NMC Symposium for the Future in Second Life

2009 October 21

2009 Symposium for the Future

IT is time for another Virtual Symposia by the NMC (New Media Consortium). The symposium will compose of several diologs on pushing the envelope of technology and the potential impacts on issues of global significance. Specifically the topics will cover subjects that will make a significant impact in the next five years.

There is a registration fee, but there is a special free event, “Adobe Connect and Green Classrooms,” being held Wednesday, October 28th from 8-8:45 am (US Pacific Time)

The symposium begins with a reception on Tuesday (Oct 27th) evening and runs throughthe end of day on Thursday, Oct 29th.

I have attended past symposia by the NMC, and they are very well organized and truly dynamic.

Full details can be found at here.

Hope I see you there!

Second Life College Fair

2009 October 20
by Babbs Ballyhoo

October 24th and 25th:

This is great networking opportunity for students and college representatives to meet in Second Life to exchange information, promote a school, and create connections. It will be organized like a traditional college fair with booths and tables for the various colleges. Above being able to see how educators are taking advantage of second life to reach an expanded audience, there will be all kinds of freebies there too. Great way to to start building your inventory!

October 24th: 5pm- 9pm SLT (8pm-12am EST)
October 25th: 5am – 10am SLT (8am-1pm EST)

This is the SLurl

Capturing Camtasia for Mac

2009 September 14

I am dying to get my hands on the newly released mac version of Camtasia by Tech Smith. I often use SnapZ Pro for video and image capture being a mac-head, but was often frustrated without the added editing capability that Camtasia has. We have Final Cut Pro available as well, but for on the fly capture, i love TechSmith’s products.
There is also a free screen capture tool on their site called Jing.

Here is a great review by eQuixotic

Creating Seamless Textures in Photoshop for Second Life

2009 August 17
by Babbs Ballyhoo

Tired of paying for textures? Why not make your own? This is how to do it using Adobe Photoshop.

Have you ever found a texture you love, but then when you try to tile the pattern it looks plain awful? When textures are created seamlessly you can pick them out pretty quickly by the distinctive lines and mismatch of edges.

It is recommended that you stick with 256 x 256 pixels or 512 x 512 at the largest for a texture unless you have the need to have very high resolution images. (The higher the resolution, the longer the texture will take to rez in)

Ok here we go, with the image open in Photoshop:
Filter -> Other -> Offset
You have the option of playing with both the horizontal and vertical positioning using the blue sliders. Be sure that the “Wrap Around” option is selected. If this is your first time trying this out, halve the original size of your texture. So, if you had a 512 x 512, use the values of 256 x 256, or if you had a 256 x 256, use the values of 128 x 128.

Mismatched pattern

Mismatched pattern

Now here comes the fun part. There are spots where Photoshop overlapped the pattern for me to create the tile, but I do not care for the change in color that I can see on some of the stones. Also, there are places where the weeds coming through the cracks are cut off. I will work on the portion of the image shown here first from the upper right corner.

Photoshop Clone Stamp Tool

Photoshop Clone Stamp Tool

The clone stamp is one my favorite tools, and should do the trick here. The clone stamp picks up information from a designated area in the image and “stamps” it where you click with the mouse.

Close up of information to target

Close up of information to target

Find a spot on the stone (or the texture that you are using) and use either Option on a mac or Alt on windows click on a spot in the image to pick up image information. i am going to clone a bit of the weed to get rid of that straight line. with OPtion or Alt I clicked on to the green part of the weed. You will want to play with brush size here, I am keeping it pretty small. If you have done this correctly when you click the cursor will change to a small target symbol.

Start with small individual clicks rather than trying to “draw” the information in with one motion.

Created weeds to soften the pattern

Created weeds to soften the pattern

This takes a little practice, but it is worth persevering!
So after a little work this is the same area with our created weeds. Use the same steps to cover all of the apparent lines. The reason we need to take these steps is that Photoshop is smart enough to figure out how to make the outer edge work together to create a good pattern, but we need to do a little detailing on the inside to make it believable. Some textures will not even need any stamping to use.

Lets see the before and after using the clone stamp:

Before using Clone

Before using Clone


After Cloning

After Cloning

The distinct line down the center is now gone.

You have just created a seamless texture. Save the file, preferably for web, if you do not need a high resolution image, and upload the texture into Second Life. I like the idea of $10L for a texture that I can use over and over again, and I know that it will be unique.

TIP: While you still have the seamless texture up in Photoshop, you can save this as a “defined pattern” to use again and again in Photoshop. Do this by going to:
Edit -> Define Pattern and name the texture. This way if you have a shape or background that you would like to fill with your pattern, you will always have it available under Edit -> Fill
Choose your pattern from the drop down menu, and voila!

Filling with your pattern

Filling with your pattern

I hope you find this helpful!

Sculpty: with or with out salt? Using Blender

2009 August 14
Experimenting with Blender Software

Experimenting with Blender Software

As I have complained about before, I find myself getting more and more aggrevated with building the FIT campus. I have torn down so many buildings and amphitheaters trying to find the sweet spot between function and design. Many of the educational sites are great in offering freebies to help, but they aren’t just want I want.

So like everything I do in life, I decided to just make it myself. I think the decision will kill me. After researching free and lower cost options for creating sculpties, I decided on Blender. “Blender is the free open source 3D content creation suite, available for all major operating systems under the GNU General Public License.” (right from their site) I do not personally know anyone using this, everyone I know uses the heavy hitting programs like 3D Studio Max, Maya, and Softimage. But with $50 left in my checking until payday, I think Blender is a good place for me to start.

We’ll see how it goes, I spent a portion of the day yesterday just trying to become comfortable with the interface. Fingers are crossed.

If you are thinking about looking into 3D software for use in Second Life, check out the SL wiki here, it was helpful to me to compare the different options.

And yes… I am blonde right now…. hussshhhhh.

I am also very excited to give a link to a new and fabulous Pose store by my friend Fine Caliber
It is called A Fine Line – go go go
now!

Pose- fine, held down by A Fine Line
Hair- Babys on Fire in Butter by lamb
Skin- Doroth by Lazolli
Shirt- Narajuku Girl Shirt by Dirty-Lynx
Pants- My Harem Pants in blue by Milk Motion

Virtual World Floors? Watch where you step!

2009 August 10

I have been trying to follow the feeds coming out of the SIGGRAPH 2009 conference and came across a post discussing a surface developed that can be walked on to simulate various ground conditions like ice or leaves. The visual and auditory feedback seem to be enough to trick the mind that that the conditions can exist.

Motion capture is used along with an army of sensors to sense the user’s steps to generate multimodal feedback.

Watch out for the virtual dog poop. :p

image courtesy of siggraph.org (http://www.siggraph.org/s2009/galleries_experiences/emerging_technologies/details/?type=etech&id=143)

image courtesy of siggraph.org (http://www.siggraph.org/s2009/galleries_experiences/emerging_technologies/details/?type=etech&id=143)

e-textbook anyone?

2009 August 10
by Babbs Ballyhoo

I am passing on this post by Keene Haywood through the New Media Consortium. The New York Times ran an article on Saturday discussing an initiative called Beyond Textbooksthat combines web-based tools with curriculum. The article quotes a Dr. Abshire, Chief Technology Officer for the Calcasieu Parish school system in Lake Charles, La., saying, “They (students) don’t engage with textbooks that are finite, linear and rote, teachers need digital resources to find those documents, those blogs, those wikis that get them beyond the plain vanilla curriculum in the textbooks.”

Both the post and the NYT article discuss how this will take root first with higher education, then trickle down to the K-12 population.

Frank Lloyd Wright Museum in Second Life

2009 August 8

Wow. I was doing a search on Frank Lloyd Wright style furniture and came across the newly developed FLW museum in Second Life. I was floored. Not only can you tour the museum to learn about the famous architect, you can also view his designs in chronological order, shop for furniture, and even visit recreations of a handful of his designs. Below is a picture from the recreation of Fallingwater. If you are at all a FLW fan, this is a must see! Visit the Frank Llyod Wright Museum
Representation of "Fallingwater"