Viceregal Christmas Address 2008

Christmas Blessing for Caledon

Through trials and tribulations. We still stand. We are still here.

I address our endurance.

2008 has been interesting times to be certain. An emotional Relay was run, a spectacular showing of our people, 7 of which logged among the official top fifteen runners. Many more ran all night as well. Financial difficulties have raised their heads, leaving us with an uncertain 2009. America has had an unprecedented Presidential election. Linden Labs has made a series of baffling announcements that have altered the shape of our landmass. Our first in the flesh Caledon meet-up in Saint Mary's, Ontario.

Some died.

And we are still here.

Faces have come and gone, some stay awhile, then fade off over the horizon. To those, I wish farewell, good grace and fortune and great happiness.

To those who remain and are yet to come, I wish good grace and fortune and great happiness and much welcome. Welcome to our home.

Peace and joy to you, Caledon. May you do as you've always done, worked together, played together, struggled with and sometimes fought one another. And always coming back to support one another.

And we are still here. Together.

The Genie

I've been fooling with WeGame.





The Genie is coming.

Cutest Thing Ever

Best part of the Yule Ball. Anthropomorphic reindeer sucking on candy canes and pulling Santa's sleigh.

Christmas Street

Ordinarily I show up to an event, make a few greetings, stay awhile, then disappear out the back door. Once in awhile something magical appears before my eyes, and today it happened in Caledon Southend.

I don't know if it was due to a flux of good energy all around from a random invite to tea by Darkling Elytis, where she, Denver Hax, Roy Smashcan and I just sat and chatted about nothing. Pleasant. :)

Anyhoo, Roy jetted off to a do in Southend, I knew something was going on there but perhaps it's oldbie jadedness I presumed it to be another DJ event or fashion show, the very things that have me gasping for fresh air in a simulator with less avatars in it.

Surprise, it was a street fair.

Groups of people milling the streets, snow particles everywhere, idle chitchat and lots of room to move around. When I arraved there were at least three groupings of people to mill through, and I was greeted by Bamika Easterman.

This was fabulous; she had a whole maid school milling about serving tea. This is the first time I've ever seen such a thing work. And it really did work to enhance the atmosphere!

Eventyually I saw a Kodak moment:

And just started taking pictures.

Until I ran out of L$.

Revisiting Nautilus

I showed earlier some big nasty builds in Nautilus and postulated that it might be an attempt to drive off other speculators. It might also have been an attempt to get those other speculators to buy the parcels to get rid of the ugly. Ugly builds have a long tradition in Second Life to try to coerce someone to buy a particular parcel at an inflated price.

This is how the for sale approach looks now:

Small, tasteful, and one can only grief the neighbours into buying the parcel if there actually are neighbours!

Bridal AO

Awhile ago Yuriko asked me about a Bridal AO, something I hadn't considered seriously before. The wedding market's already glutted with advanced systems and moving poseball systems to do all the thinking and aiming in high lag situations.

We weren't up to building an entire cathedral and I wasn't up to programming, maintaining and marketing a complex full wedding system, but I did have a variety or script parts lying around for a two layer animation override system. The main thrust of this system is to be very easy to use. Wear and walk. Buttons control the bouquet pose, five to choose from, and five foot stances as well. There is a toggle to switch off and on the automatic stance shuffle. There is also a main on/off switch.

This system operates the arms independently of everything else, so I was able to use a lower priority animation for the arms. This allows the avatar to carry most animated or unanimated bouquets.

The system could also double as a simple override for large dresses. The walk works really well for the ballroom gowns. :) Holding the page down key and walking performs a slow walk, step-stop-step-stop, good for those more dramatic entries.

One Week

One week is what it seems to make one full AO with extra peripherals.

The poses and walks and such a day or two, but this one is a wee bit different.

The cane and top hat responds to individual animations playing, provided the notecard is filled in correctly. What it means to the user is, as you walk, fly, shuffle poses, the cane will respond to them and reposition itself.

It's complete with typing override, had comes off the head by holding the page down key. Give them a try at Posture Is Everything. Free cane in the Info box, try the Cane series on the single animation vendor. Full kit in the box, L$1000.

Free upgrades to all who have a prior version of Gentleman Jim. Drop a copy of your old version, or the box on the altar in the main store.


Next up, Bridal AO.