Second Life

Things about SL

Skin Design – The Windlight Age

by

Skin Design – The Windlight Age

Nomine SKin – Raw Viewer Picture

I recently got interested in skin design… well facial tattoos really, that sort of forces one to look at skin design. This article is about the basic concepts and where to find great information on skins. It is my basic research work and learning as I begin to explore skin design.

When it comes to understanding skin there is the Ruth skin, the default skin one has when they first come into SL. It is pretty bland. The Ruth skin makes one look very cartoony. There are enough free skins around that anyone that cares about AV appearance can upgrade. Just takes a little looking around. Some great free skins are older models made by top designers. So, you can look good for free. Check out Freebies Beach for a good free or cheap skin. For those that want an anatomically correct skin look around Zindra. Many of the dance clubs have good free skins for their dancers and new patrons.

Read more

Facial Expressions Tutorial

by

This is something I found interesting. I’m sure many of us in Second Life have facial expression HUD’s (If you are new that is Heads Up Display – the control panels one attaches to their screen). Those work for some situations and photographs.

If one wants more expression, and sublte expressions, that can be done with changing your shape. Sound a bit scary? If you have tweaked your shape like I have for over a year now, making changes may not sound like fun. However one can back up their shape. There are several ways to do that. The two easy ones are copy the shape in inventory and via Appearance save it as a new shape. I use a name and date so I know which is the latest.

If you want to expreiment, check out Melanie Kidd’s tutorial on Grid Expectations: subtle facial expressions for Second Life

Snowglobe 1.1.0 Update Review

by
SnowglobeIcon
Snowglobe Viewer

It is always nice to know how many residents are using new beta software. It gives one a sense of how well people like something, assuming they continue using it is a sign of preference and satisfaction. For Snowglobe they have published some of that information. Snowglobe Meterics show about 3,500 Second Life residents using the viewer as of 6m/29d/09.

Torley has a video showing the new map zoom features. In the same blog post as the video they talk about under the hood changes. Snowglobe Features There are new texture download methods in this viewer. They say one won’t likely see much performance improvement for those changes just yet as they are only used in the maps. However, the maps do update much faster so there is promise.

Read more

Update Gemini Viewer Review for RPG’s

by

UPDATE! 7/13/09

Skills Hak has announced that development of the Gemini is stopped. Version 7 will not be released. Instead  that work is being added to the Greenlife Emerald viewer. Reference The new Emerald 1.23.4 viewer is out today.

Original Review

Earlier I posted Gemini Viewer Review – Second Life. Before that I posted GreenLife Emerald Viewer Review, which has pictures if you want to see some of the menus, which are 99% identical. I’ve added a couple of minor updates to the original posts. I’ve now used the viewer for a bit over a week in RP. There are some new considerations to look at and some solutions for role players. I’ve been using v5. Now V6 rc02 is available for download as of 6/26.

Read more

Snowglobe Second Life Viewer Review

by

I just tried out that Second Life Snowglobe Viewer. I’ve reviewed a few other viewers, Gemini, Emerald, MeerKat, RealXtrend… see the blog for those reviews. Snowglobe is a Linden promoted open source branch of the standard SL viewer. It may be known by other names like: SLDev Viewer. The real point of this project is to get 3rd party changes and improvements into the main viewer faster. I’m not seeing it… but I didn’t dive into the details either.

Read more

Grendel's Children

by

In Second Life Grendel’s is one of my favorite places to shop. The store floats over four sims and is filled with loads of avatars (AV) one can buy from free to a few hindered Linden. Yesterday NPIRL (Not Possible In Real Life) Bettina Tizzy posted an interview with Flea Bussy, owner and creator of Grendel’s, and a Machinima by Nitwacket showing some of the amazing AV’s.

Grendel’s Children Web Site

Grendel’s Children Store

The four sims below the store are filled with a hunt and role play area. Join Grendel’s forum for information on the RP.

grendels_001
Avarian & Compendium

Look for the Avarian Expedition and The Creature Compendium in the North East corner on the entrance level, between Pets and Homes. These kits allow one to participate in the quest for free shoulder animals and pets that takes place on the ground below the store. One can buy the shoulder animals for L$100. The two kits are L$30 each. So, finding one shoulder animal pays for the kits. The quest is part of the RP in the surface, or can be. The RP is not required. There are fun things to make and find on the surface. Not all of the fun stuff can be purchased. Plus finding and making (as in find metal and stones then bake in kiln to get jewelry – this is NOT SL prim style make) stuff is more fun than waiting around on lucky chairs.