Detect Surface

Yeeeeeaaaaahhhhh..... er..... Thats right, Daemonum did a runner in the middle of the night and I was left stranded with my trusty, trendy glasses and a bottle of whiskey. Honestly, the whiskey and the fact that I hated the look of the place, had absolutely nothing to do with it. Or it could of been the huge prim limit Linden Labs implemented in one of their many, many server updates recently, that Jaquina Pera pointed out I might add. So yup! When that came into effect, the sims were in lock down because I'd gone over the normal dosage.

Promised a few people that I'd finally post about this, but yes, I've moved (again, for the 5th time) to a cool new location finally of my own and for various reasons, this is a special sim and I'll tell you why.

Before I do though, I wanted to clarify some of the things/names here, being Sector 52 is the second installment with in the Cyver Universe, although I'm not relating this as such, but it does take place before Sector 13, The City of Abaddon was built.

Sector 52 is basically going along the idea of a central hub, powering surrounding sectors as the main energy source to most of the world, or what's left of it. Going from there, the story tells of the government known as the Covenant of State and then proceeds into a whole mess of crap that I cant be arsed going into lol.

 

Okay, the reason for moving is for one reason, that I really wanted to expand and with Merricks Landing 2, I could never of done what I intended to do here, which is, build a community. Depending on how this goes, I really would love lub, luv to maintain a small, cool designed mini grid, but again, I'll have to see how it all unfolds.

Anyways, heres the special parts:

This is an OpenSpace Sim.
Yup, thats right. OpenSpaces, if you've been out of the loop are a new region type, unfortunately only open to people who already maintain a regular type sim. Although, you can easily buy your own through various companies in SL that are resident run. The sims themselves are four to a server and only allow 3750 prims per OpenSpace, which, at first glance, is a little daunting. But the cheapnessnessness of these sims will bring in people wanting to create their own small little patch, they can call their own and still brag about how big they are... The sim I mean.

This I really saw as an opportunity to try and create something that looked far from 3750 prims and make a sim like any other... but with a bit of D&D flair :) .

Reflecting on your Path.
I've tried a newish thing. I love the reflections in the water, and reflections is something I've done for a long time in SL, with various things, from my wife's apartment to the Funda Company's half sim ski lodge. So with the reflective feature, I decided to take advantage of it and make all the roads/alleys appear as if they were flooded or heavy rained upon. I do intend to add rain particles, but it depends on how it all runs together.

Less is More.
Tons of the great new Huge Prims that I've acquired from a keen programmer type, hes actually made a great tool namely Salt, that is a huge prim server filled with 15,000 variations that you can request through the Salt HUD. Fantastic little device, holds more than enough sizes to suit any need, be it for tubes, cylinders, cubs and sculpties, you're sure to find what you need for prim conservation.

This helped a lot with the sim design, I really could not of created this without the aid of these prims and as you'll see when you walk around Daemonum, you can see street lights, columns, structures, arches, gargoyles all made from sculpt prims for even more details without the cost of primmy builds.

The art of Texturing.
I'm a bit fan of reusing textures and what I like to call OMNI texturing, as its not quite texture zoning in SL, as to a pain in the arse if you can be bothered lol. But, I like to create 'Strip Textures' too, which help out considerably with the recycling of the same texture, but making it look completely different.

Strip Texturing is what it sounds like, you create a 1024x1024 (If need be) and create different seamless strips from end to end. You can fit a variety of strips on the one texture, depending on how thin/thick they are, some of my main ones hold several. Then, all you do form here is apply them in various ways. They work well on sculpties, also tubes/torus shapes and long column styled cubes and cylinders. Best way is to play!

The Sky is Falling!
Woot, I can finally make use of Windlight and custom water ideas, which am loving with Hi-Def. Completely irrelevant, but I'm happy as punch.

Flux-Capacitating.
Be sure to check out Flux whilst you're wandering, Acid Zenith has come a long way in such a short time on the sculptie scene. He's been creating some amazing designs with the use of specular material shading in Maya. Considering about a month and a half ago he was asking me to create shapes, I'm now asking him lol. He seriously has come with leaps and bounds and for that I commend him, he really does deserve recognition for what he has done.

Expanding your Expansion.
Hopefully, when everything has been finished and sorted, I'll be expanding the sim into a further 4 sims, creating residential and also commercial areas for people to rent and vend through unique buildings, rather that the normal malls you see spotted around SL, I want this to feel more of a metropolis, with a great community for people to come and live, play and have activities in a lush environment, without the eyesores of pink buildings with rotating advertisements.

Anyways, check out Sector 52 - The City of Daemonum @ The Underground Sim, and to wet your appetite, heres some more piccies.

Been a long time since I've done much at all in SL, actually, thats a lie, I've been doing a few things, just never finished them... and those who know me, will know thats not an uncommon thing.

But anyways, I grew a little bored of Abaddon, so I decided to spice things up a little.

About 4 months ago, I did have an idea to create an oil rig with a city on, and design it all in Black and White, creating an arty kind of sim, but after much deliberation, I decided against it, as it was too specialized and I really did not want to single out the genres I like working on.

So! I liked the rig idea, I liked the idea of creating things that can incorporate different ideas/themes, and came up with the SUPER DELUXE SUPER SUPER SIZED SCI FI RIG and named it The Guardians Eye - Sector 98 (I think its 98...) The Sky Rig.

Its still very much under construction, but has already got some nice effects, courtesy of Glow. Unfortunatly, I cant get Windlight to work on my Mac, so I can't show any pictures of how it looks in the midst of beautiful skies. But, never the less, glow makes up for it, and makes up for it on a huge scale. I reallt cant get enough of it, as it produces not only glowy effects, but also depth and shadow, which I love... alot.

As you'll see in some of the pictures, mainly the Cyro Chambers, putting a Glow on the inside, leaving the rest normal, can produce some nice glass effects, blurring out some of the inner prims.

Most of the effects used here are very animated, and should be seen in SL to get the proper effect. But, beside that, the pictures capture some of the detail used.

The rig will be used as part of the new Combat System myself and two other companies are working on right now, named FORGE and will follow the story of the Cyver Series after the demise of Abaddon (Chapter 12). Currently there will be no Cyvers in the story as for those who read some of the release notes know, they got wiped out. But the story will contain elements from the Cyvers and a new branding will emerge.

Big plans follow hopefully, as there are reason as to why the sky rig had to be built, leaving the ground level free, hopefully, I can extend the legs to the bottom.

Anyways, take a lookie at the piccies and see what you think, the second picture shows you the scale of the rig, as I've put a red circle around me and a friend, standing on one of the levels...

Just a quick post about opening a forum site devoted to all things Cyver.

A lot of people IM me asking for any information regarding History, Character Backgrounds and Story Lines, so, before the combat system and website is finished (If the combat system ever gets done lol), I've put up a forum site highlighting a variety of areas, including thus mentioned and a whole array of other crap lol.

If you're interested in knowing more, please visit:

After my wife, Summer Axon (Thanks for the post by the way haha) and her great friend Velvet Beebe agreed on moving in together, I thought it would be cool to give them a nice house to get changed in, mooch about and have friends over for midnight pajama parties.

So I set out in creating something quick that turned out to be something typically not lol oh dear.

But saying that, I'm glad of what this project turned into, as its become more of a miniature spectacle rather than a simple habitat.

So here it goes in explaining a few things, in which you might want to try out yourself.

First thing you'll notice is the city, I think its seattle, I'm not sure seeing as I've never been.  This is one of the main features that you'll see from the pictures, as it uses a special alpha overlay, highlighting only the shine, glows and lighting effects on the image. So, what does this do? Well, it produces an environment transition effect that you can use with Second Lifes lighting. Thus, when you change your Day/Night timeframe, the city changes with it, without the need of scripting and its viewer compatible for each individual perspective, yay.

How do you do this? Easy Peasy if you know your finnicky bits in Photoshop, took me 5 minutes to do all 4 alpha overlays, so its not that hard really. All you need to do is copy the original image/images into another document, convert them to greyscale, so its easier to handle. Then adjust the curves so it blackens out everything you don't want and white out the lighting areas. Just have a play in curves, its easy to get the hang of. Then from there, blacken any parts that curves cant do without losing its lighting areas, eg. on my city, the only thing that needed blackening was the sky. Then, select all, and copy, paste into an alpha channel. Simple.

You'll see other things in the pictures above, like lighting, ambience, effects, reflective techiniques. Things you cant see or hear are alot of sound effects and animated textures for the rain. Such as, walking closer to the windows, you'll notice streams and splashes of rain running down the panes of glass. The closer you get to the glass, you'll hear the rain hitting the surface of the pane.

Walking closer to the edge of the balcony makes winds rush past you as the rain pours down around you. As the wind subsides, you'll hear noises of the city below, honking cars, sirens, crickets and so on. As you walk inside, the wind and rain quieten, leaving you with the soothing sounds of the rain pattering on the roof.

Below you'll see the transitions between the times of day and how it effects the city and the shading around the apartment building...

I need to add a few other things like raindrop animations on the balcony floor and finish off the interior with some more modern furniture, but overall I think its looking nice, I hope you find it interesting too :P. Some last pictures taken by the notorious Zephyrin Raymaker, featuring Summer Axon, Velvet Beebe, Zephyrin Raymaker, Acid Zenith and myself.

I'll be taking some time away from my drawing board within Second Life these forthcoming weeks, this is because of three reasons...

• I'm getting a little bored (lol)
• I need to eat more than once a day
• and for this next up and coming project

Most that know me in SL and RL, understand that I try and keep busy and creative, otherwise my head explodes and I end up wallowing in 'OMG, I'm so bored' mode.

So, in this, I'm going to be developing a 2D platform shoot 'um up game, much reminiscent of games like Metal Slug for the Neo Geo (ooo, my fav platform game!) and Cybernator for the SNES (Badass robot shootum!).

For the most part, I envisage the game as a high detailed platformer similar to Metal Slug, as I'm a big, huge, enormous, gigaomous fan of SNK's AES system. So, I really want to try and keep the quality of design, illustration and animation to a high, hopefully bringing some more interest to OS X game fans and the vintage support of 2D game players.

As of right now, I'm concentrating on characters for the main story and a simple overveiw of the outline of whats happening, but so far, the main character will be a girl that goes by the name of Zero, fighting against countless odds to fullfill something or other... Basically, who cares lol... people will just want to shoot things and enjoy the game, and with all my projects, I entend to do just that!

I'll keep you all posted on the things to come and update this entry as the game developes!

[ 3rd July 07 Update: Okay, I'm changing some things around and playing with some ideas - First off, the game will now be based on Second Life. I'm going to be contacting a few content designers in-world to see if they would like to be involved. Involved not meaning that they have to work their ass off, but to see if they, a) want to advertise anything, and b) I'll be picking some companys to base the levels on, eg, level one could be based on D&D Creative Labs. So hopefully, as the game design comes more to light, things like end of level bosses will be a product/object of a designer.

Secondly, the main character is still a girl called Zero, shes looking hot lol. A combination of Anime, urban wear, futuristic and neko, shes looking to be a great candidate for the final design. I really want to try and keep her in that Japanese Silly range, as this will play a part in the gameplay. ]

[ 6rd July 07 Update: Development has begun, incorporating Bare Rose clothing with Zero's look and also animation for her too. I'm concentrating on getting the different positions done for her movement first, once thats done, I can create the first test level, designing how the game will work around the size comparison and then implementing weapon functions. Phew lol hopefully this will go smoothly... I'm also continuing in-world, contacting designers involvement.

I'll be posting images soon, to show how its looking and give a glimpse of the characters anime style transfer ]

[ 21st July 07 Update: Had to do a few things in world, which shouldn't take more than a few days to a week. Then I can get back to illustrating the first test level. Once thats done, I can put it up for download so people can see how it plays so far :) ]
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I've only approached a few friends of mine up to now, I'll be asking around later on when theres something to show.

Designers List:
Level 1 - Linden Labs / The Lindens / Orientation Island
Level 2 - D&D Creative Labs / Detect Surface / City of Abaddon
Level 3 - Sixth / Hydrogen Excelsior / update
Level 4 - Nanogunk / Robin Lobo / The Nanogunk Islands
Level 5 - N/A / Slade Onizuka / (** A none SL sim - This is part of the main story **)
Level 6 - Luskwood Furs / Arito Cotton / Luskwood
Level 7 - C-Tech / Compulsion Overdrive / Overdrive Island
Level 8 - Position to be filled
Level 9 - The Final Battle

Bonus Levels:
Inbetween 2/3 - Position to be filled
Inbetween 4/5 - Position to be filled
Inbetween 7/8 - Position to be filled

Additional Components:
Weapons - PAC Pro Attachments / Orochimaru Kuramoto
Weapons - D&D Creative Labs / Detect Surface
Clothing - Bare Rose / June Dion
Vehicles - Collective

A few months ago, I was visited by a very interesting individual that goes by the name of Zephyrin Raymaker. He spoke to me about various things about his blogs and website, inwhich he concentrates on game modding and anything interesting that comes his way.

A few months later, Z is a very good friend of mine, a Dr at a university in Germany by day and games modder by night, Zephyrin truly has been a fountain of knowledge with his intellect and his humble personality.

Hes been kind enough to include Abaddon and the Cyvers in his writing, which I am amazingly happy that hes done so.

In his travels, he pilots the Kravatac Super Cyver to see where he can get in, and let me say, hes got into a lot of crazy situations. You'll find most of his adventures here:

And also you can peruse his directories on modding here:

Abaddon was pleased to be visited by The Premier Second Life Reporter and ex-Linden, Mr Hamlet Au. Through all his travels around the SL globe, he happened to find himself standing at the end of the world, Abaddon.

I was more than happy to chat with him about the creation and inspiration about the City, conversing about why it was built and also my journey through this world. Also about the Cyver series and the future of this foreboding concrete jungle.

You can read the interview at:

After the recent personal disappointment with Sculpting Prims, I was really hoping for WindLight to brighten my days.

With the imminent release of the New D&D Combat System, named 'Final Days', the hope for something to peek more interest to Abaddons role play and atmosphere, was also something to be aimed at.

Linden Labs and Windwardmark Interactive have done an amazing job with WindLights implimentation into Second Life. At first glance, the default settings doesnt do it justice in the slightest, in fact, I was almost going to pull a hissy fit, as I was amazingly looking forward to this...

But, after finding the skys control panel and playing with the mass of options WindLight brings, my faith in SL was brought back to normal lol.

Tinkering and experimenting with the vast amount of virtual paint to add to my canvas, one of the atmospheres I decided on, suits the sim, role play and its system to a T! I really love this new feature, so much so that my eyes orgasm on every turn of a corner, on every zoom in, zoom out, pan and position. This really has made Abaddons day, or night for that matter.

So without further a due, feast your eyes on the new Abaddon with WindLight and RenderGlow active.