• Get Excited and Make Things - the crown image is made of wrenches
    Blender - Chameleonic Possessions - Create - Gimp

    Channel Packing Tool #specularworkflow for #SecondLife or #gameassets

    September 23, 2023 - By 

    While doing homework for the coming #glTF workflow in #SecondLife I struggled with #channelpacking textures for manipulating how light reflects off of materials in a game engine. It’s easy in Photoshop, harder in GIMP. There used to be a plug-in for extracting different kinds of “maps” from images, but it was easy to screw up. The manual method is tedious; you can’t just plop a texture into an RGB channel, you have to make each greyscale. This open source tool might be helpful, and the aiaicapta.in is cited in the SL wiki as authoritative. The same site also has a…

  • Asides

    Open Sim: Medium Splendor Skin on Bento Head with berry lipstick

    March 26, 2018 - By 

    flic.kr/p/25t59jR This is the result of playing around with the basic Splendor skin files (which has minimal layers but allows using soft light and overlay to vary skin tones). The “fair” option was too pale and had harsh makeup; this is an overly on a darker option. The darkest option, by the way, is gorgeous. The outfit is one of Hyacinth’s clothing shells. I like the coverage. I may offer this skin for Ruth 2.0 and make a more detailed one with more realistic “peaches and cream” shading later. I’ll use this look for one of my Expo NPC characters…

  • Asides

    Replacements and Alternatives to Second Life

    March 22, 2018 - By 

    Nice overview by Lindal Kidd. She should try Hypergrid Safari if she can work with their scheduled Wednesday start times. Across The Grid With Lindal Kidd!: Replacements and Alternatives to Second Life — Read on acrossthegridwithlindal.blogspot.com/2018/03/replacements-and-alternatives-to-second.html

  • Blender - Building - Gimp - Haleakaloha - Open Sim

    Pictures and Progress

    March 13, 2018 - By 

    Progress is being made on both online fronts. For the deeply confused, such as myself, here’s the rundown. Second Life: Bowler Hat needs some love, but I think I figured out the final few steps to finish the meshing of it and I reviewed how to do an Ambient Occlusion bake (again) with another project. I keep having to look it up to catch all the “gotcha” settings. I wish there was a way to just “blammo” the settings for AO test and AO final bake (or is there one…). Haleakaloha: Definitely making progress. It’s really only “up and running”…

  • Second Life

    Virtual world Second Life to be reincarnated, with Oculus Rift | Technology | theguardian.com

    June 30, 2014 - By 

    Whatever happened to virtual world Second Life after the flurry of hype and influx of brands in 2005 and 2006? You dont hear much about it nowadays. Actually, Second Life never went away; it was the media and brands that once flocked to it who melted away. The worlds existing community of around 1m users carried on with their virtual lives much as they had before. via Virtual world Second Life to be reincarnated, with Oculus Rift | Technology | theguardian.com. Some on SLUniverse poo-poohed my post of this story there, since I thought it was funny to add a…

  • 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…

  • Blender - Gimp - Haleakaloha - Helpless Flailing - Open Sim - Second Life - Wordpress

    Hello, Virtual World(s)!

    May 22, 2013 - By 

    Here I am, on my standalone grid Haleakaloha, which isn’t very interesting and isn’t open for visitors, and up until yesterday, it wasn’t working very well because of a texture-reloading bug. Also, I’ve been struggling with Blender again, trying to learn it and not get discouraged. Yesterday, SUCCESS, after getting some help, I installed an update that fixed my Open Sim grid. Today, SUCCESS, I made a blob. You may not think this is a big deal, and it’s a badly textured blob, but I made it, and I figured out what I wasn’t doing right that made it turn…

  • Open Sim

    New World Studio: French news article needs translation

    April 12, 2012 - By 

    This article discusses some Improvements to New World Studio that are coming soon that I’d read about on Hypergrid Business, with some new preview images. Side note: they are looking for testers. I don’t speak French but I speak enough Spanish and Italian (and have seen quite a few subtitled French films) to get the gist. It follows similar announcements the developer, Olivier Battini, has made on NWS’ Facebook group about improvements; what interested me was the article writer recommends and links to the Dolphin Viewer, an easy and solid choice for connecting to OS or SL. DV doesn’t have…

  • Second Life

    Lifeboat? Bolt-Hole? @MariaKorolov ‘s “Free #OpenSim in a snap”

    March 7, 2012 - By 

    I love my Second Life; my friends, my music streams, my favorite places. I love going to events in Steelhead and virtual church on Epiphany Island, and dancing at Cafe Wellstone on the mainland. I actually love the “old” Mainland areas where water, roads, rail, and quality builds make for a nice experience exploring or hanging out. I don’t love blingtards, or boobtards (pix!), or abandoned parcels littered with crashed police cars and random doors and bullets hanging 30m up in midair. I don’t love drama; I do love comedy. I don’t love Bug’s last name, as she used to…