Green and Wild Garden Centre- Second Life

Mesh and Prim Equivalents

2011-09-03T05:02:00.000-07:00

Thought I'd make a mesh, turn it into a sculpt and also upload it as a mesh and see what difference, if any, there was. They are both exactly the same sized object, 5x5x10. The first image is the mesh, the second the sculpt.The sculpted tree trunk is just one prim of course...I bet you can't guess how many prims the mesh PE is ? It comes out as 45 at that size. I was horrified ! What if I'd made a whole tree with branches and leaves etc ????? How much would the PE for that be ? What is the point of making mesh that's so expensive in PE costs that noone will want it ? Of course I could always wear the tree, then it wouldn't matter how many prims it was.

Rebirth, Mesh and Stuff

2011-07-04T04:35:00.000-07:00

Green and Wild Garden Centre is alive and kicking after major upheavals in both Second Life and Inworldz.

In InWorldz I'm renting a quarter sim, so a new small but perfectly formed garden centre can be found there. There's a shop platform above the island and another with copy versions of the trees. You can find it on Neptune.

In Second Life I have moved to two homesteads. Providence Isle has the new main shop and Hill Radnor has the Melancholia, Winter, Pines and Ruins, and Fantasy plants platforms. I've been taking some pics in the main shop using SL's viewer 2 so I can get shadows. I have updated a lot of the plants, making them lower prim and I am now working on maximising the visual effects for the plants using the new viewer. Mesh's imminent arrival is also hovering in the background of my attention, and I shall be making some more prototypes soon. I can put some of my attention to that now.

Visit Green and Wild Garden Centre in Second Life

Meanwhile I am hoping that Rod Humble, Linden Labs CEO, is really going to walk the talk as they say. He's been saying that Second Life is a virtual world for creators and creativity. This is how I've always enjoyed it. It doesn't matter if you don't actually create objects, by arranging your home or your garden or your appearance just the way you want it, you are expressing your creativity.

But the possibility of creating your own objects is what made me such a fan of Second Life. I hope that introducing mesh isn't going to make that too difficult for the majority. Creation with prims makes for a level playing field, as nearly everyone can make something. Sculpties are a bit more difficult, there are many tools that make them easier to make, nevertheless they have narrowed down the creativity to those who can learn how to make them. Mesh is another ball game altogether. It really isn't easy. And it makes creativity possible only for those with the time and the inclination to learn a whole new set of rules.

Lots of people are excited by mesh, but most people don't really even understand fully what it is. I am divided. I can see the possibilities, it could make for extraordinary builds. And in any case I think it's the way things are going, so in the end we will all be using it whether we like it or not. I will be sad if it means the loss easy of creation with prims. But it does leave a wide open field for those of a technical mind to make easy mesh creation tools for those of us who find the technology daunting. Only time will tell...

The Kindness of Strangers

2011-01-12T07:24:00.000-08:00

Just when life feels hard, and things all seem to be going pear-shaped, something amazing turns up out of the blue.

A benefactor has decided to buy my Inworldz island and let me have the shop on it again, rent free, no strings attached. I am so pleased. Firstly because although Inworldz is small, it's growing all the time and more and more people are telling me in Second Life that they are moving there. Secondly I had grown quite fond of having a presence in IWz, and thirdly I did a lot of work creating stock for IWz and it's a shame not to be able to do something with it.

So Green and Wild will be there, on a full sized sim again soon. All thanks to the generosity of a stranger who likes my work enough to enable me to stay. I am stunned by it really. Thank you !

Changes for Green and Wild

2011-01-03T03:59:00.000-08:00

Well, 2011 brings with it lots of hard decisions. Second Life has made it hard for me to continue supporting two sims for my business there. Before the silly changes in Search, I was ranked about 4 or 5 when "Garden Centre" was typed in. Now I'm pages and pages down the list. What with that and the recession I'm not making as many sales, so I need to get rid of Green and Wilder, my homestead sim and see if I can then support the one island left, Green and Wild. I'm also going to leave InWorldz. Somewhat reluctantly as I enjoyed myself there. But it seems to be a community saturated with creators and therefore less easy to make any money there. I would stay if I managed to cover costs but I'm not even doing that, so that's going to have to go.

Lest you think me a whingey whiner. Let me say that although these things are sad, they are also perhaps necessary for an inspirational renewal. I have recently installed an opensim island hosted on my computer, so I have workshop space there. Thus making it easier to relinquish my second island in Second Life. It's also exciting as it's private, I can be extremely experimental, and that's what I want because I want to make images from my creations. Perhaps even illustrate a book, who knows. In any case it's making me feel all fresh and new !

The second new thing, is that I'm renewing my interest in Opensim in another way. I have ordered a sim on Jokaydiagrid. I like the people there and it's time to explore what the Opensim worlds have to offer me. Inworldz is a safe environment, Opensim far more scary. After all, some of my work has been pirated there, but nevertheless it's pioneering, experimental and much more interesting and stimulating for an artist. I need to think outside of the box of Second Life to see how I can earn a living from my skills.

Pathfinder Lester, who has become a new influence on my thinking about virtual worlds, has written an extremely thought provoking post on how he thinks creators will interact with virtual worlds.

http://becunningandfulloftricks.com/2010/12/31/my-prediction-for-virtual-worlds-in-2011/

"The most important things in life are not things. And in a similar fashion, the most important things in virtual worlds are not the objects you’ve created or the code you’re written. And while you may have gained many specific skills with different technological tools, those learned skills are also incidental.

To use an artistic metaphor, it’s not about how well you’ve learned to hold different sized brushes or how deftly you can mix paints. It’s about how you’ve learned to create beautiful works of art that seize the imagination. That wisdom goes beyond any specific tools. And that kind of wisdom is eminently portable to any new tools you happen to pick up in the future.

What matters most is the wise hand that wields the tool and the community of other wise hands that can work together." Pathfinder Lester

Wise words indeed. I've definitely been too fixated on my creations, my precious creations, but he's right. It's the skills that I have, and the ones I had before Second Life, which are what makes the quality of the work I make. No one can take those away from me, and maybe it's those skills that can be traded upon increasingly.

In any case, I no longer see the point of separating Real Life with virtual world life.I am an artist and virtual worlds are one of my many canvasses. therefore I will use my real life name from now on, as well as my virtual identity. We are one and the same after all.

Happy New year !

Michèle Brown / Marmottina Taurog

Winter Time...

2010-12-11T09:50:00.001-08:00

What with having been cut off from the internet for a month and one thing and another, I haven't had much time to do anything to this blog.I've just been catching up with stuff in the garden centres. So of course, it being that time of the year I've been making Winter gardens both in Second Life and Inworldz. Lovely to be able to do that from the warmth of one's own home, no freezing fingers for me !

Typing Green and Wild into the map, either in SL or IW will take you to the gardens where you can buy plants and trees and rocks for all seasons. If you're in SL it's worth visiting the garden, it's probably the best Winter island I've made, the cumulation of 3 years of making plants for this time of year...

Visit Green and Wild Garden Centre in Second Life

Green and Wild Autumn Garden - and Viewers

2010-08-24T05:57:00.001-07:00

Green and Wild Autumn Garden, originally uploaded by Green and Wild.

I've been building a new Autumn garden in Second life, as usual, having new land as I do inWorldz, has spurred me on to more creativity in SL as well !

The shadow effects with Kirsten's viewer as amazing, although I can't run it on my mac, and I can only do stills on my laptop PC, but it's still amazing...Makes me want a huge quad core mac now, with all the bells and whistles and so on...There really seems no end to having to upgrade technology...I can't keep buying new machines. I need to win the lottery ! ( I suppose I'd have to do it first...)

Anyway, the old Emerald viewer debacle spurred me on to give some others a try, I never did use Emerald, but I tried impudence in IW and it worked much faster than the official IW mac viewer, so then I had to try Kirstens and I was surprised to get the shadows at all given that my PC is not an ultra high performance beast by any means...

Reasons to be cheerful ???

2010-08-17T03:49:00.000-07:00

First of all, thanks to all who commented on my last post...silly billy that I am, I didn't realise I needed to moderate them before they could be seen !I'm really quite a newbie when it comes to this blogging business.

I watched with keen interest what happened at SLCC at the weekend. What impression I'm left with is absolutely not knowing what is actually happening any more. I was in turn reassured by Phillip Rosedale's speech, and then put off again by some of the reactions to it. I feel like I'm blowing in the winds of a big storm...(so yes "Snowstorm" is a good name !) I need a bit of stability for a while, it would make life a lot easier. But hey, change can also lead to better things...

What I love about Second Life is the making of things, the creativity, I love what I do and would really miss it...so like a lot of others, I invested in inworldz last week.I got a new island (called Green and Wild of course !)and I'm rebuilding in there. I'm not giving up on SL,it provides me with a much needed income and I still feel a great deal of affection for the place,but what a difference in IW. It feels fun like the old days of sl, it's frustrating sometimes when it keeps crashing as I'm uploading texture after texture, but it's fresh and new and exciting as well.

Inworldz seems to have a good policy for content creators too. It feels relatively secure.So you'll find me over there a lot of the time...plus I rediscovered the fun of being a tiny (hehe)...via an alt of course, as I'm far too serious and grown up to do such a thing myself ! (clears throat rapidly)

And then I discovered again what happens when you go somewhere and start innovating and creating afresh, I am getting new ideas which can feed into second life as well...so it's a win win situation.

So reasons to be cheerful ? Well I'm having a bit of fun in IW, and well as for SL I will wait and see. I want it to work so much. And I would like this wretched viewer 2 to be usable for me. Maybe they will make it so (ref to my hero, Capn' Pickard...)

Sad about what's going on in Second Life

2010-07-29T03:38:00.000-07:00

I decided I need to start blogging about what's going on in Second Life at the moment and how I feel about it. On twitter all I seem to hear is negative, how SL is running things badly, how the company is falling apart, how soon it will be before its demise, and so on ad infinitum. It's as if all these naysayers actually WANT SL to fail. Well I don't.

Second Life has been a real life saver for me, and has provided me with a way of making money from home that I absolutely love. I'm disabled and can't do a normal job away from the home. It took me by complete surprise when I discovered how magical SL is. And that I could actually make some money too was a totally unexpected bonus. I don't really care about the social side of SL, but I love the creativity and the exciting possibilities it offers.I would like it to continue so I can learn more, create more and yes, carry on earning.

I've been the recipient of bad customer sevice from SL as most people have been. Not so much from Live chat, as they are always kind and polite, but also they don't seem to have any teeth.But the ticket system is appalling. It takes weeks to get any answer, and then the answer is totally unsatisfactory. I sent a ticket in about the broken search and how it was (and is) affecting me, and they basically told me that search is broken. That wasn't exactly helpful.

As for viewer 2, well it's complete rubbish for creators. I won't use it. And I really don't understand why SL are carrying on with it, throwing good money after bad as someone else's blog put it.

What is seems to me is that Linden Labs is very BAD at listening to what its customers want. They tell us all about so-called improvements, well get the basics right and then bring in the technical innovation. SL is a wonderful place, but by riding roughshod over its residents all the time, it is creating its own nemesis.

So, although its very unlikely that LL is going to read this, if one of you does, please listen to us. We are the ones who create the world for you, we are the ones that love it, and we are the ones WHO ARE PAYING YOUR SALARIES. Make a few moves towards us and we will reward you with loyalty. And I for one really hope that Second life can have a second chance.

Green and Wilder goes Tropical

2010-01-04T09:46:00.001-08:00

Green and Wilder goes Tropical, originally uploaded by Green and Wild.

Fed up with cold and Wintry scenes, I decided to create a tropical garden on Green and Wilder. It's still under construction but I'm really enjoying doing something completely different from winter wonderlands ! I could do with a bit of tropical sunshine myself !

Green and Wild Winter Garden

2009-11-10T10:20:00.001-08:00

Green and Wild Winter Garden, originally uploaded by Green and Wild.

I've spent the last week or so building my Winter Garden on Green and Wild in Second Life. It's not totally finished as I will no doubt be tinkering away with new plants for it for a while, but it's certainly visitable !

New Pine Forest on Green and Wild

2009-10-22T05:43:00.001-07:00

New Pine Forest on Green and Wild, originally uploaded by Green and Wild.

I set myself the challenge of making a pine forest up on a sky platform. I wanted to make the ground bumpy and walkable and make it look as natural as I could.

at night

Green and Wild on Reaction Grid - evening views

2009-10-10T11:34:00.001-07:00

Green and Wild on Reaction Grid - evening vues, originally uploaded by Green and Wild.

I've done a lot of work landscaping the Core Islands on Reaction Grid, now I need to get back to working on my own islands there. These are evening views of Green and Wild. It's not finished yet but I will chip away at it bit by bit...

Winter on Reaction Grid

2009-10-07T03:15:00.001-07:00

Winter on Reaction Grid, originally uploaded by Green and Wild.

I'm creating a Winter Landscape on Reaction grid to help me with the design of the Winter Garden at Green and Wild in Second Life. I like the textures I'm using for the terrain, and now I need to make a whole lot of trees and so on, improvements on last year's efforts !

StepUP for Content Creators in Second Life

2009-10-05T07:35:00.001-07:00

StepUP for Content Creators in Second Life, originally uploaded by Green and Wild.

A campaign well-worth having a good look at if you are a content creator in Second Life.

Those of us who create original work, that's about 30% of the population, are horrified by the way others are taking advantage of and profiting by our skills by stealing our content and either giving it away or selling it at ridiculously low prices. Please if you see work that you suspect has been stolen, then take a snap, note the LM and let the original designer know. (If you can). Some of us, me included, rely on our sl income. In my case I have a disability which prevents me from working out of my home, and I am sure that there are many others in my situation. Loss of this income through theft would leave me in a very difficult financial position. I would probably have to abandon Second Life altogether, and so would many others. We don't want Second life creators to stop creating. Creativity is the lifeblood of Second Life , without it the virtual world would be very boring. Please support this campaign, more info from :

http://stepupsl.wordpress.com/

Green and Wild and Green and Wilder

2009-09-29T03:55:00.001-07:00

Green and Wild and Green and Wilder, originally uploaded by Green and Wild.

My two sims on Reaction Grid are currently being done up as landscaping showcases. Good news is that soon I will be able to sell from Reaction Grid as well !

Firesprites

2009-09-23T08:57:00.001-07:00

Firesprites, originally uploaded by Green and Wild.

I've been using my sim on Reaction Grid as an experimental photo studio. Here's one of the results. Can't really set fire to the Garden Centre, so on RGrid I can play without feeling any restrictions !

Fields of Wheat

2009-09-21T06:12:00.001-07:00

Fields of Wheat, originally uploaded by Green and Wild.

I had a load of fun creating vast fields of wheat and poppies on both Reaction grid and Second life. Everything you can see in the images is available from the garden centre, although I had to remove it from Second Life. I am still tinkering with it on reaction grid though.

G&W Femto PhotoHUD

2009-09-15T03:59:00.001-07:00

G&W Femto PhotoHUD, originally uploaded by Green and Wild.

The new photoHUD developed by myself and my scriptwizard, Shorahmin Femto, is now available at the gallery shop on Green and Wild island.

It's a three layer photographic filter system which allows you to choose textures on each three layers, change their colour and size, and even animate some of them ! You can simulate rain, and fog and snow as well as use more conventional filter techniques. Put frames around images and so on. And of course you can film machinima wearing the HUD as well.

Skyislands with skycastle

2009-09-01T02:10:00.001-07:00

Skyislands with skycastle, originally uploaded by Green and Wild.

I've been working hard on these sky islands, however I do it I always get flustered by using the rez-faux system. Don't get me wrong, it works really well and I like it, but I get flustered at the anticipation of using it. When I'm actually working on it, it's fine. I do like this sky island idea. I'm going to make smaller ones soon and more different links like the bridge.

A little experiment !

2009-08-21T07:22:00.001-07:00

Green and Wild in reaction Grid

2009-08-19T04:43:00.001-07:00

Green and Wild in reaction Grid, originally uploaded by Green and Wild.

Another movie experiment, this time in reaction grid.

I'm also making a picture taking HUD with a variety of filters, it's an experiment and it will be up and running very soon !

Green and Wilder seascape

2009-08-19T03:42:00.001-07:00

Green and Wilder seascape, originally uploaded by Green and Wild.

yay movement !!!! Just starting to play with machinima. How exciting !

Green and Wild Golden series

2009-08-18T11:45:00.001-07:00

Green and Wild Golden series, originally uploaded by Green and Wild.

I've been taking more snaps with Am Radio's miracle HUD. It's great fun. I must see if I can generate one for myself using my own textures and stuff.

I made lots of new plants today, but got carried away with the HUD and haven't made any images yet !

A lot of this material will be on show and for sale in the Green and Wild Garden Gallery which is coming soon. I will keep you updated !

Green and Wild Autumn garden

2009-08-15T08:53:00.001-07:00

Green and Wild Autumn garden, originally uploaded by Green and Wild.

Playing about in the garden today taking snaps with Am Radio"s "Miracle HUD". It's a really fun tool for making images in Second Life.These pics are unretouched as I fiddled about in Windlight and made some weird new settings. All I did was crop them.

Green and Wild On Reaction Grid

2009-08-14T11:53:00.001-07:00

Green and Wild On Reaction Grid, originally uploaded by Green and Wild.

I've been playing about with all the windlight settings I can find and making lots of images of my island on Reaction Grid !

It's fun to create stuff without the worrying about prim numbers too much and being able to make things any size I want !

panda at the gatehouse

2009-08-12T07:18:00.001-07:00

panda at the gatehouse, originally uploaded by Green and Wild.

Well I've been a panda since saturday and I must say I'm rather enjoying it ! Made by extrovirtual, it's great !

Today I've been building some gothic follies for your gardens !

There also a photographic competition on at Green and Wild for the next few weeks. take pictures of my autumn garden and you can win free G&W plants. For details look at this Flickr page
or go to the shop and get the notecard !

Green and Wild Island on Reaction Grid

2009-08-09T11:40:00.001-07:00

Green and Wild Island on reaction Grid, originally uploaded by Green and Wild.

I've been playing around in Reaction Grid after uploading loads of textures and plants today. It's great having the possibility of using so many prims on there ! And not worrying about having enough for the shop and so on. It isn't finished yet, but I'm beginning to get a sense of the possibilities of building on RGrid.

Green and Wild Autumn Garden

2009-08-03T08:32:00.001-07:00

Green and Wild Autumn Garden, originally uploaded by Green and Wild.

The new garden is up and running, not quite finished, I'm sure I will carry on tinkering for quite some time !

Visit Green and Wild Garden in Second Life

G&W Autumn Garden Aug 2009

2009-08-03T01:10:00.001-07:00

G&W Autumn Garden Aug 2009, originally uploaded by Green and Wild.

Just another little update pic of the new garden. It's taking a while to make as I'm constantly thinking of new plants to make and so on. It's like to to be a work in progress for a while, but I will open it soon. Nothing like having a bit of a real landscaping project to get the creative ideas going !

New Green and Wild Garden under construction

2009-08-02T03:31:00.001-07:00

New Green and Wild Garden under construction, originally uploaded by Green and Wild.

A little teaser showing a little of what is happening under the shop. The new garden will feature loads of new trees and flowers with a slightly autumnal feel.

small tropical island - sim extension

2009-07-27T08:05:00.001-07:00

small tropical island - sim extension, originally uploaded by Green and Wild.

Sim extensions allow you to have rocks and so on outside of your sim boundaries, as long as the root (yellow) prim is on the land. You can even sit on them on poseballs, thus creating the illusion of having a lot more land than you really have !

I had fun making these, the only limits as far as I can see are the linking distances.

Here's the second island, a pine one this time, I took a couple of snaps in the rain and snow too !

gothic fountain

2009-07-16T06:50:00.001-07:00

gothic fountain, originally uploaded by Green and Wild.

Well here at last is a new blog entry. I was really busy building last week, this week has been a bit slower, but mainly because I'm experimenting with a whole new series of particle effects for water, including waves, and mist and so on. This little mad gothic inspired fountain is one of the first results of playing with the new effects.

Oh and the plants in the background are new too !

oak trees and mossy rock waterfall

2009-07-09T03:30:00.001-07:00

oak trees and mossy rock waterfall_019, originally uploaded by Green and Wild.

I made a new waterfall rock with some little oak trees on it. Then I had good fun experimenting with taking various snaps in different conditions and lighting and so on...I do love Windlight !

Here's a little image of the waterfall from different angles on its own, and me so you can see the size ! It's quite hard to judge scale in second life, you need to see things next to your av I think.

Green and Wilder rock arch in the rain

2009-07-07T05:19:00.001-07:00

Green and Wilder rock arch in the rain, originally uploaded by Green and Wild.

I've been playing in zbrush this morning, making a rock or two and then transformed them into a rock arch. It can be used as a sim extension and sat on as well as being a normal rock. I must say I got all excited at the thought that sim extensions can be sat on, so you can actually have your avatar sitting off the sim and looking back at the land.

The creative possibilities in second life really are amazing...

midsummer garden echinacea - Green and Wild Garden Centre, Second Life

2009-07-06T10:23:00.001-07:00

midsummer garden echinacea - Green and Wild Garden Centre, Second Life, originally uploaded by Green and Wild.

Image from the Midsummer Garden currently on the ground at Green and Wild. It's full of Fairytale and Cornish flowers. A nice place to go and relax ! :-)

New Green and Wilder Island

2009-07-06T07:39:00.001-07:00

Green and Wild has just expanded to include a new sim. On the main shop platform you can see that the ruins and pines as well as the Winter trees have moved to Green and Wilder next door. On the rocks level, there is a lot more room and the texture changing rocks have gone to Green and Wilder.

Having more space means you can see more of my products more easily. I had to put away a lot of stuff before as I didn't have room to move. Sim crossings can be tricky though, so fly over them slowly.

Oh and the ground level of Green and Wilder has a nice sea island with a pier where you can use your 7seas fishing rod and take a bit of time out !