6 posts tagged “abaddon”

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.

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...

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.

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:

Just wanted to say "SPANK YOU!!" to Torley Linden, she truly is a great and helpful gal :) Thanks for surprising the heck out of me when you was wandering around Abaddon, was a nice little interlude for me to have a chat.

I have to say thank you for being you and taking so much of your time to compliment and chat with the content creators within Second Life, you're an asset to Linden Labs chuck ^_^

To View a few piccies Torley took whilst visiting, please check out -

http://snapshots.slbuzz.com/torley-linden/2007/02/11/2829

Thanks again!