Le poisson du jour : Homebase in SL & Machinimation

Good Kitty

Credits : This gorgeous fur coat comes from COCO and is out in Shiny Shabby at the moment.

(Bastet Head from Pixicat (Gacha Prize) together with TSG Good Kitty Collar and KC Shoes)

Bear with me :-)

I'm always finding something new to learn about blogging so this is kind of an elaboration on some of the things I've experimented with.

It's not always easy to blog about a piece of furniture from a practical point of view ie. how is it to use? I think the SL Grid and furniture makers are divided on this point.

On the one you have makers that excel in design and so the furniture looks great but isn't particularly full of animations that can be considered " Useful" in your Second Life experience.

On the other you have makers that excel in imagination but not execution. So perhaps their furniture looks less "chic" but is irrelevant to you from a role-playing/living point of view.

Then of course you have the few who are good at both - but this also comes with a price tag outside what you might be willing to invest in $L for.

Sometimes I live a little in both worlds in my SL experience ie. The highly aesthetic, "glam" world of art and design - and the more "I can imagine this cardboard box is a castle" world inhabited by people who play.

Somewhere in the middle perhaps is where we might find Homebase Furniture.

Coincidentally Homebase in the UK is the brand of a DIY/Sundries/Garden Centre chainstore.

This Lap dance chair from Homebase SL has a pretty worn and simple aesthetic. The shop does not, at this time of blogging , have a comprehensive presence on MP and any information I have managed to glean about them has been hard won! They have a facebook page  and an in world store which is interesting but slightly chaotic to navigate in. That's ok :) my brain is quite like that myself.

Made in 100%  Mesh, the chair comes in Black or Red and is scripted with AV Sitter to seat two persons without the need for messing around with poseballs. The two sitting arrangements can also work independently, with some single sits to choose from if you are in the chair, and a variety of dances to play with; if you are the entertainment. The chair I have featured here is described as Red but depending on your windlight settings, it can appear closer to being a sort of Russet brown.

There are not many simple casual poses in this piece as it dives straight into the action with a menu for Lap Dancing/Slave Dancing and Sex

To better illustrate the sort of animations you might find in the chair,

I've made this little machinima!

It's really quite a fun little thing and I hope it gives you a little tease. <3

It isn't too hefty land impact wise at a relatively slim 4LI with Copy Mod permissions. I can see this being quite good at clubs.

For the price which is $L250 it won't break the bank and the animations are mo cap. Also being scripted with AV Sitter means you can adjust and save your personal settings if you do not quite fit the animations in its default.

Homebase SL is part of the MFGC network of merchants across the grid.

The Art Fish : Antony Gormley

Watched a really good documentary the night before on this artist and wanted to write a few things down about it for my own memory's sake. I find his work very compelling and the film quite inspiring as it spans a lifetimes' exploration on the idea of how a body and a body's sentience occupies a space. Gormley has in his latest works, moved into an abstraction of this interpretation from the figurative object; to the figurative translated into a space that makes the occupier the object.

The documentary brought up some really great quotables that have stuck in my mind with regards to context of work and how one informs the other. A segment (≈ 37:30) sees Gormley installing a new work on Lundy island for the Landmark Trust, where he says quite poignantly

" This bit of headlands has been here hundreds of thousands of years and now it's got a foreign object on it..."
" It's got to have that sense of it being, in a way, an irritation - but then at the same time , it's got to own its place" 

and most notably :

"... The test of a well sited work is, during the time that it's there you can't think of the place without the object or the object without the place"

The world of SL is on one level a sculptural landscape in which everything that exists within its "space" is hewn from the mathematics of 1's and 0's and yet its physicality is only "felt" in a visual way. For me, this is where the idea of how this visual space may in theory be ported into tactile reality via printing, is an intriguing and worthy notation for further exploration.

What is virtual also sits in that uncomfortable space of ephemerality. I think as humans we take comfort in constants and mark making that it is hard to grapple with the transient. In this, the world of words, images and digitized information is the strange frontier; yet how human is it to still be asking the same questions today that still echo those questions asked before...

New Scientist (What is reality)

Cogito ergo sum (I think, therefore I am)

The Darkfish : **** **** (18.01.2012)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2012/jan/17/stop-sopa-or-web-will-go-dark

The Artfish : Good Morning .. or is it?

Good Morning - by Dita

D of Ourfish is really having a creative spurt on Flickr and is still exploring the phenomena of pile ups as the digital equivalent of the found object as a medium. The original for this idea is by Carmy Mirabeau and can be found here

D always finds it slightly odd to talk about her own work and thinks that how an image is to be interpreted is something that should remain open. 

" In the broadest sense, I find it interesting to create work in a medium that is fickle and frivolous - Using that background as a canvas seems appropriate commentary for the age."

Some more distinct art references as follows :

Landscape_XV  -HR Giger

Painted Plaster Mask - Rene Magritte

Pierre Gobert [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

The Kissingfish : Second Love

"Only girl"(in the world) - Rihanna

Is virtual love any less real?

The closing of the day marks the passage of exactly 365 days from when D met A and became digitally smitten.

D's never been comfortable with long treatises about her really personal feelings so there won't be any huge declarations or testaments here. Still, it seemed somehow appropriate for D to try and capture the ephemeral moment, if not in words then in the following and the borrowed words of some other:

"We found love" (in a hopeless place) - Rihanna

Yellow diamonds in the light 

And we're standing side by side

As your shadow crosses mine 

What it takes to come alive

" You da one" - Rihanna

And Yes I'm kinda crazy, 

That's what happens baby, 

When you put it down 

You shouldn't give it to me 

Good like that, 

Shouldn't hit it like that, 

Had me yellin' like that 

Didn't know you would've had me coming back

The Fish Tale :Toy Story ( Also Titled 'If you love someone don't set them free')

1. Introducing Dita Doll

Once upon a time there was a much treasured pale,precious doll that lived mostly in a glass case.

2.The Case Gets Broken

One day, quite by accident - the maid tipped the glass case over whilst dusting…

3.Dita Doll Enters The Big Bad World

Discovering that the magical enclosure she had once lived in was broken, Dita Doll stood up…

4.Dita Doll Lost A Contact Lens

The world seemed vast in comparison to the gilded cage in which she had been given a home….

5.Dita Doll Peers Over The Shelf

Dita Doll peers into the abyss that is the floor below so seemingly vast and endless…

6.Dita Doll Is Broken

Unused to being without the protection of her enclosure, Dita Doll is overwhelmed…

 

The End.

 

What do you do with a bunch of hunt trinkets, a kitchier than kitch efelump, a TDR steal and a dolly case? Well if you're D - it's story time of course!




Credits : 

A Toy Story Starring  Dita Doll, Elly Phant and Big Circus Ball.

Dita Doll 

is

Modal Shaped by Dita's Diabolique

[sYs] DOLL Skin

Poetic Colors - Autumn Moon (Freebie Eyes)

Wears 

Steam Bound Drosselmeyer Doll (Steam Hunt Prize)

D!va Hair 'Diva' Mercury (Diamond Is Mine Hunt Prize)

Poses

Using Animare 

with TeaSoup - Emotional Set

Props

Youmeshoujo Elephant

Ballerina Doll Case by Clarissa Milena  

The Artfish : Forgive and forget (Tempus Fugit)

ORIGINAL IMAGE capture by Cecelia Levee.  This photo was edited for the SL Picture•Pile•Ups group.

In making art, D is always shadowed by a sense of futility ie. "Does anyone get what I am trying to say" and " Is what I am saying, worth saying at all…" It's quite an interesting state of ennui, which D likens to being like purgatory for attention seekers.

Beauty (and art) is in the eye of the beholder - so here in the continuance of this blah is all about why D made it this way. 

However, for arts' sake this image should be regarded just like song lyrics.

Sing how you like and what sounds good in your ear even if the original song writing does not really contain your lyrics. 

What you think it says or more so.. what it says to you is always tons better!

D's Artistic Statement

In my off-line work, I've always found an affinity for working with found objects and my interests in the creative process had long since moved off canvas. Thus coming across flickr 'pile-ups' is very tantalising for its virtual equivalence.

I've always been fascinated by the idea of a containment of and for 'art' as well as for visual language. 

This piece embodies my pet subjects on many different levels in terms of the history of its origins as a question about reality, continuity and decay.

The Discoveryfish : Pile Ups

Ourfish is new to the world of flickr, and D came across this fascinating thing to do on it. Called a pile-up, (not a pile-on as F so kindly points out)

Cue music :

It's like a round-robin of image-connivance where an original author puts up a work to start. Someone-else adds or subtracts things from that image and the idea is that this continues ad infinitum... And the original pic

By Kota Buck

Which struck D as being almost as elfin like as the Icelandic pop princess.
Thus resulting in this pile-up and image-agitation.

"Seed"

Which came first? The video or the imagery? Actually,after playing around a bit with the original image D found herself seizing on the seed like danglys of the model's earrings - and the idea (pun intended) just grew from there. The video though similar, was added only as an afterthought.

The Artfish : Swan Lake

The nice thing about Second Life is that it is an instantly accessible medium for creating visual imagery. Today, D decided to interpret Swan Lake. Swan Lake as we know it, has its origins as a Russian composition (1875 - 1876 according to Wiki) by Pyotr Tchaicovsky for the Bolshoi Ballet.

It is a tragedy that centres around two women whose features are so alike, they are mistaken for the other. Princess Odette is enchanted by the evil Sorcerer,Von Rothbart - and cursed to live out her days as a swan. She inhabits a lake that was magically formed by the tears of her grief struck mother.
Together with her companions, who are also cursed alongside her, Odette is only able to regain her human form at night. The enchantment can only end with the power of a vow of true love; however if such a vow were alas to be broken, then Odette would be twice cursed to remain forever a swan.

Odile, the black swan, is the rival of Odette

One day, a young Prince Siegfried happens to venture deep within the forrest, coming across a beautiful swan that he first intends to shoot at with his new cross bow - when low and behold the swan transforms into the peerless Princess Odette. So moved by her beauty and story is he that he offers to take her for his queen - inviting her to the castle ball so that they may marry. They dance the night away together falling deeper in love till the dawn breaks and Odette is once more forced to resume her swan form.

The next night at the ball, Prince Siegfried anxiously awaits the arrival of Odette whom he tragically mistakes for Odile - the daughter of Von Rothbart who is herself enchanted by her father as a trick. The sorcerer's plan is to make the Prince break his vow so that Odette would be in his power forever. It is a plan that  succeeds as the Prince recants his love for Odette and declares himself in love with Odile. He fails to tell the difference between the two women. Nor does he notice the appearance of Odette at the castle window trying to warn him to be faithful to her. 

Odette was forced to live by a lake formed magically from her mother's tears

The only way left for the curse to be broken is with the death of Odette who has no desire to live without Siegfried. As dawn breaks, she throws herself into the lake - and Siegfried who now realises that he has been tricked, follows his true love. With their sacrifice, Odette's companions are freed and the magic broken as Odette and Siegfried rise up to the heavens together in spirit for all eternity.

Related Links : Yinka Shonibare MBE

Fashion Direction :
Body Suit and Feather Collar from " Behind the Mask" by Bare Rose
Tutu by Canimal
Hoodie by La Rosa (Midnight Angel)
Nails by Mandala
Necklace by Miamai
Lace Jumpsuit by Boudoir
Makeup by Niju

The Fashionfish : Zebra Crossings!

Question : Can a Zebra change it's stripes?

Answer : A Zebra Can't Change Its Stripes
It may look like a horse, but it's wild at heart. Raising such a moody creature requires a lot of skill and patience.
Few are up for the job. -  Los Angeles Times

Cue Music (and Bad 80's Mullets Alas) :

"Wild Thing"

Sam Kinison

Fashion Direction -

Dita's Diabolique : Dita's Ribbon Boot Zanda Crossing Edition
Beautiful Dirty Rich : TGIF Skirt (Free Outfit)
Line : Ripped Top Black
COCO : Fur Bolero Black
XTC : Taurus Leather Zippered Gloves
American Bazaar : Love Latex Pants (cercle)
Lelutka : Inverted Hair (Powder)
Dark Mouse : In black and white (Earrings)
Goth1c0 : Chain Necklace in gold and black metal
Goth1c0 : Bitch Bracelet in black and wasted gold.

The Travelfish: Virtual Tourism in China. (Secondlife/China/107/124/1250)

China, China
D and F of Ourfish were remarking to ourselves how we wished there were more places like this in Second Life to visit. China is unique as a place to explore. It's a 3D world made from 2D forms and feels very much like a walk through into the masterful brushstrokes of an ancient calligrapher

The mono-tonal hues, gestured mountains and broad-washed sky create an amazingly tranquil space. 

China is quite an interesting place to photograph as you in-turn become a participant of the art, creating your own painting by gathering 'brush strokes' in a composition from your own perspective.

Some angles might capture a feeling of desolation...

Other angles create a different atmosphere within the "painting"

Finally, after your exploration you can visit the gift shop and buy a souvenir.
For a donation to the sim this snow globe replica of China can be yours.

The Artfish : Depth of field

"Cry Baby"

D of Ourfish reckons that her graphics card is too retro to do the amazing captures some people appear to be doing with that new option in their SL3 browsers - So any blog picture you see with depth of field is done with a little fairy magick - The photoshop CS4 fairy that is.

What is depth of field?

(Quotes from Wiki)
In optics, particularly as it relates to film and photography, depth of field (DOF) is the distance between the nearest and farthest objects in a scene that appear acceptably sharp in an image. Although a lens can precisely focus at only one distance at a time, the decrease in sharpness is gradual on each side of the focused distance, so that within the DOF, the unsharpness is imperceptible under normal viewing conditions.

Depth of field from an SL manipulation point of view actually makes a capture from inworld more " realistic". Ordinarily, as all objects within a scene are virtual they are also rendered on the same specified plane (i.e your draw distance). It is your 'cinematic' eye, or camera view which then 're-renders' the scene with additional calculations for presenting this perspective of nearness and distance.

Although depth of field is now an option in SL 3 viewers, this 'Original' capture lacks it.

D thinks everyone who uses photoshop probably has their own little methods and ways on how to do things. It is quite possible that the program itself has some sort of smart filter in it that will likely outdate this tutorial. Nonetheless , the following is how " Cry Baby" was put together.

In this screen capture, we see the original  (bottom most layer) and the eventual layers to be added which will go towards creating the final image ie. 1) Depth of field layer 2) Shadow Layer.
The Black and White Layer depicted in the layers tab is the transitional  from the original , illustrating desaturation to create the monotone 'depth of field' 

Create a copy of the original layer and turn this into black and white using any number of methods (ie, apply black and white filter, or use desaturation )
Then take the now monotone layer and apply the filter 'Gaussian Blur' set at Radius 2.0 pixels.
Here we illustrated the process in a cutaway from original so you can see the difference after applying the two processes.

Use your eraser tool set to a wide brush and a small opacity (Here it's 100 pixels and 19% opacity)
We erase the parts of the layer that we want to see crisp and sharp;
Thus leaving the parts that we want to look distant - blurred.
The art idea here is  for focus to be in colour and for what is not focussed, to be black and white.

In this capture you can see that shadow is added  to pick up the idea of a depth of field
as well as to illustrate a light source. As this is the final frame of the process,
you can see that  the smudge tool was selected. D calls it 'sculpting the shadows' by smudging over a layer of drawn black lines.
This is a somewhat quick and easy way to create shadows in three simple steps. 

Step 1) Create a new blank layer and draw some thick black lines over your image
roughly where you might likely capture shadows
Step 2) Use the 'Gausian Blur' filter to soften this line and change the opacity
and pixel density of your  drawn  'shadow'
Step 3) Select smudge tool and 'nudge' your shadows so they follow the contours of your central focus 

End Credits: The final  assembled image  is now an application of  three layers to the original; ie.
Depth of field
Shadows
and lastly a Vignette frame
 which was simply a drawn black border set to blur.

Thus concludes our little workshop. Have yourself a creative and fun SL!

The Retrospectivefish : What Next?

Second life can be an amazing outlet for play and creativity

And so on this the first dawn of the new year, some might be nursing off the night before. Ourfish finds itself in retrospection - like a yearly renewed ritual; and thought to share a few loosed notions with you ...

What happens next is entirely up to you

2011 saw the close to some things you thought would be around a lot longer than they were* and yet everything within Second life is this fast paced and transient 'un-reality'. Landscapes and Landmarks come and go as quick as you can hit delete. So what is it about second life that continues to fascinate and enthral those of us who continue to take up residency within this state of constant pixel flux? D thinks that it; as in anything in life (real or otherwise), is just as much about what you put into it. It can be an amazing space for creativity. It's an interesting experiment socially - the impact and ramifications of which could possibly be far reaching, were one to truly contemplate the idea. But what next? Well D's resolution revolution continues with a notion about consistency and needing to get out of her hermit shell a bit more. Look out world! Watch this space!

Fashion Direction :
Grixdale - Wolf and I (High Waist Dress) - Now Closed
Abyss - [Opium] Cropped Bomber Jacket
L&B - "Dita Desire" Chocolate Suede
Pixel Dolls - Wool Plaid Gloves
Kosh - Multiplex Necklace (No Tag)
Oval - Leggings001-Brown
[Sauce] - peach blossom lipgloss

* Retrospective News Articles on Second life Closures :
The End of Second Life (2009)
No Sl is not closing in 2012
CNN Closing Down Second life location

The Fashionfish : That unforgettable dress...

"And so a toast  - ring out the old , ring in the new..."

A Rapturous 2012

Some looks are timeless...

Another year is at its end and ofcourse there is that timeless question that persists in the minds of the trend concious... " What to wear?"

Details of this dress are just stunning and unfortunately hard to capture!

To make the grandest entrance at any SL party this year end... wear art!

There are so many interesting things about this dress that it is nigh impossible to write of it. For one, it is an animated piece of couture that embodies the very idea of time and its fleeting. The dress moves and shifts and reveals its secrets over the course of time such that your outfit itself is never really quite the same in different light. It comes in flexible versions of course - one with the scripted bells and whistles, and the other in a plainer but nonetheless show stopping version. Don't just take Ourfish word for it.

The exhibit itself was used as the background for these shots of 'The Raven Dress'

This view of the dress provides perhaps a glimpse of the shifting changing nature and details of the train which quotes verse from the poem " The Raven" by Edgar Allan Poe

Hair : Dark Mouse " Palomma" - Free at free dove.

Complete Outfit : Empyreal Dreams "The Raven Dress" (Lenore Winter Edition)

No photo manipulation was involved in any of these shots which are published as is. The environment is entirely shot in SL as also created by Empyreal Dreams

See also :
The Fashionfish - TUD II, The Unforgettable Dress

The Retrofish : From Paris With Love.

From Paris With Love

" What is your caprice?" asked A - in moments gone past; To which D replied

" I'd like to spoof those cheesy photos of Paris"

From Paris With Love : In that over saturated, rose coloured glasses effect hue

From Paris With Love : In that black and white multi-shot triptych

Fashion Direction :
His - Gabriel (Suit)

Hers  - Pixel Dolls (Coat)
Stiletto Moody (Boots)

Millinery shoppe (Beret)

The Artfish : Music

"Music"

D of Ourfish is still plodding on with her one art thing a day revolution. Having recently purchased some wacky things from Grim Bros, it was simply a must! We tried to capture the feel of this couture creation in a different sort of interpretation - Cue Madonna and 

 " Your Babylons look less big than they do on the telleh but I still definitely would…"

Madonna - Music by hushhush112

The Tech.

One of the original captures.
The polyhedron dress is quite difficult to photograph in any way that captures the way it actually behaves virtually.

Fashion Direction :
Parts from Polyhedron Dress by Grim Bros.
Zeus Hair
Kosh Makeup
Love Soul Nails

The Artfish : X'mas Day.

Cluracan's Nemesis
model : Alba

The Artfish : Water Colours

Water colours

Today's art discovery for D of Ourfish is the water colour brushes of her archaic CS4 version of photoshop. Used here to create a swash from background to foreground.
" I'm working my way towards autumnal klimt'eque aesthetics atm"

Screen Capture of D's Desktop in CS4
Using multiple layers with different properties
is an essential part of making this picture.