Second Learning

Silent Auction Postponed

2008-04-05T16:08:00.000-07:00

Due to a combination of the Havoc 4 server rollout and my failing health (mostly the latter), I wasn't able to prepare for an April 5 silent auction date as I'd hoped.

I'm on the mend and anticipate a roll out next week.

In the mean time, any offers of help would be greatly appreciated.

Relay For Life: Donation Vendors

2008-03-29T16:50:00.001-07:00

I've updated two of the Relay For Life donation vendors. Want goodies? Read on!

== Cancer Ribbon Bracelet ==

This lovely bracelet is available at the EduCube Headquarters for 100 L$.

== Tank Top Template for GIMP ==
Ever wanted to design your own clothes but are scared off by the thought of having to seam match? Perhaps you have a soft spot for Robin S. Wood's t-shirt template and wished that there were more like it? Have the GIMP?

If so, you are in luck. I created a template to make tank tops. Because I'm a female, the template has (optional) baked-in shadowing for females. Choose your color. Choose your front and back designs. Save. Upload. Simple as that. And for only 50 L$, too.

Want it? You know you do! You can get it at the Crackerbox Palace Classroom. And while you are there, join the Subscribe-o-Matic to hear updates about classes.

== Help Out ==
Don't forget that we are always looking for people willing to help us by hosting a donation vendor or kiosk.

And we still need volunteers to help us with the upcoming Silent Auction Benefit.

Until next time: beware of wolves in wolf clothing.

Fluttering Violets

2008-03-24T16:56:00.000-07:00

Announcing our first donation for the Team Gianfar Relay For Life benefit. It is an outfit (several, actually) donated by the generous Elana Silverspar (Elana, contact me with what SLURL/URL you'd like linked to your donation).

The silent auction is on April 5, 2008.

Can't wait? Neither could we. We want to test to make sure our script functions properly, so have set up this lovely spring-time outfit in the EduCube Headquarters. Drop by and click on the table to place your bid. We will close out the bidding on Saturday, March 30, 2008 and the highest bidder will be contacted to pay. You do not have to pay until Saturday, so don't go spending those L$.

To show that no one is making a profit off of this auction, the winning bidder will be asked to pay the donation vendor while an auction host is present. When the team total rises by the amount of the winning bid, the item will be transferred to the winning bidder. The donation vendor goes straight to Relay For Life and can be checked for authenticity by "Touch"ing the vendor. A website will pop up giving authentication details.

Want to help, too? Here's how.

Easter Greetings

2008-03-23T00:47:00.001-07:00

Happy Easter to all of my faithful EduCube junkies. Got a few highlights for you:

== Easter Decorations ==
Come to the EduCube Headquarters to see our Easter decorations. Namely: Peter Rabbit. If you cannot drop by because you have to do First Life stuff (and who could blame you), here's a picture of what you missed:

== Classes On Your Schedule ==
Despite having this information on EVERY SINGLE CLASS listing on the blog, it took until now for a student to contact me. You see, she wanted to take the Japanese Koi Garden class but could never seem to make it to class on time. She was delighted and amazed to discover that I'd schedule a class for her at a time convenient to her. No need to be amazed -- it is an offer I make. Are you someone who could use to take advantage of this policy? Contact me!

== New RFL Donation Vendor ==
As soon as Easter passes, the Easter Card vendor in the EduCube Headquarters is coming down, to be replaced with a donation vendor for this lovely Cancer Ribbon Bracelet. But I warn you, the donation will increase tenfold. This lovely bracelet goes for a minimum donation of 100 L$.

Until next time -- beware the squirrels.
(At the Forum Cartel, someone released a squirrel which ran around dropping nuts and chattering. This led to much hatred of the squirrel. And much photography. See his picture below.)

How to Host a Team Gianfar RFL Donation Vendor

2008-03-21T09:27:00.000-07:00

== Step 1 ==
Accept the donation vendor being sent to you. They all start with "(RFL) ..." and end with the name of the Thank You Gift inside.

== Step 2 ==
Locate the donation vendor in your inventory and drag it into the world to rez.

== Step 3 ==
Right click on the vendor in world and select "Edit" from the available wheel-of-options. If you do not see all of the tabs in the lower part of this image, click on the "More >>" button.

Now click over onto the Content Tab.

== Step 4 ==
Locate the Thank You Gift item from the list in the Content Tab and right click on it. Choose "Properties" from the right-click menu.

== Step 5 ==
On the new screen that pops up, please uncheck "Modify" and "Copy". This way the Thank You Gift remains a gift in thanks off supporting Relay For Life, and does not become a Business in a Box item. However, it had to be transferred to you at full permissions or else you wouldn't be able to host the vendor.

== Step 6 ==
The vendor will now reset its script and will ask you for Debt permissions. You want to grant them.

Why? Because the way it works is that when someone makes a donation to the vendor, that money first goes to you and then you pay Relay For Life. Why? Because that's the way it has to be given Second Life's wonderful scripting. If you have any concerns about this, IM me and I'll put you in touch with the American Cancer Society representative who will (hopefully) assure you that it is safe.

By the way, if you take too long to give it debt permissions, the vendor will delete itself. So click on "Grant" with expeditious speed!

Relay For Life - Silent Auction

2008-03-20T16:30:00.000-07:00

== Save the Date ==
April 5, 2008 from 3 pm to 7 pm SLT. (Unless someone is willing to play host at other times.)

== How You Can Help ==
(1) Donate goods to be silently auctioned.
(2) Donate services to be silently auctioned. (Ex. Interior decorating service. An hour of music services. A not-so-blind date.)
(3) Are you an aspiring - or actual - DJ or live music performer? Come play the benefit and donate your services.
(4) Have a lot of land and some extra prims lying around? How about a rental that just won't rent? Donate it for one night's use for the benefit. And who knows, maybe someone will like it so much they'll rent it!
(5) Have the world's best dance attachment? (chimera, dance balls, dance machine, etc.) May we borrow it for a night?
(6) Can you model? How about take excellent product shots? We could use some help photographing all the donations for the silent auction.
(7) Can you multi-task? Ever wanted to be a Host(ess)? We are going to need greeters as well as those who can keep an eye on the silent auctions.
(8) Are you an excellent networker? Help us get the word out.
(9) Handy with Photoshop? Great with GIMP? We have some signs, banners, and invitation textures that we could use some help on making.

== Who to Contact ==
Jasmin Loire
or drop a comment here

== Who to Thank ==
Product donations are listed on individual donated product pages.

Relay For Life - For Easter

2008-03-20T10:56:00.000-07:00

I'll start with the goodies and then get to the begging --

In the EduCube Headquarters, you will now see a Relay For Life donation vendor next to the Prize Chair. It has one of 4 special edition Easter Cards (Collect all Four) for a donation of 10 L$ to Relay For Life. 10 L$ may sound like a lot, but it is not impossible to get with an hour's worth of sitting in a camping chair. Yes, it takes dedication, but since when are my readers opposed to dedication?

== Collect all Four ==
Here are the locations of donation vendors that are kindly being hosted by those who have heard my plea and responded:

Easter Card 01
Easter Card 02
Easter Card 03
Easter Card 04

== A Plea ==
Dear Friends,

I'm a member of the Gianfar Team for Relay For Life (in July). Relay For Life is a walk-a-thon put on by the American Cancer Society to raise money for cancer research. As a former biochemist who did studies on components of medications and their cancer-causing rates, we relied on agencies such as the American Cancer Society to provide us with grants for our research. Not to mention that every member of my family who has expired over my lifetime has been the victim of cancer. As such, this is a charity close to my heart.

I was wondering if you were interested in any of the following:
(1) Joining my team. The more the merrier!
(2) Hosting a donation kiosk in your space. They can be as prim-efficient as 5 prims.
(3) Donating an item for use in my team's fundraising. We will be hosting a silent auction to raise funds for this charity. The items need only be transferable.
(4) Hosting a donation vendor in your space. They are 3 prims.
(5) Hosting/providing services for a Relay For Life donation party.

Even if you cannot commit to running the relay (and who could blame you), you can still contribute through offering prims, prizes, or even word of mouth to pass this notecard around.

I thank you for the time and attention you have given to this matter. Please do not hesitate to IM me, Jasmin Loire, if you have any questions at all.

-- Jasmin Loire --

== A Gift for You ==
And to show that I make absolutely no profit off of this venture, I am offering the textures for the card and for the 10 L$ amount right here:

Back from Mouse Land

2008-03-19T19:57:00.000-07:00

^^ Click for full picture.

Sorry for my hiatus. I was away visiting Mickey and Friends at Walt Disney World in sunny Florida, USA. For those of you planning a vacation there, please note that it costs $10.00 / 24 hours of internet, and it is not WiFi, so only one laptop can go online at at time. Since the Disney trip was a stretch, financially, we didn't have the $$ to spend on the internet, so I've had to be computer free for a while.

Then a family crisis arose and I had to spend some time at the grandparents house which has dial up (and we all know that Second Life and dial up don't play well together).

Needless to say, I'm back and wanted to spotlight something that is now slightly out of date: my St. Patrick's Day decorations and my prize chair.

== St. Pat's Decorations ==
While I was away, the EduCube Headquarters were cheerfully decorated in Saint Patrick's Day decorations in many festive shades of green. These were expertly created by my good friend Garlande Greene who actually makes a business of creating halo-free alpha cutouts of your favorite pets. I believe that she offers a discount for cutouts of guide animals (so your best pal can be in SL, too).

Here is her Irish Blessing and Shamrock Plant (I chose the pot myself). Nothing like a potted shamrock to brighten my spirits.

And here is a picture of an Irish wolfhound that she alpha-ed. Isn't her work amazing? No halo and no post-processing on this image.

== Prize Chair ==
And what is that hiding in the background behind the Leprechaun and his sign? Why that is my new prize chair.

Depending on what you want, if you occupy the stool for a given amount of time, you can earn prizes that are not available for purchase. At the time of writing this post, I have on offer:

Japanese Koi Garden for 120 Minutes
Transferable Seiza Sitting Pose for 15 Minutes
Transferable Agura Sitting Pose for 10 Minutes

Drop on by and grab your prize!

(INT) Japanese Koi Garden - The Magic of Texture Mapping

2008-03-01T10:27:00.000-08:00

*Crackerbox* (INT) Japanese Koi Garden - The Magic of Texture Mapping
Instructor: Jasmin Loire
Start Time: Check the Google Calendar
Duration : 1 Hour
Cost : 0 $L
Prerequisites: familiarity with entering numbers into edit, complete at least 3 beginning classes on building
Class Size : 9 - Strictly Enforced

What a makes a great build? A build that rezzes all at the same time, of course! Come learn how to use texture mapping skills to apply THE SAME texture to all parts of your build so that they all show up at the same time. For our purposes, we are creating a relaxing spring-like Japanese garden with Koi pond and torii gate. Feel free to come in costume!

-- Want more details? Check the blog ~ http://tinyurl.com/2j5feg --

There are teleports to travel between all three levels: ground classroom, sky classrooms, and sandbox. Tutorials to do on site or for purchase...and MORE.

Teleport directly to the classroom. | Sponsor me!

------------------------

Dates Offered: Check the Google Calendar.

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No time/date that works for you? You have two options:

(1) Comment on this blog or IM Jasmin Loire in-world with a suggested time (it has to be the dates listed however). She may be willing to reschedule a class to fit your schedule.

~~(2) Buy the class-to-go. It is almost as good as the real thing. Only 100 L$.~~ (Not available yet ... but will be soon.)

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We've got photos.

Lesson 15: Changing Clothes in Public Without Nudity

2008-02-29T20:53:00.001-08:00

All Pictures in this blog entry were taken at Dream Gardens Arboretum. A location with, as my mom would say, "Pretty peeps." Visit them and help their traffic numbers!

Have you ever been in the position where you suddenly realize that you need to change clothes? Is it somewhere that you cannot chance even the slightest moment of nudity (which may happen if you just drop a folder onto your avatar)? For example, a PG sim filled with AR-happy individuals? Then I've got the answer for you.

Introducing my dressing booth. Want to make your own? It is a 2 m tall cylinder with a 1 m X and Y size. Texture it however you'd like. Attach to spine. Or if you are not a builder, see the bottom of this post for how to get one, free of charge.

Here is Viv Perrin, our loveable EduCube photographer (with her awesome Windlight), and I suppose she should also be called "model" because she's in more pictures than I am. Hi Viv. Everybody wave.

Viv is going to change her clothes for you. But before you get all excited, reread the title of this post.

The first thing that Viv wants to do is locate her Dressing Booth in her inventory, right-click it, and choose Wear.

Now you won't be able to see Viv anymore. And, for that matter, you won't be able to see what she's wearing, which is the point. You cannot tell if she is wearing nothing or anything or just the Dressing Booth. And you cannot get ARed for being a non-human character, in this case "The Cylinder". So you have essentially mastered the Dressing Booth in just one step.

But there are a few useful tricks to help keep the dressing booth in place until you are ready for it to go away.

First of all, you are limited to using your inventory to add or subtract clothing from your outfit. Trying to drag a folder onto your avatar may result in the Dressing Booth disappearing before you are ready and exposing naughty-bits in places you shouldn't be exposing them. Or ruining your big new-outfit reveal. Or any other embarrassing situation you could imagine.

Clothes all have to be handled by locating the item, right clicking, and making use of two inventory commands:

Add to Outfit puts the clothes on/replaces whatever you are currently wearing that is the same clothing layer/has the same attachment point.

Take Off Items does what it says. It removes those items from what you are currently wearing.

You can use either of these commands on whole folders. If you Add to Outfit the folder/outfit you want to wear, and Take Off Items the folder/outfit you no longer want to be wearing, you have essentially done the same thing as the "Replace Outfit"/drop a folder on your Av command. However, unlike that command, you are CERTAIN that your dressing booth will stay in place.*

* Unless you are attaching something to your spine with Add to Outfit in which case it will replace your dressing booth.

So how is Viv doing? Let's look:

The last step is simple, detaching the Dressing Booth.

And with that, you've changed clothes in public without nudity. :)
(Click on the picture to see it in a larger size. The Dream Gardens Arboretum looks amazing.)

How do you get an (EduCube) Dressing Booth? Well, for right now you have to IM Jasmin Loire in-world. She'll happily drop one on you the next time she is on. However, if you wait long enough she'll eventually put one in her "Freebies for Newbies" vendor.

Lesson 14: Photograph Yourself

2008-02-23T12:21:00.000-08:00

This is a timely post, happening to coincide with not one, but two forum posts asking how to do this. (And yes, I'll crosspost this link back there.)

The solution to this, doesn't really work out on a newbie budget as it requires you to have 50 L$ in the bank. So you may want to use the script buried in this post if you aren't up for all that camping/survey filling-outing.

That said, TP on over to this store and along their back wall is an object called "Lock Camera" available for 50 L$. Buy it.
Viv took the above picture using the Lock Camera object just to show that it works and keeps you from having to log in an alt.

To use your new camera lock object you first need to wear it. By default it attaches transparently to your left pec, but you really can attach it anywhere you'd like.

You have two options ... you can either activate the enclosed gesture (and deactivate all the default "Dance..." gestures (because they'll interfere) or you can type a chat command.

The first step is to put your camera into the position you are going to want to take your photo in. Focus on the background. Set up your shot. Disregard where your av is.

Then it is time to lock your camera. Either press [F10] if you are using the gesture or type "/311 cam" (without the "s) if not. Your camera will lock in position and let you know by issuing a line of chat that only you can hear, confirming your camera lock.

After that, the movement keys will reposition your avatar to wherever you'd like.

But let's say that now that your av is positioned, you don't like the shot? You can use [ALT] and the mouse to reposition your camera independent of your avatar's movement keys. Cool, huh?

Well worth every Linden. WELL WORTH.

From the Desk of Viv Perrin

If you are using Windlight, I have the sun settings set to 8:30 am in this picture. I find that gives me the best lighting. That and having an av wear a facelight.

Lesson 13: Unique Dancing for 0 L$

2008-02-23T09:59:00.000-08:00

Let's say that you are at a club or a dance party. There is a dance machine/ball/something that everyone has clicked on and they are all doing the same dance at the same time looking pretty much ... well ... the same.

And if you are one of them, you may be okay with being the same.

But let's say you wanted to be different. Guaranteed, at least one person in the venue is wearing a Chim (a Chimera) which is a transparent sphere dance machine that others can join in on.

Press [CTRL] + [ALT] + [T] to make everything transparent turn red. Look for avs who suddenly have hazy red spheres on their heads or backsides. Click one of those hazy red spheres. Agree to let the chim animate you. Press [CTRL] + [ALT] + [T] again to turn transparent back to ... well ... transparent.

That's it. You now stand out from the crowd.

To stop dancing, type "/99 stop" into chat (without the quotation marks).

Just a quickie tip :)

Cool Location: Bamboo Garden

2008-02-22T16:07:00.000-08:00

I think the SS Galaxy is quickly becoming my favorite place, so I sent Viv over there to photograph it for me. Of course, she wanted the credit for the incredible find of the Bamboo Garden so she put herself in every picture. Cheeky photographer.

First, a quick recap. The SS Galaxy is a three-sim long cruise ship that sports amazing builds and excellent textures. As a builder, I have a long way to go until I match the quality of this build. On top of that, the ship sports plenty of content to keep you enthralled. And if that isn't enough, just pick up a copy of their on-board events (new list every month). If you click the link above, you will find yourself rezzing on the forward part of the ship, however the main entrance is in the back.

A few feet up from the forward entrance is the Bamboo Garden Japanese Restaurant. In fact, it is so close that you can see the maneki neko from your rez point.

(See what I mean about amazing texturing?)

If you use the Bamboo Garden SLURL, you actually won't rez in the ship's corridor, but will start out already inside the amazingly peaceful Japanese build.

I love the little touches such as the zori, the garden lantern, and the woodblock print. Also, in this picture, you can see the sushi bar. If you go closer you will be able to see the amazing texturing and prim work that went in to creating a realistic looking sushi bar. So realistic that I requested sushi for dinner. Yum!

At the sushi bar, you can buy sushi from the vendor to the back of the bar. "Why would I buy sushi?" you ask. The answer is that these sushi pieces are unique, superbly built, and offer some variety from the traditional free textured cylinder.

There is also a tea-room, complete with tea set in the corner. It can seat seven. Though it is not nearly as texture-efficient as my japanese tea scene.

And there is a sushi-room filled with incredibly delectable delights. Both the sushi boat and the sushi platter give out free pieces of wearable sushi (you get to choose what you want to eat). Wearing the sushi starts you in an eating animation. To drink there is a choice of hot green tea or sake. And don't forget the amazing finishing touch of soy sauce.

And finally, if you are looking for a backdrop for peaceful and beautiful photography (hint: kimono makers ... this is useful to you) there are the areas in between the rooms which are filled with lush and peaceful greenery. The bamboo is Hart bamboo, and I'm sure that she'd approve of how her bamboo has been landscaped. :)

And let us not forget my favorite fish species: koi. In my opinion, every Japanese build should have at least one, if not more, koi and this build has their fair share.

Lesson 12: How to be Overdressed for Under 10 L$

2008-02-17T05:53:00.000-08:00

Last night, the Forum Cartel hosted a formal Un-Valentines Dance.

The Forum Cartel are the folks who hang around SL's Resident Answers forum (you cannot access it without verified payment info). They pooled their tier and donated it to a group of their creating and built the Forum Cartel hangout. If you go there, eventually someone else will show up, and just like on the real forums, these guys are usually very helpful.

That said, the invitation said:

Formals or Zoot Suits? Aaah! Even though the invitation said "optional", I figured that I must be able to do it.

But before I did, I sneakily dropped by the party. It was before our live DJ had shown up, but the party was already in full swing. I made my green mini-map dot be in a different location from the cluster, but cammed in.

And what did I see? Too many female(ish) avs for the number of available male(ish) avs.

As a very taken RL woman, I knew that whoever I danced with would be all in good fun. In other words, nothing romantic or even remotely romantic about it. So I figured that I'd do my part for gender balance and come as a male avatar. Which, coincidently is normally much harder to do but this time was much easier.

I had a male kit (shape, skin, hair) in my inventory that I'd been collecting for just this sort of occasion (get your own Jack in a Box for 1 L$). And since I'm not normally male, I didn't mind at all that I wasn't going to look as stunning as the female avatars, because all I was there to do was get some of the gowned female avatars off of the sidelines and on to the dance floor.

I TPed off to the SS Galaxy: Queen of the Sagittarian Sea (which is an amazing build and much deserving of exploring in its own right). I headed directly to their Zodiac Ballroom (which again is a stunning build in its own right). There, they have two stunning gown (sets). The one from Blaze (remember how Viv drooled over Blaze?) is free but you can only look like the image. The other one, from Matahari, comes with a variety of customizable options for making it look the way you want it to look.

But the main attraction is the tux on the Blaze sign. Free. A free tux. From Blaze. It was mine faster than you could say, "I wonder if I'll look good in gold."

Then it was off to EduCube Headquarters where, in the privacy of my own temporary skybox, I changed into my male avatar. I convinced Viv to snap a picture of me and her as male-me and female-me ... both in the same tux. Isn't it stunning no matter what the gender of its wearer?

My female-hair, while very not free (150 L$) came from Sirena and had two styles, depending on whether or not I was wearing hair sticks. Well worth the hard-earned money. Here is an image of me with the other style (on left).

Where'd I get the money for such fabulous hair? Well, I warned you that I was paid for a previous tutorial. I was paid enough for the hair :)

It turns out that with every Blaze gown that is purchased from the main store, you get a transferable color-matched shirt/vest/tie clothing item (they call it a vest) for your sweetie to wear as part of his or her tux, provided they already have the jacket and pants. If your sweetie grabs the tux from the SS Galaxy, then the jacket and pants won't be a problem.

Or perhaps you are a female avatar who doesn't mind going to formal occasions in a tux? See if anyone around has a Blaze gown and no use for their tux vest. You can then be amazingly stylish in it for free.

!! ~ Some Pictures from the Evening ~ !!

My RL boyfriend who is in control of the avatar Lupus Yokosuka, usually plays large amounts of World of Warcraft and avoids Second Life like the plague. He'll even be busy washing dishes or folding laundry, when I ask him to come in-world. Well, since I pointed out how important it was that he log in to even out the gender balance, he logged in and tangoed me around the dance floor for a bit.

^^ Thanks honey. The gown I'm wearing was cobbled together from the skirt of the Blaze gown offered next to the tux, and the top of the LaynieWear Lavender Hibiscus Dreams gown (which wasn't long enough of else I would have worn it by itself). I tossed in some free gloves that I found at the Tete-a-Pied Fleur sim (my skin is TaP as well and available for free to those who are 30 days old or less), and a resized/tinted ribbon belt made by Jen Shikami (from Seven's Selections; landlord of the fabulous Flotsam Beach).

This story is actually being told out of order, because I hadn't realized how amazing I'd look as a female in a tux until I was dancing with Madhu. She had seen me around before and knew that I was a female and told me that she swoons for females in tuxes, so could I change back? And so I did. Which is what led to the pictures above of Viv and myself rocking the tuxes. Thanks Madhu! Go on with your blue self!

This is Jasmin Loire signing off and dancing the night away!

(more pictures than you'll know what to do with)

Class to Go: Japanese Tea Scene

2008-02-16T13:20:00.001-08:00

Want to take the Japanese Tea Scene class but the times are bad? If contacting me to change the time of day is too much effort for you (or if you absolutely cannot attend a class on the weekends) then perhaps the boxed Class-to-Go is the answer for you.

Conveniently located on the wall just beside the landing point in Crackerbox Palace's Classroom #2, you can find my Class-to-Go vendor.

Or perhaps you feel more comfortable buying the same product from SLExchange?

Advanced classes are 200 L$, Intermediate classes are 100 L$, and Beginner classes are 50 L$.

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Interested in helping me test out some new classes? I've got a few that just need some trial runs before they appear. Join the EduCube group or the EduCube Notification List by Wednesday. Trial class notifications will be made then.

New Sculpted Attachment: Handheld Microphone

2008-02-10T16:47:00.000-08:00

Buy From OnRez | Buy from EduCube Headquarters

This microphone was created as an assignment for a class that I'm taking about making sculpties. Our assignment was to create a rock, but in my classic style, I took it one step further. I give you the tools to ROCK, you bring the STAR.

The microphone comes with a built in pose, which holds it in perfect position from your mouth ... not too close, but not too far. And the price tag on this microphone is not too high, either. Only 5 L$!

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And just for you Second Learning blog readers, I have a gift:

^^ Your very own microphone mesh texture to use in whatever creative way you would like.

Let There be Pictures

2008-02-04T18:15:00.000-08:00

Whenever I teach I have way too many things going on at any one time to remember to take pictures of my students. Luckily, I also allow any folks who are considering being teachers/want to be teacher helpers to assist me (they get a seat up on the platform and get to one-on-one IM with a student who may be affected with any manner of SL ills and so need some catching up).

One of my most faithful helpers, Garlande G., snapped some photos for me, and thus starts a photo album of the Japanese Tea Scene class. All students and helpers are welcome to contribute to the photo album. I have one in-world too. I just love looking at happy learning!

^^ Click for the whole scrapbook.

New Sculpties: Toad

2008-02-03T11:02:00.000-08:00

Buy From OnRez: Yes Copy, Yes Transfer | Buy from EduCube Headquarters

Toad was created as an assignment for a class that I'm taking about making sculpties. Our assignment was to create a mushroom, but in my classic style, I took it one step further. Well ... he is a mushroom after all (^_^).

If you click on him, he thanks you for your heroic efforts, but reminds you that the princess is still in yet another castle.

Toad is not too large, and not too small, sporting a 1 m diameter. The shadows that you see in the picture are baked in, meaning that no matter what viewer and what lighting choices you have, he'll always look his best. And his price tag is not too high, either. Only 5 L$ for either version. That's cheap enough to buy one for yourself, and one for that special plumber in your life.

(ADV) Japanese Tea Scene - The Magic of Texture Mapping

2008-01-27T18:45:00.000-08:00

*Crackerbox* (ADV) Japanese Tea Scene - The Magic of Texture Mapping
Instructor: Jasmin Loire
Start Time: 8 AM SLT
Duration : 1.5 Hours
Cost : 0 $L
Prerequisites: familiarity with entering numbers into edit, familiarity with the "select texture" feature, complete at least 3 intermediate classes on building
Class Size : 9 - Strictly Enforced

What a makes a great build? A build that rezzes all at the same time, of course! Come learn how to use texture mapping skills to apply THE SAME texture to all parts of your build so that they all show up at the same time. For our purposes, we are creating a warm and social Japanese-themed tea room scene. Feel free to come in costume!

-- Want more details? Check the blog ~ http://tinyurl.com/3ynzcz --

There are teleports to travel between all three levels: ground classroom, sky classrooms, and sandbox. Tutorials to do on site or for purchase...and MORE.

Teleport directly to the classroom. | Sponsor me!

------------------------
Dates Offered: Check the Google Calendar.

------------------------
No time/date that works for you? You have two options:

(1) Comment on this blog or IM Jasmin Loire in-world with a suggested time (it has to be the dates listed however). She may be willing to reschedule a class to fit your schedule.

(2) Buy the class-to-go. It is almost as good as the real thing. Only 200 L$.

------------------------
We've got photos.

Class Was a Success!

2008-01-27T08:11:00.000-08:00

I would like to start with and admission: I had so much fun with class that I did not take any pictures. I'll have to take them at the next event.

I had so much interest for this class that I had to turn folks away. I really hope that those folks are watching this blog so that they can be sure to catch the next session of the class.

Due to the complexity of the build, I'm going to try to keep it to no more than 5 students. Because of that, people will have to get to class early, or else it will fill up.

^^ Is a picture of all of the teachers that were teaching at the same time. Look, Ansa isn't dressed entirely in black (she usually is).

Aside from realizing that I had some old lines in my class script (which I have since removed), I've come to realize that I need to explain two parts of my teaching philosophy.

========== Why are things "no transfer"? ==========
That wasn't an oversight by a teacher who hasn't yet fully learned her way around the permissions system. I did this on purpose.

When I teach a class, I am teaching the class to give people a certain skill set, in this case texture mapping. And you even get a notecard with all the necessary information to take home and use as you wish. And a full permission texture, so that you can build anything you want with the textures used in class. And class notes, which tell you how to build all of the objects that have been delivered as "no transfer".

You don't get the sitting positions or scripts (my EduCube business side needs protecting, after all) to be full perms, but you can still modify and copy them for your own personal use.

I want you to come away with skills. Just skills. I don't want to see the build that I just taught you how to make on the market immediately. I know, as a student, you are clasping your chest in horror and saying, "Who? Me?" and it is true that most of you are not the type to immediately go out and sell what has been given to you for free.

But there are a few bad eggs in every bunch. And in my opinion, they've ruined it for you.

We teachers have names for these folks: supply skimmers, class rippers, etc. They are folks who either sell an unmodded class build, or the class supplies themselves.

I know, there is attraction to get rich quick, but setting a supply as no-transfer is a way of working within the Linden system to ensure that such bad eggs cannot get rich off of my efforts.

You know how long it took me to put together this class -- supplies and all -- for you? A full month of weekends (that is 8 sun-up to sun-down days). If anyone should get rich quick off of selling the supplies, it should be me :)

But if you came to class, participated, worked hard, even were inspired, and now you want to gift your bestest of online friends with the build, I have a transferable (no copy) version that I will be happy to give you once class is over. You just have to IM (^_^)y

Class: Japanese Tea Scene

2008-01-26T21:23:00.000-08:00

Well folks, here it is. To graduate from the TUi Instructor Training Course, I have to teach my 1 hour class on the magic of texture mapping to a maximum of 5 students. I cannot guarantee you a spot, so show up early if you really want to take this class.

LVL2: Japanese Tea Scene - The Magic of Texture Mapping

Instructor: Jasmin Loire
Start Time: 6 AM SLT
Duration : 1 hour solid
Cost : 0 $L
Prerequisites: familiarity with entering numbers into edit, familiarity with the "select texture" feature, complete at least 1 LVL1 class on building
Class Size : 5

What a makes a great build? A build that rezzes all at the same time, of course! Come learn how to use texture mapping skills to apply THE SAME texture to all parts of your build so that they all show up at the same time. For our purposes, we are creating a warm and social Japanese-themed tea-for-two scene.

~ TIC- Teacher's in Creation~

Teleport directly to the classroom.

New Pose: Disarming

2008-01-26T08:30:00.000-08:00

Buy from OnRez | Buy from EduCube Headquarters | Attend a Class and Get it for Free

Introducing a new pose from EduCube: Disarming. A completely-natural looking ground-sit where you are leaning back on your hands.

Already hailed as a pose that, "Makes me look so good!" this ground-sit pose looks completely natural. Attention to details has been paid to all parts of the pose which has resulted in a gentle curve to the upper body. No more "stiff as a board" upper bodies that make you look as if you are permanently stuck in the v-sit Pilates position.

And at the upload-fee-only price of 10 L$, how can you go wrong!

Since this pose is copy-able, feel free to drop one copy in your AO, another in your favorite furniture, and yet another in your favorite poseball.

This pose was created due to a need for a realistic lean-back ground sit at a reasonable price.

What has Jasmin Been Up To

2008-01-25T21:01:00.001-08:00

Things have been pretty quiet on the blog for a while, but there is a reason for that. The reason is that I have been taking an in-world Instructor Training Course. This has taught me many new skills for being a better EduCube instructor, as well as reinforcing those I've already gained.

That said, my course ends on Sunday with our Student-Teacher Expo. At the Expo, I can only have five students attend my class, so keep in mind that if you click the link from my blog (once there is one; my time and location are still TBA to me) the class may have already filled up.

What are we building? Well, I'll give you a hint: the title of my class is, "LVL2: Japanese Tea Scene - The Magic of Texture Mapping". If you've seen and coveted my Treasure Quest prize - more on that later - then this is the class for you. We will be building the tatami-mat/hearth/teapot/zabuton part of the larger garden.

==========

Treasure Quest

I submitted my application to be a stop on the Treasure Quest route about a month ago. As of yet, I haven't heard back, however I'm sure that anyone who comes by my place will fall instantly and madly in love with the place and will want to include me in their Treasure Quest. Because of that, I've already gone ahead and built my prize, which I then photographed which is why it looks so low resolution.

Viv Perrin, official EduCube photographer, has Windlight and that's why her pictures end up so beautiful.

At any rate, stay tuned to this spot for the announcement of when I will be appearing in a Treasure Quest.

==========

Two New Classes

EduCube will soon be announcing two new classes to its line up. One is seasonal and the other is not. One is creating a cute, sculpted tiny heart avatar, with pink feet and hands. Everyone who has seen my demo avatar has squealed with delight and they all say, "Oh that's just so cute!"

So if you've ever wanted to change your avatar into a silly shape, just for fun, then you'll be waiting with anticipation for the class announcement (which will appear both here and in our in-world group (do a search for EduCube ... we are the first option).

And the second class: A beginner's primficient chair build. We will be building the spherical hideaway chair pictured in this blog entry. Isn't Viv's viewer much better than mine? She took that picture and chair actually looks like a globe. I won't even tell you what it looks like to me on my viewer :)

Anticipation makes the build all that much sweeter.

Stay tuned!

SL Outfits

2008-01-12T20:05:00.000-08:00

One of the things I like about the TUi Instructor Training Course I'm taking is that my group is made up of really great gals and we seem to mesh as a group. I've heard murmurings from others in the class that their groups are a little less cohesive. The deal with our group is that we all have familiarity with the same SL gadgets, so we spend less time telling each other what an individual item does, and more time discussing practical uses of such.

That said ... one of my group-members - and dare I say internet-friends - and I had a chat today about identity. You see, we are not of the fashionista movement that appears to have overtaken Second Life. One of the things I mentioned, having no evidence at all, was that I think that a greater percentage of people in Second Life are into more daring fashions than are available in Real Life.

Prove me right. Take my poll so I have some data. The poll (survey?) asks how many outfits you've collected over your Second Lifetime. Don't worry, your answer is completely anonymous.

So what are you waiting for, I need data!

For the record, I have 7 outfits put together right now. I soon will have 8, since I find that I keep ending up in Vampire/Dungeon parties (which have no sexual overtones, thank-you-very-much) so I figure I need something a little more appropriate to wear than my usual t-shirt and jeans.

Lesson 11: How to Make a Photo-sourced Seamless Texture in GIMP

2008-01-08T12:18:00.000-08:00

== Step 1 ==
Start with the photo that contains your ideal texture. There are a lot of places where you can get photos to use, but my absolute favorite is Flickr Creative Commons. Of course, it goes without saying that you download the photo. Duh.

But for our purposes here, I'm just going to use one of the photos that comes standard with Windows (XP = My Documents > My Pictures > Sample Pictures, Vista = Public > Public Pictures > Sample Pictures).

== Step 2 ==
Open GIMP. Don't have GIMP yet? What are you waiting for? See my wreath prim-reduction tutorial for details on how to get GIMP.

In order to open GIMP, right click on your image that you've saved to your hard drive, and select “Edit with GIMP”.

== Step 3 ==
Select the area you wish to make seamless. In your main GIMP window, click on your rectangle select tool. Then, down below in the individual tools option, check next to “Fixed”, choose “Aspect Ratio” from the drop-down list, and type in “1:1”. It is important when creating a Second Life seamless image to have it be a perfect square and this will force you to use a perfect square.

Then select a portion of your image that you wish to turn into the texture. The remainder of your image will be cropped away later, so keep that in mind.

== Step 4 ==
In order to crop down to the part we want, go to Image > Crop to Selection. Now all that should be left is your square (surrounded by the marching ants) and your sanity. Leave the marching ants.

== Step 5 ==
Now we get to make it tile. Go to Filters > Map > Make Seamless and click on it. Some moments later, the image will be rendered as an image that can seamlessly tile. If you want to make other textures from this one photo, play around with the other options under Filters > Map. Some are pretty cool.

== Step 6 ==
Our last step is to save this in a format that will upload well to Second Life. Recommended file format is “.tga”. Go to File > Save AS. Then when the next screen pops up, choose wear to save it and call it “Something.tga”. You have to type in the extension or else GIMP saves it in a format of its own choosing, which does not play nice with Second Life.

Now just go to Second Life and upload. That was easy!

As always, tips and blog post recommendations are greatly accepted, however Olivia **** (last name omitted for privacy reasons) has already paid me to post this tutorial for her. Yes, you, too, can have a post created just for you. Drop a comment here, or IM Jasmin Loire in-world with what you'd like to know. I'll tell you whether or not I know enough to help you out.

For now, this is -= Jasmin Loire =- signing off! Have a splendorous week. My real life students come back to school this week, so I know that I will be!

Lesson 10: Alpha Layer Transparency in GIMP

2008-01-05T16:12:00.000-08:00

Materials Needed
- The GIMP
- 10 L$

What is The GIMP?
The GIMP is an image-manipulation program similar to Adobe's Photoshop, but it is free, open source, and much easier to use when creating alpha textures.

Can I learn in world?
Yes. I highly recommend the tutorial located here (you will need to click on "Classes/Seminar" to teleport). I did not make this tutorial, but found it and thought that I would link to it to augment my tutorial.

How To
1. [Image] Click on "File" and select "New".
2. [Image] You can choose whatever size/template you want for your image, but the most important thing is to expand (by clicking on the plus sign) the "Advanced Options".
3. [Image] Make sure that the background is set to "Transparency". This might require you to click on the drop-down arrow in order to choose this setting. Your new image will have a checkerboard background. This is good, the checkerboard indicates everything that will have a transparent portion.
4. [Image] Create your image that requires a transparent portion. As you can see, I chose to make an ornate window. You can get a copy of my GIMP-created window here. The base image that I used came from Flickr Creative Commons. Thanks Frazerweb.
5. [Image] Now is the hard part: saving properly. Go to File > Save As. In that window, you are going to type in the name of your file. I'll call mine "Window.tga". The most important thing to remember is to type in the ".tga" part. Also, make sure that you accept whatever pre-sets it asks of you with regard to saving.
6. Open Second Life and click [Ctrl] + [U]. This is where your 10 L$ is going to come in.
7. [Image] Navigate to where you saved your image and upload it. Notice in the preview that all of the transparent parts are still transparent (as indicated by the checkerboard pattern).

Ta da! That's it. Not too hard was it? If this was helpful to you, please remember that tips are happily accepted. Just tip the japanese-style donation box (called a saisenbako).

Also, if you've gone to all the trouble to download my window gimp file, why not just save yourself the time it would take to size the window correctly and just head over to the EduCube Headquarters where you can buy an already uploaded/scaled correctly window object for the same price you would pay to upload your own texture.

My Treasure Quest Prize

2008-01-02T07:25:00.000-08:00

Welcome to the wonderful world of EduCube! I hope you look to us for all of your primficient furniture and educational-related pre-fab needs. While you are here, please check out the rest of our blog to see what other goodies are in store.

"How?" you ask.

Just click on the "Second Learning" at the top of this page, or the "Home" button to the right. Either will take you to the bounty of useful tutorials.

If you haven't unpacked your gift (either because you don't have land, or are afraid of going over your prim counts), I highly recommend taking it to a sandbox, so that you can see the tranquil japanese-themed koi garden inside.

Because Second Life won't allow me to post hyperlinks in-world, there are a few people I need to thank for their photographs which helped me build the marvelous koi garden:

First I would like to thank Aleksander Dragnes for providing the photo of the Koi which also allowed me to sample textures for the stonework around the Koi pond. He (I'm assuming it is a he based on the name) released the koi picture under the Creative Commons: By Attribution license and so I'm required to give proper credit where it is due. But who wouldn't want to thank the photographer!

Here's What you Get!
* Two benches, good for sitting on while contemplating the tranquility of the area. Each bench seats more than one. No snuggling, cuddling, or drama. Just peaceful tranquility. And do I detect the faint chirp of crickets?

* Peaceful koi pond. Watch photo-sourced koi swim in lazy circles as fireflies dance overhead.

* A torii to welcome you to your tranquil-destress time. Torii are gates that mark the difference in between the sacred and the profane. For our purposes, relaxation is sacred. The torii has a lit lantern hanging from it to light your way come night-fall.

* Peace-lilly foliage dotting the landscape.

* A tatami-mat with a functional hearth supporting a pot for tea. If you listen closely, you can hear the flames lick at the bottom of the tea pot, while you watch the pot steam. If you touch the tea pot, you may even get a cup of green tea to sip.

* And of course, one cannot drink tea without an appropriate seat. There are four zabuton arranged around the hearth. The zabuton are covered with traditional kimono fabric as found in the EduCube book on kimono.

What I ask in return is for you to leave a comment on this blog with the amount you would be willing to pay for such a prefab. Because, yes, I am planning on listing this item for sale in the near future, but I want the pricing to be fair. Since you already have a free one, no need to be greedy by purposefully underpricing the build. What do you think? 500 L$? More? Less?

And comments with pictures of you using the garden are always welcomed. If you cannot tell, my default browser is set for speed over pretty. If yours renders the koi pond as a circle (as it rightfully should be), please consider snapping a free picture and dropping a comment with a link to an Imageshack location where I can pick it up.

Calling All Shopping Fanatics!

2008-01-01T10:24:00.000-08:00

Help me find more professional clothing! Especially of the provocative suit variety. Nothing you couldn't wear to work, but nothing frumpy either.

Oh, and it has to be 50 L$ or less.

Can you do it? If so, comment here with the following -

Location: (sim name and coordinates, SLURL)
Item:
Price:
For Male/Female/Unisex:
Your SL Name: (so's I can give you credit if it ends up in a future post)
Your Website: (so's I can give you credit if it ends up in a future post; blog website, SLURL to your store, etc.)
OPTIONAL an image of you modeling the find.

The winner (the person offering the best suit for the cheapest price) will win a free, custom EduCube. The contest ends on 1/1/2008. Only two entries per person, please.

Go forth and dazzle!

Mini Santa

2007-12-31T23:35:00.000-08:00

Now that Christmas is over, I can let you all in on a little secret. Rather, he's a mini secret: Mini Santa.

He's an incredibly popular shoulder pet who has spent the past month-ish (since Thanksgiving) sitting on my right shoulder and handing out a random item from his inventory to everyone who dares to click on him. His inventory, while full to begin with, is modifyable which means that anyone can add to it. In my case, I added an EduCube t-shirt (hey, free marketing is free marketing), and some other one-prim furniture. I repackaged everything inside EduCube boxes for the brand identity.

This is a great marketing tool. It is much better than just having an available freebie at my shop and hoping that people stumble in to it. This way, people encounter Mini Santa wherever I go and if they chose to click him, they get a freebie and (and this is why freebies are handed out in SL) a landmark and a notecard encouraging them to drop by my store to see what else they might like.

So I've sold you on the Mini Santa idea and now you want to now how to get one of your own. I have good news for you: he's free. If you have an account on OnRez (and you really should since I use them to sell all of my EduCubes and they have excellent pictures of the EduCubes since I'm too cheap to upload them in world), you can buy Mini Santa there. However, if you are an in-world only type of person, check out XD Fusion to score your own free Mini Santa. He's located on the wall with a bunch of other free and worth-every-L$ products.

Lesson 9: More Professional Clothing

2007-12-24T09:57:00.000-08:00

There are, of course, other places besides Manpower Sim to find professional clothing.

Because I so completely fell in love with the business suits that were offered by Blaze, I decided to head out and find a business suit that I could wear on my newbie-friendly budget. Since surveys pay out around LS $35 a pop, I figured that would be the upper limit of the budget.

Tipped off by Girl Meets Second Life and Illusions, I decided to see what this Bare Rose store had to offer. After all, if they have male business suits, perhaps they have female ones as well?

First, here is what Illusions had to say:

::BareRose:: - If someone asked me what I thought was the largest and most popular store on SL, without a second thought I would say Barerose. They have the largest concentration of awesomeness in the virtual world, and if any place deserves the term "mecca", it's B@R. Their prices aren't exactly freebie price (although they do have a freebie corner, and a 10L store), but their prices are so insanely low for the quality of work you're getting (125L for a full color pack of gothic wear you'll worship and adore), I'd be a horrible person if I didn't list them here. From conservative to uber goth, to ethereal elf lady to cyber queen, from slinky lingerie and swimwear to traditional Japanese kimono, they have something for EVERYone.

So I popped on over to Bare Rose to see what I could find. They mix their dollarbies, and cheapies, in with the rest of the general population of the items at their store. And the store is massively overwhelming. This almost made me want to hire a personal shopper to navigate for me to find a cheap business suit for women, so that I could write this entry for you. Which, in turn, inspired me to create the current EduCube contest. But, armed with grit and determination, I pressed on.

Before I go any further, I'd like to take a moment to explain how I am indicating the locations of things after this point. I am listing locations as (X, Y, Z) for the x-coordinate, y-coordinate, and z-coordinate. How do you use this? Well, you can walk around until you luck out on the right set of coordinates, or you can open up your map and at the bottom right there are three coordinate values. Change these to the ones listed, and you should magically teleport to the locations I have listed. If not, it is back to walking around until you figure out the right set of coordinates.

(130, 30, 30) The first suit that I stumbled upon is called The President. Even though it is being modeled by male avatars, I have no doubt that it would look equally as good on a female avatar. You get both the blue and the brown double-breasted suit, along with all three tie color choices for a cheap (but pricy for our budget) 140 L$. Youch. We need something cheaper.

(61, 49, 30) At 100 L$, this is cheaper than The President and you can, of course, wear it without the apron to give professional talks at formal symposia (such as, say, accepting the Nobel Prize in Economics), but then if you were going to the Nobel Prize awards in Second Life, you could also afford the price tag associated with this outfit. For our purposes, however, it is still considerably outside of our 35 L$ budget. Moving on.

And look at that, our prayers have been answered by finding the section of Bare Rose (NW corner) where everything is 10 L$. Of course, this also means that there is no rhyme or reason to the layout of the store, as it is picture after picture after picture after ... well, you get the idea. With that in mind, hopefully you can use the picture that I have to help you narrow down the exact location of these amazing finds:

(239, 229, 34) Remember that you can click on the pictures for a larger photo so that you can better locate the find. What we see here are three business suits, each priced at an affordable 10L$. There is Business 101, 102, and 103; each different from the other by color alone. Also, next to the suits are three different bowtie outfits (I think they are the complete outfit, but I did not have the L$ to check). For the purposes of my shopping, I decided that the blue suit would complete my look so I purchased that one.

Right click on the box and select "Buy" to purchase.

Even though this suit was modeled by a male avatar, I decided to try it on anyway. And what do you know, it looks just as good on me as it did on the avatar model. Or at least I think so! Please excuse my photography skills, I don't know enough about lighting to fix the lighting in this picture, and because everyone and their brother is signed in to SL today, it is laggy and I didn't feel like fixing it anyway. Just wanted to take a quick picture and then move on from there.

By the way, I take all of my pictures in Windlight, the First Look viewer (more on that probably next week -- I'm halfway done with writing that entry). Isn't it amazing how well the water, sky, and clouds texture? It almost really /is/ a Second Life.

-= Jasmin Loire =-

Wreaths

2007-12-23T23:27:00.000-08:00

If you haven't seen, we have an EduCube Holiday Headquarters (Yes, you will have to walk in the mall. Click the map for a larger version if you need it.)

At this location, we are selling a variety of upload-fee only wreaths. That means that every wreath is 10 L$. Now you can do your last minute decorating in style. And you can do your last minute decorating on the cheap.

Hurry, they are gone in 8 days!

Lesson 8: Easiest Viewer to Use

2007-12-22T12:28:00.000-08:00

While Windlight is pretty, for a newbie (and even for my non-photographic forrays into Second Life), I highly recommend OnRez's Viewer by the Electric Sheep Company. If only they would make a version for Linux, but I digress.

The OnRez viewer is more newbie friendly and actually puts buttons and lists in places where you would expect them to be. It is also excellent if you intend to be more of a user of Second Life, rather than a builder as, by default, the building menus are hidden (but can be accessed by pressing [CTRL] + [4]).

Sadly the OnRez viewer is themed to be CSI: NY, which is great if you are a fan of the show and only slightly annoying if you are not. The orientation island associated with the viewer, and set home point, are similarly CSI: NY themed.

In fact, if I were starting over again from the top, I would just create an avatar through the CSI: NY in Second Life website, because at least those avatars do not suffer from the just rezzed look that plagues many newbies. The CSI default avatars have prim hair (the Mont Blanc of hair) and relatively custom made skins.

Not to mention that they come with some potentially custom last names.

Trial Run: Giant Red Pump Class

2007-12-21T07:37:00.000-08:00

Official Class Listing

What do they do to celebrate New Years where you live? If you are from the United States, the tradition is to drop things. In New York, it is a glittering ball, in Atlanta, Georgia, they drop a giant peach (fitting, because they are the state from which peaches come), in New Orleans, Louisiana, they drop a giant pot of gumbo. But the drop we are most concerned with is the one from Miami, Florida, where descending from the sky in a giant red pump (that's a kind of shoe) is Sushi, the drag queen.

It is _so_ all about the shoes! We are going to build a sculpted giant red pump and then position our sitting animation so that we can descend from the sky in style. Back home at the EduCube Headquarters, there is even a fully created Drag Queen avatar for you to pick up to wear as you descend from the sky.

Have some fun this New Years as you call attention to the most important item in your wardrobe, your shoes!

-----------------------------------------

Name: Giant Red Pump
Cost: Materials are Free
Where: Meeting at the EduCube Headquarters Classroom
Class Size: 10
Time: We begin promptly at 11 am PST/2 pm ET. If you show up and no one is there, that is because we have already begun.

-----------------------------------------

Class skills covered: rezzing prims, converting prims to sculptie, texturing sculpties, placing sit targets and sit animations in prims

Spot 1:
Spot 2:
Spot 3:
Spot 4:
Spot 5:
Spot 6:
Spot 7:
Spot 8:
Spot 9:
Spot 10:

EduCube Class

2007-12-20T16:36:00.000-08:00

Mark your calendars, EduCube is offering its first class to the public.

Name: Build Your Own Wreath
Cost: Materials are Free
Where: Meeting at the EduCube Holiday Headquarters (Yes, you will have to walk in the mall. Click the map for a larger version if you need it.)

Time: We begin promptly. If you show up and no one is there, that is because we have already begun.
-----------------------------------------

An arts-and-crafts project like one done by preschoolers across the US: build build your own wreath.

Class skills covered: rezing, resizing, texturing, placing, and photographing prims.

Lesson 7: Using The Gimp to Reduce Your Wreath's Prim Counts (Part 2)

2007-12-20T14:36:00.000-08:00

Part 1

Step 5: Right Sizing in Second Life
We want to ensure that when we go to load our wreath back into Second Life that it will not be squashed or stretched in any direction. There is a really neat trick to make sure it looks the same in Second Life as it does right now.

Go to Image > Canvas Size.

On a piece of paper/back of your hand/your sleeping roommate's forehead, copy down the numbers listed for width and height. Then click "Cancel". We don't want to change anything on this screen, just get information.

We will come back to this later.

Step 6: Saving Properly
Go to File > Save As (why "As"? because you are already using a pre-made file and it will just save over your snapshot unless you do something different) and name it "wreath.tga". Now click Save and agree to whatever pre-sets it asks you to agree to.

That's it. That's all you have to do to save transparency in Gimp. You can now laugh at your friends who are using Photoshop and freaking out at something called an "Alpha Layer". You don't have to mess with that. Win for you!

Step 7: Uploading and Creating Your One-Prim Wreath
Open up Second Life. Press [Ctrl] + [U] to upload an image. This is where your 10 L$ comes in, so you need to have it if you want to pass this step.

Browse over to wherever you saved "wreath.tga" and select it. This will now give you a preview window that looks something like this:

Look at how squashed it looks. No matter, we'll fix that shortly. Feel free to re-name the image whatever you want and then click "Upload (L$ 10)". Bye-bye hard earned L$!

By the way, for those of you wondering how Linden Lab makes their money, they make some of it off of upload fees such as this. So don't consider it a fee to be avoided, but a "Thank you" for the ability to play Second Life at all.

Now, rez a cube. "How?" you ask. Rewind your brain back to the rezzing of the cubes that we did during our class to build the multi-prim wreath to begin with. Or you can watch this YouTube video ( http://tinyurl.com/2tgngn).

Texture all of the sides in "Transparent". Select-Texture the front side with your wreath. I've already put my wreath into mostly-position for this picture, but here is what I've got:

Now comes the tricky part: getting the sizing right. Retrieve the written figures from Step 5 and click on the Object tab for your wreath prim. Set the Y-Size value to match the "width" and the Z-Size value to match the height. Except, rather than inputting the numbers as ###, which is how The Gimp gave them to you, you input them as #.##. Perhaps this picture will make that clear:

Now, aside from the fact that you might need to change your width to being on the X-Size instead (you'll know if you need to do it), you are finished.

See, now wasn't that easy?

Quickie: Teach in the Holiday Spirit

2007-12-19T18:54:00.000-08:00

I scooped FabFree! Awesome! (Update: It appears that they have since blogged about the fabulous find as well, but when I left a tip on their tip line, they still hadn't.)

I'm on Wilted Rose's Subscribe-o-Matic group and when I logged in today I was informed that there was a new outfit out by their tree. A new outfit and then some. So I've gone from looking like the image on the left, to looking like the image on the right (click for bigger picture), at least until Christmas has passed.

Here's how I did so for 3 L$. Need money, get it with no money down.

Skin: S4 Creme from Tuli - 0 L$
Hair: Candy Cane Valentina from Wilted Rose - 1 L$
Shape and Eyes: Eve from Style Your Destiny - 1 L$
Shirt, Pants, Cuffs, Shoes, Socks, Scarf, Ear Muffs: Winter Outfit(s) from Wilted Rose - 1 L$

And don't forget our wreath building class with one session offered just for blog readers.

Lesson 6: Remove that Just Rezzed Look (Part 3)

2007-12-16T23:44:00.000-08:00

Part 1 | Part 2

Hair
As much as I like the hair pictured in FabFree's image, I really didn't want to spend more time sitting in a camping chair to earn another 1 L$ (my usual ATM was broken). Enter Shopping Sherpa's blog entry on Bewitched which appeared to promise freebie hair at quality styles. So, off I go to Bewitched!

I arrived to find that while there was a whole wall of free hair, it required camping for 120 minutes. I plopped myself down in a chair to camp for my hair, not quite realizing that I was camping for 2 hours, whereas I could have camped for only 5-8 minutes and purchased hair from Gurl 6. Ah well, live and learn.

Not one to quit part way, I continued to sit in that chair for the full two hours (while I wrote Part 1, 2, and 3 of this entry).

I dropped by Gurl 6 anyway and, since I'd already been seated for 120 minutes the additional 5 minutes were a drop in the ocean, I picked up the clearly marked freebie hair.

Armed with my new hair, it was back to the photo booth where I took my final makeover picture. (Check out my alternative hair.) You'll notice that I solved my naughty-bits problem. What am I going to do with that top? I'm going to give it away to the first person who IMs me (Viv Perrin) in world. Ready? Set. Go!

Total Costs:

L$ = 1 - 2 (depending on whether or not you go for the Gurl 6 hair)
Hours Devoted = 2.5
Extra Freebies Discovered = 6
Compliments Received = 3
Photos Taken and Edited = 17

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There are, of course, other sites to find freebies besides going all over the place. Some freebie collections are located at the following:

The Free Dove which has sooooooooo many clothes and shoes, and also a wall entirely devoted to hair. There are some gift certificates there for designer hair, rather than reduced-quality freebie hair.

GNUbie Store which has dollarbies, the pictured six skin pack (though selection changes often so it might not be there), and large amounts of high quality skins and hair. GNUbies is less organized than The Free Dove, but tends to have a higher quality of product.

------------

Viv's latest wishlist item: LanieWear Photo Background to make it easier to take pictures for you. Grateful enough that you'd like to help me achieve that goal? Consider this my virtual tip jar:

Search People for "Viv Perrin". Click on the "Pay" button. Send me whatever tip you think I deserve. When I have 35 L$, I will buy the photo background and do another style make-over entry, this one for the gents.

Lesson 7: Using The Gimp to Reduce Your Wreath's Prim Counts (Part 1)

2007-12-16T08:59:00.001-08:00

Step 1: The Necessary Tools
In order to follow these instructions, you are going to need a very specific tool set. You will need (in no particular order):

The Gimp image editor
10 L$
Your snapshot of your wreath.

Getting The Gimp
In order to get The Gimp, please point your web browser (your real one, not the dinky one they give you inside of Second Life) over to - http://www.gimp.org (or just do a Google search for “The Gimp” and take the first link).

There, you will see a screen like this one. Click on the “Download” button and download, and install The Gimp. It is free and works on Windows, Linux, and Mac OS everything.

Why did I pick The Gimp? For one, because it is free, and runs on all operating systems, which means that if you can read this tutorial, you can use it. For a second, because creating a transparent texture is super-easy in The Gimp.

Getting 10 L$
The easiest way to get 10 L$ is to convert some real money to L$. Failing that, you can always use the techniques written here. Or, for those of you reading this tutorial in-world on my rather awesome book: http://tinyurl.com/39xw2v

Step 2: Cropping Your Image to the Wreath
Open up The Gimp. To go File > Open and select your snapshot that is located somewhere on your hard drive (you do remember where you save your snapshots, right?). This should load your snapshot in a new window.

Click back over to your main Gimp window and select the square selection tool (the upper left-hand button). Then return to your snapshot and draw a square around your wreath. Don't worry, we'll make this tighter later. For now, you are just getting rid of excess blank white space.

Now, on your image window, click on Image > Crop to Selection to crop your snapshot down to just the selection. As I said before, we aren't worrying about being perfect at this stage, since we have a later cleanup stage yet to go.

Step 3: Turning the White into Transparent
We are now going to use your third Gimp window, the one with the layers. On that window, please click on the "Copy Layer" button. It is two to the left of the trash can button (or you can just look at which button is circled on the image.

This will give you a new layer (those things listed above the buttons) called Background Copy. This is good.

Now click on the "Background" layer (the one on the bottom) and then click on the Trash can button. We cannot do transparent on the "Background" layer, but we can on the "Background Copy" layer, which is all that we should be left with.

Back over to the main Gimp window now. You are going to chose the "Select By Color" tool, which looks like a finger pointing to a red square with a blue and green square also available. It is the top row, fifth from the left.

Once that has been selected, click over to our snapshot window where you are going to click on the white. Where? Anywhere, so long as it is white. This will result in a lot of select-dashes appearing all over your image. Are they outlining all of the white? Good!

Now, and this is the hard part, you are going to press the [Delete] key. If, for some reason you mess up at this or any other stage (though this is the stage where you will notice a mess-up) you can always press [Ctrl] + [Z] and go back a step. Your image should now have a checkerboard background (which is how The Gimp indicates transparency):

Step 4: Getting Rid of the Empty Space
Still on the image window, go to Select > Select None to get rid of your selection-dashes. Then head over to Image > Autocrop Image which will tighten your image down to just the bare minimum. We like this.

You should now have a much tighter image.

Continue on to Step 5.

EduCube Class

2007-12-15T23:54:00.000-08:00

Mark your calendars, EduCube is offering its first class.

Official Class Information

Name: Trial Run - Build Your Own Wreath
Cost: Materials are Free
Where: Meeting at EduCube Holiday Headquarters
Class Size: 3.
** REGISTER IN ADVANCE ** by IMing Jasmin Loire in-world.

If this trial-class is a hit, then this will be offered to a larger audience.

-----------------------------------------

An arts-and-crafts project like one done by preschoolers across the US: build your own wreath.

Class skills covered: rezing, resizing, texturing, placing, and photographing prims.

Remember:
* meeting at http://slurl.com/secondlife/Omega%20City/145/88/25
* limited to 3 testers (I'd appreciate them being folks with limited building experience so I get true feedback on how detailed my instructions need to be)

12 pm PT Class (Open to Blog Readers)
Spot 1:
Spot 2:
Spot 3:

1 pm PT Class (Listed on SL Search)
Spot 1: Czari Zenovka
Spot 2: 01 Hifeng
Spot 3: PhoenixSoleil7 Timeless

Lesson 6: Remove that Just Rezzed Look (Part 2)

2007-12-15T23:43:00.000-08:00

Part 1

Skin
User created skins can run anywhere from 500 L$ to 1000 L$ if not more. I headed over to Tuli since FabFree had gone to all the trouble of matching a skin to a shape. I'm just that pale white normally (my students encourage me to get some sun), so this skin a definite win.

The first thing that I notice when I arrive, is the presence of a Christmas tree that is surrounded by presents. There is no hovering text that encourages me to click on the presents, but I click nonetheless. And almost all of the presents contain, well, presents. There was only one empty box. Most of the presents were lovely pieces of clothing but one of them was the S4 Cream skin. My quest to find where they hid the freebie skin is over before it had even begun. Back to the photo studio!

Here is my new look, bedecked in my new skin (along with the new shape). Oh, and I found a solution to my previous top, that came in the form of a present freebie from Tuli: a new sweater. This one is red and sassy enough to show some chest, but no cleavage. This is actually something I'd wear to teach in a real classroom. There are additional prim cuffs and a turtleneck, but I actually like the sweater more without them.

But Houston, we have a problem. If you look at the image from FabFree and the picture above, you will see that the face does not look the same. The whole reason I went through all of this trouble to go to the links and find specifically that shape and specifically that skin was because I really wanted that face. After some serious searching, I discovered that my viewer, Windlight, was the problem. Hopefully they'll fix the lighting situation. In the mean time, I created a facelight and placed it on myself. I do not have to go into detail about how to create a facelight because you, being an educator and not a game or software developer, have the real viewer, not a "first look" (meaning still in the stages of being untested) viewer. Here is how it turned out:

Much better.

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Tune in next time for our final installment: Hair!

Happy Holidays from EduCube

2007-12-11T20:51:00.000-08:00

The EduCube in-world headquarters seems all decked out for the holidays! But this is more than just a pretty facade.

It appears that we have hidden many surprises around our land. Surprises for you to find! I wonder where you should start ...

EduCube Headquarters

And please don't forget to click on the sign!

Lesson 6: Remove That Just-Rezzed Look (Part 1)

2007-12-09T22:07:00.000-08:00

One of the tell-tale signs that someone is a newbie in Second Life is their skin and their hair. The default skins, while serviceable, are low quality and almost all of the long-time SL users upgrade to user-created skins. Hair is a similar case.

My just-rezzed look is better than most, because I went through the CSI:NY avatar creation system (more on that tomorrow). However, even it isn't perfect, so it is off to solve all problems.

I attended an NCI (New Citizens I...?) class during one of my first days in Second Life and they did a show on avatar personalization. Their advice was to start first with a shape, then get a skin, hair, and finally new clothes.

I did a bit of fashion-blog shopping to see if I could find an avatar I wanted to adopt and I found one. The face shape was awesome (I naturally have an oval face), the body seemed proportional, and the makeup was not overwhelming. And so, armed with the links that the site provided, I set off to acquire all parts of that avatar and make them mine.

A side note, check out the rest of the site for other completely-from-free-or-dollarbies avatars. Ignore the clothing, because after all, we are going to dress like the professionals we are, but look at face shapes and skin realism. Perhaps you can find the upgrade you are looking for on that blog, which will save you a lot of time guessing and checking.

Another problem I hope to solve along the way is the fact that under my crocheted top, some hints of pink are showing. This is due to the fact that the default skin from CSI:NY has those naughty-bits. Newbie skins created through Linden Lab do not suffer from the same problem. However, one thing to keep in mind is that skins you are going to pick up later along the way may come complete with photorealistic naughty-bits. This is because artists wish to be truthful to their medium ... or something.

Shape
Following the directions given to me by the NCI class, I first went out to acquire my new shape. I was excited about getting a new shape, since I felt that my default shape was a bit forehead-heavy (though otherwise functional).

I headed over to Style Your Destiny where many surprises were in store for me. For one, they have a garbage can that encourages you to go dumpster diving. If you do so, you get a sweet freebie. I scored a necklace pack, which is great because I was just thinking that I didn't have any jewelry, and with my hair in a ponytail, I needed something to frame my face.

Another surprise was the freebie-pack that was located on the outside of the store, across from the talking garbage can. It contained, amongst other things, a free pair of panties. Yay, the starts of my underwear collection!

I also noticed that Style Your Life was one of the few places in Second Life that I've encountered that acknowledges Hanukkah. You cannot know how happy this makes me. Truly happy. (^_^)

I head up the stairs and turn to my right where I find a vendor located next to another freebie package. This vendor does not announce prices, nor do I see anything that says Eve, but wouldn't you know that as I click through the selection on the vendor, there Eve is! And I can buy her for the 1 L$ that was advertised on the FabFree blog.

I neglect to pick up the eyes that FabFree used because my default eyes seem natural enough to me (I'm bright-green eyed in person) so I figure that I'll use these for now. I may yet return to pick up those eyes at a later date.

I also noticed that for your male avatars, they have 1 L$ shapes as well. Remember, you are receiving a shape, and not the skin, so if your skin is as pale white as mine (indicating that you, like myself, need to get offline and out into that vitamin-D inducing sunshine), these shapes, coupled with the right skins, will make you look like yourself, only more in shape.

Here I am wearing the Eve shape. The first thing I noticed was that my chest problem has grown. I'm also shorter, and my forehead isn't as forehead-dy. This shape came with its own set of eyes, so I took a closeup picture of myself modeling the eyes. Extreme closeup.

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Tune in next time for the second installment: Skin!

Lesson 6: Tour of Manpower Island

2007-12-08T21:22:00.000-08:00

I bet you think I forgot that this was a weekend. Nope!

So you want to dress professionally so that you can teach your students, but you do not want to spend your hard earned PowerPoint L$ to do so? There are many different ways to update your look for free or cheap, but today I am going to take you on a photo tour of Manpower Island to show you my best way for getting outstanding professional clothing with very little money down.

First, Manpower Island is a staffed sim, meaning that there is always a greeter around to welcome you. So do not be shocked/rude/taken aback when the greeter does just that. If you'd like them to go away, so you can get your shop on in private, just tell them that you've visited before and you'll be sure to let them know if you have any questions.

Your first stop needs to be inside the Manpower lobby. To get in, you will need to touch the double doors. If you have trouble doing this, then please feel free to ask the greeter to help you arrive at your destination.

By the way, here's Manpower's official website about their presence in Second Life.

Please meet Viv Perrin, my official model who will be photographed for the purposes of this blog. I created her using OnRez's CSI: NY avatar creation form. Why? Because I wanted something more than the default noob look for a model for this blog. Anyway, Viv is sitting on a chair in the Manpower lobby.

This is Viv's default look. Not bad by any stretch of the imagination, but also not the most professional for leading a class. Let's see if we can fix that for no money down.

Over along the rear wall of the Manpower lobby, there are some posters that advertise a few designers in Second Life who have created business, or business casual outfits. However, these outfits are not cheap. There is also a wall full of potential packages entitled "Decosta Limited". We like this. This is free. Grab the avatars and/or the avatar parts for the gender you have chosen.

Since Viv is a female, I grabbed the female avatars and the female avatar parts. Then, it is off to a sandbox.

To get to a sandbox, remember that you are going to need to do a search in "Places" for the word "sandbox".

Once there, we are going to open the boxes that we received to remove our items. Remember, right-clicking on the item in your inventory and choosing "wear" will place that item of clothing on your body.

I managed to give Viv a more professional look by using the formal attire pants and the black crocheted dress shirt. I had to remove about six pieces of clothing to pull this off, but in the end I think the look doesn't overwhelm the students with feelings of insecurity (this is what I picked up from any suit-wearing professor) but at the same time says, "Leave your toys at home, this is a place to be serious."

Coincidently, back at Manpower, there was an advertisement on the wall for Blaze and their selection of suits and powersuits. I went over to the Blaze store to check it out. 500 L$! Youch, but I so want ... Perhaps one of my students will be extremely generous with me during my next class.

Lesson 5: How to Unpack a Box

2007-12-02T23:53:00.000-08:00

A lot of items in Second Life come packed in boxes. In order to get the merchandise out of the box, however, it requires a somewhat complicated procedure. But fear not, through this lesson we will discover that unpacking boxes is easy.

First, find the Item in your "Objects" Folder in your Inventory. Then, drag the box to the floor near where you are standing, provided you are standing somewhere that you are allowed to build. If you need to go somewhere that will allow you to unpack boxes, I highly recommend clicking on the search tab and doing a "Place" search for the word sandbox. I'd link to some here, but on any given day different ones are up/down so my links might not be the most reliable.

Once you have rezzed the object (made the box appear on the land), you can work with it to open it. Right-click on the box. Select the "Open" button. After doing this, the list of objects inside the item will appear. You can now drag the items into your inventory.

I hope this helps :) any other questions please IM Me :)

Lady Greenstein
AFK Designs

New Template

2007-12-01T21:24:00.000-08:00

Over this past week, I got a new computer. I upgraded from an old IBM Thinkpad (before they were made by Lenovo) that sported an Intel graphics card to a shiny (not kidding, it came with a cloth and instructions on how to wipe the machine to keep it shiny) new HP Pavilion Entertainment PC Laptop/tablet/DVD burner/tiny-lightweight with an nVidia graphics card.

Granted, this is my Windows-running machine (I usually stick with an Averatec ATI-graphics card laptop linux-box), but I had to fire it up and check out Second Life with my hopefully excellent graphics. I loved looking around with Windlight, and will be using that viewer to do all pictures for this blog from here on out, however the increased screen resolution made this blog look AWFUL and all out of kilter.

So I upgraded the blog template to something that looks good no matter what screen resolution you use. However, even this had limitations and some of my posts were too long for the post background, so I had to chop them up and make them smaller.

All should be fine, now. Hopefully :: crosses fingers ::.

Which leads me to my next point: graphics. Please do not think that the images posted previously on this blog are representative of the general image quality in Second Life. I took them on the Intel-graphics machine. Not only was the graphics card not supported by Second Life, but I also had to scale back a lot of "pretty" in order to not crash the machine. Thus, things look decidedly polygon and nothing is smooth or has dynamic lighting and shading. With a supported graphics card, things look much, much smoother.

Lesson 3: Your Profile Picture (Part 3)

2007-12-01T20:57:00.000-08:00

Part 1 | Part 2

If none of those themed sets are what you had in mind, you can head over to the SL Television Studio and see if perhaps a normal television set is more your style. This bit of land is set with one entry point, so once you land, just follow the direction of the red arrow to the actual position I wanted you to go to.

Here, you can take a profile picture on the set of a talk show ...

... filming the talk show ...

... on a whole host of other sets ...

... or in a chroma-key room (more ideal for taking pictures for outfits or accessories you have designed that you later want to sell).

And most important of all:
To take a picture to become your profile picture, position yourself the way you would like (use [ALT] + your arrow keys to position the camera too) and then press [CTRL] + [SHIFT] + [S] to take a picture that you save to your computer. From there, you can make adjustments in your photo editor of choice (mine is The Gimp) and then go to Build > Upload Image and upload it.

Within your profile, click on the blank picture space and it will ask you to select which picture/texture to use as the profile picture.

Win!

-= Jasmin Loire =-

Lesson 3: Your Profie Picture (Part 2)

2007-12-01T20:55:00.001-08:00

Part 1

They also have an Edo Era Japan scene for those of you japan-o-philes [Guilty! - JL]. If you want the look that I'm sporting in these pictures, you can achieve your own variety by following the free links in the "Get the Geisha Look" notecard given at my Geisha Presentation. Please note that the kimono I am wearing, and the pose I am using, were bought and paid for. However, I do link to free kimono that are stunning in themselves, and perhaps some day someone will make an animation overrider with the pose and release it for free. If this has already happened, or you know where to get the japanese bow pose for free, please drop me a comment!

Finally, they have an Indian Town (no picture because I don't have an outfit to go with it, but Anna Zwiers was able to take some stunning pictures). And finally, they have an Outer Space set that can be reached by walking into the white domes (yes, you can walk right through them). Again, no picture because I didn't have a nifty spacesuit, but again Anna Zwiers comes to the rescue.

Continued ...

Lesson 2: Flying So Very High (Part 2)

2007-12-01T20:48:00.000-08:00

Part 1

MystiTools Tool Collection
While the previous flight feather is an item to be worn, this next tool is a HUD (or Heads Up Display) that is projected on your screen. From there, you can interact with it via a series of buttons. It does more than just a flight feather, and while I (as an experienced user) have other objects that fulfill some of these other tasks, this will not be overkill for you the new user. To get this you will need to visit Mysti's store and buy for L$ 1 (I know it says free, but for whatever reason it isn't).

In order to get your L$ 1, I highly recommend that you "camp". What is "camp"? Well, you sit your avatar in a chair for a set amount of time and then at the end of that time you get money. This comes from a time back in the day when Linden Labs paid landowners who had the most popular locations (as determined by number of unique avatar visits and length of time the avatars spent on the land). It made sense for land owners to pay people small amounts to inflate their popularity traffic numbers. However, while Linden Labs ended their practice, the camping chairs continue to exist.

My recommended camping spot is at the LandProtector Shop and Camping Chairs. Because the land permissions are set, you absolutely have to enter the land at the location specified, even if you want to be somewhere else. That said, I've drawn you a map for how to get to the camping chairs.
You enter the shop at the red dot. From there, accept the sample security order and even take a land mark (the second thing offered) so that you can make it back here whenever you'd like.

To help orient you to the map that I've included, once you enter this area you will be facing the right hand side of the map. You will need to turn 180 degrees to begin to follow the arrows.

Follow my red arrows to the camping chairs. There are six of them, and while on or two might be in use, I've never been there and found that all six are in use. The chairs all pay out in increments of L$ 1 (which is less than $0.01 US) for times that range from 5 minutes to 8 minutes. While your avatar sits in the chair, amuse yourself by reading up on your favorite blogs or reading more of my Lesson 1 beginners posts.

Once your time is up, click the "Stand Up" button and you will be awarded your money. You want at least L$ 1. Side note: The smilie face is pointing to a set of chairs that I really want. Perhaps you are willing to sit in the camping chairs long enough to buy them for me because I've been extremely helpful to you? Well, it cannot hurt to ask (^_^).

The MystiTool HUD store is located at Blumfield 26,147,296. If you click the link and do not end up in the store (as happened to me the first time I tried to go), wait until everything finishes rezzing (the term for appearing in your viewer) and then click the teleport link again. This should fix the problem (it did for me). If it doesn't, then wait and click yet again. The problem is caused by the fact that the store is located in the sky and the ground hasn't rezzed (appeared) yet so your avatar falls back to the ground. The "freebie" version is located to the right of the door (see picture).

Flight Feather on OnRez
The final option isn't free either. This one costs L$ 3, but doesn't require you to deal with potentially non-existent ground. In order to get the L$ 3, just camp for 3x as much time as you would have needed to get the MystiTools. Read above for information on where and how to camp.

The flight feather is being sold through OnRez which requires either buying it from a shop in-world or buying it from the OnRez website. Since it isn't sold in-world, the website is the way you are going to have to go. This will send you on what feels like a wild goose chase to turn your L$ into OnRez currency (you have to go to an OnRez vendor - they give you a list - and get an OnRez wallet that you pay your money to, which then shows up on the website, which you can then spend on the flight feather).

But in the end, you get your flight feather. And isn't that really what this is all about after all?

And, says Bob Sutor:

Once you can fly up in the air, there is some basic etiquette you need to observe. If you are blocked from entering land at ground level, the owners probably don’t want you to visit their house even if it is hundreds of meters up in the air. There are several security products that may eject you from the land or even teleport you home if you trespass for more than 10 or 15 seconds.

Welcome to Your Second Life

2007-11-26T21:32:00.000-08:00

If you haven't guessed, I only post lessons on non-school days. Why? Because I'm a working educator in RL (real life).

However, I figured that I would post during the week because I stumbled upon this machinima* that I think is really good, at least based on what I'm used to seeing:

* machinima = movie filmed entirely inside of a game. Think Red vs Blue.

Lesson 4: How to Make L$ So That You Can Spend L$

2007-11-25T23:19:00.000-08:00

As an educator, you need to have L$ in your bank account.

Why? Because the upload of textures/powerpoint slides costs L$ 10 each. And as an educator, you hopefully would welcome a visual to go along with your audio/text that you provide. The presentation screens that I provide as part of my Sage-on-a-Stage series of EduCubes are set up to take textures/powerpoint slides.

Why? To buy my EduCubes, of course.

The more important question is, how can you acquire L$? There are four ways to accomplish this goal:
1. Camping
2. Surveys
3. Tip Jars
4. Money Trees

1. Camping
Once upon a time, Linden Labs - creators of Second Life - would pay the land owners that generated the most persistant traffic. This ranking incorporated the number of new avatars that visited a parcel of land and the length of time the avatars stayed on the parcel of land.

In order to earn this financial prize, land owners started to pay avatars for coming and sitting (aka camping) on the land. Linden Labs has since discontinued the practice of paying for traffic, however the practice of paying for camping has stayed around. Usually camping comes in the form of a chair that pays an avatar for sitting in it for a set amount of time. Other fun camping sources are dance pads that pay an avatar for getting their groove on for a set amount of time.

There are many different sites for camping, but my favorite for a quick buck is the LandProtector Shop. Click the link and teleport in. Then follow the red arrow to the camping chairs.

Once there, right click on a chair and choose "Get L$". Your avatar will then take a seat and the clock will start ticking. To earn your money, simply stand up and the chair will pay you.

I usually take the time I am camping to write my blog entries. I list camping as my #1 L$ making way because it is completely passive. You just have to check up on your avatar roughly every 10 minutes. Over the course of writing this blog entry, I made L$ 5, which while it doesn't sound like a lot, is still more than I would have made had I not been logged in to Second Life while writing this blog entry. Plus that is five dollar-bies that I can buy! Woot!

2. Surveys
Some reputable, and some not-so-reputable companies have set up ATMs in-world that link you to a web browser and ask you to take surveys. These surveys have higher payouts than camping chairs, but are also more active. They are ideal for the "gotta have it now" payouts of L$ 10 - L$ 20. However, the surveys pay out on 30 minute time intervals, so if you can wait up to 30 minutes for your L$, then these will work for you.

The most reputable surveys I have found are those from Wellfare Island ATMs. If you click the link, you will end up on a parcel with this, and other ATMs. You want just the Welfare Island ATM.

The ATM will give you a list of surveys that you have to be very careful about what you click. However, on almost every page that offers you a spammy offer is a "no thanks" or "skip" option. Seek those out and use them. You will have to "no thanks/skip" through about 5-7 pages of special offers, but in the end, you get your money. I did one survey for a free sample of Dove Body Lotion. Since I'm a real-life educator as well as one in Second Life, I have no end of students asking me if I have any lotion. Having a free sample cannot possibly be a bad thing for me! Then, I clicked through seven pages of useless offers, politely declining at each stage. Finally, after 20:34 minutes, I received my payout (see insert). Yay, that's three powerpoint slides I can upload with no penalty to myself!

3. Tip Jars
Whenever you provide a free service in Second Life such as, say, giving a lecture or providing a freebie piece of merchandise, it is customary to have an available tip jar. If you bought an EduCube from me, then you already have your tip jar located in your EduCube (handy, that).

It is customary for folks who found your free good/service useful to provide you with a tip of some sort. This is not that different from being a street performer in a way. Usually it is L$ 1 here and L$ 1 there, so don't feel too cheated if you see figures this low. Occasionally someone with some serious cash will be a secret sugar-daddy for you. However, this is a way to make some L$ while doing what you love: educating.

Coincidently, you should tip as well. If you attend a lecture and your host doesn't have a readily identifiable tip jar, ask them where their tip jar is to be found. Use some of those L$ that you earned from methods #1 and #2 to thank them for their time. Remember, what goes around comes around.

4. Money Trees
These are trees that are available to residents of SL who are under 30 days old. Bots visit some and harvest from them. Basically, you walk up to a money tree and click on any lindens/fruit/etc. that you find in the tree. Here are some locations I have found:

1

Lesson 3: Your Profile Picture (Part 1)

2007-11-24T19:18:00.000-08:00

Your profile (right-click on yourself and select "Profile") is a very useful tool. If you haven't figured out how to view other people's profiles (right-click on them and select "Profile"), you are missing out on profile breadcrumbs.

What are profile breadcrumbs? They are the "Picks" that other people have made from Second Life. Click on a random place that someone enjoyed so much that they added to their profile. Arrive. Find another person. Find another pick. Explore. See what is out there!

But on the front page of the profile is a not-to-be-missed area for a profile picture. In order to upload a picture, you need to pay L$ 10. How do you get that LS $10 without spending a dime of your own money? Camping (do a [CTRL] + [F] and look for "camping" for more information)! It will only cost you 50 minutes of your life. Camp while you've got something better to do, such as typing that report for work, planning a lesson, checking and responding to email, or reading your favorite blogs. Just make sure that you visit Second Life every 10 minutes or so and right click on something just so that the client knows you are alive as it will boot you otherwise.

But once you have your L$ 10, it is time to go get your profile picture on! Now, you can take your boring, run-of-the-mill snapshot or you can go to a photo-studio and have fun with the sets and poses. Run-of-the-mill is free but dull. Photo-studios can get costly, and do you really want to sit in the camping chair anymore?

So what is the solution? Machinima Studios (Japanese) and TV Studio! This is a collection of different sets that you can use as your backdrop. I've included a few of my favorites, with SLurls, here:

This is the Western Scene from Machinima Studios (Japanese). If you don't speak/read Japanese (I do but only verrrrrrrry little, and not enough to understand what was going on in this sim), that doesn't matter because everything is pretty much self-explanatory or comes with an English translation. There are several different scenes pictured including the western one where you can sit on a barrel, on top of a stage coach, or along the sides of your typical western town, and have your picture taken to make you look like you are from the Wild, Wild West.

Coincidently, I've made the entire look (called an "Avatar") that I wore available to you newbies for free. Just visit my land and use the Freebies for Newbies vendor to find the outfit. What if you are a male, rather than a female? Pick up the outfit anyway. The worn jeans, cow-person boots, shirt, and cow-person hat looks equally stunning whether you are XY or XX. If you are a male, you don't want to wear the skin, shape, or hair. Trust me.

Continued ...

Lesson 2: Flying so Very High

2007-11-23T20:32:00.000-08:00

One of the first things you learn to do in Second Life is to fly. The easiest ways to fly are to hit [PgUp] to fly/jump and [PgDn] to land/crouch. Flying is fun and helps you quickly get from point a to point b. However, you will quickly notice some limitations to flight: you cannot fly above 200 meters.

Shops, events, and sometimes even people's houses are often found above the 200 m ceiling. How do you get there?

The answer is simple if you know what a Flight Feather is. It is an object that is scripted to allow you to fly to extreme heights. I believe that after 700 m of vertical flight, the simulators (the machines that produce the 3D visual based on the computer code) start freaking out and things become rendered in interesting ways, but below this threshold, all is good. That means that you have 500 m of vertical space that is not accounted for in the initial ceiling.

Once you have a flight feather, right click on it in your inventory and click "Wear". Ta da! All done.

To get a flight feather, you have multiple options. I am starting from cheapest and going to most expensive:

Flight Feather from Bliss Gardens
#1 - Visit Bliss Gardens by clicking on this link. This will take you directly to Bliss Gardens. Once there you will be facing a bunch of signs. Off to the left of the signs is yet another sign informing you of a Sim Barrier crossing. While that is fun and informative, the most important thing is the part where it tells you to click to get a free flight feather. "Touch" the sign to get yourself a free flight feather!

#2 - Buy from the vendor on my land. Click this link to visit my land (no, this is not a promotion for what I am selling, but if you'd like to look at the free presentation on geisha you are more than welcome). Locate the Geisha presentation. To the left of it, against the wall, is what looks like a picture that has text hovering over it announcing "JL's Educational Utilities". If you "Touch" the screen, it will change to a new item for sale. If you Right Click and select "Pay", you can buy (and will be given) the item. Because I do not know what item was last displayed (each user can leave it on a different screen), I cannot tell you how many times you are going to need to touch the display, but eventually you will reach a screen that has hover text announcing that it is a Flight Feather. "Pay" the vendor the L$ 0 that it asks and it will give you the flight feather. It is the same as that from Bliss Gardens.

Continued ...

Lesson 1: Welcome to Second Life

2007-11-23T20:12:00.001-08:00

Second Life is a free 3D platform that runs on Linux (alpha, but works if you have an ATI or nVidia video card; I have linux/ATI so I know that of which I speak), Windows, and Mac.

There are separate versions of Second Life depending on whether or not you are over or under the age of 18. Kids, now you don't have to deal with boring grown-up stuff. Grown-ups, now you don't have to deal with "txt spk".

Inside Second Life are amazing opportunites to meet and discuss with others, as well as attend virtual museums where you can interact with the exhibits. Oh, and you can use it to test out your wildest sexual fantasies as well, but then again you can do that just about anywhere. What you cannot do just about anywhere is send your digital self (called an avatar) to a multi-person Science Friday taping that is attended by those putting on the radio show (who actually include questions generated by the audience chat) or a book tour (if you are like me and live in the sticks where authors fear to tread).

However, there is a steep learning curve. To help you out with it and to keep from reinventing the wheel, I will direct you to these following picture-filled and simply-written helpful posts:

Getting Started in Second Life
Top 5 Tips for the Newly Born
Frequently Asked Questions (compiled over 2 years of answering them)
Redo your Orientation Island Experience

I hope you enjoy Second Life and hope to see you around the Metaverse! Send me an IM once you figure out how!

-= Jasmin Loire =-

Sponsor Me

2007-10-27T18:59:00.000-07:00

Thank you for your interest in sponsoring Crackerbox School.

Crackerbox is a new school, with both new and experienced instructors. We also have textures and tutorials for sale, as well as tutorials that can be worked on at the school. There is a sandbox (The Crumb Box) located above the sky classrooms. You can click the logo subscribe box in the sky classroom and join our group without using one of your SL groups!!

We are also new to sponsorship. What is on this notecard are suggestions. If you have ideas that would suit both your needs and ours please let me know and we'll talk it over!

Option 1: You may sponsor the Crackerbox School in general. Make a sponsorship donation and you will receive space to put up an ad for your shop, be mentioned in class announcements, and a landmark to your shop included in class supplies. Your donation will go toward paying for classes and any special needs we might have. A SUGGESTED DONATION would be something like 2500L or 5000L per month. Less...or more...also accepted. (^_^)

Option 2: You may sponsor a particular instructor. Make a sponsorship donation and you will receive space to put up an ad for your shop, be mentioned in class announcements, and a landmark to your shop included in class supplies. Your donation will go strictly toward paying that particular teacher for their classes.

Option 3: You may sponsor a particular class taught here. Make a sponsorship donation and you will receive space to put up an ad for your shop, be mentioned in class announcements, and a landmark to your shop included in class supplies. Your donation will go strictly toward paying for that particular class.

As I said, this is a guideline. If you have ideas or suggestions just let me know, and we will work something out.

Thank you so very much!! We need people like you...you are very appreciated!

I wouldn't want to make guesses on how much, you should decide that. And it's easier for you to let me know what your needs are in return, if they are different than listed. Those of you who know me well know that I try to keep things as simple and flexible as possible. :)

One-time donations are also very appreciated!

Wall ad to place at the Crackerbox limited to 10x10 flat wall sign with landmark and notecard giver. Also make a notecard with landmark to place in supplies for each student in each class.

With sponsorship donation of 5000L or more per month you may also place a low-prim vendor. From there, let me know your suggestions.

Floradora Sol
Crackerbox School director/owner