SLArt Museum

I mentioned in the last post I went for a walk in Second Life down a good old Linden road. An honest to goodness walk. The walk ended up here:

A collection of museums of mostly Second Life art that takes up a good chunk of the mainland sim it inhabits. Won't say all of the art was good, but much of it was, and some was really must see. Like the framed pictures in the above image. The ability to get things to look like that in SL is something to be in awe of.

Set aside at least two evenings to amble through it all.

Healy(123,21,110)

Careful with the link, trying to just click the spot on the map might land you under the road or something. That's what happened to me when I went back. And this particular museum is a bit of a maze because of the transparent floors. You have been warned.

Waterfalls

I did something unusual yesterday, at least for SL. I went for a walk.

Now, I will often buzz out in a random direction flying over sims looking for interesting things, but this time, I hopped on the nice Linden road half a sim from my mainland holdings and just went for a walk. Or perhaps, since I was being something that walks on all fours, a canter.

Walking about on mainland SL can be a wonderful experience, at least in places where people haven't destroyed the Linden public works that allow you to walk around, or even take the train. It immerses you in the random creativity of people and forces you to experience what is there instead of taking you to some known or intended place. Sometimes it even makes you go ... I never realized this was right next to that, and I go to both of them all the time. And it is only something that can be experienced by getting out of the insulated private islands and wandering about the mainland.

On this day I found quite a few interesting things, the first two of which are here as a set. They are waterfalls. Both wonderfully done. Both probably looking much better at night, which it was. The locations are where I was standing when I took the pictures.

Hamlin (28, 8, 80)

Paw Paw (44, 42, 83)

It helps, maybe, that there was a small plot of land selling bunnies and playing ChouChou on the audio stream right at the top of the first waterfall.

New Look for 2011

My new look, if anyone is interested. The horribly broken wrists courtesy of the pose ball. I'm not in pain, honest. (I should have taken a picture of what it did to my back. Ooof!) Can someone get me something to drink ... with a straw? And possibly a stretcher?

Same me, not counting some small bits of tweaking not visible in this picture, different skin.

My favorite Infinity skins, by Maximillion Grant and now under the LOGO brand name along with the works of Polly Pavlova, have some new series out that take not only look great but take advantage of viewer 2 tricks and tools.

LOGO is one of the two skin lines I have found that work on smaller frames in SL. The other is more popular, but I don't like the way it looks on me quite as much, and it requires wearing a cleavage reduction layer, rather than just having skins with less shading. Needing less breast shading instead of more is always a challenge in SL. As is avoiding inflatable doll crotch.

But what I like most about LOGO is that you can go online to their custom skin creator and design your own from a menu set. I think they still give discounts for multiple combinations purchased off the same base skin, but don't quote me on that until you've tested it yourself. Before the skin was what you purchased, but now you can buy mod layers to expand your options without having to buy every singly possible combination. This is especially useful for some of the older skins, which he is busy adding new features for, and which have a very large number of lipstick and other makeup options.

In any event, my older skins are all from their "Natural" series, while this newer one is from the "Divine" series. And my really, really old skins are all also by Max before he started his Infinity series. I confess to finally having deleted them. They look like cartoons now compared to the newer stuff.

Now if SL would let me make my eyes more Asian without making my eyebrows all bushy ...

Oh, and the awesome hat hair is Roxy in plum by EMO-tions. I have been spending lots of time coming up with outfits to go with the hair, and it definitely goes with the Divine skin set. Be forewarned though, it is a very laggy sim.

The LOGO blog.

The LOGO teleport map.

Review: Mamaa Saiz

Haven't done one of this in a while, and am totally out of practice, but here goes ...

A wonderful hour just sitting here in SL listening to Mamaa Saiz siging what he sings. A mellow combination of music with R&B overtones, or maybe that is his voice.

The guitar work is masterful and you feel each little pluck and strum playing on the strings of your heart. A sort of warm, ever so slightly misty-eyed, wonderful. Accompanied by a voice with just enough gravel to give it body without losing that smooth melodiousness that makes a singer so perfectly listenable.

Each song comes with the story of why it is in his collection, and each is sung as if it is a personal piece of himself. Most of the music is a selection of Americana with a distinct feeling that these are songs he has lived, not jsut come upon at some point and liked. Close your eyes and you can see him sitting there with the original artists jamming away.

If he is performing in SL, make the time to catch him. It will be the most worthwhile hour you spent in SL all week.

I think there is something in my eye, making it hard to type. Honest. So back to listening to the music.

Just don't ask him for any Joan Baez.

Follow Up

The music in the video in my previous post is by ChouChou, a Second Life band devoted to exploring new frontiers of creating music.

That is awesome. Especially since they seem to be part of a movement. Check out the in-world music store where you can buy real MP3s and AIFFs. It even comes with music previews.

You can get ChouChou's songs on iTunes (though if you buy them through Second Life then Apple can't take most of the money on the sale), and check out their "live" concert images.

The story that disappeared on the earth.

Some truly awesome machinima.

QiQi Studios

QiQi Studios is a truly awesome Second Life machinima studio out of China. The art work, the production values, and the ideas are all simply awesome.

See their work, be impressed.

You can also find them in Second Life in China and China West sims.

Fritz Linden's Metropolis

I think Fritz Lang's Metropolis is an interesting landmark of sorts. I mean beyond the normal reason. I am more interested the remakes, interpretations and allusions to it.

Here is one done entirely in Second Life, broken down into bite size chapters for your convenience.

Big Moon

Was playing with the environment settings in an alternate Second Life client when I happened to look up.

Looks close enough to visit.

Virtual Discrimination

An interesting article on discrimination against virtual persons via h+ magazine.

The Hexagon House

Slowly accumulating a store front inside the hexagon house in Tipsico.

At some point the furniture will be replaced by things I've made that are for sale. But for now I don't have much that goes with the theme except the modernist kotatsu.

The Hexagon House

The hexagon house was specifically designed to sit on a slope or a ridge line, meaning it is perfectly suited to the terrain of Tipsico.

I also bought up a good chunk of the ridge line in an attempt to de-flatten the sim, lots of which got leveled into 512 flat plot. Leads to a very strange geography along the ridge, where the old slope was close to 45 degrees.

No, the big thing next to it is not on my property. It is a house belonging to an old timer that was very well done for its time. Though there is a little pixel panic.

Tipsico Garden

First big fix was to change the architecture in place there.

Settled on my hexagonal platform house, which is bigger than it looks. An uncommon event in SL.

The garden is getting a makeover

The Tipsico garden is getting a makeover.

Tipsico was an Asian-themed sim for a while, mostly out of people just following the trend. We are trying to steer it that way again.

New addition to the fleet

I am working on a new addition to the fleet.

Okay, so the big airship is still not and done probably never will be, but the smaller ones are easier to work with (and complete).

More pics another time.

Virtual Outreach

Some interesting links on a theme:

• Understanding Islam Through Virtual Worlds 1
• Understanding Islam Through Virtual Worlds 2
• Virtual Journalism: Inside the Virtual Newsroom of the American University in Cairo
• The Launch of a Journalistic Experiment: The Virtual Newsroom of the American University in Cairo

Mainland Home 5

Last one in this set, and interior shot of the house.

Second Life has problems with rendering intersecting objects with alpha, so these pictures were a challenge to take with clouds making objects (like the leaves on the trees) fade in and out of existence.

Mainland Home 4

You can see the water from my home, with the camera cranked way out. There is an entire sim between my land and the big lake in the middle of the region. However, they next sim over is so far down it is easy to look right over it. The property is at the top of a very tall ridge.

Mainland Home 3

Why fences make good neighbors.

Portrait of an Artist as an Avatar

A interesting story about the intersection of the art world and Second Life, from the New York Times Magazine.

And a little AM Radio for good measure.