wordpress

I am trying out using the wordpress blogger:
http://ginsengkyong.wordpress.com

Chloe switched over and keeps saying interesting things about that blog, I had to check it out... so far I like all the options that blog gives me.

Thoughts on Seeking Apreciation

In the past I have often desired someone to appreciate the art that I produce. I have a passion for making art and want to be appreciated for the work that I produce.

Now here is the dilemma, I have thought it is the same that actors in our world experience, I have discovered when a person likes me for the art I produce, they really do not care for the person that I am, that is they may like me, but they may be blinded by the desire of my art and just accept my quirkiness because I am the producer of the art, but without the art, they would of never given me a second thought. On the other hand I have discovered there are people who like me and do not care for the art that I make.

Do you understand what I am trying to say?… it is kind of a complex situation. As a human we seek approval by the skills we do and by the skills we excel at, but upon getting approval it may leave us empty since our core self is not getting approval. On the other hand, when our core self is getting approval from someone, our actions are seeking to get approval by the things we do.

So what to do? One way is not better than the other, just acceptance and appreciations for both as good.

Back in Midian again

I am back in Midian again, this time exploring the sim as a Cat. So far I have had more action with others as a boy than a cat, but more meaninful adventures as a cat.

Hmm I took the warrior skin I has struggling so much with making and used it to make a neko skin, though it has much more fur than regular nekos, it looks a bit like a furry in some cases, so that has potential to put me in a category where I am rejected by both the neko and the furry community. But hey, it does have an original look, and the look I kind of like, though a bit scary, but inside he is really cuddly and playful.

Life in Midian so far as a stray is a bit lonely but I occationally meet some kind strangers. I will see some action from time to time, other times it is up to me to make my own action.

Hmm.. though a strays life can be a bit lonely, and there will be times I think of kindship and stare out into the distance where I know the hang out of the pack of cats hang. But I am not sure if I have the time to invest in such a family, and so far have been meeting interesting dwellers of the city. The other day I met a cute cat, Jazzy, she would be a good one to hang out with and get into trouble, something that comes natural to a cat in Midian.

Somehow I just enjoy hanging out on top of the church looking at the city below and listening to the crows complain of my presence.

Taming the virtual Wild West? VPD: Virtual Police Department

It is interesting to see Secondlife evolving, as it gets more people, they bring their personalities with them. So what happens when Police come to SL, they set up a police force.

A real police on SL, that could be powerful, just imagine, an SL crime occurs, and then outside the criminal’s house a knock is at the door with real police wanting to arrest the criminal.

http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/story.html?id=0c37d98d-c54f-44d3-9e72-0c19cf828565&k=56002

“ "It's going to be interesting when we start to receive crime reports -- you know, harassment cases or things like that -- in the virtual world," he says. "How are we going to deal with them?"
The jurisdictional implications of policing avatars, who are controlled by people from around the world, will need to be ironed out eventually, he says.

"There are jurisdictional issues. Where does the crime occur? Where is the suspect? Where is the victim?" McQuiggin says. "We want accountability but if it's spread all over the world like that it makes it very difficult for us."
It's complicated, he says, so for now he just wants to focus on using Second Life for recruitment. “

It is interesting in SL, there is no serious accountability, that is what allows people to be themselves. In the physical world, people are constantly bound by society to behave in a certain way, in SL people are free and become or experiment with things that they would never attempt in real life. Once law enforcement comes to SL, will it change that freedom?

Part of not becoming a victim of crime in SL is to become aware. When I first had money in SL, I remember going to some boxes with text floating above them that said free. So I started buying stuff for L$0. The scam was, that some of these boxes there was actually a charge of say L$25. Since I had so little money I noticed being charged for “free” stuff. If I had oodles of money, would I have noticed? It would have been nice to file some charge against this criminal at the time. Before you buy anything, you have to wait a little bit to make sure a free item does not cost money.

There was some cases of virtual rape, what I cannot understand is why the victum just did not go to in there menu --> File --> Quit, then relog on at there home. I know there are grievers all about, and some are probably pushing sex animation on others. Instead of quitting, another option would just for you to walk in the other room, take a bathroom break, while an animation or cage is being pushed onto you, let the criminal have there way, and then come back and teleport home. To some extent, you should have a detachment to your character.

There are other cases of real life involvement, when SL and real life merge, these can become more dangerous with crime is involved. In that case, having the police on top of criminals that use technology is a good thing.

“Vancouver's police have turned to the make-believe world of online virtual reality in a groundbreaking bid to attract tech-savvy real-life recruits “

Hmm …make-believe, what? That virtual space actually takes up physical space on some computer server.

Goblin concept art and adventures as a goblin in SL

To make a good goblin AV for second life, you first need a concept. I figured I would post some of the drawings I did to guide me on my development. Before I drew the images, I did look at a lot of different pictures of goblins that I could find on the web and also my friend send me some.



This is the original drawing I used to design the goblin AV. I have several notes on some of the things I wanted to do, for example, I wanted to make the eyes glow, so I figured I would try loading an eye texture that had a transparency where the white of the eye would go. Hmm this did not really work, so I ended up putting green balls inside of the AV's eye that glow. The balls are somewhat transparent, so the eye shows through.

Here is an image I created after I got the goblin AV started. the idea of this image is thinking up possible armor looks for the goblin.

Part of making a good goblin is to understand it. I have started to play this goblin in the combat zone of Avalon Mist. I have to admit I was not prepared for what lay ahead. In that zone there are humand and drows, for some reason these two seem to be friends. Drows I thought were kind of like evil elves.

So someone the drows and the humans have become friends, so when I showed up, they needed an enemy. The first day I was there, I fled into the swamps. Two humans and a drow found me and hunted me. I drew no sword but the warrior in white slashed at me as I tried to flee. I eventually was slain and the white warrior sliced my corpse up until I had a -400 health. Humans hate evil goblins. Even the presence of a goblin will cause humans to be agressive against it.

So you can see, I have a lot to learn about a goblin, how to design one well, it will take some time. I think running from a fight is what it should do unless it is hanging out with a bunch of orcs, then it can sneak up on the eneamy and strike when the other is in battle. I think a goblin could be used as a scout because of there size or they could be used to lay a trap. I could easily intimidate the humans and they would seek the death of such a small creature, I could run and lead them into an ambush.

As a goblin, I have only found one nice person, and that was a fae, she took pity on me and healed some of my body, this was the second day. I had showed up, experienced mega lag, SL crashed, and when I reloged, my AV was unconsious. I guess my AV was probably pushing against someone when I was in lag and it was seen as an act of agression. Even though my sword was still sheathed, I must of been attacked.

Afterwards, I asked for a tournament battle, my first fight with a sword.. good experience, I lost miserably to a skilled drow.

I need to learn how to role play better, when I take on this evil goblin form, I need to learn how not to be such a nice guy. I need to learn to flee more, I am not a strong orc. I need to jump, run, and tease. I have found a good place to practice and always find someone to chase me, Avalon Mist, combat area.

Creation of Gollum like goblin

The idea for creating a goblin AV came from a friend, Phoenix. I had joined a group of builders and passionet role players who are currently working on a Lord of the Rings Sim. I had found out about this sim from John a good friend I had met online one time when wandering around in the sim Avalon Mist. He had invited me to play as one as an elf prince, his character is the king (I am also in the proccess of creating a elven prince). Well, Phoenix, the eldist elf, is the actual one in charge of the project, after showing him some of my builds, he asked if I would be interested in creating the goblin AV... what a fun project that has turned out to be.

This is an ongoing project, I plan to post improvements of this goblin character as I make them.

So far I have only distorted the default AV to be short, long armed, pointy ears, big eyes, and grumpy looking. Also, have created the upper half of his skin. I can tell I need to work some more on this portion of the skin, I think it is a bit pale as you can see in the photos or perhaps it needs more details, I kind of like how the veins on his arm turned out. The skin is an on going process... I will notice things that need improvement, like in the image above, his underarm needs some definition and shading, plus it lacks any kind of hair wich I think a goblin should have a lot of in this area.

The skin is created in photoshop using a shirt template that can be download at the second life website.
http://secondlife.com/community/templates.php

In the photo above, I took the image I used for the upper body of the goblin and increased the contrast of the image. I should try uploading the image as it is displayed here, but usually if shadows are too dark on the skin, it just will looked painted on or a bad tattoo. The lines displayed in the image are the guidelines that are used in creating the skin. With this skin I decided that the goblin probably is stong, but since he is small, probably does not eat that much, thus, his ribs show and his back bone. I think I will need to define more bones, like elbow, hipbone, etc.

Here he is with his eye one some tasty fish, a little to high for him to reach, but since he is so hungry he is resourceful.

He feels right at home in the dank caves in Avalon Mist's newer role play area. He has his sword out to cut slots out of some of the giant spider webs so he does not become someones meal, even though he would not provide a good one. By himself, he is not much of a fighter.

And finally he is hanging out at the Juke Joint blues bar having a smoke and listening to some blues tunes. Being a goblin, he feels at one with the blues music. Most of the ladies here are too tall for him and being green skined and grumpy, not too many ladies linger on him for very long.

Forgotten in Midian City

When I want to play and not worry about romance, I change my AV to a child form. It is amazing when I change back into my adult form, I feel much more restricted and unable to play like I do as a child.

Well this is one of my adventures as a child. Here I am exploring the cat walks of Midian City. Luckly there were no cats lurking about or they would have chase me off like I experienced at a later date.

Midian City is a no fly zone, so it was quite a challenge to climb this crane and walk across it. It is a bit hard to see the image, the city is a bit dark.

There is a beautiful Church building across the way. If you go exploring in the church, you will discover there is no obvious way to climb to the rooftop. So I got the idea that I could probably jump across from the crane. Because I cannot not try something and even using a bit of my ninja training, I was not able to jump the gap to the roof top. I ended up sliding down the church wall and upon hitting the ground, felt like I had broke quite a few bones.

I wonder what in the world must live on that roof top, I doubt it is church go-ers, I think if the vampires can stand the church, they could fly over there, the other posibility... there is plank of wood that has been layed across to the church from another building. I just cannot figure out why they just did not build some stairs from inside of the church to the rooftop.

Behind this church is the graveyard, I have seen some vampires hanging out there, I try to avoid it when I can.