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

 

More Prim Saving Releases!

As of yesterday, I have officially released what I’m sure is just a beginning in the Botanical Crystals series.

• 18 Crystal Colors
• 4 Crystal Styles
• Particle and Light effects
• 24 Packs of 12 Transferable Clusters
• Single and Multi-Color Sets
• Options for view optimization

All sets include beautiful crystals with a prim count ranging from 1 prim to 3. The largest cluster boasts 64 facets and is only 3 prims. Check out the photos below, then come see for yourself at Botanical!

Like what you see? Come see for yourself at Botanical and enjoy nature re-invented!

 

Botanical New Releases: Palms, Ferns, Grasses

As I had mentioned in the previous post, Sculpted Prims allow us to truly bend the old rules of landscape designing. To this end, I am happy to announce the release of 8 new items to the Botanical catalog, starting with SL’s favorite type of tree, the Palm.

Two Palm tree styles in 4 variations and 3 prims each! Available right now are the Mexican Fan Palm set and the Coastal Palm variety. Extremely low prim and hand detailed with sculpted and normal prim textures.

Even if the world is a beach, you can’t just have trees, however!

That is why I have also introduced one of my favorite creations, the 1 prim plant! Green and Yellow Dune Grass is currently available now at Botanical, and continue the low prim, high detail theme. I have been told from various customers that they have saved upwards of 400 to 1000 (yes, one THOUSAND) prims, just by switching to Botanical’s palm tree and grasses. This is fantastic news. Besides, what use is a tropical getaway, if you don’t have prims left over to really enjoy it?

4 Forest and Tropic Ferns, 1 prim each!

This is just one of the 4 new fern releases that I have made at Botanical. Like the dune grasses, this release boasts a 1 prim sculpted design, and creates an excellent filler for both beach and woodland areas.

These new releases and many more can be found exclusively at the Straylight Botanical store! Come to shop or just to explore, and truly see nature re-imagined!

 

Sculpt Sculpt Revolution!

When Sculpted Prims were first introduced to Second Life, I had just started designing prim trees and landscaping. It was easy for me to take advantage of their face value, which allowed for much more organic designs. My first attempts at using this new SL technology produced some of my longest running products for Botanical, and are fast becoming a staple to SL landscaping.

As the technology was explored deeper, ways of making NON organic shapes emerged, and brought into focus another aspect of sculpt prims. Saving Prims. Until sculpted prims, there were 3 standard options in landscaping your home, business or play area with plants. Mesh plants (standard in everyone’s Inventory Library), 3D prim plants (trees and plants constructed out of normal prims), and billboard prim plants (alpha pictures of plants and trees on flat prims set at angles to each other to present a common face to the viewer.)

The mesh plants provided by Linden Lab for landscaping are low polygon 3D models with varying levels of detail for varying distances. This approach is also available with commercial packages like Speedtree, with which LL has had an account since around 2005. Mesh plants count as 1 prim and take advantage of simulator physics effects, like wind. Making our own mesh plants is still out of the common user’s reach, however, and cannot be modified, except for size.

Prim plants and trees are 3 Dimensional items that can (based on the creator’s permission settings) be edited, modified and personalized. Prim levels in these items can be high, however.

Billboard prim plants take advantage of an optical illusion that the game industry has used for quite some time. Take an image of a tree or plant, put it on either side of a prim, and duplicate the prim, setting it at an angle to the original prim. Any way (except for top views) that people see this plant, they will have the original texture facing them. This allows for varying levels of detail (that’s up to the creator) and can make for extremely low prim items. You *do* miss out on the 3D experience, but they make fantastic options for filling in details of your landscaping.

With the advent of Sculpted prims, however, we have the opportunity to break some of the rules. One sculpted prim can LOOK like 4 separate prims. Or 8, or 16. By combining this technology with traditional approaches to landscaping, a whole new prim saving world can be explored, not only giving us more resources to use on our land, but giving us MANY more options in modifying and editing. The next couple posts will cover new Botanical releases that take advantage of sculpted prims to really drive down your landscaping resources and let you do MORE with your Second Life.

 

More fashion magazines and Straylight… What is up with this?

Apparently if it’s not the sim, It’s me… ladies and gentleman, I introduce you to Homme magazine, “for the finest men in SL”. Published by Arj Friedkin and Davey Hullabaloo, Homme contracted the always funny Catero Revolution to dig into all sorts of interesting details on my store and myself for Issue #3 (requires adobe reader). Be sure to check out the entire issue and pick up their past issues from the website as well. Fantastic read and a really beautiful layout.

 

Going Broke with Daphne and Tamara. Podcast Interview

I was shocked when I found out that that Daphne Abernathy and Tamara Kirshner of Going Broke with Daphne and Tamara fame wanted to interview me for their fantastic podcast series. I was more familiar with their fashion advice and wit, but they had a terrific twist.  Now that you are following their advice and looking fantastic, where do you go to photograph your avatar beauty?  Their answer is Straylight, and I had a terrific time talking to Daphne and Tamara about Botanical, Straylight, and how it all started. Check it out here!