Here is a quick and dirty look at some of what I’ve been doing lately in Second Life.  For the first time in long while, I’ve been enjoying a creative project who’s techniques are new (at least to me).

 I’ve been exploring the lighting texture options in the Features section of the build menu (where you enable lighting effects).  The moving light/shadows are objects w/ a simple texture in each set to rotate.  The textures themselves are just transparencies w/ some lines stroked over them.  These objects are then set to rotate or orbit and some hints of color are added, etc.  It is nothing too fancy and mostly just fun because it was new to me.   It was good to get back in world for a bit of creative exploration.  I will explore what the projections look like inside of a sphere next and set the objects to transparent (they are too hard to find if set that way at the moment...lol). I will explore a bit more, if I come up with anything of interest I’ll post it here.  

I hope you enjoy…For some reason the embed below appears off set to me... try this link if you have the same issue: Shadow Projections

Metaversian Chill – Where do you go to relax?

One of the hardest things to explain to someone who hasn’t visited a quality build in a virtual world is the tangible sense of place these digital constructions can take on.  For me this sense of place is most pronounced when there is spaciousness, and almost desolation to a build.  Folks who have visited Immersiva or the work of AM Radio (Husk, The Far Away & The Quiet come to mind) know what I mean.  As is often the case not all of these builds can still be visited although Immersiva will return (not sure this link is current).  To see stills of AM’s builds check out his Flickr photo stream.

Yet, what of today in second life?  For me, there are still builds that invoke this intense and unique sense of place. The rebuild of Chouchou is very powerfully chill (An oxymoron?  Not with the lovely music of Chouchou combining with the simple elegant build - you will see what I mean).  Chouchou build and music draws people together yet we tend to distribute ourselves physically thru out the sim as we float across the space.   Below are a few photos taken recently, hopefully they convey at least a portion of what I am trying to describe.  I also recently discovered the HuMaNoiD sim… a richer color palette is used, but it still conveys a sense of warm delicious decay.  

So are you also drawn to these seemingly ‘empty’ builds?  If so… let me know below where you chill in the metaverse?  

Chouchou beauty

Kenbishi's bemused chill

HuMaNoiD warm chill