On June 7th, I wrote a piece about the A’stra main stage at SL10BCC. At the risk of repeating myself, this is a truly stunning build by Today Nakamura and Flea Bussy. As a part of the article, I post-processed some of the images I captured of the stage and turned them into drawings / paintings of the build to create a little illustrative narrative to go with the post.
I subsequently uploaded a couple of the images to my Flickr stream and then to the SL10BCC Flickr Group, where I think Toady may have seen them and found inspiration, as Flea IM’d me while I was off-line, and left me a message with a clue:
Shhhh! When you have a moment, maybe peek at the front of A’stra, near the angle you took the photo from…well, or we could say, painted! Toady saw your painting and well…you’ll see!
Intrigued, I pulled on my exploring boots, spent a few minutes burning incense at the Alter of the GPU asking that my Ge9800 GT hold itself together for an in-world visit (It’s been struggling badly the last 48 hours, and not only on the SL10BCC regions, which are already quite densely packed with textures), and jumped in-world.
What I found was lovely, and – I have to say – deeply flattering. There’s a new little promontory leading from the “mainland” paths bordering the stage, and on it … well, see for yourselves…
“The artist”
I actually think he’s doing a much better job than I did…
“The artist”
So, thank you, Toady and Flea!
The artist adds a wonderful additional touch to the build – and I’m not saying that because the inspiration for him may have come from my pictures. There is a wealth of detail and many incredible touches from both Flea and Toady which bring this stage to life as you wander through it, and the artist adds another gem to that detail. Keep your eyes out for him once the regions open!
P.S. if you’re curious, the first image above may appear to have had a degree of post-processing. It hasn’t. It was produced purely through tweaking windlight via William Weaver’s Phototools, allow me to draw more attention to the figure of the artist.
My antics on the waters of Second Life have mostly been restricted to using my Second Life Premium Gift sailing boat, the odd jet ski, my fabulous Terra Stingray (which has the added advantage of going over and underwater as well as on the water), together with my equally fabulous Fishers’ Menance Neuspa.
However, I’ve just picked-up a new addition to my little flotilla: an E-Tech Sparrow 4(.1) I decided to grab one after Spikeheel Starr pointed to them on the Marketplace, where they are on a special limited-time offer.
The Sparrow ready to go
I’d been familiar with E-Tech, Envy Melody’s brand, under its old title of MC Yachts, for a while – so being able to pick-up one of her boats at the offer price of L$399 was a bit of a no-brainer.
This new version of the Sparrow boasts a range of improvements over earlier versions – reduced prim count / land impact (something I’ll come back to), improved scripting, and so on. The style is that of a powerful motor cruiser rather than a yacht, and it is very sleek and good-looking. The open cabin provides sufficient seating for up to eight passengers, although the pilot will have to make do with standing at the wheel – no driving seat is provided.
All at sea: motoring sedately past the Crows Nest lighthouse on Blake Sea
The Sparrow is delivered in a neat little suitcase which contains four working versions of the boat (all-white, white/black, white/red, and white/pink), a HUD and the necessary instructions. for use.
Handling
Driving the boat is a matter of rezzing it on a suitable body of water, right-clicking on it to position yourself behind the wheel and they using the WASD keys or arrow keys for the throttle and steering. For those who like running up and down through the gears, PAGE UP and PAGE DOWN provide the gear sift options – UP to move up through the gears, DOWN to move down through them (and to shift to neutral and reverse). For those who don’t like gear changes the boat’s transmission can be set to Automatic via the comprehensive menu system.
Touching any part of the boat (outside of seating areas and the Extras Panel (see below) will display the control menu, which provides a huge range of options, from selecting the automatic or manual transmission option, to adjusting the position of the various poses, altering the boat’s performance characteristics, to selecting and amending camera positions – and more.
Not long ago, Honour posted a piece on how, in order to get things done in-world, she sometimes resorts to using an alt. Doing so allows her to focus on what she’s doing without the distractions of IMs, people dropping in or whatever. Last on, she followed-up with a piece commenting that despite the fact she does use an alt – she doesn’t consider the alt to be “her”.
I know what Honour means.
I’ve had an alt since 2008. (Actually, I technically have 2 alts – but one is located on a Destination Island, where I use it to see if there have been any tweaks to the in-world side of the sign-up process, so I ignore it, as it’ll never see serious use anywhere else). She was created after my main account appeared broken, and i needed an account simply to be able to get in-world while my main account was “fixed”.
Fortunately, the account issues were resolved after a few days, and so the alt disappeared into a box, making only occasional appearances in-world. More recently, she seen rather more use, as I tend to use her to fiddle with project and experimental viewers, a move which prompted me to dub her my “Crash Test Alt”.
Over the last few months, this use has grown to include me sometimes using her to attend in-world Lab meetings (generally as a result of me already being logged-in with her & being to bone-idle to swap accounts / viewers), and occasionally slipping in to scout-out regions I might blog about at some point. Even so, through all this time, I’ve never regarded her as “me”; in my mind she is always, “her”, “she” or “it”.
My reaction probably isn’t that unusual; many of us have a particular avatar in SL into which we pour not only a lot of creative effort, but also a lot of our own personality as well, so much so that there is an indelible line which connects us in a very personal and unique way to that avatar which goes beyond matters of money spent or inventory built up.
Even so, I find my lack of identification with my alt interesting. Other than tweaking her shape and getting her a decent skin, I’ve never seen the need to invest in any clothes or shoes for her. To this day, she’s still wears the outfit she was wearing when first rezzed. It’s not that I can’t define or afford a look for her; I simply don’t see the point of doing so. She doesn’t even have a profile picture of herself.
My inability to identify with her manifests in other ways as well. As I mentioned above, I sometimes use her to slip into SL to scout regions I might blog about. But then I do this, I find that I have considerable difficulty in taking snapshots using her; I can’t settle on camera angles or decide on appropriate windlight settings or the best time of day to frame a shot. Then, even when I do eventually land a series of snaps, I’m completely dissatisfied with them and end up deleting them and swapping back over to my main and starting again. I may be far from the top-flight photographers who inhabit Second Life, but it’s almost as if what abilities I do have when it coming to taking in-world photos is wholly invested in Inara Pey, and it is only with her that I have any confidence that what I’m trying to frame may be worth showing to others.
My alt isn’t hard to spot. Not only is she still in 2008 “female musician” threads and boots, her group tag tends to read “Inara Pey incognito”, which is a bit of a giveaway, I know. I created it to try and make me feel a little easier with using her; not that it seems to be working.
So if you come across her meandering around, and conversation seems odd or awkward when chatting, don’t worry. It’s not that I don’t want to be disturbed or that I’m trying to avoid contact.
It’s just that I’m borrowing someone else’s body for a while, and it doesn’t quite fit.
Update March 26th: Erick has sent me a copy of the “full” version of the Spitfire’s Hud, which does include a comprehensive set of control switches.
As regular readers know, I was bitten by the flying bug towards the back-end of 2012. I started out humbly enough with a couple of “freebie” aircraft (although the term doesn’t do them justice at all) a Terra Stingray by Steve “Cubey Terra” Cavers and a Pitts S2C by Michie Yokosuka. As noted back then, I’d had some flying vehicles prior to these two, but they marked my “real” entry into the world of flying in SL.
Since then, my aircraft collection has expanded somewhat, with several more from the Cubey Terra range entering my ownership, and even Warbugs getting my attention. If I’m totally honest, the Stingray has remained my out-and-away favourite – it handles beautifully and is equally at home whether in the air or on (and even under!) the water – which is really handy when out on Blake Sea.
However, my collection of aircraft gained a massive boost recently when I unexpectedly came into ownership of an aeroplane I have, like anyone remotely connected to or interested in RL flying, loved from afar: A Supermarine Spitfire. Specifically a Mark IX as made by Erick Gregan.
Just a gal and her Mark IX
The “Spit” came my way while Erick and I were visiting the Magnum Sandbox regions in order to poke sticks at the region crossing bug fix deployed this week by LL in an attempt to cure much of the misery surrounding vehicle region crossings resulting from the recent roll-out of interest list code.
Those who are familiar with Erick’s work know this his aircraft are all exquisitely put together and detailed – and the Spitfire is no exception. A mesh construction, It is perhaps one of the most detailed SL aircraft I’ve seen, and it is clear that he has poured an enormous amount of creative talent into it. I confess that it was love at first sight when he rezzed it in front of us.
Fabulous detail
It is also fabulously scripted – the one aircraft having four flight modes: an “easy fly”, a “realistic fly” (handling pretty much as a “real” aeroplane would, and requiring as much care and respect), and both an “easy combat”, and a “realistic combat” version for those who feel a little more bloodthirsty.
All four variants come in a single Mark IX rezzer which itself is pretty neat. Pull it out of inventory, let it rez and then click to select which variant of the aircraft you’d like. The “flyable” version then replaces the rezzing version, which self-deletes, leaving the flyable version occupying the same space. Also included in the box is a low-impact (non-flying) “display” version, suitable for parking in a hanger, a full set of instructions and a parachute – just in case.
In the air
The Spitfire uses the usual flight controls: Page Up / Down for throttle, the arrow keys for climb / descend / banking, together with a huge range of chat commands – there is no active HUD for flight settings, although you can display an instrument HUD on your screen.
In terms of capabilities and control, Erick has packed a lot in, and sought to make the aircraft as real to fly as possible, particularly in the “realistic” modes. In the latter, a correct start-up process needs to be followed in order to get the big Merlin engine turning over; there’s a battery to turn on, fuel pumps and mixture to set, throttle to open, etc., before attempting start-up. When the engine does start to turn over, you’re treated to unburnt fuel “flaming” in the Merlin’s exhaust pipes as well as getting the life-life sound of the engine coughing and roaring into life. All-in-all an aviation enthusiast’s dream.
“Contact!” The Mark IX’s Merlins starts …
Once in the air, the Spitfire is a delight to fly, and is very responsive to keyboard inputs, with flap, ailerons and rudder all visibly moving in response to inputs. I can say that aerobatics, are a joy – providing you have a good sense of spatial awareness :). I had a lot of fun barrel-rolling and looping around the sky once I’d got settled.
Care does need to be taken when flying the plane in “realistic” modes, however. Get things out of shape on landing, for example, and you’re liable to tip the nose into the ground … as I found out *cough*cough*. Oh, and don’t forget to refuel between flights :).
There is a HUD to go with the Spitfire, but it is “passive” in the sense that while it records airspeed, altitude, heading, etc., there are no switches or options to click; all commands outside of the flying controls are given via chat. The commands themselves are simple enough, with many abbreviated for ease of use (“cc” to close / open the canopy, “ch” to remove / place the wheel chocks, “br” for brakes, etc).
I’ve not actually tried my hand in combat, as that is not something which particularly draws me (Warbugs notwithstanding!), bot the Spitfire comes with an impressive array of weapon options using the VCE combat system for those who are combat enthusiasts.
As to region crossings? While, these have been an issue of late, as I’ve been covering in my weekly SL project updates. However, and while it has, at the time of writing, yet to be deployed to the entire grid – which should happen in week 13 (commencing Monday 25th March), the fix for BUG-1814 works. Neither Erick nor I encountered any issues crossing between regions in the Magnum Sandbox area. Hopefully this will be the majority finding for everyone who enjoys flying / driving / sailing in SL once the fix has been fully rolled-out.
And the Spitfire? Well, suffice it to say, I’m well and truly flying high.
Wishing everyone all the very best for 2013. Thank you for taking the time to come read this blog, give feedback and comments, and for all your retweets, replurks, loves and support throughout 2012. It’s has been and is, deeply appreciated.
I celebrated six years of continuous presence in Second Life in November 2012. To mark the event, I started to put together a little video – but have only just got round to finishing it this last week. It’s probably best viewed within this page, as my limited image resolution (1440×900) doesn’t scale very well after being processed by the video editing software, and not all the places I wanted to remember in the video are still available / open for me to go back to and image at a much higher resolution.
Anyway, it’s a small celebration and I hope you like it.
Update: Following advice from a friend on YouTube, I’ve tweaked things slightly, and uploaded a video based on adjusted rendering settings. Hopefully, it should be a little better, quality-wise.
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 