7 posts tagged “secondlife”
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.
So, with that, Texture Mapping comes into play...
Like I explained below, texture mapping is the art of illustrating the entire object on a single texture file. Meaning, all sides of the object, little bits that need to go on and in this case, handles, clips and so on. Once done, you apply it to every prim, change the offsets to match the illustration up (Which can take some time) and then make sure everything is aligned.
So to the left is an example of the Military .40 Pistol thats featured in the below post. The only visible difference is that I slightly altered the tonal value of the end product, making it slightly darker.
Sometimes its a good idea to have a texture map lighter than it actually is, then you can apply different values to suit your needs.
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.
Once in a while, things just seem to pop up out of the blue. You might be inspired by something you see in passing, something you always have had with you and only just notice, or it can be a passing thought... The Cyvers were no different really.
The first ever Cyver Armour to appear, was the highly detailed Kravatac unit. Crab-like in appearance, bulky turbines attached to his shoulders and a tiny robot in his stomach area. This would soon spawn a trend that kicked off a whole line of creations that came under the same name.
As a kid, I was influenced and inspired by the series, Guyver. A manga animation that was highly popular all over the world, that gave birth to various movies and maybe 10 years later, a 3rd series in Japan. To me, the whole idea of a bio armor was very interesting and to say the least, very cool lol.
So that really gave me the idea for the name, Cyver. The units I created, were not bio boosted, nor did they hide somewhere in the 20th dimension, tapping you on the back now and again, asking "Can I come out now? I wanna kick ass!". The Cyvers are basically armor that push the boundaries of SL when it comes to design and texture.
When I first started creating, I had no real knowledge of scripting, granted, I knew how to make a prim cloak, but lacked the ideas of how to make it cloak for people other than myself lol. Which, gave to some problems early on lol. So... with that in mind, I decided to see if I could make people see past the fact that the armors did absolutely naff all. Which is a challenge considering people are quite demanding when it comes to having something substantial.
Once the build was complete, I was astounded about the amount of people asking where I got it from.
With the success of Kravatac, I went straight away to my little building area, that consisted of a large white space with a vent, and started construction of the next Cyver, Blood Gauge.
All in all after these two had been released, I embarked on the story of large mecha types, then the C:Hunter, the best selling Cyver - Cyver:N and so on and so forth... lol I wont bore you with the details, because it really is boring... lol
D&D Creative Labs can be visited from this SLURL:
Abaddon, city of destruction and home to some of Second Life's most content rich design. The city itself is situated on the island, Merricks Landing 2 and boasts three quarter of the sim as this magnificent city.
With the help of Linden Labs new Class 7 Servers, the ability of creating such a detailed prim environment, with amazing photo-realistic textures, is perfect for the ideas that have been put into the design of the sim. With that, the high speeds of perusing the city and with the forthcoming idea of it becoming a FPS combat area, is a sound assumption to make possible.
You can visit Abaddon at the following SLURL:
The city itself is based around the ideas of Detect Surface and Orochimaru Eusebio. Creating the right mood to compliment and reflect the style of post apocalyptic, and with the weather system in place creates the convenient atmosphere that is Abaddon.
With it containing props and minor details that might go unnoticed, Abaddon includes SL's prime mecha outlet, D&D Creative Labs and also PAC: Pro Attachments, SL's newest hot spot for weaponry. Together, they make the city as unique as the theme. Also including other spots such as Acid Zenith's Cyber Goth store, 'FLUX', in which you'll find unique designs and avatars especially suited to your cyber goth needs.
When not looking through Abaddon's shops, you may want to take in the architecture, such as Warehouses, Strip Clubs, Abandoned Houses, Apartments, A Multi Story Car Park, Water Tower, Subway, A Bus (lol), Hang Out Areas, A Power Generator, Alleyways, Manholes, Barrels, Cans of Pop, Power Lines, Industrial Containers and so on. The amount of detail created is astonishing and also unmatched.
Most of the textures you'll find at Abaddon have been made with texture mapping, the Art of Many Textures from One Texture. This in turn, allows us to create high details with less loading time, as you'll see no stretched or displaced imagery here. Plus we've not only doe this with the object you'll commonly notice, we've even spent time making sure that objects like 'cans of pop', that roll about the sim, have their place too.
Staying on the art of textures, one thing you'll also notice is the use of animated texture 'movies'. This combines making frames on one texture and a script to flip from one frame to another in order. Thus creating a 'movie-like' stream. Leaving the gates of streaming something more worthwhile to the screens around the sim.
All in all, Abaddon is an amazing spectacle within the world of SL, we're hoping it will become a great place to hang out as well as to shop and play games. Also, fingers crossed, the sim will become one of SL's benchmark places with setting the standards of design and creation.
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