Musings By Happenstance

Jayleden's First WoW Day

2012-01-25T19:58:00.001-08:00

Needs Ribbons

2012-01-24T16:32:00.000-08:00

The hair is still mostly stiff, I tried weighting the loops to the neck some but it looked idiotic when I turned my head.

Hair

2012-01-23T22:45:00.001-08:00

Hair, not a closeup, and this is about as low as my draw weight will drop before I add some detail back in. The draw weight is 22,270. Down from 90K something, and I was usually on the lower end of the draw weight spectrum.

Skirts, petticoats, corset with gromet detail, jacket, gloves, head, ears, hair, broach. All that for not a lot more viewer intensity than a library noob avatar.

ETA: Quadrupling the vertices for smoothness brought the hair up a whopping 546. O_o

Weight Painting

2012-01-23T19:21:00.001-08:00

Thigh bone example.

Mesh Draw Weights

2012-01-22T20:34:00.000-08:00

So I started on a roll your own avatar.

I just nailed the eyes and my overall smugness, and learned quite a bit too. There remain a few things I'm still not happy with but I'm about ready to wear it in public without shame.

Here's the big kicker: the draw weight of my old av head was 40,579.

The draw weight of this is 2,843. Add the eyelid back in and it's 4,611.

That's CRAZY light on the rendering engine! My hair in the pics are over 20,000, and next on the list for replacement.

Every Time I Hit The Gas

2012-01-20T14:49:00.000-08:00

I discover I still have an inch of pedal.

That's actual prim broach, something I made in... 2005.

Now I want to make my own avatar. That's like discovering I have a pre-regulation destroyer class solid fuel recoil booster in the trunk. o.o

And a Jacket

2012-01-20T00:20:00.001-08:00

Needs some trim, maybe a broach.

I can't believe I did this layer by layer.

It's Coming Together

2012-01-19T16:18:00.000-08:00

And gloves.

lol. Upskirt.

I made boots too.

Boots were made for another project, otherwise we're up to three days work for this far.

It Grew a Gown

2012-01-18T16:12:00.000-08:00

Schlep.

The Schlep

2012-01-16T17:44:00.000-08:00

This essay kind of helped me over a hump.

Anyway, experiments in mesh, a corset. 'O course a real corset might as well be a solid sculpt with no give whatsoever, it's just that an AO that will in any way cooperate is becoming increasingly rare, and few give a damn anyway. So, I used a bendy AO to show the flexing properties.

There's even shine on the bones and high shine on the gromets. Yay! :D

And that's basically how things get done. You get in there and grind away. This was about 8 hours work.

2011 Viceregal Address

2011-12-24T21:03:00.000-08:00

I used to be a terrible, terrible Grinch. Looking back and forward at how my own flesh and blood behave, well, it's no wonder my brother and his girlfriend left town to have Christmas by themselves at a resort of last resort.

There is a thing, though, learned from the family I married in to. A little secret to a happy Christmas, but first a little preamble. Because there is one person, yourself, you must live with every day of your life, others, come and go, some fade and others storm away, some arrive on the backs of rainbows, angels of mercy in your times of need, some just appear and you realise they've been there quite the while with you hardly noticing. It is because you to yourself are permanent, and all others wax and wane, you must remember yourself at Christmas, and get yourself a little something, something that makes you smile.

This was under $4. And it makes me smile. You go make yourself smile too. You're worth it.

Self Worship

2011-12-10T17:31:00.000-08:00

The Things You Learn Glancing at the TV

2011-11-18T21:18:00.000-08:00

I passed by the TV earlier while fetching some tea, and overheard someone mention "I like the bay windows."

I looked over, and it occurred to me, I never knew what those looked like before. I knew the term, and knew the style but didn't match the two up. Further it occurred to me that perhaps the second thing I should do after reading the introduction of a subject is to memorize a list of terminology. This could be why my visual design skills are so weak (or abstract), I know what things look like, but have no idea how to articulate them without a sketch pad. And the reverse, someone speaks of something in particular, I probably need to be shown an example. Some rote memorization is in order.

Misc Phone Pictures

2011-11-05T16:20:00.001-07:00

West Coast Breatfast
West Coast Parking

Says more about the management than the clientele

On Hunters

2011-11-01T22:46:00.001-07:00

Mesh

2011-09-01T20:36:00.001-07:00

All that Blue Mars work pays off. I make mesh in Second Life.

Snap taken on the deck of the Iron Cloud.

Things Learned from Exporting my Avatar into Blender and Rigging It

2011-08-23T14:45:00.000-07:00

This Tutorial wasn't too hard, just a couple places I had to slow down and try again. I had no complete startovers.

Blender 2.49b does not like 64 bit Python 2.6.2. Install the 32 bit.

You'll need SL 3.0 viewer.

To do your first upload you have to do a little multiple choice IP quiz on the SL website.

Rigging the boots to the armature did not work when trying to wear them. In fact, boots may have to be uploaded separately, left and right. More on this another time.

Random Link Find

2011-07-30T23:35:00.000-07:00

Text messages from 1890. Early versions of LOL and BRB and of course, flame wars involving clockwork devices.

Tea

2011-06-25T17:01:00.000-07:00

A random link find: Rate Tea

I'm Glad I Learned How To Sew

2011-06-20T13:21:00.000-07:00

Newish Eddie Bauer jeans, bought in April, worn around mainly in Venezuela, washed no more than ten-eleven times, belt loop broke away. The pockets are fraying. These are the first jeans I've bought in over a decade, I'm usually dress casual for daily wear. Were jeans a lot stronger twenty years ago or am I wearing Nostalgia Goggles?

I ended up using some stiff quilting edging, sewed an inside patch and attached the loop to the patch.

Life Cycle of a Pure Roleplay Area

2011-06-05T20:33:00.000-07:00

Yay! Started!
Have fun for awhile, then some joker shows up wanting to be Spiderman.
Drama ensues. Spiderman gets banned after a loud scream fest on general chat.
List of sim rules turns into a five page legal document.
Play continues, 2-3 regulars stop coming as much, people suggest less for fear of being shot down.
Spiderman comes back with an alt, this time wants to be Batman.
Drama.
Rules turns into a twenty page legal document.
5-6 players remain.
Recruitment drive begins, someone sets the sim 'group only'.
Week later, someone discovers parcel is group only, changes it back but ups up a 3000m high skybox with notecard/LM giver by the TP down node.
Sim languishes mostly empty for about six months.
Sim owner's wife discovers the credit card statements.
Sim's plug gets pulled.

Python Continued

2011-05-11T16:19:00.000-07:00

To day for a bit of motivation to pick up the bat and keep swinging I flipped towards the end of the book and read some notes by the author. A line jumped out at me about the book is aimed at giving a 'brown belt', not a real programmer, but ready to move into the real stuff and pick up real books.

Chapters 0 - 25 I had some bumps along the road with, things I just didn't understand but forged on and came back to later, sometimes figuring them out, sometimes not. I have a short list of mild stumpers that will eventually come clear with practice, I'm sure. But Chapter 26 was an exam. "Here's a program. Debug it, even if it takes a few days."

It took me about ten minutes, suggesting all that LSL gave me a green belt to start with.

I've moved on into logic operations, the section there was way, way better than any other logic table tutorial I'd seen, or maybe the student was ready, and then into if statements and loops, something else I'm an old hand with by now and am doing anyway for the syntax help and inevitable moments of 'oh god, I've been doing this wrong all along'. Sort of like the logic tables. :)

So far, so good.

Learning Python

2011-04-18T18:48:00.000-07:00

I've some experience now with LSL, some days I've worked with it up to fourteen hours with few breaks. Some people have asked if I'm some sort of child prodigy. Ha. No. I'm just a hard worker when I'm doing something I find interesting. It's been my intent for awhile now to try my hand at something approaching a real programming language. I just have no clue what I'd do with it.

Today I stumbled across a link on Hacker News with someone asking for advice on what language to learn in order to learn, one of the suggestions was Learn Python The Hard Way. So I nosed around the web a bit querying what the language is used for, and learned I could conceivably use it to have my Second Life vendors sent information to my web server and dump the data into a table that I can download and back up more easily than I can with the Linden Labs tools. Okay, I have a basic goal even if I never get around to doing that.

So, looking at the lesson plan I've begun to appreciate Zed Shaw's sense of practical humour more than I already had, and also now have a gedit app and a Command Promt shortcut on my desktop. Thank gawd I'm familiar with DOS or I might have been lost there. Maybe my old age is an advantage in some ways.

My first stumper came in Exercise 3. I know my basic arithmetic, but had never before seen a modulo operator. ZenMondo, despite not knowing Python, was able to suggest what it was, and wikipedia explained the rest. Again, modulo operators are a thing I have no clue why I'd ever use it, but knowing it exists and being able to recall how to research its use, my math vocabulary has grown. I'm the same way with language, the more words you know, the more thoughts you can have. This is a good thing.

I think I might be able to get through this in a couple weeks if I keep at it.

The Slippers that Went to Eleven

2011-04-05T17:02:00.000-07:00

Leveled to 85 in Two Weeks

I bought a pair of shoes in Caracas, they're nice shoes, I'll wear them a lot. But in Venezuela I wore the slippers I'd worn by mistake almost exclusively. They've:

Tromped the streets of Caracas.
Wandered various Venezuelan beaches.
Been through dodgy public markets.
Relaxed in fine Caracas restaurants.
Witnessed ~~the little balloon house atop~~ Angel Falls.
Adventured in the jungle around Canaima.
Traveled the islands Coche and Margarita (Both sides.)
Come back home in one piece, just needing a rinse on the soles.

Not bad for a pair of Haflingers.

Venezuela

2011-04-03T06:29:00.000-07:00

Mar 29
Today I learned:
Cement mixers are viable children's toys.
Bottle caps and gravel makes a neat mosaic.
Having 11 Bs. Per $US in reserves while pegged at 4.3 and a fake 64
billion on the balance sheet leads to $2200 iPads, $25 for 12 rolls of
toilet paper, and wheat product shortages.
Margarita has a wildly varied geography.
Freshly crushed coconut juice can't be beat.

Mar 30
Taxi drivers are better drivers than anyone else.
Motorcycle helmets are for pansies.
Sunburns happen despite hiding in the shade.

Mar 31
So I stupid lose my passport, we phone around after hours and to the
cabbie and the hotel and the tour agent and they all go bonkers
searching to the point the cabbie dropped the keys to his house gate
and thus was late picking us up the next day. Laughs all around and
I've been sure to slip them a cash apology.
Fun fact: In Venezuela, you can't make a collect call. This includes
calls to your bank about credit cards or to your consulate about
passports. :)
So later I find it in the room safe of all places.
Anyway, we were tramping around in the jungle around Canaima today
looking at waterfalls with a tour we picked up from the hotel. Well,
the climb kicked the butt of one of our party and I had to just about
carry them back. The boatman hopped to and took us back to the camp
where we were looked after with much water and some of the best BBQ
chicken I've had in my life. Ongoing monitoring and a seat by the fan
for our stricken party member went on until everyone was satisfied
they'd be alright. It's not like they had a clinic out there, but they
did have some experience with out of shape city people sweating it up
in the jungle.
Anyway, it was an Angel Falls flight tour, two bumpy passes by the
falls, before landing. :)
But I'll let you in on a little secret. If you look hard enough, and
wish hard enough, you can see the little house with the balloons up
top. But first you need to believe in fairies and be forever a child.
:)
The pilot of that 16 or so passenger prop plane was an artist. The
descent was predictably lumpy in a craft that small but each time the
wheels hit the ground it was like a ballerina. Great tour, that,
highly recommended, but be in at least half decent shape.

Apr 1
Turns out you shouldn't get into a fist fight with a bootleg currency
exchange guy in Venezuela. This is apparently how a French tourist at
our resort got shot. When the shooting breaks out, count on the staff
and security to run like hell.

Apr 2
Back in La Guaira, on a lucky unsecured wifi, might be my last contact
until Toronto, early Monday morning. I dunno if I'm gonna miss this
place.
Margarita was pretty nice but the whole country feels run down and
stuck in the 70s-80s and moving backwards. Everything is more
expensive than you get it in norteamerica, constant shortages of
essentials. Who in their right mind would export to Venezuela and
accept Bolivars? What's Chavez gonna do? Force American wheat growers
to take that funny money at gunpoint?
Just remember to leave your fancy pants camera at home, bring your $99
Wal Mart special. Your Blackberry makes you a target. Outside at night
is a no go in Caracas, although Margarita was a lot more laid back,
also a good hub for tours all over. Your tour guide in the resort will
likely 'know a guy' buying $ though the black market rate in Margarita
will be lower than elsewhere due to the prevalence of tourists, alas,
such hardship.
Nice things I can say about Caracas is the fine dining experiences.
And you speak Spanish, right?

Random Blurbs

2011-03-27T21:51:00.000-07:00

Following blurbs written on a notepad due to no internet in La Guaira.

Political Asylum:
We spent the morning at the apartment of a lady who's done the
diplomatic circuit in years before Chavez, and since does document
interpretation from her apartment. Over a mixed pastry breakfast we
were shown her political rally bag with the national flag and the
badges and first aid goods and the vinegar and rags for tear gas
defense with a wonderful view of Mount Avila out the window. We talked
about the upcoming Venezuelan census and the fear it will lead to the
forcible 'reallocation' of homes based on number of people and number
of domicile rooms. We concluded with a left hand toast to a Cuba Libre
and carried on with our day.
Later, the government of Canada fell to the first successful
non-confidence motion in Commonwealth history.
I later telephoned our breakfast host and asked for political asylum
and offered to be counted as a resident during the census. I don't
think either of us will stop giggling over that for a long time.

Wild Ride:
So, yeah, I get into a truck with real seat belts and off we go, me
the only Anglo in this part of the two car convoy to the airport to
drop off the sister in law's mother. So being good hosts, they pass
back a mixed whiskey drink and off we go into the streets of Caracas,
the driver passing the other drink back and forth to his wife. Is that
a check engine light? :) Again Caracas is a mixture of fascinating
urban decay and renewal and coloured light fountains dancing to music.
All that and thankfully only one face full of booze as we bounced and
jounced over hill and pothole onto the freeway and out of the valley
to the sea.
Once again I surprise everyone around with the breadth of my basic
Spanish and we achieve some basic communication with a mix of Spanish,
French and steadily drunkening pantomime.
I'm not afraid anymore, even without the help of booze, although I
remain wary and alert in the airport. Horay, after the delay in
currency exchange I've been able to spend my first Bolivars. At an
airport fried chicken shack. Nobody there knew if anything drinkable
was caffeinated. At this point, who gives a damn anymore. :)
We see mother off, and pile back into the cars, crack some fresh
beers, and set off to the sister's beach apartment. Pass a few police
checkpoints where we just lower the beers, and away we go past barrios
and parks and the beach crowded with teens pumping tunes from their
cars while the odd police truck cruises by to keep the peace. And
damn, it's hot at sea level, and the beach apartment is really cute.
:)

All Night Party:
When music volume is consistently making a car alarm sound in a gated,
locked, patrolled by man and dog condo compound, the reasonable
response is to turn up the music, right? It's 2:38 am, and the car's
been screaming for 14 hours. Waitaminute. Ricky Martin sings in Spanish?

March 24 - 25

2011-03-27T21:49:00.000-07:00

I just can't eat much, so warm. *burp* And this lack of fiber sources
other than plantains and corn is killing my butt.
And rabbit is pretty strong meat.

We were near a barrio today. I have not seen poverty before.
And we're making Chinese food tonight. :) Lotta Chinese in Venezuela.

March 23

2011-03-27T21:47:00.000-07:00

So here is mostly wrapped up my first real Latino party. It's 1:12,
music still loud while we clean up. I did what I could until all the
mess was moved into the kitchen, then there were just too many of us
to move.
Besides, my feet hurt.
I like it here despite the general insanity. Gawd we norteamericanos
can stand to learn a thing or two from Latin America. Alas, my
family's about the opposite of touchy feely and about as flexible as
an anvil.
I still liked China a bit better, but I'd definitely come back here
again, provided I was staying with locals.
And oh yeah, picked up at the airport too. The gauntlet of sleazy
operators we had to wade through to reach our waiting party at the
Simon Bolivar was 'interesting'.
I'd never before heard some guy offering currency exchange in the
hushed tones of a drug dealer.
I'm also surprised I remembered as much Spanish as I did.
And ya, Des, Venezuelans are more like Spaniards than Mexicans. Very
elegant people, plus touchy feely. And they prove that it is possible
to have some machismo without a bad attitude. So note to Americanos
paranoid about Latinos moving into your little white bread
subdivisions. Find out first just how much they can teach you about
grace, class, style, and that two men hugging does not equate to
homosexuality. Claro? Cheveret.
Ciao.

March 22

2011-03-27T21:45:00.000-07:00

Chief difference between South and North Americans: norteamericanos quarantine food components. Here they eat everything at once after cooking all day. I am so full. :P
There is no heating in this house. Who needs it when it's late spring all year long? The city smells like gas fumes despite all the green; I'm surprised I'm not in allergy hell.
It's not too hot or humid either. We're pretty high above sea level after all.
Big family gathering tomorrow, the sister-in-law's birthday.
And slow, timid people are annoying in traffic circles, no? :) Rule Britannia!
(And Pax Caledonia.)

March 21

2011-03-27T21:42:00.000-07:00

Landing at night was really pretty, especially under the light of that
full moon. The mix of white and orange city lights was interesting to
see, and I later learned the white lights are the Barrios, or shanty
towns with housed piled up the sides of the hills stacked several
high.
By and large, my deepest paranoias fed by the western media were let
down, as I was not immediately shot on arrival, nor was the airplane
shot from the sky by rebels. Bother, culture of terror foiled again.
Rupert Murdoch, you lied to me. :(
Still, it says something when every house has bars on all windows,
even in the 'good' neighbourhoods. All houses walled, some with
electric fences. Walled houses, very Spanish/Moorish. Electric fences
and bars, not so much. Good luck escaping an electrical fire with the
ancient wiring. Bonus, though, the outlets are American standard.
We drove around a lot today, no seatbelts and often texting driver
while out in what amounts to pinball machine traffic in a country
where it costs a buck or two to fill your car at a full serve gas pump
and stop signs are suggestions, and made a first stop at a fairly
modern, and huge, shopping mall, had food court Venezeulan food with
the sister-in-law at whose house we're staying, and got me a pair of
shoes. Much love to anxiety disorders, I'd left for the airport in my
slippers convinced I'd be dead within twenty-four hours. If this is
dead, I'll take more of this, please.
So, no, I'm not leaving the house at night.
Fresh baked bread in the morning, however, is heaven.

Fun Picture Series

2011-02-28T19:05:00.000-08:00

The year 2000 as imagined in 1910.

And after that giggle, here's the horror that is that was.

:)

I Aspire

2011-02-02T23:24:00.000-08:00

I'm a little drunk but not too far out, I'll admit, and hoping this doesn't make little to no sense, but I had a momentary glimmer of observation.

Watch this, and when he says 'brick', you hear 'prim'.

What does a prim do? It aspires. I've had my first rezzed prim in my Port Caledon Cathedral for awhile now. The object name is, 'I Aspire'.

This, this is a principle roadblock I encountered when trying to develop content for Blue Mars. When working in SL, I am present. It's a computer emulation, an avatar, yes, but when I rez a prim, it is there, at my virtual feet, asking me to make it into something great.

When working in Blender, there's a drab backdrop of a grid, and I'm not there, in the work, handling it out of love. Importing into the upload environment, that's not me either, if I'm working on a clothing item. That's someone else. I'm not invested in the work. It's not personal.

Steam Con 2010

2010-11-23T14:59:00.000-08:00

Maybe a pipe wrench next year.
Myself and Lucien.
Myself and Tehanu.

DERP: I had that titled as SLCC 2010?

On Masks

2010-11-05T23:09:00.000-07:00

Since I obviously have a fascination:
http://sahillavingia.com/blog/2010/11/05/wearing-a-mask-being-more-confident/

Random Travel

2010-08-18T22:16:00.000-07:00

When ordering a steak in Texas, you say medium, you get beef sushi.
Wuss level sudoku only available in the Dallas Fort Worth Airport book store. All levels of crossword available.
That was not Ghost Rider on the in-flight movie. It was The Ghost Writer. No wonder I didn't see the guy's head burst into flames.

Random Boston

2010-08-17T19:48:00.000-07:00

You know a hotel is swank when you can actually remove the hangars from the clothing rack.
Fire alarms and tenth floor != fun.
South Bay is painfully suburban but sports a Target for those essentials you just forgot to bring. O_O
Otenth knows all the good restaurants in town.
Legal Seafood is merely 'good'. Want yah chowdah, theyah ya go. But ask Otenth first. West coaster bias for really strong Pacific salmon applies. YMMV.
Maggiano's is 'quite pleasing'.
Duck Tours are fun.
Massachusetts has a weird lack of laws on some things. No seat belt law. Requirement to buy and operate a yacht: A chequebook.
Lotsa great history.
Lotsa lovely old and new architecture.
The city feels 'smallish' despite its population. Maybe it's just the neighbourly feel to it.

I Like Boston

2010-08-13T13:20:00.000-07:00

Nerd friendly the way San Fran is freak friendly. :) I'll add this to the list of places I could live.
Architecture is near orgasmic. I believe I'll be spending more time exploring the city than in SLCC events.
That, and the non-rhotic accent is fascinating to listen to.

More Civilised Travel by Rail in the Americas

2010-07-14T23:25:00.000-07:00

A reply to: http://redroseofcaledon.blogspot.com/2010/07/regarding-civilised-rail-travel-in.html

Dearest Eva,

Civilised my left foot. A three hour trip includes not a glass of wine nor a proper dining menu? Alas, what one must do when roughing it in the colonies. Otherwise, scheduling travel seems little trouble, although I'm a bit unclear as to which station is which. Amtrak offers four stations under the name Boston and two in New York. After some guesswork I tested Boston South Station and New York Penn. I would deeply appreciate some guidance there so as not to step into a neighbourhood resembling a shantytown or war zone.

Presuming I found the correct terminals we'd depart desperately early to arrive before noon, and leave around seven in the evening, or earlier, depending on your schedule. As to the date, I examined the 17th, as we depart for home by aero-ship on the 18th. The 16th is also very possible, as the convention will be largely wound up by then, and it is indeed the Monday, if that is of any assistance to you at all.

I do indeed look forward to seeing the missing sister from Paris, as I am told, in true American fashion, she is the largest of the set. After all, when one does visit the colonial York, the first question one hears upon return is 'did you see the Statue?' Really, for all the city's purported majesty, it is known for so few things, a dusty statue, robbery, and a mixture of cheese, tomato paste and meats baked on a round bread.

So then, 16th or 17th, which works best for you, and what time you wish to arrive and depart our mid-point between and I will do my best to avail myself to your hospitality in timely fashion.

Best regards,

~Kamilah

PS: Tell you whut, I'll post first, wait for your post, then edit my post, link to yours, then post again and backlink to the prior. Perhaps we shall forge a new fashion statement. :)

Civilised Rail Travel in the Americas

2010-07-14T16:19:00.000-07:00

Oxymoron? I hope not.

Dearest Grace, Eva,

As to booking, I'll first inquire with the aetheric visual wicket to see about firm arrangements for a day trip. I do hope there is a division between the monied and the proletariat.

That said, rail from Boston will likely land us at a terminal, once we make it past the mobs wielding assault rifles as though they were Jihadis in Tehran, what next?

Would you come by motor carriage? By rail as well? Would you arrive at a different terminal? Is the subway in New York truly the land ventured only by hoodlums, daredevils and vigilantes?

But of most importance, where shall we lunch? Some place with an 'essential New York' experience, if possible, a sight of that French monument in the harbour, perhaps? Times Square from all views I've seen before appears to be a Piccadilly redeux, and after Shanghai, the urban-ness of New York strikes me as quaint and small town, sadly. Therefore, the harbour statue is a must, unless you've a brilliant secret little known outside your region. Restaurant atop the Chrysler or Empire State buildings? Art deco museum? Tea house along Central Park?

And in the event of the inevitable muggers, will you be 'packing heat' as you say down there in the deep south? And in such cases, we have excellent concoctions of bear spray here in the wilds, but pray tell, is such personal defense within the bounds of decency? We wouldn't wish to appear too provincial if it should come to it that an assailant need be spritzed in the visage and thusly trounced with logger boot and hockey stick.

Your friend,

Kamilah

PS do let me know if you just sprayed your coffee though your nose and if I'm welcome to blog this.

Brief comments on Maya and Blender

2010-07-12T14:02:00.000-07:00

Maya:
Subdivides edges more intelligently. When you're working in squares, it gives you squares.
The vertex selection tools are weaker, lack of occlusion ability ends up selecting right through the object, more orbits needed to check yourself. (Learned there is such a thing as back face occlusion, never learned where it is.)
Nifty sculpt options, but still prefer a lattice.
Nice extruding along a curve. The extrusion can be manipulated neatly after it's extruded.
Animation graph editing is the_bomb.

Blender:
Prefer the phonetic hot keys to Maya's keyboard placement hotkeys.
Prefer the extrusion in Blender, more hotkey, less pretty graphics.
Less overall crap in your way. Less camera battles selecting things.
Could have to do with 30" monitor at home running 2500 lines vs school 24 at 1900. But them Deluxe Handles in Maya were pretty big.
Googling help generally resulted in more and better examples. Blender nerds tend to prefix every explanation by declaring how easy X is, which I'm less convinced has to do with ease and more to do with presenting their massive E-nis for praise and adulation. But that's how the open source community works, where there isn't a financial incentive there's a posturing incentive. Net result, lots of help in varying shades of pedantic.

Both:
So full of options, good luck finding anything. Taking this class showed me lots of things I didn't know even existed and technique I hadn't thought of. Not bad for a weekend class.

Other observation on financial vs social incentives:
A large firm will want pro-paid for dev tools same reason it will want certified staff. Efficiency in standardisation and contracts signed in eloquent legalese for more effective lawsuits should it come to that.
Yes, a significant part of that 4 grand price tag is the cost of lawsuits. (And later learned Mental Ray rendering, which is irrelevant to Blue Mars.)
Smalltime operators may be less worried about suing and more about just getting the job done efficiently and cheaply. Blender will do just fine for a lone gun contractor or developer with no intention of hopping into standardised employment or expanding operations into the realm of Large. For the lone gun, things like Maya or Illustrator or Max or Photoshop are merely marketing points and might as well be classified as an advertising expense for all the difference I can see between the capabilities between them and open source alternatives.

I will probably be buying Flash Pro, though, so brace yourself, as soon as I jump on a wagon it means there's a strong chance it's headed off a cliff over shark infested seas, on waterskis.

Too Good Not Too Happen

2010-07-06T22:13:00.000-07:00

Amalgam of:
http://xkcd.com/31/
and
http://xkcd.com/695/

I'm a hopeless romantic.

Love Them or Hate Them

2010-06-17T00:06:00.000-07:00

These guys just might be the future of the music biz.

Not only download it, but a contest involving uploading it to Facebook? Can you say magic formulas for viral? These guys are the Kings of Viral.

Life On Mars

2010-06-14T21:47:00.001-07:00

So, yes, I've been fussing with Blue Mars for over a year now, a slow start having rarefied skills to begin with. Still, I'm on the vanguard for this sort of thing when compared to Joe Average Computer User.

So there's a dress and hair by... me. :) Added bonus, one of my little party dress and boots combos in the back there in blue.

A brief chronology in pictures:
May 15, 2009:
Exploring beach City, and the hills surrounding.
Big Crater.

May 16, 2009:
Finally made the summit of the highest peak in Beach City.
And, going the other way...
That other peak I was talking about? Way over there. And can still see Beach City way over here, if not the trees and rocks I had to climb over to get this far. You can also see the Big Crater.
Other side of Beach City.
And you can still see Beach City.

I need to make more stuffs here. I still feel weird seeing people using stuffs I made.

Ikea is my Friend

2010-05-31T15:12:00.001-07:00

My new studio space.

This is a standing office.

When I was in the office trenches I rearranged my workspace into a hybrid standing/sitting arrangement. PC work was done standing and other was done spun around in the cubicle sitting. I was constantly standing up sitting down standing up. I came home to a $2,000 Ekornes Stressless chair. That thing turns your body into a marshmallow and when we sat in them in the show room both of us nearly fell asleep on the spot in minutes. Pity the keyboard arm was nearly useless.

Fast forward to present. Two years of home studio in that chair exercising no muscles in perfect ergonomics. Gained 10 pounds, and have noticed considerable weakening of those miscellaneous torso muscles. Plus with the keyboard in the lap, my typing was miserable. :) As I type this I noticed I wasn't even looking at the keyboard as I put in my password. Yay!

So what we have here now is an Ikea 74cm stool, wood so it's comfortable but not too comfortable, and a 103cm high table surface, about belt high for me when standing. The art photo, also from Ikea, is lined up with my standing eye level on the horizon to give the illusion of a window. Room paint job preexisted my arrival, and may be painted in the future, although the neutral gray helps other colours pop off the screen or other work surfaces.

Missing The Point

2010-05-29T17:34:00.000-07:00

Bacon sushi. I suppose it was only a matter of time.

They Have Poseballs

2010-05-25T20:33:00.001-07:00

O_O

North

2010-05-22T22:09:00.000-07:00

Some of my 120 new best friends.

Orcas do the dolphin too.

Looks painted, don't it?

The mountain view available from the ship.

The mountain view from a $295 a night before taxes room at the Hotel Captain Cook, Anchorage, from the exclusive concierge level.

Did you know that in Skagway, they keep an unofficial ship's registry painted on the rocks next to the docks?

And in the same place, something we all already knew.

Exploit A Friend on a Product Box? Me?

2010-05-01T00:20:00.000-07:00

Definitely inspired by the White Queen in Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland.

Model: Her Grace the Duchess Loch Avie, Eva Bellambi
Wardrober: Nicky Ree
Jeweller: Alienbear Gupte

I went to a whole new level animating stands with this, it's over the top, princessy, comes with a voice/typing animation override and a very funky flight AO I've not before grafted as part of an actual full featured AO. Let us just say it will take your aerobatics to new heights.

*rimshot*

And you too can look like an ingenue, or a drag queen, for L$1,000.

Talking to Grandma

2010-04-20T18:21:00.000-07:00

Even before Grandma's health started declining, trying to explain technologies was... interesting. Now that most of my activities revolve around digital art it's even more odd. Apparently, moving abstractions around as an accountant is less bewildering than manipulating nothings for artistic purpose. :)

But once in a while I manage to explain things in ways she understands. I showed her a flash key and said, "This is a modern filing cabinet. A whole filing cabinet's worth of paper can fit in here."

And today she asked again what it is I do, and I said, "I'm making puppets dance."

And so I'm a puppeteer and finally respectable again.

Means Something to Me

2010-04-06T00:22:00.000-07:00

hehehe

I would get the one cited multiple times for racist comments

2010-03-16T11:35:00.000-07:00

You Are Brigitte Bardot

Naturally sensual and beautiful

You're an exotic beauty who turns heads everywhere

You've got a look that's one of a kind

What Famous Pinup Are You?

Steam Con

2010-03-14T19:34:00.000-07:00

I'm booked.

The Future is Now

2010-03-10T11:51:00.000-08:00

Your own personal Jet Pack.

Jesus Harold Christ

2010-02-12T11:39:00.000-08:00

All the way to infinity.

I was surprised by my contacts list getting tossed wide open by Google Buzz, but I think I shut it down correctly. I hope. I don't have anything particularly horrorsome in there to hide, but maybe I'm just old school about privacy and the privacy of others.

THIS, however, takes the cake.

Affiliate Vendors

2009-12-28T18:53:00.001-08:00

I've occasionally receive the odd inquiry from dressmakers asking about me putting an AO vendor in their shops, saves sending them off to my place to find a matching AO. Groups available being at the premium it is, I've been fussing with Apez.biz affiliate vendors. These things are a network vendor where I have the product in a network server and I can send someone a configured vendor for them to place out where they like.

You make big dresses and not averse to Apez? Contact me and I'll send one over. O_o

I Feel Like I Just Stepped Into A Seinfeld Sketch

2009-12-26T19:38:00.000-08:00

Swiss Chalet is still playing Christmas music. O_o

Viceregal Address 2009

2009-12-24T22:54:00.000-08:00

Through the Looking Glass of the Past, We Are The Future

Communities like ours form out of opportunity. Specifically, they form due to the low cost of communication. In the age which we reenact, they wrote letters, they had balls, they had infrequent visits. Among the aristocracy there were legions of servants holding the whole thing aloft.

Today, most of us come from the pool of individuals who would have been those servants of gentry, our cheap labour comes in the form of dishwashers, robotic vacuum cleaners, impoverished child labourers overseas making shoes in workhouse conditions. In our virtual mansions and palaces and cottages we have autoreturn to serve as maids and devices when needed to serve as bouncers and henchmen.

Just as the British Empire waned in power post Victoria, still large, still relevant, but no longer the superpower, the world has been shaken again. Some of us have lost employment. Some I know have lost their homes. Even still, we still keep in touch even though the lines of communication are shaky, it's because the lines of communication are cheap, almost free.

Caledon has recently branched out to another virtual world, Blue Mars. This is nothing new or amazing. Caledon began branching out and subdividing years ago in the form of Nings, and mailing lists and forums, and the discovery that other Caledonians are within an hour's drive of your house or worth pursuing across the country or around the world for marriage.

Fear not a community splintering and shattering, as spread as we become, ironic, the more the opportunities to connect. Second Life is just a mode of sending a letter. It is a postage stamp. It is a letter carrier.

So scatter us across the internet and we will always find one another. Scatter us so our compatriots who have not yet found us may find us. Let there be dozens of meeting places, be they glory and colour and depth of dimension, be they lines of text on a screen, be they the feel and scent of a paper letter, be they meeting over tea.

Despite troubles and trials, at no time in history have we had the opportunities we have today to seek one another out, those of like minds. We will meet over tea. We will exchange letters. One way or another we will be together.

On Difficulty

2009-12-22T18:17:00.000-08:00

I'm humbled.

And Blender doesn't look so hard anymore.

We All Have Our Reasons

2009-12-14T22:53:00.000-08:00

This is a particularly good one.

Ego Depletion

2009-11-08T12:47:00.000-08:00

I have a huge problem with this, distraction and not having the energy to follow through with things. The obvious general advice is something I'm going to try, like, trying to ramp up the motivation to work on a project? Have a piece of chocolate, then go brag about what you're about to do in a public forum so you'll look stupid if you don't.

Hey, I just discovered Desmond's secret. O_o

Blunt Language and To The Point

2009-11-08T12:36:00.000-08:00

On social media. [Edit: Link Dead at last check.] I liked this post, but then I'm a sociology nerd. YMMV.
For myself, the strongest point in the article is this:

That’s not to say the average college student is a bad writer. It’s saying there’s a handful of college students who are shockingly good. They were able to learn because they were given an open forum, then told repeatedly how stupid they were until they matured.

It's not that in Caledon it's often needed to be said someone's a moron or being a moron. Most newcomers, the ones who stay, pick up the societal nuance and "grab a brain". I know it took me awhile. :)

Seen In A Car Window

2009-10-27T14:24:00.000-07:00

Image released to public domain.

Compare and Contrast v2

2009-10-26T15:30:00.000-07:00

Steam Con:

Twice the size it was anticipated.
Inaugural convention.
A large meet of a particular fandom.
Fairly easy-going regimentation. (Open carry of toy guns!)

CaleCon:

Small group of closely related people.
Inaugural 'large scale' meet.
A meet of a single sub-set of a fandom in a platform.
Little regimentation.

SLCC:

Larger group of somewhat related people.
Fifth such meet.
A meet of anyone in the platform.
Some regimentation, but not a great deal.

About Steam Con 2009, things I liked and things that could have gone better.

Twitter would be a useful tool. "I'm at Salon B." "Going to lunch in 20." Follow who you want to, be available to those who follow you.
20 or so virtual steamlanders showed up, we packed the little salon room we had.
Costuming was fantastic. Everyone advised to bring something, even if it's just a cap and suspenders. Better than 90% of the con goers were costumed full time.
Virtual steamlanders were a bit of an unknown to steampunk at large.
We made a decent showing, and this is definitely a winning convention. See you there in 2010.
It was pretty big, I know Doctor Oblonsky was there, but I didn't manage to bump into him.
I would have liked to hang out with Terry Lightfoot and Darkling Elytis a bit more, but again, huge con, and so much to do, so many people. (Twitter might have been a help for making oneself more available, findable.)
Me, run Twitter at international data roaming rates? ZOMG-NO. Need to look into pay as you go data chips for Blackberry while in Seattle.
Random thought for Caledonians or other related allies interested, taking a day ferryboat trip to Victoria, BC for tea at the Empress. (Need to book ahead two weeks at least. Take extra day after the con?)
Next year's theme: The Weird West. Naturally, Steelhead will be heavily involved.
Still lots of people around during the Abney Park concert, not everyone could get a ticket/was a fan. You won't be the lone weirdo in the lobby.

Got Steam? (MOAR)

2009-10-25T18:12:00.001-07:00

Tensai Hilra and Nabila Nadir.

Tensai Hilra and TotalLunar Eclipse.

Got Steam?

2009-10-24T21:40:00.000-07:00

Clockwise from the top left: Jaelle Akula, Vivito Volare, Fogwoman Gray, ~~JJ Drinkwater~~ Kamilah Hauptmann.

Neo Hippie

2009-10-15T20:40:00.000-07:00

I like this one.

A Left Turn on the Autobach

2009-10-12T16:53:00.000-07:00

Computer learns to compose. Downloads here.

This was freaky, of all classical composers, Bach is my favorite, and the computer generated Bach sounds very convincing to me.

What He Said

2009-10-11T15:37:00.000-07:00

With a shout out to my friend Cedric. Cedric, I'm ashamed I didn't react perfectly when you came out, but you paved the way for future friends of mine who subsequently came out and I could only react with, "Cool. So where you wanna get lunch?"

Seriously, watch this video through.

Little update. I bought his book.

Here's A Cover

2009-10-01T09:06:00.000-07:00

The sad thing is, this is the first time I've understood the lyrics.

Random Thought

2009-09-14T12:20:00.000-07:00

A Caledon WoW group where we're all orcs or something and do nothing but go around attacking other PCs, griefer group, but be really polite, saying things like 'Sorry bout that chap." And "Cheerio!" And "I do say, Edward, it is indeed a fine day to pwn some noobs."

Why You Love Drama

2009-09-01T21:10:00.000-07:00

Interesting post on a Kurt Vonnegut talk.

One More Thing About Rogue River

2009-08-29T19:45:00.000-07:00

We reached Rogue River too early to stop on the way back from San Fran, but we stopped for dinner at the Mexican place we failed to find on the way through the last time.

Food was quite good, but what really impressed me was the cleanliness of the bathrooms. Immaculate. When bombing up and down the I-5 and need a place to stop for the night, Rogue River will be my pick again.

SLCC 2009

2009-08-15T09:04:00.000-07:00

I can haz sewing projects? From the lobby of the Westin Bayshore, San Francisco, the 2009 Kamilah Hauptmann look. (Sans corset, three hours into the Odd Ball I went upstairs and removed it before it killed me.)

Shot by Jaelle Akula.
Shot by Jeremy Linden. (With my camera not properly set up. Shutter speed too slow. He has a pretty steady hand nonetheless. :) )
Jaelle Akula. I made this dress for her, hoop skirt and all! :D
Casualties: One tassel lost while dressing. One hook and eye while dancing. One strap on the mask while wearing it hung about my neck after midnight. (I'd gotten changed around 11:30, enough was enough and there were only around a dozen people left.)

American Monuments

2009-08-12T21:27:00.000-07:00

America has always been one of those alternate universe sci fi shows. So close to home, then you see a high school marching band, or a gas station buried under flags. The trip this time is even weirder, having spent the last three weeks in France and the UK.

We started off this morning, still jetlagged, for San Francisco. We made good time, covering ground at three times the rate possible in the UK, despite the lower speed limits making highway travel feel like swimming in molasses.

The west coast isn't known for over the top monuments, except for the Space Needle. The striking things to me are the little subtleties, bear statues, barns, wagon train coffee huts, old farm houses.

Here are some pictures of Rogue River, Oregon. Where we stopped for the night.

Ornaments outside a bank in town. The fountain is active.

Another fountain in town, artificial stream, no obvious owner, civic?

Coffee house.
Town square? War dead monument, and local social club listings.
Sidewalk usage warning. I prefer this approach to a long list of what's not allowed. I wonder if this extends to aggressive seniors on electric scooters.
Closed service station mural.
This, along with the war monument, really speaks about small town mindset.
Random shot off the bridge, east along the river.
Plaque on the bridge.
The bridge and the big R on the mountain.
The bridge.

Hotels UK

2009-08-10T17:25:00.000-07:00

With a side of France. :)
I'll chronicle here the hotels I stayed in for my trip to the UK, brief commentary, and leave the Googling to you.

Night one: Novotel St Pancras, London
After that ordeal that was the Relay For Life, we wanted to stay in a very comfortable hotel, and this is a very comfortable hotel. The bed was excellent, service excellent, location right next to the Kings Cross, Euston, and St Pancras rail stations.

Night two, three, four, five: Hotel Eiffel Park, Paris
This location just can't be beat in Paris, five minute walk to Rue Cler, fifteen to the Eiffel Tower (The majesty of that Ultimate Steampunk Edifice just can't be believed until you've been there and touched it.), metro stations all over the place with all the major sites of Paris within trivial reach, including Versailles. We booked a theme room, I loved it to pieces, except the mattress was living hell. I was fine, I'll sleep on bricks or eat anything not nailed down. Anyone who needs a soft mattress, however, will do what we did, and take the mat off the bench for an extra padded layer, or bring an air mattress, or run away screaming. That aside, the staff were helpful and informative, friendly, breakfasts were good, and every manner of service needed was within a stone's throw of the hotel. Everything you've heard about rude French is a lie, or something you bring with you.

Night six: Travelodge Kings Cross, London
A cheap rack for the night next to the train station we needed. A little grubby but not too bad. Helpful staff, serviceable for the night, breakfast is a zoo in the morning. You'll be lucky to get to the coffee machine.

Night seven, eight: Best Western Palace Inn, Inverness
Your basic Best Western attraction in a lovely location right on the river Ness, most services, and free wifi. (Woot!) I'd stay again.

Night nine, ten: Tingle Creek Hotel, Ebrusaig near Kyle of Lochalsh, and more famously, Eilean Donan Castle
Family run hotel with all that TLC, great locations a short drive away including Plockton, and a longer drive up to Portree on the Isle of Skye. Comfortable beds, limited TV channels, free wifi, attached pub. Nothing else in walking distance.

Night eleven: Falls of Lora Hotel, Connell (by Oban)
This was the most eccentric building I have ever laid eyes on. Classic Victorian building plus additions over the years, but the interior is overrun with curios and oddities and whatnots. (I loved it in so many ways.) Drawback being the hotel is entirely smoking allowed in the rooms. Bonus being, when we did get there they gave us three keys, stated the prices per person per room, and off we went to inspect them. One room had some pretty bad smoke odour. The other two weren't too bad at all. Some rooms just ventilate better than others, I suppose. Oh, and free wifi.

Night twelve: Holiday Inn Express, Greenock
We tried looking for something less corporate, but the hotels we did look at were houses of horror. A corporate hotel was just what we needed. Clean, decent.

Night thirteen: Premier Inn, South Warrington
This night was a horror night for hotels. Rushing from Scotland we bypassed Glasgow and made for Wales. Starting in Chester, and dredging all the way to Bangor along the lovely north coast of Wales, we saw carnivals, caravan parks, camp sites, and nothing but full hotels. In Bangor they even phoned local B&Bs from the Premier Inn there, but we ended up in a rout and fled back to East Chester, asked at the Premier in there, again a random find, and the night reception made a few phone calls, and found something in Warrington. Premier Inns are a 2 star chain of corporate hotels aimed at the business traveler. I say they're the best chain in the UK. Stuck? Head to a Premier Inn, if they don't have something, there are a dozen more within an hour's drive and a terminal in the lobby to do some searching. Which I did the following morning and found:

Night fourteen: Premier Inn, Swansea City Centre
Another well run inn. We found the bathroom not to our satisfaction and within five minutes we were moved across the hall by the very accommodating staff. Unbelievable they only charge 60 pounds a night for double.

Night fifteen, sixteen, seventeen: Rudloe Hall Hotel
I love this hotel so very very much.

Night eighteen, nineteen, twenty: Jolly Hotel, St Ermins
I was blown away at how gorgeous this hotel was from the outside and in the lobby. Pity I didn't put my suspicion alarms on full power when they right off the bat gave us a 'complimentary room upgrade'. I should have had a look at the room first, and then refused it even though I'd booked through my travel agent months in advance. The room stank to Hades of cigarette smoke. Now if they had told me what I was looking forward to right there at the desk before I'd signed all the papers, not just snuck it by me, I wouldn't have felt I could not trust the staff. That set the tone for the rest of the stay. The pedantic reception to asking to change rooms was additional insult. The next time I came back I put the little purple book of Premier Inns on the counter where it could be seen. Yup, they'd have a fresh room on a non-smoking floor for the following two days. Oh and Hai! The air conditioning crapped out in the middle of the night in that stinky room. :) The bed was comfy, though. Too bad the bed in the new room the next two days wasn't much better than the one in France. But I'm not all evil, I did inform the desk of the water leaking through the ceiling light in the bathroom over the tub. Some clown must have flooded the floor in the room above us on the second night. Location was fantastic in London, as good as the Eiffel Park was in Paris, but the building, lovely in the common areas, was such a gong show it was insane. Keep in mind I was at my wit's end at the end of the trip, spoiled by the best hotel in all the UK, and tired. But they really should have dealt a straight hand on the first check in. I might go back for a drink in the restaurant, but stay? Er, um, no. Where's the closest Premier again? Oh neat, four within walking distance.

Rudloe Hall Hotel

2009-08-03T07:42:00.000-07:00

First afternoon free since Paris. I've been on the road a lot and learning the hard way that despite Britain's small size, it is still enormous. Except with regards to road lane width and car parking facilities. I could do a half hour comedy routine about the car park in Swansea, but instead, glad to be out of there, I'll give a little tour of our hotel outside Bath, the Rudloe Hall Hotel.

This is a firmly four star, if not a little better, establishment, I booked it online this morning from the hotel room in Swansea. (Two star or not, the Premier Inn chain in the UK is a wonderful last chance planning on the fly way to cross the UK when you're not in the mood for 'surprises'. When town hopping one night per city, I'll definitely use them again.)

Rudloe, however, is full of surprises, top notch ones. Here's the exterior.

And the entry foyer.

Main stairwell to second floor.
Top of stairs on second floor.
Looking backwards from top of stairs on second floor.
A little sitting area on the second floor.

Narrow little staircase to third.With a t intersection at the top of the stairs. Our room is first door on the left. We sprang for the best room in the house, conning ourselves into believing 250 pounds/night really meant L$250. O_o
But it was worth it, strange a-frame room.

Antique desk.

Fireplace and TV.
Antique bath.

And what's this? Second floor?

It is, it is a second floor sitting room. Outdoor on balcony jacuzzi, even.
And a third floor? O_o
Yes, right up the tower, a Princess bedroom on what's the fifth floor of the tower.
With mind-bending view to the south(ish).

And the west(ish).And the parking lot. Watch for vertigo.
And another floor? o_O
Which led to a barred door, presumably to the roof of the tower.

There's a pitch and putt, an indoor swimming pool, spa options, dining room, sitting room, billiards room, and a garden, but various photos are up on the Rudloe website and I've already been pants with the photos for this post. :) This will be our base of operations until the sixth. Money well spent and my alter-ego is purring.

100th Post

2009-07-26T03:00:00.000-07:00

And it's time for some toilet humour.

It's the door to the restrooms in the King's Cross First Class Lounge. :)

Deco Deco

2009-07-23T07:07:00.000-07:00

Spotted on a side street near Rue Cler and Rue Grenelle.

Odd Paris Graffiti

2009-07-21T14:48:00.000-07:00

Because the world already has enough pictures of the Eiffel Tower. (That, and as impressive as it is, I'm much more ambitious.)

Win At Life

2009-07-15T23:47:00.000-07:00

Key point from this article:

"If you can ever get two players to actually debate a moral point in a game as vigorously they might debate a StarCraft build, you’ve won at life."

Congratulations, Philip Rosedale. You win at life.

I'm Embarassed To Say

2009-07-13T15:38:00.000-07:00

This was a summer anthem for me in 1987:

Victoriana on the Cheap

2009-07-09T12:29:00.000-07:00

From a conversation with Serra Anansi and a belated fulfillment of a 'kinda' promise to Kaye Robbiani and/or Scotti Lyle.

Also known as: How to toss together a passable costume for Victoriana, fast and cheap.

Disclaimer, I haven't tried this, it's just an 'idea' from what I've learned about 19th Century fashion and might come close to late Victorian natural form.

Text here:

Go to any plus sized dress store and find something conservative.

Get two full length dresses.

Same one, one will be a parts sacrifice.

Then to the fabric store for ribbons and notions and tassels and stuff.

That match.

You'll need a store bought crinoline. Pirate your old wedding dress maybe.

You'll also need a few yards of stiff crinoline, but that's pretty cheap too.

That will be bustled up and attached to the main crinoline.

More butt. :)

Now you have a dress and a dress to tear apart. What you do with the sacrifice one is pull the bodice off, and hem it. It will become an overskirt, tie it up with ribbons on the sides.

Take the sleeves and poof em up for some poofy shoulders, sew them over the main dress.

Add frills to taste.

Steam Con

2009-07-03T19:21:00.000-07:00

I'm booked.

Tonight's Wine

2009-06-27T18:37:00.000-07:00

Lotusland Enigma.

Very fruity red, hint of wood at the back of the mouth. It's mildly sweet going back but not into dessert wine range. I like. :)

Still seeking a place that sells Maudite in my area, although I haven't looked terribly hard.

Tonight's Wine

2009-06-25T16:51:00.000-07:00

Lotusland Girlsrmeaner.

I'm finding it very fruity, with a light bite to the tip of the tongue on the way in and no unpleasantness even a minute later.

I discovered this winery driving by. The claim of an organic winery intrigued me as phosphites in beverages have a hit-miss chance of an evil headache for me. Not only do the wines taste more natural to my tongue, not a single hangover five bottles of various types.

As always in my case, drunk from a crystal water glass when in the workshop. I knock over stemmed glasses far too easily.

Various Views of Chateau Frontenac

2009-06-23T13:23:00.000-07:00

A bit fairy tale, that last one, no? It was taken near the entrance to the Citadel.
I went inside the day before, ambled about, and you know? The interior was nothing compared to the Empress in Victoria. The exterior, however, was worth the trip alone.

For All You Cannon Nerds Out There

2009-06-23T09:07:00.000-07:00

From Artillery Park outside the carriage shed.

And a map snapshot from inside the museum. The Artillery Park is along the city walls on the right, where the Citadel is on the left.
The things you had to do to defend against cannons.

And a bonus from the Rampart.

New Face, New Beer

2009-06-22T19:56:00.000-07:00

Hot find! A place that sells masks manufactured by the suppliers to the Cirque du Soliel!

I got two such masks, both cat. This is the more masculine 'Feline', reminiscent of a lion or panther. The other is a 'Puss in Boots', and is much less stern looking, and they have nose holes, I can breathe in them.

And of course, a big honkin' bottle of beer.

Egad, I've grown such a mane. And by now I feel I've cemented myself as 'one of those internet weirdos'.

New Favorite Beer

2009-06-22T11:09:00.000-07:00

La Maudite. It's a very strong beer, and to me it tasted a bit of fruit. Almost like a wine with bubbles. If you can find it where you live, you really must try this, especially if you enjoy wine as much as beer.

Hook and Eyes, Not Recommended

2009-06-17T18:52:00.001-07:00

Checklist:

Work on the fastenings, reinforcements under the bust, and a better fastening up at the collar.
New wig and wig cap, poor thing's about had it.

This is Simplicity 2887, with a few alterations.

The velvet was just too bothersome to stitch well so I took the leftover taffeta and stitched lace around the tabs. I may weight them with some ornaments.

It's over corset Simplicity 9769 and the hoop skirt and petticoat Simplicity 9764.

All in all I found this challenging but not out of my novice reach. Many thanks to the internet and all you wonderful people who post tutorials.

I Love It When The Sleeves Go On

2009-06-12T20:22:00.000-07:00

It looks more like a dress and that I wasn't just wasting fabric and thread.

Lessons learned:

Velvet is a bitch to sew.
Those dots are there for a reason.
Sometimes you need to ignore the dots and put it on 'wrong' to make it look 'right'.
Wrong and right have entirely different reasons when all caps.
Use lotsa pins if you're not sure you don't quite understand the directions.

Expialidocious

2009-06-01T17:21:00.000-07:00

:)

Update Dec 25, 2009
Copyright beat down.

:(

Update June 17, 2010
Found it again!

:)

The Bus

2009-05-30T16:05:00.000-07:00

Original post from May 23, 2006 on another blog that's closing up.

~~~

From work, I have the choice of walking along the train tracks from station to station or walking through nature trails and quiet neighbourhoods to a parallel train line. I do this for exercise. Today there was a risk of rain, about mid-way along the trails it started to rain so I jockeyed on down to the bus stop and sat in the shelter, waiting for the bus.

The bus came, I left the shelter and the bus slowed, then did not stop. I was mighty pissed and went back into the shelter and fumed. The rain let up and I started to walk up the steep hill portion of the route. I cursed every miserable pissass bus driver I'd ever had the misfortune to cross paths with.

Then I remembered what I'd said to another kid some 22 years ago when the bus did the same to him. "What's the matter, the buses rejectin' ya?"

Karma's a bitch, and I had to laugh at myself, quietly apologise to that kid wherever he may be now, and walk on with the liberation of having restored a bit of the balance.

I came to the stop near the top of the hill. I shoulder checked. The next bus was already stopping.

I'm on the train. The sun is shining through the clouds.

Super Flight AO

2009-05-16T16:28:00.000-07:00

Heee! This was a hoot. Based on prior work with the Mermaid AOs I found it child's play to make a superhero flight override. Just wear and fly, it's that easy. See? Angular flying animations!

Ad run for the box:

Gown AO

2009-05-16T16:11:00.000-07:00

This is my ad run for the Gown AO.

I was originally going to put it all together in the complete Lady, but it ended up with a gawdawful confusing pile of notecards, so it's a standalone and includes the Classical set.

This is a little different from a normal ZHAO-based AO, I added a button to switch on and off arm animations. With the sub-AO running it adds a wild amount of pose variety to the mix, also, it's the first roll-out of the Voice animation override. Use Voice? Gesture with your arms. :)

It's structured with three sizes of four 'twinned' standing poses, with four ready made notecards inside. They should work for 9/10 gown sizes regardless of avatar size.

Here's the rejected first try, just for the_lulz.

Getting Ready for SLCC 2009

2009-05-08T18:14:00.000-07:00

Getting ready to rock the SLCC's costuming again this year!

I made this corset. :) It's Simplicity pattern 9769. I found a great company that made kits of everything I needed. Canadian too. Bonus. No getting held up sending several kilos of metal strips over the border. O_o They even had coutil, a very strong fabric for corsetry. I think I may have enough left for a second corset.

Several kilos of boning for one corset? Surely I must jest! Er, no. The majority of it was for this hoop skirt. Simplicity pattern 9764. Cotton/Poly broadcloth.
Casualties so far, two sewing machine needles, a seam ripper, and thankfully not much blood this time around.

Extra tools I needed, aviation snips to cut the hoop boning. And I've never before this skirt and corset ever used a power drill and a hammer to assemble a garment. I also rather than using hook and eyes for the clasp I broke apart an adjustable strap from the hardware store and used that instead. Not even remotely period, but if anyone looks up my skirt on such an inspection, they'll get a pointy boot up the left nostril.

I'll point out that none of that was difficult. But it took time, and it took an extra set of hands from time to time. Sewing that much casing tape into a skirt was bonkers and took a great deal of measuring and pinning and despite the mistakes I made (I fixed the horrid ones) it's very forgiving.

Last year's costume fit over it just fine, but with the corset needs to come in a little bit, also, the front dips and the back is a little high. I may pinch it in the back to take it in and force the draping backwards a bit and see how it works.

Adjustment here, adjustment there, perhaps another skirt layer under the main to mask the boning better, and I'll be set.

Next stop, Simplicity 2887 with a few modifications.

About Facelights

2009-04-13T11:06:00.000-07:00

Link to comic.

Quote of the Hour

2009-04-12T11:25:00.000-07:00

There is no abstract art. You must always start with something. Afterward you can remove all traces of reality.

Pablo Picasso

SL Belly Dances

2009-04-11T23:54:00.000-07:00

Not a secret, one of the two things I love best in Second Life is dressing up like an extra from I Dream of Jeannie. Consequently, I've gone out of my way to sample just about any bellydance I've found. In fact, I've coded and sculpted and revised and particled my own costume several times over three years, and made my own dance HUD system. I keep two HUDs, one newer motion capture ones where you run all over the place, and a standing in spot, full of pre-motion capture dances. Here are my favorites, in order.

Animazoo. (Motion HUD) Fabulous, fabulous. They have the brain cells to make the animations priority three rather than four, lovely work all around, nary a glitch that I can see. Not exactly perfectly traditional, but they have that flash. Sole complaint, lousy naming convention: Dance 1, Dance 2, etc. But they're modifiable, so you can change their names. Copyable too, so put them in your HUD, put them in your dance balls in your club, put them everywhere.
Lillita Lacey (Snakecharmer - Static HUD) Manually made dances are not dead. Mocap hasn't killed them! Unfortunately, I cannot find these sold anywhere anymore. :( The most excellent feather they have, aside from being copy-mod, is the neck is free! Your avatar head tracks the camera! Alt-Click your favorite viewer, and you're lookiing right at them! There was stands, a great hands behind the back dancer walk, and with 17 animations available, all at L$50 each, it was a no brainer to get them all. I use these for private shows in small, intimate venues.
Sine Wave. (Motion HUD) These seem more authentic than the Animazoo ones, but they lack that pizazz that you need in SL. Authentic - Drab. Artistic licence - Wow. They're a good compliment to Animazoo. Unfortunately no copy, no mod. 1-5, fine. Dance 6, ugh.
Alexicon Kurka. (Static HUD) This creator has some nifty Greek dances and bellydance. Not bad at all, I use a few in my mix. No copy, no mod.
Luth Brodie. (Static HUD) As far as I know, these are the first bellydances in SL, ever. I used to save my stipends up for more of them. They feel a little dated now, but if you can still find them, they're worth a look. No copy, some no mod.
Djezebel Drake. (Static HUD) I'd like these more if they didn't feel quite so tarty. I use them anyway but have been known to restart my randomiser when they come up. No copy.
Seagel Neville. Static HUD) The original freebie bellydances, a couple are quite good. I have the bellydance collection at various places as a freebie, if you don't find it, ask me, or try XStreetSL.com.

Have not tried: Hap Underwood. I messed around with the trial HUD once, and it might make a good manual show for someone with Voice. I may have a look again.

Disappointed: Moonlight Animations. When the store has no dance pad set out to try before you buy, that's a sign. When the branding is identical or eerily similar to other makers, in this case, for a wear anywhere dance machine called a 'Chim', (Owenmations Chimera?) and a 'Huddle' (Keiki Lemieux's Huddle?), that's a sign. If it's motion capture, it's not as good as Animazoo or Sine Wave. If it's hand made, it's rather good, except for the large glitches at the end of the loops. Animation priorities had no standardisation. The lack of understanding of SL animations, and in the case of the boxes, permission system, is curable with experience. The brand name cloning and unconvincing motion capture has me feeling uneasy I spent money there.

Quite Possibly The Most Awesome Thought Experiment Ever

2009-04-11T21:00:00.001-07:00

Link.