Archive for October, 2008
New Second Life skin PSD files from Eloh Eliot
October 6, 2008 7:45 pm
It escaped my attention - until now ;) - that Miss Eloh Eliot made 3 new skins psd files available to the public: Cf1, an astonishing male skin, and two ‘ladies’ skins Rfº and SFº. I’ve added both to the list of previous skin releases by Eloh Eliot, as that is where people will be most likely to find them.
Skin repository for fashionistas
For all those interested in how a skin gets created, Eloh Eliot also made her repository and it’s contents available to the public. This means you can follow Eloh’s work on the ‘g generation’ skins, and take a peek into an SL skin genius’ mind (and in her .ai files too! ;)). For those that go there now, it also offers a more ‘clean base’ skin to work it, which might be interesting if you want to customise Miss Eloh’s skins more personal. As usual with Miss Eliot latest releases & works: ‘You are free to use these files to create items for any grid. You are free to _alter_ these files to create new items for resale. You are _not_ encouraged to resell these files or skins as is. Credit would be nice!‘
Feel free to take, but share alike!
Although Eloh continues working on the ‘g generation’ of skins, she is disappointed about how few people in turn release Eloh Eliot based skins as Open Source. Miss Eliot mentions this in Share alike!: ‘… this is what open source is about: it’s perfectly fine to take, it’s great to redistribute, and it’s still perfectly fine to make a profit off of it, but at the end of the day, it’s still better to give back.‘ One of the people who did share alike, is Mystical Serenity, check out her ‘Carnival’ skin here.
BIAB & ‘instant business, just add water
At least the above mentioned creators, even if they don’t share open source, added something of their own to the skins, and even possible have put lots of effort in those additions. Unlike the BIAB - business in a box - and ‘instant business, just add water’ schemes Eloh describes: ‘The problem isn’t more businesses–it’s the “instant…just add water” aspect of it–namely BIABs and freebie-sellers–these businesses are, in essence, the same as the zombies in camping chairs: they don’t really add anything of value back to the grid.‘ I second that. Some say it’s good to have those dubious businesses around, as else ‘newbs’ probably would never find the skin, but they for the ease of argument probably, forget to mention that this way n00bs - and even seasoned residents - pay (and charge others) for content that is supposed to be available to them for free.
Possible BIAB countermeasures
Any advise to offer to Miss Eloh Eliot to stop her skins being used for Business in a Box and plain reselling practises? Here’s my list:
- Make the free versions of your skins as ‘findable’ as possible for new residents. Make them in-world copy no transfers, but set up a vendor system for 0LS which people may rezz at their property (and is copy no trans too). That way Orientation Places, clubs, … can easily offer your skins for free. The vendor also distributes a notecard explaining your ideas about open source skins and a link to your website, telling them to look there if they wish starting to create their own skins. Make sure people can obtain the vendor from both onrez, slexchange & some inworld location. (For best easy, the vendor should be have an update system, supplying the owners of the vendor automatically with the latest edition… .
- Maintain a list/directory (comments or some way of contacting you enabled) where people can add a link to a blogpost, … where they make their own PSD’s or a .tga file of their version of the skin available. I’m sure most SLbloggers will happily help with ‘linkloving’ it so it is gets seen by many. That way the contributors will hopefully get something in return too: extra traffic. And people looking for free skins have a great starting point. Of course, you can also ‘outsource’ the maintenance of that list. (Work together with OpenSim peepz? They have some ‘here to find OS stuff for your worlds’ directories already.)
- Cross your mesh and keep hoping LL someday implements the possibility to easily add a CC license to inworld content.
Wondering why so many persons wanted to see my human, I stumbled over the iPhone 3G camera stats on Flickr. Both me (holding first place, yeey!) and Miss ColeMarie made it in the ‘interesting photographs with an iPhone’ top 18. Which explains heavier traffic than usual. Not so bad if it says ‘21,207 items uploaded yesterday’? Congratz to us both! ;)
In the mean while, the Spontaneously me Flickr pool could use 22 20 18 more photos of SL resident’s humans before I add another mosaic to the collage. Did you submit your human yet?
Second Life web resources for October 2nd 2008 through October 4th 2008
October 5, 2008 1:30 amCaledon: Machinima for Money for RFL
October 2, 2008 9:39 pmKeeping to the motto ’stick with your crew’ - and because I still feel quite guilty about decapitating him a while ago - I decided to do some effort and help Winter Jefferson with campaigning for Hottest Male Avatar 2008. Do you dig hansom, witty guys that aren’t afraid to leave bite marks? Then Winter’s the one to vote for! ‘Nuff said. Go vote!
Image CC Attribution Non-commercial No-derives so you can Plurk, Twitter, Rezz, Texture, Print, … our lovely Winter as much as you want. The version I have is large enough to do a desktop background, IF there is any demand for that (lemme know which dimensions you need).
According to common beliefs, a Second Life inhabitant is at least one - but most likely all - of the following: ugly, fat, socially retarded, old and male. Even I dare to think ‘that’s probably just a frustrated old hag‘ sometimes. So… is that true? Let’s take a look, shall we?
The following ’spontaneous’ self portraits of Second Life players give a good idea of who’s part of the SL Flickr community. Collected in the Flickr Group ‘Spontaneously Me by - amongst others Rob Danton, Kean Kelly and ColeMarie and inspired by Nebulosus Severine this is a Second Life photo meme that makes a statement!
Instructions ‘Spontaneously Me’ Photo Meme
- Take a picture of yourself (that’s your human in this case!) right now.
- Don’t change your clothes, don’t fix your hair… Just take a picture.
- Post that picture with NO editing.
- Post these instructions with your picture.
- Submit that self portrait to the ‘Spontaneously Me’ Flickr group.
- Post a link here in the comments to your spontaneous human self. (optional)
Oh yeah, here is my human.
Confirming London October 6th to 17th
October 1, 2008 11:05 pm
Because previous two times I forgot to tell, here it goes: on October 6th 08.52PM Vint F. will take the Eurostar which - if no fires or electricity break downs or bomb alarms happen - will get her to London by 10.15PM. There she will mistakenly look to he wrong side of the street, almost walk under a charming trolley bus or taxi and make her way through hordes of tourists towards the Rezzable HQ (which she’ll be occasionally leaving for a nap, pizza or hopefully some social life).
This means:
- I get to talk to _real_ human beings without the need of a data connection or phone.
- I have to share my cookies with Lokum (look left).
- I get to ponder which side the chicken looked at first when crossing the street.
- The human will be allowed to visit Camden Town once. On a limited budget.
- Communications are faster & more reliable.
- RaR is within an arm’s length of reach.
- I hope to get to meet up with Rob Danton again.
- Drupal. Drupal. Drupal. And more Drupal. Oh! Need to take umbrella!
- My brain will work in English by the time I return, frustrating the Belgian friends (and partially limiting my thoughts.)
- Way less cigarettes: on the roof (look right) only.
- Wondering if Katharine Berry ever comes to London. (If she does not think I’m to old/math-stupid/arrogant/… for her! ;))
- Adapting to another blend of coffee.
- I get to see how our ‘Project Poseball’ tree is doing. (look up on the right)
- Native English people will be shocked somebody is actually wearing high heels AND carrying a giant laptop.
- Any data that isn’t on my portable disk or laptop will be unreachable for that time.
- iPhone will be taken along to listen to Avatar Song & Prim in my Hand repeatedly on the train.
- … (might add more as I think of them)
