I am just so darn proud of myself…..  As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, I’m a great believer in inventory management but lately, mine has been growing and growing, so yesterday I decided that enough was enough and I set aside a couple of hours to really go through things and organize.

I opened every single box, went through every single folder etc.. I was amazed at how much rubbish I had amassed.  Some great items were re-discovered, and also some truly awful stuff was unceremoniously dumped.

I went through the clothing folder and boxed anything that I’d not worn in a while, and continued with that method for absolutely everything.  This time, when putting my items into my trusy ‘Thinc’ boxes, I didn’t mix no-copy items with copy items etc… and it’s so much easier that way.

Anyway, I reduced my inventory from 9000 items down to just 3500 or thereabouts and it really does make a difference.  Not only do I know where everything is but it has improved SL’s performance somewhat for me.

So now, I’ve more room to go out and buy MORE STUFF!!!

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Creating your own items in SL is so much fun and can also be quite lucrative.  All it takes is patience and a willingness to learn skills that you have may have previously been unfamiliar with.  Before I joined SL, I did have some knowledge of photoshop and graphics but since then, I’ve learned so many new things.  Whether you’d like to create your own clothing, poses & animations..etc..  There is a cure out there for what ails ya! In other words, there is a tool somewhere out in cyberspace that can help you along your creative path…and the best part of it is that you don’t have to spend an arm and a leg on accquiring these tools..in fact, you don’t have to spend anything at all but a little of your time in getting to know them. 

I’ve been looking around and I’ve put together a list of some great free applications to maybe enhance your SL creativity.  Most of these I’ve tried so if you’ve any questions…really really simple questions that is…..please feel free to ask.  There are also a few that I’ve only gotten to the stage of downloading and haven’t really tried them out in any depth yet.  

GIMP

A free edit-imaging package that can be used to create clothing and textures etc for SL.  A bit difficult to come to grips with at first, especially for Photoshop users such as myself, but well worth sticking with it… (wish I could follow my own advice!)

SL Clothes Previewer 

Created by Johan Durant, this is a fantastic application that allows you to ‘preview’ your designs before you spend that hefty 10L$ on upload fees..lol

Blender 

This is a ‘content creation suite’… and it’s so jam-packed with features, it’s hard to know where to start.  I’ve been so busy with Photoshop lately, that I haven’t really had time to look at Blender at any in-depth level, but the site is very interesting and informative and there are loads of tutorials and fantastic examples on how to create with blender.  

Daz

A 3D modelling software programe …again, this one falls into the catagory of ‘just downloaded’ so I haven’t used it as of yet, but I did browse through the various examples of the possibilites of it and I have to say, this is one I’m looking forward to getting to grips with.  

Qavimator 

Have a go at creating your own SL animations and poses..

Audacity 

A free sound editing software package. Here you can edit and manipulate sound files and upload them to SL.  Very useful if you’d like to have you own custom sounds to accompany your animations. Of course, it can be used for a myriad of things, explore it and have fun..

As promised, here are some links where you can download some alternatives to the official SL viewer.

 Nicholaz Viewer

 OnRez Viewer (CSI style)

Able Viewer 

Dale Viewer 

Sculptypaint 

Using sculpted textures in SL can be a great way to reduce your prim usage.  With a basic 512sqm plot of land there is a limitation of 117 prims.  You can make the most of your prim allowance by using sculpties in your builds… Of course there are the ‘temp-rezzers’ that people use to kind of ‘cheat’ the prim system to allow them to have more prims than is allowed.  It may sound like a great and wonderful thing, but I personally wouldn’t advocate their usage as they can cause absolutely crippling lag.

Well, this should be enough to give you some food for thought.  The best thing is that all of these tools are free…. but you know what, there is another tool, and it’s probably the most powerful of them all, unlimited usage and potential, and you’ve already got it in your inventory…

YOUR IMAGINATION……..so go use it and make some SL magic!! 

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You know the old saying ‘It’s easy when you know how’….well, it IS!   Clothing can be given that realistic touch by adding a few well placed wrinkles and folds.  Here’s a really simple little guide on adding some wrinkles to your SL clothing creations…..

First of all I’m assuming that you already know how to use the clothing templates…. and as I’ve already said, this is just a really really basic guide…

1… Open up that ‘top’ that you’ve been working furiously on over the last year…(only joking)

2… Fill the black areas with any colour you like….I’ve chosen green because, well…I happen to like the colour and I’m Irish and as everyone knows, we wear green all the time!!!

3.  Create a new layer - choose ‘overlay’ and make sure that this ‘overlay’ layer is on top of your ’shirt’ layer.

4… Fill this layer with around 70% grey.

5… Click on your ‘burn’ tool, set the brush size to around 4, range to ‘midtones’ and exposure to maybe 40 or 45%. Whilst holding the ’shift’ key, draw some lines across your shirt.  Holding the ’shift’ key will keep them straight. 

6…Click on your ‘dodge’ tool, set the brush size to around 5 or 6, range to ‘highlights’ and exposure to 30 or 35%.  Again, whilst holding your ’shift’ key, draw lines just above the ones you’ve just drawn with your ‘burn tool’.  

Now here’s where the magic happens…

7… Click on your ’smudge’ tool, set the brush size to around 13 and strength to around 45%.  Sweep the ’smudge’ tool across the lines that you’ve just drawn…to make them blend in.  You can change the direction of the wrinkle by sweeping upwards or downwards when you reach the edge of the garment. 

The ‘opacity’ of this overlay layer can be changed also, it really all depends on how you want your finished garment to look. Play around with it…the more you practice, the better you’ll become and you’ll soon get to know what looks right and what doesn’t.   

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Not that I’m any great expert or anything remotely similar, but I have learned a few bits and pieces along the way.  One tip in particular I’ve found very helpful indeed.

Texturing a Build 

I nearly drove myself nuts trying to figure out how to change a texture’s properties on only one side of a prim.  I ruined so many builds because when I got one side just right, the other looked dreadful.  Untill some kind person told me exactly how to do what I wanted to do….

For instance, let’s take a cube or box….

If you want the entire box to be of the same texture, go into ‘edit’ mode and click the ‘texture’ tab.  Then select the texture you want your box to be. Hey presto!  

But what if you want the different faces of the box to be different textures???  You can drag the texture from your inventory directly onto whatever face of the box you’d like to change…

Great!…BUT…..what if you want to change the texture’s properties on just that side of the box, and not the others?  Believe it or not, this is a technique that is very often overlooked….

1. Go into ‘edit’ mode.

2. Click on the ’select texture’ option, it’s right there with ‘position’, ’stretch’ and ‘rotate’.

3. Go to the ‘texture’ tab.  There you can change a whole bunch of stuff…horizontal and vertical ‘repeats’.  You can change the ‘offset’…..you can ‘rotate’ the texture etc…and all this can be done on just one side of the box or indeed the entire prim.

This is very basic stuff, but as I’ve already said, it’s the basics that are often overlooked and knowing the basics can save you a lot of time and trouble in the long run.

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A disorganized inventory can be an absolute nightmare to deal with and can make it extremely difficult to find that particular item that you’ve been looking for.  With a well organized inventory, you’ll be able to find items with much less bother.  Here are a few tips for putting some order into your chaotic inventory.

1.   Make folders and sub-folders for your items.  For instance, in the ‘Clothing’ tab, you could make seperate folders for Tops, Pants, jackets etc.  That equally applies to all folders - under the ‘Body Parts’ folder, you could make different sub-folders for hair, shapes, eyes etc.  It all depends on how you want to organize it.  You may have your own methods and whatever works for you is fine so long as you keep everything organized.

2.   Go through your items on a regular basis and don’t be afraid to send an item to the trash…especially if you’re probably not going to use it or are just holding onto it for ’sentimental reasons’.  I’d kept my very first attempt at clothing creation for ages…but eventually I parted with it.  Items like this are just taking up space.  Also, empty your trash on a regular basis - as items in the trash still count toward your item count even though they’ve been binned.

3.   If you know you’re not going to be using or wearing something for a while, why not create a storage prim.  That way you can store many different items in the storage prim and have it count as one object instead of many different objects cluttering up the place.  When you do this don’t forget to give your storage prim an appropriate name so you’ll be able to recognise it the next time you’re searching for something that you may have put in storage.  Also it’s not a great idea to mix copyable with non-copyable items. If you do, then the entire storage prim will be ‘no-copy’.

4.   You could also create an alt account that could be used for item storage.  Just transfer the items you want to put into storage into your alt’s inventory.  Think of this as a ‘walking storage container’. 

5.  Your inventory can very quickly spiral out of control so a regular tidying session before the end of every SL session can help to dramatically reduce the clutter and mess.

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Photography is a very rewarding activity that one can undertake in Second Life.  There is an amazing variety of people and places to photograph.  You can also take your own picture and use it to create your profile pic.  Lighting is a very important factor to consider when taking pictures as it has a major affect on the look and feel of the photograph.  Below are examples of the same subject under different lighting conditions.  These pics are not re-touched in any way.

The best setting for portrait seems to be the ’sunrise’ setting.  To get this just go to your ‘edit’ menu, scroll down to ‘world’ and click ’sunrise…or indeed any other setting that you want. 

Another thing to remember when you’re busy taking pics - if you’re using other lighting effects, you’ll want to make sure that the settings in your ‘graphics detail’ tab is set to ‘local lighting’… otherwise your lighting effects will not be visible.  It also helps if you move your detail sliders all the way to the right in order to get the best possible appearance etc for your avatar.  For those of you, like myself, who are running SL on slower computers, these settings can always be reduced when you’ve finished taking your picture.

Happy Snapping! 

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