I Am Canadian!

Yes, if you didn't know, I am indeed Canadian - and tomorrow, July 1st, is Canada Day. I'm off work and celebrating, but I want to remind everyone that I do offer several Canadian-oriented particle products at Electric Pixels. Pictured above is the very beautiful "I Am Canadian" effect. I really should post a video of it, since the still image doesn't really show the subtle motion and fading of the maple leaves. When you wear it, there's no doubt where you're from.

If you're interested in this and related Canadian products, why not drop by Electric Pixels and take a look? Not Canadian? I have similar products for many other countries - and if yours isn't there, drop me a line and I'll make it if there's sufficient demand.

A Volcanic Eruption!

It’s been a while since I released a new product, so I wanted to make sure it was something big. And indeed, this one is huge! It’s called “Volcanic Eruption”, and it does just that.

Volcanic Eruption provides more realism to Second Life volcanoes. Most volcanoes are simply a dead mountain with a cone-shaped depression at the top, and the odd one might have smoke percolating out of it. However, I wanted to do something better.

Originally a custom build for a private estate owner but now available to all, the new Volcanic Eruption particle emitter provides a realistic twist to your virtual volcano. Simply place the emitter into your volcano’s cone and it does all the rest for you. And what, exactly, does it do?

It erupts!

To be more precise, it follows a sequence typical of real volcanoes:

• It remains idle for a time. (You can specify how long you’d like it to remain dormant)
• The eruption commences with a stream of smoke flowing skyward
• Suddenly an explosion occurs, releasing flying ejecta in all directions!
• A column of fire rises from the volcano’s cone
• The fire collapses, resulting in a deadly pyroclastic flow that runs down the sides of the mountain

 
In real life, the most dangerous part of a volcanic eruption is the pyroclastic flow. It’s a superheated mix of toxic gases and dust that speeds downward at velocities far faster than you can run, cooking and choking everything in its path. That’s what kills people during eruptions.

And now you can have it for your volcano too. Just drop by Electric Pixels, where you can find the new Volcanic Eruption in the Garden and Weather departments. 

A Special Valentine Sale for Readers!

February is Valentine’s month, and a few of us decided to play around with some Valentine's Particle Effects. Above you see SL's most lovey-dovey couple Tymmerie Thorne and Jerremy Darwin giving each other the love with the LuvGiver! Let me recommend some interesting items you might find quite appropriate for your significant SL other for this special occasion. 

LuvHearts and LuvHearts Subtle - Wear this invisible poof when you hug your partner and surprise them with a beautiful cloud of lovely hearts that gently blow away in the wind. 

LuvGiver - If you're too shy to say so in words, why not send them some love with the LuvGiver, which sends a stream of love and kisses towards your crush.

Heart Hair Day - A very subtle effect which produces teeny-tiny hearts all around your face. Excellent for Valentine’s Day pictures.

HeartBlossom - Let your partner know your love when beautiful hearts blossom from your chest and float away.

HeartMaker Thick - Install this in your garden and experience a romantic rain of drifting hearts.

Every one of these effects are transfer and all are available at Second Effects - and set to half price until Valentine’s Day! 

Seasonal Stuff

I haven’t done any shameless advertising on this blog for quite a while, so I thought I’d mention a few items in my shop that you might find very appropriate for the season. And that season is of course Autumn (at least in the Northern Hemisphere) and Halloween (in both Hemispheres).

For Halloween I have several particle effects involving bats. Bat Hair Day, seen above, produces teeny-tiny bats around your face. It’s on sale in the “Pretty” department at Electric Pixels.

 

If you need more bats, the Batty effect makes your own personal flock of bats. For room-sized clouds of bats, the BatMaker or BatMaker Thick effects can be installed for your Halloween party and have bats buzzing around all your guests.

CandyGiver is a Halloween basket that you wear on your hand. When you do, it scans the area and asks you to whom it should give candy. Once you select someone, a stream of rather sweet candy items flows to them. It and the Bat effects are available in the “Occasions” department at Electric Pixels.

You might also find something spooky in the “Vampire” department, which has a variety of demonic and evil items.

One of the items I’m very happy with is LeafMaker, which produces a scene of beautiful falling leaves. They’re several different colors and based on real leaves, but the effect works because of their motion. It really feels like you’re standing in a forest at that special moment when all the leaves are falling down around you. I also have several species of falling leaves: red, yellow or brown, in both “thick” or not-so-thick packages. Just place the emitter in your tree, and leaves fall gently the ground.

Have a great Fall and Halloween, everyone!

The Strange Effects of Effects

Eons ago I began making particle effects. Lately they seem to be changing. The new ones, I mean. My original items were quite simple, although I probably didn’t think so at the time. However, over the past year they’ve gradually become more complex, sometimes involving multiple emitters, timers, chat commands, linked messages and other tricky bits.

But more recently I’ve noticed a strange effect: the usage and purpose of new items are changing. At first I only made items to wear while dancing. Then it was items to place on a dance floor such as colourful fogs and eventually items to enhance your property, such as ground fogs or mists.

Then strange things began to appear on my store’s shelves. First it was a series of gadgets and fireworks sculptures.

And last week, it was Weather! The new Rainmaker, complete with sound, can cover up to 192m across. Pictured here getting very wet are Second Life hockey player Dyz Warburton and master builder Anhalya Lycia, who recently won a building contest at Dreams.

A similar Snowmaker produces the most amazing thick snow. Why snow in May? I’m not exactly certain how it came about, but I did sell some to a very nice fellow from Dubai this week, who said it cooled him down from his RL temperature of +48C (118F).

This week it’s a continuation of something that started earlier: Particle Fashions. I’d already made a very popular series of colourful particle halos, but this week it’s Twinkle. Twinkle produces tiny stars around your face. Sounds entirely crazy, but if you match the color to your avatar, it can look very beautiful.

But that wasn’t all. It was extremely late and I was somehow still online (from Las Vegas, where There Are No Clocks) having a late chat with Belgian Blogging Buddy Miss Vint Falken. I learned the distinguished Euro-blogger was ill and Not Very Happy. Determined to cheer her up, I quickly whipped up a “Drippy Nose” effect. It makes your nose red and continually drips offensive yellowy material. Ick. But the mission was accomplished, as Vint tossed me a =)

Except she still had a bit of a cough days later...

Hmm. Perhaps I should make a line of sickly effects? Imagine the possibilities!

Crowd Particles!

This week I built a new experimental product: crowd-based particle effects. I was contacted by friend IYan Writer, who was organizing a space/ambient music event held at MMC Island last Thursday. IYan wanted particle effects that would enhance the "spacey" mood of the show.

Headlining the show was Cypress Rosewood, whose music was indeed very spacey. According to IYan's press release:

The legendary SL space musician, Cypress Rosewood performs his musical magic with flutes, guitars and synthesizers throughout the SL world and is a metamedia treat to see live, in concert.

In Second Life CYPRESS has been a pioneer of live space and ambient music. He has performed over 150 concerts of his special brand of aural vibrations that can aid healing and relaxation. Cypress is also developing a Space Music Museum alongside working on many groundbreaking projects. He is also one of the primary designers for the first major music manufacturer on the SL grid, Gibson Music Instruments, building their "Gibson Island" to be opened in May of 2008 sometime.

I had not visited MMC Island before, perhaps because it is "an extension of the Multimedia center of RTV Slovenia (Slovenia 's public broadcaster) in the virtual world of Second Life". Fortunately for me, few were speaking Slovenian during the concert!

The stage itself was spacey: set high in the dark sky, attendees sat on pink cushions floating in the air at the Orbital Station. Dance balls surrounded the audience where the daring could dance in the air.

We decided to build a special attachment that would be provided to each attendee. The invisible attachment would produce the required particle effects.

But then the question was, "what effects would be appropriate?"

Virtually all of my wearable particle effect products would be inappropriate as they produce a fair number of particles each. If used by a large crowd of say, 40, you'd blow out the sim with particles.

I decided I'd better make something very subtle.

Instead of blasting out many particles, the device makes a single stationary star every few seconds. When used by a crowd, a subtle 3D field of stars rapidly appears around everyone.

To make things more interesting I added a few spectacular twists. Once in a very long while it emits a multi-colored nebula, and at other times it may go Nova, explode, collapse or emit tantalizing rays from the wearer.

Testing the device was very strange. My laboratory at Electric Pixels had 40 invisible devices lain out to simulate a large crowd. With a black background, the visible effects were eerie indeed. Stars always, but with occasional explosions and novas!

So how did it go? At first I was concerned, because I could not predict the number of attendees. If too few people showed up, particle emissions would be insufficient to produce a spacey view. If too many people wore the effect, there might have been a particle overload. But no, it was just right. Interesting effects appeared at just the correct rate, and I think it was a success.

What other crowd-based effects might be possible? I'm not sure yet, but imagination is our only limit. Let me know if you have any ideas!

An ARC From Here to Infinity

I’m obsessed with a number. Not just any number, but those amazing new ARCs. Avatar Rendering Cost!

What, you don’t know what that is?

It’s a new feature in the viewer that hatched a few weeks ago. You can access it via this tortuous and finger-straining mouse path: Advanced Menu ->Rendering->Info Displays->Avatar Rendering Cost. Once you’ve ticked that mysterious option you’ll see strange numbers appear above everyone’s head. Yeah, it’s been well described before. First here, then here and a bunch of other spots too.

It’s great sport to check out the ARCs of a crowd to see who’s got the “heaviest” ARC. Or the lowest. A visitor to Electric Pixels the other night was a mere 33, while some of my friends consistently haul around in excess of Five Thousand ARC (you know who you are!) At the Tonight Live taping last weekend someone in the audience was over Ten Thousand – so unbelievably heavy that my LCD screen actually started warping whenever she was in view.

Nevertheless, my interest in ARC lies elsewhere, specifically regarding the bit about particles found in the Official Blog:

16 points added if prim is a particle emitter. Rationale: Particles create even MORE CPU overhead and consume graphics bus bandwidth.

Hmm. Evidently particle effects take up a unit count of 16.

But do they really?

I don’t think so. In fact, I suspect the 16 is merely a guess. Why? Because all particle effects are not created equal. They vary considerably in their behaviour. Here’s what I mean: I can write a particle script that issues a single particle once every 20 minutes. Your poor viewer will no doubt strain and begin smoking under the tremendous effort required to draw that little puff. If you wait the 20 minutes for it to appear.

On the other hand, I can write a particle script that might emit 1000 particles every 0.01 seconds, and keep each of them visible for a full minute. In other words, after 10 seconds of that, your snappy viewer must draw (1000 / 0.01) * 10 = 1,000,000 particles! Yeowch! Actually, your viewer would stop drawing them after you hit the particle limit as set in your preferences, typically 4096 (although I once met a guy who preferred to set his to 4. Yes, 4. I hope they were the Best Four Particles.)

Ahem, back to the analysis we were developing.

So, a particle effect can develop a workload for your shiny PC of something between say, INFINITY and well, NOTHING! But we gotta count particles as something for the ARC statistic. Let’s see. How about SIXTEEN? Yeah, that’s it!

The Official Mandarins had little choice. They had to plug some number, perhaps based on some statistics or empirical experience. And so sixteen it is.

But you and I know that it is really a guess. So when you are in that sandbox and see a newb setting off a phalanx of sim-cracking blockbuster nukes, mentally add a few more ARC points to ‘em.

Broadening The Stars

The other day someone told me they really liked my blog - except for those "incredibly annoying posts where I talk about my particle effects." Ok, I can understand that. But I am running a particle effects business that I love and I am going to do it anyway!

---BEGIN ADVERT---
One of my most popular particle products is a rather simple one: StarMaker. It's a device you can install on your property that emits rather nice spiky-looking stars. They don't move, but instead they just appear and then slowly fade out within a 5m radius. The effect is quite eerie when you walk through a 3D field of such stars.

I thought that was the end of the story for StarMaker. But it wasn't. A visitor to the store last week asked the staff whether we had a bigger version of StarMaker, suitable for covering a large area. We did not. But my trusty staff wrote up the request and passed it on to me. After a little bit of programming and a lot experimentation, I completed building "StarMaker Wide."

It's very similar to the original StarMaker, but covers a massive radius of 60m, which is suitable for coverage of many areas and events. Like its predecessor, StarMaker Wide emits stationary stars – but it has to be seen to be believed. Large stars appear close up, while those more distant appear smaller and seen to wink in and out. It's much more effective than the original, if you have a space large enough to use it.

But that's not all: we've made StarMaker Wide available in several starry colors: Red, Green, Blue, Ice Blue, White, Purple, Fuschia, Yellow, Pink and MultiColor, which continuously emits a range of different colors. Finally, if you cannot decide which color is best for you, StarMaker Wide Universal can be set to any of the above colors at a mere touch. Set your parcel's mood by color as required.

All available now at Electric Pixels!
---END ADVERT---

Ok, I agree with you. That was a blatent advert. Sorry. At least I marked it as such. We'll resume normal blogging in the next post. But it really is a wonderful product! Really!

Augh, I can't help myself. See you next time!

Sculptured Fireworks

Once in a long while I accidentally make something that I believe is very interesting, and Mini Candles is certainly that. What are they? They are simply small versions of the giant Roman Candle effect I released earlier. Five colors (red, white, blue, green and gold) are included in the Mini Candle kit.

So? What makes them interesting?

Since they are copyable, you can make lots of them - and then merely by linking them together they automatically synchronize and act as one unit. In other words, you can instantly create a "bank" of roman candles that fire at exactly the same time.

Since they have "COPY" permission, you can use as many as you dare to create the most outrageous fireworks displays ever! By making enough copies and arranging them in the appropriate patterns, you can create banks of roman candles that fire in coordinated sequences within minutes. You can make a wall of white or a circle of red or a star of gold.

Still not convinced? Using Mini Candles I was able to quickly create the display pictured here, which includes a ROTATING pinwheel! Feel free to drop by Electric Pixels to see this in person. Well, "in avatar", at least. I will leave it up on our stage for a while.

And you can use Mini Candles not only for fireworks displays, but all sorts of interesting applications: parties, themed areas, animated sculptures and even secret initiation ceremonies. Well, having never been invited to a secret ritual, I gotta assume that's what goes on in them. Doesn't it?

Mini Candles. It's not just five roman candles - it's a fireworks construction kit!

Particle Prejudice

This week I happened to be helping a friend set up a display for a Second Life snapshot contest, including assisting the selection of photos. But we had a disagreement over which pictures were most appropriate. We deferred to the contest rules in an effort to determine which photos were permitted. The rules contained the usual, such as no photoshopping, must be PG material, etc. But hidden inside was one other ominous rule: No Particle Effects, or as the rules stated, “No Poofers”.

There. It happened again.

It's what I call, “Particle Prejudice”. When others declare that particles do not belong in Second Life.

I've had the same thing happen to me many times. A typical scenario involves visiting a new location, and I might discreetly start up an appropriate and minor particle effect just to add to the visual experience. Suddenly the owner or manager charges up to me and says “Turn that OFF Immediately!” and “You are causing LAG on the server!” Since it usually isn't my property, I turn it off. And leave.

There seems to be a peculiar type of paranoia regarding particles. Sure, if you have a really crappy graphics card, your PC might be unable to render all the particles, but that slows no one else down. Some may call this effect “lag”. In fact, most people don't seem to realize that particles usually have very little to do with lag. At my shop, Electric Pixels, there are often several effects running simultaneously. Does this slow things down? Not in the slightest. Server stats remain stable and running quite well. My experiments tell me that the single biggest factor of sim lag is simply the number of people within it. A single particle effect has virtually no effect on the sim whatsoever. Yet, you'd better shut that effect off Right Now otherwise you'll crash the sim!

When used correctly, particles can transform a Second Life scene from a lifeless stack of objects into a living, breathing environment, in much the same way as sounds can. I've found many people really enjoy particles. Some are my customers and they collect effects of all kinds. But others, particularly older avatars who rezzed years ago tend to avoid them, or worse, actively try to get rid of them. Perhaps this is a phenomenon originating years ago when servers were slower and PCs were far less graphically capable than today? Or maybe it's due to the griefers who abuse particles to disrupt public events. They are the bad guys.

And the rest of us? We're not the bad guys! We just love particles and use them appropriately. Don't shut us down, save it for the griefers.

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.

Halos!

I saw someone wearing a halo the other day, and thought I'd see if I could make one too. I'd never made precision-aligned head ornaments before but perhaps I was up to the challenge.

It turned out that it was actually quite straightforward to build the halo, which is modeled here by Haley Salomon. They slowly bubble upwards, fading to a brilliant white. Haley is wearing the green version (naturally, because everything she owns is green, or at least that's how it seems.) Although I truly like green, I just had to make a few other colors.

Eleven, actually: Red, Blue, Yellow, Black, Purple, Indigo, Chartreuse, Fuschia, Pink and Sky Blue. And one more: a very special Vampire version that is Red and Black.

I've received positive feedback on these from several testers, and I hope you like them too. If you happen to like them a lot, you can buy all colors at once in the "Halo Collection". Available now at Electric Pixels!

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"!

Getting Ready for Winter!

Somehow I had some time this weekend to build some new effects, including an entirely new line of Teleportation effects.

Geez, I think I need a coat in this picture! Brrr! These three winter effects are now available at Electric Pixels:

• Snower Personal, which produces a vast amount of snowflakes around you when you wear the effect.
• Snower Subtle, which produces a much smaller amount of snowflakes. I am not sure which one is best for you, but now you have a choice.
• WinterKit, which includes not only Snower Personal and Snower Subtle, but also the new Breath effect. It produces a frosty breath every seven seconds and when combined with the snow effects makes the scene look very cold!

I've also produced three new Teleportation effects. These are worn like many other effects, except they are inactive until you teleport. Then when you rez they will activate for two seconds. What happens next depends on the effect:

• RaveRinger TP produces a small blast of multicolored streaks along a randomly angled plane. It goes off only once when you teleport, like all of these teleportation effects.
• NightFog TP instantly produces a 10m area of complete darkness. The effect slows after two seconds and the darkness gradually lifts. This would be great for a spooky halloween entrance!
• SuperFog TP instantly produces a 10m white cloud all around you. Again, it disperes in about two seconds.

A word of warning: the teleportation effects might be considered rude in some areas, so be very sure that you will be well received when you teleport!

Halloween and Frosty Effects

This week I created two new unique seasonal effects.

Since Halloween is coming up, I thought it would be appropriate to have at least one effect. But instead of making a "spooky" effect like everyone else, my pal DeForest Beck suggested I make a "nice" effect instead. Thus was born the idea of the CandyGiver. It's simple to operate, as all my effects are. Just wear it and you may scan the vicinity for other avatars. You are presented with a list of names, and the one you select is given dozens of candy items. There are eighteen different types of candy, including a selection of chocolate bars, gum, lollypops and of course chocolate kisses! Don't eat too much!

The other new effect is quite obvious, but I have never encountered it. "Breath" is a tiny object worn on your nose (yes, it is transparent so no one can see it). Every seven seconds it emits a puff of steam. What is it for? Winter! This is what your breath actually looks like in -20C weather, and I should know, living in a cold RL country. This is just the thing for those of you who like to romp in the snow.

Now, if only I could find a snowsuit somewhere...

[Update: I did find someone with a snowsuit!]

Particles in Bloom

I had an idea to use particles to create life-like vegetation, and it seems to have turned out rather well. After some experimentation and a lot of photoshopping, I first built an effect that emits grass! Once triggered, grass flows slowly away from the emitter as shown in the photo.

This emitter has some interesting properties. First, you can raise or lower the height of your grass merely by moving the emitter up or down. As with all of my installable effects, the emitter is MOD so that you can blend it into your site, or even make it completely transparent.

I really wanted to create a wavy field of grass, much like you would see on the prairies. But unfortunately, that's not how particles work. You can't easily make individual particles change shape - you can just make them move and stretch - but not wave. However, I had another idea! It came to me as I watched the grass particles slowly flow away from the emitter. If you place several Grass emitters separated by say 10m or so, their grass particles inter-weave together and create a bizarre flowing carpet of grass. Not exactly waving grass, but pretty close and very fun to stand within.

Once Grass was made it was straightforward to create two additional effects: Flowers, which emits a selection of wildflowers, and Sunflowers, which emits.... oh you can guess that one!

All three of these new particle effects are now available at the Electric Pixels Particle Shop in Caso Milo.

Does anyone have any suggestions or requests for other types of vegetation?