Saturday, January 29, 2011

Just Like Real Life



Written 29 January, 2011

Just Like Real Life

Here's a familiar sight. Man sitting in fancy shoe store looking bored out of his mind. Woman is shopping.

It seems to work in Second Life just as it does on Earth. Here's the conversation:
Cheyenne:  Jonsy, you look totally like a guy who is bored out of his mind while his girl is shopping.
Bored Dude: You got it in one!!!
Bored Dude's Wife: My card's maxed....gimme yours, hon.



Thursday, January 27, 2011

Testing Continues

Written 27 January, 2011

Testing Continues

The rocket is flying now, but avionics is fraught with danger.

Sweetie and Chey at The Site of
Yet Another Rocket Failure


Kaboom Rocket


Written 27 January, 2011

Kaboom Rocket

For a while now Sweetie and I have been puzzing about how to transport avatars from this little island...


... to this little island.


The islands are, of course, only about 10 meters from one another, but this is Whimsy Kaboom, after all. Why settle for something simple when you can have something ridiculous and sublime? I mean, really! Is this Second Life or not?


And so, Sweetie and I engaged in our usual negotiations. That is, she pooh-poohed my ideas until I came up with something utterly impractical and fabulously silly.

I know it's difficult for her, but she is a muse, after all. It's her job, and she would be remiss if she gave in to one of my lesser ideas. And half the time, of course, the brilliant idea is hers and not mine.

A bridge? Yawn.

A fancy scripted bridge? Double yawn.

Zip line?  We have one on Whimsy.

A little helicopter that will pick up avatars by the seat of their pants and drop them on the far shore?  Better. You're getting closer.

It was at first a frustrating process for me, but all I know is it works. Instead of something average or mediocre, we wind up with something spectacular like a sanatorium for robots.I wouldn't have it any other way.

And so yesterday I flew over to the spot in question and started throwing out prims.

I had the basic shape of a rocket ship laid out when Sweetie logged in. I IMed her, asking her to help me with the tailfins, the shapes of which I had in my head but couldn't quite produce. She came over and straightaway tortured the prims into submission.

After Sweetie went to bed I finished and textured the rocket and added a full-permission ground sit that positions the avatar perfectly in the limited space available. Then I set to work on particles.

The blue jet  flame was a piece of cake, as Jopsy Pendragon's Particle Lab provides one with their free learning materials. Smoke was more difficult, but by tweaking and tweaking and tweaking the parameters I finally nailed it. I was even able to set the flame to stay in the proper position in relation to the rocket, and set the smoke to not follow the rocket. Woot!

This morning I began writing a script to control the smoke and flame. They're triggered when an avatar sits and stop several seconds after the avatar stands or is unsat (Unsat? What strange usage!)

One of my unfinished projects is a poseball called "Don't sit in the geyser!" It's meant  to be placed in the main geyser on Whimcentricity. When an avatar sits, the geyser begins to spout; several seconds later the avatar is thrown 750 meters into space. The poseball dies and the avatar is left in freefall.

I'm going to use the same propulsion system in the rocket. When the smoke and flame start, the rocket will move forward slowly and then hurl itself far into the air. When it reaches its apogee the smoke and flame will vanish and the rocket (still carrying the avatar) will teleport to the far shore, emit a burst of particles (as if the rocket were exploding), go invisible, teleport itself back to its starting point, reappear, and reset for the next avatar. There will be rockets on both shores to facilitate travel in both directions-- or maybe I'll have a single rocket that comes to waiting avatars.

I've already done everything I've described in other projects,  but I have a hurdle-- I'll have to figure out how to make the rocket stay stable in its trajectory rather than tumbling in all directions.

If I can get everything working, it should be great fun!




Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Glitch and Happenstance: Part VI: Sweetie, Snapshot Wizard

Written 25 January, 2011

Glitch and Happenstance

Part VI: Sweetie, Snapshot Wizard












Glitch and Happenstance: Part IV: Chey's Best Photos

Written 25 January, 2011

Glitch and Happenstance

Part IV: Chey's Best Photos


















Glitch and Happenstance: Part III: Contrived Photos

Written 25 January, 2011

Glitch and Happenstance

Part III: Contrived Photos

Police Raid on the Forsaken Sim
Adventures in Perspective
My friend Melissa Yeuxdoux may have used this title years ago in her blog, but it's too good to pass up.

As Chey watches in horror,
the aggressive hummingbird
knocks Sweetie from the platform
"Where's my shoe? Where's my frigging shoe?"
Espionage statutes prevent me from
showing Sweetie's face in this blog
Unit XC-94 was unnaturally
fascinated by the alien technology
The R2 units make a break for it (photo by Sweetie)
Gort's anger management class
could not be consider a success

The bobnapper tantalizes us
with photos of our missing giant granite
deified Paleolothic drinking bird
Sweetie scales the virtual Eiffel Tower

Glitch and Happenstance: Part II: Problems with Rendering

Written 25 January, 2011

Glitch and Happenstance

Part II: Problems with Rendering


Full frontal Sweetie


Sweetie arrives at Mouse World in a Barrel


Her bling arrives before she does


Alpha problem


Sweetie told me not to push that button!


Zooming  the camera in is not without its problems...


Beware the pixel-eating bacteria!


"I hate it when my date shows off!"


You young whippersnappers don't know how good
you have it! Back in my day we lost
our attachments whenever we teleported.
But at least we knew where to find them!


Hey, babe. I bet you think I'm hot.


Who are these gray people?


Our friend Boof gets Ruthed


Does anyone else remember the black sun?