Virtual Ivanova

Second Life is twelve years old. And I’ve only been along for the ride since 2007. I still wish, fiercely, that I had created an account far earlier than I did. I amazes me all the changes I have seen in my time here. I can only imagine witnessing its very beginnings.

Everything that has a beginning has an ending as well. I felt a keen sadness when a single region I knew, a place I called home and learned in, came to an end.  Where will Second Life end? When Sansar goes live and those who wish to go there begin to create accounts and go about the business of recreating their avatars, what will become of our world?

The word is it will stay open, but for how long? Certainly not for as long as many might wish. People are still here now, still creating, still selling, still bleeping and still yelling. A new world, with promises of betterment, opened for business, will attract many of those who are here now. And eventually, all that will remain here is dust, as our world is eroded by the winds and rains of attrition and accounting. What will I feel when Second Life truly passes the hourglass to its successor? I won’t know until I get there.

And what will I feel when Sansar opens its gates to me? Again, I won’t know until I get there. When I do, It will be from the beginning. I will embrace whatever change may come with open arms. And I look forward to seeing how our next world will change over time.

It is unsurprising that the time it takes to try on all the demos from any particular shopping trip so far outweighs the time it takes to accumulate them. I think with the addition of mesh, trying out the resultant and nearly ubiquitous demos became more complicated and time consuming than when we only had painted panties. bras, jeans and shirts and prim skirts and collars to deal with. It seemed so much easier then, to decide, after a few cam-arounds and experimental adjustments, whether an outfit I had already purchased was going to work or not. The foregone conclusion was that it already looked good on ‘paper’. Quality texture? check. Properly arranged skirt panels? check. Low susceptibility to crotch-stretch-smear? check. Surely there were more? I honestly can’t remember.

Now there are so many more factors that I, for one, will consider when looking at a newly acquired mesh demo. They are too many to list here, else I risk sounding ranteriffic.

So after spending a little time gathering demos from Collabor88, Cold Logic, and Truth, it takes more time than I have left in a typical day to try it all on. It isn’t like I don’t have anything else to do. After all, I must save some time for play.

Music inspires me, especially music that is rich and full of feeling. I can get especially inspired by new music, anything I have never heard before. It’s as if a gate exists in my mind, behind which creative ideas crowd and jostle each other. Music is the key that opens this gate.
I recently discovered the music of Amon Tobin. It is as imaginative and expressive an aural landscape as any I have ever journeyed through. It can be exciting and spooky, dark and alien, or glittering with stars only my ears can see. It moves me through the fathomless seas of worlds my mind has never conceived. I can find meaning through music that has no meaning.

What exactly is the point of making the Alpha Mask for a particular article of mesh clothing no-mod? What else am I going to do with that texture? Perhaps it is just habit.
For my own part, I would think more highly of any designer who mulled it over for a second and realized that a user who could edit the Alpha texture included with a mesh outfit or separate, thereby making a sweater or a skirt look better, is going to be likely to come back for more.
If you read this, and you agree, please repost it somewhere.

A lot has changed in the past five years. I have changed in the last five years. I think back to my first days of cobbling together little plywood boxes and making them talk to me (little voices inside my head). I think back to those first days of wonder and amazement as I wandered around in a world that had no physical manifestation, yet which was also so unlike a dream as it remained firmly imprinted upon my memory.

Saturday evening, almost immediately after one of the more significant events in my SL life. I got an email from the lab wishing me a happy Rezday. I had completely forgotten about my Rezday. I didn’t have time to jump, naked, from an impossibly high bridge with my black umbrella to slow my fall.

It was the things that now occupy my mind that made me forget, the new ways with which we can create our world. I have ever been thinking about, looking forward to the new technologies and creation tools we will have. My mind has been focused on these, and other, important changes in my experiences here.

There is always something new to try. Another experience awaits, unknown, just around the corner. It jumps out at you, pleasantly shocking you with your own unawareness.

If we get rigged mesh dynamic deformers, if designers adopt them; and if designers retrofit existing designs to include them (a no-brainer as far as I’m concerned) then I can foresee mesh clothing sales, indeed, sales of all sorts of rigged mesh attachments, increasing substantially. It’s what I am waiting for. I didn’t stay in this world, making myself and being unique, just so I could change to adapt to a narrow style guide. That’s what most everyone has been doing since the inception of this amazing place, adapting to the limitations of the 3D world as it has so far existed.

If we are going to have technology to make anything, it should not be hobbled, it should not be patched by a sparkling new version of glitch pants.

   Changes can come upon you just when you least expect it. From time to time, everyone experiences sudden understanding, insight or enlightenment, Helping them to realize a change in themselves they didn’t even know was coming.

   This would hold true in any world. This world of SL is no exception. I have stepped into the shores of another part of SL, and to quote Carl Sagan, the water seems inviting. My feet are wet.

Mesh is nearly ready for grid-wide release. I have the feeling it will be ready for residents before all residents are ready for it. Third Party viewer developers are working to get their viewers ready for mesh. There will be many residents in-world who, for a time, will not be using mesh capable viewers. At this stage of mesh development these residents will see only sphere, egg and pancake shapes instead of what the creators intended.
It seems to me Linden Lab could have some kind of place marker displayed in lieu of those mesh objects thereby letting those residents know why whatever they’re looking at seems rather, if you will pardon the expression, primitive.
There will be plenty of complaining once the dust settles, once Linden Lab has established and set the parameters for mesh upload. Some will find the upload cost too expensive. Many will find, free of the constraints of sculpted primitives, that it is all too easy to create an object with a prohibitively expensive number of vertices and triangles.
I have already read the complaints of people worrying that mesh will replace sculpts. Some had a hard enough time learning how to create sculpts and believe mesh far beyond their ability. The same can probably be said for the premier of sculpts themselves and I have no doubt there will be user-created tutorials with which to learn more about mesh creation.
I am learning more about it every day.

   Recently I’ve been helping out a new resident with advice and tips. I’ve been doing more than just handing over a box of freebies and landmarks. I’ve been spending time with this person and being a friend.
   Long ago when I was starting out, I got a lot of genuinely heartfelt help from new friends. This included one friend giving me control of an Open Space sim for a month when he would not be online enough to use it. I think back back on that and how much it meant to me.
   I’ve never been especially mercenary when it comes to making money here in SL^®. And Lately I’ve been a little low on inspiration. I’ve been finding it hard feel purposeful when I am logged in.
   Helping someone new has helped me to look back on my first weeks here and recall how magical it was, and how confusing at times. It has helped me to look at SL^® objectively and realize, anew, how truly amazing it is. It may evolve and turn into something it was not before, it’s been doing that all along, but to me it will always be amazing.