A cool project and some sites worth checking out…

I have been a bit lazy about keeping up on the blog, I am on my summer schedule though so I will cut myself some slack. This week I ran across a project and then a fun related website. At New World Notes I saw the post about a mixed media collaboration project called PeaceLoveIcecream from Mescaline Tammas and Four Yip and had to check it out. They are collecting voice samples for their project. I could not resist offering up mine. Who knows if they will use it, but it was fun making it. Just a simple statement (nothing profound… just random revelation of my two favorite words of all time) using Audacity. I did a simple pitch modulation to get a nice sound (it it a machine or is it human?).

Robward Antwerps Favorite Words by Robward Antwerp

But the best part was in order to post the brief voice track I was sent to sound cloud. What a site… lots of music, lots of types of music and love the format, worth checking out to be sure. I placed a soundcloud ‘drop box’ on my blog… it should come in handy for collaborative projects.  For example, this will be great way to send me the music for collaborative machinima projects, etc.

What else? As I mentioned I'm on my summer schedule, in some ways just as busy as my regular work schedule. Mostly I’ve been a student… taking two classes at PSU for work - both interesting (to me) and useful (at work). On the more creative side; I’ve continued working on my Blender chops… with texture stacks, ambient occlusion, and procedural textures. I am having a small amount of success, but it is slow going at times. I do love the folks over at machinimatrix. They do a comprehensive job of sculpty tutorials (I can't recommend them enough... the Jass 2.0 Blender kit is the best way to get Blender optimized for SL - it includes the Primstar scripts, etc). Fun fun… perhaps some images of my progress later. 

As always... enjoy!

Blender... do not be afraid

Given the fact I am off work for the next 5 weeks I figured now is the time to take Blender by the horns (and move beyond making simple sculpt maps). It is time for me to try to make sense out of the world of resources for Blender users.

Now I know many of you have downloaded this free Blender and opened it up only to moan and think -there’s the catch, that weird interface. I felt the same way… everyone I talked to who used Blender said “You get used to it” or, they would say something like “no really It actually makes a lot of sense” or “think keyboard short cuts”. To which I always moaned… but why?

Consider me converted… to those of you still a bit fearful… give the interface a chance. Consider the many things you can do with Blender (mind you full on commercial money making 3D animated movies are made by some pro’s on Blender). Of course, I don’t pretend I will ever be working in a commercial animation studio but I did fairly quickly learn to move beyond making Sculpties. (Which are about .5% of what Blender can do.) In short is Blender hard? Only at first… I swear. Now that I am working with an eye toward a less fettered mesh import future in sl… I am able to appreciate the program more. Below are a few simple examples of progress I’ve made in just a few days working from one video and one .pdf tutorial.

My only caution is… truly if you are new to Blender, be sure to do any “interface” tutorials you can find first. Once you get the basics figured out… like having multiple views going at once, and for transforming an object (moving, rotating, scaling, etc)… then I highly recommend this to these next tutorials.

Blender.org is about to release 2.5.x (currently in Alpha trials) and you will see some tutorials working from that interface. If I were you I would download this stable full release (current download is 2.49) . Any 2.4x tutorial I’ve seen has worked just fine with my 2.49. At this point I am not worried about importing anything into sl. That option is likely a few months away. When it comes rumor has it we will be importing in the Collada format – which is natively supported in Blender (unlike the specialized export plug in for sculpt meshes currently needed – See the SL wiki –search sculpt, then go to Domino Marama’s primstar plug in.)

I know I know… why does it got to be so hard! Keep your chin up… if I can do this YOU can do this.
Here are a few links:

Interface tutorials:
http://www.blender.org/education-help/quickstart/
http://www.blender.org/education-help/tutorials/getting-started/
http://cg.tutsplus.com/tutorials/blender/a-detailed-overview-of-the-blender-interface/

Two successful tutorials completed by me:
http://cg.tutsplus.com/tutorials/blender/character-modeling-in-blender-basix/
http://www.blendercourse.com/English.aspx - choose BlenderCourse Basics: v1.0 for Blender 2.48a Choose v2.0 for Blender 2.50 (although this only has chapter 1).

You will discover many resources in many languages here:
http://www.blender.org/community/user-community/

So… if you want to do content creation for SL, Blue Mars or for Open Sims… and you have wondered how Blender fits into this - dig in.

Second Life - Never Boring

It has been quite a week, so there is required reading today...

NWN ,  Dusan Writer, Crap, sororNishi or SaveMe Oh

It is a lot of reading, I know… but a lot happened this week.  As for my thoughts... have a look... I tried to be brief.

• There were the 30% Layoffs at the lab – never a good sign when it comes to feeling confident that this amazing world will still be here when I wake up.
• Mark Kingdom – was mysteriously absent from controversy marred SL birthday celebration… can’t say I was that interested in his comments anyway.
• Philip – Filled in for M. Linden with some interesting but vaguely apologetic comments… and the rumors flew.
• Yes Alice – Some rumors do come true. The dramatic return of Philip Rosedale as interim CEO and the flurry of M. Linden bashing reached its peak. So the guy with the passion and understanding for SL returns, despite the fact he has a reputation for making us cringe on occasion. It will be certainly be interesting.
• Rumors of Mesh imports… cool, wow, fun, concerned… (anxiously scratches head) … hopefully when and if this rumor proves to be true, Mesh Imports will be introduced into SL with some careful thought, both from a technical point of view regarding how a flood of rich but complex mesh based objects will impact the grid AND how it will impact the economy of sl (if I were a current not so skilled content provider… I would be wondering how many 50 prim houses will sell when a 5 prim mesh import house is put on the market). But over all I am all for mesh imports… I am also working thru a wide variety of Blender tutorials… for those interested here is long list of Blender user and tutorial sites.
• And then there was the whole art censorship issue… a complex and messy debacle to be sure. True… the Labs owns this virtual world (In the end we are only renters of server space) and they are allowed to control what goes on that server. Of course what they ‘allow’ greatly impacts the socio-economic vitality of SL… which has a direct impact on investor returns. It seems to me that open markets, open source, user created content, be it commodities or art (sold or not), etc would be encouraged. I would think they would want a wide and deep pool of creativity. So why ban stylized nudity from an art submission by Rose Borchovski? Fearful of the old “flying penises” argument? Fear of what, human depravity? Sad this puritanical fear of a lewd public perception stopped the lab from treating the artist in question honestly and fairly.
  Here I will quote Rose Borchovski via SaveMe Oh’s blog:
  
  
  

   I raised my voice because of the way it was handled. When I came online I found my installation in my lost and found folder with a formal message in IM from a Linden. A moderator of the SL7B GROUP saw the installation on my sim before it was put down at SL7B. Several Moderators helped me while I was setting up the installation. I had sent all the information about my Susa Bubble Story by forehand to Linden: video, LM of my sim and notecard with info. I admit, I was absolutely naïf about my Susas being naked, I do not see them as being naked anymore but as vulnerable and lost. I’m not insensitive about other people’s feelings, the SL7B was not opened yet for an audience, they could have asked me to come down and explain the problem before deleting me.

  

  To me… in the very least the Lab was cowardly and disrespectful in their dealings with Rose.
  
  PrimPerfect's recent post looks closely at the art work in question... you decide... what were "they" afraid of? 
  
  I know I've been reminded once again - powerful art such as this impacts individuals differently and our reaction to such art reveals more about who we are as viewers than anything else.
• 
  
  And last but not least, soror Nishi – offers a list – Philips List. Topping her list at number 1 in the hearts of all who love sl - Sack the PR Team.  This might seem odd given other critical issues like repairing chat, search, voice, etc.   Yet I agree with soror.  In my opinion even with Philip back , public relations (internally and externally) is a huge weakness of Linden Labs
  
  (Word to the wise Philip – you can drop the cod piece… funny – yes, ironic – yes, professional – no… imo... I'm just saying...).

Well… as you can see… lots of opinions, lots of heat, smoke and even fire. Not an easy week to summarize… so given my incomplete, partially informed musings… I will stop.

To be sure – Second Life & Linden Labs are filled with passionate opinionated people… not boring in the least.