Social

I've met my first two inhabitants of the world of Second Life. Whilst I was perusing the wares (mostly with an eye towards the freebies, I will freely admit, I am currently poor, as well as currently attempting to divine the mysteries of scripting, and I tend to learn by dissection because I am horribly impatient with all the things I don't care about or already know in proper tutorials) of Ms. Ordinal Malaprop, a pair of birds arrived, and struck up a conversation with me. Mr. E was a lovely raven, of raven size, and prompted me to think of Matthew upon first meeting (which, I found out later was probably not so extremely off, as he reads Sandman), and Ms. K was a large songbird of some type- I fear I am not versed enough on my birds to know which. They are both artists, and transformed to more human selves in the course of our conversation. A few nights later, Ms. K invited me to a stress test of a new nightclub in the wide empire of Caledon, in which my poor device interpreted the world in seconds per frame, not frames per second, however we did not crash the world. Otherwise I have found Second Life to often be almost entirely, if not entirely, deserted where I am, which is a somewhat eerie feeling. I have not yet explored a great deal though, as I am still trying to look a touch better.

I have since imported my first skin, and learned many of the problems with both the offline previewer I have been using, as well as the previewer in game- the human model is interpolated quite differently, especially around the face, so my first try had rather abysmal lips (and my second try, while better, was still not there yet), as well as lighting being completely and totally different. All of the shading I thought was perhaps a touch too contrasty? I cannot see at all, once I am in the grid, unless I am zoomed right in and scrutinizing closely to try to find it. That will not do, so I shall have to up everything and hope that it is not overkill. While the current try is not ideal by any means, I am still wearing it as an improvement upon the default, so at least it is a start.

I have also tried to create a few more prim objects. I have imported my first two sculpties, one from Blender (a rather lumpy and lacking in detail pirate hat- part of that is my fault and just deciding that I was done with it, and a fair part of it is the current compression used on textures, which destroys details something awful. A fix is forthcoming, I hear), and one from Rokuro Lathe (a simple one prim top hat, and is not much different from what could easily be achieved by two regular prims). I have been wearing the top hat, even though it could do with improvement, and have been wishing one could set which part in the day cycle the sky one mirrors in shiny prims is, as the pirate hat looks like a dead fabulous vinyl hat in the middle of the night, but is far less fabulous at any time during the day, especially. Aside from sculpties, I have also built a rather silly black and white ballgown skirt that I am rather fond of even though it is terribly primitive (but a real use for flexi prims!), assorted decorations to adorn the top hat for more formal wear, and an ankh that can be incorporated into various jewelry items. Also, I have tried my hand at my first goggles and monoggle, although the later still needs some serious work in matching up.