This is my first experiment in animating SVG with JavaScript! The image was created in Inkscape, then I edited the XML to add JavaScript code to adjust the arm’s rotation every 35 milliseconds. This is my second JavaScript program ever!

It should work correctly on most modern browsers. If you don’t see the arm moving, you may need to turn on JavaScript. If you don’t see the image at all, you should upgrade to a browser with SVG support, like Firefox or Chrome!

As you can see, I’m shedding my human-ness in SL, and embracing my aquatic side. There’s still a ways to go in the transformation. I need new hair, eyes, and probably a new wardrobe! (Hrmm. I guess that’s what my fortune cookie meant: “You will be doing a lot of shopping soon… in bed!”)

But, the first stage is done: a new skin! My deepest gratitude to Eloh Eliot for her Starlight skin, which I used as a base. Without Eloh’s generosity, my skin would have taken weeks, instead of a few days. Actually, I probably wouldn’t have even attempted it, as it wouldn’t have been worth the time investment.

Here’s a tantalizing close-up of the patterns on the back:

Of course, I am far too lazy to have hand-painted anything as intricate and detailed as that! No, no, this is a job for technology! I relied heavily on Blender for this project, using its procedural textures, nodes system, and baking to create and tweak the patterns. As you can see, the nodes setup for the texture is a bit complex (click to view or Flickr, where you can view notes and a larger version):

Here’s how it works. The skin starts with a blue version of my Starlight mod (which I spent several hours tweaking to resemble my old skin in the face). On top of that are overlaid two layers of patterns, which were created from Blender’s procedural noise textures (specifically, “Clouds”, and “Stucci”), run through several processing nodes. I imported the default female mesh from the Avatar Databank to provide the 3D coordinates for the noise, so that the sizes would bake uniformly all over the body, even though the UV layouts are not proportional to the body part sizes.

The overall density and darkness of the patterns is controlled by a mask (grayscale image), which is close to white in the areas where the patterns are strongest (like the back, top of the arms, and outside of the legs), and close to black where the patterns are weakest (like the face, chest, belly, and inside of the legs), with a smooth gradation in between. The mask was painted by hand, using Blender’s 3D painting tool on the mesh. I created a new UV layer and mirrored the UVs of the left side of the body overlayed the right side, so that the mask would be symmetrical.

The mask acts as a threshold for the noise pattern: wherever the noise is darker than the mask, the pattern is opaque. So, since the mask is very dark on the belly, the noise pattern tends not to show there. I chose this approach for better realism in the way the pattern fades out. Rather than the pattern just becoming less opaque on the belly, the splotches actually becomes smaller and less dense, too. (For example, compare the small of the back with the buttock in the close-up above. The mask was lighter on the buttock, so the pattern is not as tightly packed there.)

There were also several layers of nodes influencing the skin color in more subtle ways, like applying a faint purple hue to the face, chest, belly, and inside of the legs, and slightly darkening the underlying skin in areas where the pattern was particularly dense. I also applied a little bit of baked-in shiny goodness (since, as a mermaid, my skin is slightly slimy!), using a system similar to this technique described by loonsbury.

I think that covers it. I’m quite pleased with how the skin came out, although I’ll likely make adjustments and tweaks in the future, and probably some new colors, as well. But for now, it’s on to the next steps in my transformation: hair, eyes, body additions (fins, gills, etc.), and new outfits!

You can see more pictures of the skin on Flickr to see its evolution, and watch for my future transformations.

An abstract sculpture I created on a whim. It’s 8 prims, created it in Blender in about 1 hour.

You can view it at my friend Skitty’s flower shop in Second Life. The sculpture is not for sale (but the pretty flowers are!).

It has been an intense two and a half months since we first announced the Imprudence project. There has been laughter, there has been joy, there has been boredom and frustration, stress and near burn-out, and a medley of other emotions thrown in there as well.

But today it’s all worth it, because today the first release candidate of the Imprudence Viewer is ready!

Read the rest for more information, plus sexy download links!

I’m happy (and rather relieved) to announce that after power-coding day and night for the past week, I’ve released a handy new device: the Deliverator. I’m sure you’ll find that it is the easiest and most convenient way to deliver a gift, notecard, or other item to a long list of your friends or customers!

It’s available now at Cuddlefish Junction for L$500 (or L$4500 for a copyable version).

What is this marvelous contraption?

The Deliverator is a scripted object that will help you deliver an item to lots of people with very little fuss.

• Easy, guided set-up. Give it the item, give it the names, and off it goes.
• No keys required. Names are enough for the Deliverator to do its job. No need to look up everybody’s UUIDs or make them touch some silly prim.
• Low maintenance. Start it running and get on with your life. The Deliverator will IM you when it’s done, and let you know if there’s anything you should be aware of.
• Reliable. In the unlikely event that the Deliverator can’t find somebody on your list, it will remember their name and tell you at the end, so you can be sure no one gets left out.
• Unlimited delivery. The Deliverator can be used as many times as you want, and it can deliver to as many people as you can fit in a notecard.

What’s to stop someone from spamming us with it?

Me and my shut-off switch of cold steel justice, that’s what.

If I have solid grounds to believe you’re using the Deliverator for nefarious purposes like spamming or harrassment, you may find your Deliverator suddenly stops Deliverating.

See the “Abuse of the Service” section below for more about that.

What can I deliver with this thing?

Any inventory item that you can copy and transfer. Objects, notecards, clothes, whatever.

Unfortunately, you cannot send multiple items at once, except by packaging them in a box or notecard and sending that. This is because of a quirk in the LSL function which prevents delivering multiple items to people in other sims.

If/when Linden Lab ever addresses this issue, I can release a new version of the Deliverator to support multiple item transfer.

Which perms should I get?

The Deliverator is sold with your choice of either no-copy/transfer or copy/no-transfer object permissions. Both are identical except for the permissions.

Most people will want to buy it as no-copy, because it’s more affordable that way! Plus it’s transferable, so you can let a friend borrow it, etc.

But if you plan on delivering stuff to a lot of people, you may want to buy a copyable Deliverator so that you can rez more than one, to split up the workload and speed things up. (HOWEVER: see the “Abuse of the Service” section below for guidelines on how many you are permitted to run simultaneously.)

Discounts for Worthy Causes

The Deliverator is available for free or at a discount to educational institutions, help groups, charities, and other such “worthy causes”.

To apply for a discount, send Jacek Antonelli a notecard named “Deliverator – [Your Organization Name]” with a brief description of your organization and its work.

Abuse of the Service

Using the Deliverator in any of the following manners is forbidden:

• Running an excessively large number of Deliverators simultaneously for long durations (e.g. more than 20 for over an hour). This can negatively impact other people’s ability to use the service.
• Spamming one or more Residents with unsolicited and unwanted items.
• Any use that is deemed malicious, disrespectful to other Residents, or a violation of the Second Life Terms of Service and/or Community Standards.

Depending on the type, severity, and frequency of the abuse, you may receive a warning, a temporary suspension of your access to the service, or a permanent revocation of your access to the service.

Just don’t be a huge jerk, and you’ll be fine.

From the Imprudence Blog:

Imprudence is (or rather, will be) a major fork of the open source Second Life Viewer. Our aim is to greatly improve the usability of the Viewer through community involvement, thoughtful design, modern development methods, and a pro-change atmosphere.

Why are we doing this? Because we, the Second Life Residents, need a better Viewer, and Linden Lab isn’t getting it done — not fast enough, anyway.

I’m sure they’re trying. They have made some modest improvement. But they are faced with intractable obstacles that block them from making real progress: a lack of resources, an overloaded QA process, and a large established user base who are, on the whole, sullenly content with the way things are — and tend to resist any change.

Those are tough problems, and I don’t foresee Linden Lab being able to get past them any time soon. Rather than continue to push against these obstacles with little to show for it, I’ve decided to carve another path. A community project has its own obstacles, but they are obstacles that we can overcome. They are obstacles we can act against for ourselves, instead of sitting on our hands waiting for someone else to act for us.

Go on and read the full post and our manifesto.

I have high hopes for this project. It has been a long time coming, and there are a lot of people dissatisfied with the current viewer. If you’re one of them, get involved in the project and help us make it better!

Grant Linden has invited me to present my UI design at the SL User Experience Office Hour (SLUXOH) this Thursday at 3PM SLT. Not being one to turn down an invitation from a Linden to show off my goods to the world, I’ll be explaining the design rationale, answering questions from the audience, and waving a laser pointer around and making spaceship sounds with my mouth while we wait for my slide images to rez. I can guarantee it will be a hoot and/or holler. BYOF (bring your own feedback).

By the way, if you’re into this sort of SLUXy stuff, I recommend subscribing to the SL-UX mailing list. There are a bunch of neat people who put forward interesting UI ideas and feedback at sporadic intervals… lots of good times to be had!

P.S. Does this make my butt look FIC?

It’s done! I am pleased to present to you, SL Animation for Blender Newbs. It’s 6 pages long, with pictures. It might take you maybe 30 minutes or so to follow along, I’m guessing. If you have any feedback (e.g. suggestions or praise), leave a comment on any of the pages.

Enjoy.

A new revision (2008-06-02) of the Animation Exporter is available. This revision is mostly UI changes to improve usability, especially for new users who have not mastered Blender’s UI yet. The new layout will also scale better to different screen sizes.

[Update Dec 15: PLEASE NOTE: If you get an error about a missing pickle, you will need to install Python.]

Here’s the revision log:

• Changed window layout to be grouped more logically.
• Panel headers are now at the top, as is standard in most UIs.
• Moved the button toolbar to the Tweaking screen (Ctrl-Right).
• Minor UI tweaks to the exporter script.
• Auto-key is enabled by default. [Edit: Apparently this setting doesn't save with the file, so you'll have to enable it yourself.]
• Removed mesh UV maps and materials to reduce file size.

And a snapshot of the main view. Click to enlarge:

Enjoy.

P.S. I still deny that I’m maintaining this thing, despite all evidence. :P