June 4, 2013
Chavtopia, The Project Continues
This build is excellent fun to make. The question of what I will do if I ever finish it is not one we shall dwell on. I need to put in more lolsy bits, but that should come with the detailling after the actual architecture is finished. Which could be a while, I ain’t sure. Stuff is quite spaced out so I’m not sure how much more I need to place to make it look semi-inhabited.
Look, at least it’s not another Linda Kellie mall, okay? (I *heard* that someone did a Linda Kellie Apocalypse sim, but I never actually saw it.)
When it’s done I’m pondering that if I have a lot of prims left (hah!) then I could put in a texture shop rather than just some unsorted boxes that annoy people. I’ve made a lot of textures for this project, I may as well hand them out to anyone what wants them.
Oh, man, the dogburger stand. That’s old, I built it in SL years ago. Can’t quite remember when or why. Possibly back when we have Wollstonecraft Place in the Maske sim? I downloaded the textures for that and the Urchin Food Franchises Stall, which is even older and was made when the Hobos were still in Calleta. Whatever, they look fine.
June 2, 2013
A Blank Sheet of Paper
Is it possible to build the remains of a city with less than 7000 prims? Let’s find out!
I cleared most of the Hanamachi sim, leaving just the Secret Bunker, so that I could build something like a ruined city. Here you see my minimal progress thus far. I’m determined but not especially hopeful. So far I’ve spend more time making textures than actually building, or so it feels. The problem with building old/abandoned things is that the nice clean textures you find about the place don’t really work for it, so you need to at least grunge them up a bit. As you can see the place is mostly empty at the moment. I have all these plans, you see. Plans!
Hadn’t been in Metro for a while, realised I didn’t really want the Japanese style place with all nice plants and stuff. Whatever, most of it is in inventory in case I ever change my mind or need a project. (The textures, btw, are available in the Chavland Shopping sim.) There is the vague possibility that I might add another sim next week if I still feel the need. They are pretty cheap even hosted. Certainly it’s not in the triple figures like in SL. It amazes me that there’s so many islands in SL, it really does.
Must focus on not doing details until I have basic structures in place. That’s always a tricky bit.
April 9, 2013
Metropolis Gets A Geisha
Remember what I said about having to make everything yourself? Not entirely true, but true enough. After a few rigging disasters I finally got a mesh kimono to work (the sleeves were the problem, if you’re wondering) and made some shoes, hair, make-up, etc. Not out anywhere yet but if you see me and want any of this just ask. Not perfect, but it’ll do for now.
I’m finally building a hanamachi in the Hanamachi sim, so the name becomes less random. There’s quite a few geisha in SL, but I’m not aware of any in Metropolis yet and there seems to be one dead group over on OSGrid. Perhaps we shall get some, who knows. The build itself is just normal prims, mesh will be in the details and decor.
Perhaps I will be able to build up a new roleplay character, or perhaps I will get bored and move onto another theme next week. Who can say?
March 21, 2013
The best and worst thing
Designing a sim in Metropolis (or OSGrid, or etc) means you end up having to build it all yourself depending on what your theme is. This is bad for me because I’m not good at architecture, which has to be in place before I can start on the detailling. It’s just lack of content, really, which will improve as more people move to those worlds, and as people already there keep building stuff. I’m thinking it would help if I placed a box with the hanamachi (latest project) textures somewhere, and set as much as possible to copyable.
On the plus side it does force you to build stuff you’d probably just get lazy about in SL. Your stuff will match because it has the same builder and the same texture sets, which always tends to improve a sim’s look. It’s good for builders, I reckon, and opensim seems to be mostly builders (probably because of the relative lack of content compared to SL).
Know what I miss though? Decent hair. Places like Truth, Clawtooth, Lamb, Exile, and so on. I can’t make hair so I’m stuck with whatever I can find which doesn’t tend to be great, sorry. Well, it’s not up-to-date, put it in those terms.
February 11, 2013
Meshin’ around
I know only about three people on the grid will be able to see it, but I made a wee mesh coat. It is urchin-sized.
Actuallly it’s been a bit bothering me how few people can see mesh and whether that is going to hold things back artistically. Imprudence is still a popular opensim viewer, and it can’t really do anything that happened in the last couple of years. I love mesh, mesh is easier than sculpts and that makes it good. Mesh clothing is horrible difficult but can work very well if you can make it work properly. Anyway, I will just look a bit invisible to most people. This affects how I build, like how I am making the Secret Bunker be real prims and a single sculptmap so that absolutely anyone can see it. It’s actually harder in some ways than building with mesh, but quite fun.
It would be nice if there was greater opensim adoption of mesh viewers. I used to worry about mesh but then it turned out okay so then I stopped worrying about that so much. I mean, prims and avatars are a kind of mesh, right? Or something, I don’t really know technology. Mesh is probably The Future and the longer we hold back on it the less cool stuff will get made.
February 8, 2013
HYPERGRID DRAMA WTF
As of time of writing, hypergrid connections have been cut between OSGrid and Metropolis Grid. The cited reason is someone in a child av “taunting” OSG admins, along with people (unnamed) soliciting people for a move to MG from OSG. Various reasons exist to be a bit uncertain about this, but that’s what they said and so we’ve been cut off from OSGrid. If true it seems quite OTT to cut off the entire connection, no?
So we are all a bit bemused. Don’t really know what will happen, whether the grids will ever again be connected to each other.
February 7, 2013
Urchin Tiem Nao
I only really did it out of spite, but I have enjoyed being a kid avatar on Metro grid enough that I’m probably staying on for the foreseeable future. Urchin Chav is quite inspiring to build for with her “story” of Hoboness. All the wee crazy accessories and odd builds that she totes needs somehow.
Some thoughts!:
– It places a distance between avatar and typist that is quite interesting, it’s like roleplaying all the time. Of course, one of the downsides of kid avs is that they (like furries, vampires, etc) kind of force other people to go along with your RP and that’s not really great but I can’t think of an alternative.
– The best thing, I reckons, is that you don’t have to second-guess people’s motives as much. There’s none of this “Is this man only talking to me because he fancies my av?” or “Is this woman after my pants?” At least one potential friendship on OSG ended up like that (many on SL) and it’s always a mixture of annoying and sad.
– I’ve made a skin with basic undies on it, so that she can never be accidentally nekkid. I think this is the best plan for kid avs, especially if you’re having trouble finding a good skin and can just mod an Eloh psd to get something useable. A certain degree of paranoia comes with being a kid avatar, because you don’t want to be interpreted as doing anything that is Not Good. Luckily it’s (as far as I know) not a very sexual grid. (Unlike… well, I’m a bit worried about the recent changes on OSGrid and the proximity to power of the BDSM peeps there.)
– Chav has started talking in her own way, see above about roleplaying all the time. I’ve never been any good at rp, so seeing a character develop as though by her own charisma is quite interesting to me. I suppose this is how it’s supposed to work?
February 4, 2013
los manos grande
Isn’t perspective weird? This makes Chav’s hands look even bigger than they actually are.
Anyway, made some new urchinclothes because really they are required for urchinhood.
February 3, 2013
mesh problems and the build
It occurs to me that this build may never actually be finished. It’s an ongoing construction, so I’m not sure when to declare it “open” as such. I’ve started putting stuff in the buildings, which is a move towards completion I suppose.
Another thing is trying to do without mesh. I don’t actually know what percentage of the grid is still using Imprudence, but it seems to be a fair few people. Yes, all this time later people still can’t see mesh. This is a problem if I want people to be able to see the stuff I’ve made. Some things I pretty much have to make in mesh because I don’t know how else to make them, but I’ve been using normal prims a lot more than I have for some time. Mesh is great, I love mesh now. It’s not perfect for everything, but for shapes that you can’t manage with real prims it is magical. Plus it makes texturing easier because materials in Blender. I seem to have forgotten quite a lot about sculpties, having had no real use for them in a while. I kind of hate sculpts, mainly having to rebuild the entire thing inworld annoys me vastly and sometimes I can’t get it right.
So. I don’t know how much mesh to use and when.
February 2, 2013
King of the Castle
Here we see Chav the urchin sitting on a climbing frame, surveying her kingdom, Chavland Shopping.
I think pretty much everything in this pic is free-to-copy or free in the wee shop, except for her shoes and hair and overalls are Linda Kellie freebies. There are a lot of Linda Kellie freebies out there, but I *think* Metropolis grid only has two actual LK malls. Sometimes it seems on OSGrid like every other sim is That Linda Kellie Mall. I don’t really know why people keep making them when they already exist.
On the subject (raised in-world) of whether this stuff stops us creating, I have to admit that I’ve not really bothered making urchin clothes after finding some suitable stuff among the various freebie avatars. Otherwise I would probably have made shoes and such by now. It’s sheer lazieness on my part. I do think that building components from LK have made me make extra stuff though, like the urchin drumkit and the banjo. Textures are always good, as well. But idk there’s just a lot of sims out there made from the same few items and “selling” the same stuff. It’s all a bit too easy.
Anyway, life continues on Metropolis Grid. Chav has hit her one week anniversary and is still an urchin. I think I might stay like that at least for a while, it’s kind of fun and it’s been inspiring some crazeh builds which is always nice. HOBO CREW REPRASENT YEAH BOYEE.
Chav Paderborn 