News From 2009:
12/23
Aeryglow Wildlife - Happy Holidays!!!:
I want to take a moment to wish everyone a happy holiday season!
Although things have been a little quiet at the Wildlife park I've been
hard at work & hope to have some announcements soon!
In the
meantime, I've created a sculpted cabbage for your veggie gardens... of
course any nearby rabbits may come to take a nibble if they see the
cabbage! I've fine tuned the rabbit snacking code as well to allow them
to linger longer and increase the chance of crunching sounds being
heard. The
cabbage lasts as long as the carrots and has been priced the same as
well. The sculpted cabbage shape makes use of some of the talents I've
fine tuned over the summer.
So, Happy Holidays to Everyone, I'll have more announcements very soon so stay tuned!
11/30
Aeryglow Wildlife - Xstreet: Last week I was updating my XstreetSL
items with the latest details and adding some colors... right about
that time I then heard of all the changes that were coming through on
the web site. I'll leave it to much wiser folk than I to determine if
the new changes are good or bad, but they are coming nonetheless. I've
never made much on XstreetSL,
but I do realize it's a convenient way to shop so I keep a few items on
there and direct people to the island in-world where every item I have
is available for sale. Due to the recent changes (free items cost $L99
to sell, etc.) I've either pulled out inexpensive items or upped the price on
free & low items on the web site. These same items are still
available for free or lower cost on Aeryglow Wildlife
Island, so feel free to visit the island for better deals. I'll wait
before I add more items to XstreetSL to see if the increased costs are
going to be covered by increased business... presumably with less
clutter people will be able to find what they are looking for more
easily.
11/19
Garden Wildlife - Construction:
The Garden Wildlife area reorganization is finished for the most part
for now. I've moved most of the sales panels out of the inner room.
While I was at it I reduced the prices on some of my legacy critters
such as the mice/rats to reflect their reduced need for support these
days. I also placed out an interactive map in the center of the inner
room to help show where each group of critters is located. The
multi-lingual map lists what is at each icon on touch. Additionally
I've placed icons on the ground near the sales panels so it's easier to
see from a distance what group of animals is located where.
I
now have room to add new critters in the Garden, I'll keep the map
updated as changes occur, though I see no major rearrangements any time
soon thankfully.
11/12
Garden Wildlife - Chakra Bunnies:
I'm still working my tail off on the next new critter, but in the
meantime there are some new bunny colors to check out! I had a request
from a customer for Chakra-colored (Prism or Rainbow colored) bunnies.
After setting her up with the colors she wanted I packed up some
newborn-sized bunnies with the new colors and placed out the box of 8
with the other bunny multi-packs.
For those of you not familiar with Chakra here is a short explanation (props to Jordanna Morane for putting this together!)
I believe that there are 8 major Chakra Centers but there are those who
argue its 7.
Red - The base center located at base of spine. Governs basic
survival instincts helps to live life to the fullest.
Orange - The Sacral center located between pubis and navel. Governs
body fluids.
Yellow - The Solar plexus Center located under diaphragm relates to
nervous system.
Green - The Heart Center located to right of physical heart.
Governs heart and lungs, blood pressure.
Turquoise (not universally recognised) Thymus Center, situated in
thorax behind sternum and in front of heart. Relates to immune system
Blue - The Throat Center found in throat governs thyroid and
parathyroid glands
Indigo - The brow/third eye center located in middle of forehead.
Governs pituitary gland.
Violet - The Crown center, located top of head linked to brain and
pineal gland.
This is only a brief outline but it may help, folk may want one to
assist in healing or just for upliftment.
They each have an emotional level and spiritual I haven't given you
these as I would hate to bore you.
But as an example Green would help you emotionally to set aside your
ego and be honest with yourself and others, which would result in
ability to feel unconditional love.
Many of the Chakra
colors have been available already such as yellow & green. Others
are uniquely new for this pack such as the red & indigo.
Also
of note in the Garden many of you may have noticed some re-arrangement
going on. The inside of the shop was getting full so I've had to move
sales panels outside (and even the bunny section is now getting full!)
I apologize for the confusion while construction continues, I have made
up some ground icons to help identify what is where from afar more
easily. Eventually the inner room will be for information, specials,
food, etc. and most of the animal sales panels will be moved to the
outer walls where the butterflies, spiders and bunnies are currently.
I'll try to organize critters in a way that makes the most sense -
probably by type then size. Things may move around a bit for a few more
weeks, but hopefully the disruption will be short and the end result
will be a smoother shopping experience.
10/30
Aeryglow Wildlife - Happy Halloween!:
The holidays are starting up again! Usually I have an all-new critter
for Halloween, however this summers schedule has thrown things off a
bit. This year I'll provide some new critters for the later holidays
instead, and I've already been working on just that. I'll have more
details in the near future, I've been hard at work modeling this week
and probably will be for much of next week as well. For now Happy
Halloween and stay tuned!
10/23
Aeryglow Wildlife - Butterfly Dreams:
So for those of you that haven't been by the Island in recent days it's
official - the latest new set of critters are Aeryglow Wildlife (tm)
Butterflies! The story behind these goes back over a year ago when a SL
friend of mine requested low-lag prim butterflies to replace her
particle butterflies. I eventually got around to developing these
animals this past spring, however the sculpted prim models just weren't
living up to my expectations. I struggled to eliminate shape artifacts
and get a correctly shaped animal using one prim but eventually decided
to set aside my work on butterflies and return to them at a later time.
Summer
came and went, I continued with LSL Mono updates & other
improvements on existing animals. During my many travels this year I
took some time to read up on modeling & texturing, and thought of
what behaviors I'd like to implement when I returned to my delayed
project. At last as Fall arrived I finally had time and some idea of
how to create in SL (tm) the vision I had in my mind for these. I
started from scratch and soon had a pleasing sculpted prim model. The
next step was to take a trip to the local zoo where I spent an
afternoon observing and photographing butterflies. With a new modeling
method and a new texture application method the end results appear very
close to my minds vision.
So...
that's the back story on this release. The butterflies are indeed *1
Prim* and the Nectar Feeder (above) is also 1 prim. The Nectar Feeder
is available in the Garden Wildlife and Jungle Wildlife buildings.
Because it's designed to turn invisible on Owner Touch I made a few
decisions to facilitate their use. First, the nectar doesn't wear out
in the same way other foods do. Second, the nectar feeders are
detectable via the Animal Finder. Also, since these were meant to be
placed out in several locations for butterflies I've made them copy.
Over
in the Garden Wildlife area I've placed out some Butterfly boxes near
the boxed Crickets and Spiders. Butterflies include more behaviors than
I can list here, but I'll note a few details. As mentioned, with a
Nectar Feeder nearby (within 10m or less of the butterfly) they may
land to feed, you may also save up to 4 "perch" locations where the
butterflies can rest when they become tired. In either case, on landing
they extend their legs and will randomly open/close their wings and
look around to seek nourishment. As with other recent new creations
these butterflies operate in 5 selectable modes. Frozen mode keeps them
in their landed animations while Float mode keeps them in their flying
animations. With Follow mode enabled, the butterfly will follow its
owner around. The last 2 modes - Loop mode and Free Fly mode - put the
butterflies in full motion and animation.
Jungle
Wildlife butterflies are Tropical butterflies and include some longwing
butterfly shapes. For all of the butterflies I've revised the
personality sequence on first rez, and I've spent a lot of time
optimizing the code. In testing the code seemed to use less sim
processor time than the low-lag rotating seagulls. This brings me back
to the original request I had received to make something that could
replace my friends particle emitter without undue prim counts & sim
workload. So far I'm very happy with the end result even though it was
a long road to get there. In the future I'll add new butterfly types,
but for now I'm anxious to get on to something new. In the meantime,
stop by the island and pick up a butterfly or two to try out, they're
trans so you may even give them out as gifts! If you enjoy them (and I
hope that is the case) please be sure to pass on the good word to your
friends as well :) I'll post an announcement in-group sometime this
weekend as well to let everyone know this new release is finished.
10/20
Garden Wildlife - Insect & Spider Sale:
In the Garden Wildlife section I've reduced the prices on the Crickets
and various Spiders. Both animal types have required little support in
recent months so I can pass on the savings to customers - these are
also some of the oldest critters on the island. The Spiders
particularly have been reduced a full sales range. That leaves an open
slot in the insect range for a new high-end critter. I wonder what I'll
put out there next?
10/17
Aeryglow Wildlife - The Year of Updates:
I've finally caught up on all my IM's and am getting back to content
creation. As I look back over the past year I realize I've put out a
good deal of updates for existing animals while doing few new releases.
Part of this was the desire to bring more variety to the existing
animals and part was the desire to improve existing animals with the
new tech LL has given us including LSL-Mono scripting.
I
actually have been working on a handful of new animals as well but
various issues have kept them from being released. I'm working through
many of the issues this month however & do hope to have some
all-new creations very soon, along with some good stories.
9/27
Aeryglow Wildlife - Return Trip!:
I'm finally home and very tired, but I wanted to drop everyone a note
to say I'll be back in-world and will catch up on all my IM's early
this week so please be patient. Although I've been away from SL quite a
bit this summer I've been busy taking photos & recording sound
clips so I plan to get a bunch of new animals out in the near future.
I've also been working on 3D modeling techniques so I hope the newer
sculpted animals will look much improved. In any case as far as I can
tell I'm done traveling for the rest of this year (whew) so I'll be
able to focus on doing the creative work I so enjoy in Second Life for
awhile!
9/11
Aeryglow Wildlife - Road Trip!:
I just wanted to let everyone know I'll be on the road for a little
over a week or so with limited/no Internet. I'm helping a family member
move across country so I'll have to make do with any hot spots I can
find if possible. Until I return, make the best use of the FAQ page and
I have IM's to e-mail so I'll do my best to reply when I can... please
be patient as it may take some time for me to work my way through all
the messages when I return.
On
the positive side, this should give me some time to work on offline 3d
models and textures, so hopefully I'll be able to get something new
started on this trip. Also, I've re-started the touch-to-win contest in
the garden area, most of the prizes are promotional items &
trinkets. I'll try to keep it running and add more promo items over
time, so wander around & explore Aeryglow's Garden area and maybe
you'll find a treasure giver!
8/27
Aeryglow Wildlife - Summer Updates:
Between two weddings and, sadly, a funeral the summer has kept me away
from my work more than I would like. Thankfully though I'm able to get
back to my animals and have a couple of announcements to make.
First,
the lion update is *Finally* complete. These were the last animals to
get non-LSL Mono scripting so I've gone back and re-written nearly all
of the code. The end result is the animations are a bit more
responsive, I was able to fine tune the behaviors. I've also added an
entirely new mode - Owner Follow Mode. The owner can choose this mode
and the Lion/Lioness/Cub will follow you around. If you teleport or log
out the animal will wait patiently for your return. Ground detection
can be turned on/off in this new mode as well. I've put out new sales
panels at Aeryglow's Jungle Shop where the new version Lions can now be
purchased.
The
other announcement is something I've received a number of requests for
recently. Newborn Bunnies & Rabbits! They have all of the
functionality of the full-sized rabbits and are slightly smaller than
the luv bunnies. I've also refined the fur textures on the newborns
somewhat. With the additional critters I was running out of room inside
the Garden Wildlife building so I expanded sales panels to the outer
wall near the tp arrival point. Newborn sizes contain the green/violet
logo shown above on the sales panel. For all of you that have already
picked up some larger bunnies & wanted some smaller, even more
adorable "baby bunnies" come scoop them up in the Garden area of
Aeryglow Island today!
7/9
Aeryglow Wildlife - All the Other Things:
It's been a busy few months outside of the wildlife business, time sure
flies when one doesn't have a moment to stop and look around. Tax
season was followed by a spring cleanup like I've never seen - so many
trees & tree limbs to clean up from the winters Ice Storm. Most of
the debris is now cut & stacked - the woodpile is taller than I am!
In-between spring cleanup I've been putting a great deal of time into client work for Cranial Tap Inc.
The Avatar Island training pods were moved to a nearby sim freeing up
sim resources on the existing complex. The Giant Head generator is now
back up & running - creating a new head at sunrise and breaking it
apart at sunset (the speck just to the left of the forehead in the pic
is an avatar!) The new orientation complex is also running much more
smoothly, and I was able to place out some of my latest creations for
newbie explorers to view - the Aeryglow/SF seals.
Another recently publicized build I helped scripting on was the NIC Sim
which is now open to the public. Most of my work there centered around
the media players & maps, the build however is quite beautifully
done as well and is worth a visit just to view & walk through the
buildings.
There have been a number of other pieces of client
work that have kept me pulled away from animal creation, hopefully more
of those will become public in the near future. In recent days however
I've been able to get back to the critters. The lion scripts are
nearly done with the testing process and I'll be able to post an entry
soon with all the details.
4/10
Aeryglow Wildlife - Taxing Times:
Yes it's that time of year again... I've been buried in paperwork in
recent days and thank goodness I'm just about done with the whole
process. Additionally other RL commitments have kept me out of SL when
I've not been pouring over tax docs. The good news is that I'm getting
things finished off so I can get back to work very soon, in the
meantime I apologize to everyone for being a little slow in responding
lately. The lions are still on my plate, I have just a little more
updating to do on them and I'll announce the update completion as soon
as they're ready.
3/26
Seaside Wildlife - Lost Seal Reborn:
I was chatting with Maggie Morgan over at Something Fishy(tm) the other
day and the subject of Caribbean seals came up. She wanted a Caribbean
seal but didn't think any were native to that region so I did a quick
search and the answer was yes... sort of. I found an entry for
Caribbean Monk Seals - Native to the Caribbean, but listed as extinct
as of the 1950's. I spent a little more time researching this species
and created one for Second Life(tm) residents!
I've
placed out a new box in the Seaside Wildlife Building with these for
sale. I'll get some to Maggie as well (shhh... it's a secret & I
haven't been able to surprise her just yet with them!) But she'll have
some over on her seal island soon as well. And speaking of seals, I was
placing out a new "Seal Crossing" sign on Aeryglow Island when a crowd
began to gather around me to see what was going on...
I
don't often take the time to snapshot owner affinity behaviors but this
was just too cute to pass up. The seals went back to playing in the
water when I was finished working.
3/23
Aeryglow Wildlife - Lost in Transmission:
As usual, I'm going in about 100 directions at once. Before I get to
new stuff I wanted to pass on some info about recent IM's. Apparently
the weekend of March 13th, 14th & 15th SL IM's were not being
forwarded to e-mail. Since my IM's tend to get capped that means that
I'm sure I didn't get all of my messages during that time. If you tried to reach me that weekend and I haven't
replied to you simply drop me another IM or a notecard. Notecards seem
to be more reliable, although for 90% of the time SL IM's do
work well enough.
If
you've picked up a new bunny or rabbit recently you may have noticed
some improvements. I was continuing my work on the lions when an IM
from a customer pulled me back to rabbits. Late last year I reduced the
chat frequency due to a series of requests, but I really wasn't happy
with the solution myself. I've had a few comments since from
people that liked the chat and in the process of updating lions I came
up with a solution that should make everyone happy... including myself.
I've tied the bunny chat to the sound volume. Like to see bunny chat?
Pump the volume up to 100%. For less chatty bunnies set the volume down
to 20% or even 0%. In addition, I implemented many of the lion
improvements while I was updating the bunny code. The latest versions
include the following improvements:
* Bunnies now get unique personality traits! Traits are set on first rez (if purchased from a box or vendor).
* Chat text is tied to volume control as mentioned above.
* Chat text is better targeted and more consistent - you shouldn't see
multiple "bunny is tired" chat any longer for instance.
* Owner/Friend vicinity code is improved (bunnies tend to seek out their owner more now.)
* Bunnies will befriend up to 5 friends - previously was only 3.
* There are a number of other small adjustments to improve behavioral traits.
I've
updated all the bunnies and rabbits in the Garden sales area boxes, the
live bunnies on the island will get updated over time as well. Luv
Bunnies get a bonus in their affection trait and should tend to hang
around their friends & owner more often. I've also revised the
Shamrocks that bunnies like to munch on. Every March the Shamrocks glow
in celebration of St. Patricks Day and the start of Spring. Previously
it could take up to 10 minutes for the effect to first turn on but the
new Shamrocks now glow immediately on rez if the month is currently
March.
I've been working on more 3D models and of course the
Lion updates are coming along. Until the next post be sure to pick up a
new bunny or rabbit for your Easter or Spring celebration!
3/5
Aeryglow Wildlife - Updates, Updates, Updates:
Still working away on updates. I had a couple requests for increasing
the sound range on the seagulls so I've updated the sound scripting for
them. The sound range is tied to the volume setting and automatically
adjusts from 20m at zero Volume to 120m at full Volume. So, at full
volume the seagulls can cover almost a whole sim if desired.
Additionally, the sound does not carry below water now... so no seagull
calls where only fish sounds should be lol. I've made some other small
improvement tweaks as well. All the seagulls at Aeryglow have been
updated including the ones in the sales boxes.
Lions
are coming along as well. In addition to the conversion to LSL Mono
I've been able to eliminate one of the scripts. The animations seem to
be smoother to me but then I've been watching the last version for
hours and hours and hours. In any case, most of the old animations are
re-scripted now. I'm going to try to add some new behaviors thanks to
the extra memory LSL Mono affords. I hope to be done soon, it's
just taken longer than I expected since I've learned so much since the
original scripts were written & wanted to bring the new scripts as
up-to-date as possible.
2/18
Aeryglow Wildlife - Garden Updates:
I have a couple of small updates to announce. First there's a new color
rabbit - Deep Brown - which is in-between the brown color and chocolate
color rabbits. I've also adjusted the brown tone so that it's a little
less gray and a little closer to the chocolate tone as well. Secondly
I've fixed a bug with the large squirrels (black, gray & white)
where the head wouldn't always snap into place when they sat up. All of
the updated critters are in the Garden sales hut, and I've added the
new color rabbit to the Earth Tone pack there as well.
I'm
also working on updating the lions to LSL Mono, they were one of the
last animals to be released before Mono came into being. I'm re-writing
much of the code and hope to have that released for next week. I'll
post all the details when I have the lions ready.
2/7
Aeryglow Wildlife - Housekeeping:
I've been continuing on updates, the Seaside animals are basically
caught up. This past week I finished Whale updates, the new version
whales now run on Mono LSL and include some improvements including
better whale call coding and a naming option! Some of the initial
updated whales had a bug that locked out the owner from the menu
system, so if you are having any issues let me know & I'll repair
your whale for you. I also spent some time last month cleaning up the
Seaside Sales Hut, the elevators are now fully functional and the
vending machines are replaced with panel boxes. The resulting Sales Hut
is much nicer looking and easier to shop in, I need to do some detail
work on the second floor when I have the time but for now it's at least
much better.
I'm
already on to more updates, hopefully I'll be finished with LSL
conversions soon and can get back to new creations. I have a long list
of new critters I can't wait to get back to.
1/12
Aeryglow Wildlife - Happy New Year!:
I
hope everyone has had a wonderful holiday season. Things are getting
back to normal here in RL, and I'm looking forward to catching back up
on SL work. I've been keeping up with the IM's I've received for the
most part, and when I left off in December I was updating Seaside
critters.
The Seaside hut and nearby lagoons have newly updated
jellyfish. I converted the scripts to LSL Mono and adjusted the
animations a bit. I've also replaced the vending machines there with
wall-mounted boxes much like those found in the Garden sales hut to
help make shopping easier. Lastly, I spent some time on improving the
elevators leading to the second floor of the Seaside Hut. When you
click the "Up" button your character gets placed and the ropes &
pulleys move as your character is carried to the upstairs. I still need
to finish the "Down" elevator in similar fashion, but I'm much happier
with the new layout and elevators.
I had also started a public
home point area on the island. Most islands won't allow anyone but
their owner to set their home point until the land is donated to group.
So I've donated a small parcel and will set it up so people can set
their home points on Aeryglow Island. I have to finish up some signs
but for the time being the parcel is open for business!
Well I
think that about covers the latest info. I'll be back to new stuff in
the near future, it feels great to be working again. Here's wishing
everyone a happy and healthy 2009!