Nalates Urriah

Blender and Shrink Wrap for Second Life

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If that title makes no sense to you and you make sculpties then pay attention. There are some great 3D models spread around the Internet. The problem with using them in SL is there is no easy way to get them into SL. The only meshes we can bring in, for now, are Sculpties (4/09).

Sculpties have strict limits on the number of vertices a mesh can have and the number of rows and columns of vertices. You can bring in almost any arrangement of vertices. The problem is it may look like vertex vomit (I heard that somewhere). One must get the numbers right for it to look good in Second Life. Shrink wrapping is a way to turn those models into sculpties. One can take a premade sculpty mesh and shrink wrap it over another model. Presto easy conforming mesh.

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FREE TEXTURE ORGANIZER

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OMG! This is so great! I just stumbled across it. Someone was using it in the IBM Sandbox. This organizer was made by Liandra Ceawlin. It is free and you can get it at her place. She has a few scripts she is giving away for free. They are worth having.

Liandra Ceawlins Chessboard
Liandra Ceawlin's Chessboard

She also made a huge chessboard/game. You can play chess.

She offers custom programming for SL.

The ECR&D (Explorer’s Community Research & Development – a Myst-Uru fan thing). Is studying textures in SL. They have Monday meetings. Contact me for more information.

HALL of WONDERS

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Tower from Hall of Wonders
Tower from Hall of Wonders

New World Notes (NWN) tipped me off to an IBM build that Bettina Tizzy found. The NWN post has an image of it that is very Escher looking. Reading her story Hall of Wonders I found that she discovered it in a sandbox, the IBM sandbox, which is unique in its own right. As of Sunday, the tower was still in the sandbox. (IBM 6) I did not find the stairs shown in Bettina’s photo.

IBMs Interesting Stuff
IBM's Interesting Stuff

Interesting Places… thse sandboxes… did you ever think of sandboxes as places to explore? I know one can find lots of amazing things in sandboxes. I often am looking for a sandbox with some room for me to work or just fleeing a persistent griefer and visit several before settling on one. There are often amazing things in them. Everything from newbies trying to figure out how to complete their anatomy to the cutting edge new toys can be found in a sandbox.

New Rand Miller Interview – Myst Creator

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The Mac Gamer
The Mac Gamer

Alex McLarty posted his interview with Rand Miller on The Mac Gamer. The article Interview with Rand Miller, co-creator of the Myst series will answer some questions and raise some new questions. It is a great read for Myst Online fans interested in the coming open source release.

Myst Online: Guild of Maintainers has a thread. Check it out and post your thoughts.

The Guilds of Myst-Uru Part V

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There is one last complication in this series. If you are a fan and you want to share in controlling the future direction of the game, what do you need to do to take some control? If all the fans try to take control, will that be a good thing or a bad thing or just complete chaos?

Aegura - Uru The City in Second Life
Ae'gura - Uru The City in Second Life

There is no intuitive answer. Philosophers and statesmen as well as kings have considered these issues. We have 5,000 years of written history to show us what worked and Niccolò Machiavelli explained how to assure ones place of power. People generally realize that Machiavelli’s path is about controlling the masses. He does make sense and to a point his tactics work, especially on the poorly educated. While many are trying alternatives, only personal freedom to pursue your dreams ensured by a neutral third party that answers to the people in mass and cannot control them has ever worked well. It is a matter of how do we protect our self from the individual, have enforcers and we our self remain free?

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The Guilds of Myst-Uru Part IV

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Part III is about fans being in control of the Myst-Uru open source version of Myst Online. It will be difficult for anyone person or group to control it. But, is that a good thing? I’m for freedom and many choices and lots of competition. Having lots of Uru worlds to choose from sounds good to me. But it may be disaster for Myst Uru and cause its ultimate demise. How can that be?

The Hall of Kings - Uru in Second Life
The Hall of King's - Uru in Second Life

If there were but one Uru run by a neutral third party which all fans could enjoy, we would likely have enough financial support for it run indefinitely. It would also assure players in game to keep the place from looking deserted.

But Myst Uru is not just about players in game. It is about fan created content, some fan programming server and client changes and someone designing and building content. Strong central control kills creativity and Myst Uru has failed twice from lack of content. While a central control would appear to solve many problems it creates others.

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