.

Anyway, to celebrate Escapades First whole year on the ever changing grid we had 3 days of spiffing events and here are the highlights :)

Day One

The Mad Hatters Tea Party.
Kicking off the weekend was a magical Tea Party where everyone came suitably dressed with Crazy Hats

The Tea Party takes place on a floating platform
with spinning clocks and blocks floating above...

Definitely MAD

Nat shows off the latest in Mesh Clothing

'TEA TIME - ALL CHANGE!'

Goony Adventure to the Wastelands.

Next the Goonies Gathered at the Club House to go on a special Anniversary Adventure. Originally it had been planned to go visit the Sunrise Region the original sim island that the Goonies was founded on 5 years ago. Unfortunately i discovered it had since been turned into a GOR RP sim, so no chance of us Virtual Kids going there!!

Instead we went to Wastelands...

The Goonies kit up for a desert adventure

Boarding the Icarus we venture across the swamps...

Back on land we pull out our buggies and... erm.. ride on lawnmowers

Everest drives into a hole much to the dismay or Christan

Wastelands is full of little surprises to explore!

Deep in the canyon the Goonies rope together some rafts

Then when it's time to go we inflate a hot air balloon to fly us out and back home.

Goonies Late Night Movie Night

After such a long day some of us then gathered in Everests basement to watch the classic Labyrinth on a big screen. Watching it and chatting to my friends about the moments we were watching i realised, you can't do that on faceboook. Socialising experience on the net.

Day Two

Escapades Got Talent

Day two saw Gadget, Yti, Nat and Old Mr Doomdale take up the roles of judges as residents of Second Life performed, games, dancing, tricks, singing and telling jokes. gadget and Nat were very fair in their reviewing of the performances, as was Yti once she could stop laughing at Mr Doomsdale. Hopefully no one was too hurt by Mr Doomdales blunt scathing reviews. Also i think there was a mix up between interloper and antelopes.

Judges Listen to Yti's performance

Mr Doomdale shuffles uncomfortably on the spot

Onlookers watch the show's antics unfold

Felix demonstrates his amazing mind controlling abilities
on Loki by making him dance in sync!

Felix shows amazing drawing talent

Tepic plays the flute

Rai and Myrtil watch with interest and amazement (they really do!)

Goony Beach Party

After the Talent Show it was straight over to Hawkins Bay for the Goony Beach party where members of the gang discussed many topics, mostly Mesh and how no one could not see Nat's amazing new Mesh Clothes. Gadget Played the first hour while Loki stepped up to play music in the second our.

Battle in the Sky

Right near the end of the Beach Party an object fell from the sky. Closer inspection revealed it to be a broken Search Droid commonly used by the Evil Grand Master to locate things he wants to steal.

The Goonies rewired the Droid to discover a message. "Last Pirate Robot located, send Lizard men, Cubes and Giant worms to retrieve it!'

Well soon the Gang was aboard the Icarus Airship and heading up to the famous abandoned floating Sky Platform, home of the Pirate Robot. Upon arriving the Goonies were met by a massive hoard of Gelatinous Cubes and other monsters ready to do battle...

"GOONIES NEVER SAY DIE!!!"

THERE I WAS RIGHT, CUBES! THOUSANDS OF THEM!!

Tepic fends off a gruesome lizard man

JImmy and Myrtil stand their ground to protect the Robot Pirate

Nat battles a Giant worm!

Christian searches the woods for left over Gelatinous Cubes

Day Three

Escapades Treasure Hunt

A Treasure Chest appeared on the stage at Rickety Town Centre. Inside was part of a map and clue to find the next part. Each leading closer to the actual Treasure.

Pirate Party at the John King Tavern

Pirates, Privateers, Highway Men, Scum, Villanry and Unicorns all turned up at the Famous John King Tavern for a Pirate Themed party. It did not take long at all though before it turned into a massive Tavern Brawl.

The Tavern is packed with scum and Villans

Lot of people got knocked out by flying chairs

GARGHHH!!!

Pirate Ship to Ship Battle

It started off as an attempt to have Island to Island ship to ship battles, but Alfehm Island is only an openspaces sim and does not have enough spare for two pirate ships to sail through it. So the battle was confined to the edges of Escapades Island, unless you think like Terry Gilliam then the ships can sail over land and through trees.

Nat took some excellent pictures of the Ship to Ship chasing.

Gadget and nat watch in puzzlement as Loki's ship heads inland through trees.

So the weekend of events is finally over. I hope everyone enjoyed the events and went away with some fun memories of the weekend. It's been a hard year, but there has been a lot of fun had, just look at the past blog posts and you will see that not only is Second Life improving but we are also continuing to think up new fun stuff to do and experience!

Here is to year two of Escapades island of Adventure!

Return of the Loki Kid Avatar Clothing range - #SLMesh #SL

2011-09-02T12:17:00.000-07:00

When i first arrived in SL i made my name like others by opening a shop with t-shirt designs.
Back then i was one of only a few designing clothes and accessories for Boy Avatars, niche market at the time.

Since then the Kid Avatar market flooded, and the in world shopping Market has died and i have moved onto other much harder projects. :)

But with the arrival of MESH i see an opportunity again for a niche market in Kid Avatar clothing, or clothing in general.

One of the things i hated most about making clothes, especially for Kid Avatars was how the 'Avatar mesh' would scrunch and deform making clothing pretty scrunchy and unclear. I became frustrated at doing nice designs on t-Shirts only to see them ruined when finally worn by a small avatar.

Mesh has removed this issue and I'm excited at the prospect of finally creating nice clear t-Shirts, Jeans and what ever else i decide. Gone also are the annoying fat chests and spiky shoulder blades that were the bane of many Child Avatars, because you can make a mesh shirt the slim shape you want and hide the ugly avatar mesh with an Alpha Layer.

I used Phoenix Viewer to download my Avatars shape and imported into blender,
this greatly improved fitting of mesh clothing.

you can import a mesh object into photoshop easy in order to texture it.

Another benefit of Mesh Clothing is rigging and Weighting. This means you can make the clothing move with the movement of your avatar. A pair of jeans will bend at the knee. The Shirt Sleeves will bend with the arm. It means we get more realistic natural looking clothing options.

The Shirt, Jeans and Backpack are all less than 1 prim each
making your avatar easier for your computer to render and
the sim to maintain. This is how lag will hopefully reduce in future.

A really fun experiment was with the backpack. The backpack is rigged to move with your avatars back, so you don't get the pack sticking out when you bend forward and the straps are modelled to fit snugly on the shoulders.

Below is a video example. I hope to start selling a new Range of Clothes in my store and on marketplace very soon.

The drawback of course is that you can only see Mesh with the Official LL Viewer3. So until the Third Party Viewers get mesh many of my long time friends will only see me as a blob.

Also i'll say that making Mesh clothing has been the hardest of the new Mesh features to grasp. It's easy to create and rig a whole avatar costume, but to create single items of clothing that can be worn in conjunction with each other was a real difficult mind numbing endeavour. Weighting the 3D models so that they did not poke through each other is probably and impossible task.

TIP: Thanks to my friend Nat who helped me test the clothes, clothes designers need to make different clothes for the different Avatar genders. This is because they are different, especially in the Shoulder regions. A shirt on a male avatar that rests well on the shoulders will appear high up above the shoulders on a female avatar. So you need to first adjust the clothing to fit a male avatar shape, then adjust a second shirt for a female shape.

Building a Gaming Experience in #SL

2011-08-24T06:18:00.000-07:00

At the very start of August i tried something i had been wanting to do for a while.

I've often seen Second Life is a Games Development Kit and have been waiting for the opportunity to build gaming experiences. To do this i need to have enough skills to build the content, textures, and have a basic knowledge to script simple actions. I need a place to be able to put the game, i need an audience to play it and ways to communicate to them that the game exists.

Well i upgraded my Island last year to a full sim with the help of my friends and through the struggles to meet Tier costs i managed to learn basic scripting and created the Underground Base adventure as an experiment to see how well it would perform.

Here are findings i found most interesting.

Puzzle solving.

I went for a simple collect and drop adventure based on video games from early 80's like The Code masters Dizzy Games. You would find objects and place them on the ground to interact with puzzles. All through this adventure i found how people wanted to do things interesting. Such as instead of dropping objects on the floor, they preferred to wear them. Perhaps in future i should accommodate what seems to be an intuitive action.

Weapons

For this adventure i updated my BASHABLES weapons. Before the free bashing stick needed a complicated combination of button pressing to complete the simple task of swinging the Stick. Now you wear a heads up display (HUD) that has a single bash button to BASH things. It makes for a much more simple and fun experience while also allowing extra features such as RADAR for monsters and objects you can BASH, and also a link to my store to buy extra weapons boosting sales.

Accommodate trial and error.

One thing i had not thought about prior to the Adventure being open was how users tried out possible solutions. If you leave collectable objects in a room, Users will leave them laying around. I should incorporate a self destruct in all objects or switch on Auto return. I would find countless amounts of spanners against a door when they really needed to find a Key.

Speech.

I used Speech later in the game, but due to SL's limit on audio length i have to chop it into small 10 second parts, and they tend not to load in the right order no matter how well i script it to play. The reason for the 10 second limit is to due with copyright infringement yet places like iTunes play over a minute of free preview and we can play a whole song via shared media so whats the problem?. I really would like to upload longer sound files for story narrative and atmosphere.

Scripting

There are lots of tools that do most of the fork for me since I'm number dumb. Prim Puppeteers is an amazing piece of kit for animating prims, and its grown to include some very nifty features with intuitive simple controls. The Smooth feature is amazing. You can use it to create an animation that is activated by various means. I mostly use chat activation where when a specific prim is placed on the ground it shouts a keyword that activates the animated object. There are tools for Old SL users that can listen to hidden Channels which is something to think about in future. Really i should not care, if they choose to cheat then it's their loss.

I also found great help from the SL community via the SL Forums. I would say what i wanted to do and a few minutes later someone had shown me the script i needed. It was a very positive learning experience and showed the power of the SL Forums.

Promotion.

The most powerful tool for promotion in SL is currently the Destination Guide. Im hoping in future the SL Profiles will gain an ability to share destinations/locations/messages/snapshots between your friends. At the moment i can send attachments to group notices, or to individual friends on my list. There is no way to send a message out and have that message shared from friend to friend. When that happens promoting should be a lot easier.

In the mean time the destination guide seems the best way to have your event or place promoted. As soon as the adventure was placed on the destination guide people started to arrive at Escapades island looking for it. Unfortunately for some unknown reason the LL editor had decided NOT to use the picture i supplied and used one showing a camp fire instead of the Underground Tunnel. This ultimately confused the hell out of people who arrived at the cave entrance looking for a camp fire. After messaging the LL Editor the image was replaced with the one i supplied and i witnessed a surge of users arriving and entering the game. This proves how vital it is to get the destination guide image right.

Unfortunately it's possible that most people who use destination guide only check out the Featured destinations as once my adventure dropped off the featured pages visitor numbers dropped dramatically. It also might be to due with the category i picked GAMES which is not available on the Login screen destination guide or basic viewer, so choose your category listing wisely. Saying that, my other Destination 'Rickety Town' still enjoys a healthy average of around 35 visitors a day and its been in the Fantasy Category of the Destination guide since May.

New visitors dropped off after a week possibly due
to how destination guide works.

The Destination guide needs to evolve a bit more. It started out as a simple list of good places on SL and has quickly become one of the most important aspects of SL . Note that in the login screen the destination guide shows a number of people already at the destination, it should show this across all the iterations of the Guide and we should be able to love destinations as part of our social profiles.

Rod Humble at SLCC shared his hopes to bring a more integrated shared social experience to SL by end of the year so I'm cautiously optimistic that soon my promoting woes will be a thing of the past.

Revenue.

Last but not least we come to the issue of money. Some people have frankly told me all experience on SL should be free. How can people say that to me when LL loom over with hands out wanting $295 each month. I can't make this money back from my real life job, i can't make the money back from rentals alone. In fact Shops never seem to stay more than a month even though the Island is having 1000 visitors a month and increasing. So if people are visiting Escapades island not to shop why are they there? I believe the answer to be to experience something. Currently half of the Escapades Tier is paid for by donations. I decided to try and see if people were willing to pay a $L100 ticket to enter the game which they could use again and again if they wish. Within 3 days of the Adventure opening the island tier was paid for without need for donations.

This test adventure has shown people are definitely willing to pay for experiences in SL. My enemy at the moment is the destination guide drop off. Building an adventure experience is only as popular as its time on the destination guide, so either LL will fix that issue on the guide or ill have to figure out some way to give its presence longevity. It might simply be that Escapades island will gain more popularity as i ad more adventures and its reputation spreads. I will no doubt have to go back to this test adventure and update it, or refresh it. I will also need to retying the Keypass system as it was not perfect. People could if they tried hard enough to get around the need for a keypass.

Overall

Making this adventure was fun. I took my Goonies on the first adventure and they all really enjoyed it. Then seeing total strangers having a go was great fun too. I enjoy watching how people work things out. It was also a great turn point in what i know is possible in SL. I am one man in a bedroom trying to create experiences that are traditionally done by a group of developers. In SL we can make a gaming experience, we are being given the tools to turn SL into a gaming platform. It's what i have dreamed of doing, this is proper indie stuff. And to top it off people are willing to pay to play, what more incentive do i need!??? :)

#SL profiles: the start of something great, i want it to be that something great NOW!

2011-07-31T11:46:00.000-07:00

Its Social profile madness on the internet at the moment with Google+ trying to force everyone to consolidate their 10 years worth of Pseudonyms into one marketable identity. Meanwhile for us ol d Second Life users have been presented with the brand spanking new SL Social Profiles and while this is seen as the start of something great i want it to be that something great NOW.

As it stands it is simply a shout box that my friends have quickly tired of already. Hopefully they are planning to add a few obvious features.

Things i'd like to see changed/ added….

1. Share/Re-tweet friends messages: part of the huge appeal about social networking is sharing things, and if this feed is to be any different from group chat or notifications then we should be allowed to share stuff posted by our friends to help promote what we love about SL. It seems a real crazy not to be able to do this, don't you think?

2. Be able to 'Love' and 'comment' on' places in the destination guide instead of the current Facebook options.

3. Allow us to 'Love' or simpley share items we like or have bought on marketplace on the feed.

4. See our group notifications in the feed notifications as well.

5. In notifications AND emails, give us a couple lines of the messages, allow us to see what was said without having to go to the feed page and log in only to find someone posted a smiley face in reply to something!

6. Support OSX Lion

I hope they don't spend to long before adding these features. I want to start sharing my fun and games with my friends and others across the grid ASAP.

#SL Goonies and the Destruction of the Mega MEGA Death Ray

2011-07-25T06:58:00.000-07:00

It was a peaceful day at Escapades island until a new message from the Grand Master came through on the message interceptor machine. The Goonies gathered at the club house to listen to the message....

"GLORB, Lets not bother with the Mega Death Ray, instead lets install the Thermowosulator into the mega MEGA death ray, lets rid ourselves of the Goonies ONCE AND FOR ALL MWHAHAHHAAH"

The Goonies were not best pleased with the prospect of being blown up by a mega MEGA death ray so they hatched a plan to go underground to the secret base, find the Thermalwosulator and destroy it before it was installed......

Is it right to compare Mesh with Prim objects? #SLmesh #SL

2011-07-25T03:26:00.000-07:00

I'm being asked by many people including Lindens about comparing Mesh objects with Prim objects. The more that i've learnt about making Mesh, the more I've come to realise that comparing is very difficult, i'm starting to wonder if you can actually compare Mesh with Prim objects.

From the start the idea was to create objects that cost less prims and yet are more detailed than a PRIM version, after all Mesh is supposed to be more efficient and better than Prims right? well yes and no…

The Prim is a simple creature. It has a set shape, set amount of sides, set numerical count. You rez one prim, and the land counts it as 1. You link it to another prim and they count as a 2 prim object. The world is built on the safe knowledge that everything is made of prims. Even sculpts are just smoothed off prims.

Mesh on the other hand is a wyrd creature compared to the familiar prim. It does not have a set shape, does not have a set numerical count. You rez a mesh and the viewer tries to calculate a Prim Equivalence (PE) so it can conform to the current system and this PE is effected by a number of factors - Size, Physical Weight, Number of Textures or wether it has a script inside.

If you Link two Mesh together the PE may increase or decrease depending on factors of the linked mesh. If you link a normal PRIM to a mesh, it may not even seem to count towards the Mesh's PE.

A Mesh Objects PE is not set in stone either. You could have an object made with 5 Prims and have a Mesh version that comes in at 4 PE, if you enlarge the Mesh version by a metre or so, it's PE could jump to 8 PE. The Bigger your mesh the more PE it costs. It's a bit confusing and really kills off mesh for large scale use not to mention griefing potential of an object that takes up prim count when enlarging.

Physics weight also is impossible to compare to Prims as it is not a set thing. For example i have an Airship which is 24 prims. I left it at 24 because i wanted as many people as i could to sit on it and Physical Vehicles only allow 30 Prims to move. Each Prim has a physical weight of 1, each avatar has a physical weight of 1, this is how it's always been from the start, simples.

With Mesh though you have the ability to set the Mesh Physics to your desired shape and size and the Physics weight is calculated from that. I built my Mesh version of my Airship and i added some extra detail and textured to the best of my ability. There is NO denying that the New Mesh airship is far more detailed and better textured than the Prim/sculpty version. Yet it calculated to being 38 PE compared to the 24 prims. 'Oh No, its far to many prims to be a physical Vehicle! ' , actually NO, because although the 24 Prim Airship has a physical weight of 24, the 38 PE mesh Airship has a Physical weight of just 5!. Unfortunately Land counts the PE so we will see Physical Vehicles with a PE way above the standard 30 Prims, so if you don't have a lot more than 30 prims left on your land, you can expect problems with Mesh Vehicles Crossing.

People will understandably compare Mesh objects to Prims based on Prim count alone and i think this is a bad habit to get into.

A list of things I had to learn in order to create #SLMesh objects

2011-07-19T07:29:00.000-07:00

I've been learning how to create Mesh objects for a couple months now and by jove it's not easy.

The creative side is ok, it's just the technical side is SO fragmented and this is NOT Linden Labs fault. The 3D modelling world as a whole is a nerdy one and is no way in a position for mass uptake by the general public.

You have major 3D package software that i cant afford to use, so cant comment on wether Z-brush, 3Dstudio max or what ever else has a more complete and user friendly work flow. For the Mac there is also cheaper solutions such as Silo and AC3D to consider but the majority of newbs to Mesh will no doubt find their way to Blenderas its FREE.

The problem with Blender though is its currently very slowly going through a transition of being ridiculously lousy with UI (2.49) to a more intuitive easy to use UI (2.5). I found it easier to get to grips with Blender 2.5, thats the whole point of Blender 2.5 but when it comes to using it for making SL Mesh you will soon discover vital features that make Mesh easier and more efficient are strewn between the two version of Blender making it a very frustrating experience to learn. Although it is free and they guys working on it are doing it out of their own pockets and through donations so Kudos for them really....... just wish they worked quicker to implement the missing features :-p

I have found that to make a good prim efficient Mesh for SL, i have to use multiple applications, porting from one to the other. These 3D apps do not seem to have all in one. Some Like Silo don't even support the Collada format, others lack Poly reduction, and whats worst is that these programs have been around for years.

So anyway, if you are thinking of making Mesh in Second life, i have made a list of subjects i've had to learn regardless of which 3D software i've been using.

1. Learn how to create Mesh objects, learn about extrude, vertices, faces, edges and manipulating them.

2. Learn about subdividing and modifying.

3. learn about unwrapping UV's, texturing & multiple faces.

4. Learn about Levels Of Detail (LOD) and how to decimate/reduce faces on your model.

5. Learn how to weight your Mesh and rig it for wearing.

6. Learn about Mesh Physics and how to apply it to your mesh.

7. Learn How to use the SL Mesh Uploader and how it deals with LOD and Physics

8. Learn how to keep Prim Equivalence LOW. (not as easy as you may think)

Lets not delude any SL users here, it's not as simple as rezzing a prim, texturing and linking , you really do have to learn 3D video game modelling. There are university courses lasting two years teaching the stuff you have to learn here. But there are some amazing talented and generous Users in SL who have given me a lot of help and advice to learn on the SL Forums.

Those who think Mesh would replace the old Plywood Prim are utterly mistaken. Even Scultpies and Mega prims will be useful in the fight for prim reduction since Mesh Prim equivalence will increase along with a Meshes size.

The world of the Tiny will be cost a lot less than full sized Avatars.

So give Mesh a go, and do so now before it goes onto the main grid, as right now you dont have to pay for mistakes ;)

Short Story: Game Of Social Thrones #SL

2011-07-13T16:01:00.000-07:00

Hundreds of years ago great empires were founded on simple communities. One such Kingdom was that of Second Life.

As the Kingdom crew it's leaders built a wall around the Kingdom shutting it off from the rest of the land. Its people watched from the walls as other kingdoms such as Facebook and Google+ grew large and fat on their freedom to share and communicate.

The people of the Kingdom of Second Life yearned to be seen and share what they created just as easy as those in the Google+ and Facebook kingdoms. They turned to their Humble Leader and pleaded

"PLEASE your greatness, pull down the walls, grant us the freedom to share our work and be seen by all, reduce the Land Taxes, set us free!"

And the Humble Leader of the Kingdom of Second Life set forth to bring them what they wanted.

But over the walls the truth of the freedoms of the Facebook and Google+ kingdoms slowly came to light. For the Kingdoms to grant such freedom came at a price. They had allied themselves with the Marketing Empire to the North who gave them gold and in return the Kingdoms of Facebook and Google+ would tell their people they are free to do what they wanted.

But in truth the people were slaves. What ever they did and what ever they shared was exchanged for more gold for the Kingdoms Leaders and the people had no choice for they could not see what was happening.

Gradually the People were labeled and placed in special parts of the Kingdoms. They eat the food only presented for them, they learnt only what was told and shown to them, and they only talked to those who lived in their part of the Kingdom.

From the walls of the Kingdom of Second Life the people started to realise just what they had as the Marketing Empire could not see past the great walls. And it was at that time the Great Humble Leader sent word to the Marketing Empire to discuss an alliance that would bring all that the peoples of Facebook and Google+ had. After all, this was what the People of Second lIfe had pleaded for?

Those who knew the truth took it upon themselves to sabotage the meeting to stop the alliance being made. The Marketing Empire reacted to the sabotage with anger at the Kingdom of Second Life

"You shall be cast aside, and left to rot while the rest of the land grows stronger and stronger under our rule and influence!"

But what the empire did not understand was just how loyal to the Kingdom it's people were, how proud of what they had achieved and how important their freedom to be who or what ever they chose and not to become labeled for the Marketing Empires targeting.

And so it came to be known that the Great wall of the Kingdom of Second Life was not stopping the people from being seen outside, it was protecting them from those outside who seeked to take away their freedom.

An alliance was struck with the Order of the Twitter allowing The people of Second Life to send anonymous messages to other growing communities who fought against the Empire. The Second Life Kingdom became a refuge for those who escaped the Kingdoms of Facebook and Google+ and wanted a life where they were not pursued by Marketing Empire. The Taxes may still be high, but then my child, thats the price we pay for our freedom from the Empire……

The Mind Boggles #SL profiles and augmented virtual reality

2011-07-01T05:43:00.000-07:00

I know its apparently not even far along enough to call a BETA, but almost every hardcore SL user has by now seen the my-demo Second Life Facebook parody. I hopelessly tried to hold back my opinions of the new Social Profiles but i looked at it, tried it, communicated to my friends with it and ended up with one simple question… WHY COPY FACEBOOK MODEL AND NOT TWITTER? So here i rant again....

TEE HEE you cant see me, cos i'm hiding behind the big white square

I'm excited by new ways to communicate in SL. Since viewer2 was released i've found it impossible to keep up with the cluttered notifications system that pops up briefly in the dark corner then disappears into the messy tiny box that caps at +99.

The new Friends Feed at the moment is a web only affair. In other words you can only access it via the web based profiles that appears slowly in the built in Web viewer. Its basically a website that is laid over the top of your virtual world experience.

In the Hype days of SL people used to think SL would lead to a 3D internet. 2D websites would be transformed into 3D spaces and it would change how we shopped online. Instead we saw the mobile market blow into the next revolution and along with that came augmented reality, bringing a sort of virtual world experience to the real world. In the mean time the 3D internet is still ways off. Perhaps the 3D internet will derive from augmented reality, or maybe it will come from Virtual worlds like SL, or maybe it'll happen when the two some how collide.

SL can only get to that stage if it keeps being innovative and pushing how we interact and communicate, because i believe virtual world UI and Augmented reality UI are closely linked.

Back to the Social Profiles. I can understand the use of the Web Based overlay for stuff like search, you spend a fare amount of concentration to siv through the results. But for viewing notifications and sending messages i find the Facebook model a mind boggling choice.

I'm only surprised because the Twitter microblogging model seemed an obvious choice to incorporate into the Side/Slide bar. Who knows, maybe the Viewer2 code monkies are working to implement this as i rant and maybe JUST MAYBE the web profiles friends feed is just a way to keep up to speed with whats going on inworld while im out with only my iPad at hand.

The escapades at #SL8B - my thoughts

2011-06-27T05:18:00.000-07:00

The 8th Birthday festival of the Virtual World of Second Life is entering its second week, but for most the party is over with events coming to a close.

This second week allows people to walk around minus the parties and lag inducing crazy events, but to be honest i found the lag quite minimal, this might be due to my BEAST of an iMac and the new viewer2 devs knocked out each day that i use and test.

I am always amazed at the feeling one can get when immersed in the virtual festival atmosphere. Real Lifers mock me about that, questioning the validity of calling it a festival atmosphere when there is no smell, no real world sense. I guess you have to question what a festival is. Is it the smell? is it the sunshine, is it the live sounds, or is it the sharing, the communicating with others who are experiencing the same spontaneous event.

A lot of real lifers still don't comprehend that there is a reality to the virtual reality. There is a person behind the avatars, their is a talent behind the live musicians and singers, and there is an artist behind the creations.

I'd like to thank all those wonderful people who put so much thought and effort into a wonderful festival of colour, sound and interactivity. Some exhibits were playful ideas of fun while others encouraged thoughtful debate. I saw things id never seen before and left me wondering how it was done.

Every time i arrived at the Main stage their was some amazing Singer performing and i was greeted with happy bouncy people from around the world. It was amazing fun. I was also amazed at how often i bumped into people i knew simply while walking around the place. Makes me wonder if the nubbier of active users is actually more than a couple hundred lol.

I really need to thank everyone of the Escapades Team who helped with our own exhibit. What started off as a "oh jeez i don't have time for this" ended up a wonderful fun group effort using our collective knowledge of what works in SL what doesn't work in SL and what might work if we deed this and that to the floor.

The comments i've had have expressed the fun people have had exploring the exhibit. It was also fun watching people enter through the magic book, seeing them go around all the interactive elements. How they decide which way to go first, how they first try to interact with things. I find that all very fascinating.

I spent two days walking around and filmed 2 hours of video which i condensed down to 4 minutes. Sorry if your exhibit did not make the video.

On sunday the Escapades team had a party inside the Magical Land of Make Believe and i, Gemini & Gadget DJ'd music to who ever wanted to party with us.

I included a counter to count each person who visited the exhibit and even though they seem quite low, it matters not. There was SO much stuff out there to see im not surprised at the stats.

I'm more positive about Second Life than ever before. I like the New CEO Rodders, he has a nerdy charm to rival the late Phillip's ability to sweet talk the community, but he also seems active in the world and thats important. I saw him at the main stage as a floating space ship which made me smile.

SL8B reminded me that there are still many people fully engaged in SL, that perhaps some of us spend to much time looking out of SL instead of seeing whats already here and should be given attention. With Mesh plus other interesting stuff heading our way this year, SL9B should be something more special than any SL event seen yet.

If you have not yet been to the Magical Land of make Believe then you still have time this week.

Goony Adventure: Bronyville & Liberty Cove [UPDATED]

2011-06-06T04:02:00.000-07:00

So for June the Goonies Gathered at the Clubhouse before teleporting to a place thats got a bit of buzz recently for its crazyness. Some of the greatest moments in SL are born from the memes of the net and Bronyville is one of them.

I've seen a few of my friends pick up a My little Pony cell shaded cartoon avatar, and i have seen the fanmade trailers based around the new My Little Pony Cartoons. What you get when you take that meme into SL is absolute crazyness and i love that.

We arrived to a rainbow filled sim with nice lil houses, but what was great was the amount of people there with their personalised Ponies of different kinds.

The Goonies arrived to find a whole mass of Ponies happy slapping each other, or maybe they were worshiping the giant shoe , i was'nt quite sure.

Anyway Bronyville was quite fun but soon it was time to go to our second destination of the evening....

[UPDATE] Nat corrected me i thought it was Pronyville, but its Bronyville

Sextan Shepherd has become a recognised name throughout Second Life, for his work on the now gone Nemo regions. I admire his attention to detail with texturing, if he published a book about texturing i would buy it! HINT.

The Goonies arrived at his latest work, the homestead region known as 'Liberty Cove'. (Perhaps a much cheaper a fair than the huge Nemo regions.)

It starts off as a wonderful winding street with shops showcasing Sextans work for sale.

Then walking across the rocky island the Goonies came across a strange machine machine in an old temple like building. All beautifully textured as expected from Sextan.

Crossing a bridge we also discovered other delights. My new Computer helped me take full advantage of how great the Sim looked enhancing what was already a wonderful steampunk atmosphere.

Some of this place is still under construction so i will probably return in future to see whats been added. Definitely check it out!

Anyway Much fun was had by all who ventured with us.

Goony Adventure: Lemondrop's Forest

2011-06-06T03:42:00.000-07:00

OK i forgot to post this last month oops. Last month's Adventure took place on the amazingly immersive brooding world of Lemondrop's Forest.

A atmospheric world of giant mushrooms with paths that lead to a colourful town. What i loved about this place was the sense of size. It's easy to forget that this is all on one region, there is so many places hidden around the corner.

My favourite part was finding the Poo factory, and of course being a boy i relished the sillyness of it.

The Goonies somehow got split into two groups which is rare, each group discovering their own things.

With fun little cars, gondollas and other fun things to find its a very Awesome place, i recommend everyone visit Lemondrop's Forest.

Why is MESH going to change our experience of Second Life? #SL [UPDATED]

2011-05-15T07:44:00.000-07:00

A lot of people in SL have probably been wondering what all the fuss is about MESH so for my friends and anyone who is not a game design geek or 3D model maker i'll try to explain how i see it.

Introduction

Since the dawn of SL time we have been building with PRIMS. It's the simplest form of creativity in SL and is something everybody has a go at when they first arrive. I know this because im constantly clearing up plywood cubes randomly razzed around my island.

Like a kid playing with Lego you soon learn to build elaborate complex objects that resemble something we can recognise and its not long before groups of Users come together and build entire towns. We start to take notice of detail creating fine jewellery consisting of over 1000 prims. Regardless of the Viewers struggle to download and render all this (and failing lighting and shading on my Mac at least) it's probably fare to say that SecondLife showcases some extremely highly detailed modelling, so Kudos to all those creative pationate users.

SL is less a 3D modelling Program but more a games development platform.

Some of the best most popular games have 3D modelling far less detailed than a lot of what we see in Second Life. For example World of War Craft the leading online world, if you really look you will see it is far less detailed. The reason is because the developers 'optimise' the characters, buildings and objects so they run smoothly and update reliably in real time.

Even the top games like Portal2, Assassins Creed and Bioshock2 use 3D modelling thats optimised and simple compared to some of the ultra detailed stuff you can sometimes find in SL. These games use atmospheric lighting, shadows, textures and other visual tricks to enhance the detail of a 3D object.

Really we have to marvel at Second Life's ability to download and render the mountain of detail us Users have created. The Viewer has to download then display the mass of objects that make up a 400 prim building, along with its textures, and then we simply walk off to another location where it has to repeat the process. Eventually the Viewer is trying to display way more than your average high end computer game.

Why new mesh support could transform Second Life.

A single Prim has a preset amount of parts that create it, (polygons or vertices, sides) each time you ad a prim you ad more parts regardless of the size of that prim. Soon you will have detailed object made of hundreds of prims containing thousands of parts and this is part of the reason SL Viewer struggles to render causing LAG.

Building a mesh object means you have control over the amount of parts that make an object. So instead of building with prims that each have a set number of parts, you build with parts, there is no prim.

Do not try and bend the PRIM. That's impossible. Instead... only try to realize the truth.....There is no PRIM

Below is an example that shows you an object made with Prims with each prim being made up of a set number of parts, and a Mesh version that shows how users can build the same shape but with far less parts.

Two very similar looking objects, one Prim based the other Mesh.

Turning to Wireframe you can now see the parts that make up
each object. The more parts to an object the harder it is for
the viewer to show.

Here i have nicked some examples of World of Warcraft 3D models and their wireframe(Mesh) views that how many parts make them and how basic the 3D detail is. [UPDATE] Images taken from THIS website.

Some would say these characters are TOO optimised

A character Mesh like this could be the equivalent to as little as
2 or 3 standard SL prims

LL are working on a system that calculates how many prims
a mesh object is WORTH by how many parts make up the object.

This simple building may be the equivalent of LESS than one prim.
But i guess it would be rounded up to be a 1 prim object.

With the introduction of Mesh Linden Lab give top SL creatives the ability to control and optimise the parts that make up an object with the hope of a better crafted virtual world.

More Creative Control than EVER before!

Mesh is the next level in the Game of Second Life creativity. Many have learnt the basic of model making in SL and it's an exciting and fun step up into the world of professional 3D model making and game design. The introduction of mesh opens a door to many new possibilities not just for the Second Life Grid but for the loyal creative Users of SL to expand. With its users being given the tools to optimise the content all LL need to do is get that Viewer working correctly so it can display our content beautifully with atmosphereing lighting and shadow tricks.

Anyway i hope this has helped to explain the wonders of MESH to those who were wondering what all the fuss was about :) Of course those sticking to viewer1 will not see any of this :-), i'm not gonna wait for you guys.

Interested in making a mesh object and uploading to the Mesh Beta grid, visit my adventures in Mesh on the SL Forum HERE to see my early attempts along with others tips and video tutorials.

You can download the Mesh Beta Viewer HERE and go explore what others have already been building.

Also here is a sneak peak at a T-Shirt i made which bends with the avatar and has an animated front!

Dogstar The Storyteller - enhancing the traditional in #SL.

2011-05-09T02:54:00.000-07:00

On Saturday The crazy little Fae Goblin called Dogstar came to Escapades island to tell three folk tales to who ever happened upon the event.

Situated in the picturesque castle ruins on the mountain side residents were treated to an immersive atmosphere with torches and the sounds of woodland birds surrounding them.

The stories were told live via the lands music stream and enhanced with hand drawn illustrated images depicting key moments in the tales. There was also a moment where a magic pot filled the castle area with porridge giving the audience a real sense of being part of the story telling experience.

Dogstar told three stories, 'The Magic porridge pot', 'The Hobyahs' and 'The Man, Boy and Donkey'. Below is an mp3 of an excerpt from the evening.

You can download the MP3 HERE

In my live action roleplay days i've seen some truly magical traditional folk telling by proper recognised bards here in the UK. In every instance the experience is very much enhanced by the setting and atmosphere in which you are listening to the tales.

Second life has the ability to immerse you in a similar way. Of course you cant smell the smoke or feel the warmth of the fire but it goes alot further than simply hearing the story on an ipod or reading a book.

I tried to find a balance between a real bardic storytelling experience and reading a storybook while adding something that you could only experience in Second Life.

Second Life glitches aside (viewer crashing, stream cutting out and occasional Lag) I think those who came to the event on some level became immersed in the experience with their friends and strangers and left with an shared moment of colour, images and sounds they will remember for a while.

Dogstar may return to the island in future, but im not sure when :)

#SL Goony Beltaine Wickerman - 2011

2011-05-08T11:38:00.000-07:00

Once again the SL Goonies and their friends gathered for the 6th year in #SL to watch the Wickerman burn. This was the first time on the New Upgraded island.

This year the Wickerman was built atop the mountain side. There were many new faces gathered from the past year, and many old faces stood side by side. But as always there were some who for what ever reason were not present this time round.

May, clad in cloth of gold, cometh this way; The fluting of the blackbirds heralds the day.

The dust colored cuckoo cries farewell O Queen! For winter has vanished, the thickets are green.
The wild bee is busy, the ant honey spills, The wandering kind are abroad on the hills.
The harp of the forest sounds low, sounds sweet; Soft bloom on the heights, haze of heat.
Happy the heart of man, eager each maid; Lovely the forest, the wild plane, the green glade.
Truly winter is gone, come the time of delight, The summer truce joyous, May, blossom-white.
In the heart of the meadows the lapwings are quiet; A winding stream makes drowsy riot.
All creatures on earth, run, rejoice and be bold! See the shaft of the sun makes the waters-flag gold.
Loud and clear summering wakes and trills his voice 
Hail May of delicate colours 'tis belting rejoice!

Here is to yet another year in this mad virtual existence known as Second Life! We have the fun exploration of Mesh to look forward to, along with improved Community sharing features while escapades slowly gets stronger and stronger thanks to its great fans and residents.

#SL Goonies Airforce Glider Training with Gyro.

2011-05-08T11:18:00.000-07:00

A week or so ago Tylor invited a group of Goonies to take part in a Goony Airforce training session over the hills of Aero Pines Park.

We spent at least an hour getting to grips with specially modified goony Gliders, flying high above the hills.

higher and higher we went towards the hot sun, and i suddenly became concerned as i remembered the old story of Iccarus.

No one got hurt though and all had a great time. Thanx Tylor for organising a kool relaxing event XD

Could Second Life market big franchise interactive experiences ever again? #SL

2011-04-25T11:59:00.000-07:00

Im quite lucky in that i've grown up being bombarded by story telling techniques from all sorts of areas.
I continue to have friends who geek out to film trivia. Friends who pass me skills of spontaneous roleplaying, others inspire a keen interest of old folk tales from before the written word, and i have a friend who's eyes light up at the mention of 'site specific'.

Talk about Second Life and you will no doubt start telling a story of things that you have experienced with friends or strangers, it's possibly Second Life's biggest asset no one can talk about.

SL is rather like the biggest art house on the planet. I've seen countless examples of people entertaining or educating others through virtual performing arts. From showing students the power of immersion via virtual worlds, Live indie bands that reach all around the globe to story telling via basic old fashioned word of mouth and theatres productions.

Then you have roleplaying which is more live action than videogame RPG, where the stories are not set in stone and change on a whim due to the interactions of the performers and the location.

I once thought this would be an area business, brands and marketeers would have gotten into, and in fact they did. Back in the SL hype days there was two instances i remember where Brands came into SL to try 'interactive marketing'.

The First was 'I Am LEGEND'. A movie tie-in created by the Electric Sheep Company in 2007. It was a series of sims depicting the empty streets as seen in the movie with HUDS and stuff to have team battles or something.

The Second was 'CSI:NY' Which was a tie-in with a specific episode of CSI.

Both of these had good ideas to allow residents to interact with the franchise and explore and experience their own individual stories based on 'I am Legend' & 'CSI'. Unfortunately in my opinion they were let down by limitations of the software and complexity of signups. Also due to SL's CLOSED WALL of communicating, no one could talk about their experiences to the greater world, which right now is the honey pot of the current marketing world.

These problems with SL maybe one of the reasons Rezzable left the main grid. Unhappy with LL's lack of enthusiasm in finding a solution, rezzable have started to work on their own solution to first steps on their own grid.

In 2007 Second Life may have shown a new pathway to interactive story telling content, but its expensive, complicated, graphically poor and uncommunicative. Paramount have produced a 3D interactive experience that gives you atmosphere, immersion and clues to what maybe in store from the film SUPER8. It is bundled on the back of the game Portal Two which sold 675,000 copies in one day.

This is a whole area that Second Life could have been leading as a platform for rather than crappy conference meetings. I tend to feel LL totally missed an opportunity there.

What's stopping Paramount or any marketing business using SL to create brand focused interactive trailers or experiences?

I would imagine the same old things…
1) impossibly complicated controls & UI
2) impossibly high hardware specs
3) impossible to communicate natively from SL.
4) expensive dear boy when the softwares broke and no one knows how to experience your content for a day or two.

Things are changing though and i don't think this kind of future cant happen, it's all possible. They are working hard to make SL easy to login to and experience. And i do believe with 3DMesh proper professional game designers will be able to do some wondrous things making SL look as good as some top end games.

Until then for us beta testers, it's like C3PO says "we're made to suffer, it's our lot in life"

#SL Goonies and the Sleeping Serpent

2011-04-18T02:52:00.000-07:00

A mysterious chest appeared at the Rickety Town Centre amid all the newbs hunting for Eggmen.

The Goonies gathered to investigate and found a note on the side that gave a clue to where the chest came from

"Dear Goonies,
a gift for you, be kind and just DIE!
Sincerely yours,
The Grand Master"

At this point Mr Doomdale the local debt collector and grumpy old man arrived and started telling the kids to disperse because they were making to much noise and scaring the Newby adult avatars.

Opening the chest the gang found a scroll. With the amount of scrolls the Goonies find on the island, they will soon be able to start up a library. On the Scroll were some words in an ancient language which Tepic being the inquisitive boy he is read out loud to the rest of the group.

"Medrid mor dragoon, difun ow cuscajor"

Suddenly Mr Doomdale started to choke and shake and a large cloud of smoke started to surround the old man. The Goonies watched in terror as Mr Doomdales body changed into a giant serpent dragon thing with wings and immediately started setting fire to the town and newbs.

After the initial panic and several minutes running around the Goonies set forth on a mission to uncover exactly what just happened. First some keene eyed Goonies noticed a symbol on the chest that closely resembled a similar symbol by the old gate in the Fae Forrest.

Soon the whole gang had found their way through the Fae gate into the Seelie Court where they found Dogstar, a strange looking Lesser Fae cooking stew.

After telling the fae creature what had happened to mr Doomdale they were told that they had found an old spell. Mr Doomsdale it would appear was in fact a dragon called Medrid placed under a Glamour Spell and what Tepic had done when he read the scroll out loud was break the glamour spell causing Doomdale to change into his true form, a Dragon Serpent.

The Goonies all face palmed before asking if they could somehow reverse whats happened before the whole of Escapades Island burns. Dogstar stirred his pot of stew before disappearing behind some trees. A few minutes later he emerged with a map.

"The only way you can reverse what you have done is by finding the five wyrd stones. This map will show you where they lay on the island. Once you have found them, you need to place them in a circle somewhere high and lure the serpent to the centre. Then shout the words of this spell "..................."

The spell has not been written down as Dogstar was particular about such powerful words, saying that this mess is because of people writing down words.

Anyway Goonies split up to search for the stones while others tried to lure the dragon to the mountain top.

Eventually all 5 Wyrd Stones were found and dragged to the mountain top and placed in a circle. The Dragon Serpent appeared setting fire to the surrounding trees but the Goonies stood fast and waited for the dragon to land in the centre of the circle.

Finally with a loud roar the dragon was in place and the Goonies started chanting the magik words..... nothing,... so they chanted again... still nothing. Then as if suffering from chat lag the Wyrd stones lit up and sparkles emanated from them surround the dragon.

The body of the dragon became engulfed in dark smoke and when it cleared Mr Doomdale was a grumpy old man again who promptly scuffled off blaming the kids for a right old mess, much to the relief of the Goonies.

So once again the Goonies dealt with another of the Grand Masters Dastardly Plans, what will he do next?......

All images taken by Nat Merit, check out his Plurk of the event as it unfolded.

If you are interested in Joining the Goonies Adventures, join the Goony Social website and be informed of when the next 'Escapades Event' is.

Did you get linked to this Blog post from inside or outside of #SL ? - Why i think concurrency keeps falling

2011-04-12T07:19:00.000-07:00

visions of a future SL

Yesterday the Alphaville Herald snuck in before Tateru to post a story that quickly fluttered across the SL related infostream.

"Second Life user-concurrency falls to lowest levels in two years"

So for the rest of the day my twitter feed was dropping many re-tweets of blog and forum posts on how Linden Lab could reverse the falling concurrency. Some blame the New User Experience as the root of the problem, others blame a lack of incentive or tasks. Others go so far as to blame the entire Linden Lab structure.

I don't believe changing the first user experience is going to help and i don't think adding incentives for people to do anything will help either, why? because the issue i believe is communication within Second Life Platform.

Tateru points out a coincidence in the timing of a certain open spaces fiasco and the end of "sustained growth" in SL around March 2009. But i'd like to point out some other coincidences of around that time period.

1) People start reporting Group Chat failures .

2) Twitter takes off big time.

3) LL acquire Onrez & Xstreet and start promoting it to EVERYONE.

4) Facebook Doubles to 500 million users

5) Tumblr takes off big time

Why i think these are important factors in the dwindling concurrency is to do with how we communicate the SL world. While all these other highspeed ways of communicating to each other are taking off, SL it self starts to fail or just not move with the times in it's ability to communicate.

Today i have not logged into SL yet to find out what my SL friends are up to, no need as they are telling me on twitter.

I don't need to venture in world to find out what events are happening or what drama there is, i can find out on Blogger or Tumblr.

I don't need to login to learn how to make Mesh content, i can just watch Youtube video tutorials or head over to the forums.

I don't need to log in to search for new clothes or specific objects to put in a new role-play experience, i can just head over to market place.

And before some of you counter this with "well you just arnt using Second Life the way you are supposed to anymore", the way the majority use SL has changed but the way SL works has not and that is whats being reflected in the concurrency. It's changed in my opinion simply because of an inability to communicate in world. Lets take a look at some examples of communication inworld…

1) Nearby Chat
The number ONE form of communicating with strangers in SL. I often find that people around the globe find it easier to text chat than voice.

2) Instant Message

One of the oldest forms of peer to peer communication, and still going strong in SL. In the RW my usage of IM messengers such as iChat and MSN has dwindled due to Facebook and Twitter. It's only the Old tech guys that seem to still use IM clients which is probably a reason why Linden Labs SLim client never left the beta band. But there is still a market for communicating to your SL friends inworld and as i just pointed out, for me at least Twitter is filling that roll.

3). Group Chat.

Issues started to appear probably before early 2009, two years ago. How important is group chat? i really should not have to explain that. Its frustrating to get any information out about current happening issues, events, help, etc. Group chat maybe the only bit of inworld communication that can not be experienced outside of SL, yet it has not worked properly for over two years!

4) Group Notices.

To me the whole premiss of 'group notifications' has long become old tech and predates some of the more proven and successful ways of sending short informative notices. Most people call it 'Microbloggin' now, and send the same notifications on Twitter or Plurk as a more efficient way to contact people across their many interests in SL, not just one group. Notices used to be the best way to send out events, news, landmarks etc, but since SLviewer2's skin job notices i find often get lost. If you are lucky you will see a notice pop up then disappear quickly, then when you check the little tiny corner box you discover in no particular order 99 notices you didn't know you had. Then you enter a clicky mess to read through them all.

5) Notecards

Many people use notecards to send information with pics and landmarks embedded in them. Thats because of fear that an Instant Message will be 'capped after 25' and you will never receive said IM. It's just another example of how communication in SL is fragmented. I hate receiving notecards, because i have to login to find out wether it's important or not. I prefer to be IM'd because my iphone receives all offline messages and my iPhone is with me almost ALL the time so i can reply if i need to without having to login these days.

6) Voice

I never really use voice so cant really comment on this feature. I don't use it, my friends don't use it. Only people i've seen use it are Newbs at welcome area and Linden Lab staff at meetings.

7) Search

Yes search is an important form of communicating, probably one of the most important. Yet this thing has been neglected also. I pay money for my shop to be listed in search but im almost certain no one has ever found it. I don't even use inworld search anymore because the results are confusing, the interface clunky and detached from everything else. Before i log into SL to go on a Goony Adventure i search the SL website destination guide, or twitter for anything new and interesting.

8) Events

The events guide is a way to communicate your events to people outside of your immediate circle. This thing has not changed since i first joined over 5 years ago. It should be a really helpful feature but it's kinda stuck in the back next to search and i always forget about it. I often get group chat messages from like minded people looking for an event to go to, (but im never able to reply due to group chat not working properly). The reason for this is simply because they want events that are more targeted to them and their interests.

The SL community is a world wide collection of people with many different interests, and given the right tools they will share and promote each others interests freely and creatively. The decline in concurrency to my eyes is the result in SL's stagnation and neglect in what the rest of the tech world saw as a changing evolving era of communication.

When Linden Lab bought Avatar United i was excited, i thought maybe finally we would get a reworked base for communicating in SL featuring microblogging, more functional groups ect. Now either that whole thing has gone dead like Slim did or perhaps it's simply in the works and they are keeping it secret. CEO Rodvik did allude to "long-term initiatives that I think will be truly jaw-dropping" . I can only hope one of these initiatives is a new communication structure that allows SL residents to not only share and communicate between each other Inworld, but also be intergrated with the popular forms of communication outside. I'd like to see the many interests and creativity in Second Life being streamed directly from Inworld out to the rest of the web. There is no simple fix to this, they cant just slap a like button to everything, they have to work harder than we've ever perceived them to work before.

Linden Lab can ad shiny Mesh, slap on a new Ui skin, make the platform less laggy and introduce a basic viewer, all that will improve sign ups. But if Linden Lab does not address the ways its users communicate to each other what they build, visit, role-play and love about SL then concurrency will continue to drop as more and more users spend less time inworld communicating and Sharing.

Could Mesh bring an end to #SL's exclusive hold on you and your avatar?

2011-04-01T05:56:00.000-07:00

People have asked me why i haven't tried other grids yet and the answer has simply been because 'Loki' and his appearance is locked into the #SL data base.

It used to also be because all my friends are only in SL, and that all my objects are in SL…. but thats changing wether LL know it or not, Mesh could possibly free us all!

Below are my arguments for staying in Second Life and whats changed to make them no longer valid.

1). All my friends are in SL who i chat with.

The majority of my friends communicate with each other out side SL now via twitter, Plurk and other more advanced social means. This is already detached from SL.

2). My account is important and i don't want to have to keep signing up to new services each time i enter a new grid.

Thats soon to change. While reading the buzz surrounding Kitely i saw that it allows you to set up using your Facebook account. I can see me in future using my Twitter account rather than Facebook to login to grids. And since im using twitter to communicate to all my SL friends it's not that big a step.

3). All my content i built is stored on SL server, i cant be bothered to rebuild it all on another grid.

Sculpties gave a clue about where this was heading. All my sculpty builds are stored and can be replicated on another grid. Now here comes Mesh, completely off grid creations that in future you will be able to upload to what ever grid or marketplace available. Is it then a stretch to think it may even become possible to store mesh objects in a cloud storage thats accessible via the viewer as you loginto opens grids?

4). My avatar appearance is tied to the SL grid.

Again Mesh is coming to the rescue. For starters the SL basic avatar mesh is out of date, old and clumsy. Here is a vid of someones practice with making Mesh avatar. Mesh could pave the way for ultra detailed Avatar meshes and once you have a mesh that encapsulates everything you wish for your avatar, it's yours and you can store it on your computer. You will be able to upload it to which ever grid you decide to venture too. It might even end up stored locally within your viewer to be automatically uploaded on login to a grid.

What is interesting is that this pathway is based on what LL are currently doing or done. Makes me wonder if Linden labs plans are enough to stay strong once we've finally gained our Avatars freedom to choose where to go.

But to be fair this is all probably 2 years down the line, who knows whats going to have changed in the Lab by then. Maybe tier cost will have been reduced by then!?? :-P

#SL Social Mesh

2011-04-01T03:27:00.000-07:00

It's easy to get excited about Collada Mesh support.

3D wether it be for Second Life & other virtual realms, Apples next gen OSX operating system that will include 3D api's for 3rd party applications, or the birth of social 3D product design, 3D modelling is becoming more casual.

Over the last couple of years ive become more involved with 3D modelling, all because of my Second Life. SL's simple building rules is visually easy to get into and learn compared to other 'Pro' 3D building applications. So why has there not been a standalone 3D application that combines SL's prim based building skills to create proper 3D models? All these extremely skilled builders in SL and there is nothing to apply those skills outside of the platform!

Even I still struggle to make sculpty prims in blender. I would love for a 3D modelling app that would use SL's basic building system and perhaps build upon that system to create good Collada Mesh objects.

Maybe Linden Lab could build this app themselves and sell it. Not only would it harness the 'Arts & Craft' creative power of the SL residents, but it would allow them to expand out beyond of SL. Second Life then becomes the playground for Social 3D modelling which it should already be.

Mesh is still a mess

Every time i look at mesh i think WOW look what people are doing! I admit i tried to make mesh and it did not like me, i dont know wether it was because:

a) i used wrong modelling program,

b) i was crap at modelling

c) the viewer did not work cos its beta

d) i have a mac

e) i did not follow correctly the long list of rules needed to make a mesh object.

I will continue to dabble with Mesh support, dont get me wrong the potential to have animated Ai sprites that move and bounce about is giggidy! But so far the way mesh is implemented seems a mess that is MUCH harder than rezzing and linking prims to instantly create.

here are some examples of mesh i like so far... I like how they ad things we've so far not had in SL.

The Flapping Bird. I dont yet know how its possible to animate a mesh object but would come in handy for Ai monsters.

Not only is this jeep highly detailed but it also appears to move and bounce realistically. I dunno if thats because its mesh or just great script programming.

This just shows that your avatar is no longer confined to the underlaying basic body mesh

Loki's Mum steps in to do MiniMix

2011-03-31T01:32:00.000-07:00

As some of you had heard my cousin did not turn up to do the super Minimix for a new segment of my weekly show. Instead my Mum courageously stepped in to pick up the decks and well, you heard.

If you missed the show you can hear an edit of the mix below.

Loki's Mum Mixing it up freestyle!

Since my cousin will not be showing up any time soon and my after my Mum had such a fun time Mixing this week it looks like she will be returning for next weeks show with an all new minimix :-s god help us!

Levelling up in #SL

2011-03-30T06:45:00.000-07:00

I looked at splitting the different layers of SL interaction into Levels of skill achievements.

Level 0: Spectator

Characteristics: looks like one of the default avatars. Seems kind of clumsy in their movement. Talks alot

Skills: Basic Viewer prohibits them from doing anything other than walk and talk.

Achieved by: Making a second life account.

Level 1: Newb

Characteristics: Walks around looking for something to do and people to teach them. Can often be found in Avatar edit pose surrounded by rezzed boxes of free stuff.

Skills: Very basic movement. Basic Knowledge of inventory

Achieved by: Changing from Basic viewer to Advanced viewer.

Level 2: Consumer

Characteristics: Drops boxes bought on marketplace all over the place. Can be found hanging out at clubs. Frequently arriving at Destination guide places looking for something to do.

Skills: Has learnt how to buy Linden dollars and uses marketplace and destination guide to have a good time meeting people. Has better understanding of inventory and has mastered the groups feature joining club groups. Fully capable of conversing with other avatars in an immersive fashion.

Achieved by: Buying Linden Dollars, joining groups and experimenting with the inventory. Also chatting to people.

Level 3: Contributor

Characteristics: Contributes to their virtual space either by creating objects, selling objects, roleplaying, blogging about their space, renting land, or causing drama.

Skills: Fully immersed in the SL experience to a level anyone below Level 3 can not comprehend. Has mastered at least some basic creative skills for example, scripting, Sculpties, 3D Mesh, texturing, ect.

Achieved by: Finding community and goals that inspire the user to contribute.

Level 4: Cultural Curator

Characteristics: This level is not necessarily achieved by one single person, in most cases a group of people form Cultural Curator status. They have at least 2 years of SL experience and fight to sustain the community which they have grown part of. Talks about almost nothing but Second Life. Is outraged at least once a week by something Linden Lab does.

Skills: Mastered almost all the Master creative skills. Owned or rented a lot of land. Has a broad understanding of Second Life how it works. Above all has achieved a purpose they could not achieve real world which they will defend until digital death!

Achieved by: Spending over2 years in SL. Owning Land. Being recognised by peers as being someone of influence. mastering some of the Master Creative Skills.

Ok i have no real evidence that this is at all accurate. My point is that there are levels of skill in SL and the gap between Newb and fully immersed contributing resident is vast.

Would it be a smart idea to build places that somehow catered to all these levels though? I don't want to build a place thats dumbed down just for Level 0, but i also don't want to build a place that you need to be a Level 3 to understand and interact. Food for my own thoughts....

#SL is full of hobbyists

2011-03-28T05:31:00.000-07:00

So i had a town meeting on my #SL island yesterday to discuss recent activities and future ideas. I discussed with my friends about the fact we get lots of visitors to the island, but how do we get them to contribute to the tier especially when they are in basic viewer and cant buy. In a way it's a very ANTi business approach and more towards establishing a user base for SL. It' up to us to convince new people to want to first change to advanced mode, and then choose to buy linden dollars, then persuade them to part with those dollars. Quite a task.

How much is that experience?

A few months ago i envisioned a future SL where we could market our inworld builds outside of SL, invite people in and experience something, maybe buy a souvenir, or tip.

If i decided to offer my story creative experience to other plot owners in SL? What is the reality of that? would someone be willing to pay me a fair wage per hour to build them an experience in SL?

Designers don't tend to design for hobbyists and currently SL is full of hobbyists. Hobbyists will not be expecting to pay the sort of costs design and marketing agencies charge. Take the John King experience for instance. Fully original illustrations, scripted objects and fully realised 3D environment. If that was done as a website, how much do you think a client would be charged for it? a couple of grand?

You expect those sorts of prices for marketing projects, not hobbies or charities yet LL charge private landowners as if they are big business brands, i guess a left over from when all the brands left SL.

Marketplace is IMVU

A lot of people send me comments saying they still shop inworld and don't use marketplace but the fact is im still making all my sales on marketplace, and none inworld. Even when we had the huge rush of residents new and old, none of the island plot owners saw any sign of an increase in inworld sales.

Marketplace IS a separate experience to Second life now. I reckon you could detach it from SL and it would still thrive as it's own thing. Actually i have no idea how well marketplace is doing at the moment. I think there is some possibilities in connecting marketplace back to the inworld, maybe even gaming the marketplace.

Future Escapades

There is a warm fuzzy feeling around Escapades at the moment. Have had a few more people rent plots and with the influx of visitors there is always something happening. And there is more to come with ideas on charging to experience stories as well as catering for basic viewer newbs. And it does not stop inworld as i want to experiment with reaching outworld to.

It's become a real island of adventure and one you cant experience in one visit.

[UPDATE]
After reading back what i wrote it occurred to me that the Hobbiest culture of SL is kinda synonymous with the Arts & Crafts culture.

#SLbasicViewer - a perfect view into our world.

2011-03-20T11:46:00.000-07:00

I remember posting a response to a blog post last year about making a basic viewer with all the complex rubbish removed, so i was gobsmacked to see LL have gone and done this.

Already there are cries of "NOooOOoOo you are removing the heart and soul of SL". I think it needs to be understood why there HAS to be a basic viewer. There are layers to Second Life once you manage to get through the orientation, find a place to visit, then start making friends. But many do not get that far, they do not find places, they do not experience anything that will hook them and they log off never to be heard again.

"oh yeh i tried SL once, i could not find anything or anyone and the controls confused me"

Thats the basics that this new low level viewer aims to tackle. It aims to remove the complexity and give the newb the experience in a simple controlled manner. What Linden Lab will hopefully be trying out is what exactly needs to be put in or removed from the basic viewer in order to give a newb the best simple experience. And this is where the SL community will probably be split upon.

I took the basic viewer for a spin today on my island. I have created some experiences for SL residents and wanted to see how well they performed in this basic viewer. What aspects of the experience is available to the newb on basic viewer and which are not.

1. Money

Basic viewer does not use Linden Dollars, which kinda screws private region owners even further in the butt. The Basic viewer makes it impossible to pay for good experiences. In summery LL charge me high tier, then expect me to offer my creative builds for FREE to basic viewer users. I want more incentives to build engaging free places for newbs to visit in basic viewer!

2. Inventory.

It's good that the inventory has been removed because its a terrible messy system of storing items. But i cant help thinking they do need at least something to allow giving items to wear or use. I'm only saying this because people on the basic viewer cant use my bashing stick to interact with my island.

The complexity of the Inventory is why it's not included so a non complex way of allowing items for basic viewers is needed. The answer may not even lay with an inventory, perhaps simply allowing objects to ask the user to be worn is an answer. User clicks on object, object requests to be attached to user, user accepts, now they have a bashing stick to unlock more things?

Another idea might be a special gifts or collected tab that only allows up to 20 items. Once it is full you can not receive any more items until you either delete or archive items in the collected tab. (archiving would move items into pro viewer inventory).

3. User Interface

This is a UI thing that might just be me. It does not scale well with monitor resolutions. My Monitor is quite small, 1360x768 and the destination guide was cut off. So was the default avatar selection. I could not read any info about places and when i clicked a place thinking i would get more info on it, i ended up teleported there.

It's more intuitive for me to click the tab button to make the destination guide disappear rather than hunting for a small X in the corner.

There should be a far greater message at login saying "please wait for your world to load"

4. Social sharing.

with all the palaver about Facebook connecting im surprised there is nothing in basic viewer to expand on this. Maybe it was in the cut off Destination guides, or just in the user profiles. I may have missed it.

Final thoughts about basic viewer.

If we will not be allowing newbs to use linden dollars, then we don't really want them hanging around in Basic viewer for long. I want them out of basic viewer and into Pro viewer as quick as possible so they can buy my crap so i can pay off the high tier prices. Thats why features we are used to in the Pro viewer can not be implemented in the basic viewer, we don't want them to have the same experience.The Basic viewer is BASIC, it's an observation only window into our world. The hopeful result being that once they have got used to the intuitive basic controls they have seen enough to interest them into taking the bigger step… using the unintuitive Pro viewer2 :-p

So to be honest i think it works great and with a little consideration from land owners people could see some great things to encourage them to delve further into SL. The only area i feel needs work is the Ui, its very important that destination guide works well. You can see in my video where i instinctively wanted to pull the destination guide window up.

Who in their right mind would want to develop in #Secondlife #SL

2011-03-15T11:23:00.000-07:00

All this experience that i have learnt, all that i can do on this virtual platform, how much is it worth and to who?

Where Facebook allows people to develop apps for its community, we in SL build experiences. Unlike Second life though, Facebooks apps are much easily shared between its community with 'share this' and 'like'. Facebook has good communication and sharing, after all thats what Facebook was built upon.

Second Life is a platform where 3rd party developers or "residents" can build highly interactive and evolving games & experiences. Why wont second life evolve into the number 1 platform for 3rd party virtual world development?

Rezzable is one of the bigger names who took Virtual World experiences seriously. They created the grid famous Greenies sim. They left to develop their projects in a space more cost effective and productive. Is that the fait of every resident of Second Life who decides to take development in the platform seriously?

My dreams of making a small revenue from my Experience Developments are crushed by Linden Lab. I want to be an entrepreneur in the new 3D world but i'm hardly encouraged.

The price of things that wont come.

Price and communication is the two biggest flaws in SL's current state. You might say "oh but what about viewer2!" well its awkward UI and crap communication framework make it part of SL's overall inability to allow users to communicate and immerse into the SL social experience.

High land prices are starting to Kill off entrepreneurs. Where it once worked well, now over time the economic landscape has changed but Linden Lab has not changed its pricing structures to evolve with those changes.

Owning a Region was more like being a caretaker for Linden Lab, coming up with some creative ways make sure LL got their Tier end of the month.

Resident consumers are renting less and less land to live on. Will this effect content creators who build furniture for homes as no one will have land to put it on?

Changing tier prices on its own wont help SL, nor will just fixing communication. Both need to be fixed together in order to maximise Second Lifes growth and development. Lowering Tier could expand land ownership, improve development of engaging experiences. While improved communication will allow users to share and be involved with all thats being built.

This day will come, question is will i still be around to see it :-s.

Pirate Party at the John King Tavern with live indie band 'engrama' #SL

2011-03-14T15:30:00.000-07:00

So after a month of preparation Escapades held another large event with the awesome band [engrama] playing live again. This time they also streamed live video of their Real World Selves into second life for us to see.

The New John King tavern set a great immersive setting for the band and many commented on how fun it was with almost 50 people packed into the small tavern. With settings low Lag proved not to much of an issue, even when we started a bar fight throwing stools across the room.

Thanks again to [engrama] for playing such an awesome gig, and thanks to everyone who turned up to the show.

If you are a music performer and would like to play at the John King tavern in future, please contact either Loki Eliot or Skyler Pooley in Second Life.

Pancake Races and degrading graphics support #SL

2011-03-10T03:35:00.000-08:00

So this week being Shrove tuesday i organised the annual New Babbage pancake race which took place on the New Babbage region. Last year it was held on Port Babbage which is notorious for being quite laggy.

Now this is the forth pancake race i have organised and is the 3rd that i have filmed, which gives an interesting opportunity to see how Second Life has progressed in graphics and stability over three years. Well you might have already gleamed from my heading that it's not great.

Windlight was introduced in 2007 and took a long time to be tweeked in order look good. In 2008 i created a video to show New Babbage using windlight to give a smoggy atmosphere. March 2009 i filmed the New Babbage Pancake race for the first time. Using Windlight settings and ramping up my SLviewer1 settings on my brand new Macbook Pro 2.53 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo with 4GB Ram, and a NVIDIA GeForce 9600M GT with 512mb ram. Framerate was average while motion was smooth using the then new 3dSpacenavigator Mouse.

Move forward a year to 2010 and another Pancake race. This time held in one of New Babbages most laggy regions, Port Babbage. Being a port it is next to water and so reflections are needed and the draw distance needs to be high so i ramp up the graphics option on SLviewer1. The resulting video was ok seeing as there where a lot more avatars attending that year.

Zip forward another year and yet another pancake race. This time im using SLviewer2 and it seems not to support my macbook pros graphics. Since Viewer 2.1 the performance has dropped dramatically due to stuttering jerky rendering. The only way i was going to be able to record this years race was to lower the SL graphics settings, no windlight, no reflective waters, no fog. Yet even with the settings down right down, still the viewer performed worst than last year.

I've voted and commented on countless Jira reports and blogs, created a few youtube videos to show the difference in performance, but i seem to be in my own little world. I hope to get a new Macbook Pro soon as my current one is just over 2 years old, but there is no guarantee that what effects my current Macbook Pro, does not effect the new ones too.

Goonies Adventure - Tableau "lets go to the candy mountain Charlie!" #SL

2011-03-06T04:25:00.000-08:00

This month The Goonies gathered en force to set out on another adventure to a random sim. This usually entails me at the last minute checking the destination guide for something new.

Tableau caught my attention on the destination guide as we haven't been to a desert sim before. I was slightly worried there would be nothing but desert. Oh was i wrong.

Quite a large group of us arrived at the awesome desert town of Tableau and there was plenty to see while chasing tumbleweeds. One thing to note is you MUST have the regions music stream playing, it really ads to the bizarreness.

What do kids do when they see a rusty old car?
Stand on it!

Myrtil find Bloodfangs home.

The Goonies make their way down the dusty town street.
Nat looks at me worried that he's being snapped wearing
skin tight trousers again thanks to viewer2.

Suddenly we find a Candy mountain which reminds some of the Goonies
of a certain Unicorn called Charlie "lets go to the candy mountain charlie!"

With our kidneys still intact we headed over to what looked like a
rundown funfair. Nothing like a giant scary face to invite you in.

I wonder if this Bunny came from the same pet shop Kris got his?

After finding a secret hole we all found ourselves in a really awesome
bright glowing dance club.

Yti and Unix somehow caught a nasty spirit of jazz bug.

As the Sun started to set the Goonies ended up at an old
open air theatre where some of the Goons put on special free puppets.

The others watched with puzzled faces as the show went on. Something about
SL uprisings, Linden Lab and the end of M's regime.

So once again the Goony Adventure comes to a close. What I thought might be a bit dull ended up being quite interesting with some nice surprises hidden about the place. Of course a Goony adventure is not a success unless some strangers day is made all the better by our goony presence. We met a couple who thought our massive gang of misfits were adorable and wanted a group photo next to the giant bunny, so MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!

#SL Goonies and the Giant Claw of DOOM!

2011-02-21T03:56:00.000-08:00

It came down from high above the clouds and slowed to a halt above Myrtil's magnificent windmill. A Hovering machine with three propellers, beneath which hung a huge claw. The Goonies only had minutes to gather before the claw clamped down on top the windmill.

The call had be shouted, and the Goonies came prepared and the game was set to stop the Grand Master from taking off with our favourite Windmill!

After the Claw, the remaining Goonies ventured underground to see what else was on the list of Dastardly Plans. All that is left seems to be two plans about GIANT RAYGUNS and some story about a dragon?

Jimmy battles a Lizard man woken by our noise

eventually we retreat back to the surface.

Finally we retired to the Goondocks John King Tavern to celebrate our victory and Myrtil danced a funny jig :)

Second Life, brands, and theatre :) #SL

2011-02-16T12:15:00.000-08:00

A friend of mine told me he met with an prominent Ad agency who told him "second life is dead" and my friend shares the opinion. The Marketing industry is not interested, the hype turned out to just be hype, they feel SL was a scam and have moved onto the bigger players in Social Media like Facebook, Twitter, Quora and 4Square.

I've watched as Facebook and twitter find what they are, what place they can perform best in the industry and flourish. I use Facebook and twitter, mostly twitter. Its very useful and it's part of every minute of my life now, i'm constantly bombarded with information from my friends and others that i follow with interest. Over half of my twitter feeds relate to my Second Life existence.

Second life was never the place for the digital marketing industry to muscle in and build their own coca cola islands, looking back at it now i wonder who ever thought that would have worked. And then for M Linden to come in and try repackaging SL exclusively to business as a glorified and impractical conference room was… unimaginative.

So i think the reason so many are excited about the new CEO of second life Rod Humble is because he's the first to hit nails in his outlook on Second Life. Suddenly there is a flurry of ideas being thrown out in the hope of nudging Second life in a direction that will perform in the industry.

The first idea i want to share was posted by Gianna Borgnine who made a good case for why it's ridiculous to compare Second Life to the success paths of Facebook, twitter and other social info hubs.

"Today we live in a “NOW” society. We want things to be quick and easy. Social media gives us the ability to check in and check out in a few seconds. The problem with social media is that the connections we make there can often on there own be superficial."

"So why use virtual worlds? Because more than any other space, people are engaging/collaborating/creating/etc in virtual worlds in a uncommonly immersive way that is highly emotionally and significant. A place where you can not only be part of the story, you can also create it. It’s hands on. I don’t want to just read about something, I want to do it! I want to experience it myself."

John Pathfinder Lester also takes a similar view on his blog.

"Lightweight social media platforms are like magazines. Virtual Worlds are like participatory theatre."

Another favourite idea about Second Life is by Tom Boellstorff an anthropologist i became aware of thanks to an awesome article by Dusan Writer, where he touched upon the concept of Digital Arts & Crafts, an idea that those who create homes, games, clothes, user generated content are engaged in Digital Art & Crafts.

"what’s happening here where in what’s supposed to be the age of information, we’re getting all of this stuff happening in virtual worlds about craft, not about knowing about houses in Second Life, but about building a house in Second Life. Building relationships and all the crafting stuff seems to be so important."

"what if this actually may be not the age of information or only information, but about the age of craft or about sort of a new working towards craft. "

This made perfect sense to me as a Steampunk which has been referred to as the new arts and crafts movement.

Understanding it the way i do now it seems ridiculous for companies to come into SL to set up Coca Cola island, or spam our profile and search pages with adverts when SL residents are only interested in what they craft for themselves and their friends. It's possible that Second Life and virtual world user generated content has yet to reach it's actual potential in the industry where money moves to who ever is selling your attention most.

My good friend that i mentioned at the start entertains the possibility that advertising could shift to 'community driven marketing' online.

"We’re beginning to see some bigger transformations in the market that hint at a future free of advertising, at least in its current form. Take the viral nature of Groupon, the power of the social graph and some sort of rewards or affiliation model, and we could find ourselves with a much more efficient mechanism for passing on marketing messages."

"Finally, let’s remove the ads altogether and simply reward those who influence their social network to buy. We find the influential people through studying their online behaviour and engage them directly in the job of selling. The rewards don’t need to be financial but could be exclusive access to brands or products, even just badges of recognition."

For second life to be in a position to take part in this future of marketing, it needs to solve the major issue of complexity. People need to be able to enter SL as if visiting a digital theatre that they heard about via their twitter account, then two hours later they log off with a happy memory. No issues with controls, no issues with hardware, no lag, and whats pleasing a lot of people is that Rod Humble seems to feel the same.

EXCLUSIVE New #SL Destination guide App for iPad

2011-02-10T09:02:00.000-08:00

A mobile application to browse, rate and plan places to visit in second life. Taking the destination guide further into social possibilities.

It's Aims.
1) to allow current SL residents to locate and promote their favourite places.
2) to allow none SL users a quick easy guide to the awesome places in SL with tips on how to access these places.
3) Adding a gaming aspect to exploring SL
4) allow further areas for advertising.

What it could do:
The app Will allow residents to create an account if not having one already so as to access the apps features. This is before they even enter download a viewer and enter SL. They can search and find places they are interested in visiting and make a list of places. This gives them purpose to take next step in entering SL.

Residents can rate places they have been to and mark their journeys. They can review places they have been to and publish their favourite places to twitter or facebook.

The Journey Lists could be integrated with SL Profiles so that when you have visited a place, you can update your list on your profile and this will then update to what you see in the App.

You could even recommend places to friends in your SL friends list.

The home screen features the latest places in SL

Your Journeys section lists all the places you have visited
and places you plan to visit in future

You can rate and review places you were impressed with
and recommend them via twitter, facebook and to friendslist

OK so no, there is no new Destination Guide app. This is all spilled from my imagination as some of you know i like to mock up what i think LL could do. A while ago i also did a mock up of a Twitter style integrated message feed, it's purpose to strengthen the communication between the residents of SL and give them the power to promote inside and out of SL.

Chapter 2: #SL Goonies and the Deadly Custard

2011-02-05T11:46:00.000-08:00

It would appear i forgot to blog about the particular event.

After the madness of the Sky platform drama the Goonies quickly discovered that the Grand Master had written up Dastardly Plans to irritate the Goonies and stop their fun. Deep down in the Secret Underground base are drawings of what the Grand Master plans to do. On that list was the sabotaging of the Flying Ferret Sky Platform.

Another plan on the Grand Master List involved custard and sure enough the Goonies woke one morning to find the whole island covered in custard. With the island covered in custard there would be no way for snow to settle over winter meaning NO SNOW!!!!! meaning NO SLEDGING!!! and NO SNOWMEN!!! and definitely NO SNOWBALL FIGHTS!!! ... something had to be done and quickly!

As you can see from the video many Goonies drowned in their attempt to destroy the Custard Pump. Luckily Goonies never say die so we all re-rezzed at rickety town and partied WOOT!

Goonies Adventure - Barbee

2011-02-05T10:42:00.000-08:00

So it's another month and another Goony Adventure exploring the deep far regions of Second Life. This month we visited a rather artistically surreal place called 'Barbee', not to be mistaken with 'Barbie'.

This place is a square path through tiny streets in an almost monochrome tone, like being in a Japanese noir film. The small cafe's and rooms all invite you in to explore. It's another great example of how a small build can produce a wealth of virtual experience and memories.

In some places it can get very cramped even for adventurous child avatars, and perhaps some more interactive elements could have been added to some of the more static rooms, but overall we our group of Goons found the place to be quite mesmerising and very beautiful in places.

The gathering or Goonies: Loki, Sam, Wilf, Vivi, Everest, Richardious & Unixmonky..
and others we met on the adventure...

We stop for a quick rest and get our bearings with a spot of sushi...
mmmm sushi

there are many rooms with surreal art pieces to be found.

After searching the small streets we remember a path leading into trees...

We discover a beautiful hidden garden with a bench, giraffe and seats stuck in trees.

Just before we decide to head home we discover a secret lounge and chill for a bit.

Just before we left, Wilf discovered an elevator that lead to some secret rooms. For the next 15 minutes we got split up in this small block of flats trying to find each other. To which a total stranger laughed and stated "you guys are so funny, you have made my day", so in all a mission completed. Once again the SL Goonies explored a new place and shared the fun with total strangers. :)

Check out 'Barbee' becos it's awesome and make sure you make it to next months Goony adventure on the first friday of every month .

Loki - Digital Mischief Maker

Display Cost of a Prim #SL

Making a Mesh: Recreating a Cabin #SL #SLmesh

Making a Mesh: Uploading to #SL

Loki's Predictions for #SL 2012

Another Year of Change in My Second Life #SL

llSay(0,"Roleplaying Games and Trolls and Lag OH MY") #SL

The Dark Aether falls Mini Game of Clue Hunting and Bug Zapping #SL

Goonys visit the Linden Realms #SL #Slgames

Goony Adventures In Second Life #SL

Where it all began #SL #slkids

#SL Mini Games, Visibility & Targeting

Is region server sharing resource impact a myth?

Updated my Loki Blog at last #SL

#LL Destination Guide hides hidden underground base #SL

Mesh & freedom to choose: How mesh is just another choice in #SecondLife ever changing culture #SL

Fantasising about a Second Life Ecosystem #SL

Escapades Island Anniversary Weekend - 1 whole year of adventure #SL

Return of the Loki Kid Avatar Clothing range - #SLMesh #SL

Building a Gaming Experience in #SL

#SL profiles: the start of something great, i want it to be that something great NOW!

#SL Goonies and the Destruction of the Mega MEGA Death Ray

Is it right to compare Mesh with Prim objects? #SLmesh #SL

A list of things I had to learn in order to create #SLMesh objects

Short Story: Game Of Social Thrones #SL

The Mind Boggles #SL profiles and augmented virtual reality

The escapades at #SL8B - my thoughts

SL8B: The Dad who Forgot!

Goony Adventure: Bronyville & Liberty Cove [UPDATED]

Goony Adventure: Lemondrop's Forest

Why is MESH going to change our experience of Second Life? #SL [UPDATED]

Dogstar The Storyteller - enhancing the traditional in #SL.

#SL Goony Beltaine Wickerman - 2011

#SL Goonies Airforce Glider Training with Gyro.

Could Second Life market big franchise interactive experiences ever again? #SL

#SL Goonies and the Sleeping Serpent

Did you get linked to this Blog post from inside or outside of #SL ? - Why i think concurrency keeps falling

Could Mesh bring an end to #SL's exclusive hold on you and your avatar?

#SL Social Mesh

Loki's Mum steps in to do MiniMix

Levelling up in #SL

#SL is full of hobbyists

#SLbasicViewer - a perfect view into our world.

Who in their right mind would want to develop in #Secondlife #SL

Pirate Party at the John King Tavern with live indie band 'engrama' #SL

Pancake Races and degrading graphics support #SL

Goonies Adventure - Tableau "lets go to the candy mountain Charlie!" #SL

#SL Goonies and the Giant Claw of DOOM!

Second Life, brands, and theatre :) #SL

**EXCLUSIVE** New #SL Destination guide App for iPad

Chapter 2: #SL Goonies and the Deadly Custard

Goonies Adventure - Barbee

EXCLUSIVE New #SL Destination guide App for iPad