Stop LOOKING At Me! -- The Box

Sweetie's Stop LOOKING At Me! Box

 Chey in the Scrunch Pose that Lets One Fit Inside the Box

Chey, Head Mysteriously Scrunched

Chey, Unscrunched, With New Skin (Same Skin, but Heavier Makeup)

Written 1 August, 2007

Stop LOOKING At Me! – The Box

I’ve blogged about how my Sweetie gets in a mood and doesn’t like to be looked at, how she will rez a cube and pull it over her head at such times—and then, because she IS Sweetie, she will tastefully decorate it.

So I made a present for her.

I got the idea when I was playing with qAvimator, the freeware avatar animation program. I made four poses for the merry-go-round I’m building, and then a standing pose—and then, as inspiration overtook me, I scrunched the poor qAv into the most uncomfortable-looking of folded-over and tucked-in positions, making her (and me, when I imported the pose into Second Life and tried it) a little square box-like being.

Then I put the pose into a .5 plywood prim and added a sit pose and set the prim it to cause an av to sit upon it upon left click. Then I left-clicked and most of me was inside the box.

I made the box larger, one meter on a side, and I fit inside perfectly (although my flexi hair would occasionally push through the wall of the box).

As it was to be a present for Sweetie, I found a stunning Asian floor tile texture, applied it to the prim, made it slightly shiny, and set it to planar mapping. The box was beautiful!

I finished by adding the hovertext “Stop LOOKING At Me!”, and the box was finished.

When Sweetie logged on I gave her the box and she rezzed it.

I can’t begin to tell you how happy it made her.

Like a little kid playing with the box her toys came in, she was in and out of the box all evening.

She would jump in and I would sit on the box and say, “I wonder where Sweetie could be? I think I’ll just set here on this pretty box until she shows up.” (Yes, I could sit on the box when she was inside it).

And I showed her how she could attach it, open the scrunch pose, and become a flying Stop LOOKING At Me! box—my first avatar, as it were!

Sweetie flew to and fro for hours, emitting custom-colored Mystitool dust and applying tints and light-emitting capability to the box.

But all good things come to an end, and the box lost Sweetie to the Mellivar the Energy Being avatar, which we had both purchased while out exploring one day. In short thrift Mellivar was wearing beautiful colorable wings from Chaospire and glowing and emitting major particles, thanks to a free script Sweetie found in her inventory.

I would never have thought to do that to Mellivar!

But no worries, I’m working on Stop LOOKING At Me!, V. 2.0, which will have enhancements including hover text that will display her emotional state as read in her chat, change physical state (physics on and off), change transparency, and emit particles.

If my emerging scripting ability is up to it, that is.

Shhh! Don’t anyone tell Sweetie SLAM! V. 2.0 is in the works!