Reel Geek

Site has moved!

2007-04-23T17:12:00.000+01:00

Finished the new blog! Please update your bookmarks :)

www.reelgeek.co.uk/blog

I wasn't planning on rolling it out until the new store opened and the rest of the site is done. But fuck it, I like the new look of it and I've worked damn hard on learning php to modify the damn thing.

Hope you like.

Btw everything including comments has been transfered over, but I will not be transferring again so please be sure comment there.
Thanks
-Luth

New pose series - Sneak peak!

2007-04-20T19:35:00.000+01:00

Dig it kats and kittens - a new pose series annouced.

What did you all really think I'd forgotton to make some poses once my eyes finally cleared up? Of course not!

I've considered most of my recent pose sets as a sort of series... the expression series. They all fit a general mood or look. Then I have the posing object series - the pose wall - with a bunch more in the pipeline - window, ledge, more walls, stairs, chair, lounger, ect.

I have been getting a lot of requests/suggestions for more "high fashion" type of poses. As luck would have it, I do have a lot of ideas stirring around that fits into that sort of ideal. Think of it as ultra sexy cool but more forward or backward facing poses.

Here's a picture of the first pose (still needs a bit of work) from the set which should be released hopefully in the next few days.

Not to worry my dear readers, I still have many more of the expression series to come :)

-Luth

Sheep Search

2007-04-17T22:58:00.000+01:00

Interesting thing to have to read when my eyes are swollen and itchy.

From what I've read, people generally fall into the following catagories:
1. love the sheep and think they can do no wrong.
2. honestly do find the search a good idea.
3. hate the sheep and everything they do.
4. think the data mining is catagorically bad/ an invasion of privacy.
5. believe the implimentation of the search was bad.
6. unsure
7. haven't heard about it yet.

As always since the world is full of greys, of course people can and do fall into multiple catagories.

My opinions:
1. Opt-in vs Opt-out
The sheep decided on opt-out. Big mistake in my opinion. See, not everyone uses SL to sell things. Actually according to LL, a higher percentage of people don't. People use it in many different ways.

The spin they are giving this decision is that a search with everything would be better then a search with only 1/2 the things. Ok, the IW search places has probably every store in SL yet that is opt-in. If this search is the next best thing since toast, the sheep would have people lining up to be scanned. From where I'm sitting it just looks cheeky to scan first, inform later. Just like email spam opt-out.

At the very least they should have made an annoucement stating what they plan to do and let us opt-out before the first scan. Now it's become a PR nightmare which may (hopefully) hurt them.

2. Myth: It only searches content set for sale.
Incorrect. According to the site, if you "opt-in" it will list every single object on your parcel. Now, does the bot scan everything on each parcel or just those who do "opt-in"? I'm going to bet you that it scans everything - sends to a sheep database somewhere - then posted depending on permissions.

3. What other data are they mining?
From what I've read, this bot was made from a joint effort between libsl (copybot creators) and the sheep. Neither of which do I feel comfortable with using a program to gather information from my land. On one hand you have a group of people who openly attacked content creators for our "greed." Then started the copybot hysteria by talking with us as a group saying none of our content/IP is "safe," releasing a product to prove it, only to find out later that it really didn't. On the other you have a group of people whoring SL and its residents out to corporate interests for $ and whose egos have grown so big they probably do believe that they can't be thrown off their high horse.

For all I know, they could have good intentions. But from past experience, anyone who has to tell me something that many times, it probably isn't true. They may not be publishing all data and who knows what they would do with it, but knowing they have it doesn't settle right with me.

So libsl has something against content creators and our "greed" called IP. Could they have sneaked in something that grabs all the paramaters of the prims? Ok, yeah bit of a stretch I know.

4. You can ban "grid shepherd" to not be scanned.
Odd thoughts on that. When it was first announced, I jumped on and did a search for poses. My name, oddly, didn't come up. Anything that would help my business would attribute me to poses right? Ok.. so I did a search for my name. It came up with Lalique: *under construction* then about 1/2 of the objects I have for sale. So the tags are just the lame limited amount we get for the IW parcel description. Now, what worries me is that the *under construction* part of the sim - everyone not in the group is auto banned. Obviously it scanned the banned section enough to get and list the parcel description.

Is it a fluke? If I let them scan the sim, but not the corner my house will be on, does it really know the difference? What about people who don't own the entire sim? If you ban the bot but your neighbour doesn't can it still scan you?

I'm almost tempted to rope off a part of Lalique that lets the bot on, put a box for L$1 and test to see if it picks up my store.

5. 2 Different ways to opt-out
Ok.. so if you go to sheep isle, find the hidden box to opt-out your information will not be posted. But your things will still be scanned.

If you ban the bot, you may or may not be scanned (see #4).

That is completly unacceptable. This just proves once again the blatent disreguard they have for the rest of us. There is no way to spin this into remotly looking ok. They must, in no uncertain terms, find a way for each person to completly opt-out of this.

6. Incorrect parcel descriptions.
If you do a search for me, some of the items I sell at the animation warehouse shows up on the description:
Disco dance2Live T V and more..., club,hot,music,djs,dancers,jazz,Disco,Counrty,rap, R&B,rock,house,camping,video,bar,xxx,lights,dance (no)

This makes it look like I'm renting at a camping infested adult dance club. I do NOT rent at places like that and it really pisses me off to be listed as such. Yes I know it's buggy cause it's a beta, but they should have at the very least gotton permission for the beta because of this type of slander.

7. Incomplete search
This only shows objects for sale. It doesn't include boxed items or vendors. What about things that have split scripts? Not listed. Thats a lot of items for sale missing from their search.

The tags are then based on the limited space we have for the parcel description, avatar, and the name of the object itself. That's all well and good if the places search is down, you know the avie, or whatever name they gave it. What if I'm looking for clothes of a certain look? Say female vintage clothes. Is the fault now on the creator because they don't put that in the description field or would a search with a human tagging system work better?

Then the search brings up a long list of objects. I'm sorry but how is that going to help me? With the IW classifieds and places I at least get see the image they are trying to project. Its a fact that if the ad sucks, the product sucks. I have purchased many different things in the almost 3 years I've been in SL and never once have I found something good at a place where I thought the ad was absolute shit. SL is great that anyone can make content, I'm sorry to say it but not everyone has the eye, talent or skill. I'm not saying they should be left out, but the consumer needs the ability to decifer for themselves.

8. Myth: It's just like google.
Incorrect. With google I can make the robots.txt file disallow bots/spiders to search the images folder. With websites I can put different parts of the site in different folders where it still looks like it's on the same page. I can't do that with different parts of my build. It doesn't seem likely that I can allow the sheep to post my objects for sale while not grabbing the build info or anything in my studio.

9. Myth: Public domain
Yes and no. Eventhough we have no real sense of privacy, people do some very private things in SL. I do consider my studio a private space. I expect people to either stay away out of decency or leave after an explination. Odd thing is is that I have only had to ban 1 person from it in almost 3 years of SL. Believe it or not, people are for the most part decent.

The thing is is that groups (companies) as an entity in general are not. It is not surpizing that the idea of privacy probably didn't even dawn on them in their rush of "furthering (corporate) SL." The sheep have proven time and again that they can not see us as individual human beings. It is how they sleep at night. Just like the traders at Enron overlooked the devistation of the rolling black outs and skyrocketing electric bills. It's the group think of "it doesn't touch me so it's ok."

While the information posted is downloaded to everyone's client when they tp to the location, not all of it is easily accessible. While you can cross ban lines, doing so is against the ToS.

10. Using a backdoor to gather information.
This bot, copybot, and landbots use a back door to gather information in SL. It's the same as using GLintercept to steal textures. Its gathering information in a way not intended by the program itself. Doing this is shady no matter which way you spin it.

11. Lag
They have done sim tests and say that the apparant lag is no worse then when any avatar tps in. But what I'm curious about is the database lag generated. Thats the biggest issue right now and the reason why everything is just well.. broken. There are many times being a content creator is just unbearable when it comes to the database lag. I can't upload animations or images, rez objects, retexture my build, ect. How many times per day do I get an IM saying they didn't recieve the pose they bought from the vendor?

How can anyone say, with a straight face, that scanning every bloody sim every 24 hours and uploading that data to a server isn't hitting the database more then a single avatar? Well, for one I sure as hell don't tp to each sim let alone repeating it once a day.

12. Opens a can of worms
This is only the beginning of what is to come with bots. If LL wants SL to be web 2.0 or what have you, there needs to be a general robots.txt file that can ban every single bot from our server space. This not only needs to be generally accepted but enforced.

13. Doesn't bloody work
In the sheep's overzealous release, they failed to make a search that worked as intended. That is unless the intentions were to even list no mod purchased items with the for sale box checked but greyed out so the owner can't change it. So lamps in private bedrooms are being listed even though its not actually for sale.

In short:
You can call me a hater, paranoid, moron, whatever you want to. These are my opinions based on various information I've gathered from both sides of the issue. Not out of hatred, jealousy, or whatever some people come up with to discount opinions.

I don't actually think that the sheep are out to steal anything I've created. But I do not for a second believe they are as altruistic as it's being spun. They are as a group, in my opinon, corporate whores - who pedals SL and it's residents to corporate interests. As individuals there are some I like, some I don't, and a few I hold high respect for. But the entire situation of corporate interest in SL makes me feel exploited for all the work we have done to build "our world, our imagination." Then the shame I feel that the ones who do it the most are the early innovators.

The plain and simple facts are that I do not know the extent of the information they are mining and everything they are using it for. The opt-out decision and the fact that you will still be scanned even if you do opt-out. I believe it do be a blatent disreguard for my privacy, and as such I have estate banned grid shepard from the Lalique and Cappiello.

As with any controversial subject in SL there are the fanbois, haters, bandwagoners, and the rest of us inbetween. The serious problem that stems from this is the severe disreguarding opinions because of the all too common "for us or against us" crap. As always, it’s easier to find a new reason to blame people for disagreeing with you than it is to find out what they actually disagree with in the first place. This type of mob mentality has just plainly gotton old. When will these people leave high school?

As an example: Lordfly stated in his blog:

The people complaining about privacy and whatnot are missing the mark. Either they’re reselling freebies or they don’t grasp basic marketing principles....In short: Search good, technophobia bad.

I am against the sheep search. So I obviously don't grasp basic marketing principles, sell freebies, and/or am technophobic. Real smart there. Wouldn't a person who understands basic marketing principles want a search that will show their objects in a way that they decide? Or to show all their wares (animation vendors)? Or maybe even to not have to find them listed at a XXX place? Or know that consumers don't want to dig through thousands of random objects to find ours? Even with sheep search talked about everywhere, my sales at the locations that are listed haven't increased.

Advancement for the sake of advancement is not always good. Not liking certain "advancements" does not a technophobe make. Humans do have the ability to decifer for themselves on which are good or bad for themselves. Just like you say "just because it's new doesn't mean its bad," I say just cause it's new doesn't mean it's good. Including all land owners (without permission) in the experiments is rather daft especially given the large amount of kinks still needing to be fixed.

It is not a question of do we need a new/better/offline search. Fucking hell we do, everyone knows that. Sorry to burst your bubble but the sheep search isn't that wonderful new thing.

My dream search:
1. Opt-in
2. The owner decides on the tags. Even with handy checkboxes for the basic tags. Then more indepth tags which can be typed out. IE - typical tags: poses, aos, dances, animations, furniture, vintage. Indepth tags: cuddle poses, cuddle furniture, belly dance, swing dance, deco furniture, ect.
3. Different ways to search. Say I want to find that all the stores that have at least 1 female vintage outfit. So I check those boxes and it searches all the listings that have it. For the indepth tags I can type it into the search box - belly dance - then click the animations box and it'll list all the different stores that sell belly dancing animations.
4. A way to differenciate between mall and nonmall. I hate doing a places search looking for new hair creators only to find myself in a camping filled mall. Or a search for non XXX bars/clubs would be nice. Then a search for services like landscapers or builders would be nice.
5. People can have multiple listings/locations. For Lalique I can have it listed as my main store with the slur landing you inside, then as a shopping area landinging you in the middle of the square, then as a club landing you inside my eventual speakeasy, then maybe as a park landing you in the park. Now that's better marketing.
6. The owner can then upload a 512x512 photo ad that will apear as a thumbnail on the listings.
7. You then click on Reel Expression and you get the full size picture ad, a listing of all my tags, all the slurs for the different locations, and even *gasp* a url to my website.
8. A way in which to report bad listings. Such as a hair store landing you in the middle of a casino.

-Luth

Corporate SL

2007-04-17T19:01:00.000+01:00

First off, I'm biased in the fact that I don't like corporations. In RL or SL. It's not because I'm some dirty hippie scared of capitalisim, it has to do with individuality and personal responsibility. Both of those huge parts of humanity seem to get lost when it comes to corporate america.

The big 10 media companies decide the content in all your music, radio, tv, films, books, and newspapers.
Enron's involvement in California's electricity crisis.
Wal-Mart as low-wage no benifits employers - average employee makes less than $19,000 a year. They used to lobby against raising the minuim wage until they publically flipped. But still 42 out of the 49 people who voted against the last bill recieved contributions from Wal-Mart.
Clothing companies such as Abercrombie & Fitch, Calvin Klein, The Gap, Inc. (Banana Republic, Old Navy), J. Crew Group, The Limited, Liz Claiborne, Nordstrom, Polo Ralph Lauren, Sears, Tommy Hilfiger use(d) sweatshops in Saipan and still able to have the "made in the USA tag."
Blockbuster (viacom) has the pull and power to demand from the studios "legal" tamed down versions of films.

I don't think its the fault of capitalisim itself, the problem stems from these untouchable corps having no one to answer to. It starts out as simple greed then stems into doing whatever possible to keep profits high and costs low. The greed itself isn't what's wrong as it's a natural human instict. The issue really is that there are hardly any checks and balances for the evil things they do. One definate thing that needs to change is the role they play in american politics.

So of course the idea of corporations within SL is slightly worring. Luckily for now the impact is rather low and mostly used for marketing.

Imminent Walmartization of SL?
I've had a number of conversations with Alle on this one. Oddly, she's a lot more worried then I am about this possibility. Would a clothing company be able to easily make a dent into the SL fashion industy? Sure why not? They have the money to throw at marketing, professional graphic designers, and builders. But would that dent be so big that everyone else just stops? I doubt it. Look at the history of the SL industry. When I started Pixel Dolls was the top store. Did that stop everyone else from trying? Nope. Many others have grown up since then and some have become quite large. But for every designer that does obtain sucess, it doesn't mean that the older ones will go out of business.

The fact of the matter is is that it costs very little to create and sell things within SL. So, I think (and hope) that there will always be people dinking around making stuff and then setting it up for sale hoping that other people will like it too.

Another point of that is those big companies would have the marketing power, but isn't SL like that anyways? With the help of blogs, smaller names are becoming larger names (myself included) where once it was only in who you know. While it may be a touch easier now then it was just last year, it still revolves a lot on who the bloggers know and like. Yes, it does suck, but that's just how it goes. How will that change? It could really go either way. The larger blogs could report on both corp and individuals or not. But I like to think of it in the ways of indie music. There will always be an idie music scene - people making it, people buying it, and people reporting it. I think that no matter what happens, the same will hold true in SL.

Market Research
One thing that does worry me about something like this is what happens when you add market research to the current designers. Back in Jan, Second Style posted a story about a market research firm selling a survey of 105 residents' opinion on women's fashion. Now you'd think everyone would laugh it off as being 1. paid and 2. only 105 people. But one thing it revealed was a lack of business suits (untrue) - a month later most of the new released items were business related.

I hate market research. Why? Because I hate averages. I don't like "normal." They try to find normal in a world that is anything but. I really hate when people try to sell something that is the average opinion of a group of "normal" people. The individual opinion is therefore lost.

I like individuality. I like creativity. I like creative expression.

During film school I partisipated in a number of film market tests. You get to see an unfinished film for free and they give you a piece of paper with questions. Things like: which parts made you laugh, which didn't make any sense, what did you like best, ect. I'd then see the finished movie and not a single one was better after the reedit. Not one.

I really do believe that something is lost when anything you create is catored to the masses instead of being an organic creative object.

It's been a while...

2007-04-11T19:11:00.000+01:00

Appologies for not being around much, if at all in the past 3 weeks or so. My real life has been a bit of a rollercoaster ride.

The limited time I have been able to work, has been spent doing things mostly out of SL. I have been working on my website (coming soon) - bought the domain, set up the hosting, relearning dreamweaver, graphics work, setting up the new blog, modding blog template, and figuring out how to move all these posts over.

After a lot of research, I decided to switch from blogger to wordpress. The decision is partly due to hosting capabilities and the more things you can do with wordpress. Having your blog with blogger but hosting it on your own domain isn't entirely a walk in the park. With wordpress its bloody easy. Although it did take awhile of searching to get a plugin to transfer all the posts and comments without having to manually copy and paste.

Another thing I have been working on is a commercial for my store that will most likely just be on the website. I've always wanted to dabble in machinima but until a few days ago I didn't have a clue what I wanted to do. I'm an editor. Not a writer, director, or cinematographer. Actually, in film school I was pretty good at cinematography but I always hated being on the set. I think that has a lot to do with my photography background.

I was laying on the couch bored out of my mind watching tv when the idea just popped into my head. It was a simple shot that grasped what I do in SL with my pose work. That part is the middle so from there I figured out how to get there in technical terms of editing and what should happen next. I then bounced over to my computer to email alle the treatment.

I spent the following couple of days writing the script, drawing the storyboards (badly), and figuring out the technical aspects of filming in SL. That was actually a lot easier then I thought it was going to be. I knew it had to be 720x576 screen resolution but SL didn't seem to have that option in the graphic prefrences. SL being odd as it is, in the file menu there is a setting to change the window size to pal. I have heard a lot of people talk about the difficulties of bringing fraps captured stuff into Avid, so I downloaded it and a number of different programs to do some screen tests.

What I found out is that the fraps avi is encoded with a codec that avid doesn't recognize. So, I sent the screen test through virtualdub and saved it as an uncompressed avi. Basically just removing the codec. Sounds logical enough to me. Others have stated to compress it further into mpeg, but I'm of the group of people that you should always start with the highest quailty of video and then compress for the web later.

On the SL forums, hypercam seems to be the most announced program other then fraps (for windows) probably because it saves as an uncompressed avi to begin with. As I was saying, I did screen test with each and comes to find out the fraps version is of much higher quality. Actually the hypercam one was worse then any of the final compressions I've ever done. It was the first one I brought into avid and looking at it almost made me scrap the entire project. When I opened the fraps test in virtual dub, it didn't look all that much better. But after stripping the codec and bringing in to avid, its far more clear and less texture bleed.

*edit* I did some more playing around and was able to get hypercam to bring me an uncompressed AVI. The only issue with it is that its 32bit with an alpha channel. This imports into Avid really oddly so I had to pass it through virtualdub to drop it to 24bit. In the end, that made the more clean version so I guess that's the program I'm going with.

Now all I have to do is build the sets, make a couple of animations, shoot and edit. Hah.

Real Life
Remeber how I said it's been a rollercoaster ride? It's not like its anything dramatic at all, just a series of not so fun events right after the other.

First up.. Hunter got an eye infection. Not a bad one, but got her some antibiotics just to be sure. The problem was that you had to give them to her 2x per day. Out of the two of them she's the far more cuddly one, but she squims pretty fast and well if you are trying to hold her there. Chuck is the more independant one. If he wants cuddles he'll come over to me, stand on his hind legs, and bump his head into my right arm until I stop what I'm doing. He'll then lay down right there and wait for some fuss. After a few strokes, he'll stand up and move into the hallway, a few more strokes, then he'll move into the lounge. If I don't follow him, he'll just come back and try it all again. But damn if he sits there patiently while I trim his claws or brush him. Hunter on the other hand will take fuss anywhere and everywhere in the house, but I can't count the amount of scratches I've gotton from trimming claws and that bloody eye ointment.

Ok.. so why did that keep me away? Well, I have insomnia and my husband works at different times each day. Most of the week was finally falling asleep at 4am and having to wake up at 6 to give her the drops. What's even more sad about it, is that once I'm awake I stay that way. You'd think that I'd be able to fall asleep early the next night, but my insomnia has nothing to do with being tired it's that my mind just will not stop.

Then I got what I thought was allergies, then thought it was the flu, which turned out to be a severe case of hay fever. I woke up last tue with congestion, itchy eyes, ect. So I took a benadryl thinking that all would be fine later. But later brought on a pretty nasty fever and full body aches. Those things didn't come with allergies, I thought to myself, it must be the flu!

I really hate being ill. Not just because of the pain, but because I can't do anything at all. I used to get my colds in my nose, so the following is from personal experiences... getting your colds in your ears is the worst thing that can ever happen. Pray to something that it never happens to you. I have no idea how it happened, but thanksgiving 2001 I got an ear infection in both ears and ever since that's where it all goes.

So for all the years that I have stuffy nose colds I only remember one time where it was painful to sit up. And that was from extreme circumstances of having a nasty bout of mono that swelled my tonsils so much they were touching, along with the flu, seasonal allergies, and something else that I picked up as a side effect from the drugs to reduce the tonsil swelling. Thrush I believe it was. That was a month of liquid codine (prescribed...yes it was that bad) and unable to move.

With cold in your ears every single time I get just a little bit stuffy, the act of just sitting up gives extreme pain and pressure. So, I spent a very boring week on the couch watching crap Brit tv. Wonderful shows like "sex in court" - during primetime and not cable - think of jude judy where judy looks like a fugly drag queen and all the cases are like "she wont let me go down on her" with expert witnesses showing diagrams and a detailed explination of why she should let him. Which the jury has to decide if she is order to let him. Then there was the wonderful world of "Australian Princess" where girls learn how to be rich snobs to win a Prince. Did I ever mention I hate "reality" tv? Cheap fucks not wanting to pay for skilled artists.

So finally a few days ago either my head stopped pounding or my extreme boredom took over and I did the work on the commercial. I wasn't really feeling much better but I had to stop watching that crap.

Then it went bad...
I now have seasonal allergic conjunctivitis. Which is just like pinkeye but not contagious and antibiotics won't help. I just have to wait it out. Swollen eyeballs and eyelids, itching and slight burning. Until last week I didn't even know your actual eyeball can get as swollen as they felt.

Only twice before I've had allergies effect my eyes this bad. When I was very little, I didn't understand what being allergic to pollen was. So, one bright summer day I took some red powder stuff off some flowers in the yard and painted my face in "war paint." Needless to say my eyes swelled shut. The only other time was when I was 14. I had saved all my money from babysitting and chores and things to buy contacts. The day after I got them, my right eye wouldn't open and I have been too freaked out since to find a contact solution that I wasn't allergic to.

** a few days later**
I've had to write this over a number of days because I can't look at the monitor for too long. Most of the time I lay on the couch with a cold washcloth over my eyes. Now the swelling has gone down and the itching has reduced. My congestion is pretty much gone - yay!! - but I still have a lingering cough. I'm hoping I'll be able to work at least enough to finish a pose pack by the end of the week. *fingers crossed*

-Luth

Why doesn't this animator wear an AO?

2007-03-18T05:38:00.000Z

I left my little slice of SL tonight and stood in a corner chatting in IMs with Alle. Usually when I go out, random people send me IMs asking me why I don't wear an AO. I still don't understand how upfront strangers can be in SL. I shit you not, but I've had people try and help me buy them and been given a landmark to my own store.

No it's not because I like the default poses.

It's partly that I'm lazy. When working on poses I turn it off and forget about it. Actually lazy is not the right word because I'm working most of the time. Distracted. That's better.

But then again, I turn it off all the time anyways.

When talking to people, no matter how engaging the conversation is (especially talking to Alle or Francesca), my mind wanders. And for some reason it usually gets stuck on my AO. I sit there and see every flaw. With the default ones I just don't even notice. And then all of a sudden I missed a large chunk of conversation and they are left wondering where I went to. (Sorry)

The only time that I do have it on is when I'm working on a new AO. I'll wear it constantly to watch for the flaws for about a week. So, I guess that might be a clue to know when a new one will be out. That is if I ever leave and if I don't trick you all in the meantime.

Classy Pose Set

2007-03-17T18:15:00.000Z

Ok.. I know I said I'd give you all a taste before I put them out. Sorry! It's not like I created them so fast, its more that I really got into it towards the end. In the poser tutorial you can see in the photos me working on them at least :)

I did the first run through last week and while doing the long process of editing I kept distracting myself. I'd sit there and poser and just want to do anything else. I was almost to the point of "fuck it loads of people put out poses with broken bits." But you know I couldn't do that. So, I goofed off for a bit... played with the kittens... worked on my store... wrote the tutorial... and the last few days the inspiration hit and editing these is all I've been doing.

This set came about because I kept seeing ads for gowns with the hands in side the skirt or the legs popping out.

Then a few weeks ago, I contacted Blaze Columbia about what he was looking for. I chose him cause he's well.. big and a very good customer of mine :) You all know how I don't like talking to people, and more especially cold asking people for things. But he was super nice and even sent me different gowns to set out the poses. Thanks so much Blaze!!

Anyways... I may have deviated from the origional ideas just a tad, as per usual really. I'm a huge Audrey Hepburn fan and while none of the source photos are of her, the set really morphed into looking very much like her.

Just for the fun of it I put up my source drawing that was prolly the biggest inspiration for the set.

Hope you enjoy :)

Poser Tutorial 1 - Poser Controls

2007-03-14T23:17:00.000Z

So.. I thought it'd be nice to post a poser tutorial to make poses and animations for use in SL. It takes talent and hard work, but understanding the tools will help any budding animator greatly. Or so I'd like to think :)

Ok. First pic is my poser set up. I go with the minimal amount of things on the screen. This will help you get an idea of where things are with the closer shots of each part.

Camera Controls:

Now, poser is used for a lot of different types of things. More specifically to render out animated scenes. For the use of SL though, the camera controls are really annoying. If you move the camera, then playing an animation looks really wonky. You want to see what it will look like in SL right? So, I suggest locking the camera.

See the red key icon? When you start a new project this will be grey. To lock the camera, click on the key and it'll turn red.

Document Tools:

Located on top of your work space is the document tools. The work space is the grey square in the middle with the figure inside :) The circle is to pan (rotate), the arrows are to zoom in and out and side to side, and the hand is to move the workspace up and down. So, with my pose if I wanted to look how the arms are doing, I hold left click on the circle and move the mouse til I can see what I want.

Keyframe:
On the bottom right corner is the keyframe controls. The arrows are to jump to the next keyframe, the key is for the keyframe editor, + to add a key frame and - to delete a keyframe.

On an important note, the arrows jump to the next keyframe, not frame. Use your arrows on the keyboard to go to the next frame.

Parameter Dials:On the right middle side of your screen you have the paramater dials. Some people when animation click and drag the sections of the body. I suggest you do not do that. Why? Because things just got wrong. Instead you click on the individual body parts and rotate them using the dials. You can also click on the number value and type it in. This is helpful for if I say wanted to make the shoulder twist -17 degrees instead of -18.

Drop down menus:Here is the file drop down menu. We have the typical new, open, save, ect. Revert is really cool because if you fuck things up as much as I do you can revert to the last saved version.

This really helps when working on arms - the most difficult things to work on. A lot of time I upload see the arms look twisted or broken, go fix them, reupload but its not fixed - its worse. So I revert and try again.

Also important is export. To bring in animations into SL you need them as a BVH file. More info on this later.

Here is the edit drop down menu. Along with the usual stuff you have a restore option. This is really nice because the first frame always needs to be the poser default. SL reads animations by how many degrees the different parts move from the default. Problems can happen many times where you accidently work on frame 1 (whoops) or Poser has been known to change it for some unknown reason. Restore makes it a fast and easy fix for those accidents.

Restoring the camera also helps when you've panned oddly and can't get back to the origional view, or when you forget to lock your camera.

Then you have memorize which has the same options of element, figure, camera, and lights. Honestly I've never used them, but I'm going to guess they come in handy :P

Next up is the figure drop down menu. When you start a new project Inverse Kinematics (IK) is turned on for the legs. What this means is that if you move the hips, the feet stay in place. Now, this is good for small edits but Poser isnt very smart. The legs will move accordingly but more often then not in a way that looks very very painful. IK can also really mess up an animation if its kept on while playing or exporting. When I work, I keep IK off unless I'm doing tweaks to the hips like a small tilt then turn it off directly after.

Also whats really cool here is the drop to floor. A fast and easy way to well.. drop to the floor. This will make the lowest body part be flush to the floor, so its helpful with standing ones also.

Next up technially is object, but I dont use it. You can place objects about your scene and I've heard that it's helpful with things in SL, but I just don't use it. So.. we'll skip to display.

Here you can change your camera views. Want to see your figure from above? Or really just about every normal angle is in there.

Most important for me in this menu is the guides. See the dotted lines around the hips and shoulders? Thats the guide for hip-shoulder relationship. This really helps a lot when you make things with a lot of tilts like I do. Uneven hips is good, but looking like you are about to fall over is not always what you want to do.

Last thing I'll talk about here is the window menu. This allows you to choose which parts you have open while you are working. As you can see I only use what I need.

This also where you find the walk designer - otherwise known as a big pain in my ass. It works... sort of. But when applying it to a SL avie things go really weird and I end up having to edit it so much I just want to pull my hair out.

Also we have the libraries option which opens a menu to change the type of figure or movement you have saved there. Depends on what you are doing tho. More on that one later :)

a number of things

2007-03-13T20:15:00.000Z

Dig it, kats and kittens: New store preview, name contest, and Hunter.

Well.. my new shop is nearing completion. As the build is concerned at least :) Many of you might have been camming around while on the old Lalique square and might have seen some of it.

It's been a very slow process in trying to find a way to incorporate deco and photography while being organized, prim concious, and using as few textures as possible. The shop itself is in sepia whith reddish browns and greys. The only colour in the shop will be the actual items for sale. Each different section will also have sepia photos in the windows of the products inside. Where I'm standing is the piazzo in the middle which will be for my deco outdoor furniture.

While this is very close to finished, I still have a lot more to do. It looks like a big mess because of the way I build. I know where I want things to go so I lay out prims and then come back later and do the details. Especially last night/early this morning when I decided to put in a round a bout down the road from what I've already built so far.

And even then I do a bit here and a bit there and finally maybe I'll finish. I really have to go where inspiration takes me.

I will also have a new pose set coming out this week. In a couple of days I'll try to post a preview :)

Name Contest Completed:

I know its been a while since the contest finished. I was hoping to have the new store open before I announced, but its been over a month already (ages in SL time) so, I guess I'll just do it now. The name change will not be in effect until Lalique fully opens.

Congrats to Nepenthe Sieyes for being the first person to tell me "Reel Expression." Well, technically she said expressions, but I dropped the "S" cause I think it sounds better. I will be sending her L$5000 after I post this.

As an extra thank you, I'm going to send Ayla Calhoun L$1000 because she was the first to make me think up Reel Expression while she was asking questions about the direction of the store ect. While she didn't technically "win" the idea was in my mind when Nepenthe sent me her list of ideas and caught my attention.

Thank you so much for all the entries everyone! It made the decision very difficult but I think I found something that works a lot better.

Random blog issues:
Some like it when we talk about our RL in our SL blogs, while others don't. I've read a few complaints on other blogs about this sort of thing. For me personally, there isn't much of a difference between my RL and my SL. Who I am as a person is the same as what I project in SL. I have some of my same tats on my avie, Elika recently made a hair style from the picture I take in to get mine cut in RL, and my quarks, opinions and style are just who I am. The only thing that might be slightly different is I am a lot more angsty and sometimes even rudely opinionated to my close friends in SL and to anyone who will listen in RL. In SL, I do try and censor my words at least a bit in order not to sound like a cunt.

This blog for me is sort of a window into what makes me tick. Who I am is very much apart of the work I create. Some may find it interesting while others wont. But its my blog and I'm going to write whatever the fuck I want. Read it, dont read it... its up to you.

Hunter

The past few weeks have been a bit of a nightmare. In my last post I told you all that hubbie and I were going to a shelter to get a kitten. We had waited weeks until a day we both had a full day to go plus some more time to ease the little one into our busy and hectic life.

We went to the largest shelter in London called Battersea. Big fucking mistake if you ask me. 5 min into the interview she got to the part about not letting them outside. She then went on a diatribe for over 10 min about how bad of pet owners we are and "you Americans, what do you call them? Housecats..." Telling us they'd rather give a kitten to someone who'll let them out to get run over by a car. I'm sorry but I completly disagree. Most shelters in the US and Canada disagree. But that's part of her problem.

Yes a kitten couped up alone in a house all day and owner who are too busy to play with them is pretty evil. But I'm home all day now and Chuck gets at least 4 15min each play times. Which according to most vets is all they need. We played chase the mouse, hide and seek, I have a hand puppet for wrestling with him, we have a zillon catnip mice, a squeeking mouse, balls, mice on strings, shoelaces on doorknobs he loves, and his nightly wander outside on his harness and leash.

Its not like I'm a hipocrate and think everyone who lets their cats roam are evil either. Its entirely down to the situation. Cities like London are a bad place for outdoor cats. Drivers are horrible to the point of running people down, let alone animals. We have foxes that roam the streets at night. We have yobs who are so bored that they torture cats. Live in the burbs and want to let your cat run free? Fine by me. Yes they may get diseases from other cats, poisioned by idiots who leave antifreeze laying about or fertalizing their yard, and death by eating poisioned mice but its a lot safer then London. Its your choice what you do to protect the living beings who rely on you for protection, just like it is mine.

I just really hate holier than thou people who treat me like a moron who never really thinks about the implications of their actions. That's what she did. I was in so much shock that I actually couldn't rebute her attacks and I've been kicking myself since for not calling her the cunt that she is.

I was going to write this after it happened, but decided to wait until the story had a happy ending. So, the next day I sent out emails to all the local shelters plainly stating the situation. Work from home, 11m neutered male kitten, looking for a playmate for him and intend for the additional kitten to be indoors also. The day after I got a phone call from the RSPCA (royal society for the protection from cruelty of animals or something like that). She told me they have a 12-14 week kitten who had been abandoned in a van by Irish gypsies - I shit you not.

In an attempt to make a long story short, she arrived last Wed. She is tiny, sweet, friendly and very playful. At first she was scared of my tubby and curious Chuck. Then she started standing her ground. Now they run about the flat chasing eachother, too busy to care what us people are doing. It's sad that Chuck isn't attention seeking as much as he used to, but I know things will calm down eventually. Not to mention he's a lot happier now.

Anyways.. sorry so long. I do have a tendancy to ramble.
-Luth

30 min to kill, how fast can I type?

2007-02-28T02:47:00.000Z

Dig it, kats and kittens: SLCC 07, review copies, films, books, and new kittens.

SLCC 07
So, today I was listening to second cast while building. I actually don't keep too up on things happening around the grid because of the sheer lack of time. Oddly enough, I'm even in the SLCC 07 annoucement group and I still didn't know when it was. Or where it was. Chicago: Aug 24-26th. Even more odd is that I'll be passing through Chicago on my way to visiting family around that time. Shall I make a quick trip to Chicago? I haven't yet made up my mind. Did talk to Moo Money about a panel for animations for machinma. That might be interesting.

Review Copies:
Over the past few months, there has been a lot of talk about review copies. As you may already know I'm pretty free on splashing my opinion around so you might already know my stance. Being blogged is about the best damn advertising one can get in SL. If you don't offer review copies, then what you are asking for is someone to pay you to advertise your shop. That seems odd to me.

Then you have the debate on should they ask for copies or should you send out unsolicited copies? Honestly? I send them out. I know they don't feel overwhelming pressure, cause they don't always blog me. I send out the swag and hope someone likes it enough to write about it. No harm, no foul in my book.

To new designers: the blogs really are your ticket in to the crazy ride of SL buisiness. Fact: I've been creating since '04. Even had a few top name customers. I advertised in all different places trying to find the best place. But the day Willow first blogged me, my sales jumped by 4x and have stayed pretty steady. And since that day, I've had countless IMs from people who told me how shocked they were to have never found me before. I'm not saying suck up and be their best friend, but treat them as professionals.

Films:
I spent Friday night curled up on the couch watching movies. Yeah I'm boring. Whatever. I wasn't in the mood for anything heavy so I put in the rented dvd of Stay. Let me just say, bad idea. They called it a thriller. That movie was just rubbish. No redeeming quality what so ever. The yummy Ewan was dull and flat. He play a shrink and anyone who's ever been to one or watched enough Law and Order knows that's not how they act. The story was odd but not at all interesting. The supposed big pay off ending never did explain the oddities. I have no idea why that film was even made.

To get the nasty taste out of my mouth, I put in another rental: Proof. Now this was good. I was captivated by this film. Usually, I don't like flashback - this had a lot of them - but I actually thought it worked. I also didn't notice any of the filmic stuff because I was so wrapped up in the story. Very good sign for me. Now honestly there aren't many films I don't like with the always delicious Jake Gyllenhaal. Although, Bubble Boy and Brokeback Mountain are not something I'd ever watch again.

In the end, this film is all about Gwyneth Paltrow. 80% of the film is with her in it and fucking hell if she doesn't bring a highly emotional, nuanced, and so finely-tuned performance. This film is about the blurred line between maddness and genius. About how often they overlap. That idea is a reoccuring theme in my world. I remember fondly sitting in a diner listening to a dear friend of mine's diatribe on this very subject. Hauntingly it was also the reason for his suicide almost 7 years ago. Remember kids, mixing meds and booze is never a good thing.

Anyways, the pacing for this film was spot on. There never was a moment that I'd wish the scenes or shots would slow down or speed up. I only hoped that it would never end.

Books:
Currently working on the last book of the L.A Quartet by Jame Ellory. I loved LA confidential and my hubbie got me the Black Dahlia for christmas. I'm a bit occ with books and having a tough go at reading them out of order. He was told you can so he for some reason got our favourite indie book store to get White Jazz in before book 2 and 3. We have overflowing bookshelves but nothing else to read so I'm reading it anyways. Oh wells.

New Kittens:
A couple of weeks ago we decided to get a playmate for our pudgy Chuck. Hubbie's been busy with work, rehearsals, and poker weekends so we haven't had a chance until this week. Tomorrow we are going to pick up the extra stuff we need down at the pet store and thur will be spent at the shelter hopefully picking up our new kitten Hunter (for Hunter S Thompson). Hey at least it's not Frank - everything else in the house is. We have a stuffed monkey (!) and 4 plants named Frank - or Bernard. Yes Mr B is odder then me, who knew?

Remember hepkats, you heard it here first off the record, on the QT and very hush-hush.

Innocence Pose Set

2007-02-27T03:35:00.000Z

It's finally done. We've had strong, we've had sexy, now I bring you innocence.

As usual, you can buy as a set or individual.

Enjoy
Luth

Copying vs. Interpretation

2007-02-25T09:02:00.000Z

Conflicting things have happened lately that have made me question the ethics of the SL community. The entire IP battle has been fought at least since you could exchange you hard earned L$. The problem I have is where the line is?

It seems to me that everyone has their own opinions on the rights and wrongs of source material. I remember quite a while ago when a resident posted proof on the forums that a well known designer was copying designs from a clothing website. Some people were outraged, while others defended it. Now, I understand this is pretty common in SL. A designer finds an outfit they like and they takes bits from it, use as inspiration, draw it by hand, or even just photo source it.

One of the explanations for this is that changing it into working with the SL mesh is enough. Fair use is brought in to play as you can use anything as source as long as you change it enough. But what really is enough? The sidewalk purse vendors change the labels of Louis Vuitton, Prada, Kate Spade, Coach, Burberry, Gucci and Fendi, is that enough? Can a person who copies RL designs still be considered a designer?

There was also a while there when designers were calling other designers out on copying them. Most instances of this seemed to be shrugged off with responses of “probably used the same source photo,” “changed enough,” and even “the copy is higher quality.” Most of the original posters were tar, feathered, and run off. Granted this could very well be the explanation, but we never really do know as it tended to be decided on by who had the most vocal friends.

Then we have the photo sourcing debate. Some say it is ok, others don’t. Then there are those of us in the middle that believes taking bits like I dunno, buttons or something is ok. Again, it seems to be this grey area that no one can agree on.

Next up is downloaded material. Things like textures – not really called upon but happen all the time. 3d clothing sets found on sites like renderocity. And then there are BVH animation files that have saturated SL like a bloody plague. This all seems to be a non issue for some reason. I’ve seen more then enough animators commended while doing this, it really makes me ill. At least for the animation debate (the two posts) seemed to take the side of “if you change it enough.” There is that word again – enough. But no one can give an answer for what constitutes enough. There is also the idea that a lot of them are “for commercial use,” but I’m sure that the intended use was to be within a project and not the file sold almost as is.

So this weekend, Second Style posted this post commending the “fabulous” Paper Couture and their “interpretation” of a gown directly off the runway. Even applauding for how close it matches. This was actually the first time I’d ever seen something like this before and I actually fell out of my chair. Well, not really because of how odd the community is, but it gives you an interesting visual. Now, I have some pretty strong ethics when it comes to copyright – being in the media industry and all – and I know, not everyone shares my views. But I always thought this to be a not really talked about aspect of content creation. How is this changed enough?

Next up we have a report of Last Call being GLintercepted. Yes it’s a verb I made up. Sadly, not as interesting as googled… Whatever, it’s early. I think most of the community is pretty much on par saying that is stealing, unless of course you use it for personal use (debate). Again, my ethics is pretty high up there and say that’s pretty wrong, but the personal use is a bit touchy. I’d never do it, bloody hell I don’t even edit anything I have that has mod rights (unless of course its ugly flares or something) not because of some ethical reason, but because I just can’t be bothered. But we all know I’m some sort of odd ball so it’s ok.

What I don’t understand is how one is right and the other is not.

Now to the more personal issues. No, not those kind. The more people who buy my poses, it seems the more who copy me. Granted its not many, and I’m not going to scream it from my blog pedestal, but it still frustrates me to a point. Even though the annoying shits at libsl say animations can be “stolen” I have yet to see it. What I’m talking about are poses that look a bit too much like mine. In some, minor differences and others not so minor. So, all in all a very grey area but can still get to me. The first time, as you might have read before, really pissed me off. The second and third, I just shrugged it off because the technical ability was extremely lacking. This last one, for some reason, had really bothered me. Maybe I’m just missing my center, my husband who’s away for a poker weekend.

So, from what I gather from the community is the following:

· Copy RL designs

o Get commended

· Copy from SL designers (not GLintercept)

o Can go either way depending on who has more or more “important” friends.

· Copy from SL designers

o Have tps blocked because your “store” is filled with protesters.

· Selling downloaded files

o See no evil, hear no evil. (I’m watching you though)

As LL has taken the stance of not doing much about anything, we the community have to figure out the rules, stick by them, and call people on them. The only problem is none of us seem to agree on anything unless it is skirting the permissions system and stealing from another designer.

See, I’m not trying to take some moral high ground. The problem isn’t that I see stealing as wrong. The part I find wrong, is taking credit for something you didn’t do. If you make poses using someone else’s style and call it your own, you are cheating yourself and your customers. If you are commended for your designing abilities, then you should have designed it, not copied someone else. If you are praised for smooth animations, it should be because you created them not downloaded a motion capture file.

It aint fair... then again fair is a place where pigs get ribbons.

Influential Films

2007-02-23T20:57:00.000Z

I just wrote a lengthy email to someone that runs a very independant very low buget film company.

In all seriousness I've just about had it with the industry here. It's been an extremly rough go since I've been in this country. As my agent tells me: they will hire a brit with less experience, skill and talent before hiring a foreigner.

Up until now, my profits in SL were to make up for when I couldn't get work. Now, it's looking more and more like SL is my primary and I edit when and if I feel like it. My dream had always been to do indie films because they are more real and aren't so dumbed down for the mass market. So, maybe this will work out of the best.

In my email, I asked what I always do before working with someone. List your top influential films. Not to be confused with favourite, influential in terms of film making, or any other film snob crap. What films make you love the harsh, overly critical and annoying biz?

I’ll start just for shits and giggles. (Plus putting off working at least a bit longer)

1. October Sky

Reason: Yes girly coming of age film. I saw it at the time when I was working 3 jobs to pay for my first year of film school. Its about a kid who surpasses all the negative reactions of everyone in order to follow his dreams. Cheesy I know, but ‘eh it pushed me through working at a crappy video store in middle America.

2. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Reason: Other then Charlie Kauffman being the god of screenwriting? I loved the point of the story. I loved the way it was told. I loved how it took two actors I hate and made them into realistic characters. I saw myself and different parts of previous relationships and was able to connect to it in a way that I rarely do. A film is a story told in the dark… anything that makes my analytical mind suspend disbelief is a good thing.

3. Duets

Reason: If you haven’t seen it, then you’ll never see that this poorly marketed film has some of the best scenes in one movie. In one of my screenwriting classes we had to go to the video store and pick something we would NEVER see. I chose this silly little no name film about karaoke. But Paul Giamatti’s character’s realization on American culture was thrilling to say the least.

4. The Limey

Reason: Ok I know I said keep the film snob crap out, but I just have to say it. I love the use of editing in this film. It makes me happy, at least for a short while, to be an editor.

5. Joise and the Pussycats

Reason: Don’t laugh yet. I’ll pretty much try any film. I especially love it when I put it in the dvd player thinking its going to be shit and it turns out great. This film is the definition of bad marketing. You’d think its some lame teeny bopper film, but it’s oh so not. I knew there was a reason why the indie diva Parker Posey is in it. Nothing like a bit of silly fun with mass marketing, evil corporations, mtv as the devil, and Seth Green in a boy band singing a song called “back door lover.”

6. Cinema Paradiso

Reason: It’s all about the love of film. What more could you ask for?

7. CQ

Reason: Finally a movie about an editor. Yay! Roman Coppolla, editing, and bad sci fi movies. Fun fun fun.

8. The Apartment

Reason: Billy Wilder.. Jack Lemon.. corporate snobs.. adultery in films(!)… suicide.. well written, well acted, and very cutting edge topics in its day.

9. Garden State

Reason: I like this film. I like Zach Braff as a writer and director. If you asked me who I’d want to work with, he’s who I say first. There is just something real in this film that you don’t see very often. It’s just certain scenes that leave their mark on you.

10. Almost Famous

Reason: Speaking of scenes that leave a mark on you… who does that better then Cameron Crowe? He started with the scene in Say Anything with John Cusack holding up the boom box in the rain. Then gave us Almost Famous with the awkward moment between Hoffman and Fugit, the almost cry of Husdon, the rooftop “I am a golden god” and of course the entire bus singing Tiny Dancer.

muse?

2007-02-21T06:24:00.000Z

It's tue. I'm uninspired. My fingers and wrist have started to hurt from the repetitive crafting in vanguard.

So, today I was on my hunt for inspiration. Usually it starts by looking at the photos I already have - as of right now that is 658 files. If that doesn't spark me, I'll start arranging them into folders for different sets. And if I'm still blocked, I'll go roaming around the net.

When I first started my muse was lithuim picnic. I do still have a lot from there that I'm still going to use, but it's never really what I was looking for. Then I moved on to fashion mags and victoria secret. Saddly, they didn't seem to have the essence that I was looking for.

Then, I switched gears completly. Who are the most photographed people in the world? Who of those are able to convey emotion in body language? Actors. Its the nature of acting. One thing you learn in film school is that 90% of what goes on emotionally in the film isn't in the dialogue. I <3 subtext. I've been trained to see it. Trained to know how to use it and push it so enough people get it.

For those of you that are unclear, subtext is what is not said, but is understood by the viewer. It can be thoughts, motives, or implications to controversal subjects (usually found in old films). For actors, this is usually done by what is not said (left out) and by body language. What makes an actor great? The ones who make you suspend disbelief so you see them as the character and not as an actor on screen.

A film that has little to no subtext doesn't feel right because its not believable. Subtext occurs everyday in the real word. One fun thing to do in my warped reality is people watching and reading the body language more then listening to what they are saying.

With fashion mags, most of the time the body language just says "sexy" or "cool." There isn't a lot of room for what I'm looking for. I want every single emotion there is with many different ways to show it.

During these searches I'm looking for my muse. I save a lot of photos thinking to myself: I want to make that. But for me, creating is such an organic process that I have to find that one picture that makes me say: I need to make that. Such as what happened with this photo of Sarah Jessica Parker. And a lot more often then not it's already sitting in my folders somewhere.

What I generally do next is find more that fit with a general theme, usually far more then what I make. Then, I exit out of SL and soley work in poser to get a rough estimate of each pose, typically on Wed.

This idea that I use photos as sources might bother some people. Very little art actually comes completly from the creators imagination. Sometimes it'll be bits from different places, others will use found objects as the base and work from it. Personally I do a lot of many different things. For instance, the photo is 2d and I'm working in a 3d space. More often then not, I have to pose infront of the mirror to see what bits are rotated and how. Luckily I have a full length mirror in the den :) Sometimes, I'll come up with ways to improve it and more often then not I'll come up with completly different pose.

Now, depending on my schedule I'll end up with about12- 14 different poses to upload and check in SL. Some of my own and some from photos. Then comes the editing process. I'm picky about this one. The range of motion for the SL avatar is a LOT smaller then our RL bodies. Twist the torso too much and you get tears in the skin. The arms are a peticular bad issue with breaks. I'm getting better with my rough drafts, but I still need to tweak something.

Saddly this process can last for a long time. When I was putting out a pack a week, I was working 16 hour days every day. Since I've been also working on builds so working on poses only a few hours per day and doing the 16 hour intense for 2-3 days.

So, there you have it..

Sex Sells

2007-02-11T05:40:00.000Z

New pose set is out.

Tease him. Take him. Own him. Confidently sensual, it's haughty and naughty.

SLivers of Joy

2007-02-10T18:30:00.001Z

So much of my time in SL has a "serious" element to it. Friends complain to one another about their boyfriends, jobs, and woes. Some are working to sustain their in-world businesses and need time to work, or feedback on a prototype gown or ceiling. We discuss the deleterious effects of the rise of evil companies like Electric Sheep and their ongoing efforts to turn our beloved world into Wal-Mart.

It's odd, because the perception of most people who don't spend time in MMOs is that we're just addicted to playing pointless games. We try to help them understand the value of spending time in MMOs, by describing the real friendships that develop, the opportunities for personal experimentation and expression, and the serious uses of these technologies by corporations, educators, and the military. They remain skeptical. But what's really funny is actually just how much time we aren't playing at all. We're scripting and modeling, cooperating on a project, launching a business, or just sitting and chatting.

Last night in Second Life, I played. It was pure silly cathartic play. It served no purpose other than the jouisssance of the moment. It was that surprisingly uncommon SLiver of joy, razor-thin lunar happiness against a beautiful and mysterious, but altogether dark, sky.

Three of us, Luthie, Ceres, and myself put on our bathing suits (and in one extreme case, snake outfit), whipped out diving boards and twisty waterslides, cartoon character inner tubes, swimming anims, and just played in the water for an hour. It was a lot like the experience of a child hanging out in a real pool with family on a hot summer day. What a delight! Here are some pics:

American Food

2007-02-06T06:23:00.000Z

If you've read enough of this blog, you'll know that I'm an american expat. My sister-in-law (brother's wife) is preggies again. We had planned on going back to the states twice this year to see everyone because we weren't able to last year. The plan was March and then x-mas, trying to space that looonnnngggg 12h plane flight out. But she's due in May and hubbie's on tour with his band in March, so we got the tickets for August.

Now there is a very long list of things that I do miss from across the pond. Things like tumble dryers in most homes. After being here for over 2 years I still feel uncomfortable having my knickers on the laundry rack when his friend's stop by.

American TV. Don't get me wrong there are some quality shows here. But, every year it seems like you guys get more and more really well done ones. Like Heroes. Studio 60. Lost. My Name is Earl. Boston Legal. Battlestar Galatica. Law and Order. But more important then that, is I don't even know what's on here. We don't have set seasons, it just sort of starts and you better be lucky to have found out about it. It's down right confusing. Not even the biggest channel for my generation actually gives you info from the website on things starting before like a month. (I do <3 More4 tho).

I miss people understanding me when I speak. Oddly enough we do speak the same language. Sort of. For instance, when I called to set up my dsl I wanted to find a place that would allow a router. Here, they try and pawn off usb modems as "fast" hah. I called 3 different places who didn't know what I was talking about, until finally at the fourth they guy went: "ohh you mean rooter." This was after I described it as that box that connects to the phone line and then to your computer via ethernet. Now, I'm clearly an American. There are some words I do have a more english accent on, but those are rare. Kitten is probably my most used as in KIT-in. Then I do go back and forth with Pecan - PEcin and pecAAN.

Granted, it's not as bad as when my husband goes to the states. He mumbles more then anyone I've ever met. But still is annoying.

Then there is the extreme lack of customer service here. Now, if I called the us postal service and told them my neighbour was stealing my mail, they'd do something about it. Here, I called the royal mail and was told they don't care and to stop calling.

But then there is the food.

I want ranch dressing to dip carrots or potato chips in. I want french dressing that doesnt look and taste like italian. I want mexican food. I want cambells chicken noodle soup. I want sweet pickels that taste good, not the rubbish that is here. How about sweet relish on burgers? I want strawberries and cream instant oatmeal. I want mac n cheese for lunch. MMM poptarts. I want chinese food like from SF not the weird orange colour that sweet and sour chicken looks like here. Why has no one here heard of crab rangoon? I want A&W cream soda. I miss triscuits and cheese. I don't want to wait for mom's shipment before I can have David's sunfower seeds.

We eat a lot of fresh food here, so thats good. But sometimes I'd like the choice to cook out of a box. Like hamburger helper cheesy hashbrowns (that got me through college). I'm not certain if thats the "normal" way as hubbie won't allow me to go to the grocery store with him. When I do, we always end up with silly things like cream cakes.

Ok, thats one good thing here cream cakes! He actually has a song called "Cream cake power struggle." And Indian food. Mmm sunday roasts are my favourite weekend thing, especially in the summer. The pub down the road is actually on the park and serves this nice strawberry beer that is perfect on a warm afternoon. Actually all beer here is better. And of course national insurance, madatory 21 day paid vacation (even for freelancers woot), and most important of all £128 weekend trips to Rome. And then the brillance of walking down the road and seeing a part of the Roman wall still standing, at least in that one little chunk.

So.. I had meant to just talk about the food I missed, especially more so after buying the plane tickets. When we get there I want to go to Runza (fast food that's not fast food) and then go to a mexican resturant and have a burrito and a marghrita. And then, I'm going to sip bad american beer by the pool for a bit over 2 weeks and gouge myself on steaks my step-dad grills and fresh corn from the farmer's stand down the street.

In the meantime, I found a website that I can order certain important things like catalina dressing, sweet gherkins, and most important of all: pancake mix.

Fashion? Bleh!

2007-02-05T05:55:00.000Z

I try to stay out of the scene. The blog scene, the kissing ass to certain people, the making friends with other certain people scene. I pretty much stick to myself and talk to a very small number of people. There are actually only a limited few that I talk to on a regular basis. I attempt to be nice and respectful to everyone, noobie or oldbie, creator or buyer, whatever. Sometimes I may come off as a bit brash but thats because I don't care for the fine art of small talk. I speak when I have something to say.

I've gone to releases, openings, parties and things as little as possible. I enjoy recieving the invite but generally opt out of going. When I do, I tend to sit in a corner in IMs or tabbed out in poser.

But anyways, thats not the reason for this post. While I am generally unsocial, I really try to stay as far away from the cliques and groups as humanly possible. As a creator one of the things that really piss me off is how high fashion is placed above all other content. I have spent the past 2 1/2 years trying to push the fact that poses are important also in creating a personal look.

Before, the thing that irked me was review blogs. Until recently, reviewers only blogged animators who were also fashion designers. Torrid, Sensual, ect. Now, while it was great that poses were at least getting some coverage, there were others of us out there that have an eye, talent, skill, but severe lack drawing ability. Why is it important for me, as a business owner, to be reviewed? Because where is the one place all designers are captivly watching? The fashion blogs.

Now as most of my work is poses, my main customers are fashion designers. They need us just as much as we need them. For desginers, the presentation of their boxes is a lot more important then you'd think. With poses, they can enhance the feel of the ad. The avie giving off some kind of emotion that works well with the outfit is going to sell a lot more clothes then a default stance. We all know this. So why am I still feeling like I'm scrapping the bottom of the barrell?

I will flat out tell you that I do not think designing clothes are easy. I tried it once years ago and it was pretty bad. Remember, I can not draw myself out of a box. It takes time, talent and skill. But making poses? Pfft. Thats easy. Bull shit. Anyone who says that should be... I dunno... made to try it themselves. Yeah its really bloody easy to make rubbish poses. Just like it's easy to rez a box and call it a house. But doing something with style and as few breaks in the avie skin is an artform. Think of it as sculpture. Anyone can make a figure out of play-doh but giving that figure expression, movement and life is an entire different thing.

I had started to think that all this was in the past. I've been reviewed multiple times along with other pure animators. I was starting to get a bit of respect for the hard work that I do. So, yesterday I read this on second style. A new group, fashion consolidated, for all designers welcome to send out a notice about updates. Sounds like a fab idea. I join it thinking what a good way to give the designers updates about my releases. Then, I found out that you had to recieve permission to be a "vendor" to send notices. Oh no I think to myself. Is this person going to be another fashion > animations? Or are they going to see the part I play in the grand scheme of the SL fashion industry?

Fancy to guess?

No. And I quote: "for clothes/skin/hair... things that make up personal appearance." Ok. But isn't an animation override part of an avatar's personal appearance? This stumped her. She then gave me a line about having to reduce "spam" (her word not mine) in notices. Ok. So anyone who makes clothes, good or bad, can advertise their stuffs but not someone who helps those designers sell their stuffs. OK... Then another line about allowing me in would make others left out. OK...

It ended with her needing to ask the sister group of fashion emergency. I had this entire few paragraphs how I was annoyed and rather pissy towards her. It was 4am and I was certainly craky. This sort of thing wasn't something I like coming back to after a week off of SL. It really makes me want another break. Bleh.

(Next day)
So today, I'm alone on cappiello doing some terriforming and she tells me I'm in.

chuck

2007-01-31T04:54:00.000Z

Not only was I able to recover the 10.7 gig folder for all my SL stuff, I was able to get all the chuck pictures I'd taken off my camera since we built the new system.

Here he is in his chair that sits next to me in the den.

Luth on films, data recovery and other random junk

2007-01-31T03:35:00.000Z

Films
You know whats really sad? The dvd capote has been sitting on the coffee table for weeks now. It's still sealed. Yes, we buy dvds which we haven't even seen yet. It could be shit. But for some reason I get a feeling that its not. We do rent a lot. You know, those online dvd rental places that post them to you. And we get a lot in, right now its been a steady stream of 24 season 4 I believe we are on. But the odd thing is is that I haven't seen anything noteworthy in a while.

The last one I can remember is Good Night, and Good Luck (2005). We didn't actually see it until late last year only because our rental service, Love Film, is really shit at sending things from the top of our 300+ film rental list.

While George Clooney might not pick from the best films ever, everything he's directed has been amazing so far. Confessions of a Dangerous Mind is one of my all time favourites. I mean what can really go wrong when it's Charlie Kauffman writing the screenplay? But with Good Night, and Good Luck we don't have the luxary of Kauffman's extremly brilliance. After watching it, I really didn't care. It was fucking brilliant. I'd elebroate more, but it's 4am and I don't remember a lot of filmic details. Needless to say, it was one of the few films I was caught up in the story.

One really bad film of note was the Libertine. I'm not even going to link it because that would be more effort then I want to deal with. Now, Johnny Depp is one of the few "heart throbs" that doesn't make me sick. Actually, just the opposite. :P But the Libertine was absolute shit. I like period dramas generally, even rubbish ones. I admit I like that sort of thing if I'm in the mood. Fuck, Stage Beauty is an amazing film. But the Libertine is just.. bad. It's foul. Everyone is just foul. I liked that sort of thing in Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, but this was a level of foul that didn't seem to belong. It didn't fit with the era. Yeah the RL person was rather foul, but I'm pretty sure that many people weren't that foul in public all the bloody time.

The cinematography was absolute shit. I have no idea what they were attempting to do with it, but it sure didn't work. The lighting was even worse. And the sound.. fucking hell. The mix was absolute shit. Extremly loud music and then could barely hear the talking. We only watched the first I don't know 30 or 40min before turning it off and putting in another 24 dvd. Why? Because we had no idea what the fuck was going on. Now, sometimes that sort of idea works. Like with Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind, starts a bit confusing then sorts itself out. In this sense it works with the story. But a period drama about a real life figure, well.. I don't see the point in the confusion. So, I blame the editor. I like to blame the editors a lot even if we have NO control over anything. But then again the editor was Jill Bilcock (I'd change that too if it was me) did Moulin Rouge, Romeo and Juliet, Strickly Ballroom, Road to Perdition and Elizabeth. So, she's not shit. So, really I don't know why it was as bad as it was.

But on a better note, the bonus of looking up all that, I see that Baz Luhrmann is making a new film!!! Yay! I love the the red curtain trilogy! For those of you who aren't fans, its Strickly Ballroom, Romeo and Juliet and Moulin Rouge.

Appologies that the above isn't very critical other then saying it was shit or not heh. But like I said, it's well past 4am now.

Data Recovery
I finally found a program that has been able to scan my old hard drive. Yay!! It's coping the huge folder that is for SL right now. Which is why I'm writing this and not asleep (laugh) or in Vanguard. It's at 98% and I can see the pictures themselves are all there so I can rest easily.

Other random junk
I'm sitting on the lounge typing this on the laptop and the cutest kitten ever is sleeping soundly on the other. Earlier while I was writing an email to alle he had gotton his collar once again stuck in his mouth. He freaked out for a while until the safty clasp unsnapped it. Oddly enough he put it on the floor and sat there looking at me with a pleased look on his face. Sort of like "look what I did." It scares me when he's doing that because it looks rather painful while he's freaking out and the collar propping his jaw open but when he gets done he has no issue with me putting it back on and tightening it so he cant do it again at least for a while. He really is an odd one.

With the entire computer malfunction issue only one good thing has come from it. While patching Vangaurd (24 hours or so it took) I was able to finally install and play Oblivion. I don't play a lot of offline games but the morrowind series was really enjoyable when I had a lot more time then I do now. But I got it for x-mas and haven't been able to try it out. Hell a lot of my x-mas pressies I haven't been able to try out. Hrm.. I should really crack out that fondue set that my husband gave me. mmm beer cheese n bread.

Files are copied! Woot.
Cheers
Luth

GRR

2007-01-28T21:54:00.000Z

I woke up today with the idea that all I will be doing is kicking back in vanguard. Saddly that was not the case.

I could go into an entire story of what happened, but I wont. My hard drive crashed and burned. Everything is gone. At least everything since I built the new system in last summer. Why haven't I backed it up? The backup external hard drive crashed a few months ago after my husband picked up the lappy of the desk with it still attached. I hadn't delt with western digital about getting a replacement yet.

All my animation files I've been working on, gone. All my photo source of ideas, gone. All of my completed ads, gone. All my transaction records, gone.

I got a new hard drive, installed windows and things, put the old one in to see if I could recover anything. Nope. I've tried 4 different recovery programs and still nothing. I have one more to try, then I'm sending it to a data recovery place.

Well, I guess it could be worse if I wouldnt have been able to buy a new hard drive. But Chuck is going to have to wait another month for his new scratching tree that weighs more then his tubby kitten self.

A few things of note

2007-01-26T16:08:00.000Z

Name contest
Lots of ideas coming my way, thanks so much! Keep them coming :) You all have about 5 days left.

I thought maybe some more assistance from me of what sorts of things I'm looking for might be helpful. So, I guess I'll do some bullet points :P

One problem I have with my current shop name is that it boxes me in on the content. I'm working on branching out just a bit to spice things up. I've already started making some fun deco furniture pieces, couples poses, more cuddles, male poses, and some other bits and pieces that will be released in a big chunk when the full sim opens. A lot of the responses are coming in that pertain mostly to what I already do. While I really enjoy making poses, I'd like to include other stuff as well.

I am a really humble person. Sometimes I might not sound like it when I run my mouth off, but you will never hear from me that I'm the best at anything. Yes, I have opinions but that is something completly different. I work hard at what I do, I enjoy it, and very happy that at least a few people like it. But I don't like sounding full of myself. I thank all the people who have written to me saying I am the best, most naturalistic, ect but including that in an ad and especially in a name is something I can't do. The reel part that I want to keep is because of my facination of all things photographic and film. I'd like to keep that because nothing says me more then that.

A few people have asked me what image I'm trying to project or what is the reason or basis or direction for what I do. That, my friends, is a difficult thing to answer. My recent releases have been based on my photography background. Someone in the animations forum complained that the lack of facial expressions make us unable to show expression. Yes, it'd be much easier if we had complete control, but body language can say just about anything you want it to say. I look at ads in the new products forums all the time and really saw a lack of expression that RL ads do so well.
A number of people have given the name "reel expression" that is the closest so far of what I think I might be attempting to accomplish. It uses the double meaning of reel in a way that doesn't shout I'm the best. Added with the idea that an attempt to give ads something more then just looking at the outfit. And then finally, I am expressing my own style :) That's not to say I've decided on anything. Alle and Ceres both hate that idea. They say it's bleh. So, maybe using that as a getting warmer marker will help you guys to look in the direction I am.

Deco Sims Status:
The shops on Cappiello are almost complete. Yay!

Sometimes I am super quick at building, and other times it can seem to just drag on. With any of my creative work, I have to be in a place that the work flows. Editing film is the easiest for me to get into that special zone, animation next, and building at a dead last. So yeah, it's taking a lot longer than I'd hope.

A week break:
Starting today, I'm taking a week off of SL. I could lie and say I have other work things to do, but it's not true. I need to recharge. And not to mention, the Vanguard 3 day head start begins in about an hour. So, I'll be around in theory but killing things in Vanguard for a week.

Looking toward the future:
When the sim gets closer to completion I will be having a massive sale. Then, in the new store some poses will be deleted and older stuff still in the "new" vendor will be moved to the "older" one. I'm a bit shit at doing that, sorry.

Like I said earlier there will be a LOT of new stuff for the opening. I've already started working on it and it's still going to be a while yet. When it gets closer I'll give you a bit of a taste.

Currently all the other shops have been there rent free. I'll be adding quite a few more and starting to charge rent. This will be more to pay for advertising the sim and teir and not profit. So, it'll be under the current market price. But it will be invite/application only. I know that seems a bit off or that I'm somehow important or something, but I'd rather have empty shops then a bunch of junk that I wouldn't even buy.

It also brings me to the point of having others on the sim. First off, its not a mall. I get really cranky when people call it that. A mall has so many negative connotations in me that I'd really like to think of it as something different. Especially since the idea of it came from walking around shopping areas in London. I know in the states most cities have malls instead of shopping districts, but they do still exist. Anyways, what I am attempting to do with it is to get a bunch of different shops in there that work together. If you like one, you will probably like the rest. A mix of established and new designers.

I know that a lot of places like that seem they are just the friends of the owner and it's not fair. And most likely that's how it is. But on Lalique, it's not true. Only one person thats currently there I had spoken to before they were given a shop, and that was Ceres. I actually don't talk to many people anyways and stay on the fringes of that entire scene. So, if any of you designers out there want a shop in the new build, let me know. If you don't get in it's not just cause I don't like your work, but there are some specific things I'm looking for that I am reserving the right not to explain.

Ok.. I've rambled on enough. See you guys in a week.
Cheers.
Luth

I am woman, hear me...

2007-01-23T02:54:00.000Z

RAWR!!

The new pose set is out :) This set is a bit naughty, a bit confident, a bit bold, and definitely fearless.

Part of the inspiration for this of course the face of all thats women's sufferage rosie the riveter. But the reason why I decided on this before all other 500+ ideas I've got is to give a bit of strength out to someone I hardly know who'd going through a rough time.

The Mannequin In-World Pose Creation Studio

2007-01-21T19:20:00.000Z

I was trolling the new products forums looking for designers to fill up the shops I'll eventually finish when I came to this post. And yeah, for the first min or so I was a bit worried. Then I had to remind myself that the building tools are in the UI, but it doesn't mean everyone is good.

Here's the text of the ad:

Revolutionise your construction by designing custom poses IN-WORLD! No more third party guess-work, upload, annoying misfit, re-upload, ad infinitum. Build furniture, AND the matching pose at the same time, ensuring a perfect fit as you work! Or simply use it as a modelling studio where you have total, joint-by-joint, control over how your models pose!

* In-World Dynamic Posing, allowing unprecedented control over your own body!

* Design for real people, not the Average SL Shape! Big, Small, the Mannequin takes either in to account!

* Save and Export favourite poses and upload them back into SL as full-perms Animation Objects, to give away or sell, as you see fit!

* Give your items the finishing touches they deserve, with custom poses YOU add while you design!

Sounds nifty doesn't it? Actually it is. The one(s) who created it had to have spent a long time on it. It also looks pretty cool.

The way it works:
You sit on it then on one side is a prim statue of an avatar with all the parts seperated. So you click on the prim representing the hips and a dialogue pops up. Do you want to rotate? Move? Ect. Then on the other side is arrows in prims to move the figure up, down, right and left. (See Photo)

Now the problem I have with it is that when you move a body part, its an extreme move. Bend the forearm once and its goes quite a bit. There doesn't seem the ability to fine tune things like avimator, poser, ect. In poser, I can rotate the forearm by .01% if I want. To most that little of change isn't noticable but its the difference between realistic and not.

Now for me personally, its that fine tuning that makes me reupload a lot. I've seen people selling poses worse then my first upload. So, really something like this wouldn't help me due to small amount of choices.

The biggest problem with this is the collar bone/shoulder issue. This is what really aggrivates the animation community. How many times have you seen poses with the shoulders dislocated? Personally I can't count how many times I have. The range of motion is very small and specific in this area. A "simple" arm raised up higher then the shoulder is a process of small tweaks to a number of different parameters. This product doesn't take that into account. One click and I had some very strange things happening with no small movement possiblity to make it look right.

This Picture here shows the range of movement. The top series is the shoulder joint going towards the body. Each picture shows 1 full click. If I wanted a pose where my arm was next to my body, it'd be impossible.

The next series is the full range of motion of the shoulder joint turning away from the body. As you can see there isn't much choice.

When I was playing around with it some noob animators were asking my opinions. Personally, I'd have no use for it. While with the effort and unique idea would certainly be worth L$9000, with avimator for free already I don't see the need.

I admit I'm a bit biased. I hate poser and then SL treating my files like a 2 year old with a cookie, but I'm used to it. I've learned ways around things and been able to create some interesting stuffs. But I'm not sitting here trying to convice other's that they shouldn't animate or not to even try this out. Because I know people will still buy my quarkly poses because of my style, skill and anal rententive attention to detail.

Name Contest

2007-01-20T18:49:00.000Z

Contest
I want to change my store name. It needs to have the word "reel" to start off with. The only thing I have come up with so far is Reel Geek, because it wont get out of my head. Then my wonderful customer service person, Sara, came up with Reel Inc.

I'm asking for help. Please throw me ideas. Either post a comment, send an IM or notecard.

Ends 01 Feb 2007.
L$ 5000 to the person who comes up with it.

Newness

2007-01-20T18:16:00.000Z

So.. I finally decided what the new pose set will be. I am woman... hear me ROAR.

I have all these great ideas but I can't seem to center myself enough to sit down and make them. So, today I did what I usually do and take a shower. For some reason I always get inspiration in the bath or shower. But all I could think about is how the name reel movement sucks as a name.

As I've said before I changed it cause my direction was changing into more movement things... but with all the downloaders, the crap that poser is, and the LONG amount of time it takes I don't want to do that.

So.. here we go. I changed my blog back to the origional name Reel Geek. I've had it since before I started in SL. Im really geeky and I'm a film geek. So, its a play on words I guess.

A new logo!

2007-01-18T23:33:00.000Z

Ceres today was so nice and made me a new logo. Yay!

MMO Devs suck

2007-01-17T19:52:00.000Z

I am really angry right now and if you don't want to read a lot of cursing or just plain ranting then I suggest you skip this post.

So yeah, I like to beta test. I've tested a lot of games over the years and sometimes they get better and other times they do not. Some got boring super fast while others did not. The problem is is that they all have just about the same things and do the same mistakes.

Personally I'm looking for that one great game to play for a while. Had DnL actually worked it might have been it. But, it was a pile of shit. Anyways... I've said in my last post that I've been testing Vanguard since Sept of last year. It's not that great game that I'm looking for, but it's enough to hold me until something better comes out. It's got a cool few things that havent been done or have been done baddly. BUT the devs suck. I mean seriously suck.

Here's the thing. I usually play a rogue. During my brief stint in EQ2 (bleh) I started to really hate the rogue class and fell for the healer/damage dealer type. I had played glass cannons (mage) before and they aren't really what I'm looking for. And healers are so dependant on playing with other people at all times that it just gets annoying. But that mix between the two seemed to fit with me. I heal when its needed and I attack when thats needed. Imagine my glee when faced with the bloodmage class in Vanguard.

The class is designed to heal through damage. It makes it a very very tricky class. I heal myself and or others by stealing health from mobs and giving it out. I heal by taking health from myself and giving it to others. Now usually, healers wear good armor. If we die, the group dies. And we do get a LOT of shit for when that happens. Cept when I play with Eems :) We used to wear medium armor but they stripped that away and gave us fucking robes. Ok fine. We deal a bunch of damage fair enough.

But that wasn't fucking enough for them. A few patches ago they reduced our damage by 30%. Ok yeah, we were pretty overpowering. Fine. It didn't upset me. Then 2 nights ago, they sprung this HUGE revamp on us. I logged in and couldn't kill one single thing by myself. Not one. 1/2 the spells were bugged and they took the other 1/2 and gave them to you at WAY high levels. Like this shield rune thing that soaks up damage for who you cast it on, move from lvl 14 to 48!!! What the fuck is that? This is out of a possible 50 levels that takes AGES to get to. I am lvl 16 now and get maybe 1/2 a lvl in a night. (recently rerolled on the pvp server)

To add insult to injury, a health stealing spell I mainly use the damage was reduced from 200-300 to 38!! Thats really how much it hits for now. What in the fucking hell is that fucking shit? I am so sick of MMO devs listening to people of other classes and bringing out the nerf stick. I've seen moron sorcs complain about our damage when they can stun me for 30 seconds, one shot kill Eem's pally, then one shot me.

You'd think they'd stop there. Oh no. They lessen the damage and increase the energy cost. They increased the cost of everything. By a lot more then they should when the mobs are tough and come at you in groups.

But.. just because they are suck fuckwits, they upped the amount the heals do. Oh fucking great. They were good enough as it was. I kept Eems alive through most of anything. I'd heal him, he'd heal me (he's a paladin) and everything worked just fine. Granted he is one of the best players I've ever been around, especially in pvp.

Had enough? I know I have.. but they didn't even stop there! They give us buffs. Which used to be if I casted when I was near my group, I only had to cast it once. It's not like they show me who has what buff on my screen. They changed it. They upped the cost to cast and made it single cast. I cant imagine what a 24 person pvp raid is going to be like.

They had another patch last night that fixed a few issues that I haven't even talked about. That's how bad it is. So yeah, I've tested quite a bit and watched revamps and such. But two things worry me. 1. The game is released in 2 weeks. 2. I have never witnessed a class go from being good to being absolutly worthless. From interesting to just not. They changed the entire point of the class.

The next day...
Ok.. so they patched again and I've calmed down a bit because they say a lot of this is going to be tweaked again. The bloodmage class is supposed to be the highest in dps of all the healers. As it stands right now, clerics and shamens heal and attack far better then us.

The actual numbers:
HP=Hit Points E=Energy/mana

The give blood heal. Our single target "major" heal atleast by lvl 17:

Pre nerf: Cost: HP = don't remember exact number... E= 38
Post nerf Cost: HP = Lesst than before... E=138
Before it used health instead of energy they changed it to be a 1/4 of my total energy pool. I heal or dps, not a lot of both.

The take HP from mob give to selected group member

Pre nerf: Damage = 200-350 Heal = 100% of that
Post nerf: Damage=100-115 Heal= 130% - 180% (depends on a factor I don't feel like explaining.

Group Heal: I don't know they took it away from my "low" level
Major damage spell

Pre Nerf: Damage = 300-400hp
Post nerf: Damage= 150-200hp

Now, these numbers don't seem as bad as it is. The numbers I remember from post nerf are fighting against mobs that were 2-4 levels above me. On these same mobs I was hitting them for like 38hps. So, Eems and I went to a different area to help me catch up to him.

Oh well.. they said they are revamping us again tonight, we'll see.

What is Luth up to?

2007-01-14T06:44:00.000Z

The Deco Sims
I am building two sims in the style of Art Deco. Lalique for me and Cappiello for Ceres Prototype. Cappiello is a bit more time sensitive as she'll be getting rid of her previous site and my main store is already on a corner of Lalique. Her store is nearly completed so watch out for her grand opening :)

For those of you have already been to Lalique Square, you know my odd obsession with Art Deco. Both sims are named after deco artisits, Leonetto Cappiello (posters) and René Lalique (glass). There is just something about the conjuntion of Constructionism, Cubism, Modernism, Bauhaus, Art Nouveau, and Futurism which comprises Art Deco.

Alle says I have a thing with vintage stuffs. I dunno. There just is something about the roaring 20's. Speakeasies, burlesque, jazz, vaudeville, the lost generation, women's sufferage, Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton, sound in films, and of course the major pioneers in film editing (Kuleshov,Eisenstein, Vertov, ect) .

omg Luthy deleted her build
Yes. Building Ceres's large and rather complicated store(s) made me a better builder. I dunno if it was needing practice, playing with prims or what. But I got better. Also, everything that I had built was based upon the size of my store with no expansion space. Saddly it was even smaller then my current one. I have been planning for ages to widen the types of things that I do. I spent a couple of days staring at my space trying to figure out what to do, when I just linked all the surrounding stores, took them into inventory, and deleted everything. Its a bit of a mess atm but I think starting with a clean slate now is better than after everyone moving over.

Animation stuff
Sorry its been so quiet on this front. Been busy with the build. Creating a custom AO for Elika. Creating a few new things that won't be talked about until later. But not to worry, a new animation set is due out next week. That is if all goes well.

Vanguard
Ok. The NDA has been lifted. I can finally talk about it. I regularly play what I like to call kill kill kill MMOs. SL is actually an oddity for me and something my gamer friends tease me about constantly. My good friend Eems and I meet up at 8pm GMT every night and run around the world of Vanguard. It's pretty much your typical eq/wow/ect stuff. But there are some added things that make it a little bit better. For one thing, crafted items are worth the trouble. And leveling up your crafting doesnt cost materials. You can also build boats. Then there are the mounts which are a bit easier to buy and some do fly. Woot. That was the one cool thing about DnL. Then player houses/shops. The pvp is a bit... tacked on like EQ and WoW. But saddly there isn't anything else coming out that looks remotly worthwhile.

My insomnia has insomnia.
It seems to be an endless cycle that has gotton way worse. Just to let you know, it's 6am my time and I haven't slept yet. But then again I didn't wake up until after 8pm. Usually I like to keep to a schedule when I'm not on a job. Wake up around noon, animating/building by 2, meet up with Eems at 8, back to SL for a couple of hours, then in bed no latter then 4am. Granted sometimes I go out instead of playing VG, sometimes I spend time with my husband, and others I stay in SL and work.

See, my best work usually starts around 1 or 2am. I like working when its dark outside and the flat is quiet. I have a notepad with me and I'll draw it out. The funny thing is, I can't draw. My husband has seen them and has no idea how I can get from them to the build or pose. The pose will always be a stick figure with some funny explination to myself. Maybe one day I'll scan it in.

Now, the current problem started because Eems had been offline for like 2 weeks. I'd just keep playing with prims for hours and then the alarm would go off and I'd make my husband tea. Then the time I would actually fall asleep would get later and later until yesterdays 11am. Though I do partially blame that on finishing a book (The Black Dahilia) and starting a new one (Empire).

So.. I guess I'll leave you with one final image of the cafe and call it a night.

Cheers.
Luth

"Beautiful" Avatars

2007-01-13T15:52:00.000Z

0100101110101101.org recently published a list of Second Life's 13 most beautiful avatars and the press release circulated throughout the blogosphere. Curious, I went to look at the list, and what I found disappointed me; not only were the selected avatars not among the best I had seen, but worse, they were hardly better than average.

How were they "average"? Both as avatars and photos. The avatars themselves were all beautiful in the usual SL ways: nice skins mapped onto nice shapes. That just about all of the photos were closeups or even extreme closeups didn't help: so much of what makes an avatar a statement is her full appearance, including posture, clothing, hair, and accessories. It is very hard for most SL avatars to stand out when all you have is a face.

The best of the lot were the pictures of Aimee Weber, which showed her in a bit of a pose, giving some sense of her in-world personality. But Aimee Weber is Second Life's Jennifer Aniston: her avatar is beautiful and distinctive, but how many covers of People, Us, and In Touch does she really need to be on? Picking Aimee is just too easy.

It is, of course, very easy to criticize something as subjective as a top-10 beauty list. I want to do something more useful than that. I want to explore the criteria of beauty the collection suggests. First a compliment: Kudos for not showcasing only white females (which would be all too easy in SL): both genders and different races were included. But there were no furries or non-human avatars, no fashion-extreme vamps. The notion of "beauty" was Benetton shop-window multiculturalism beauty: race is a fashion we put on--Look at me! I'm the African Jennifer Aniston!

But the most important questions remain unasked: What is the soul of beauty in Second Life? Does Second Life have its own standard of beauty? The people behind the beautiful avatars exhibit at least superficially address these issues:

The portraits reflect Second Life aesthetics, featuring the bright colors, "artificial" light, broad flat areas, 3D shapes, and surreal perspectives that are typical of this virtual world.

Such a description applies to every MMOG I have ever seen and most video games in general since the NES. It isn't Second Life's aesthetics at all; it's video games. So we are still left to ask what Second Life's aesthetic is.

They continue:

Overall, the series draws on the technological developments which allow the creation of alternate identities within simulated worlds, and questions the impact such technologies have on art and society.

While this still doesn't get at anything in Second Life in particular--it seems to apply equally to text-based worlds like LamdaMOO--at least it brings up an interesting question (albeit one that has been asked in media studies circles for over a decade): How do simulated worlds "allow the creation of alternate identities"? More interesting (but not asked here) is how these alternate identities reflexively shape (or nihilistically pull the rug out from under) our "real" identities? And anyway (this is my question), how do a dozen or so extreme closeups of Second Life pixel-faces help us get at these issues?

They continue:

Despite the relative newness of using video game-derived source materials, the avatars' icons recall questions common to earlier eras of portraiture, including the cultural and psychological context of the images, and the relationships between high art and subculture, between contemporary art and "traditional" art forms, and between art and life itself.

Heavy rhetoric, but what does it mean? The analogy to portraiture is interesting, but what is the significance of portraiture in a world where our virtual faces are botoxxed into immobility by a technologically enforced lack of facial expression? Second Life avatars are profoundly expressive, but it is a misplaced real-life assumption that the expressiveness is centered in the face. This is a major flaw in the exhibit. (Another flaw is hosting it in a perfect reconstruction of the actual RL museum exhibit. Note to the organizers: in RL museums, we don't look with virtual 3D cameras floating 20 feet behind our heads, and your SL exhibit is in fact frustratingly incompatible with the everyday experience of being an avatar.)

I would argue that our true SL expressiveness comes not through the face but instead through (a) the disposition of the body as a whole--including race and gender, pose, fashion, accessories; (b) the backstories we provide ourselves in our profiles; and above all, (c) the words we say as we interact with our friends and the world through chat boxes and IM windows.

If I, in my way, embody some part of this "Second Life aesthetic," look for it in my words and look at my whole body (in where and what it is doing); look not at my face (which can tell you only the most rudimentary things: that I am Asian). And then forget about me: look for it in the words and bodies of those avatars not possible or practical in RL: the furries, mermaids, winged vampires, aliens. Their aesthetic goes far beyond their 3D-mesh cheekbones and pretty-texture eyes. What do these avatars tell us about how people live in Second Life, about where people find (and create) beauty in virtual reality?

As it stands, the exhibit "Second Life's 13 Most Beautiful Avatars" seems like a publicity stunt. Superficial notions of Second Life beauty can be passed off as "hip" for a now-credulous press, currently enamored with all those "cutting edge" people who are "driving" Web 2.0.

Even if they are, in fact, strangers here themselves.

New pose set

2006-12-18T04:46:00.000Z

Happy Holidays!

I really didn't think I'd get this out before I left tomorrow at 9am, but here it is! Even if it's 5am. But what else are you to do at the inlaws for a week other than sleep?!

Cheers!
Luth

The beeb, crazy neighbour, new sim, SL stability, and strep throat

2006-12-10T18:07:00.000Z

Sorry, no animation updates (again). Its been a crazy few weeks.

Worked at the beeb (yuck)... crazy neighbour threatened to kill my kitten... LL handed over my private isle Lalique... SL stability has gotten even worse... Husband brought home strep throat. Fun huh?

The one thing I don't like about being freelance is that I'm always the new kid. For me, it takes a while to warm up to people. But that's about it. Being freelance means that its not just the same ol shit every day. Yeah I don't work everyday or every week, but that gives me time to create in SL. At the beeb (the bbc) everyone there seems to be lifers. They act like they have it made. Then treated me as if they were better. My agent asked me to work there longer, but I said no thanks.

A few weeks ago I was leaving the flat to go to work. On my way out I ran into my crazy neighbour who seems to think I'm the sole reason why she's getting evicted. Well, had gotton evicted but snuck back in. She screamed a lot and called me names. But the one thing that really got to me was when she told me she'd break into my flat and kill my kitten. How could you kill something like my chuck?

Luckily last week they finally got her out of there.

As of Nov 30th I am a private isle owner. Sim name: Lalique. I've been building when I can and have no idea when it'll be opened. Stay tuned.

What the hell is wrong with LL? Just when we thought it couldn't get any worse, it does. Nothing is working right at all. Building has been a nightmare. Prims snapping, textures have to be choosen a few times before it'll stick and serious prim drift when I log in the next day. Not to mention "copy selected" makes the new prim not actually lined up with the other one. Thats not how it's supposed to work! My sim is fucking empty. Well, a lot of the times. But come on. It's driving me mental.

Last week my husband came home early from work with a nasty fever. The next day, I can't even get out of bed. After a few days of this, I wake up on Friday with him telling me he's got white spots on the back of his throat. It took me an hour just to convince him that he needs to go to the doctor. You have to call by 8:30am to get an appointment for the day. It was WAY past that. So off we went to the walk in centre at the near by hospital. London is an odd city. You can find a nice flat in a nice area and then walk about 10min and you are in a NASTY part. Luckily we called a cab. Needless to say those walkin centres take a damn long time to be seen. But got some antibiotics and we both are starting to feel better.

Hopefully some animations will be done for next week.

Luth

Protests, witch-hunting, verbal abuse, and LL

2006-11-15T18:23:00.000Z

I love me a good protest.

By now, most of you know what has been going on in SL for the past few days. Blogs, forums and IW groups have been hopping all over this 'issue.' Now that time has passed and more and more things have become very clear.

First of all we have the fact that copybot can only copy prims. Granted that should not be overlooked, but it was initially presented to us during the Seller's Guild meeting by the libSL people that it will make permanant copies of everything. Including clothes, skins, hair, acessories and even animations. Never once did they say it is only temporary. Why? Because of the contempt they hold for all SL content creators (that aren't them)? And how it was so blantently put on that IRC log how they want us to be hysterical? They thought it was funny.

Look at what has happened to the residents of SL over this. Bitching, screaming, insulting, backstabbing, fearmongering, railroading, generalizing and out right dismissing other's opinions not based on what they are but why they believe the other thinks that way. Ok yes, actually quite typical in SL, but come on.

It seems that everyone falls into at least one of the following catagories and most even in multiple:
1. Content creators in fear of someone profiting off their hard work.
2. Content creators pissed at LL.
3. Content creators stuck in the middle not knowing what to do because of the amount of spin from all sides.
4. Content creators who believe thieves will never be able to steal our creativity.
5. Copybot creators and supporters.
6. Drama queens with really no agenda.
7. Our faithful customers who are affraid for us.
8. Our faithful customers who are upset that we think they will steal.
9. LL lap dogs.
10. Residents who believe we are overly egotistical and charge too much as it is.
11. The rest that didn't know what was going on.

I'm not here to point fingers. This is my blog so I'm going to describe what happened in my slice of the world and the timeline of the past few days including events/conversations/thoughts/feelings.

When I first was pointed to the yourtube video of it I was disgusted. Typical for me it was directed to baddly shot/cut aspect and the fact that I had absolutly no idea what the stupid thing was doing. Seriously I thought it was just another randomly bad SL machinima.

Then I started actually reading the rants going on in the seller's guild IM channel. And actually it didn't bother me so much. Why? Because people steal every single fucking day. Whether it be via glintercept, ideas, downloaded animations, ect. LL does jack shit about it. Whether they can or not is actually not the issue. There are steps they can take. How about more tiers for accounts? Like limited free basic accounts, less limiting verrified basic acounts CC/Paypal/license/passport to put a RL actual name to the avie, priemium, and then landholders. Then you have the enhansed metadata tags that for years said was impossible but now are spoon feeding it to us. And then a zero tolerance policy on theft.

Don't get me wrong. Theft is bad. Really fucking bad. Especially in SL. I have never been technically stollen from but I've had my ideas copied twice that I know of. Once I've explained in the first post. The other is from someone getting an early viewing of a set I was creating then they made the same damn thing. Some of the poses match a bit too closely for my taste. And oddly enough a few others. I hadn't been around SL a lot due to work and family visiting and I put the finished set out far later then I expected. The other person put theirs out before and I actually recieved hate IMs about copying! I actually laughed when the alt wished for my death for copying my own idea! But that's just my odd sense of humour at play.

Oh yeah I was talking about something else wasn't I? Then the personal IMs started coming. Wasn't I pissed? Not anymore then I already was. What was I going to do? Nothing much out of the ordinary. Then I got an offline IM about the Seller's Guild Meeting about it. At the time I was beta testing my new favourite kill kill kill game, so I fired up SL on my laptop. Saddly I had gotten there after Robin Linden had left and had to get the chat log.

This is when I started to get pissed off. Typical for me, it wasn't the bandwagon sort of anger. That baba fucktard oozed ego. I mean this was just as bad as some of the FICtards. There was something just off about him. For me reading it, even then, it was like he was trying to stir the pot. You can believe me or not on this one. I'm pretty fucking good at reading people. I really can't explain it much more then that.

The bit about Robin and LL's response at that meeting was typical. They don't care. They might make something far enough down the road to shut us up. PR smoothing out BS.

Then the shit hit the fan. What moron at LL allowed that first blog post? Ok LL, you are starting to get hysterical content creators so what do you do? I know! You post on the blog naming the program, that copying isn't bad, and give a link on how to get it. Smart. Real fucking brilliant.

So I'm standing at my shop while reading the blog on the lappy. I'm reading all the IMs. I'm getting message after message that protests are happening. I take one look at my mini map and see people shopping at mine and the other shops at Lalique. It's something like 5am. I'm wired off of tea and killing MMOs. And I start to panic. I worry about what people are going to do to the vendors on Lalique whom I adore. I worry about my shop. I worry about the economy tanking and the island I'm buying at the end of the month. I worry about the idea I might have to get a *gasp* office temp job during the editing down season that will last until spring. I worry that the plans for Lalique 2.0 will go down in flames for the second time in a month.

And then the cunt from downstairs starts to play her thumping music. At this point I had taken to wearing high heels all the time and pacing on the woodfloors no matter what time it was. So I start to pace. It's 5am. I'm in my pjs, a thick jumper and heels.

This is the real kicker

And then I get pissed. I get pissed at LL. For promising all these things and taking them away. For me it wasn't about the copybot. It wasn't about the hysteria, even if for a brief moment I felt it. It was LL and their disreguard for paying customers. To those of us who work our asses off for less then minium wage to create a better world. To create things we are proud of. To put ourselves so fully into something. Just so they can twist it into a PR scam to get corporations, investors, and unsuspecting customers. And then to shove it all down our throats and treat us like children with their double speak and broken promises.

And so I put my land to group only. Why? Not because I thought LL would listen. They never do. It is because I didn't want to be here anymore. I didn't need the stress. I haven't been able to create a fucking thing since the price hike because corporations are willing to pay it. It was the nail in the coffin for me. The continued degradation of quality residents. The horrible tech support when my expensive laptop should run SL but didn't. The broken promises. I feel betrayed. I have put so much into the past 2 1/2 years in SL. From giving free editing classes that no one attends. To attempting to step up the quality of modeling poses into an art form because your amazing designs deserve it. To helping someone build a large shop in a rush because a builder shafted her. To the time spent as a mentor and live helper. And all the little things I've done to make people feel better.

The fallout of this decision? Now I am greedy. My ego is too big by thinking people would actually steal from me. I am a bandwaggoner. I am hysterical. I am nieve. I am an idiot. I am a witch-hunter. I am McCarthy. That is just some of the things we have been called by residents and other content creators. This shit made me sick.

Not only that but it was going both ways. Fucking hell it was going all ways. People seemed to be on this fucking "you are either for us or against us" shite. I really hate closed minded people like that. The process one takes to form opinions is the important part, not necessarily the exact opinion. It is something to be respected. Not this bashing eachother over the heads with sticks to see who's is bigger.

Now logically there are morons out there. There are morons in SL. Far more then I'd like to admit. There are a few who's opinions are downright horrible. Their reasoning is even worse. But to group every single fucking person who shares that opinion as a moron is idiotic as best. Sometimes even the most assinine opinion has to be at least respected because of the reasoning behind it.

I know by now Alle is freaking out on if I'm leaving SL. The answer is I should, but I'm not. I like the creations I make. I like the process of it. I like those moments of dancing on cows. That's what SL is to me. A place where if I don't like you, I can just mute you.

Cheers
Luth

SL Machinima, or Half-Animated PowerPoint Slides

2006-11-01T16:16:00.000Z

Note: This is cross-posted from my personal blog, diary of a tagalong.

I am a huge fan of machinima and obviously enamored of Second Life. But I am not at all a fan of SL machinima. The truth is, just about all of it that I have seen is weak. Worse, it is all weak in the same ways and seems to recapitulate the worst of SL: low quality graphics, minimal movement/action, and mind-numbingly slow pacing. And how often do we need to see someone scuba diving, someone sky diving, and a bunch of furries dancing in a night club? Rarely does it capture--or, better yet, build on--the strengths of Second Life, which is its "infinite variety" (borrowing Enobarbus's description of Cleopatra). Here's a rare exception, but though its good, it is not exceptional by (non-Second Life) machinima standards.

Some of it is surely the fault of the machinima makers. The pace of Second Life machinima is often slow and edited in self-indulgent ways. Shot lengths often last for several seconds at a time, and yet what they show is deeply static (SL animations are, as a rule, primitive). Most SL machinima look like half-animated PowerPoint slides--no thank you! The overreliance on the medium-long shot doesn't help; you can do wide shots (even though SL's draw distance is poor), and you can do closeups (even though facial expressions are limited, to say the least). Mixing up shot lengths enables you to establish different relationships between viewers and the content, and viewers therefore interpret and experience it in different ways.

Some of it is also the fault of Second Life. Its graphics and gestures are, comparatively speaking, poor. Expressions, poses, and gestures are what actors do, so SL's weaknesses in this area is no small handicap. Still, machinima from other games deal with these issues. Halo's protagonist doesn't even have a face, let alone facial expressions. That hasn't stopped Halo from supporting some of the best machinima films in existence. Halo and World of Warcraft both have limited gestures, but their machinimators have at least found ways to make use of what's there for interesting gestural expression (the famous Internet is for Porn uses the same small set of gestures over and over with great effect). And good storytelling can do a lot to compensate for weak visuals.

I thought I was just unlucky, having only seen crappy SL machinima at machinima.com and when friends email me URLs. But today I went to YouTube, searched on "SecondLife" and sorted by rating. Guess what? Most SL machinima have mediocre to low ratings. Those that were rated highly either weren't really machinima (such as U2's and Suzanne Vega's SL performances or various tutorials) or would be considered mediocre by the standards of other games.

I'm no film director, but I'd love to see evidence that SL machinima directors are aware of the following points.

Camera: The camera doesn't just capture reality; it frames it, focuses the viewer's eyes on some part of it; and establishes the viewer's relationships to it. Think about what you want the viewer to focalize on, second by second, and use the camera to facilitate that focus.

Production versus post-production: Many impressive machinima films use a lot of post-production. Post-production gives you the ability to shape your story, shape your viewer's experience. Even free/cheap software, like Windows Movie Maker and iMovie, gives you a decent set of capabilities to shape your story. (This is a call for smart cuts, not for cheesy transition effects.)

Shot length: Keep the viewer's eyes active; don't let images go stale (hint to directors: no one likes looking at your avatar as much as you do, no matter how cool your skin is). That means either put something to look at in images (emotions, gestures, actions) or make quick cuts (MTV style, which creates its own action).

Shot arrangement: The shot is the basic unit of the film and the way that two shots are connected is meaningful. One shot may give the lie to a previous shot, or further illustrate it, give the viewer an alternate perspective on it, or extend it in time and/or space. Don't just stick one after the other, especially if the machinima is a narrative.

Narrative: You don't have to tell the story in order. Mix it up. Use frame tales. Narrate from the point of view of a minor character. In other words, not only is the story significant; so is its telling. Writing scripts in advance and storyboarding them may help people develop more compelling stories.

Self-referentiality: Machinima is shot in games. Many of the best machinima films refer to the reality of the games, comment on it, and make players appreciate a new aspect of it. No SL machinima that I have seen (and I have seen many) cinematically captures the possibilities, the true soul, of Second Life, the way Red Vs. Blue or Warthog Jump: A Halo Physics Experiment capture the soul of Halo. This one at least captures the brains of Second Life.

Who the hell am I to say all this? I am no one. No one but a machinima fan who wishes Second Life machinima didn't suck, didn't make really amateur mistakes.

Final thought: Just about every non-Second Life machinima I linked to here is considered a classic for its system. What World of Warcraft player doesn't know about Leeroy Jenkins? Which Half-Life fan hasn't seen Still Seeing Breen? Are we going to let bland footage of a U2 performance stand as the best SL machinima has to offer? According to YouTube user ratings today, it is the best SL has to offer.

Guest Blogger: An Introduction

2006-11-01T16:05:00.000Z

Luth has kindly invited me to post occasionally on her blog as a guest blogger. As some of you know, Luth is a dear friend of mine, and we both share a passion for improving the arts in Second Life. By "arts" I mean its fashion, builds, machinima, art communities, stories, and so on. Of course, Luth contributes directly with her beautiful poses and animations.

I have nothing of that sort to contribute: I am a technical writer by trade, with a background in literature, so my contributions will be limited more towards criticism. I hope to use this space to reflect on some of the arts I see in SL and hopefully provide food for thought for the creatives who make Second Life the great place that it is!

Enough is Enough

2006-10-31T13:47:00.000Z

(Protesting at Linden Offices this afternoon. Many more to follow)

I am a small business owner in SL. We have been touted in the press and investor meetings to make SL as popular as it is today. Look! People make things and sell them and you can too! But what they don't tell you is that we bear the brunt of all the bad of SL.

If we didn't make our widgets would the population be here? No.

Who suffers the most from griefer attacks? Small business. The grid shut downs mean some can't feed their kids (or kitten in my case).

Who suffers the most of bugs and lag? Small business. If textures don't load people don't shop. Constant bugs in animation uploads means I can't work. The inability to make clothes has been detrimental to the fashion industry. Exploits that allow users to steal our work takes the food from our table.

Who suffers the most from the find places sorted by traffic and then classifieds sorted by price? Small business. Those of us that paying 30k L$ per week to be on the first page means we can't pay our RL rent. If higher traffic usually means more shoppers which means more profit, is it a wonder that the same people easily found in find the same as the classifieds?

Who pays for SL? Small business. The majority of landowners are small business owners. Yes we don't hold the most amount of land per person but if we didn't need land to sell our widgets how much land would there be? And those land barons who give no value to SL at all rip us off on prices of that land.

Who lost out when auctions for the mainland went from any size of parcel to only full sims? Small business. Now if we want to buy land we have to go to a land baron or win an auction that's so over priced that a baron can't make enough money.

Who lost out when the rules changed (silently) about buying land on estate sims? Small business owners. Have you seen the prices of some of these? You pay regular tier, which they make money on because of the tier break down. For instance, a land baron breaks an isle into 2048 m2 parcels. You know how many fit? 32! For the math lets say 30 and the rest as free space and roads. The tier for 2048 m2 is $15US. Times that by 30 and thats $450. Minus isle fee $195 and you get a monthly profit of $255US. That should be enough right? But no. They sell the land first. Anshe has hers at 19999 L$ per 2048m2. Times that by those 30 parcels = 599,970 L$! Devide that by todays exchange rate 270L/1USD = 2,222 US!! How does she con people into paying far more then the initial set up and over 2.3 times her tier? Lies. Catchy advertising. Remember this used to be against the rules until LL changed them to suit their favourite citizen, Anshe Chung.'

Who looses out the most from isle price changes? Small business. Anshe and her ilk have already bought how many used isles from unsuspecting owners because of insider knowledge? She upped her prices for sales and tier prior to the official statement. That means anyone renting from her estate sims, will be paying the new sim prices + AC profit whether they are on a new sim or not. She stands to make even more money ripping off residents then she did before. Will this break her? No. People will always be too preoccupied then to figure out this. Just like every other bloody corporation.

Why do we loose out? Every single content creator I know (including myself) dreams of one day owning their own sim. How many dreams along with mine have been crushed by this? We get jerked around endlessly and then we get this: "and in fact - this increase was in part a recognition that large corporations are willing to pay much more than we were charging."- zee linden

Fuck large corporations. They are only here until the novelty wears off. But we have been here through bad update after bad update, growing their world and paychecks to be spit on like this?

We aren't asking to be handed isles like candy. But what is really the harm in giving a discount to small SL businesses? Where if you make between certain amounts per month in L$ you will allow a petition for lowered tier? For instance anyone able (L$ wise) to pay the $195 tier but unable to move into the first business Linedx tier with the current restrictions.
Yes land is a privilage. So should a lot of things. What would be the harm in a free limited account for 30day then a one time fee? Then they stay limited, ie certain harmful scipting and inventory limits, until they pay a monthly fee. $10 USD per month is less then every MMO I've ever played. Then any land holding is on top of that.
Bloody fix the damn program before charging us more. I'm tired of the years of promises for fixing all the issues, where we get usless new features instead.

LL should feel lucky every day that we stick around. Lucky. If they aren't making a profit nor making real progress with the program itself, they should look at internal changes within the company. Philip has stated many times they have more programers then most other companies. Obviously they do not have the right ones. Fire off the dead weight and think about hiring some that can actually fix something without breaking something else.

I'm here in SL only until something better comes along or LL steps up to the plate and starts to give a rats ass about the backbone of their program.

Cheers.
Luth

Vintage AO version 2

2006-10-29T02:00:00.000Z

In my striving for individuality, I put together a second set. Out of the 13 or so poses from last week, 8 came out well when adjusted to become AO poses. Since you can only have 5 standing, I changed around the poses to make another set. This way you have less of a chance to look like the person next to you at your next fancy dress party.

All these poses can also be found in the vendors sold seperatly for further customization.

Cheers
Luth

Vintate AO set

2006-10-29T01:54:00.000Z

Like I said in the last post, I had a bunch of requests for the vintage poses to be made into AOs. Here is the first set that is put together so each pose flows into the next. Included is a regular sit and an optional sit for wearing dresses (non prim). Yay?

Each standing pose is priority 2, which means emotes, most animations, and the typing come through. All of them also have the head unanimated so you look at where your mouse is pointing :)

Can't do anything

2006-10-26T16:20:00.000+01:00

This week I haven't been able to sleep more then 4 hours per night. We have a nasty cunt for a neighbour that moved in in March. She constantly plays her music randomly so loud that the floors rattle, my kitten gets scared, and we can't hear our music or tv. This week the issue has escalated drastically. What used to be a few hours here and there is now 11am-5am Monday and Tuesday, Wed 9am - 3am, and started this morning at 7am.

Luckily tomorrow she will be in court for eviction, which she blames us for.

After last week's release, I recieved many IMs from people wanting the vintage poses as AOs. I was planning on doing those and another AO set. As I haven't been able to do much of anything I don't know if there will be a realease tomorrow.

The music is off now and I'm going to attempt to take a nap. Maybe I'll be able to do something when I wake up.

Cheers
Luth

Vingate Pose Set

2006-10-21T18:02:00.000+01:00

Here's the new set. I finished the poses around 10pm GMT. Finding the clothes and taking the shots by 2am. I teach a class on editing from 2am-3:30am on Fridays, so I wasn't able to work on the ad in photoshop til around 4. Finally had the poses in the shop and the ad finished by 5. I'm not really a nutter, I swear. I have super bad insomnia and usually don't go to bed until 4:30am anyways. I'm usually just beta testing a game that I can't disclose the name of.

Had I stopped and tried to sleep, my mind would have just been thinking about what I needed to get done. Staying up and working just a bit longer also allowed me to wake up and not rush into working again. Although I did crawl out of bed around 2pm and have spent the time since on the couch watching movies. It's been nice not to have to get right back into SL.

This weekend will be spent playing games, watching movies, and maybe a bit of work on my new shop. Who knows, who cares.

Whats for next week? AO set I think. I'm not for certain.

Cheers
Luth

Vintage Ideas

2006-10-20T17:29:00.000+01:00

This week's update (either tonight or tomorrow) will be vintage poses. I found this really interesting site that had illustrations of 20's dresses with these really interesting poses. Saddly, most of them are impossible because legs don't actually bend that way. Well, I could but that's not the reason why you guys like my work.

The update will either be 13 or 14 poses. There is one I'm on the fence on if I like it or not. Some from these illustrations, some from other stuff I've gathered, and some from my very own head.

I've also been hard at work rebuilding my shop that should be done soonish.

Random

2006-10-17T20:44:00.000+01:00

Some weeks I already know what I'm going to work on. Others, like this one, I'm not so sure. I've been working on a lot of themes lately and have a lot of ideas but not so sure on which way to go.

When I don't release anything in a while, people complain. Then I put out around 35 poses in 3 weeks and people complain that they are running out of L$. Whats a girl to do? So I was thinking about AOs, which are less for the designers and more for everyone. Figured that might spread the love around, but my head is full of different ideas.

Whenever that happens I do google image searches to get the mind going. It's what I've been doing off and on all day. Then I came across this picture, from this site: the mini faces of ewan

Let me just say that this site is freakishly funny. Some people just have far too much time on their hands. But bravo. Great job.

Monday Slack off

2006-10-17T17:17:00.000+01:00

Yesterday I was setting up on the new Nomine sim, when I got an IM from the lovely and talented Francesca Poppy of Poppy Designs. The idea was to meet up at Lalique and set up a shop for her.

In an unsual moment of chattiness on my part, the conversation ranged from what I'm doing with Lalique, plans of expansion to my own private isle, to random things in my inventory.

What started out as a moment of silliness turned into hours of slacking, laughs, meeting of new people, conversaions, and most of all forgetting about all the crap we have to deal with.

Ever since the 'issues' with my last isle started, I have used the insane dancing cow to erase the drama and have a laugh. The magic of this cow is unknown until you experience it first hand.

Anyone who teleported directly to Lalique yesterday saw the image above. Content creators gone mad. Some were scared off, while others accepted the cow gift and joined in the fun.

Some memorable quotes of the day:
'content creators gone mad cow disease' - Shai Delacroix
'customers crushed by giant cow, death toll reaches 20' - Joannah Crammer

The plan

2006-10-15T22:09:00.000+01:00

Appologies for the exceptionally long post. I don't think that will happen again anytime soon. I am going to try to keep this updated as much as I can. But I must inform you that every other blog I've started faded out quite easily. I really do get distracted quite easily. It's not like I forget about anything actually, I just procrastinate until its too late.

One thing I forgot to mention, and you will soon learn if you haven't already, is I am extremly blunt. Honest, upfront, ect. I have never been one to sugar coat anything. But I never publically name names. I will speak general terms.

With that said here is a list of what I plan to do with this blog:
- A one stop shop of all updates on new releases.
- Sneak Peaks at what I am working on.
- Thoughts on the processes of creation of animations for second life.
- Critical analysis of art produced in SL. (this is a maybe catagory)
- Ramblings about the absurdity of the SL market place.
- Whatever else I feel like talking about.

What you will not find:
- Drama. I hate all forms of drama. If you bring it here I will delete your comments. I don't care if so and so did what.

Cheers
Luth

All things must begin somewhere

2006-10-15T17:51:00.000+01:00

Fade In
INT London flat. A late 20's woman sits in her pjs and types at her keyboard. Stops to roll a cigarette and lights it.

Where to start? In writing, that first opening line is always the most difficult. You want to catch the reader to make them want to read on. Just like an opening scene in a film. So I guess that's done with.

In RL:
I've been many things. I have three college degrees and many different profession ranging from photography, physics, massage therapy, to film editing. I'm an American living in London. Some call me unpatriotic for being an expat, but I don't have to live in the country to be one of the 43% who votes.

In SL:
At the time of this writing, my SL avatar is 2 year 5 months old. My name, Luth, is the same one that I use in every online presence I have since I started playing Shadowbane in '03. I may be creative in somethings, but names have never been one of them. When starting that game for the first time, I was playing an elf. So, a google search for an elvish translator brought up Luthein as what my real name would be. When speaking over ts, everyone ends up with nicknames, mine became Luth and it just stuck.

About Reel Movement:
Lucky for me, I came into the world of SL just weeks prior to the 1.4 update that added the ability of creating animations. Right after that, a few residents who were already creating other things started making animations and poses.

I remember going to a shop and buying some, but hating just about everything about it. Later that day, I was sitting around with Munchflower and I started complaining about them. The twisted arms, the stiffness, and the unnatural stance. As an offhand comment, probably while drinking too much wine in my San Francisco apartment, I said that I could do better. She agreed and dared me to try.

My last college degree is a BFA in motion pictures and tv with an emphasis in Editing. I dare you to say that 10 times fast :P But the first two years of that I was majoring in computer animation. The problem wasn't my 3d animating, it was my 2d. I can't draw. My stick figures can't even represent anything that makes sense. You put a charcoal or a pencil in my hand and something nasty just happens. The way life seems to happen, I had to take a few beginner film classes as I was leaning towards visual effects. It was a bastard program caught between the computer department and the film department. After my first editing class, I never looked back.

So, I had some experience in 3d animation, but in far better programs then Poser. I thought it'd be a piece of cake. Heh little did I know. In Munchie's dare, she sent me a link to Lithium Picnic to recreate some of the pictures for her and I started from that.

Selling them hadn't been my first thought. My first ones weren't so hot. They had the beginnings of what my newest set are like in terms of style and things, but the quality wasn't near to what it is now. I sent them all to Munchie, which I still do everytime I put out a new set, but it wasn't until I won an animation contest that I believed people would actually buy them.

I opened up a few shops and started growing inventory slowly along with a few sales here and there. It was always just enough to cover the rent at whatever malls I was in. The name itself started out as Reel Designs. Because of the nature of poses used for photography and my lack of creativity when coming up with names, I just used the name Reel as in reel of film. While I do not pretend that mine are the most realistic animations out there, my goal always was to have naturalistic poses. So, it's partly a play on words.

In fall of '04 I made the big leap across the pond and met my now RL husband the first week I was here. It takes over a month to get broadband set up here, so it was a forced break from SL. When I came back, I was roaming around different shops to see what others were up to. To my horror, I came upon that very shop that held the animations contest had a new pose that was an exact copy of the pose I had won with.

Some would say that I should consider that flattery, but I could not. I was a new content creator, while they were famous. They were making money off of my idea. Yes, most of my poses at that time had photo references, as do many today. But that was one that did not. I couldnt believe the nerve of them to hold a contest for new animators and then steal their ideas.

As a freelance editor the times I work will vary. During the months of October - March film and tv work slows to a halt. Last year, I took that time to really get into making movent. At the time I thought that making dances would sort of put me on the map. Up to that point, I had always been a designer's designer. I've been swing dancing for about ten years now, so I started with that. Let me tell you, that was 4 months of complete hell. Every single day animating and reanimating. Uploading, checking, changing, reuploading. I couldn't get the damn thing smooth as other's had done.

But at some point you just need to say, enough is enough. I got to the point where I was happy enough with it, and excitedly put it out for sale. Nothing. Nada. A few people here and there purchased it and loved it. But mostly, I recieved IMs with complaints that I could have done better. These people obviously hadn't used poser ever. I've done seamless animations in houdini and maya. But poser? How did those bloody people do it?

They didn't. Comes to find out, the majority of dances are motion capture downloaded from sites like renderocity. fuck fuck fuck fuck. Many people who know this have varing opinions on these sorts of actions. Some say that fixing them up to upload into SL is enough, others say that more editing of the origional file is needed, while I and very few others think that if it was not yours to begin with impling that it is is wrong.

At this point, I had already changed the name to Reel Movement. I was starting to get known by a number of the more famous designers. I feared another name change would take me back to obsecurity when I really needed the profits to offset the RL job downtimes.

The name change itself was based on another offset I had planned to do. The cuddle hammock was to be the start of a new colaboration. I shared a beautiful island with an amazing new furniture designer, Szabo Horn, and we were going to start making subtle motion animated furniture. But, some people work in different ways and that idea fell through the cracks. I was in a complete creative block. He wanted animations, and I just couldn't force myself to do it. After the isle was sold, I decided that working on my own time and in my own way would always be the best. I will make more like that, I just don't know when.

The nature of creating for second life has many ups and downs. I have quietly taken my fair share of breaks due to things like this, drama, and the absurdity of it's residents. I attemept to live in my own little bubble called my studio and have tried diligently to stay away from all things horrid.

My lovely husband has just finished cooking dinner and my ramblings will end here.

Cheers
Luth

Fade Out