Groundbreaking, literally - Faith in Selavy Oh

Posted by Bettina Tizzy

And they said you couldn't move mountains... Oh ye of little faith!

Physics and now Land artist Selavy Oh has created a script that operates the terraforming capabilities in Second Life®, resulting in the continuous and automated reshaping of land, even without her presence.

To my knowledge, this is without precedent.


That's me filming in the center of the mountain peaks. Selavy was not even in-world for that portion of the taping!

Filming and editing: Bettina Tizzy
Music: "Truth of the Legend" by Kevin MacLeod

Terraforming, the ability to intentionally transform surface topography, atmosphere, temperature or ecology, is not unique to science fiction or even science (where it is primarily called planetary engineering).

In his book, The Making of Second Life, Hamlet Au (aka Wagner James Au), explained the in-world terraforming process quite poetically: "Standing on a hill like a demi-urge, a Resident can wave her hand and cause the ground to swell, expand, or even collapse into the sea."

In Second Life, terraforming land is a skill that looks easy to do, but frequently results in unrealistic and poor duplicates of mountains, lakes and canyons.

Selavy, who rezzed in February of 2007, is most widely recognized for her physics work with the most basic of prims: the humble but noble cube. She has expanded her range considerably in the past few months and now works with any number of shapes and even Alpha textures, but physics are always involved. Art historian Amy Wilson once compared Selavy to Rauschenberg, explaining that, "I can’t help but think she’s the Rauschenberg of SL, albeit one whose hands are much, much tidier than his ever were (makes sense for the environment we’re talking about). Navigating in this little space created by artists whose work is pure abstraction (DanCoyote, Juria) and artists whose work specifically references real life (Cheen, Nebulosus), she comes to find some very fertile ground indeed."

Given recent developments with Comet Morigi's terraforming explorations and her anchoring of huge prims to sims - thereby extensively and surprisingly expanding the canvas - and now Selavy's epic work - many of the most exciting innovations in virtual worlds at this time have to do with Land Art so extreme that I can't help but wonder what James Turell and Micheal Heizer would think.

Possibly the closest reference to Dancing Mountains in Real Life might be Heizer's 1971 Double Negative project in Nevada, for which he removed 240,000 tons of stone to make two slices 30 ft wide by 50 ft deep on opposing sides of an existing canyon to suggest a line between the canyon walls. His focus was on the removal of something, thereby creating a Land Art piece that stressed space, rather than an object. But I have no Real Life reference for land that wiggles, shrinks and grows, with no attending human, in an automated fashion.

Selavy accomplishes this by leaving her scripts with Negative Overland, a bot that is hidden underwater.

Some years ago, I was traveling in the rain forest in the heart of Costa Rica. My traveling companion and I had just sat down to a white tablecloth dinner at a lodge perched a top a mountain less than two miles opposite the Arenal volcano. The volcano was erupting (and still is to this day). Constantly. With a surprisingly loud and deep rumble, the mountain would cough up the fiery lava and rocks, dressing itself in a never-ending kinetic skirt of thick veins in an orangey red.

We struck up a conversation with the couple sitting at the table next to us. They were vulcanologists from Finland and they spoke about volcanoes the way we talk about virtual worlds. The woman shared how she got a kick out of hugging active volcanoes at the base and putting her ear up to them. She swore they sounded like the loudest heartbeat on earth. That certainly had a lasting impression on me.

For some reason, it was the first thing I thought of when Selavy teleported me in to watch a proof-of-concept demo of Dancing Mountains. She has managed to breathe life into the landscape in ways heretofore unimaginable.

~*~

Dancing Mountains can be experienced on arts patron Mab MacMoragh's Soup sim by teleporting directly from here.

In addition, Selavy nearly always has an installation at Brooklyn is Watching. Teleport directly from here.

See also:

• Land Art in Second Life: A historical perspective and an introduction to virtual artist Comet Morigi
• The Patron Saints of Poetik
• It's Hip to be Squarish
• Selavy's page on the Odyssey Art Ning
• "Attention Economy" by Beth Harris on smARThistory
• New York Times piece on art in Second Life

The most complex sculpture in any world, real or virtual?

Mystery, beauty, superlatives and controversy have punctuated the short life of Black Swan, a region in Second Life® that, at its birth, was famously the stage for Starax's return to the metaverse as Light Waves after a much lamented 15 month disappearance. The discovery of Black Swan in mid-September, 2007 revealed graceful prim-light sculpty sculptures placed spectacularly along the periphery of a watery aquamarine basin, and Light Waves did it all using less than 4,000 prims.

Now, and since July 16th of this year, this inherently dramatic simulator has become the site of what must surely be the most complex sculpture in the history of virtual worlds...



I am not talking about the fact that it is airborne, or the size of it, but because Noobility is nothing short of a play that is taking place before your eyes in real-time... a 3D, immersive and silent play. It tells a powerful and highly theatrical story that transpires over the course of an hour, and then recycles again, and again, in automated fashion. The only thing that's missing is the popcorn.

I did some research to learn if any other art installation, real or virtual, had ever accomplished this, but the only thing I could come up with, that even came close (and while delightful, it is certainly not "art"), was the Pirates of the Caribbean attraction at Disneyland, and even that doesn't run one hour long, destroy itself completely and recreate itself anew, while its spectators are able to move around it and in it freely at any time.

We had already seen a variation of the sculpture - The Sky is Falling - also by Seifert Surface (aka Henry Segerman), at the Garden of NPIRL Delights. 1,500 prims "in a pattern based, in part, on a process that turns up in nature a lot: 'growing' new objects around an axis at an angle of 2pi/Phi from the previous one, where Phi is the golden ratio," he explained.

Seifert, a postdoctoral mathematician and lecturer living in Austin, has been featured on these pages many times in the past with his math-inspired art - and the adulation he inspires in many of the grid's leading content creators is well deserved - but this new installation, realized together with his Real Life brother, Art Laxness (aka Will Segerman) - a Brighton, UK-based prop master for film and theatre in Real Life - is way, way over the top.


Credits:
* Concept and storyline: Seifert Surface and Art Laxness
* Sculpties: Art Laxness
* Scripting: Seifert Surface
* Video: Bettina Tizzy
* Music - Awaiting the Attack: composed by David Flavin, ASCAP and Roland Rudzitis, ASCAP

The technical aspects of Noobility, as the kinetic sculpture is now known, are without precedent. To give you some idea, there are 2,552 active scripts... fewer than ten are listeners, and almost everything is collision-activated. Three sensor prims inject scripts that make the falling phantom prims drop.

I met with Seifert and Art at Noobility to learn more from the two masterminds.


A 17-sculpty-prim noob meets his creator. Art Laxness' avatar is a basic prim

What were some of the pranks you pulled when you were kids?
Art Laxness: Henry (Seifert) would never go for pranks. He's been a grown up since the age of 10. :P
Seifert Surface: We did build those tripwire traps. Well, trip string, but nobody ever went through them unaware.
Art Laxness: Elaborate Rube Goldberg things to shoot stuff at people...

How old were you at the time?
Seifert Surface: Err. 10?
Art Laxness: ... dunno first used a band saw when I was 8... liberal parents. There were bits and bobs, like that board game... ninjas! And we made that wrestling ring. And the bows and arrows? Then there was the scooter race course we built in the workshop, and the play dough head where you cheesegrated the end of my finger...
Seifert Surface: Oh, yes. :)

Where did you grow up?
Seifert Surface: Manchester, UK. We lived in a place that was half our Dad's business (workshop) and half house.
Art Laxness: His company makes strings for Renaissance instruments and repairs them, too.
Seifert Surface: Used to be lots of people around, making instruments...
Art Laxness:... and having early music jams.

How'd it happen that you decided to collaborate on Noobility?
Art Laxness: Henry happened to be (coming) 'round in Brighton. I had the making-fake-AVs idea rattling around for a while.

Did you develop the storyline first?
Seifert Surface: No, it all came together at once. I decided really very late that we were going to rerez the whole structure anew each time, and then the question of what prims it would rerez came up.
Art Laxness: Kinda how I find making art works... the making instigates the concepts and vice versa.
Seifert Surface: ... and we already had these noobs, so the concept of the noob god, Giganoob, came up naturally.


The noob, or the avatar most male users are wearing when they make their first appearance in Second Life®, has the perpetual countenance of a young and innocent simpleton. His facial features aren't fully realized and his clothing could be described as "generic basic." Interestingly, it seems that the noob avatar we all know and recognize today will soon be history. Second Life is introducing much more elaborate "starter kits"


The noobs' nincompoopish look is magnified when he is "afk," (away from keyboard), which newbies often do since they generally don't know anyone upon arrival in-world. This hilarious capture taken at a USC MacArthur Foundation event by Wellington Bahram

When did you come up with the noobs, Art?
Art Laxness: Pretty much as soon as sculpties came out... avatars were, until that point, unique. You couldn't reproduce them.

Did you hear that they've gotten rid of Ruth?
Art Laxness: Yes, we now have the cloud.

I think the guy noob looks so much better than Ruth.
Seifert Surface: We'd always wanted to go for the male avatar rather than Ruth anyway.
Art Laxness: Wonder how that would fit into our mythology ;)
Seifert Surface: He's quite a bit creepier looking.
Art Laxness: Yeah, the noob we used here was my first experience of Second Life. When I signed up, all of my informative experience was wearing that skin. I wore it around the Ivory Tower of Primitives.



Interesting way to put it.
Seifert Surface: Will has a degree in fine art. He can reel all that stuff off for hours.

Art also works with The Magicians, a metaverse development company led by Kim Anubis (aka Kimberly Rufer-Bach), and while their current project is quite Possible in Real Life (PIRL), it's a stunner.

A different way to spend a holiday... You were working off Art's router?
Seifert Surface: We decided quite a bit of what we were going to do before I was in England. Then, pretty much the whole time I was there (2 and a half weeks), we were working on it. (Worked off of ) Art's wifi. Yeah, my Mac on the kitchen table, Art's computer on the other table. Back door out onto a view of the sea.
Art Laxness: Was fairly intense. I have a lovely large kitchen here with my computer in it.
Seifert Surface: Art's latest Real Life project...
Art Laxness: I sculpt fine art and also make props for film and theatre in Real Life. (Art showed me a photograph of Cate Blanchett in the film Elizabeth: The Golden Age, for which he had sculpted some of her armor). (It) was a lovely project. Prop making is fun but the pay isn't great and the hours suck.

Are you unionized? I have an old school friend who is in a prop masters union here (US), and boy, do they have it locked in! The last time I looked, they only had nine members.
Art Laxness: Nope, all freelance, and there's way more people (who) want to do it than there are jobs.

While we'd been chatting, Noobility was pressing on in its automated fashion.

Uh oh, here comes NOOB GOD.
Art Laxness: Apocalypse time
Seifert Surface: Giganoob giveth and Giganoob taketh away.

I love the flexis.
Seifert Surface: Nice bit of incongruity. I might have spent the longest on that kind.
Art Laxness: I was unsure of them at first but yes, glad they're in.


Here and there, when things really get going, a flexi pyramid begins to spin on its own axis

It's a masterful touch. How many flexis are there?
Seifert Surface: The number changes. There are a couple of factors: which pyramids are special, and how many of each is determined each time it rezzes.
Art Laxness: Giganoob decides.
Seifert Surface: There are prime numbers and integers modulo those primes involved.
Lol
Seifert Surface: He does actually... there's one part which is random. Giganoob decides on a random seed for the whole pattern, which is a number between, er, 1 and 90000, I think. That one number determines the colours, the positions and numbers of special pyramids... everything. One of the tricky things is that, when you rez something, you can pass the rezzed thing a single number for initial data, so what people often do is use that number to set up a listener and then use the listener to transfer extra data, but there are 1500 pyramids (here).



... would lag us to death.
Seifert Surface: Right. It probably wouldn't be that bad, actually, but yes, it's bad form. So, the Giganoob rezzes a pyramid, and it knows which of the 1500 (prims) it is, and it knows the seed number (between 1 and 90000). From those two bits of information, it can work out everything else, and it is because it is all mathematical and procedurally generated that we can get away with that. The blue glowing things are just going out there to deliver the actual prim. When they get out there, they rez the appropriate type of pyramid.

The veins in the pyramids are new in this installation.
Seifert Surface: Art's department.
Art Laxness: Inspired by Aztec-ness and my housemate playing the WII Zelda game.
Seifert Surface: Oh man, did you know the texturing is entirely different when a prim is flexi? I had to convert Art's texture using a python script to get it to look right. You can see a tiny flicker on the texture when it comes back from flipping twice... Little bits of imperfection... le sigh.

What else about the scripts here is different from what you've seen in Second Life before?
Seifert Surface: Hmmm. There are a couple of things that are a bit different. All the vanilla pyramids (the stable ones)... none of them have any scripts in them, again, for lag purposes, and nothing has a listener in it.

Vanilla... like the one I'm flying over?
Seifert Surface: Yep, vanilla as opposed to more interesting flavours. Not a reference to the colour. Just that it doesn't try to kill you.
Art Laxness: Check the (prim) description to see what flavour each is.
Seifert Surface: In order to make the things fall, it needs a script in there, so it's all done with the use of a function called llLoadScriptPin which loads scripts into existing prims. It's not used much, although I got the idea from Jeffrey Gomez, who used a similar thing for his Primmies game.
Art Laxness: Seif assures me its all very clever.
Seifert Surface: Quite a bit of hackery to get it to work :) I guess having the rezzing be part of the artwork is kind of new in Second Life. Seeing things built by script is one of the most awesome sights in Second Life, I always think, but it's usually only the builders who see it.
Art Laxness: I get to see that aspect of Seif's stuff and (it) is as good as the final thing.
Seifert Surface: Well, you rez your thing using Cadroe Murphy's Tools. Then you've got your nice big circular platform, and you're done. Visitors later on might figure out that it had to be built by script, but they won't see it building.


Among other things, Seifert Surface created the winning logo for the Not Possible IRL group

Did you fill out that NPIRL survey on IP protection, Seifert?
Seifert Surface: Errr, I think so, but it is not something that I'm terribly concerned with. Scripts are in far less danger of getting nicked.

Unfortunately, what did get nicked was Art's prim-based noob. It was copybotted and free full-mod noobs became available - even via SL Exchange - all over the grid a few weeks ago. While Art filed a DMCA, he has not had a response from Linden Lab.

Well, I mention it because the biggest concern of the participants was the protection of their scripts, by far. Meaning... that they serve one purpose and you don't repurpose them?
Seifert Surface: Yes, and even then, I don't sell much in-world for L$. Most of my things are one-offs. Nobody is going to steal Noobility and set it up somewhere, even if they could. Well, I guess they might, but specific commissions for a client would be a little obvious.

Have you tossed any scripts into the open source bin?
Seifert Surface: I have a couple on the Wiki. There's a fractal tree generator, and another one for making arbitrary parametric surfaces from triangles.
Art Laxness: You should get the door script you made for me out there... doesn't sound like much, but if you regularly make doors, it is serious stuff.

Are you mathematically inclined, Art?
Art Laxness: I enjoy maths but not to the level Seif does. (He) is a mathematician who does art; I'm an artist who does math. I see math as more of a means to an end... which results in Seif explaining stuff to me so I get what is going on while I need to. Then I promptly forget it all.
Seifert Surface: That works :)
Art Laxness: ... and hey, if I ever need to know again, I've always got Seif right (here).

Art, what program are you using to make your sculpties?
Art Laxness: I think I used most in this project: Maya, Wings, Blender. It involved lots of trying-things-out.
Seifert Surface: ... and we used Glintercept to get models of the noobs to build the sculpties around.

But working with all this software seems so foreign to your Real Life work, and crafting with objects.
Art Laxness: Not at all. I'm into making 3D objects in every medium I can get my hands on. Any sculptor who isn't into 3D software is really limiting themselves, and as 3D printing becomes more accessible, the fields are going to merge. I mean, consider prop making in 10 years time when I could just print out Cate Blanchett's armour.


Teleport directly to Black Swan from here. To access the sim, you must pay $199L and wear the attachment you are provided with.

See also:

More on Seifert Surface:
- Summer Noob Games ;-)
- Mathematical Sunday with Seifert Surface
- It's blooming sculpties at Seifert Surface's "XYZ" sim
- Turning the page on 2007 in virtual worlds - What happened and what's next
- This just in! The future of huge prims is looking good
- Not Possible IRL field trips with Seifert Surface

More on Black Swan and Starax/Light Waves:
- Baby found at Black Swan
- For the dude who worked so hard on it in the first place
- Rezzable Productions: The slippery slope of turning art into a revenue stream
- It's easy. No, it's magical.
- Light Waves' 'Night Dreaming' statue comes alive

The skinny on Ordinal Malaprop

It is seldom that one encounters an individual who is so consistently resourceful, knowledgeable and proper, but add to this her Napoleonic abilities with all things explosive and this Victorian-era Grande Dame is one-of-a-kind. To think that I might have gone to my grave without ever knowing such a person had I not had a Second Life®... well, it's unthinkable.

She's also a hard one to pin down, as she will not exhaust her freshness.

The thing is, Ordinal Malaprop (rez: 9/9/2005) is filled with enterprise, and she is just as apt to take on the entire world by mounting a campaign for or against a cause, as she is to be found proffering delectable candies that, upon the first nibble, go Kaboom! and bring you to your knees in a smoldering heap. Really.



Ordinal is widely known and admired for successfully taking on the ad farmers (or what she calls "griefing builders"), those hideous ads and things that are "designed to make neighbours give up and move elsewhere, or give up and buy the plot to get rid of the horrible spinning thing."


This photo is part of Ordinal's documentation "of people who pollute the Grid sixteen square metres at a time." Click to see large

It all began quite innocently enough with a blogpost and the creation of a Flickr group, followed by a notice that she posted on the Forums, but soon escalated into a heated conflict regarding a "DMCA Takedown Notice" issued by Flickr in response to a complaint filed by a certain Cytherea Eagle for having reproduced her "logo," in said incriminating images.

What happened next will surely go down as one of Linden Lab's most appreciated moves of 2008. To everyone's utter astonishment, Linden Lab listened to the community and took action: they banned ad farming!

It was Ordinal who enlightened us with her much celebrated Cosmology of the Grid: "I have noticed that there does still seem to be some Confusion amongst Residents as to precisely the relationships between Linden Laboratorye, the Grid itself, other Parts and also the Broader Aethernet, which does seem to be causing Misapprehensions as to the origins and behaviour of certain Aspects and Components.

"I am always of a bent to properly Explain the Technical Nature of how these things operate, and for that purpose I have prepared a small diagram of the Cosmology of the Grid and Second Life, which I hope will prove useful. No doubt other Grid-Cosmological Types will have disagreements with the Details, but I believe that the basic structure is sound."


Click to see large

Ordinal may be wasp-waisted and wear the most extraordinary hats, but I think we should make her a five-star General, or whatever the equivalent is in the UK (more on her titles in a moment). Just before the Garden of NPIRL Delights began, I spent some delightful hours with her, and while that conversation is somewhat dated, I think it very much worth your while that I share some highlights from it.


Ordinal did all the scripting and building for this, the triptych by Bosch for the Garden of NPIRL Delights... quite surely the most extraordinary promotional item in virtual worlds

Might you tell us a little about your whereabouts and your background?
Ordinal Malaprop: I live in London at this moment in time, obviously the best city one might choose. I have a background in scripting and programming and all that sort of thing. I am trained in Artificial Intelligence matters, not that I actually do much with it, but, you know, one rarely does do anything with one's purported areas of expertise.

Is that what bridged your entry to Second Life?
Ordinal Malaprop: Well - it has had some influence. SL scripting, to be effective, requires the use of a lot of independent agents, and that is something which AI education does teach: various entirely independent little monsters, all talking to each other.



Your early days in Second Life... what were they like, whom did you meet?
Ordinal Malaprop: For the first month or so I was utterly baffled.
There were two stages bringing me further inwards... Firstly, a friend handing me an awfully large number of free scripts, which I could play with and learn from (and on this basis, I hand out many myself), and secondly, meeting up with Victorian and Steampunk groups. The Withnail Academy was a great help, to begin with. Gives one a sense that one is not alone. I think everyone would like to feel that.

What is the Withnail Academy?
Ordinal Malaprop: Er, well, the Academy... it is slightly defunct right now, but it was an educational establishment that ran various courses, Japanese and scripting and so on... and also some "correctional" ones...

Japanese! And correctional?
Ordinal Malaprop: ...I have nothing to do with the "correctional" ones. Schoolgirls. Naughty ones. You know.

How long has Babbage been around and were you instrumental in making this community come togther? One of the founders, perhaps?
Ordinal Malaprop: Ah, well. First we had Caledon, and the steampunk group had a parcel here. I bought this parcel at the same time. We had the Lodge, where we would gather to tell tall tales and suchlike. It is now pretty much a place with a few trees on it. Then, the main founder left Second Life. The Mayor of Babbage, Shaunathan Sprocket, branched out to start the New Babbage sims. Really, Caledon is now more of a place for Victorianesque socialising and activity, rather than the sort of hard steampunkish design that Babbage hosts.



Ordinal Enterprises, as photographed - beautifully - by Kean Kelly, also known at 2K

Do you have a specific role here?
Ordinal Malaprop: Well, I have titles. I can't remember them all. Oh, er, I am a Knight of Caledon, or rather a Lady, and... actually, I have shields outside my front door. Some Caledonians do pay a lot of attention to that, but I am one of these dubious Suffragette, Socialist types.

I ask about your community because your character is so closely aligned with it... it seems important.
Ordinal Malaprop: I was here before any such community, and doubtless I shall be after it :). I used to live on the mainland and conduct myself pretty much in the same way.

With your knowledge of scripting... what are your wishes... things that you wish we knew... that would make things better, keeping in mind that most everyone came in-world within the last year?
Ordinal Malaprop: Turn off your clicky-clacky shoes! That is mostly because I hate them. They do poll assorted places though and are inefficient - ask Codebastard - who will say the same. Er, temp-rezzers are really bad; don't use them. If you use them, don't complain that your sim appears to be in a treacle well.

What are the commands to turn off shoes? It is in preferences, yes?
Ordinal Malaprop: Unfortunately there are no shoe-specific commands. They will still grab controls.

Hmmm. Will have to get to the bottom of this. It seems important.
Ordinal Malaprop: Oh - and the other thing I am always telling people: nobody can follow you, or cage you, or enslave you, no matter what they say. Teleport out, then somewhere else. Actually, just one will usually do.

Ah... I didn't know that. I thought one TP would suffice. This has to do with followers?
Ordinal Malaprop: Indeed. I am just not sure that they've properly fixed that bug :)

Shall we talk about explosives? You are the one person most closely, um, associated with them.
Ordinal Malaprop: My reputation has always been "builds things with rivets, which explode."

How'd that get started? That first set of scripts?
Ordinal Malaprop: Physics scripting is one of those things which is immediately obvious as something which affects the outside world. Not just a technical point, but it has an immediate effect. So, it is the starting point for a lot of people. Some might go into "griefing," but that is rather dull to be honest, so, things which explode! It is also a terrific way to learn how to make particle effects.

Ah! Interesting. Thumbs down on griefers
Ordinal Malaprop: Oh, griefing with scripts is the sort of thing people without any imagination do. I have seen some of the scripts these people use - they are awful. I do know a fair number of... "experimenters" :) I enjoy their company. I do not do that much with that sort of thing these days, but I like to know the latest.

What are your current projects?
Ordinal Malaprop: I have three main branches there: Firstly, things for Rezzable, which are either too specific or not ready to be announced :) Secondly, general ideas - I am, for instance, working on a "point gravity" simulation, which will have people falling towards masses in a sim rather than the ground, and turning themselves to face that point. A few issues are bothering me there. It could be useful in the Privateer Space sim though. You know, asteroids which you can stand on, but jump from one to the other. The third is very personal ones which are "in character" as it were, though I hate that phrase.

Because it sounds like RP (role-playing)?
Ordinal Malaprop: "Am I some sort of music-hall player?" as I have said. There is no playing of roles here! No pretence. Caledon operates on a rather different basis but, for instance, in that category I have been working on a Battlefield Teapot... something a soldier can wear, which will deliver a proper cup of tea at any instance. I have a shop on that basis; the products that I sell are all in that genre.

How civilized.
Ordinal Malaprop: Well, tea built the Empire.

Do you prefer to work alone on these projects or do you find yourself collaborating?
Ordinal Malaprop: For everything apart from the professional i.e. Rezzable at this point... they are all individual. Second Life is such a poor environment for collaboration.

Let's talk about hats. Have you always worn them?
Ordinal Malaprop: No. But as soon as I was aware of them I did. Hats are one of my favourite parts of Second Life.


Ordinal's signature lobster hat. She always wears glasses, and occasionally a monocle. "Very 'Girl Genius'"

How many do you currently wear? And do you make your own?
Ordinal Malaprop: Well - I have, oh, a dozen or so favourites. No, clothing is one of those things I just find myself unable to make. I am very fond of the products of Chapeau Tres Mignon (teleport directly from here). The lobster hats, which I have been known to wear, are from there. I also like boots, but I just cannot find proper ones. I normally wear glasses, too. Can't see a thing otherwise.

What is your favorite product... one that represents what you do best?
Ordinal Malaprop: I am most proud of my Swordstick, I think. That has a combination of all sorts of disciplines. I consider myself a a generalist, thus if something involves texturing, animation, scripting and building, I approve.

Your infomercials... am I correct in understanding that you were the first to do them?
Ordinal Malaprop: Well... I am not sure. I am the first that _I_ know of. Certainly the first to be widely publicized.


The Ordinal Galvanic Swordstick from Ordinal Malaprop on Vimeo.
Which is, of course, the usual reason, but yours are works of art. Have you made any recently?
Ordinal Malaprop: Oh, functional art. Not as such, but whatever I produce from now on will have an appropriate video. The last thing I think was the Brian Eno paintings widget.

Are you PC or Mac based?
Ordinal Malaprop: The Macintosh, certainly. I could not hide that based on Twitter.

Ah, yes... Twitter. You developed that lovely in-word device: the Twitterbox. Do you find Twitter very useful these days?
Ordinal Malaprop: Oh, yes, without it I would not know what on earth was going on. Not that I necessarily do anyway, but as long as a few people use it, and post relatively significant things... I am not much interested in the whole "I'm getting on the bus now" rubbish.

I went back to have a look at the shields outside the front door of Ordinal Enterprises, and here is what the notecard associated with the top one said:

Many of you have seen and enjoyed the Caledon Trolley, a wonderful landmark of the community and a joy for all. The trolley was created by Shaunathan Sprocket, Reitzuki Kojima, and Ordinal Malaprop all together. Ordinal put in countless hours scripting it, for the benefit of residents and visitors alike. There is simply no way to compensate that sort of effort - were this a real software contract, the time and effort involved would have exceeded the entire liquidated net worth of Caledon several times over. This Knighthood is in recognition of that service to the community. - Desmond Shang

Incidentally, while conducting my research for this piece, I was rather surprised to learn that it was a German Franciscan Monk by the name of Berthold Schwarts who developed gunpowder and its use in guns.

Ordinal Enterprises, can be found by teleporting directly from here.

See also:
* Ordinal's "cinema"
* Ordinal's Scripting Colloquium, a Forum
* Ordinal's Cabinet of Ephemera, on Tumblr
* Ordinal's Twitterbox, a Twitter client for Second Life devised by her
* Ordinal's Twitter address
* Ordinal's ShopOnRez shop
* Ordinal's SLExchange shop

Jaymin Carthage gets the boot from Linden Lab for his "branch"

11:25am update: Per Jaymin Carthage himself (see third comment to this post), he just got his account back.

Via Tezcatlipoca Bisiani, I've just learned that Jaymin Carthage's Second Life account has been suspended for two weeks because of his "branch."



You may recall this story I ran on February 17, 2008: Jaymin Carthage's fast-propagating "Branch" - Scripting in the service of bodacious virtual nature, where I demonstrated Jaymin's "branch" that, once rezzed, self-replicates into a fractal - or tree - via some handy scripting.

Per Jaymin to Tezcatlipoca in an email, "Second Life upgraded their server code last night and it decided, in it's infinite wisdom, that something I was doing constituted a "Global Attack" and my account has been suspended for two weeks."

Tezcatlipoca commented, "Besides making interesting things, Jaymin used to run twice weekly script workshop classes. He's the complete opposite of someone you would want to ban. It makes me cranky they would do this. There are other people who are working on getting him reinstated, but in general it's a big question: I think we're all in Second Life to push the boundaries of the medium. If we can't do this without getting killed, it's not a lot of fun anymore... also, unless I'm wrong, the trees he built never existed on the mainland or in public areas, just the private sandboxes, so in short, it's possible to write code using the LL supplied tools, run it on your own land and get banned for it? I would dearly love to hear the official explanation."

Me, too.

The Avatar Blanks Factory

In Real Life, Vladimir Rakosi (rez: 8/18/2006) is an American inventor. Back in 2001, he created communication robots that were kiosks used in stores and banks. The robots talked about products, provided directions and pre-programmed messages. They moved their heads, mouths and arms, but were stationary.

In Second Life, Vladimir and his wife Vrinda Rakosi (rez: 8/20/2006) have created the Avatar Blanks Factory (teleport directly from here), where... for nothing more than a few minutes of your time, you can be automatically turned into a blank robot. On paper that doesn't sound all that appealing, does it? I didn't think so either until I tried the experience, and I'm here to report that it's quite amusing.



The Xntra sim is not yet complete, but it already features the Balloon Factory (high above), in addition to the Avatar Blanks Factory. Approach the turnstile...



Follow the instructions before you go in any further...



Hop on the conveyer belt, and off you go!



The machines in the back room are whirring...



... and soon enough, you can say goodbye to your old self.



I won't spoil your fun by telling you what happens next, but in seconds, you are... decidedly different.



It doesn't end there. You still have to get colorized and networked. Said Vrinda Rokosi, "Once completed, and with a touch to your head (I'll keep the puns here to myself), you can change your Blank Avatar's color, expression, sounds, animations."

Bettina Tizzy: You can ask for tips!

Vrinda Rakosi: Yes, it has a programmed tip hand, so if Blanks are helping people they can show their tip hand.



Bettina Tizzy: And blanks can find other blanks?

Vrinda Rakosi: Oh yeah. We also have Security Blanks. There is a security button to call for help, and Security Blanks come with a HUD, a hover craft vehicle with sounds, flight, and back up rider to come to the rescue of Blanks needing help. Blanks can also chat on a private channel with other blanks.



You can customize your blank with a number of items for sale - or free - in the Upgrade Area, too, and Vladimir encourages you to create new items for your fellow blanks.



Many thanks to Impossible IRL'er Daemon Nikitin for the hot tip!

Jaymin Carthage's fast-propagating "Branch" - Scripting in the service of bodacious virtual nature

Not so long ago, there was a freakish bit of "News of the Weird" about a tree that tried to eat cows... and then there's the Royal Empress tree that can grow up to 25 feet in three years... but nothing in Real Life can compare with Jaymin Carthage's "Branch."

Acting on Tezcatlipoca Bisiani's hot tip, I wrote to Jaymin - an IBM software architect and active Second Lifer - to learn more about his "Branch."

I was at my home in Chakryn Forest on Friday evening, conversing with Morris Vig, founder and owner of Second Life's much-esteemed Oyster Bay Gallery, and learning the sad news that he is closing its doors, when Jaymin sent me a "Branch" of my own. Not thinking, I rezzed the one-prim-wonder in front of me and continued chatting with Morris.

In under five minutes - and much to our astonishment - the branch had gone bananas (actually, in this case apples) and was growing this way and that, spewing apples and particle effects and what not, until finally it stopped when it had filled the parcel's remaining allotment of just over 500 prims.



Jaymin explains that his supernatural self-growing fractal tree is "(very) loosely based on the description I heard of a tree at Burning Man made of welded brass tubing that shot out flames at night and a cooling mist by day."

Instructions for the organic plant-and-grow system are simple but think twice where you do this! Rez the root branch and click on it once.


To give you a demonstration, I textured the root branch and touched it, and within one minute it had already become a strong little sapling.

According to Jaymin, "It will then start to grow taller, sprout branches, and eventually spout flame or mist and drop apples. After about an hour it will be full size and consume, roughly 1000 prims at default setting."


Within 15 minutes, the tree had outgrown the black shadow box I had rezzed it in for photographic ease.

While the "Branch" is freeware, and you can copy, modify, and even resell it, Jaymin asks that - if you are so inclined to compensate him for it - you make a contribution to Heifer International via AM Radio's celebrated wheat field, "The Far Away," which is currently running a creative writing and photography competition.

Furthermore, you can "prune" the growing branches, turn the whole shebang off by touching the root prim once again, and when you move the trunk, the rest of the tree will slowly follow.


Twenty five minutes after rezzing the root prim, or "branch," my tree is fully grown.

In the accompanying notecard, Jaymin explains how it works:

"As a fractal, branch works through self replication. Real trees work similarly, and that's why there is a resemblance. Other than fruit, there is only one prim, and one script. Each branch or limb is a repeat of the same thing. It rezzes a copy of itself as each limb that grows.

When a child branch is created, it is passed a generation number through the start parameter. This is used, at a base level, for scoping, so that it does not grow indefinitely. By default it is restricted to 8 generations.

Each child is also passed the identity of the parent that it came from. This is important for positioning. A child takes its position cues from the parent. So as the parent grows, the child adjusts itself. This makes the whole tree grow organically.

Lastly the child prim gets passed a sort of "serial number". The root has a serial number of "T". Each of its limbs has a number of "T0", "T1", "T2", etc. "T0"'s children are "T00", "T01", "T02", etc. This is used to facilitate preferential killing. Essentially when you prune a limb, it announces this with its serial number. Any limb that also begins with the same serial number, suicides.

The tones used for the collision sounds on the branches and fruit are cello plucks taken from a mediawiki site. Taking inspiration from the orchestral crescendo of "A Day in the Life" by the Beatles, they are all steps in the chord of A major. Each higher order branch is tuned to a note further up the arpeggio... so when they sound together it is melodious and not discordant."

Playing with tornadoes... courtesy of Tryptofaa Sands

I've been delinquent in my research and blogging because I've been having too much fun. It's all Avi Arrow's fault for owning a tornado, all Jurin Juran's fault for tp'ing me to see it, and especially Tryptofaa Sands' fault for making this too-entertaining toy. I got so carried away, literally, that all my photographs were a disaster, but fortunately can share this video with you by Dimitrio Lewis instead. Forget the first part... you get a better idea of the drama a bit later in the vid. Osprey Therian, creator of some of my favorite Machinima, has captured a few of our antics on her camera and I hope to at least point you to her vid soon.



You can purchase your own 40-meter sculpted Tornado HUD V2.0 on SLEX or drop by Tornado Island (teleport directly from here) and pick one up there.

David Rumsey's Maps: Nathan Babcock's interactive sculpties bring cartography to life

There's a new place on the grid that is so lovingly rendered and detailed, so flawlessly planned and scripted, and so very pleasing to the eye, that it is a credit not only to the people behind it but to virtual worlds, as well.



David Rumsey has a Master of Fine Arts degree from Yale University and was a founding member of Yale Research Associates in the Arts. He has been an Associate Director of the American Society for Eastern Arts in San Francisco, a lecturer in art at the Yale Art School for several years, and a real estate developer. And then... around 1983, he began to collect maps. The fact that he has been living in the Bay Area comes as no surprise to me. As a book collector myself, I can tell you that many of the best rare books and ephemera stores in the world are found in that vicinity.

Today, and 150,000 historical maps later, David Rumsey Maps is one of the largest private map collections in the United States. Mostly, he has focused on cartography of the world of the 18th and 19th Centuries, but he has also gathered atlases, globes and maritime charts of Oceania, the America, Asia and Europe. In 1997, David turned to Cartography Associates to digitize his collection... and ten years later, he entered Second Life using an avatar by the name of Map Darwin (rez: 11/13/2007), and began seeking a way to translate his treasures on the 3D Internet.



Meanwhile, Nathan Babcock (rez: 5/5/2006) is an associate creative director at Centric, an advertising agency based in Los Angeles with offices in New York, Shanghai, Tokyo and notably, Second Life, that has positioned itself as an Agency of Change. David Rumsey approached Centric to bring his collection to life, and now that relationship has changed the map of Second Life.



Nathan became the creative lead for David Rumsey Maps, and three months later a four sim wonder was completed that will open officially to the public on March 6, 2008 (teleport directly from here).

Nathan Babcock: The sculpty is the crown of the estate; it's not simply a hand sculpt. What you see is actual real life topography data brought inworld, so the map is true to scale. If your avatar is 3 inches tall, Yosemite is 1:1 scale.


Here you see a framed illustration of the Grand Canyon in the distance.

Nathan Babcock: David Rumsey is a philanthropist and map collector. He wants to educate people on the history of maps and seeing what the world, or cities looked like through time. Topography is ever changing, and maps serve as historical snapshots.

Bettina Tizzy: Does he come in world ever?

Nathan Babcock: He does. He loves SL and will be giving a speech on the launch date. His maps are featured in Google Earth and Google Sky, and (he) does talks amongst the academic crowds all the time including Harvard.

When you visit, be sure to max out your draw distance (Preferences> graphics> Draw Distance> 512 - and don't forget to set it back to about 120 before you leave!). You will notice that the entire region (actually four sims) is covered in a map terrain of Yosemite Valley dating back to 1883. The terrain elevation is "real terrain" brought into Second Life by utilizing real topography height elevation models. In essence you are really flying through Yosemite.

"This is one of the earliest detailed surveys of Yosemite Valley in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of California. The map shows interesting cultural features in the valley, many of which no longer exist. The steep valley cliffs are shown with a map style of the 19th century called hachuring - closely spaced lines to indicate slope."

Fly to the center of the estate where you will find a circle platform and wait to rez everything completely.



Try clicking on "Height Map" to see the map of that quadrant represented as a flat map.



Then click "Fullbright," to set the bright effects, and alpha effects of each sim.



Due NW on the estate, you will see two colossal globes in the distance (thank you, huge prims). The first is the Globo Terrestre or World Globe dating back to 1790, by Giovanni Maria Cassini, that shows contemporary discoveries in the Pacific as well as the routes of three of Captain James Cook's voyages.



Per the accompanying notecard: "Giovanni Maria Cassini was an important Italian engraver and painter based in Rome. In addition to producing globes and maps, he issued many engravings of landscapes and architectural views which were popular in his time. He was a member of the ancient Catholic religious order, Clerici Regulares de Somasca (C.R.S.), whose initials follow his name in the title of the Celestial Globe. Cassini was born in 1745 and died circa 1824."


This photograph taken from inside the globe.

The globe furthest away, in a corner, is the Globo Celeste or Celestial Globe, dating back to 1792 and also created by Giovanni Maria Cassini.

Per the accompanying notecard: "The globe features a particularly decorative projection of the heavens with the constellations shown in their classical forms. The celestial globe is based on the astronomical observations of Flamsteed and Lacaille. Ptolemaic and later constellations are shown. Stars are illustrated at various sizes depending on their magnitude. The heavens are shown as they would be seen by an observer looking from the center of the earth."


This photograph taken from inside the globe, which also happens to be Nathan Babcock's favorite spot on the estate

Head back to the gift shop area (great freebies, by the way) and teleport up to see the topographical map of the city and streets of Old New York, dating back to 1836, by J.H. Coton.



Per the accompanying notecard: "Anson Stokes, an authority on the mapping of New York, said "This is one of the most beautiful nineteenth century plans or maps of Manhattan Island, and is full of interesting information. It is perhaps the last example of really artistic map-making, as applied to Manhattan Island." Central Park did not exist when this map was made, and most of Manhattan Island north of 42nd Street is shown as streams, woods, hills, fields, and farms."

Come back down and discover and claim your spot on the map of the world that enables a push-pin annotation of where you live along with a short blurb about it.


All photographs taken in AM Radio's Nostalgia Windlight Preset. Many thanks to our very own Amalthea Blanc for pointing me to this. :D

Jopsy Pendragon's particles - the most fitting way to bring in a New Year - Happy 2008, everyone!

I have a confession to make. You know how some people take on what can only be called celebrity status in Second Life? Generally speaking, they have a few things in common. Their rez date goes back to 2005 or before, and they are terrific and knowledgeable content creators in some special way. Now, I’ve had the good (or bad, depending on the person) fortune to work with many celebrities in Real Life throughout my career, but never have I been more excited than the day I met Jopsy Pendragon. Happily, he turned out to be everything I imagined and so much more. Not only is he gifted at content creation, and teaching, but he is also one of the nicest celebrities in any life.



Jopsy Pendragon (aka John P. Crane, rezzed 1/15/04) is the founder and owner of the Particle Laboratory in Second Life... a mecca for particle lovers and script learners in the metaverse, largely because of the seemingly exhaustive and excellent tutorials available there, as well as its intimate sandbox for "script tinkering." Teleport directly from here, and take the hot air balloon to any of the local destinations offered there.

The San Diego Reader recently published an extensive interview with the Real Life man who operates his avatar, and while there are some inaccuracies, it is well worth reading.

I met with Jopsy this weekend at the Cloud Chateau, one of two places at Ethereal Teal - Jopsy's sim - where you can experience his gorgeous particles... to learn more about the man and his work.



Bettina Tizzy: According to The San Diego Reader article, you were already on BBSs and involved with other virtual worlds before you rezzed in Second Life. Were you on The Well, for example? And what brought you to Second Life?

Jopsy Pendragon: I was near and by and around the Well, but never actually in it... In the days when it was hot and hopping, I was nurturing my own fledgling text-based VR, (a TinyMud called DragonMud, which turned 18 years old a month ago), so any time I spent away from there made me feel neglectful.

I was dragged into Second Life kicking and screaming, protesting all the way, "No, I'd rather not try yet another lame VRML hack with blinking textures and kludged- together-features..." but my friend insisted, gave me a demo and I grudgingly admitted that there might be promise.

My early days... wow, well, I went a week, maybe two, before I found and bought land: 512m for the-then-high-price of L$2 per square meter. From Stroker Serpentine, if I remember right. I still see him around. I built a small home and lurked, trying to create interesting things to get people to stop and visit.

It was very quiet and lonely in Second Life back then, honestly, but I like to tinker so that let me be creative with fewer distractions =) I'd build things and stick in strange functionality hoping people would discover them... walls that opened, fountains that launched people into hidden rooms... all sorts of silly stuff. Most folks didn't explore thoroughly, but it made giving tours fun. :)



Bettina Tizzy: Your first particle... What was its genesis? Were there any particles in Second Life when you arrived?

Jopsy Pendragon: Particles were one of those things that just seemed to have no useful documentation at the time. I hadn't done much scripting at that point. A few modified door scripts, some animated texture stuff... so my friend (the one that dragged me into SL) and I were beating our heads against this particle thing.

We had a *very* early version of Ama Omega's particle script, which helped, but there was so much guesswork still. Our first particles were awful... imagine a hat with exploding bacon.

There were particles, but mostly it was the old llMakeExplosion, llMakeFire, llMakeFountain, llMakeSmoke kinda stuff. llParticleSystem was still a new function, apparently.

Back then we had 'dwell income,' and since I liked to upload textures, and wanted to buy more land, I was doing anything to get traffic to my space. Holding particle classes back then was *VERY* effective at that.

And then... my life shifted. I got a new job, one that I knew would hold me away from Second Life for several months. So before I started the job, I put all my class notes into a standing exhibit, called it The Particle Laboratory, and pretty much vanished for a year... (between June 2004 and June 2005)

I checked in from time to time, but went from 18 hour days here to 1-2 hour days in Second Life. I'm wrapping up that job now, (and trying to find my replacement so I can resign with honor. ;) and then I'll be back to my foot-loose and fancy free play-in-SL all day mode. I still go kinda dormant in the summertime. Hard to be indoors and online when it is nice out.





Bettina Tizzy: So you left your scripts in a place you hastily called "The Particle Laboratory?" Still on that same 512m parcel of land?

Jopsy Pendragon: It was kind of modelled after the Exploratorium in San Francisco... exhibits to interact with and such. Oh no... I was already up to the half sim allocation I'm at today by then. I was worried at first... nothing to 512sqm, 2 weeks. 2-3 weeks later, I went up to 1024. A month later 2048, a week later, 4048, 2 days later 8096sqm...


Today, the Particle Laboratory is a busy destination for scripters and particle lovers and, of course, anyone who wishes to learn how to make these totally Not Possible in Real Life miracles of beauty

Bettina Tizzy: The Particle Laboratory has a long and important history in Second Life. Did you ever record its milestones on a notecard or celebrate anniversaries and have 'cocktail parties' and such?

Jopsy Pendragon: (No notecard or recording of its history) and there's been no real anniversary party for the Lab. I have held a grand opening (even had a ribbon cutting ceremony, complete with particle ribbons. =)

While the Particle Laboratory has always been where it is now, it has grown, and been almost completely rebuilt 3 times now. I'm often changing minor things, the fencing and such. It didn't always have a dedicated sandbox in the middle; it used to allow creation anywhere but too many griefers made me lock things down. Not deliberate griefing... more the self-replicating-waves-of-annoying-objects-passing-through kind of griefing. I tend to get very few hostile types looking to grief up this way.

Honestly, I was really surprised that the Particle Laboratory became so popular. I didn't advertise, never took out a classified for it... it's all just word of mouth =)


That "word of mouth," led to my own discovery of the Particle Laboratory, a place where I have spent blissful hours hacking away at someone else's scripts - most often Jopsy's basic free ones - to make my own little pretties.


For weeks I became obsessed with learning how to make this particle effect (shown here at the Cloud Chateau), and I have both Vandalite Defiant (and Jopsy's tutorials, of course) to thank for guiding me - a scatterbrain when it comes to scripts altogether - through the process

Jopsy Pendragon: My first brush with voice chat was with two Lab visitors who were curious what it was all about... not really ready to start learning but just exploring. They were talking about me saying things like "Wow, he must have a lot of free time... " and other such things, not realizing the person next to them was the person they were talking about. ;)

Bettina Tizzy: Ha! People who make particles today are often called upon to do "shows" and such... did you ever? And what has driven you to create such extensive particle script tutorials?

Jopsy Pendragon: I've done a few utterly unplanned, unannounced tinker-jams. Sometimes I get caught up in the music and playing with particle scripts... and just go a little crazy. The workshop deck used to be a big black box that I would create particle-scapes in for anyone that happened to be with me at the time.

Bettina Tizzy: Please send me an unannounced TP if ever you do that again!


When you visit Jopsy Pendragon's Teal sim, be sure to explore everywhere. If you are lucky, one of his "followers" may decide to tag along

Jopsy Pendragon: And why do I keep putting more effort into the tutorials and such? Hmm... I figure the better I explain things there, with visual examples that really show what's going on, the faster people will pick up the material... so that the questions I do get are the interesting ones and not the mundane ones. =)

A lot of the stuff I came up with has ended up in here, in the Cloud Chateau =)

The Cloud Chateau! Simply my favorite hiding place in Second Life! It was here, in this fantastical room filled with swirling, colorful particles, that I completely fell in love with virtual worlds. It was... love at first sight.






I'm not the only one who likes to dance and spend hours at the Cloud Chateau, as these three photographs (above) by NPIRL Flickrite Suzanne Graves will attest

Bettina Tizzy: So you have learned from this process of teaching, too?

Jopsy Pendragon: Of course! Like any fluid medium, practice is essential =)



Let's hope that Jopsy continues to "practice" for a long, long time...

Bettina Tizzy: Is there anything *new* happening with particles?

Jopsy Pendragon: Actually yes... Thanks to Blakar Ogre and Nicholaz Beresford (and several others), a whole slew of particle issues have been tuned up. I'm seriously in awe of their efforts. I've yet to peek at the open source client... I can and will at some point, but there are projects ahead of that. They've actually submitted fixes and patches that have had a phenomenal improvement on particles.

While it's hard to point at any one thing and say "That... there, that's what's better"... I can tell. Density is stronger, transparency is more controllable, speed seems better... and, well, particles can fade into existance now. Before they could only fade away...

Bettina Tizzy: Interesting... these are two modest fellows. You would never know about these activities from their profiles, but that's awesome news.

Jopsy Pendragon: They're deep into the internals of the client... I think that's where they have their fun with SL. Some folks socialize, some create, and some lift the hood to see what makes it run. :)

Bettina Tizzy: Particles and Windlight... your thoughts?

Jopsy Pendragon: Love it. With 'glow,' particles really pop nicely. Fire looks like fire, finally. I still can't get over how great water looks. The most recent Windlight finally fixed the "my face is made out of rough clay" effect that previous Windlight clients had.

There are changes though, which I'm very happy to go back and tune for. As I said earlier, particle density has increased... effects that were ephemeral and wispy are now more like heavy smoke or blinding glare.




The two photographs above were taken at the Cloud Chateau by ColeMarie Soleil who has reveled in Windlight

Bettina Tizzy: All FIC jokes aside, do you work closely with the Lindens?

Jopsy Pendragon: I love that a certain infamous someone thinks I'm FIC. I do know that a few of the Lindens know me by name and vice versa. I respect what they're trying to do enough to try to use their support system just like anyone else would.

The only exception to that is when people come to me with a discovered exploit. I've yet to find a consistent way to escalate exploit style bugs to Linden Lab privately and effectively... You don't want to just throw them in JIRA for everyone to see.

Bettina Tizzy: You make the best particle textures in Second Life. Are you going to make us more?






You can buy Jopsy's amazing particle textures for a handful of Lindens at the Particle Laboratory.

Jopsy Pendragon: =) Thank you... I have every intention to do so.

One of the biggest sticking points for me with SL... and one of the few issues over which I actually got a little snarky at the powers that be, is over permissions... and, on their recommendation, I'm going forward with a different kind of DRM (digital rights management) method. Granted, it's an honor system, not programatical, but perhaps that's not so bad after all.

The problem is this: You have scriptors, 2D artists, modellers, soundsmiths, animators, etc., and while each of them may excel at their narrow speciality, few people are talented in all the areas that go into creating a superior Second Life product. Then, add in the power to market, advertise, manage sales and support...

Bettina Tizzy: Truer words were never spoken... yep yep...

Jopsy Pendragon: I dabble in everything. I can muddle by on my own fairly well.... but I would prefer to be a supplier. Someone that has scripts and textures that other people aquire rights to and incorporate in their products.

As things are now, the DRM in SL pretty much says that if I give you rights to incorporate my work into your product, your customers can rip my work out and then incorporate it into their products, and the deal "you and I" negotiated did not specifically say all your customers and their friends could sell my work.

The particle textures I sell have traditionally been no-transfer. I get a fair number of requests for full perms and handle them individually, but I'd prefer it if I could sell "Re-seller" friendly versions that were no-transfer to their customers.

The alternative method I'm adopting will finally allow me to automate the sales of full perm textures, copyrighted and such, so that the customer gets the texture KEY itself to use as they like... so long as they don't pass it on.

The funny bit, of course, is that I can't copyright the texture KEY... that's assigned by Linden Lab - their bits, their property - but to have permission to use the copyrighted work (the image), the secrecy of the key needs to be preserved.

I'm almost to the point where, for my higher end stuff, I might upload the same image multiple times... so that it'll get different keys... one unique key to a customer. If they let their key get compromised, ... I *THINK* I can use the DMCA to request that Linden Lab void out the image pointed at by that key... an extreme case to be sure... but still.



Bettina Tizzy: What are your plans for Teal (the sim on which the Particle Laboratory sits)?

Jopsy Pendragon: Since my early days in Teal, I've always wanted to make it more "Dark Crystal" like... (the Jim Henson movie from the 80's.. ). There have been several from the early days (who) were enthralled with trying to bring that world into this one with little to show for it (unless I've been uninformed!). There are themes in that movie I would love to adopt into Teal... paraphrased somewhat so that it's not a direct rip off... but still somewhat of an homage =)

Bettina Tizzy: Do you get bored with particles and want to stray a bit from Teal and go do other things? If so, what might those things be? Would you consider project collaborations with other content creators?

Jopsy Pendragon: Particles are atmosphere and illusion. I totally love them; wish I had them in Real Life, but I am sort of feeling I've kind of tapped out. Finding new things to do with them often depends on changes in Second Life which makes new things possible.

I still love playing with them, though. At this point I'm looking into vehicles and such as well, and having tremendous fun with them... and eagerly looking forward to Havok 4. =) I have played with it in beta, it's a vast improvement. Sim crossings are still sticky, but that will likely always be an issue. But otherwise, it's like silk. :)

I have built elsewhere, but not much. As for collaborations, I must admit (that) I'm a bit of a control freak. I'm either in the drivers chair and I pick the station, speed and destination... or I'm in the passenger seat and I help navigate. I'm weak at 'partnership.'

Bettina Tizzy: Your avatar...

Jopsy Pendragon: The simple short version? People in virtual worlds either play an idealized version of themselves... OR, (quite often) they play with a character that they find attractive. (Why else would straight guys play a game where their character is Lara Croft from Tomb Raider? Because they identify with her? uh... Nooooo)

In my case... well, it's both. ;) though I admit an "idealized version of myself" has been granted a lot of artistic license. ;) In the other realm I run - DragonMud - the founder/creator spirit is a dragon. I'm solitary, territorial... I hoard, I know how things work, and tend to be firey when provoked... It's not that I feel like I'm some dragon spirit, I just have traits in common with them... so that's what I identified with.

Here however, elves age slowly. They live a very long time. They tend to specialize in various things... particles being my 'mystical art' as it were... That's pretty much why I've got the long ears and fae/somewhat androgynous style: Hermetic Elf. I don't get bogged down in court intrigues. ;)


Jopsy Pendragon as satyr in his early Second Life days...

As this is surely my last blogpost of 2007 (it's almost 2008 in Europe as I hit the "publish" key, and the new year has already arrived in Asia and Australia and New Zealand), please accept my best wishes for a year in which all your First and Second Life dreams will come true. Many thanks to Suzanne Graves and ColeMarie Soleil for allowing me to use their photographs for this blogpost...





...and, may you embrace the dance of life!