Lakeview House, unfurnished. 61 land impact, mod, copy, no transfer, w/ copy only scripts.
A recent move to mainland with an oceanside view prompted this build. It’s strange how, after almost fourteen years in SL, I continue to hold on to mainland, but I do mainly because it often presents localized situations which demand creativity and localized solutions. In this case, I found space I enjoy but which is not terribly expansive, and also found I didn’t really have anything that fit the locale or size of the parcel.
So this is the result – The Lakeview house has a 17 by 15m footprint, so it should fit on most common 512 or 1024sqm parcels. It features two floors connected by stairway and allows for great views from front or back, with access to patio and balconies from both sides.
Ficus Elastica (ruby & plain variegated). 1 land impact, with or without pot. Mod, copy, no transfer.Vendor graphic: Ficus Elastica (green & burgundy). 1 land impact, with or without pot. Mod, copy, no transfer.
These two releases are great additions to indoor and outdoor gardening situations. Each include a variation on the original texture and come both with and without planter. Each tree is 1 LI at packaged size and offered mod, copy, no transfer.
Nikau Palm Trees 1 – Animesh Tree Product. Sways with real region wind. 23 LI, mod, copy, no transfer with copy-only script.
It’s been a long while since I produced palm trees – there were a couple of releases back in the sculptie days and I made some others which I never released publicly. In light of recent developments with Animesh, as well as the fact that I haven’t offered palm trees for years, I felt it was a good time to spend some time on some.
With the help of scripting from NeoBokrug Elytis, these trees make use of animations and region-side wind vectors to move realistically and in direct reaction to current wind conditions (the strength of these movements can be adjusted or turned off entirely – They can also be set to animate in a specific direction if you wish.
Please note: As an Animesh product, this tree is *not resizable*. This cluster of trees is indivisible – IE: you will not able to detach a single tree from the rest. Modify permissions will otherwise allow you to edit any other aspect of the model, at your risk.
The past few days have been especially hectic with the development of new releases as well as build for Organica’s spot at the SL Home & Garden Expo. With the added work of needing to prime all my vendors with an event-friendly script, sleep has been hard to find this week.
Fresh on the heels of the Cherry Tree release, I put myself to task for putting together a new structure that would be a good fit for the smaller space I had chosen for this year’s exhibit.
I set out to work on a converted warehouse look and have been pretty happy with the results, but this particular build will be on-site as a preview only, while full release should occur not too far from now, in-store. When final tweaks are taken care of, the space should be a very flexible prefab suitable for use either on the ground or as a skybox, great for either commercial or residential use.
Additionally, I’ve created a number of brand new items for exclusive premiere at H&G Expo:
This vintage lamp can be used either as a hanging or standing lamp – or both! Put it right up against a wall to bounce light off in a diffuse manner or away for a more eye-catching effect. You can use it to divide a too-large room or to create an interesting centerpiece if you so choose. Mod, copy with a copy-only script. Click for on and off, or to set it to turn on at night.
This is a five-piece, modular brick & wrought-iron fence set, put together for a stately look. (Three unique pieces total – semi and full-circle items are included for your convenience) Great for gardens small or large! Use to line the perimeter of your land or simply to divide off a section and create a quiet enclosure. Ranges from 1 to 13LI depending on which item is used. Optimized for use with Advanced Materials. Mod, copy, no transfer.
This is a simple garden lantern – great for placement in a garden bed or upon any sort of patio table, plinth, etc. It’s 1LI, mod/copy with a copy-only script. Click for on and off, or to set it to turn on at night. This is an RFL item, so all proceeds will be sent to Relay For Life.
Additionally, both an RFL Edition Rosebush 2 and Fresh Cut Roses are now available, alongside many of the RFL-only releases, so if you missed them in previous years, now’s your chance to pick them up (although some very old offerings have been retired).
Several recent releases are also available for viewing – if you haven’t yet had a chance to check out the Animesh Weeping Willow and Cherry trees, you can now do so, along with many other items that have been put together over the past year, all in one small exhibition located in the heart of Hope 3 region.
SL Home & Garden Expo features nine merchant regions as well as a gachapon region, all attached to the American Cancer Society region. It begins March 15 and runs thru April 7. I hope to see you there!
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Hi Folks,
I’ll start off with some housekeeping – It’s been a busy couple of weeks for me, moving the shop, setting up a whole new vendor system, making new content for the build as well as upcoming events…
So it’s it’s with some satisfaction that I can say Organica region is once again open. I’ve opted to stick with open and organized for the moment, some areas are still undergoing refinement, and a new store directory is in the works, but all vendors are now functioning.
I was able to port over all existing store credit from E2V to Caspervend, so you should be able to spend your remaining store credit at your leisure. There HAVE been some significant changes as the result of the vendor service swap, however:
– Gift cards are now available in L$250, L$500, L$1000 and L$2000 denominations. For other denominations, please contact me directly.
– Redeliveries are now available by clicking on any vendor and clicking on ‘Redelivery’. Please note: ALL gacha items still reside on the original gacha vendor service, which is seperate from Caspervend offerings. Fresh, updated, mod/copy gacha items are still available by rezzing your item in the exchanger circle.
– Store credit can be increased through the use of gift cards. It will no longer accrue by the purchase.
– A permanent 5% discount WILL be applied to your account (and credited back at time of purchase) after a minimum of L$5000 in purchases has been accrued. Additional discount tiers may or may not exist 😉 ( Customer Rewards Program )
– Because they do not share the same vendor service, all gacha items are exempt from the customer rewards program.
Organica is now set up at Home & Garden Expo (a day early even… woot!) with a few new releases!
The Altadore Bedroom set includes bed, nightstand, drapes, lamp, rug and chest of drawers. The bed includes single and couple animations, the nightstand and chest have drawers which open/close, the lamp turns on/off on click. Pick up the classy and conservative Charcoal edition or the sassy and creative RFL edition! 1-8 LI, Mod, copy, no transfer, with some copy-only scripts.
These new raised grow boxes have been serving me well in terms of display and they would work well in anyone’s back yard, whether you intend to use them for vegetables or any other sort of plant material. 1 LI ea, mod, copy, no transfer.
Calatheas are stunning tropical plants with a great degree of variety. I’ve chosen a small sampling for this first pack – please let me know if there are particular calatheas you’d also like to see. I tried to keep this initial pack small just to start, but may be open to offering more.
Each of these mesh plants are 1 LI each and they are mod, copy, no transfer.
These two RFL exclusives are also available – ONLY for Relay for Life events, so do be sure to pick them up while you can!
These new items are available at Home Expo for the duration of the event, then most will make their way back to the main store and Marketplace!
Organica may be found at Home Expo 3 region this year. Home & Garden Expo runs May 19 from 8AM SLT thru June 2 at 12AM, SLT. Do drop by and say hi!
New this week is a new addition to the kitchen department!
This decor item includes a rustic wood island great for every-day food prep. It comes with various accessories suitable for any modern kitchen! There are 15 pieces total, packaged as a coalesced whole and some items can be de-linked where desired.
All items are mod, copy, no transfer and many are materials-optimized.
Drop by the main store in Organica Sim or visit the Organica Marketplace store to pick this up!
Today, I’m glad to announce that the Kitten avatars are undergoing a long-awaited update, which includes additional Bento functionality plus a brand new animation override. This updated avatar is now available in shop, along with one completely new line – the Bicolour coat pattern!
If you already have one (or more) of either the Tabby or Cheshire avatars and purchased it off the Marketplace, you can expect an automatic delivery for each within the next twenty-four hours. A limited number of recent in-store purchases will also receive this automatic update. If you do not receive your update by Jan 17 2018 (EDT), please see below before contacting me by IM:
If you purchased in-store prior to Christmas and do not recieve an update automatically, please come to the main shop and rez your update token (found in your original Kitten package). There may be a delay but you should still get your update that way. If it times out, please contact me (Aki Shichiroji) directly by IM.
This new bicolour pattern is very much intended to reference the ‘tuxedo’ look that many bi-colour cats have. Five colours are available in this line and these new kittens will include Bento functionality, just like the updated originals!
Changes (2018/01/15):
– Facial and tail Bento support
– New Animation Overrider HUD featuring advanced facial animations specifically for this avatar
– Update system now also uses the blue circle exchanger system (Read the included notecard for full details).
Known issue: RFL Purple Cheshire has not been addressed in this update but will be within the week. Please stay tuned for further info.
Relevant inquiries: Will the applier system used for several other recent releases also be used for the kitten avatar?
– While the possibility is not closed to this, the logistics are non-trivial. The Applier system will not be applied to the kitten avatars at this time.
Will dev-kits and/or clothing be made available for these avatars?
– Both are being taken in to consideration at this time and both are very likely. Again, the logistics of packaging and managing a growing number of coats for this avatar are something that I need to become accustomed to before I will have time to address either. Please IM me to let me know of your interest!
Will animesh support be provided with this avatar?
– It’s a bit early to comment, but animesh for this avatar is quite likely. In all likelihood, Animesh support will involve a customized kit that can be dropped in, but given that these details are rather abstract, the final execution may be somewhat different. There are also some non-mesh and non-rigged components which would need to be converted for use with Animesh should a conversion occur, so I would need to account for the additional time cost for this work.
Stay tuned to the Subscriber Kiosk or the in-world group notices for further news about this or other releases from Wilds of Organica! Join the Subscriber kiosk ( here ) or the in-world group ( here )!
Thank you for your ongoing support!
If you like what you see but don’t think it’s quite right for you, perhaps consider donating to my Patreon? Your continued support helps to produce weekly content (written, modelled, animated or otherwise) and helps to keep original content creation in Second Life!
There has been a lot of talk, recently, with regard to what is and isn’t possible within the platform when it comes to content creation and detail. We see this complaint come up commonly with all content, but more recently this has become more of a touchy issue with the coming of Animesh (animated mesh) objects, which are currently being tested on the Beta grid.
As things go, Animesh is currently limited to 20Ktris per linkset, which means that content creators have to be very cautious about the complexity of the models they intend to use.
The most immediate use case being presented are full scale animated NPCs based on existing mesh content (bodies, clothing, hair). Additional use cases include accessorizing of rezzable pets, customization of vehicles, and more.
However, the efficacy of Animesh in terms of accomplishing those goals is questionable.
As things stand, the current limitations (20KTris per linkset, minimum 200LI cost for animated mesh objects) are deliberately conservative so as to accurately assess graphic and server load under heavy use. These limitations are likely to change, but some of the suggestions as far as to what degree have been quite far-ranging. At recent user group meetings, we’ve seen suggestions anywhere from 100-500KTris per linkset so as to accommodate clothing, hair and body mesh.
This might not seem like a lot but for the moment let’s argue that the average fashionista might themselves average between 250-800Ktri range. Today in SL, this is only just manageable in a room with multiple such avatars because we can now elect to filter out performance-heavy individuals by using Avatar Complexity filters. (If you frequently allow your viewer not to do this, chances are you spend a fair amount on a new video card every couple of years. Not everyone can afford that!)
There is no immediate indication that we will have any similar functionality with Animesh. Apart from the polycount restriction and LI, there is also no immediate restriction on how many animesh can be drawn by your camera. As such, placing multiple such linksets in a given area may well create a negative experience for a large portion of the SL userbase, who may not have the most up to date equipment for enjoying Second Life.
It begs the question of content creators – Notwithstanding any easement of these restrictions, what can we as content creators do to create more efficient models for use as Animesh (or even for daily use on our own avatars)?
Design with efficiency in mind.
There are many workflows out there. Some of us are working with Blender, Maya, 3DSMax, SketchUp, ZBrush or even Marvelous Designer.
I am hesitant to point out any one workflow as being ‘bad’, but frankly some of these workflows are designed for higher-detail applications and not for immediate use in gaming.
Does this mean I think they shouldn’t be used?
Not at all, however it’s important for content creators to understand what kind of issues they are introducing to the viewer experience when they present un-optimized content to the consumer market, what the repercussions may be and how to mitigate them.
For example, Marvelous Designer allows designers to create garments based on traditional patterning and to see how those garments will fall on an avatar, but even with the recent addition of its quadrangulate functionality, it produces mesh with counter-intuitive edge flow. Additionally, the common practice with MD is to simply export a high-poly mesh to include fine details and call it a day, without regard to how that might impact the viewer in SL.
We have similar problems with ZBrush, which can handle millions of vertices at a time and which does have a means of retopology (making something less complex), but which still requires a lot of tweaking to create something with good enough edgeflow to work well in lower poly situations.
You can work from low-poly to high or high-poly to low based on your preference, but it should be noted that the average avatar doesn’t actually *need* Pixar-level graphic fidelity in their everyday SL experience.
Most people think this wyvern comes out to around 50KTri or more – in actuality, with the use of normal maps, it is far far less (at 14KTri), and the final product may even be less depending on final refinements.
Rather than importing garments to SL with every possible nook and cranny modelled in geometry, designers can (and should) make use of the tools afforded them by advanced materials! This can be done by baking down some of the details from their higher-poly models to diffuse maps but also by creating normal and specular maps that will take advantage of textures instead of geometry to create detail.
Normal maps can make a huge difference when it comes to conveying details! This blouse is under 4KTri,, animates cleanly and still has subtle seam and cloth fold information which some would otherwise model out in geometry.
With this sort of workflow in mind, a 20KTri blouse could easily be reduced to 4-5KTri with minimal detail loss.
Even more savings can be had if animesh are designed and modelled with these restrictions in mind, rather than cobbled together from multiple sources.
With a custom designed animesh human, for example, there is no need to include a full mesh body – only those parts which are visible need be included. Clothing, hair, accessories – all of these can be developed with efficiency in mind to fit the criteria for Animesh limits.
Level of Detail models are also helpful with reducing viewer load at a distance, given the fact that Animesh do not currently become imposters at a distance (even though they express sped up animations just as avatars do).
Balance
Of course, it’s helpful not to think of SL purely in terms of efficiency. We could all just wear stick-figures or rez them and call it a day… but if the visual element were removed what would be the point?
Instead, I’d love to see limitations on these resources to encourage both more efficiency as well as stylistic choices that deviate from the norm. There is a vast niche of style that continues to go untapped within the platform and I’d be really interested to see more interesting art styles rather than a constant push towards photo-realism, personally.
The Drider’s moving closer to release! If all goes well, you can expect to see a release within the next 7 to 14 days.
On top of some client work I undertook earlier in the week, a variety of under-the-hood changes and additions took place for the Drider, involving animations, HUD graphics, additional leg hair geometry, LOD optimization, & documentation.
The avatar comes in at about 8LI, which is quite good considering LOD compromises had to be made in order to maintain silhouette at the ‘Low’ level. A fair number of my other gacha avatars are also in this range. Over the next couple of days, I’ll be refining the documentation, working out final textures, refining animations, packaging and seeking out testers for feedback! If you’re already a Patron at any donation level, you already have preferred access for beta-testing this avatar – Otherwise give me a shout and I’ll put you on the list of folks to nag for feedback 😉
I’m really happy that this has come along as quickly as it did and really look forward to releasing it for the Halloween season. If you have any particular colour/pattern requests, this is probably the time to IM me with them. I can’t guarantee they’ll make the cut, but I will certainly consider them.
Support my content creation in SL and other virtual worlds by becoming a patron on Patreon! Along with keeping up with new releases, you can keep up with personal and work project writeups, see sneak-peeks of upcoming content, be informed once new videos are up, access to Patreon-exclusive content, giveaways and more! Check out my Patreon page, here: (link)
Available this month at The Arcade, these 1.25m tall avatars are intended to be mostly bipedal, although the AO includes some quad animations alongside bipedal. You can pick up this avatar here: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/The%20Arcade/67/132/32 (The Wilds of Organica machine is near the back, on the left side of the central aisle.)
Now that the Christmas holiday has wound down, I’ll be packing up the holiday-related material in one week (midnight, Monday Jan 13). This will give me back some space to work with in front of the shop and as a side bonus, it means… SALE!
All Xmas/holiday items (excluding the gacha vendors) are now 50% off. Poinsettias, garland, Xmas bows, Xmas lights, winter trees, and the old hockey skates are now super cheap… but will be packed up in a week, after which they won’t be available except on Marketplace until next year.
