New Release: Mid Winter Oak

I’m pleased to announce the release of a new winter tree for Botanical, the Mid-Winter Oak. This tree has a rich brown bark texture, with newly fallen snow clinging to it’s surface.  The bare branches show it’s very last autumn leaves strugling to hold on, as the winter season sets in.

This tree includes an additional two prim root set, also with snow, to be used at your disclosure, as well as two shadow prims, one suitable for snowy terrain, and one for grass.

I’m very proud of this release, and I hope it finds a place on your land

Mid Winter Oak is available at the Botanical store starting at L$150 and on XstreetSL starting at L$175

Seasons Greetings!

Botanical: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Straylight/127/104/24
XstreetSL: transfer version
XstreetSL: copy version

 

Ephemeral

Poid Mahovlich pointed me over to Second Life composer Dizzy Banjo’s blog, where Dizzy documents the short machinima “Ephemeral”, a haunting audio/visual tale co-written by Dizzy and Poid, filmed on the Princeton University sim (designed by Poid), and using apparently all Botanical Green Fir trees for landscaping.  It is a very beautiful film, and I am honored to even have been mentioned in the credits!

Link to “Ephemeral”

Link to Princeton Aspire sim in Second Life (requires the Second Life client)

 

EXEMPLARY Customer Service and Integrity in a Second Life business(Botanical).

“…I wanted everyone to know that Botanical not only makes great products, but they back it up with customer service that is just as wonderful.”

I am thrilled with this glowing post by Belial Foulsbane about the customer service at Botanical.  The full post can be found on the SL™ forums (may require logging in to view).

 

Unfortunate Situation

It’s come to my attention that several people have approached a Second Life content creator by the name of Vooner Voom with questions as to his integrity as a creator.

These questions started after my Halloween release that included some spooky trees with faces on them.  Mr Voom also has a similar offering, which was in fact released before mine.  Unknown to me, however was how closely our design choices were in our respective releases.

I have spoken at length with Mr. Voom, and we are both convinced that our ideas were seperate and original creations that happened to share a similiar theme.

Mr. Voom is a very creative and highly original content creator, and I have personally appologized to him about the questions to his integrity, and we would both like to assure everyone who has thought to accuse him or myself of any malicious intent… this was simply a case of two ideas ideas that in execution share superficial resemblence to each other.

Anyone who knows of my work and my past dealings with content theft issues should know that I do not take accusations like this lightly, and I hope this will post will officially put any question as to the originality of Mr. Voom’s work to rest.

I also gave the following to Mr. Voom in notecard form to be passed to anyone else who thought to question him:

“Most Sincere Apologies from Kriss Lehmann of Botanical

Dear Vooner Voom,
First of all, I would like to like to express my deepest apologies for any questions that you may have received regarding your Halloween themed tree or questions as to your integrity as a content developer.

I am sure that your themed tree was in fact created well before my own, and I assure you that any similarities in style are purely cooincidental and were independant design choices made to fit the theme of the tree:

dark bark
shadowed ghost features in the trunk
branches resembling hands
skeletal branch tips

These design choices were obviously made by both of us, and I want to assure you that I had no intention of creating something that would throw either you or me in a questionable light.

Please distribute this card to anyone who has any doubt about the original design of your tree.

Sincerest appologies to a fellow content creator,
Kriss Lehmann
Owner of Botanical”

 

Faxed to Linden Lab: DMCA NOTIFICATION

I wish to report what I feel in good faith is an instance of Copyright Infringement. The infringing material appears on your service.

My items that I believe have been infringed upon are in particular:

* – Botanical – Emerald Forest Tree 1
* – http://slurl.com/secondlife/Straylight/138/87/24
* – ‘creator’ name: Kriss Lehmann

The infringing items are:
* – All trees on simulator
* – http://slurl.com/secondlife/Delicious%20Prospect/228/222/46
* – ‘creator’ name: Sephiroth Lusch

I have a good faith belief that the use of the material that appears on your service is not authorized by myself (the copyright owner), my agent, or by operation of law.

I declare under the perjury laws of the United States of America that this notification is true and correct.

*update*
The original notification was for a first set of trees that also used my sculpt textures. Those were removed by the group owner who was renting the Sim, only to be replaced by new trees, this time not with my sculpts, but still using tthe stolen textures. I’m leaving my DMCA report to stand for these as well.

At the same time I was on the sim documenting the trees, KatanaBlade Anubis, Samurai Estates Founder, was also there, having Sephiroth remove textures that were stolen from her builds on Samurai Island.  I would recommend banning this person from all estates, if you value your own content.

 

More Machinima!

Nicely done machinima with an extremely epic soundtrack, all that is missing is a *movie voice* and would have thought it was a trailer for 2008’s summer blockbuster!

Check it out here

 

A very touching tribute to someone passed.

My friend Eshi Otawara showed me this extremely touching tribute to her passed husband that she made in Straylight. Be sure to read her note under the video *wipes tear*

Click to view video here

 

Second Life™ Showcase – Straylight

As part of their “Virtual Spring Break” series, Linden Lab® featured Straylight here: http://secondlife.com/showcase/blog.php?blog_category=3

I’m not sure how long it will last, with all the fantastic places around, but I really appreciate the tip of the virtual hat!

Also you can find a link to the newly opened Visit Mexico 2 & 3, which I helped landscape. http://secondlife.com/showcase/sub_page.php?showcase_category=4

 

New Release! Botanical Butterflies

Hello All! I took this week to wrap up some old projects that had been around the workspace for a while, and ended up having a lot of fun in the end.

In this release, I’ve included 14 butterfly and moth emitters.  The butterflies are temp rez, animated, and have an approximate 10 meter area. Along with some of my favorite species that I wanted to include in Straylight and Wintermute for some time, I’ve added two special species that will have immediate homes: Flame and Liquid Butterflies   The Flame species has a nasty way of dropping little bits of itself around.  When you get a whole group together, things get REALLY hot!  The Liquid butterflies are often found around streams and playing in and out of the waterfalls.

Stop by Straylight and see for yourself! 

 

Beautiful Flythrough Video!

Sevent Uriza sent me a link to this video she made featuring dramatic fly-through footage of amazing quality! Included in the various sims represented in the video is our very own Straylight ^^ Beautiful soundtrack on this one!

Link: sevenload.com