Archive for August, 2008
Emotiv EPOC - Reading Your Mind as You Game
August 31, 2008 7:49 pmBrushing Up a Virtual Fairy Tale
6:05 pmThis definitely falls under the category (done) ‘because I can’ (and for no other reason). Thank you to Miss Jubilant Quackenbush for letting me shamelessly dodge, burn, and layer mode on her very cute photograph of Lady Bartlok of Lawnpond! Oh, and I also masked, blurred, overlayered, liquified, … . The old snapshot effect is partially done using this action set for Photoshop.
A few facts on the Lady Bartlok of Lawnpond:
- Lady Bartlok of Lawnpond is located at the Greenies Lawn (TP).
- Lady Bartlok of Lawnpond is not - as many think a prince charming disguised as frog - but a Princess Charming! This little froggess (a female frog?) has an offspring, swimming around in the pond.
- Clicking the Princess Charming will make her ‘kwaaak’, or whatever sound frogs make in English.
- Sitting on Lady Bartlok of Lawnpond will make you kiss her.
- Creator of this charming prim froggie is Miss My Mackenzie. Please applaud!
- There’s a small hidden tribute in the Lady’s name. Any ideas to whom?
- Copies of Lady Bartlok of Lawnpond are for sale in the Greenies Main Store & the Sandcastle at Greenies Lawn.
Yeey! Although opinions over RC 1.21 are not overall positive - ‘Hey, that piece of **** makes me crash on connect.’ & ‘More crashes, less freezes. But at least it’s a quick crash!’ Ganymedes Costagravas did discover some new ‘nifty’ functionality in the snapshot department of this release client:
JPG, PNG & BMP, snapshot to disk
You can now save your ’snapshot to disk’ (hard drive, that is) in .jpg, .png & .bmp format. Advised is the use of .png, as that file format uses lossless data compression, which means it will be smaller than the .bmp (no compression) and still contain more data than the .jpeg (compresses with loss of data). To give you an idea, for an 1920×1030px snapshot I get the following values:
- PNG - 2.356 kB
- JPEG - 217 kB (lots of compression thus!)
- BMP - 5.794 kB
So, safe in .PNG and your HD is bound to last double time! ;)
Save snapshot as…
Right next to the ‘SAVE’ button, you have a little arrow in RC 1.21 snapshot tab. Click that arrow, and you have the option to save your snapshot as… . So now you can choose a default name and direction. All snapshots you just use ‘SAVE’ for after setting this, will be saved with this name and in your chosen location. Need to save with another name or directory? Just click the arrow again.
Why is this better? With the previous clients, you were just able to set this once. If you wanted to change it, the only possible way to do so was to reboot the SL client. (Leaving me with a whole bunch of ‘various’ folders that never got sorted.)
Snapshotting is way slower.
… and thus gives you more time to think about what you’re doing & your composition. Errr.. this is probably not an intended functionality. Disregard! :D
Virgins are Broadly Offensive
2:35 pm
I don’t know where to start to formulate my surprise, disgust and utter ‘WTF!?’ feelings about this. We all know the broadly offensive rules are hugely broadly offensive themselves: no nipples on PG areas - be it male or female, no excessive sex or violence - not even on mature areas - and what was the latest Linden addition to the definition of broadly offensive: ‘no child avatar in a photograph together with an adult avatar.’ Yep, not even when they are dressed with three pair of pants, five winter coats and a hat. But ok, I’m sure you want to know what’s added to the broadly offensive list this time: depiction of astrological signs. Well, at least some astrological signs. Lion, cancer, sagitarius, … all seem to be fine, but when we come up to the Virgo, it gets tricky.
Loki Popinjay - not that kind of pervert! - showed his ‘Avatar Zodiac’ first at SL5B, where - despite strict rules - nobody seem to have had a problem with it. As it was amazing, the exhibition was prolonged at Rezzable Cannery. Now, after 1 totally crazy puritan sick f*ck reported - abuse reported - Loki Popinjay, Loki got threats from Linden Lab and decided to just burn the photograph himself. An excerpt from the e-mail Loki received from Linden Lab:
Violation: Community Standards: Broadly Offensive Content or Conduct
Real-life images, avatar portrayals, and other depiction of sexual violence including rape, real-life images, avatar portrayals, and other depictions of extreme or graphic violence, and other broadly offensive content are never allowed or tolerated within Second Life.
Nude photo of young girl holding a teddy bear needs to be removed immediately. Alternatively, you may cover up the nudity with photo alterations.
What this does not make sense at all:
- This photograph was up at SL5B, which had a very high ‘puritain’ rating this year. Nobody complained.
- All of the sudden, some idiot flags it, and immediately it is labelled as ‘violation’ and Loki gets threatened with ‘account suspension’, without asking him for explanation. They are milder on ‘content thiefs’!
- I wonder what exactly makes this avie a ‘young girl’. Hips & shape definitely looks adult to me. Maybe the cute curls or the teddy bear?
- I wonder where exactly Lindens finds the ‘nude’. Both nipples & genitals are covered, using hair, arms and the teddy bear.
- What do LL expect for the depiction of a ‘virgin’? I would assume that in the SLT zone, 30 year old virgins are as rare as in Europe?
Loki Popinjay contested this decision by Linden Lab, but got to hear from Harry Linden that this is indeed a violation of ToS and the work needs to be removed or redone. *sighs*
Sirena Hair: up! down! up! down! up! down!
August 28, 2008 10:32 pm‘Hair: Up! Down! Up! Down!‘ must sound like a most non-descriptive title to most of you, but this only because you have not tried Sirena’s ‘Tyra’ hair style - by the renowned Natalia Zelmanov - yet! Or should I say ‘hair styles’? Because for 285L$ you do not get just one hair style, no, you get a ‘loose’ hair style, and an ‘tied up’ hair style. Now, - probably, I’m not such a fanatic - that’s nothing new as it comes to hair styles. What is more amazing, is how you switch between the two hairstyles: with an extremely cute animation!
Not following? Or not believing? Well, here’s some polaroid - you know we can’t cheat with polaroids, it’s instant! - proof. We start off attaching ‘Serina Tyra (L) Blonde - Golden’* to Vint’s head. Immediately after that we attach ‘Serina Tyra Hair Tie-Owner Only (L)’ and look! Wow! I’m tying my hair up into a lovely ponytail. Cute, no? Beware, it becomes even cuter!
* I know, I’m not a natural blond avie, but the demo was blond, and it really fitted the top I was wearing. But of course, besides the Blonde Pack, I also purchased the Black Pack. =d
Now, let’s assume I see a hansom male avie passing by, and I feel more seducing with my hair loose. I can go searching in my inventory for the matching loose hair style, but no… it’s not even that hard. I just click my ‘Hair Tie’ object and select ‘remove’… et voila… whilst being extremely cute, your avatar unties the lints keeping it’s hair together and lets it loosely slide over her shoulder.
Back up? No problem! Re-attach your Hair Tie from your inventory or type ‘/2 menu’ -> ‘Hair Style’ -> ‘Hair Up’ to tie your hair up without using something to suspend it. Amazing, no?
Some more kewl functionality from my new beloved prim hair:
- You can recolour the Hair Tie to match your outfit.
- The Hair Tie comes in an ‘owner only’ and a ‘everybody can play with your hair’ version.
- It comes with a facelight, for which you can adjust on/off, colour and strenght.
- You can wear an ‘up do’ with our without Hair Tie.
- Doing ‘Up! Down! Up! Down! Up! Down!’ with this prim hair will amuse and entertain you for at least 20 minutes.
Drawbacks
- This won’t work in non-script areas, or looks rediculous if the sim if there is lag.
- I did not find out how to adjust my hair to cover my ears. (I have neko ears, so the human ones are obsolete.)
Where did I get this great prim hair? At the Hair Fair 2008, of course! But I would have never known about this new revolutionary hair, if Miss Weyland did not show it off to me first. I guess that answers Crap Mariner’s question too. ;)
OpenSim Snapshot Competition - Help promo OpenSim
August 27, 2008 3:00 pm
For the upcoming Virtual Worlds 2008 conference in LA, Adam Frisby and some of the other OpenSim contributors and developers have decided to sponsor a large booth, and they would like to cover it with screen shots of the best and most innovative uses of OpenSim out there today.
Theyneed high resolution screen shots from your builds, ideally these should be captured at a minimum of 1600×1200 pixels (if you are using the Second Life™ viewer, the “High Resolution Screen shots” option works well)*. All settings should be set to maximum, ideally with anti aliasing, screen shots should have a minimal amount of adjustment (limited to cropping, brightness) and originals should be provided.
* (You can also go into ’snapshot’ and then change the dimensions of the screen capture there. Normally, you should be able to go up to 3000px at ease.)
Do mind, preferably NO POST PROCESSING! And errr… the deadline passed a few hours ago. But I assume good images of OpenSim areas are welcome always. You just won’t get a prize! ;) A good place to - for instance - showcase your shots is the Flickr OpenSim Group.
OpenSims? Errr.. how to get there?
An overview of a few of the OpenSim grids - multiple sims connected together - can be found on opensimulator.org. Login information and a quick ‘how to login’ is also provided for. Have fun exploring and snapshotting!
More specific rules:
- High Resolution - We’re printing onto a 300 DPI surface, this means we absolutely need the highest possible resolution when printing to make sure we have crisp clean non-blurry images. While there isnt a definition of what is or isnt high resolution - try submit screenshots at least 1600×1200, higher is preferred.
- Submit in a lossless format - We need images provided in either 24-bit PNG, TIFF or BMP. As these files tend to be rather large, please zip or rar them with maximum compression.
- If you are submitting a manipulated image, the original is required as well. There is no guarantee that the manipulated version will be used. (We are trying to provide accurate but nifty portrayals of what OpenSim can do.)
- Deadline - submit your images before Wednesday, 27th August 2008. Sooner is appreciated as they will begin incorporating images into the layout as soon as they are received.
- How to submit images - Please use a service such as yousendit.com to transfer the archived files, send your message to “adam@deepthink.com.au”. His inbox will reject files larger than 10mb, so please do not send these directly.
- Judging will be done by Adam Frisby in conjunction with the other people sponsoring the booth. Decisions whether to utilize an image will be based on constraints such as whether or not we can work them into the larger montage and do so in a way which highlights OpenSim in a positive way.
- Some tips - People/avatars always look good. Eye candy is always a plus. Showing scenes where this is in production and potentially useful for people interested in using it are also going to be in demand.
What ‘ya getting for it?
Nothing anymore. Contest deadline has passed, if you shoot, it’s just for the fun. ;) Accepted and utilized images will get 6 months free standard-class region hosting from DeepThink to a grid of your choice. The Judges may provide hosting for images of excellent quality which are unable to be used, however this is soley at the discretion of the judges.
Getting it on… CGI style
2:24 amIf you followed the ‘Second Life Age Play’ scandal more or less, you know that
Virtual Sex in Second Life is far from perfect
- You need to have the right add-ons (genitals, nipples, …) and even more, those need to be compatible!
- You will need to shop for the right props (bed, animations, prim whipped cream & strawberries, … ).
- Our breasts look horrible un-real and are only inflatable up to a certain point.
- Lag can really ruin an experience
- You’re highly dependent on the language skills and imagination of your partner(s).
- When not on voice, there’s no sensory interaction, unless you type well one handed.
- For extremes you need to look into special designed viewers (such as RestrainedLife client) & scripting.
- Privacy is a myth.
- …
So that’s all good reasons why sex in Second Life - and probably in virtual worlds in general - sucks. So why is it still such a big business and success (see SL/Sex ratio and Loki’s Promiscuity Index)? My guesses:
The pro’s of Virtual World Sex
- It’s not the sex itself. People dress sexy and flirt above what they would do in real life. They feel more secure because they have perfect bodies, are anonymous, have another gender, … in the virtual world.
- There are no STD’s and if you get pregnant, it just costs you L$ in stead of a lifetime of responsibilities and a huge RL budget.
- Lack of monogamous behaviour is not as frowned upon as in real life. So, more diversity… .
- No real life physical damage is inflicted. Which makes room for a lot of fantasies to be enacted.
- Costs are lower. (You pay some escorts in SL what you would spend on a drink for someone IRL, which has a higher fail rate.)
- Opposed to the average internet porn, there is a sense of interaction: you can steer where the situation is heading, although limited by animations and sex gear.
- Opposed to the average internet porn, if you associate your avatar with human self - which you are bound to do when spending some time inworld customising it - you more like it’s really _you_ out there, not some strange amateur couple getting it on and it probably triggers a lot of RL sex zones in the brain.
Why are the Virtual Sex Worlds not taken seriously?
But that are my thoughts on it - having wondered for virtual ages why so many people prefer having sex in-world of creating and shaping the world itself by building, creating fashion, animating, scripting, … . There are pure sex oriented virtual worlds out there in the metaverse - such Red Light Center - which are never mentioned as it comes to virtual worlds. Although, they probably have one of the highest commercial success possibility rates, they are hardly ever mentioned, and eg. no where to be found on Kzero’s virtual worlds overview. Strange, as it’s a perfect - almost better looking, see this dutch review - clone of Second Life with it’s own monetary value, content creators, club owners, … . And then there are the 3D games that focus only on sex - like SexVilla, and more here - which would probably be a bit hit on Xbox, Wii and Playstation, if released? Actually, apparently the softer Playboy: The Mansion is released for Playstation and Xbox. Or look at the amount of ‘X-rated’ content available for the Sims on X-Sims. I actually remember installing a patch for the Sims 1 so they could go skinny dipping in their in their pool a few years ago. *grins*
Movies ft. pixel humping
You used to have ‘animation movie porn’ with titles such as ‘Anastasia’ and ‘Snow White and the 7 Dwarfs’ - being mostly Disney remakes and available still on both torrent and DVD -, then later the ‘hentai anime‘, illustrated animation porn, became a real hit. Then definitely, the more ‘life like’ but still obviously fake CGI porn must have a great future ahead? From Sims (or X-sims) machinima such as Aladdin and Jasimine (NSFS warning) - expect no 1001 nights, it’s rather funny - over the NPIRL (sorry, Miss Bettina) Unemaro 3D series (Teacher, NSFS warning) which hugely inflated NPIRL breasts (sorry, Miss Tiessa) to Pr0n careers for video game stars: Final Fantasy X-2 film fragments ;) re-enacted and Kasume from ‘Dead or Alive’, there’s a wide range of versions to choose from. But still, we don’t hear much about them. So, my question for all those that practise SLex, -or those who just have an opinion - why do virtual worlds like Red Light Center and games like SexVilla don’t make it to the media? And why is amateur porn preferred over the more detailed, without limits CGI version of depiction of sexual intercourse? (And did I miss out on any ‘pro’s’ of virtual world sex? ;))
Hattip for the Aladdin & Jasmin video on YouPorn to - I promised to not mention the name, but do blame that person for the whole of this article which is exactly the article why the rest of the SLblogosphere never takes me serious! :D Let’s just dedicated it to Miss V. ;)
