Thirza Ember: here they come!
Within a few seconds, the population of Bubblesz Grid, which is a small personal grid belonging to mesh maven Taarna Welles, went from two to fourteen. You could positively feel the nerves - Would the grid be able to take the strain? Would we all be standing frozen in a pool of lag? Worst of all, would Locat Chat fail us? You know how we love our banter.
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| Taarna Welles on a quidditch teleporter |
You may have read about this grid in an earlier post on this blog - this was a chance for the whole group to take a look, and the sim is open any time, if you want to explore it.
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| Bubblesz Grid Welcome Region |
People kept on coming, - we met on the grid's Welcome sim, the HG Address is of course at the end of the post - and for once, everybody brought their clothes with them! Each week, Safari goers are encouraged to dress in a lag-friendly way, keeping complexity as low as fashion and good taste will allow. You can do that in a lot of ways - use the original body, not mesh, check you haven't got one of those Hairs with an insane complexity (those may look good to you, but they're best binned, if they exceed 100k complexity, because chances are everyone else only sees a tornado of bits flying around your head), if you have mesh clothes that contain a lot of texture changing scripts, make a reference copy for safekeeping, and then delete all the scripts from the clothes you wear... there are lots of other common sense ways you can help the group. If you have a favorite strategy, put it in the comments.
Taarna Welles: Hello everyone, take your time
Thirza Ember: yay we are glad to be here, Taarna! wow even James has clothes on!
Ankh Senaton: ha ha
James Atlloud: whoa - suddenly everything just rezzed. I guess I won the server lottery!
Taarna Welles: First of course hello to you all :) Let me know when I can start and tell about this platform at Bubblesz
Forest Azure: hi dutchie :)
Thirza Ember: wow 18 here
Taarna Welles: that is a lot
Tosha Tyran: we are a cute crowd :)
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| Taarna Welles |
Thirza Ember: that's such a clever use of the Harry Potter motif!
Tosha Tyran: oh yes, now I recognize ... brilliant, Taarna
Taarna Welles: Now we all here let's pop over to Domadun. Take you time to let rez.
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| Kelso relaxes on a park bench as we all arrive on sim Domadun |
Tosha Tyran: yessssssssssssssssssss
Star Ravenhurst: The sim comes in fast for me too, some avatars though are slow to rez.
Mal Burns: all rezzed superfast for me - ideal for film
Lynnestra Parker: James! You have clothes! ;)
Taarna Welles: This is fun and a good stress test he he he
James Atlloud: <whew>
Taarna Welles: You might experience some lag. If so, just stand still and cam around. I have text prepared, and I ask you to save your questions until the end.
This is a brand new sim, so we felt honored.
Tosha Tyran: smell like fresh out of the washing machine
Forest Azure: smell like teen spirit
Taarna Welles: During the Covid period, I lost the motivation to do anything. My creative spirit was put on the back burner. In 2023, the game Hogwarts Legacy was released on Steam, and despite not being a big gamer, I quickly became addicted to it. For me, it was and still is an oasis of graphical construction, and the game element, the mix with magic and Steam punk, appealed to me enormously.
Taarna Welles: Since Second Life and Opensim, I have always had the desire to one day recreate a game on one of the platforms or at least draw a lot of inspiration from it, and this was the ultimate time for me to start. Because I am more of a detail-oriented person and have more problems with a helicopter view, the game on Steam was a great support to create something in Opensim again.
Taarna Welles: There was another wish, namely, to update all eight-year-old programs like Blender, Substance Painter, and Photoshop. Of course, this turned into many more programs, which is nice, but you are back to the beginning because the interface had changed. Therefore, I don't want to talk much about the technical part because I will still be busy tomorrow.
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| Taarna uses authentic photos as guides for re-creating assets in Opensim |
Taarna Welles: The challenge was to find the right tutorials I needed to create the objects or animations. That takes a lot of time and is simultaneously a challenge. Don't stop when it gets tough :)
What I have done differently compared to other years is using existing objects. In recent years, many objects have been offered in Blender or SketchFab that you can use freely. Of course, all objects need to be adapted for Opensim. This time, I also used (bought) more Blender Addons so that everything goes faster. In this case, I find it unnecessary to figure something out if it already exists, and through the tutorials, you learn the ins and outs needed for this.
Taarna Welles: What has existed for several years, but I never focused on, is the Bento Buddy. For those who don't know it: the Bento Buddy is, in many cases, easier than Avastar and is much better if you want to create Animesh. It goes a lot faster for a better result. Spread the word, Bento Buddy is just great and is free to download on GitHub :-D
Tosha Tyran: phuiii, I tried Bento Buddy and found it quite the opposite: much easier avastar!
Taarna Welles: So this was a small story about the technical things... Domadun... I tried different heightmaps for the layout of Domadun, and this one came out the best. You can, for example, create a heightmap yourself in Gimp or try to make something beautiful with a Google heightmap. Then the question was how to proceed. I chose to start with the rocks and then the paths. This can all be adjusted, but it gives you a good insight into where bottlenecks can arise.
James Atlloud: wow
Taarna Welles: Then I started making only assets, assets, and assets. When I had more than 100 assets, it was time for me to start. Because what is more fun placing what you have made?
Taarna Welles: Behind me you see images of screenies I made for recreation or inspiration. I regularly went back to Steam/Hogwarts Legacy to see which part I would like to recreate first or what I wanted to use as an inspiration piece. For that, I took many screenshots, and you can see a piece of the result here. For example, if I wanted to use a lamp or cart, I took a screenshot of it, and then it was a matter of recreating it where the screenshot is your template.
James Atlloud: Oh the lamp came out just lovely!
Taarna Welles: The next project will be building the Dark Forest, and I also want to create a small Marketplace where I want to offer free products from Blender or SketchFab. Think of chests, crates, buckets, vegetables, and much more. It is a nice chance to work between the Dark Forest and Marketplace. In the future, I also hope to create fantasy animals myself and animate them with the Bento Buddy.
Lynnestra Parker: Can't wait to explore the dark forest!
Taarna Welles: There is nothing more to tell, and if there are any questions, I would be happy to read them. It just won't be possible to answer everyone at the right time.
Thirza Ember: What is the first animal you think you would want to make?
Taarna Welles: I think the frog he he most of the animals are fantasy animals it is but in this case I start again with assets only before I start with the Dark Forest
Star Ravenhurst: That sounds like a good plan. It will help things go smoother.
Lynnestra Parker: Will you try to make a hippogriff ?
Maldrul Smith: I'm sure Buckbeak will be a challenge ;>
Taarna Welles: I think I want to try to create the Hippogriff. Will not be easy... About the AI: there are several sites where you can try to create from an image on object but mostly it's better to create things yourself.
Tosha Tyran: well, you can change them later.... can you name some site you used, Taarna?
Taarna Welles: ehm... I shall share the AI info later Tosha and send you a few links I tried
Tosha Tyran: wonderful, thanks!
Lynnestra Parker: That is cool
Taarna Welles: If you see the image on the side of the house you see I tried to recreate the house as much as I could.
Star Ravenhurst: You did a fabulous job Taarna.
James Atlloud: Yes, it looks great!
Taarna Welles: above your head there are balloons. In the game you have to pop them to earn credits
James Atlloud: yes. Love those balloons Taarna! I was not able to stand up again from a ground sit. Had to relog.
Forest Azure: you sit too much!
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| James always finds somewhere to relax. |
Taarna Welles: you will see here animesh peasants too
Thirza Ember: I think it's so neat that you have turned this re-making into a sort of game of its own
Taarna Welles: There is a lot of detail and maybe you have to come back some day to explore them all
Star Ravenhurst: I love all of the detail you have put into this. It makes it all feel alive. Animesh is one of the greatest invention IMHO.
Tosha Tyran: yes it does
Thirza Ember: Taarna another question... how often do you say 'I give up, I will just find that asset in the freebies on opensim, or on a website' or do you feel like you want to make every item?
Taarna Welles: no not anymore, it's sometimes a mix of what I want to create but in some cases I shall try to find animals and change them, It is possible to create most of it but in some cases I'm lazy too...
Ankh Senaton: it is great to do everything, I can't imagin the work
Lifted Pixel: its important to find ways to offload some of the work, it's almost impossible to do everything when it comes to 3d stuff
Star Ravenhurst: Taarna the terraforming is beautiful! It looks so organic and realistic!
Taarna Welles: If cam to the outside near a balloon, you see two ruin figures, those are based on the game ruin figures. I have more in my inventory but they don't fit in this area
Thirza Ember: how big is your inventory at this point??
Taarna Welles: Totally or only for Domadun? Totally since 2008 I have 23.384 Inventory items... For Domadun 303 items
Ankh Senaton: (wow I have already 27317 ;)
Star Ravenhurst: It is easy for inventory to get out of hand. I have less than 3K... It can be a good idea to use another avatar to hold all of your inventory like I am now doing.
Nara Nook: I need to do that too
Thirza Ember: I guess if you make everything instead of picking up freebies, it's easy to keep the Inv smaller
Forest Azure: Is the a maximum inventory?
Star Ravenhurst: Not sure Forest. I do know that I travel a lot lighter without a big inventory.
Taarna Welles: you think so Thirza :D
Taarna Welles: If you want to know more about the Bento Buddy, I have a lady you can copy
Thirza Ember: oh nice, let's copy a lady... that will be a Safari first
Taarna Welles: I show you where you can find it. Just take a copy and in the content you find the info to create the girl yourself in Blender
Nara Nook: I use the open source BentoBuddy. It is very easy
Lynnestra Parker: She is cute! Thank you, Taarna :)
Considering we were all chatting, rezzing and riding horses (Mal managed to make his horse do a somersault over the wall, without falling off, you can just about see it in the gif) and generally running around the sim, you might expect that a group this big would be politely coping with severe performance problems - that's not unusual on Safari. So Taarna's next question was pertinent.
Taarna Welles: One question for me... how is the performance for you all?George Equus: Great
Forest Azure: no lag
Ankh Senaton: I've just had a big lag but it is back to normal
Maldrul Smith: I'm seeing 20 FPS which is good for my aging PC
Lynnestra Parker: I have no lag issues
Mal Burns: great performance all round Taarna
Lifted Pixel: no issues, all textures loaded, a few animesh characters took a while to get their animations started, no trouble moving around normally or on the horse!
Taarna Welles: nice! thank you so much
Star Ravenhurst: I think the region has passed the load test!
George Equus: Most assuredly
Leonitas Lionheart: thank you taarna, lovely world you have!
Nara Nook: Thank you Taarna this was wonderful
Taarna Welles: When the Dark Forest is ready... We will have another tour
Mal Burns: great work Taarna - looking forward to the forest and else which comes next
Lynnestra Parker: Taarna this is a beautiful build! Thank you for sharing it with us.
bubblesz.nl:8002:Bubblesz
bubblesz.nl:8002:Domadun
bubblesz.nl:8002:Domadun
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