Right, definetly time to ramble on some more, this blog ain’t going to write itself.
I find myself sitting with SL running while browing the net looking for things to do. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve a few things in the To-Do list but can’t seem to work up the drive to actually get started. Putting To-Do to the side, what have I done? Recently I’ve been working on a secret submarine base, I’ve been meaning to work on underwater themed builds forever. One of my first builds in Second Life was an underwater themed home, made of bubble-shaped sections, air-locks and of course a machine which blows bubbles. However, when I moved to Lasiocampa and bought waterfront land which would suit such a build I discovered a massive flaw in the design: A texture which uses 32-bit targa (i.e. transparecy layer) or has a transparency of greater than zero shows up like a sore thumb through the waters surface. As my work so far was made to look like a completely glass structure it didn’t look too appealing from above the waters surface and so I have left the thoughts of an underwater base/home/build to boil until now. With the transparency problem at the forefront of this design I decided I should attempt to blend my build in, hide it perhaps. I’ve done this by taking a snapshot of the ground texture underwater and attempted a seamless texture with it. Now, I really ain’t the best texture-er but I think it turned out all right, if only I could get around to lining up the textures.
The building houses a submarine or two, I had fiddled with the basic car/boat/whatever vehicle script a long time ago to make a simple submarine script and now I’ve put that script into a larger submarine with the intentions of improving the script and having fun with it. While on this submarine project I also decided to start making some scuba gear, having recently gone back to Scuba Diving in Real Life (that’s Second Life’s competitor). The scuba gear I’ve seen in SL so far is a little under-detailed in my opinion and I wanted something more, so I got to work on a tank, mask, fins (flexi of course), regulators and BCD (bouyancy control device, an item I have not yet seen in SL). Ideally I would make these items suitable for sale, perhaps several sizes of BCD and mask to enable more flexibility but for now I’m happy touring SL with my scuba gear on, much to the bemusement of others.
So, rambling complete for now, watch out for more later.
