1000 avs project: complete video
In 2007, I wondered: How unique are Second Life avatars, really? While the slider combinations alone offer hundreds upon thousands of possibilities, the sheer amount of content available in SL (some several dozen terabytes and counting) must make the total number damn near infinite.
So, I set myself upon a project: Take 1000 pictures of 1000 different avatars across the entire grid. Over the next three years, I took well over 1000 pictures of avatars "in the wild" - without planning, posing, or really even any destinations in mind save for piles of green dots on SL's map.
In the process I've visited country clubs, piano concerts, crashed a philosopher's club, watched a wrestling match, stumbled into various fetish dungeons, and plowed into exclusive establishments like some sort of insane paparazzi. Nearly all of the avatars are anonymous; the filenames are randomized to break up the monotony of the backgrounds.
I've come away from the project with the feeling that, indeed, Second Life avatars are insanely unique. We're all snowflakes, this time around.
Music: "Additive Piano" by Lordfly Digeridoo (mp3 available upon request)
Special thanks to Luth Brodie, Moo Money, Cristiano Diaz, my patient wife, and everyone else who puts up with me.
More information: http://www.flickr.com/photos/josheikenberry/sets/72157623240888222/
Coming soon: Hosted on Snapzilla.com, for a better interface rather than Flickr. Also, an in-world gallery using the new web tools in the 2.0 viewer.
I'm just happy I have the video finished, finally.
Coming Soon from Grid.Living: The Digeridoo Steamworks Clocktower Limited Edition
I've been tooling around the last week or so working on a new kind of style of building. Well, not so much new for everyone else, but new for me. For years I've wanted to try my hand at the art style known as Steampunk. Steampunk is rather popular around the grid, with at least two continents dedicated to the concepts (New Babbage and Caledon) and many, many people roleplaying and inventing gadgets that fit the whole Steampunk motif.
Try as I might, however, I've never really been able to duplicate that sort of cobbled-together steamworks-type thing very well. While I did manage to make a rusty mechanical arm, it looked more like a machine gun than a functional hand, and didn't really scream "steampunk", more like "Oh god what is that on your arm you freak".
I tried again more recently, with more rusted-out construction setups, but again, the idea fizzled. Then I came upon the idea to construct a clock tower. Except... powered by STEAM!
While that may sound either mundanely uncreative and/or amazingly original, it's not really either; steam-powered clocks have been made in the real world, albeit in the 1970s (see the Gastown clock in Vancouver). None have really been made on a large scale before, however.
Not being a mechanical engineer, I wasn't really about to set out and design a working, honest-to-god Steam clock. Instead, I set about setting some basic construction rules, and applied those rules to my design as it was being built. The result is something that, well, LOOKS like it might, possibly, work, in theory.
I did have some help this time around, from several sources. Erich Templar has a set of steampunk textures that I have co-opted into my design, providing many of the metal textures I needed to realize my tower. And, of course, Steampunk is not complete without a set of gears, and the gear set supplied by Talin Sands is perfect for the task. I was also helped by the wonderful Lord Humphrey and Beezle Warburton, who supplied some simple clock scripts for me to doodle with.
Now, on to the tower itself. It's a doozy, weighing in at over 650 prims and jutting into the sky over 65m tall. Constructed of brick and steel, there are many windows to peer into the inner workings of the mechanical bits. Gears turn, steam hisses, and the clock ticks menacingly. Every hour upon the hour the steam pipe at the top of the structure sings the Westminster chimes, albeit with steam rather than bells (again, an idea taken from the Gastown clock). The bottom part of the tower is the most open, allowing people to use the space amongst the shiny copper pipes for their own amusements. At the top of the clockworks sits a small alcove, flanked on all sides by the clock's gears. It would be perfect for a study or any other private space. The ticking of the mechanisms would lull almost anyone to sleep... or to madness, I guess.
Because I feel it's a rather unique design (and also because it's freaking huge and not really prefabbable), I'm going to be releasing a very limited edition of the clock tower. Only ten will be sold. There exists one in-world already, a gift for a friend in the sim Phasma. There also exists the original in my workshop, but that is merely temporary.
Each Steamworks Clock Tower will come with an individually-numbered copper plaque, as well as a signed "certificate" (well, a fancy texture anyway) with the serial number as well as my signature. I will also help with setup, if desired (the gears tend to get squirrelly if you rotate the design). The Clock Tower will be sold copy/mod/notrans, like everything else in my store.
The release date is coming soon, but will most probably happen after the Christmas season. Stay tuned to my plurk, twitter, or this blog for announcements. Pricing is also coming soon, but it will certainly be well under $L7500.
Aside from that, enjoy the pics of the tower in action, and have a good Christmas. 
-LF
Grid.Living presents the Illumine Abbey
Hot in the middle of a huge sale comes the Illumine Abbey, a religious structure inspired by rural country churches.
The Abbey features a small foyer opening into a grandly lit worship room. Wide open, with floor to ceiling windows illuminating the area, the Abbey is lovingly hand-made and includes baked shadows and lighting effects, as well as custom-made stained glass patterns.
While the building is obviously modeled after Christian structures, the building can equally serve any denomination or religion. The Abbey's windows are purposely opaque to separate the noisy world from that of quiet spiritual contemplation.
Finally, the Abbey also includes a working bell tower. The bell quietly chimes every hour.
Illumine Abbey is 439 prims, is copy/mod, and normally costs $L750. However, because of the Protest Day sale, the Abbey is currently only $L375!
Currently the Abbey is only at my Lalique location.
A teaser image.
Here's a quickie pic of two new products I'm finishing up - will they be ready for the sale? Ooooh, the plot thickens, doesn't it?
Introducing Palette Point: A painted lighthouse prefab
The second entry in my painted series, Palette Point is a lighthouse using hand-made painted textures (rendered in ArtRage 2). Every texture is uniquely made for this design, which takes it's inspirations from lighthouses dotting around the Great Lakes, as well as the eastern seaboard. It comes with a smoking potbelly stove and a working searchlight.
Weighing in at 439 prims, the Lighthouse is contained in an easy-to-use rezzer box. Simply take the box out of your inventory, and left-click the box, and select "build". Position the box until the lighthouse is in the correct position, and then click it once more to select "done". And voila! Your new lighthouse is ready to use
The lighthouse is a bit primmy at 439 prims (and 5 separate links), but I think it's well worth it. It just feels so warm and cozy, you can almost feel the cold of the sea creeping in and you needing to be by the potbelly.
The lighthouse went through many, many revisions, starting initially to look almost Roman in it's design. Amazing what a few texture changes will do.
You can buy Palette Point at my store in Lalique or on Xstreet.
Introducing the Agora Commercial Prefabs
It's hard enough to start a business in SL. You gotta find your niche, then you have to develop your craft, become an expert in the tools of the trade... and then you've gotta find a good landlord, someone stable enough to not toss you out on your butt when their partner dumps them. And let's not even start with designing a good store...
...well, actually, yes, let's start with that.
It can be daunting, and not everyone has the right frame of mind to design a good store. To some, a "good store" is a big glowing box with your products tossed on the walls. It works... if you're insane. For your shoppers, it's retail suicide. Where are the men's hair? Where's the sextoys that were on the classifieds? WHERE ARE MY FRIENDS?
It helps to start small, start simple. That's where the Agora Prefabs come in.
Agora is a series of commercially-oriented prefabs that are designed for the budding, up-and-coming entrepreneur. Each one is the size of a typical new designer's store - generally a 16m by 16m footprint. The insides are simple, elegant, and empty for you to fill with your wonderful products. The colors out of the box are completely neutral - greys and whites, in fact. While this may sound drab, it actually is a boon - it lets you come up with your own design and branding ideas. Think of it as a blank canvas, yours to paint on.
Each design is a single-linked building, easy to place. The six designs range in primminess from 75 prims to 134. The permissions are, as always, mod/copy, letting you experiment, design, redesign, blow up, whatever. And, as an added bonus, the textures used in the builds are included, just in case you didn't really want plaid on that back wall.
The Agora prefabs are $L750 each, and are immediately available in my Lalique store as well as on XStreet. A fatpack is also available, just in case you wanted to think big and start your own shopping district. The Fatpack contains all six designs, and come at a 20% discount!
