MONDAY SLOGGING

Ms. Omega in Tao's eyes

Today's stroll through the Second Life blogosphere brings a slew of topics, including two machinima tips, a developer's diary for an upcoming FPS, a futurist's thoughts on online world creole, advice for marketing SL fashion to residents, a project for marketing RL fashion to residents, virtual trams that run on time and are tracked on the Web, and the fine art of burnishing screenshots (and screenshots of fine art).  All that and more after the break.

A Touch of Buhbuhcuh:  SL machinima makers must immediately check out this impressive single-take Test Real from Buhbuhcuh Fairchild  (nee Ben Linden) demonstrating cool new dolly/tracking shot/animation triggering technology to unleash your inner Welles.

Tramspotting:  So not only does Victorian scriptrix Ordinal Malaprop create a system of automated trams, she also, of course, creates a server to keep them from vanishing off the world, and a Tram Status Page, to keep track of them on the Web.

Unleash the Zombies:  Moriash Moreau documents his efforts to build a low-rent survival-horror FPS, featuring the animated dead, power-ups, and a supremely cool heads-up display.  Early results look encouraging.

The Tao of Great Imagery:  I've been consistently impressed by the dreamlike quality of multimedia SL blogger Tao Takashi's screenshots and video footage.  Tao, last seen in the wider Web criticizing Flickr's decision to remove SL-based images from public view, recently documented an attempt to recreate a painting in Second Life, and added some magic of his own to the project.   As a metaverse videographer, he revealed the secrets behind his camerawork for the "Late Night with Eggy Lippmann" talkshow (sort of Letterman meets Lynch with a talking prim cameo.)  The above screenshot of legendary scripter Catherine Omega, by the way, was acheived with a glow effect: "This is done by duplicating the layer, adding a gaussian blur and change this layer to another blend mode like Hard Light," Tao tells me.

The Language of SL:  Welcome real life futurist Gonta Maltz to the SL blogosphere, who opens with a thoughtful post on the creolization of SL communication.

Selling the Sizzle:  The elegantly dressed ladies of Linden Lifestyle offer six tips on taking your SL fashion designs bigtime.  (A seventh tip for getting your fashions featured in New World Notes:  create clothing that provoke a cultural thought or inspire a social controversy.)

Diversionary Plugging:  Unduly humbled by recent attention over her genuinely cool mixing machine, Stella Trenchmouth plugs four great and recent creative projects by other Residents.

Don we now our American Apparel.  (Brought to you by NWN contributor Aimee Weber, who's already offered some sage advice on "Going Pro in SL".)

(Apologies to SLOG for the title lift.)

Comments

[Tao Takashi]

I should add that the most effect has the new lighting system here as I placed some lights around her. So the normal photographic (!) rules apply now ;-)

[AlsoStrollingBlogSphere]

Sadly, I strolled the blogsphere and saw only stuff about scammers, how the new registration system is affecting the lives of SL regulars and how LL is not doing anything about this.

Censorship?

[Hamlet Au]

No, feel free to post links you think deserve more attention here.

[AlsoStrollingBlogSphere]

Hamlet, maybe you could start with the General forum :)

http://forums.secondlife.com/forumdisplay.php?f=108

Then the user blogs from there Willow Zander etc..

eg:

http://willow-zander.blogspot.com/

[Hamlet Au]

I didn't even know Willow Z. had a blog, so thanks for the tip there. But an important thing to realize is that scammers and rumors of scammers pop up on a fairly regular basis, and since most of these are resolved within a week or two and few rise beyond a "police blotter" signifance, they rarely in themselves deserve coverage. (Believe me, I've looked into several of them!) There are exceptions, one of which I'll probably be writing about pretty soon.