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Realistic Virtual Pets * Low Prim Count Animals * Low Lag Scripting * Customizable Settings



Latest News:


7/27   Moving News: The last few weeks have been incredibly busy in one form or another but nothing has taken as much time as recent work to relocate Aeryglow Wildlife to Mainland. It's sad news but yes the Aeryglow Wildlife Island will likely close in a month or so and be replaced by the new location. The Garden Wildlife building has been duplicated and set up, and the Jungle Wildlife building is nearly complete. I've put up signs on the island with new landmarks (they deliver on touch) in the Garden center. Xstreet Garden Animal deliveries also include the new landmarks as do all the sales boxes in the Phasmogoria sim where the new home will be. I'll go through all the animals on this web site to update the location info as well.

So, it's been 3 years since the island was first opened - why the move now? Well, the Island Estate was always a partnership with Maggs over at Something Fishy. She did a lot to keep up the islands and was a constant force behind the scenes at Aeryglow. With her departure from SL this year and the closure of her sim next door I just don't have the time to put into the island while keeping up animal releases. As much as I love the parks, I need to focus more on the critters. The new location will be more shopper friendly but with fewer hidden park jewels. Hopefully it will allow me to spend more time on the critters you all love so much.


At the same time it would be nice to have neighbors again, and the new location is just a couple hops away from Hodgie and Hodgey's Nature Stand. I've always missed that about Mainland sims - there is just so much more going on, it's more of a community feeling and honestly it's something I've really missed since Maggs closed shop. Perhaps we'll do some special things to encourage exploration between the sims, but for now I'll focus on the move and the critters.




5/29   Happy Memorial Day - Spring in Bloom!: I've been hard at work with a new model but for this post I'd like to announce a follow up to the new butterfly news in the last post. I was doing some yard work this month and some of the beautiful spring flowers made me wonder if I could make use of them to texture some flower-inspired butterflies. The pic to the left is of some Houstonia flowers and a Buttercup I came across outdoors. I used these textures to create the Houstonia, Buttercup and I created a Red Tulip inspired butterfly for the Garden area (finally some red to choose from!) The results can be seen in the pic from the 5/4 which I've updated. It's an interesting way of coming up with unique butterfly types and I may do more like them down the road. Spring is in full bloom now, if you are looking for some butterflies to bring life to your flower garden there are now more color choices than ever to choose from!




5/4   Aeryglow Wildlife - New Spring Butterflies: While updating behavior code for the butterflies last month I was thinking I'd like to add some more color choices. The Garden butterfly collection gets two new butterflies. I happened across a photo of a bright yellow Dogface butterfly that I thought would brighten up a garden area, especially if you place a nectar feeder within a row of red rose bushes. The dogface is native to California and is actually the designated state insect. I also wanted to add something... well, not yellow or orange, seeing as I have a lot of orange to pick from. I figured I'd pick a color I hadn't seen often during research and photo trips. Why not pink? Well as it turns out real life pink butterflies are hard to come by. I didn't actually find any references after doing some research, so I went ahead and invented one! The Aeryglow Garden butterfly was the end result. It's bright, it's pink, it definitely stands out fluttering around the sim.

Over at the Jungle Wildlife area I've added a new White Barred Charaxes butterfly. From above it's wings are shades of black & white, from below it's deep red with white & gray markings. These butterflies are native to Africa, and the coloring really stood out to me.

I'd like to add more colors when I have time, the butterflies are beautiful to watch and variety is always a good thing.




4/29   Aeryglow Wildlife - Website Improvements: As you may have noticed I've been working to clean up the web site a bit. I'm trying to replace some of the text with pics to provide a cleaner look to the site. The Garden and Jungle pages get the refresh as well as the home page, other pages will get brought up to date as time allows.

In other good news I've been able to create textures for the Chinchilla Wildgrass. This food item lasts for 28 days and functions much like other food available from Aeryglow Wildlife™. Simply rez a copy near any Chinchillas, all of them will feed on the nearby food. Wildgrass will also lend sculptie support to Chinchillas to help reduce the SL balloons some people may see. I've added a free copy to the Chinchilla boxes as well.

So, if your pet Chinchilla has been begging for a snack you can now pick up a treat!



4/27   Aeryglow Wildlife - Spring Insect Updates: This month always seems to feel overwhelming. I've been able to take some time however to update the Garden & Jungle Butterflies. I felt the previous versions spent too much time resting and often had a tendency to land and not take off again for long periods of time. With the update the flying behaviors seem to be much improved. I've also added the update code so that this new version (v0.04) and future versions can be automatically updated near their sales panels. Going forward you can rez a v0.04 or newer butterfly near its sales panel and click the insect icon on the ground. If a new version is available it will replace your old version butterfly.

Also, some of you have asked about food for the Chinchillas. I tested the eating behaviors with a temp food item, but I want to create a good Wildgrass model, so there isn't yet a food item ready. I have located an ideal patch near home to photograph & use as a texture base for the model. Now if only the spring rains will stop so I can get a clean photo! I do hope to have food out in the jungle sales building soon, I'll post another entry here when it's out.




4/15   Jungle Wildlife - Mountain Squirrels Anyone?: Whew, tax day is here and all of last years data was handed over to the accountant with (very little) time to spare. Spring cleanup has kept me quite busy outside as well, though to be honest I love the time spent outdoors. I often get some fun ideas while listening & watching the wildlife around me.

I've had a great deal of work going on for SL these days as well. I've updated the Jungle Wildlife page on this site to match the new format I implemented for the Garden Wildlife page. I've also been working on getting the Jungle Wildlife building more fully completed. Somehow I think it'll take some time to get that building where I want it - it's precarious perch atop Jungle Wildlife Mountain doesn't leave much room for construction. As I add to it I'm hoping it will  offer a fun spot to walk through while providing enough wall space for sales panels and a beautiful view of the island below. Given it's prominent location I am working to bring it up to the level the Garden area is at today.


As I promised in my last entry I've been working on a new critter and it's finally out for sale in the Jungle Wildlife sales building!! The Wild Turkey I created this fall & winter took a lot of work and I was looking for something new but easier to implement for my next release. At about the time I was considering what to do next a customer asked if I'd do a Chinchilla like their friend's pet - the gray one you see here was actually textured from a photo of their friends Chinchilla.

For those of you not familiar with Chinchillas they are a mountan rodent from South America. They're about the size of a rabbit and (when they aren't sleeping) are quite active running around and cleaning themselves by taking dust baths. They are absolutely adorable and I hope that the end result remains true to the behaviors of people's pet Chinchillas out there in RL. The scripting is based on the squirrel & bunny scripts I've done previously with some improvements in the menu system such as multi-lingual support (French & German at current).

Behavioral scripting has been improved for this critter with a larger spectrum that I hope will result in wider differences between individual Chinchillas. There are more animations for this animal than any I've done so far including blinking eyes, the dust bath cleaning, sleeping, standing, hopping, etc. All of this animation is non-physical to minimize sim impact and of course these cute critters are just a single prim to minimize the impact on your land prim allotment. You'll want to rez a Jungle Rock v0.02 nearby (included in the sales box) to keep SL Balloons at bay, though a single rock will support all the other jungle animals you have nearby as well.


There are tons of other small details to these critters such as the varied sounds they emit, etc. but I'll leave it to all of you to discover on your own :) I'll make an announcement in group tomorrow hopefully... I'm just about spent today what with all the hard work I've done for this release. Enjoy the new critter, I'm going to think on what the next one will be and I have some updates I'd like to get out later this month as well.




4/2   Aeryglow Wildlife - Happy Easter!: I hope everyone had a wonderful March, the month seemed to slip by quickly. Warm wishes as well to those celebrating Easter this weekend. I've been hard at work on a new critter which I will announce here & in group after some more final touches. April is going to be a busy month as I have to get taxes done and do some island maintenance around the new animal's spot. I'll have more to post in a few days time, I'm looking forward to the rebirth that spring brings myself!




3/7   Garden Wildlife - Looking for Gold?: Well March is finally here and you know what that means... Aeryglow Shamrocks are in full bloom for the month and touch Pots of Gold are appearing all over the Garden area! I'm looking forward to Spring in RL as well, something about being either stuck indoors or bundled up for outdoor activities gets old after a few months. Anyhow, keep your eyes open for the contest pots & if you see one give it a click to see what prize you are awarded!

In other news, I've completed a trial upgrade system for the turkeys and bunnies. Bunnies & Rabbits v0.45 and up as well as Wild Turkeys v0.06 and up can be upgraded at the island from now on. When qualified upgrades are released, you'll be able to bring these animals to the Garden shop location, rez them near the sales panels and click on the animal icon that is on the ground (the large bird icon for the Turkey or the bunny icon for Rabbits) for an automatic update.


The new turkey also includes some functionality I didn't have the time to implement before release. They can now be used as food for larger animals (such as lions) in the same way rabbits are. If caught, the turkey will disappear for a few minutes and will return to life shortly after as good as new to continue the cycle.

There is also good news with the bunny update as well. I've taken the newborn chakra bunnies and boxed them as singles for anyone that would like one of a particular color. The new colors get new names - Strawberry, Orange, Turquoise, Blueberry and Indigo - and they can be found with the other newborn bunny sales panels in the Garden Area of the island.


That should about cover the news for now. Enjoy the new updates and the spring contest activity, and don't forget that bunnies make excellent Easter gifts! (they are all transferable and will even wait to create a unique personality if not rezzed before you give as a gift)




3/2   Aeryglow Wildlife - Lights Out Part III: It was only a little over a year ago (Dec 2008) when a bad ice storm left us without power and (gasp!!) Internet for 8 days. We had a big storm come through this past Friday that took our power once again. As the weekend progressed I was beginning to have nightmares of that week a year ago. Fortunately the power did come back on Monday almost exactly 3 days after the lights went out. Things are beginning to get back to normal in RL but as would be expected I have a backlog of IM's etc. to get through. I apologize to everyone that's awaiting a response from me, I'll try to get through the list quickly, things at Aeryglow should be back to normal in a few days hopefully.




2/11   Aeryglow Wildlife - Feel the Love!: Valentines Day is once again nearly upon us. The Touch-to-Win contest Golden Bunnies have been replaced with Touch Hearts for the rest of this month.

Prize Hearts have also been added to the contest prize list. I've given these prize hearts out as winnings in the past as well, for those that have yet to see them they bind themselves to their owner on first rez. Based on the owner and the location in which they're first rezzed they take on unique characteristics. After first rez is complete you can give away your heart to a loved one. The prize hearts can then be used as followers (so long as the new owner is in an area where their scripts are enabled.) The following heart will occasionally chat sweet nothings to your loved one as well.

In all it's a wonderful gift to give and is only available from the Touch-to-Win hearts while they are active.




1/28   Garden Wildlife - Turkey's Done!: Back in the summer of 2008 we had a female Wild Turkey nest in the neighbor's woods. She spent much of the summer afternoons wandering the neighborhood. It was fun to watch her behavior, take some pics and I had planned at some point to do a model of her, so she went onto my to-do list. Soon after I'd finished the butterflies the Hodgies had a turkey they had done and I asked if they'd like me to take a look at animating it. Unfortunately, as is often the case even with my own first models (see the butterfly entry last October), their model just wouldn't provide the proper animation base I needed. So, it was back to the drawing board to create a model from scratch and my expected November release date was going to have to be pushed back by some weeks. The end result after 3D modeling work and texturing is shown here. This Wild Turkey is another *single prim* animal and I've worked very hard to squeeze as much detail out of SL(tm) prims as I could.

But it's been a few months and the new model isn't the biggest news for this release. This female turkey release includes a ton of new script enhancements. First there's the large bird behaviors that are all new - this is the first bird I've done with complex walking and complex flying behaviors. There's the unique personality creation on first rez as always, as well as some custom animations I've added for fun. Turkeys feed on Fresh Birdseed which I've also just released. The standard "Freeze", "Stay", "Follow Me" and "Roam" modes apply.


She also comes with the first multi-lingual menu system I've implemented. Currently I've translated French & German (and my foreign language skills are not the greatest so I apologize in advance for my poor translations) and I hope to add more languages in the future. I hope the language options will at least help make the menu system easier to use for those not accustomed to English as a first language. I've been trying to find the best layout for the menu system as well, the "Range" menu has been moved to the "Options" selections for instance. I'm still not sure I'm happy with this iteration of the menu system but I'll give it some time before I make any more big changes.

And last, but not least, I've implemented an upgrade system for this release. On the ground near the sales panel is a Large Bird icon. When new versions become available you simply rez your Turkey on the ground near the icon and then click the icon. Your Turkey will be replaced with a new revision automatically! Over time I'll add this functionality to older releases as well, plus of course all new releases will be updateable.

I'm sure I've forgotten some details, but I've been working on this critter from months, modeling and scripting everything from scratch, and then testing it all. I've also improved the Garden Wildlife page here to make looking up info a bit easier. Gone are the long stretches of text (such as seen here lol) replaced by icons that lead to individualized pages. As I have the time I'll do the same for other sections of this site as well. Anyhow, I've gone on long enough here, go adopt some turkeys today! Meanwhile, I've got to think on my next project!




1/14   Aeryglow Wildlife Friends - Failed Energy: I've been busy with a handful of projects in recent months and one of my side projects is officially starting up. My friend Failed Inventor came up with the idea to create some Green Energy  building blocks for people to simulate renewable systems on their own property. I thought it sounded like a great idea and took on the energy system scripting.

As many of you may remember from December 2008, I live way out in the sticks and power loss is more common than I'd like. During an ice storm that month we actually went without power here for over a week :P To prepare for such events I'd looked into solar panels to run some basic necessities (specifically I'd be happy to just run the wood furnace blower and the well pump.) I've been very surprised at just how much power generation it takes to cover the minimum needs in a home, and I think Inventor's system will be good at teaching just that kind of experience.


His component design is also pretty sweet and priced reasonably, the appliances are free for the taking with only the charging components costing $L's. The power system scripting is the same tight, solid code you've come to expect from me. The power generators react to the environment - wind generators spin faster & generate higher power levels when the wind increases, solar generators generate more power during SL mid-day. Generators automatically charge nearby battery packs placed by the same owner, battery packs automatically power the same owner's nearby appliances. The system automatically detects new component additions & removal and can cover sim-sized areas with transmission repeaters (each component has a 20m operational radius). In short the power components are all rez-and-play.

Inventor is building up a library of appliance objects now that the system scripting is complete, so although the available selection is on the light side right now he should have a good selection of components & freebies in the next few weeks, he should be fully up and running in early February. Stop by his shop here to check out this unique idea and see this talented builder's work!


And not to worry, some of this hard work has made it's way back to Aeryglow to improve the wildlife sim, but I'll share that in a post to come soon!




1/12   Seaside Wildlife - A sad goodbye to Something Fishy(tm): As many of you have noticed, Something Fishy(tm) has closed up the sim next door.  I'm never sure how much to blog about other business owners, there is always more to each persons story than any of us are aware of at any given time. However, I will say that Maggie has run Something Fishy(tm) for years had has been both a wonderful business partner and a dear, dear friend. It's been a difficult business climate for everyone over the past 2 years, it's unfortunate such a wonderful person has had to make this decision.

As for what the future holds for Maggie & Something Fishy(tm) only she can say. I've offered to host her on my island for the time being and she plans to maintain a presence in SL. All of our joint creations are still available at the Seaside Wildlife hut on Aeryglow Wildlife(tm) island and will continue to be available with sales amounts split to Maggs. I'll post any news from Maggie concerning future in-world locations, in the meantime much of her work is available on xstreetsl here if you're looking for her sea life creations.




1/5   Aeryglow Wildlife - Welcome to a New Decade!!!: So a New Year has begun! 2009 was a year that kept me on the road a great deal for family needs. So much so that I've come to miss my creative time in SL, although I've made use of travel time by learning a host of new tricks I'm looking forward to putting into practice this year.

In the near future I'll have some new announcements to make. I have a new critter I'm putting some finishing touches on. Also, I've been writing some scripts for some friends projects that I'll write about when the projects go live. There is also a good deal of island improvements I'd like to get to when I can. The Garden area improvements have been good, I hope to add easier shopping to other sections of the Wildlife park as well. I'd also like to make some changes to this web site to improve readability.

And of course I have a ton of new critters I want to get out of my mind and into SL. The butterflies this past fall came out just as I'd pictured them, the sculpted cabbage exceeded my expectations in terms of level of detail and my current project is coming together in a very satisfying way as well. In all there is much to look forward to in the coming year, I hope all of the hard work and care shines through in the critters to come.

Happy New Year, may yours be a wonderful year as well and be sure to visit Aeryglow Wildlife from time to time to see the changes and additions throughout the year!





As one can imagine, scripting & building new critters, landscaping our new home and keeping up a Website is a daunting task. There's always something new being worked on, and I hope you will check back from time to time to see what's new and exciting at Aeryglow Wildlife(tm)!



- Cloud Insoo

   Aeryglow Wildlife (tm), Virtual Wildlife Creator

   http://slurl.com/secondlife/Phasmogoria/229/130/54/