ValKalAstra

Greetings! A while ago, a friend of mine and myself decided to learn Blender and create our own home together. We've had some progress, some pitfalls and made use of a lot of tutorials over the months. However we've now hit a bit of a wall with the physics model. We've created our basic house and work on a simplified physics mesh. The uploader in Firestorm complains about mesh density or degenerate triangles and then shows us which edges seem to trip it up. Cool! However the preview window is so small and fights our attempts to navigate, that we can't really see in more detail which edge it struggles with precisely, sending us on a wild goose chase. We've now looked over the physics mesh several times and... it's getting painful. So - is there a better way to check and fix the physics model? Maybe inside Blender or is there a better preview window that allows us to navigate the view, so we can actually see what's causing the issue? Thanks in advance, I don't really know how to better describe the problem. I'm usually the scripting gal

I think there's post of mine floating around somewhere what I considered my major breakthroughs but to give a quick summary, I'd say these three concepts had the most impact on my results: Depth of Field / Ambient Occlusion, Rule of Thirds, Lighting (Three point and natural/world lighting). There, found the thread: https://community.secondlife.com/forums/topic/491017-getting-started-in-sl-photography/ Looking back at my own reply, I kind of want to facepalm. Yeah I am going through cycles, haha. Now let me ponder if that is what I understand as progress. Maybe? I mostly want to make images in a style that I enjoy. For me that's usually some fantasy kitsch that looks a bit otherworldly with a touch of surreal to them. Maybe a bit painted and overly soft. Sometimes I see someone else's picture and want to learn how they did it and then try to imitate until I have learned. But really, progress is a bit the juxtaposition of old and new or how reliably I can pull off a look and idea I want. There are some on Flickr I have tried to get close to in terms of skill and it still feels like a vast gulf between them and me.

I like using all manner of tools but tend to rely on them too much. Sooner or later, there's always the point where I feel like I am no longer improving and things have stagnated. Around that time, I become really frustrated with what I have achieved. I start posting way less. In essence, usually it just means I need to stop relying on whatever latest tool I have been enjoying and then learn to do the things the tool did - but do them on my own with more control. So while the image might not be among the best I have ever made, in terms of knowledge it's a leap forward. I learned a lot more about taking pictures in high resolution (almost all of my previous images happened at 1920 resolution because of shaders, which doesn't leave me a lot of room to make edits with). Hard to put into words. Mostly "why are the shadows weird", "where did the depth of field go" and now I feel like I have got a whole field ahead of me again, feel like I can improve again instead of stagnating using the same tricks every time.

Still going strong with the beach theme over here. Decided on a different approach to taking pictures. Feel like I am not making much progress lately so I switched up my methods. https://www.flickr.com/photos/191119559@N02/53072978885/in/dateposted-public/

Gosh, that couldn't sound more dystopian could it? But it's true. I need a pair of new eyes and find myself utterly overwhelmed with the options. Something about walking into a store and finding thousands of images just hardlocks my brain. On top of that, most stores only let you demo one of the colours, not the actual colour you'd be interested in and so it's incredibly hard to find the right option. Full on analysis paralysis. Alright, first let's start with the status quo: Don't mind the mesh distortion, please. These are my current eyes, the Giselle Eyes from Euphoric. And hands down, those are perfect for me. That's the kind of detail I am looking for without going overboard on the reflection. So if they're perfect, why do I want to switch them out? Well. Let me introduce you to my personal nemesis: overly aggressive baked in shadows. If you've seen my pictures, you'll note that the eyes always look a certain, by now dull, direction and that's because so often I find a look I like, notice the shadow and then yeet and delete it to start over. I'm picky. I know. I fuss over things. I know. I've been to the usual suspects when it comes to stores: Avi Glam - Right amount of detail for me - I tried a demo after being overwhelmed and they had a baked in shadow too. Not as strong. Will likely be my "I give up" option. Ikon - I want to love them but all the demos are grey and I kind of need to know if the right colour looks right. Sequioa... something like that - Not enough details for me. Pumec - Kind of the same, I need more detail than that. And a collection of smaller ones too. I get overwhelmed in all of them. At this point I am just about ready to just start looking into how to make my own. In fact I already started and all the tutorials are from 2012 and end up 404. So this is where I ask for help. Does anyone of you know eyes that have got that amount of detail and look realistic but don't bake in that much of a shadow? If possible, I would need more precise directions than just stores because I'm getting my brain hard-locked when there's too many options on the wall. Ideally I would be able to demo them in the colour I need as I struggle to imagine it from just greyscale. I don't mind if they're BOM or Applier, both work for me and if it's important, it's a Lelutka Head.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/191119559@N02/53063271104/in/dateposted-public/ Wooo, I can finally post it. Summer time! Beach! That one texture I explicitly bought for one picture!

Boy, so I was unable to look at the opening screenshot and did not expect THOSE kind of maze platforms like Orwar posted in reply. I was thinking someone wanted some floating sky platform island mazes. Yah. I'll see myself out. No worries. 🤦‍♀️

Gosh that was me, when I had to make the switch from the buggy Genus Head to Lelutka. It took a while before it started feeling right again. In my case, my avatar is made in my image. I went a bit silly and even used an image for the proportions, which also felt weird at first, because it's only an approximation and because so many others have much shorter arms that I feel like an alien. Even though arms do go that long. A lot of people need some Loomis in their lives! Anyways, when did it start feeling like my look? That's hard to say. Imagine a pendulum. Make it swing and watch as each swing is less strong than the one before. That's me. Even nowadays I'm still making tweaks but they're becoming rarer. Early swings were more extreme changes where everything was in flux. Now it's just details like better eyes (my old ones have got an ugly shadow I always notice in pictures). So by this point in time I can say it reasonably feels like me. Depending on my mood, sometimes a classy librarian look with long hair, other times cheeky tomboy with short hair and boyish clothes.

I've just had one of the weirdest experiences lately. I was listening to the soundtrack for the old Anime Movie "Vampire Hunter D : Bloodlust" and just as a new song came up, I strolled into a drama thread about some dating stuff and the song just lined up perfectly with the cadence of posts. A thread gone wrong should not sound that epic.

Haah. After the third day of being unable to find someone for a collaboration, I decided to just sit down and do something else for a change. Tried my hand at Black and White and realised that both of my monitors are calibrated wrong https://www.flickr.com/photos/191119559@N02/53042913152/in/dateposted-public/

Not sure my suggestion will be of help if the Izzie ones don't offer enough coverage. Still, here's my Avatar using Glam Affair skins. To name: It's Glam Affair - Rose with a matching body skin also from Glam Affair - that comes with an included Freckles Addon so the entire body is covered. The body i can't post here because... nudity - but I'd suggest trying the Glam Affair ones.

I've pondered the question about achievements since decades ago when they popped up in gaming. I still don't understand it and have since learned that there are people, that "farm" achievements by buying *****ty one dollar games with easy achievements to inflate their achievement score on their profile and I have learned that people absolutely riot if something has got unattainable achievements that break their 100% score and... Achievements be weird.

Personally and without seeking to step on any toes, I'm very wary of fandoms. There's nothing wrong with liking something but when that something becomes part of the identity, there's potential for some pretty gnarly behaviour. Doesn't matter whether it's SL or RL. Like say, the worst days of the year for me are when the Basel Soccer Club is in town, because the streets will reek of piss, alcohol and loud men (predominantly) will rampage through the streets as a horde of assholes, growling, howling, vandalizing, committing arson, littering, wolf whistling at anything feminine and throwing beer cans when I or others don't flash them parts of our bodies. Fun times or should i say, fan times? And let's not get into entire groups unironically calling themselves Stans (like don't they realise it's from an Eminem song about a mentally ill fan that kills his family?). In online discussions then, it's pretty hard to discern whether someone just likes something and is a fan or if they've reached the identity part of liking something. It's tiring and draining to talk and discuss with someone that is at that level of infatuation. It's when any negatives of something are taken as slights against someone and criticism is met with outright aggression. That's where it turns negative for me. This all comes to a head if someone with a particularly negative impression enters a community where there are one or two fans that are in a bit too deep. Let's call these the "haters". They're so angry with something, that it becomes part of their identity to hate it. We've all seen that kind of vent and rant thread pop up. Suddenly we've got someone that is so negative, that the result can't help but poke those to whom negativity is a personal affront. The two extremes quickly go at it. Others try to chime in and get caught in random sideblasts, "friendly" fire, it's a whole mess, quickly escalating and this is then made worse by other forum users trying to intentionally derail it for the giggles or politicals until moderators need to step in and lock it down. Genuinely: It's just so ****ing unproductive. So here's what I do: The second I notice someone is ranting and venting, I try to be empathetic - we all need a shoulder sometimes. But once they start flinging fanboy, white knight and shill, I just pull back. There's nothing to be gained from there anymore. Likewise when I see perfectly reasonable criticism be met with curious amounts of hostility, I assume someone in too deep is at work and pull back too. Nothing to be gained there either. It just ain't worth. They're never going to be convinced and it'll only escalate into a mess and I'm too tired to waltz into them. It brings out my cynical, snide and ugly side and I don't want that. /edit: I had to go back and edit the post. Did the word filter get more aggressive lately? I swear i was able to write some of these words before.

I second this. I have long been looking for a decent cat avatar. The TWI Wildcat Avi is adorable, has got cool animations and you can customize it quite a bit. And now I can occasionally be seen dashing around the grid as a little purple cat with a fur made out of stars. Because why not.

Too many bird puns pushed that out of cultural use!

A friend of mine, usually a kind soul, has got a knack for the most backhanded compliments. The best part is that it comes from a genuine desire to be kind. For example, the other day I was just trying my hand at a butterfly hair brouche in Blender. I spent a few hours on it and wanted to share my progress with her. Result: "Awww, it was a nice idea!" Youch! Or I was taking a fancy picture that took a lot of work and usually she's pretty excitable about these, a shared passion. This time: "Oh! You tried something new!" Aaaaaand? No and. Youch. The quintessential you tried reply.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/191119559@N02/53033350592/in/dateposted-public/

Great, you've just unlocked a whole new fear for me!

It does? When I accidentally double-clicked my "Bought Clothes" Folder, it kept going up to the attachment limit and just as I was celebrating - the second I took something off, a new item popped in. And another. And another. And another. It absolutely insisted on going through the entire damn list, through relog, through switching outfits, anything. But yah, it's one of those mistakes one only makes once.

That's such a difficult question and perhaps somewhat embarrassingly to my profession too - I lack the proper words to explain it. What did it evoke? Calm? Ya, mostly calm. It was a reset of the mind. Something that kicked my emotional state back out of shock. It was just this sensation of "it's okay. shhh, it's... okay".

/edit: I always found that image kind of funny. Weeds are amazing! But I can't say I have received these sort of spiritual messages out of SL, although sometimes when scripting something, I'm questioning my life choices. I'm not very spiritual in general and that's kinda funny because I jokingly claim to haunt people in their sleep as the cosmic mistress of dreams. Just an old joke no one gets anymore from a role play ages past. The one time it got spiritual was after a close call early this year. I got out of the hospital. Sat down on a bench late at night and just sat there for an hour thinking nothing, feeling nothing, just my mind going blank. Which to me is unheard of as it's always busy up in there and it felt spiritual in a way. So much suddenly felt meaningless while other parts became more important.

Genuine answer: I forgot and in case I do, there's always some guy enthusiastically reminding me by asking about feet pics.

To give an alternative perspective from the dreaded land of games: Cash shops for customization are the unholy grail of making bank. People pay thousands to buy their dream soccer team or to get their upgraded S-Tier "Big Boobs Anime Girl". Customization and Self-Expression, aka playing Barbie, is something important to a lot of people. Heck it's important enough that the big spenders are non ironically dubbed whales and the industry hunts for them.

Oh, been a while since I saw one of your pictures. Looking lovely! Mind telling me which dress that is?

I think you were at Shop and Hop with that too, aye? Gave us a good chuckle! --- Over here, I was feeling a bit cheeky. https://www.flickr.com/photos/191119559@N02/53013120119