Updates

I just finished a bunch of small Avatar Toolbox updates related to avatar masks or mesh along with pruning or replacing dead links.

I'm still thinking about how I want to write up deformer AOs and rigged mesh. Well, I'm trying to, but between the soothing movements of those butterflies in the picture last entry and the fact that I'm getting drowsy... zzz

Invisible Woman

I'd never gotten around to making an Invisible Woman avatar. Until tonight.

The original avatars (made years before avatar masks were introduced) had super-hero proportions in order to hide the default avatar inside. She's a good deal slimmer, and has smaller limbs since there's no need to try to hide the default avatar as it moves.

She's available at the shop in Kitaro.

Changes to Avatar Toolbox

Added the Masks page and its links. Made a change to the site so it will be easier to update in the future.

TODO:
animation - deformers
animation - low level constant anim trick for mission critical AOs

Changes to Avatar Toolbox

Updated the skins page on Avatar Toolbox. New pictures, some new text, some reorganizing.

TODO:
avatar masks
animation - deformers
animation - low level constant anim trick for mission critical AOs

Changes to Avatar Toolbox

Avatar Toolbox has a new home!

I have a lot of updating to do. Found some dead links, and there's all the viewer2 changes to add... Busy day!

And hey! Four years on the grid!

Avatar Toolbox

Google's done something strange to Avatar Toolbox, it might be a few days before I have it back up and running.

Beta Viewer and Avatar Toolbox

Thinking about the changes I'll be doing if the features in the current Beta Viewer reach the main release. The ones I know of are avatar masks, more avatar texture layers, and possibly more options for basic avatar height. The first two are already working in the beta.

Just updated the Invisiprims page on Avatar Toolbox to include that glow is occluded by them while shine and bumpiness no longer are.

Another way to be invisible

Turns out you can hide the basic avatar by wearing a huge megaprim (the 65K one) as an attachment. This is being used as an alternative to invisiprims that doesn't interfere with the display of alpha textures (or linden trees or water.)

The wise script it to die if it finds itself unattached. ;)

A couple Lindens have said they consider this to be a bug and to not count on it to work in the future. 1

Keep in mind being completely invisible is a serious no-no. It's treated as stalking usually.

Unicorns, Trademarks, and other ramblings

As some denizens of the grid have already discovered, I've got some new unicorn ( or horse or pegasus ) avatars up for sale. They're the first quad I've ever made. I used them in another "making an avatar" article for Avatar Toolbox. I have to go through AT and check it for trademark stuff, and I want to update it with some new links (and some links to a couple of Torley's new videos, especially the advanced attachments video.)

Still fussing around with the motorcycle. Did some clothes shopping. Visited a couple people I hadn't seen in a while. Had to go to sleep before Veyron's party, but I gave her a party favor the day before. Timezones suck. :P

I'm wondering why Linden Lab doesn't have some sort of official contact for the blogging community, and one for businesses on the grid. The concierge group just doesn't cut it - some issues overlap but many don't. It would have been a simple thing to have a channel (blog, forum, mailing list) where they could put up a discussion about "How the new trademark rules affect you" and clear up all the confusion and upset. A wee comment buried in a long blog post is not good communication.

And I'm very curious to see how they're going to handle domain and business name cases like SLExchange or the Second Life Herald. The old trademarks page said "You agree to refrain from using any domain name that closely mimics our proprietary domains, including secondlife.com and lindenlab.com." I don't know if that would have had additional meaning in lawyer's english, but in typical usage it didn't suggest that you needed two nouns in your name if you included SL as a reference to Second Life.

The new inSL logo makes me wonder what was being smoked in the Lab - when the eye-hand image has such recognition, why would you rip it out and replace it with something that no one recognizes and (I know I'm being catty) is so unappealing? Were they playing off of the SLGrid icon, or thinking of your basic plywood cube? If you're going to dump the recognizable, at least give us something with style!

Touring sandboxes on a motorcycle

When I was on the beta grid the other day, I tried out a vehicle and had a lot of fun with it. That and a comment about Caledon having a steampunk motorcycle gang got me started...

While I was working on the motorcycle I came across someone making a giant woman avatar. She's an impressive Mega. So I had to tell the maker about Avatar Toolbox and invite them to make an article. :D She walks stiff-legged like a lot of Megas, but she's a very impressive sight.




I finished up a customized skin for someone, met a doll maker who's a lot of fun to talk builder with, and probably amused more than a few people as I tested out my motorcycle.

I also made a couple of flower chairs (for a friend's hang-out.) Copies are in my shop. They remind me of Black-eye Susan flowers.

Avatar Toolbox Updated.

The Avatar Toolbox has been updated (both the website and the freebies.)

Some animation and AO information from Bloodsong Termagant, an updated Tiny AO, and a few odds and ends.

Invisiprims and Occlusion

Added some new information to the invisiprims page about how invisiprims can occlude 24 bit textured objects. Read the forum article here.

How to turn Occlusion Culling on and off:
Client | Rendering | Object-Object Occlusion
or hit CTRL-SHIFT-O

Skins and Fireworks

Did some skin making this weekend. Learned some new things about working with alpha layers. I rewrote the section on skins in Avatar Toolbox so there's a much better discussion on how to shade and highlight them. I've got plans to make up a couple free ones on png files - OpenSim and the teen grid lack free neko skins.

Saw Marianne's last fireworks show of the summer. It was great! Quite a crowd too.

Finally got around to making a couple of overdue sales pics.

Toolbox Updates

Avatar Toolbox got some updates this weekend. The website now has a page about the basic avatar shape, and I added an avatar ruler with more features and a box of free hair textures to the freebie toolbox.

Doings. And Stuff.

Let's see. I did a lot of little things.

Did a bit of socializing. Even met a graduate/escapee from the Teen Grid. Worked on some of my avatars. Made a pink poodle "plushie" stuffed animal - it is a freebie available at my main shop. Did some shopping. Looked for AOs - a frustrating task. Put the Temple of the Original Prim into inventory. Made a transporter with a surprisingly good looking crystal. Rebuilt Blacklight Club Supply. Passed out things to newbies, and taught one how to use landmarks. Visited an ancient Mayan temple and picked up some nice freebies. Tried to go to the Greenies sim, but it was always full. I'm either seeing the summer economic slowdown or a side effect of the problems buying lindens; sales are down by about a quarter. Noticed that particles are released inconsistently in the current version of the client. Had several times where prims existing on the grid weren't being drawn on my client. Talked to someone looking for "doll" like skins for a fashion show. Bought a set of poodle shapedbarrettes (hair-slides) for one of my human avatars. Updated my profile web page.

I think I'm about at the point where I can write a decent article on ways to manipulate the basic avatar shape sliders, and about how the shape affects the way skin textures appear. Put a writeup of making the catyr avatars up on Avatar Toolbox, and added some anchors to existing pages. The animations page is too big, so I'm thinking about other ways to organize it.

Oh, I found someone who sells Wonder Woman Underoos. I may have to get Garmes a set.

Avatars, and a list

I'm thinking about trying to organize a group project. Like the hair challenge several people blogged about last fall. Everyone picks an avatar, and makes three versions of it. Child, adult, and very old. I can do all of the steps, but I'm no expert at any of them. Skins, shapes, making hair, clothes, animations, photos... I'd like a chance to have people show/write/talk about parts they're great with.

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TODO:
- I'm making a particle based tracking spotlight for Blacklight and it is going well. I thought of an easy way to configure it while travelling last night.
- Write up making the last bunch of avatars.
- And I must remember to add the free hair textures to the inworld avatar toolbox and update it.

Of Temples and Toolboxes

I'm not sure why, maybe it was from hearing a friend talk about visiting the Parthenon in Tennessee, but I had ancient Greece on my mind last night. I spent some time experimenting with mega prims. I've still got a lot of work to do on it, but you're welcome to drop by The Temple of The Original Prim and say hi sometime. While hunting for virtual olive trees, I discovered plants by Lilith Heart. They're realistic but without the realism, so I'm in love. I expect I'll be back, $L in my pocket. ;)

I did some updates to the animation page on the Avatar Toolbox website this morning, and the new Toolbox freebies are now up on SLExchange.

Toolbox, Cages, and Poetry Rocks

The grid was cranky last night. I had several failures to rez from inventory, and more than a few TP failures. Group chat was having serious problems.

Added another attachment sample to Avatar Toolbox (animation by changing prim size) along with some UV clothing. Hopefully I'll have the updated version of that on SLExchange tonight. I've got some pics to put up on the website and some text to edit.

I got the new group-friendly cages wrapped up for sale at my main shop. I added a "touch here to change color" script. There's a handful of prebuilt colors it cycles thru. I like that they've got the same interface as the basic cage - everything is based on touch. No notecards to configure, no chat commands to memorize. They're transfer, because the basic ones aren't, and because people sometimes sell furnished clubs and other gathering places. Hopefully I'll have them on SLExchange sometime tonight too.

Dropped by Uva Oxide's poetry garden to see how the poetry rocks are doing. They've been a popular freebie. The garden has a giant plant with some rocks at different levels, and a trippy hollowed cube water fountain.

Fairies, Vending, and AvTx

I think I've finally satisfied my vendor envy. 11 prims, selling 16 avatars, with room for three more sets of six. It's big, 50s retro, has lots of buttons, and a little animated static. I'll try to grab pics of it later today. I'm curious to see how people respond to it; most of the ones I've seen are either modern/futuristic or cute in a "nature" sort of way.

Spent some time last night working on it at ~300M. Usually I don't see anyone when I'm above the clouds, but a green fairy with dragonfly wings flew over and we chatted for a bit. She's entirely focused on exploration, so I gave her leads to places like Svarga and Isle of Wyrms. I hadn't really thought about it before, but if you like to visit interesting builds but don't follow the SL blogs you're missing out. I wonder if there are any inworld groups for explorers.

I'd been musing about setting up some of my things on SLBoutique since they moved to an advertising model a couple months ago, but right now I'm hearing so many complaints about timeliness and search engine problems that I think I will wait. Growing pains.

Speaking of growing pains, the group IM bugs are painful. I miss being able to chat casually with people while I'm building and scripting.

I wrote up a list of things to add to Avatar Toolbox over the next week. I guess I'm not the only person who wanted something like it, it has gotten 800-900 visits a month since it started. One of these days I need to get it a decent logo.

Boxed in and "bent out of shape"

My neighbor with the nice beach has left, and someone with a view-blocking department store moved in. I wish I'd known it was for sale. Such are the joys of the mainland. I'm tempted to find a rental somewhere in a shopping sim and move my main shop there.

Couldn't find any of the people I was looking for. There were more I should have contacted, but I had too little time and was too grumpy. I'll try again sometime this week, Dippy.

There is talk that RT's new mall sim has a lag problem. I will have to go visit and see.

I realized I don't have anything on AvTx about basic avatar shapes. I've seen a few things, like "Don't be afraid of the gravity slider" for female AVs, talk about general proportions, some tips for making child AVs that don't look like miniature adults... There isn't much information about them. If you've got a favorite hint, please comment!