11 posts tagged “design”
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.
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:
Hope this keeps people interests ripe and helps people understand something that I've kept secret for so long lol.
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.
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:
Been a long time since I actually tought anything in SL, but never the less I will try and explain the best I can about creating a texture map and application to a product/design.
What you'll need:
A pair of scissors
Some cotton wool
10 meters of cardboard
And, Photoshop.
You'll only need Photoshop in this tutorial, lol but you can play with the rest when you get annoyed with the finicky part later on lol.
If you're interested in building something in SL with light and shadow in mind, that will help bandwidth and look pretty, then lets start off with the first steps in creating the map. As I explained in some previous posts, texture mapping is the art of using a single texture to create various looks on you project. Meaning, that you'll have many parts of the product on the same texture, to basically conserve bandwidth when loading and also the fact that the entire product will take a second to load, without the visual of noticeable grey areas whilst textures are processing.
So... Making the product load all at once, I'm trying to say lol.
Step One - Where to start
The easiest way I've found to do this accurately is to build your project before hand. This will allow you to make precise marks into your map, when you get around to it.
Once you have your build just the way you like it, now comes the fun part...
Essentially a texture map is what it sounds like, you'll be mapping your artwork over your design, with the texture having all the necessary parts, sides, lighting, shadows you need.
So, in SL try and get your build straight with the camera and print the page (no printer needed lol just screengrab), or for mac addicts like myself, apple-shift-3. We are taking pictures of all the sides, straight on, because we will be using these as an overlay for the map.
From here, import all the screen shots you took into Photoshop, clear the backgrounds or cut round the build and place this on a 1024x1024 pixel document, or any size you feel appropriate. * Remembering that images work best from multiples of 2 and save as tga, as jpegs seem to be a little strange in SL *. Okay, let the fun stuff begin. Using your amazing talents I know you all have in illustrating photoealistic imagery (lol), begin cutting pieces out of your build, like for example all the flat pieces and start to illustrate over them, adding all what you want the design to end up like. Also, you can add highlights and shadows in the places where you think prims would be overshadowing onto other prims.
Step Two - Realism Points
* Edges of your build might be worn away, so putting darkened lines on the ends make for more realism.
* Curves will obviously catch more light, or light streaks.
* Should your build be worn? Used looking? If so, then add some grain effects, cuts into the material you're using.
* If you have something like a leaver or switch thats close to the thing its attached on, then add some movement effects, eg. a rotating switch will cause the material under it to be worn away with the movement of it. Even if this is just a visual effect and the switch doesn't move, its still nice to incorporate it.
* If your build has two sides that are the same, then you can use the same image on your map for the other side, just flipped. But remember though, if it has text or an icon on it, it will be flipped too, so you'll need to create two sides on the texture map.
* Tube endings are also a nice touch on your build and mapping. Illustrating these on your map makes for more realism. Do a few on your map if you have the room, as to not repeat.... because we all hate noticeable repeating patterns lol
* if you have something that needs to be spread round an object, sometimes its easier to have that part of the map span from one side to the other, boarder to boarder. You can do it when its edges are not touching the boarders, but its easier sometimes to do it the other way.
* Remember to make sure your parts on the map are utilizing the space, its best to try and get as much of the build on one texture as possible, but using multiple maps still isnt a bad thing, so dont worry :P.
Step Three - The ZOMG Part
Once your map is complete (WAHOO, well done :P), now its time to import the bugger and start the last step.
Applying the texture and positioning it can be very tricky and to some people, it might be the part you give up at. But, do NOT worry, I know some people that have nearly given up, but once they see their build growing into this great piece of work, its enough to make anyone carry on.
Okay, so... apply the texture to where ever you want to start, make it a nice big prim, so you can see where you are going. The way I do this part, is to keep the part of the image central to the part of the prim, meaning, if the image you want on the prim you are applying it to is offset to one side, position that part central to the prim, so when you start sizing the texture up to fit, it stays in plain view and doesnt confuse you as to where the bloomin' heck has it gone.
Theres no really easy way to do this part, as texture aligners that you can buy in SL dont work well with highly modded prims. So you may be doing all this by eye.
The key part to this is patience, and as we all know, patience is rewarded at the end. You'll be pleased with your finished product, as it will not look like slapped on textures. And the best thing is, people will praise you for your hard work, as SL needs more texture mapped builds, makes for great eye candy.
I'll add some piccies and a more advanced Photoshop tutorial when I get the time to do some, but for now, I really hope this helps some people in creating more eye catching content in SL.
Lub and Hugs,
Detect Surface
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!
Cyvers are now become wide spread through SL, dedicated to bringing the highest quality of designs for competitive prices (As much as that sounds like a TV advert, its true... TRUE I tells ya! lol).
The continuing interest of people modding their Cyvers, Adding to them, mixing them up and so on, other interest from people consist of wanting to know the story line (Which I'll be posting later in March, once I get it all set in stone), others wanting to create a comic of them. Which then got me thinking... I'm going to put some effort in and pull an 'Apple Inc' (Jump everyone) and create an anime based on the Cyvers, combining one of my all time favorite manga artists, the magnificent , Falcoon, who was lucky enough to work on SNK Playmore products for the Neo Geo AES (My all time favorite Console).
As the Neo Geo AES is a hobby of mine, to collect and also create conversions, designing custom inserts too, I am a huge follower of the SNK cult. The design and illustration themselves appealing to me more, than the actual gameplay. This is where I found the young artist known as Falcoon, his style of illustration and oil painting is unspeakable. The exaggerations of the figures, down to the unique style of clothing he designs, are, to say the least.. amazing and acute.
Although I have been a manga artist since I had a Neo Geo the first time round, which was back in 1991, inspired by Guyver (lol as people know about me), Fist of the North Star, Akira, Patlabor, Ninja Scroll right up to modern day with Stand Alone Complex and Samurai Shamploo. Out of all styles of anime, my favorite being Falcoon.
So with that, I'm thinking of combining his style with a few others to satisfy the look and feel of the Cyver Series.
As of yet, I've only got the line work down, as I've got some out standing work to finish off. But, after this, I can lay down more of the characters, build on it and then start working on the layout of what its going to look like when animated.
The animation will, at present time, be only the intro of what the anime series would look like. Lasting around 1 to 2 minutes long. This is because I dont want it to look like a crappy attempt of an animation... rather, that I want to spend time making the entire intro look like a piece of art, as anime is intended to be.
So here for your perusal are some of the first characters, unfortunately, none of the Cyvers have been converted to anime illustration yet, but this should wet your palettes until the arrival update.
Baring in mind that the Cyvers were created solely in Second Life, there was no mock designs of them to begin with, I just built them off the top of my head. So its only fitting that, because they were born and raised in Second Life, I introduce some of my closest friends into the Anime, to produce more characters for the story line...
After everything is complete and the animation is underway, I'll be composing a theme song to go with the intro. I know it seems like I know an awful lot about Design, Illustration, Texturing, 3D Modeling within SL, Writing, Producing, Music Production and so on lolol (I hate blowing my own trumpet lol not that I was then lol), but, the way I see it is... why leave and rely on others to do things when you have motivation to learn and create yourself. Don't get me wrong though, I love working within a team, but somethings are just 'better' if you do it to your satisfaction.
Combining the two most powerful handguns on the planet, all under one roof.
Still under the development stage as like the pistol below, I really don't want to have to settle for run-of-the-mill scripting. The look and feel to the gun will be lost if shabby coding is involved, so I'm going to have to stand back for a while as to not destroy the slick, dark revolver.
Again, as you can see from the right, texture mapping in a more complex way has been deployed on the Black Mamba, using two maps to give it, its high definition and quality. Making the textures from scratch and adding the rough look to the metal, making the sci-fi themed gun more realistic than the
Military Pistol.
On the design side, more than likely people will be interested in this new genre of pistol, most the weaponry in Second Life is based or a replica of the real thing, with that market nearing saturation, I'm hoping to unlock a new area of projectile weapons that will appease both the real world enthusiast and also the sci-fi fans with this piece.
I hope people do enjoy it as much as I've had fun building it when it is finally released, in the mean time I'll be searching for certain someone to create the coding thats needed to bring the Black Mamba alive and hopefully a few more of the pistols/automatic/heavy weapons I'll be doing in the near future.
Most of Second Life residents take simple textures and apply them to prims without really looking too much deeper into the whole texture aspect of design. In which designing in itself would become a new part of the world of creation, bringing more visually stunning pieces of content.
Texture mapping is used all around the world in computer games companies and any 3D artist will use this technique when creating models in Maya for example.
A texture map is basically a single texture with many designs on it, making up the whole object with minimal loading time. So, within the world of Second Life, this becomes an important factor when it comes to server side memory and speed. As mentioned below in the Abaddon review, texture maps are used all over the sim to create the utmost detail that transfers to computers at a blink of an eye.
Here is an example of texture mapping with a handgun I will be releasing shortly...
As you'll see, the gun appears to be realistic in a sense of that the textures look like they have been put on separately, but in a matter of fact, this is done with the use of one texture and then using offsets to create the entire look.
Creating content this way might take a little longer, and does ask for a perfectionist eye, pays off in the end as the gun loads straight away, looks realistic and stylish and is server friendly.
Currently working on a corporate sim project at the moment, consisting of the massive music radio station, BNN, situated in Holland.
The sim itself has been designed by myself, under the company of The Brain Game and can be found at this SLURL:
Only 45 percent complete at the moment, but the main lounge area, which will be home to the BNN.FM DJ's, streaming live in SL and in RL too. Bringing the opportunity to place requests in-world to the live DJ's bring home the tunes whilst chatting amongst the crowd on the dance floor. This in turn should change the clubbing scene within SL, as to live DJ's, live bands preforming gigs and the live enactments of SL Residents. This combined with the design and various areas relating to the goings on of BNN.
The press release was given out earlier today, opening the doors to BNN fans, to be able to logon to their site and regester with Second Life, without leaving the BNN site. Once registered, BNN members can now be welcomed in-world, bypassing Orientation Island and beginning their new lives at the BNN sim.
As for the sim, well theres a few things to do there, creating the main 'bunker' stage for future BNN hosted concerts, the BNN Building, featuring a gallery of information about the company, plus a stylish SL Base for them to hold meetings with employees and clients.
The main style we're going for is an industrial look, with contemporary designs and stylized music hardware components to reflect a modern environment for todays music listeners. You'll notice that, from above, the main lounge area is actually a massive turntable, with the arm like a crane and the stylus/cartridge as a DJ booth. Also the massive turntable plate actually turns with the BNN logo as a slipmat :P hehe.
The above image is an article written by the Dutch Press about the sim design and the opening. I have no idea what it says, but its nice to have interest lol.
All in all, the clients (BNN) are very pleased with the progress of the sim, the lounge will be going live and full throttle this Friday with two DJ's residing and bringing the latest house classics to hit the charts.
I'll be definitly attending... and will be looking forward to seeing the results of the future of SL Clubs.
Will be updating soon as to the progress of the sim.
Neighborhood
Explore friends, family, friends & family, or entire neighborhood.
