• Second Life cows and bulls
    Blender - Building

    Zero Brush Addon By: Blender Sensei

    July 29, 2014 - By 

    As seen at Blender Nation – an intriguing and very intuitive texturing and painting addon for Blender that’s getting a lot of buzz in comments. For one thing, it’s easy to use, and for another, it’s free. There is a library of free textures as well – the license seems to be free to use for commercial applications, no mention of any restrictions for Second Life. The main product looks interesting, a productivity and organizational suite for Blender called Sensei Format that has a lot of useful tweaks and tools for serious Blender artists (especially useful: integrated texture and materials…

  • Second Life : Keep Calm And Carry On
    Blender - Second Life

    Retopology with Optimo Maximo at #BuildersBrewery for #Blender

    July 3, 2014 - By 

    Yes, I’m being dogged (or rather kittehed) about it. I have the day off and today is a school day for learning Blender. Currently, have read through chapter 3 of Blender Graphics by John M Blain (first edition). I’m doing some of the learning modules on Gryllus.com later today, too. But this Retopology class came up, and as I can never attend Maximo’s classes during my normal work week, this is too important to miss. Must not ragequit, must not ragequit. OM. NOM. NOM. So hey, I was able to follow along for a while, and when I got stuck,…

  • Building - Second Life

    Tips For a Writing Useful Group Marketing Posts

    July 3, 2014 - By 

    If you’re going to sell virtual products, you’ve got to market virtual products. I get a LOT of emails from various marketing groups (I have IMs set to go to emails). Most of those messages are about new products, and they get deleted immediately, because the SUBJECT LINE tells me nothing about the new product. Most inworld marketers waste the title or subject line by using it to say “New! At Mystore!” Or they say “Brand Name at Big Shopping Event” or even goofy messages like “Check notecard for the new stuff! Kiss-kiss!” What??? I have to go inworld to…

  • Steampunk robots dancing cheek to cheek
    Blender

    Blender: Stop Whining And Just Do The Work, Lela

    July 2, 2014 - By 

    This time. THIS TIME, I will make this stick. It’s a question of repetition, practice, and going through the available online training systematically. When I was much younger, I learned some complicated software for work from scratch by just being dogged, using it as much as possible, and repeating lessons until I had the moves memorized. As I gained skill, it became less “work” and more “play.” To this day, when I’m trying to get something done that doesn’t look possible, I tell my caller “let me play with it a little,” and I almost always succeed in getting something…

  • Second Life : Keep Calm And Carry On
    Building - Dhughan - Second Life - Steelhead St Helens

    Steelhead St Helens Picnic Grounds and Nature Preserve: SPRING! FLING?

    April 26, 2014 - By 

    In addition to the product update, I’ve also become aware that Spring has Sprung at last. Thanks to a truly generous promotional offer called “the Blue Bunny Hunt” 21strom, I was able to bring on the spring at the Steelhead Nature Preserve. It’s been a long, hard winter for many, so it’s a pleasure to make this parkland available for all. Later on, there will be new green and autumnal trees as well. The black-and-white Zen-looking poseballs are for tai chi. The poses are very high quality and smooth. There are chiming trees scattered around that give autumn and summer…

  • Get Excited and Make Things - the crown image is made of wrenches
    Building - Second Life - SecondLife Steampunk

    Virtual Treasure Hunters: Time to Gear Up for STEAM IX

    March 1, 2014 - By 

    There’s treasure out there in the Steamlands waiting for you to discover it – at midnight SL time March 1, STEAM IX begins. If you start at my shop in Steelhead St Helens, the sign to the left of the doorway has the link to the beginning of the hunt and helpful information. I’m participating, although Dhughan is sitting this one out. The theme this time is “Romancing the STEAM IX” so many treasure hunters will be looking for a big heart-shaped emerald of some kind, but with a steampunk twist to the narrative. It seems like most would need…

  • Second Life cows and bulls
    Building - fashion - Second Life - Steelhead St Helens

    Meshin’ Around

    January 24, 2014 - By 

    Here I am sitting on my first (actually second) mesh object ever, which is more than a year old. Yes, it’s that damn Kipling Rock, which I now plan to fix up and put out as a fishing seat in the pond between my store and Dhughan’s Nature Reserve. Now, finally, I can move on and make mesh stuffs, because at least I got this far in… ugh, almost TWO YEARS. I’m wearing the test-texture version of my dumb party hat, which debuts tonight at Toot Toot’s. Also wearing: my beautiful cinnamon sari by Luminous Designs. You can find it…

  • Second Life screenshot shows a fantasy cottage with lots and lots of scripted DFS trees and plants.
    Building

    Blender Yet Again: Party Hat for the Zeuhl Duel at Toot Toot’s!

    January 20, 2014 - By 

    This tutorial looks promising, and I like how the presenter uses a really big keystroke display: I’ve bought 2 Blender books, watched many tutorials, and still can’t retain the basics, I have to start nearly from scratch every time I try it, and then get frustrated too quickly. I’ve got a project for a friend, and I’m hoping not to have to buy full-perm templates for $L400 for sculpt or mesh. This tutorial is for mesh, but I’d prefer a squashable sculpt once we get to that point. It seems like a good starting point just to try to get…

  • Yes We Are Calm now SHUT THE FUCK UP
    Building - Second Life

    Workflow: Using Blender for Second Life and Opensim from Ferd Frederix

    November 3, 2013 - By 

    The last time I visited Ferd’s invaluable Phaze Demesnes website to check on a script, I noticed that he had a workflow for working with Blender for Second Life or OpenSim, but it was leading to a 404 error. It’s been updated with a checklist in several parts, which I need to read carefully to see what his process is. Mine probably has more screaming and frustrated ragequits… There are differences in standard Blender models and Second Life/OpenSim that must be taken care of. There are also several plugins and add-ons, some free, some not, that make Blender work really…