the steamcopter prototype first flight

I guess I am in a creative phase :)
After creating my first own outfit, I have started building a few objects. I have built an object which is the core of my Christmas presents, so, for the moment, it must remain undisclosed, and today I made my own steamcopter fly for the very first time. Just a very first flyby around my airbase and over the runway in the sky over Winterfell Ebonshire but it was enough to test the opensource script I am using and my first customizations to it.

Well ... so far so good. I was able to steer, I did not crash and I was able to get back to the starting point, so I am happy and I can move to the next steps. The toy is not yet ready to be distributed, but I hope to have a beta available in a few days to distribute to a couple of beta testers (should I find any volunteers :) )

I started building the steamcopter to be used as a shuttle between Star Port and the airbase but since I found the opensource script and since I like the look, I think it may be used also as a standalone vehicle.

Stay tuned for the updates :)

W

the "little star"

I took my new Flying Fizz to her maiden voyage in the waters around Mishra. It is a gorgeous little boat and the animations are great fun. I still have to study all the details of her working but I am sure it will become a favorite of mine for exploration and fun sailing.

Given her compact dimensions I felt just right to name her Little Star :)

Sailing Drama

It is a real pity that the Tradewinds Boats Show I mentioned in my previous post and that I was enjoying immensely, went to a sudden end for reason that I do not quite understand, but that I can relate to drama, fights and cross banning between different yacht clubs. Oh well .. I was probably naive to think that the sailing community was a big happy family. That's probably why I am a lonely privateer :)

It was a great show anyway, very well organized and I loved it and learned a lot.

Fair Winds

W

the Tradewinds Boats Show

The other event that is capturing my attention these days is the 2008 Tradewinds Boats Show. It is a fair where the state of the art of SL sailing technology is on display.
There are many wonderful boats on display from far more merchants I was aware of. The temptation to buy now boats is very high :D but so far I only bought a little Flying Fizz, which, despite the small dimensions and the very affordable price it is still a wonderful boat.



The true reason I got the Fizz (which I still have to name) is that yesterday I attended a very nice presentation by the Fizz' creator, Mothgirl Dibou, who introduced a new sailing script set, she has designed from scratch and that she will be introducing in January. I have added the link to the transcript of the original talk, so I won't summarize the concepts here, but it is very interesting so I invite you to read it.

There are a number of other boats that cought my attention and make the show very interesting to visit: great realism in the detail in many models, customization packages, wonderful sail sets. A line of boats is called Wild Winds and I find a couple of models very tempting ... hehe

There is also the Sl reproduction of a RL fishing schooner, the Ernestina, that is really wonderfully done.

Who knows ... my fleet might grow even more :)

fair winds

W

the Human Rights Festival

The Human Rights Festival, part of the celebrations for the 60 years of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is under way. Events and Concerts will be going on from the 10th to the 15th on December in over 30 sims, involving artists from all over the world.



There is a HUD available in the information pack of the festival which gives the schedule of the events day by day and allows to TP directly to the event of interest.

Yesterday I spent almost 4 hours at different concert and exhibits and it was a great evening. The sims were packed (I counted up to 58 avies), the music great, the company fantastic and most important of all it was a great cause.

I hope everybody will have the same fun I had

W

My first outfit

It all started with my recent explorations of Openlife and OSGrid. After a few days hunting for freebie clothes and after realizing that male outfits are even more rare there than in SL I decided to try to make my own outfit, and of course, I thought about a naval uniform :)

I downloaded the available UV maps and I started putting layers down. The Opensim Grids have the advantage the importing textures is still free, so trial and error is not that expensive at the moment. I also made prim epaulettes and a scarf and after a while I was satisfied and I started wearing it. After a couple of days I wondered why not to import the outfit in SL as well, and so I did.


I wore the outfit for a couple of days and nobody started laughing at me. Somebody even told me that it looked good. The original outfit was blue but since I felt comfortable in it I started wondering why not to make a similar one with the Winterfell colors. So, after a a few attempts in matching a brightness that looked good in-world, and after putting the Winterfell symbol on the epaulettes, I had the Winterfell purple outfit as well.


It may be not the best looking outfit in SL - actually it is a pretty simple and naive in many ways - but I am quite satisfied for a first attempt.


So I decided that the uniform might make a nice freebie, if anyone else like it and I put it both in my Bright Star Gallery in Winterfell Laudanum and in the Star Port Authority Office in Winterfell Ebonshire. They are both in a box under the Christmas Tree :)





Happy Holidays :))

W

Winter is Coming

A couple of days ago it started snowing in Winterfell. The land became white and it was a really enchanting view. The view from Star Port was wonderful. The white mountains of the new Morigion and Maldoror gave the place the look of a true Norvegian fjiord.



I decided it was time to take the Christmas decorations out of the box where I had packed them last year and start giving my plots and homes a Holiday look. So I took out lights, Christmas trees, little trains and snowmen and I started placing them in and around my cottage, at Star Port and in my Aurora Town home.

On top of that, yesterday the new wonderful set of Miss Uni Ninetails's trees was released and I got one. Uni did miracles with just two prims. The trees have several seasonal looks so I set many of them to the winter look and replaced the green trees on the plots. But they are going to look even cooler in Spring and Summer.




It took a while to find my little train and place it near my cottage like I did last year, but at last I found it in the wrong box and here it is. Also a friend gave me a cool ice fountain and I placed that as well, near the rear door of the cottage.



I have not been able to find my icicles so far. I have to look harder. An inventory can be such a time waster! :) They would look nice at Star Port. I am going to have a freebie gift placed there and in the Bright Star Gallery as well, in the next days, but I'll tell more about that in the next post.

I have not finished yet. I will take it easy and slowly, giving little touches every day, according to the mood. I have also set the streams to a channel playing Christmas Tunes. I love the spirit of the Holidays :)



I decorated the Aurora Town Home as well. When I took the picture of the Christmas tree the slide show was showing the picture I took when I was decorating last year in my then brand new Captain Uniform :) Funny.



Aurora Town is having a tree hunt these days. There are 30 trees around the town with a fair number of freebies in them. Yesterday I spent some time there, but I found just 10 or so. I have never been a champion at hunts :)

A suggestion for those who know where my home is there : the tree between my home and Danielle's is full of Christmas decorations. (I hope Lilliana does not read this :) )

Happy Holidays to all

W

My mix'n match assignment: Alts in Second Life - necessary evil, fun diversion or an easy way to be dishonest

As I have mentioned in some previous posts, a few weeks ago I joined the mix'n match event, where SL bloggers were mixing subjects, writers and hosting blogs. The event was great and a big success across the SL blogosphere, and I was able to read many interesting entries by a lot of skilled people. Unfortunately I had little luck and my own entry was never published by the intended blog. The owner was taking a break in those days so I guess she overlooked it (I hope that the reason was not that my contribution was judged too bad :) )
So, since a coupe of weeks have passed by now and since I think it is a pity to forget the entry and the subject, I am publishing it here, in a slightly reviewed form and with a more recent picture than the one originally intended.

The subject of my post was suggested by Joonie Jatho, whose blog unfortunately I can no longer point out because it appears to have been disabled

I hope you can enjoy reading it as I did writing it.


Alts in Second Life - necessary evil, fun diversion or an easy way to be dishonest ?

… or an easy way to inflate the number of active users ? :)

Think about it. How many among your friends or contacts do not have at least one alt ? And how often do they bring them online ? Alts are one of the options we have to explore different sides of ourself while we experience the different settings virtual world has to offer, and people are largely making use of this option. Sometimes an avie born as an alt is so successful in his/her/its experiences that develops as the principal identity, leaving the original one mostly neglected in some asset server. There is an army of alts out there and they surely inflate the official statistics. The numbers of unique users is probably much smaller than the published numbers.
But enough about official numbers.

The first time I met someone who identified himself as an alt he dropped from the sky outside my cottage. I had heard about alts but, until that moment, I had not given the concept much thought. I chatted with the guy for some minutes and then he gave it away. “It is because I have a girlfriend” he said. I have wondered many times what that sentence really meant: was he using an alternative identity in order to cheat on his girl ? Or was he just in need of time for himself ? That would make perfectly sense. I know that from time to time I am in the mood to get away from my main identity using an anonymous account without friends and contacts, so that I can explore and take picture without anybody interrupting me.

Despite the obvious easy opportunities for alts to be dishonest, they can't be considered evil. And they are not necessarily just fun. They are another option to enhance our experience and as such they can be used in many ways, including many legitimate ones. I am sure many SLebrities can't live and enjoy the world they have contributes to create without alts. How many times have you have checked the profile of some land owner or content creator and read “drop me a notecard. IMs are capped”. I often wonder how these people can enjoy their SL and work and create under the inevitable constant stream of incoming messages. An alt surely offers them the anonymity necessary to escape and enjoy to the beauties the world like any regular residents.

Alts can be and are used for testing features, like permissions of created content, or simply they can come handy when more than one avie is necessary and no friend is available.
Alts can be simply used to explore different sides of one's self: like having a steampunk life as the pilot of an airship and a fantasy one as a drum player in elfland. A friend of mine created a child avie because her therapist suggested it to get in touch to her inner child. Another with health problems comes online in her neko identity when she is in pain, because cats, she tells me, better tolerate pain.
And then, of course, there are the more questionable uses. I guess we all know stories of people with two different SL families (and maybe a RL family too), people asking for friends' help in one sim and investing money as someone else in another sim and people just having fun but playing with someone else's feelings. And that is the source of high drama that exceeds the borders of today's discussion.

<

Do I have alts? I do. They try to be nice guys and I try to make them behave :) I use them for exploration, photo-safaris and to extend the number of groups I can subscribe to. Sometimes I call them to man my ships or as extras for photo shots (as in the image above). They are usually shy and stay away from people and interact minimally with others, even if they try to be friendly when addressed.
I even created a female alt. She is a kind of Barbie doll. I created her one day I was frustrated by the lack of contents for male, so I had fun to have her go freebie hunting. (Second)Life is so much easier for a female avie!. I am rather proud of the look I have been able to give her, but playing a different gender is not for me. I was always scared like hell that somebody could talk to her and I was not able to behave as a female would. The feeling has always been of complete detachment. It is like pulling the string of a puppet, with very little identification. No, definitely not for me :)

W