Traveler's Home
Apr. 21st, 2007 05:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cyfishyIt's vaguely ironic that I picked the Second Life surname "Traveler" on the basis that I figured I'd just be wandering about the place, and then I wound up buying land.
They got rid of the First Land program about a month before I got a membership, which initially pissed me off, but then I did a little reading up on the blog comments to the announcement and discerned that by the time they got rid of it, First Land was (a) hard as nuts to find and (b) usually pretty shitty anyway.
So I went land shopping. My criteria were: a 512 parcel in a Mature region without any covenants, so I could keep my options open as to what I wanted to do with it.
I did a little surfing around and found a listing on SLExchange for a 512 parcel in a snow sim. I looked at some other places, but the snow sim seemed the most ideal for what I needed--a quiet place to hang my virtual hat and do some building.
I paid for a year's membership and got 10,000 Lindens for thirty bucks from a gaming site. Ta-da! The land was mine.
Initially, I used the little cabin they provide in the Library folder, but it was a little cramped and hard to get the camera view in. So I built this. It's the SL builder's equivalent of a crayon drawing in terms of complexity, but it looks nice enough to me and it's only ten prims. (When you've only got 117 prims to work with, you have to make each one count.)
That's not a real Mondrian--it's something I cocked up in Photoshop Elements as an homage. I think it came out pretty well. Miles took the picture that I used on the other wall. The furniture is also my creation. Again, nothing elaborate, but low-prim and no Lindens spent on it beyond the upload fees for the artwork.
That's not a Warhol, either. Another bit of Photoshop muckery. I suppose I could have made the effort and played with layers for that silkscreeny effect, but I decided this looked good enough.
I debated being coy about the photo, but I'll go ahead and lay it on the table here--it's a self portrait. I just liked the idea of an image of my Real Self watching over my alter-ego's adventures. I may or may not admit to this if somebody asks me about it in SL, though.
When I learn more about scripting, I'll be adding things like privacy windows and, oh, a door, but for now I'm enjoying the view.
Do wish the person who owns the land across hadn't thrown up the angry red barrier, though. I've since rearranged that end of the lot with some trees to sort of cover that.
Self portrait meets self portrait. The shirt is one of my earliest experiments with clothing textures, using the Social Butterfly logo. And the hair I'm wearing is the hair that sent me down the slippery slope of spending cash money in Second Life.
Comments and questions (within reason) are always welcome.
They got rid of the First Land program about a month before I got a membership, which initially pissed me off, but then I did a little reading up on the blog comments to the announcement and discerned that by the time they got rid of it, First Land was (a) hard as nuts to find and (b) usually pretty shitty anyway.
So I went land shopping. My criteria were: a 512 parcel in a Mature region without any covenants, so I could keep my options open as to what I wanted to do with it.
I did a little surfing around and found a listing on SLExchange for a 512 parcel in a snow sim. I looked at some other places, but the snow sim seemed the most ideal for what I needed--a quiet place to hang my virtual hat and do some building.
I paid for a year's membership and got 10,000 Lindens for thirty bucks from a gaming site. Ta-da! The land was mine.
Initially, I used the little cabin they provide in the Library folder, but it was a little cramped and hard to get the camera view in. So I built this. It's the SL builder's equivalent of a crayon drawing in terms of complexity, but it looks nice enough to me and it's only ten prims. (When you've only got 117 prims to work with, you have to make each one count.)
That's not a real Mondrian--it's something I cocked up in Photoshop Elements as an homage. I think it came out pretty well. Miles took the picture that I used on the other wall. The furniture is also my creation. Again, nothing elaborate, but low-prim and no Lindens spent on it beyond the upload fees for the artwork.
That's not a Warhol, either. Another bit of Photoshop muckery. I suppose I could have made the effort and played with layers for that silkscreeny effect, but I decided this looked good enough.
I debated being coy about the photo, but I'll go ahead and lay it on the table here--it's a self portrait. I just liked the idea of an image of my Real Self watching over my alter-ego's adventures. I may or may not admit to this if somebody asks me about it in SL, though.
When I learn more about scripting, I'll be adding things like privacy windows and, oh, a door, but for now I'm enjoying the view.
Do wish the person who owns the land across hadn't thrown up the angry red barrier, though. I've since rearranged that end of the lot with some trees to sort of cover that.
Self portrait meets self portrait. The shirt is one of my earliest experiments with clothing textures, using the Social Butterfly logo. And the hair I'm wearing is the hair that sent me down the slippery slope of spending cash money in Second Life.
Comments and questions (within reason) are always welcome.
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no subject
Date: 2007-04-24 02:59 pm (UTC)Too bad you don't have a way to password certain areas or objects. Or....can you?
How about hiding them one layer underground and pulling them out when you are at home? Is the ground a non-yielding barrier in 2L? Not so easy to find "buried" things once they are buried?
Can you flip them around temporarily or construct a fake wall in front of them, or does the flip just reverse the object's image's alignment and/or the wall-building construct have a limit on how close / far two walls can be sandwiched?
BTW, I think that gal's name I mentioned to you was Phoenix Chapman, but I may have the surname wrong. If there are only a limited amount of surnames in 2L (I'm confused as to whether I misunderstood that), maybe that can be narrowed down. She owns land in the game, I know that much. She's also all gung-ho about 2L and is an ex-Sims junkie. A bit dramalicious, but interesting to talk to, and would gladly help you with building / n00b stuff if you need it.
no subject
Date: 2007-04-24 03:17 pm (UTC)Walls are prims like any other, they can even be overlapped if you need them to be, so there are no limits on how close they can be.
I've contemplated putting up a wall at the end of the lot and texturing it with a nice winter scene just to block the angry barrier, but it's not a big deal at this point.
What exactly would be the point of burying objects, anyway? They can't be 'taken' unless you've set them so they can. (I've even set some of the objects in my house so people can buy copies, if they are so inclined.) If you need to whip something out at certain points, that's what Inventory is for. I've got entire houses rattling around in my Inventory, and the strain doesn't seem to show on my avatar. ;)
At this stage, I don't really have a need for privacy windows or a door. If I invest in a boinky bed (a bed that animates your avatar into various, erm, positions), I suppose I might, but for now, this is fine.
You can create any first name, but you have to pick your surname from a list. The list changes periodically to keep things interesting. Lots of Duranies picked "Durant" and "Birmingham" as surnames during the Great Duranie Rush of August 2006, but I liked "Traveler" better.