Concierge Party

Somehow I snagged an invite to this weekend's ultra-exclusive Linden "Concierge Party". The party is open to residents with monthly tier in excess of USD$125, and their guests. That's me, the guest. Someday I may require land of that size, but right now my store's portion of my parcel's capacity is only 700 prims and I simply can't justify anything bigger.

Anyhow, back to the party. The theme of the party was "Ides of March", based on legendary Caesarian events. While I am sure someone will blog about the wacky events and amazing Toga-style activities, I want to talk about the amazing way Linden Labs handled the event.

Back at my shop awaiting the opening of the party sims, I wondered how this was going to work. You see, the Second Life Group for the party held over 7,000 members. I mentally calculated how many sims would be required to hold this colossal event. Hmm, 7,000 attendees over 24 hours, with a maximum of 40 avatars per sim before they topple over due to extreme load. Dozens, at least.

Wrong.

They had five.

Yep, only five sims required to handle 7,000 potential visitors! How did they do it? My first clue was the avatar count in these sims. As you can clearly see in the image above, there were actually 81 avatars in Colosseum. A few times I've seen forty, but never 81! I was there. I saw them. I didn't count them, there were far too many. And get this - I was fairly easily able to move around and converse. At one point I was getting almost 30 FPS in a sim containing 68 avatars, although there were times my frame rate dipped down to the single digits.

Here's my observations of how Linden Labs might have pulled this off:

• Limited number of visible textures. While the buildings were attractive, appropriate and useful, a careful inspection showed they made generous use of few textures. Good design!
• No floors. I noticed this immediately upon arriving: most things were simply set directly on the ground. First impressions were similar to seeing those awful "Yard Sales". There were hardly any prim-based walking areas, just dusty ground.
  
• Limited number of buildings and prims. The sims seemed empty, at least when I first arrived before they filled up with people. A check of the prim count in Temple showed 1235 objects of 15,000, 13,765 available. No wonder frame rates were fast: there was very little to draw!
• Havoc 4. The party sims were running the new Havoc4 physics engine, purported to be much more efficient. It certainly seemed to be. Even when things got a bit laggy, I was still able to move about without suddenly lurching forward, crashing into innocents and accidentally knocking them into a pit of doom.
  
• Top class server? I can't prove this, but I wouldn't be surprised if Linden Lab used servers with a bit of extra juice. Why not, if you are expecting 7,000 for dinner?

Good building tips indeed, if your objective is to pack 'em in like sardines. Meanwhile, I'm wondering whether this experience tells us something about future sim performance. Perhaps someday I'll have 68 avatars strolling through my store! For now, I'll be happy with six.

Sleepy Mistake

The other night I made a mistake. A business mistake. Not a big one, but telling the story may help other business owners avoid a similar fate.

It began as I was about to sign off after working on a new gadget in my Lab. I was very tired and sleepy, as everyone seems to be in Second Life lately. Someone was in the store buying a few items. I strolled over to thank them for their business, and she said, "oh can you help me?"

Normally, this means the customer is interested in something that I don't sell. It's an opportunity to make something new. Something people might want. I encouraged her to tell me what she wanted. And so she did. Sort of.

Her idea seemed fairly simple to build, so I decided to build it on the spot. "Real-time Building" is usually a lot of fun, and you can get instant feedback from the customer as you build things: "too big", "not orange enough", "too icky", etc.

The build proceeded. Particle shapes were devised. Parameters tweaked. Parameters tweaked again. And again. And still more. Somehow the build just wasn't quite what was required. Many adjustments were made. I realized at this point that I did not quite understand what she was after, either because she didn't or couldn't say, or because I was too sleepy to hear it or probe for clarifications.

As the tweaking continued, more requirements were stated. Some were easy to incorporate, so I did. Others were fantastically complicated, and would require hours more work. Finally, as sleep was about to overtake me, the item was finished. At least without the complicated add-ons. I noticed the clock said I'd been working on this custom product for a long time, and normally this implies a fairly high price. However, in the interest of speed I quoted a lowball price. She said, "omg - I don't have that much money!"

Yikes! I suddenly realized I had made the most obvious contracting mistake: not determining a price before the work started. A cardinal sin for freelancers. Here's how it should have gone down:

• A clear discussion of what is required, and an explanation of what was possible
• An agreement on precisely what is to be built
• An agreement on the fee for building it
  
• The build takes place
• Goods and Lindens are exchanged
• Everybody happy

But, it didn't work out that way. Instead, customer leaves with a product that is less than they imagined, and contractor (me) receives fewer Lindens than the work deserved. Moral of the story: agree first, then build.

One more thing: Never, Never, Never do work-on-the-fly when you are sleepy! After a certain hour of the night, go dancing, chasing dragons or ride a teacup!

Sim Phantomed Sim!

This week I was minding my own business (literally) with Haley Salomon when suddenly we both plummeted downwards and splattered on the ground! My store was built on megaprims that stand about 50m above the raw ground. Picking myself up off the dusty ground, I looked around and saw nothing but bare land!

Immediately, I thought that somehow my land, store and all my objects had been taken away by an evil land-baron-trickster-bot, or perhaps in an insufficient-sleep induced stupor I had marked the parcel for sale at a fractional price. But no, the truth was even stranger.

I looked up to where my store had been - and it was still there! Somehow both of us had simultaneously fallen through the floor, all the way to the ground. Bizarrely, we apparently were standing on the ground in the middle of a solid megaprim cube.

Having no other obvious course of action, we flew back up through the "solid" cube to arrive at the store's normal floor. Upon casually striking the "Stop Flying" button, I gently set down on my store's floor once again.

And then plummeted 50m to splatter yet again.

Somehow the megaprim floor had become Phantom - and I could freely pass through it. A furious investigation ensued, where I checked the phantomness (is that a word?) of the remaining floor cubes (phantomed). Store walls (phantomed). Any objects nearby (phantomed). Everything was made phantom!

Perhaps, I thought, it's only my objects. I rocketed over to my neighbor, Aspasia Arliss's park and approached her house/temple/not-quite-sure-what-it-is, and being the clumsy oaf I am in a laggy sim, proceeded to fly right through it! All of her objects were similarly phantomed.

Returning to my store, and gaining a slight bit of psychological stability by positioning myself mostly on the floor (see picture above), we set about figuring out how to report this unbelievable turn of events to the Linden Mandarins.

Suddenly, I squirted upwards out of the floor to resume standing normally on the now solid floor. Other objects were also suddenly non-phantomed.

So what happened? A SL Client problem? No, it happened to two of us at exactly the same Second Life second. Did I dream the entire scenario? No, check the picture again. Clearly it was a sim problem of some sort - and fortunately a temporary one at that. It does a business no small goodness to have arriving customers plummet to their death mere seconds after they arrive.

Moral of the story: When you hear a big "Splat", it isn't always due to avatar operator competency challenges.

SL Ergonomics, Part II: Building Tips

In a previous article I described what I refer to as "Second Life Ergonomics". It's all about the appropriate design of virtual structures to make it easy for avatars to use and enjoy. My main complaint is that many builders tend to build virtual structures using real-life ergonomic considerations, and fewer realize that avatars have significantly different characteristics that must be accounted for.

Here are a few tips that I have learned during my brief virtual existence (well, brief except for last week when I was online for far too many hours!) This list is certainly not exhaustive - I am thinking of new ideas all the time, and I am positive there many great ideas I have yet to learn.

Phantom Objects - On those days when it's really hard to turn, walk and especially precisely navigate through a crowded area, it's really annoying to get hung up on items in your way. Yes, I know you should walk around them - but sometimes you just can't.

• TIP: Unless the object has some physical purpose make it phantom. That way the object cannot interfere with an avatar's motion, but still adds to the visual effect. Don't phantomize objects that require physical characteristics, such as furniture to sit on or ramps to walk up.

Solid Objects - I can't stand it when I am trying to walk along a narrow path and end up falling off the side, sometimes to my virtual death. Why does this happen? Because the builder didn't account for the sloppy avatar movements.

• TIP: When ever there is a danger of falling, place some kind of solid object to prevent disaster. Avatars need railings, walls or even a slight hump sometimes to channel their movement and overcome occasional inadequate navigation. Even a transparent barrier would be helpful and not interfere with the visual effect. It's quite simple, really - just assume all your visitors are drunk and stumbling around!

Head Space: All avatars by default have their camera position behind and above them. That way you can see exactly what your virtual counterpart is doing, and with whom. Unless, that is, there is a wall or roof in your way. Cramped quarters are really difficult to deal with, especially if the Grid is laggy.

• TIP: Building material is free in Second Life: you can afford to have taller rooms that accommodate the normal camera position. Make rooms with very tall ceilings. Or better yet, don't have any ceilings! In some cases, even walls aren't really necessary.

Curves: The last time I looked, my keyboard did not include a curved arrow. That's why I have a lot of trouble walking accurately along curved walkways. Avatars can most easily walk straight, but curves are harder to follow. Spiral staircases are the worst, and few can successfully navigate them without bumping into the walls or falling off.

• TIP: Don't build curves for avatars to traverse. Do build curves for avatars to admire.

Dexterity: While it is easy to click with a mouse, it's difficult to do so when you must do so precisely. A vending machine with tiny buttons is not good, since it becomes very easy for someone to push the wrong buttons. Misdirected clicks often happens on websites, and it happens in Second Life too.

• TIP: Click areas should be sufficiently large to avoid any confusion with neighboring buttons. This is especially important for buttons that perform actions that count - like paying money or ejecting that annoying person from your land. Use contrasting colors to ensure they stand out and are identifiable.

Smell and Taste: As I said in the previous ergonomic post, thankfully these senses are not yet implemented in Second Life. I can imagine what some people might do if they were. But how can you reasonably approximate these senses?

• TIP: Since smell and taste are absent, you must use a visual experience to hint or remind visitors of smells and tastes. Appropriate images, carefully chosen particle effects, sounds and textures can sometimes convey a message of smell and taste.

Item Layout: Upon entering a store or gallery, experienced avatars simply stay put and motor their camera around to check out the wares. Unfortunately, most younger avatars (and even some old ones) are poor camera drivers. Instead of camming they move their avatar around the area, turning and pausing to examine every item one by one. They walk, turn, tilt, examine. Then repeat. And again. How many times must they do this? Sometimes once for every item in the store or gallery. This is at least tedious and sometimes frustrating when the lag demons are prowling.

• TIP: Make items big enough to see clearly (especially product boxes or photo displays), but not so big as to cause enormous amounts of walking and turning.

• TIP2: Consider displaying items in a circle or semi-circle, where the avatar needs only rotate to easily view a lot of items. I use this technique at my store, and it has proven quite successful. Even better, it really isn't that difficult to build.

Wide Size: Yes, I know the diving board ladder looks realistic, but it is a huge pain in the a** to line up your avatar precisely so that when you go up, you don't fall off. Similarly, smaller doorways are often hard to get through, especially if you have a larger avatar.

• TIP: Assume that avatars are large and size things accordingly. Also assume that it is hard to navigate precisely, so don't make things very narrow if you expect avatars to use them. Use invisible railings or equivalent if there is danger of falling off.
  

Colors and Textures: Avatars have relatively poor eyesight. They often cannot see distances clearly and even up close they can't make out details unless they are able to zoom in. Also, sometimes poor graphics capability means they can see only a limited amount of textures.

• TIP: Try to minimize the number of textures in use, so that once a texture is loaded, it is rapidly displayed on all applied surfaces. If you use many different textures, visiting avatars will spend a long time rezzing all the textures and generally experience local slow downs.

And those are some ergonomic tips for you. As I learn more, I'll post a follow up article with new ones in the future. Good luck with your build!

Stacks Complete!

I may have mentioned in a previous post that I was building some custom fireballs for Veyron's industrial factory build in South Gate, and I can report they are now installed and working well. The three smokestacks blow off giant fireballs simultaneously every once in a while. It looks great in person, but it's difficult to capture a decent picture of them, like any fast-moving particle effect. (I say that with experience, having had to take hundreds of pictures of particle effects for my product boxes.)

Meanwhile, after the flames were positioned, Veyron took me for a tour of the rest of her industrial build. While there are some large buildings like the "factory", which has the three smokestacks, the most interesting part is deep underground.

In the basement of one building a passageway opens into some truly incredible sewers. The highly realistic underground tunnels twist and turn, leading you below ground between the buildings. Dirty walls, "aromatic-looking" water and assorted trash add a certain ambiance to this subterranean wonder.

Meanwhile, she opened a floor grating and invited me down into a very close cylindrical pit. Suddenly, water started filling up the chamber...

The next day in RL, someone asked what I was up to last night.

"Oh, nothing much - I drowned in a virtual sewer with a demon."

Another typical day, in the sims of Second Life.

An Introduction to Second Life Ergonomics

Ergonomics? Isn't that about how you place your hands on a keyboard? How you sit in front of your screen? Yes, but that's Human Ergonomics. Today I am talking about Second Life Ergonomics.

What exactly do I mean by "Second Life Ergonomics"? I mean that those little avatars that we control (or is it the other way around?) have needs just as their human owners do. They can't see as well as humans, they have restricted ways of moving around and have utterly terrible dexterity. Some of them are pretty ugly, too!

But seriously, these "physical" characteristics of avatars really do affect how we travel throughout the Second Life grid. Who hasn't been stuck trying to navigate to a precise spot, overshooting, and backing up? And repeating 0ver and over? Crashing into walls? Getting stuck in a rotating door? Falling off the edge of a ramp? Try moving while the grid is bagged out!

Frustrating, these be.

When I first built my Caso Milo store, I wanted to right some of these wrongs so that visitors would not encounter those issues. But immediately I had to realize that:

Real Life buildings are made to accommodate Real Life people with their physical capabilities

Therefore,

Second Life buildings should be made to accommodate Second Life avatars with their virtual capabilities

Often I encounter Second Life builds that replicate real life buildings, or incorporate real life building ideas. While these builds are not wrong, they may introduce problems for avatars who do not have the same physical capabilities as humans. Our quest to be realistic sometimes results in difficulties for visitors.

What are the characteristics of avatars that make them different than humans? Let's make a list:

• Sight is normally set to a specific view - from behind the avatar, not from its eyeballs
• Motion is normally in straight lines, and difficult to perform accurately in a curve
• Teleportation is possible
• Flight is possible, except in sims where flight is disabled. (FYI - there is a secret way around this, revealed to me late last night by Veyron Supercharge at her demonic industrial build site... but that's another story for another day)
• Dexterity sucks. It is very difficult to accurately touch or manipulate small items
• Smell and Taste are absent - thankfully!
  

And let's add one final one:

• Avatars can't always know how something is going to work, since Second Life objects can behave unlike anything in real life. In other words, humans have half a chance at guessing how something works or acts since physics is, well, universal. But Second Life doesn't operate with the same physics. Pink Elephants can fly, Hearts appear on arms or Particle Fog, Doves or even Cheese can flow out of your butt! It's just a bit harder to know what to do.

Knowing that avatars have differences from humans, do you think that buildings should be made differently to accommodate them? I do! I built my shop after considering these differences. You might be interested in knowing how you can build in an ergonomic way... but I will save those tips for another post.

Burning After Alexis

Alexis Lange is not only a friend of mine, but also a Battlestar Galactica pilot based in Eleggua (call sign "Panther".) Last week she came to me looking for a way to make her flyer more realistic, specifically by adding a massive rocket plume.

Easy, I thought. Just build a particle emitter that shoots out the right mix of shapes and colors to visually appear as a plume. Then paste it on the a**-end of the flyer. I quickly constructed a disc-shaped "Afterburner" emitter that could fit well within the thrust tubes of the powerful flyer, shooting out white-yellow flames.

It was going fine until I dropped by the Eleggua airfield (which is itself hundreds of meters in the air) and gave Alexis the Afterburner prototype for testing. The device worked perfectly, and even synchronized with the flyer's start and stop chat commands.

The trouble began when I suggested that Alexia link the Afterburner to the flyer so that she could fly off and not leave the emitter behind on the deck! However, it turns out that the permissions on the flyer were no-Modify, meaning she cannot link any objects to it, including the Afterburner.

I was about to abandon hope of getting this done easily, short of begging the flyer's maker to somehow include the Afterburner, when I had an idea.

Instead of attaching the emitter to the flyer, I realized we could attach it to Alexis! Yes, while she's sitting in the cockpit, the emitter goes off as designed, but the plume still appears as intended. Flames blast out from her spine backwards and appear to come from the flyer's engines. With some simple adjustments, I'll be able to make a rocket plume Alexis can wear in any vehicle.

In fact, I think I'll be making an entire line of wearable aircraft effects including explosions, smoke trails, rat-tat-tat or what ever else seems appropriate or just plain cool. There will be no need to equip every vehicle with effects - just bring them with you instead! Thanks for the inspiration, Alexis!

Two things were very important for me on this adventure:

• There are always more ways to solve a problem than you think at first. Never give up - just keep trying, even ideas that are, well, crazy at first! You may bump into the answer.
• No matter how bad the situation, you can usually find a way to make something good out of it. Learn something, change something, change your self!

And Alexis, one thing to remember about the Afterburner - be very, very careful where you are when you say the word, "start"!

Tips for a Successful Second Life Club

I came across some very interesting Second Life business ideas the other day quite by accident. Readers may recall my rantings on how best to organize your store for traffic management earlier, but these ideas take them a lot farther.

ATown Fall is the owner of multiple successful sims, most of which involve 24x7 DJ clubs - a rarity itself in Second Life. He sets up sims one after the other, hiring staff and gathering residents and merchants to populate them. While he certainly does the basic things, ATown has several very unique Second Life business approaches that I hadn't considered:

• ATown's admission policy echoes real life - you often must pay a cover charge to get in. This makes the events more important, if only because those who are inside really want to be inside because they paid to get in! This raises the profile of the events.
• Because you must pay a cover to enter events, the concept of VIPs becomes real. All too often clubs hand out "VIP" tags to basically anyone, but that makes the concept of VIP meaningless. However, ATown's cover charge is waived for his VIPs, and the tag is no longer meaningless. You really are "important".
• Many businesses try to increase their traffic by planting as many poorly-paid campers as possible on their parcels. But these zombie-like operations appear quite artificial and often scare away real visitors, who immediately recognize it for what it is - a scam to game the traffic counter. Meanwhile, ATown has a very unique approach to camping. Instead of paying people to camp, he simply has people wait for a specified duration before they are given a pass to enter the club. Of course, you could pay the cover charge and get in immediately, but instead many people simply wait out the time for their pass. And in the process, cause the traffic count to rise - because their wait time in the line is equivalent to a row of camping zombies. But it's much more realistic.
• I've written before about the importance of traffic flow in a shopping mall. Essentially, the problem is that TP allows people to skip by the shops and go directly to and from the entertainment. Many, many clubs have this issue. They hope to make money by renting space to shopkeepers, but fail to encourage traffic to the shops. The shopkeepers fail, and ultimately the clubs are unsuccessful. I've previously recommended using careful placement of the landing point such that arriving TP'ers must walk past or near shops on their way to the entertainment. This has proven successful in a few malls I've seen. However, ATown takes this concept a bit further. He sets his land to no-fly. This, combined with the landing point trick, means that visitors must walk past the shops - and walkers are more likely to see items they'd like to purchase than someone flying by at warp speed.

Why do these techniques work? Simple - they are already well proven in real life! ATown has recognized that the same things can also be done in Second Life. And evidently very successfully.

Dreams Mighty Prim Competition

Today I happened to get invited to vote at a building competition. Dreams is having a "Mighty Prim Competition" that focuses on the Torus prim. It's all about building something beautiful and dreamy using only 55 prims (5 of which are the base and name holder). And get this - only Torus prims may be used! Haley Salomon (semi-finalist in NWN's Uncanny Valley Contest) and I are pictured inside one of the exhibits.

Walking around the competition area reminds me of Burning Life, just not quite so crazy. The competition rules state that no scripts or particles may be used, so the sculptures are all static. I observed entries with themes from Christmas, Veteran's Day, Animals, Flowers, Faerie Houses, Giant Food Items and of course the completely undescribable.

There are 27 entries at the competition site, some of which are quite attractive - and even more so when you realize they are built only from Torii. My favorite was Anhayla Lycia's, but there are many other terrific builds. I'd encourage you to drop by to see the ingenious entries.

If you come, you should vote for your favorites. The contest began on 11 November, and voting commenced on 20 November. You must cast your vote by 29 November, since awards are at noon SLT on 29 November.

You can visit the competition at: Dreams Entry, Dreams (155, 161, 24)

Particles at Burning Life

I've never been to Burning Life before (mainly because I am not old enough!) So I thought I would pay a visit. I am fascinated by interesting builds, and there is no better place to see the envelope of ingenuity pushed than at Burning Life. My visit to Burning Life today turned out a lot better than my first attempt - no griefing in sight today!

Since I am sure others are reporting on Burning Life in general, I am reporting on Particle Effect builds at Burning Life. I am not sure if anyone else is doing so. Basically, I tromped around the site looking for interesting particle effects. While there are many wonderful physical builds, I have to say that there really are not many particle effects present. I suspect some shun particles for fear of generating lag, or perhaps there just isn't many people able to build them. Lag doesn't really happen, of course, unless you build massive particle bursts as are often found in freebie particle baskets.

JT Dagger built this amazing creation, called the "Atom Spinner". Perhaps I should have taken a video of it, since it is quite animated. This item rotates, changes colors and emits multi-colored shape-changing particles. Particles need not be like anything in the physical world. It's cool particle sculptures like this that I admire.

A friend of mine, Carrie Cronenwerth, is refitting a mall and is wondering how best to attract more traffic, as many landowners do. She and I toured several Burning Life sites the other night (pictured) to get some ideas. I suggested she might consider placing some fascinating sculptures in her mall to attract visitors - they seem to attract me, so why not others too? And what better way to find builders than to visit Burning Life? It's almost like a trade show for builders.

This one is quite basic, but it certainly collects your eyes! It seems to be made/owned by TheDreamingDragon Nighbor and Legith Fairplay. In fact, there seems to be several "eye" oriented effects at Burning Life for some unexplainable reason.

My friend Jopsy Pendragon has perhaps the best particle display I've seen. The display includes not only the amazing lightening particles, but also sound and animated textures. You can't see it in this picture, but it includes a dancing fountain, like a simplified version of the Las Vegas Bellagio fountain - all made from particles.

And of course, the most notable particle effect was the Burning of the Man that took place today. It was probably the biggest fire I've seen in Second Life so far. Well done, Burning Lifer's! The fire proceeded for many minutes and then gradually died out to the applause of the hundreds present.

But that was not all! After the burning died out, the toasty near-the-fire participants were handed the "Dance Effect Orb", which as you can see produces an iPod-commercial-like appearance. Everyone danced with more particles flying above. Sweet!

Insane Way to Increase Traffic to Your Second Life Parcel!

Somebody MUST have already thought of this, but I certainly didn't.

I was having a conversation with my parcel neighbor (and all around great person) Aspasia Arliss (pictured at my Particle Shop) and she commented that she often receives many uninvited guests. She had a theory that because her parcel is located directly in the sim's center visitors accidentally drop in.

It turns out that this is actually true! If you are in SL using the MAP function, the default coordinates upon searching for a sim name are 128,128,x. This means that anyone searching for Caso Milo in MAP and hitting the teleport button will drop right onto her property. That's why she receives many uninvited guests.

This got me thinking.

Each sim has the same special effect, unless the parcel owner of 128,128,x has set a specific landing spot. This means that the parcel located at 128,128,x in most sims will automatically get some amount of random visitors over and above other parcels within the sim. Therefore, these 128,128,x parcels should be more valuable than others - if your goal is to attract traffic.

However, I don't see these parcels priced any differently - but perhaps they should be. Darn, I wish I would have thought of this earlier! SL Business tip # 64: if buying land to set up a store, make sure it contains coordinates 128,128,x.

Astro-Effects, and More

I've been playing with making a "Galaxy" effect, but it is turning out to be more difficult than I had imagined. I always want to make the effect look just right, but I haven't managed to get it to appear and move correctly yet. I thought I was crazy, but after a discussion with Jopsy Pendragon, I now believe I've bumped into bugs in LSL. I've got to take another approach to this particular design. Back to the drawing board!

However - while I was thinking about astronomical things, I realized I could make other Astro-Effects. And so I did. These new products are now available at Electric Pixels:

Eclipse is perhaps the most amazing Second Life particle effect ever (pictured). Just wear it and suddenly a massive total eclipse of the sun appears around you. The corona boils yellow and white flames, while you remain in the dark, black core. Like some of my other effects, you'd better be careful where and when you use this one!

Starry is a very subtle effect, in which twinkly stars slowly appear in your vicinity. They don't move and gradually fade away.

StarMaker is the installable version of Starry! Instead of wearing it, you install the emitter in your site, click to start and those subtle stars appear and fade. The effect really changes the look and feel of the area. I think this one will be very popular, since several were purchased immediately after I placed them for sale.

Snower Personal makes snowflakes land gently around you. I had thought people only wanted snow to place on their land, but several folks asked me for a personal version. Some people just can't get enough snow!

Fireworks Spray is my first attempt at fireworks. Just place the emitter in the sky and touch for five beautiful minutes of multicolored fireworks explosions. It's derived from the fireworks I provided for a benefit concert in Furumachi last month. Make sure you watch the show at night!
You'll find these items at the store marked with a "New Product" sign. Enjoy! As always, please provide any ideas or suggestions for new effects.

More from Rezzable / Greenies ?

Everybody's been to Greenies, and more recently The Cannery. Both are fabulous builds that you just want to keep going back to. I wondered who made them, and found an elusive organization known as Rezzable. I am not exactly sure what they do, other than build wonderful sims, but I really appreciate their work.

Meanwhile, my interest in exploring led me to investigate Rezzable more directly - and I discovered that Rezzable seems to own quite a complex of islands, including The Cannery and the original Greenies. Why so many islands? Perhaps other things are under construction? I just had to look.

Many of these islands are not open yet, but it is possible to peek at amazing stuff under construction. So I did. And here's the photos:

This appears to be a gigantic Philodendron... suggesting another "Land of the Giants" / Greenies area? The tree-sized plant is housed in a massive planter far below me. In the vicinity were other rather large items suggesting that a large-scale build is underway.

Why another Greenies? I can only speculate that Rezzable believes that anyone going to Greenies would likely also go to the new sim. Double the sims, double the traffic? I will definitely visit the unnamed area again once it is open.

In a completely different sim, Rezzable seems to be working on a massive ice-world. It is completely shrouded in ice and fog with walls and towers of pure ice everywhere. This area is much more complete than other areas I visited. Here we see a towering ice mountain that dominates the central portion of the sim.

I managed to get close to a very special item, reminiscent of the famous Greenie's cat - perhaps the first Woolly Mammoth in SL!

By the way, the Greenie's cat turns out to be an incredible place for impromptu dance parties. I wish someone would build a club where you can sit or dance on large structures, animal or otherwise. Alas, most clubs in our virtual world lack imagination and simply reproduce real-life analog clubs.... sigh.

This problem is, I think, another indication of the widespread lack of imagination of many builders. Second Life is virtual - things do not always have to correspond to real life! While many complain of restrictions, policies and bugs in Second Life, I still think the major barrier is our imaginations.

Another area is apparently the beginning of a massive underwater fantasy. Of course, the items are all larger than life, particulary the as-yet-untextured wooden Lobster beside the anemones and octopus. Rezzable likes them big!

These guys seem to be marshaled in an area and have yet to be placed in their final positions. Nearby there is what appears to be a sunken pirate ship and beach area.

No one but Rezzable knows what these areas will turn into, but my guess is that they will meet the incredible build standards already established at Greenie's and The Cannery. Good work, Rezzable - who ever you are.

Technorati Tags: exploration

New Effects This Week

Five new products are available at Electric Pixels this week.

Sleepy! Yes, it's corny, but it can be very useful. Just wear it and a stream of lazy "Z"s drifts away from you, letting anyone nearby know that you are snoozing, or just about to! I spend a lot of hours in SL, often dramatically decreasing my RL sleep, so I can tell you I will be using this one a lot. I'm using it in this image, sleeping by my lab under a tree from DEForest Beck (thanks again, D!)

Eu sou Brasiliero! (with much help from CRISTIANE Repine) and Ich bin Deutschländer, two national poofers.

The two new national effects are accompanied by ring versions, Anel de Brasil and deutscher Ring (thanks, MythX Hax) and join the growing collection of national particle effects.

In this image I am testing the deutscher Ring effect at Electric Pixels. If you have any comments about these products, please add them here.

After looking at Linden Lab's recent usage statistics, I am thinking of building effects for France and UK next. Would anyone like to assist me?

Charity

My good friend VaaaVa Voom called me the other day (not to be confused with VaVaa Voom or VaaVa Voom). She's been hired as a manager for the Furumachi sim. It's a large Japanese build that has all kinds of things going on it.

Anyway, VaaaVa wanted me to set up a satellite shop in their new mall. Oh boy – readers will know my opinion of malls by now! But, as she is a good friend and offered such a good deal, I could not turn it down.

So, now I have yet another satellite shop location – and even though Furumachi is not really open yet, this shop actually gets somewhat more traffic per day than my other location in Amat!

But that's not the topic of this post. Here's what happened: I met and spoke with another of the mall unit users, Mustang2 Bing. He's a very cool guy who is connected to the RL music industry and is tearing up SL with his enthusiasm and talent. Turns out he was recruited by the Furumachi administration to set up a benefit concert on August 18th in Furumachi to collect L$ for earthquake victims in Japan.

I asked Mustang what I could do to help, and he wasn't sure any particles were required, but then said “maybe some fireworks to use between shows”. So, I promptly built some very cool (and large) custom fireworks, which are now ready to be used during the show. As a donator of items, Mustang said I am now an official sponsor and thus have a advertising box on display at the show location.

The punch line to all this is that a year ago, I would never have expected to own a thriving virtual business that sells imaginary products to virtual people, and helps sponsor worldwide benefit concerts for the unfortunate in Japan. How can I explain this to my Mom?

It Was Mall Maddness!

It's now several weeks after setting up a second satellite mall location in Amat next to a popular Rave club, and it's time to examine the results.

Well, that didn't take long – THERE ARE NO RESULTS! That's not quite right, there are ALMOST no sales whatsoever.

How can this be? The shop is located right next to what I thought would be a prime location.

What do I mean by “a prime location”? Here was my thinking beforehand:

• Heavy Traffic, generated by the club owners, who in this case seem to do an amazing job at organizing DJs, events, etc. There are always lots of people in the club
• Location immediately beside the club. If you step out the door of the club, you cannot possibly avoid seeing the store
• Right kind of Traffic. The club-goers are not only Ravers, a genre for whom I have specifically built many products, but quite a few of these specific people are already my customers and “rave” about my products

This should be a no brainer, right?

Wrong. My traffic counter indicates I am getting about 0.5 visits per day, which is many, many times less than my main shop's traffic. As a result, there are few sales.

So what went wrong? All the facts seemed to indicate that this shop should have been successful, but it wasn't. Here's my analysis. By going into the club and observing the comings-and-goings, I knew what was wrong right away:

• While the right kind and quantity of people were in fact nearby, they did not enter the shop
• People would arrive frequently to participate in the well-promoted club activities (usually DJ's, etc.)
• People would participate (dance their brains out) in the club and then simply TP away
• The avatars would almost never take the time to step out of the club and stumble into the mall and my shop

So, I now conclude there is a third factor required for mall success: Traffic Flow! Yes, you need not only lots of traffic and the right kind of traffic, but also the traffic must somehow flow past your store. In the Amat case, the people flow occurred entirely within the club walls and never left. The mall shops were left to the ghosts.

So now I am thinking, how does one design a mall/club to produce effective traffic flow? If I was building a mall, I would consider the following aspects:

• You (the mall owner) cannot control the point from which people leave. They can just TP out anytime from anywhere in your sim
• You (the mall owner) CAN control their entry point
• Visitors are coming for their own benefit, not the shopowners. They were attracted to the sim for a particular reason. In the Amat case, they come in their dozens to participate in the club activities
• So (and this is the key point) visitors will traverse the shortest path between the entry point and the area they were attracted to in the first place
• Therefore, if you want visitors to see the mall... The Mall Must Be Placed In Between The Entry Point and The Sim's Attraction!

I am now imagining various designs for malls that could do this. All would be relatively simple to do, it's just positioning of the build objects. Does any mall actually do this? One limitation to this approach would be that visitors would tolerate only a certain number of stores on their way to the attraction. You can't expect them to walk through an entire Mall of America just to get to the pole dancers!

I spoke to the Amat club owner about this, but he seemed to think that a change in building style of the mall units would be the solution. I am not sure about this, because that would do nothing to affect the traffic flow at all.

So, my secondary shop remains in Amat, not selling anything. Come by and visit sometime!

Building a New Store, or SL Ergonomics 101

Man, I am tired! I just spend two whole days building my new store. While I took the logos and color scheme from the old store, I wanted to try to use my experience from the old store to create an improved store concept.

Here were my goals:

• Make things as easy as possible for customers, meaning easy to see/find products, move around, operate demonstrators, etc.
• Create an expandable design suitable for adding many more products in the future (I am staying here a long time, remember?)
• Keep the prim count low (thus extending my stay at this location for the longest possible time)

I thought about other store designs that I have encountered, and realized some problems that are all too often present:

• Products placed one by one on a wall cause avatars to move from one product to the next in a very tedious manner. Step, turn, look; Step, turn, look; repeat twelve times
• Doors are a pain. In RL, doors keep thieves from walking off with your inventory. That kind of theft simply doesn't happen in SL (at least most of the time, LOL!) You don't need really need doors at all, unless doors are critical to the store's atmosphere. Worse, poorly designed doors are sometimes hard to get through
• Have I seen all of this store? Is there another room I haven't found because it is hidden around the corner? Should I open that door to the back room? Is it a back room? Sadly, this type of confusion is often the case
• What the heck am I buying? I want to be able to see it, which is doubly important with particle effects that involve motion that can't be properly captured in a still image

Sometimes these “problems” aren't really issues because the store is trying to achieve a look-and-feel by approximating a specific real life situation. That I understand. But far too many shops simply build square walls, doors, etc. without really thinking of the effect on the ease of use by avatars in SL. SL ergonomics are DIFFERENT than RL ergonomics!

So, I built a store with some unique, SL-ergonomic features. Time will tell if they prove valuable:

• Products are hung on semi-circular walls. The customers need only rotate (one key press) to see many different full-on views of products. Step, turn, look at 12 products all at once
• Modular design that can be added to vertically. When do we run out of vertical? Not anytime soon for me!
• Demonstrators beside all products. Customers do not have to move at all to see an instant demonstration of the product
• Open design without walls or ceilings. Customers can quickly hop up or down to get to any portion of the store. In fact, when they arrive via TP, they can actually see the entire store all at once without any hidden rooms for them to find, and fly-bys can also see the entire operation
• Visible work area. I have placed a Laboratory Sandbox behind some glass. This not only provides me with an area to work, but also something for visitors to observe (think “zoo animal”.) Watching someone build particles is usually interesting, especially when things go horribly wrong...
• Open stage with bleacher seats for presentations or special events

That's enough for now. I have to open the store now (which means shutting down the old store and replacing it with redirection signs and re-issuing the advertising with new landmarks.)

New Land Big Land!

I've done it – I've bought an 8192sm parcel located in Caso Milo. This is monstrously gigantic compared to my tiny 512sm in Lanestris. It's one-eighth of an entire sim! Maybe someday I will be able to say “I own my own virtual island”, but not quite yet.

My previously mentioned objectives for land strategy turned out to be slightly incorrect. I did not need to buy flat land. My buddy Poopmaster Oh showed me that I can use mega-prims to quickly cover the area, creating a perfectly flat space. In fact, she actually built them for me. Thanks, Poop!

The mega-prims used here are 20m cubes. I need only eight to cover the entire area, producing a perfectly flat surface for building. You can't create such cubes, but some still float around SL, having apparently been created before the 10m limit was imposed.

Now I'm left with the hard part – construction of a new store. More on this in a future post.

But what about my old parcel in Lanestris? Should I sell it? Obviously not until I open the new store, but what about after that? I am still concerned about customers having landmarks pointing to the old location. You know the old saying: “your best customers are your existing customers”. I believe this to be true in SL also, since I often have former customers returning to buy new or more products.

I've decided not to sell the Lanestris parcel quite yet. Instead, I am going to erect signs and landmark givers that send anyone who shows up to the new location. Also I will rez a body counter to see how many people area actually showing up there. When the visitation rate gets low, it will be time to sell.

Second Contracts

This always happens to me: I am visiting SL friends, and suddenly connections are made and I am off building something for someone. I don't mind doing this (especially if I get paid!) because it means more exposure for me – both others seeing what I do, and me seeing what others are doing. The more you understand your SL market, the better. I take every chance I get to learn what's going on.

Here's how it went down the first time: I am at a SL house party, and a very nice lady asks what I do in SL. I explain that I build particle effects. “Oh, can I see some????? Pull-eezzzz!!!!”

“OK.” I don't mind showing off – my effects are usually quite a lot of fun anyway. I showed off some of my fogs and poofers, but she got very excited when I demonstrated my hearts poofers.

“Wow!” she said, and “Hold on a minute,” just before disappearing.

Moments later I am summoned via TP to a dance club, where I am introduced to the owner, another very nice lady. She likes the effects and buys several on the spot, but goes on to explain that they need something to spice up the club's lounge area. We visit the lounge and I recommended a few changes and suggested that I could build a custom particle effect that might work.

A few days later I had created a unique effect for that club's lounge – and the owner bought it on the spot. Suddenly, I was a virtual contract worker!

And that's how it usually happens. Some builders may turn down such requests (or not even identify them as opportunities), but I believe I gain much by doing these custom builds:

• Exposure to more potential customers. Who knows how many people will hear the story of how the lounge effect was built? Any additional sales that develop, even one, is more than you would have had otherwise
• Experience. Contracts typically cause me to push my knowledge of LSL and building a bit further than I have previously gone. This makes you a better builder and enhances your future products automatically. Of course, you have to have a nose for this kind of thing: don't take on contract work that you just cannot achieve. A little bit difficult is A Good Thing
• Customer service reputation. By helping my friend and being patient and listening carefully to the contract customer, they are likely to buy more items from me in the future (hopefully!) If not that, then they may again tell others of their customer experience. Besides, I like to be nice in general, and I can't do it any other way
• Items that are custom built for one are often resellable to others. In other words, you just received a great idea for a new product! Use it!
• Connections. Meeting people is always important, because not only do you gain social value, you also gain a potentially useful connection for future activities. Who knows when you might need to have a buddy who builds japanese furniture?

So, when ever I have the time and the ability, I do take on special contracts. It's just good business.

One Hundred and Seventeen

One Hundred and Seventeen is no longer my favorite number. My measly 512sm parcel is now full – all 117 prims have