Category: building

Top Quality Creators Who License for Other Grids

In my last post I discussed new opportunities for Opensimulator builders to obtain high-quality textures and sculpts from SL artists who are willing to license their products for Opensimulator virtual worlds.

In this post, I’d like to applaud some of the cooperating artists. Below I have listed some of Second Life’s top creators of high-end textures and/or sculpts who offer “other grid” licenses. I encourage you to support these artists by buying their products, so that they will be encouraged to continue to support OpenSim builders and help us improve the quality of our life here.

Note that in some cases, their products are sold only in SL or on the SL Marketplace, so you would need a Second Life account to receive delivery of the product or to contact the artist. Even if you are not currently active in Second Life, you might consider keeping an account there just for this purpose. One of my friends thinks of it like this: he lives in the suburbs, and occasionally visits the big city for a shopping trip!

TOP QUALITY CREATORS OF TEXTURES AND SCULPTS WHO LICENSE FOR OTHER GRIDS

Please suggest any other premium content creators you’ve worked with who license for Opensimulator.

Studio Skye – Alex Bader. Alex has just started making his outstanding textures available for download from his website. No Second Life account needed. http://www.studio-skye.com

Primmersive Designworks / E&D Engineering – Eryn Republic, Texture Engineer. Excellent, hyper-realistic textures, emphasis on postmodern, dystopian, industrial. Custom design available. Contact them for licensing info. https://marketplace.secondlife.com/stores/21145  (Second Life account required to receive delivery)

TRU Textures Ltd. – LillyBeth Filth (Elizabeth Gallagher) Extensive selection of quality textures available for download from website. No Second Life account needed. http://www.texturesrus.net/

Anthonys Republic. High quality sculpts. Choose between one-time license covering all products, or pay as you go. https://marketplace.secondlife.com/stores/22444 (Second Life account required to receive delivery)

Twisted Thorn Textures – Nighty Goodspeed. Only a small selection available on Marketplace; see SL in-world store for much more. Choose between one-time other-grid license covering all products, or pay as you go. https://marketplace.secondlife.com/stores/5019 (Second Life account required to receive delivery)

Door and Texture Store – VonGklugelstein Alter. Really useful materials for creating buildings. Contact VonGklugelstein Alter in SL for licensing info. https://marketplace.secondlife.com/stores/21912  (Second Life account required to receive delivery)

Panther 3D – Adaarye Shikami. Some textures available in SL at Twisted Thorn. Contact Adaarye Shikami for licensing info. https://marketplace.secondlife.com/stores/9149  (Second Life account required to receive delivery)

Jubjubs Stuff – Jubjub Forder. Several highly useful sculpts. Contact Jubjub Forder for licensing info. https://marketplace.secondlife.com/stores/15290  (Second Life account required to receive delivery)

Svo Michalak. Very nice sculpts of useful landscaping, food, tools and assorted other objects. He told me once that other-grid licensing is assumed for all his products however I would suggest that you contact him yourself to make sure. https://marketplace.secondlife.com/stores/18128  (Second Life account required to receive delivery)

FUD – Happyholly Grigges. Some good trees and other items. Contact Happyholly Grigges for licensing info. https://marketplace.secondlife.com/stores/8976 (Second Life account required to receive delivery)

CFD Cloud Factory Designs – Areku Shirakawa. Furniture sculpts. Contact Areku Shirakawa for licensing info.  https://marketplace.secondlife.com/stores/15366 (Second Life account required to receive delivery)

FLECHA – Flecha Warwillow. Contact Flecha Warwillow for licensing info.  https://marketplace.secondlife.com/stores/52128  (Second Life account required to receive delivery)

S.Town Sculpties – CrashOV Uladstron. Contact CrashOV Uladstron for licensing info. https://marketplace.secondlife.com/stores/39126   (Second Life account required to receive delivery)

Please suggest any other premium content creators you’ve worked with who license for Opensimulator.

Bringing High End Textures to Opensim

The fact that everything is free in many Opensimulator grids may feel like a refreshing change for those who came from Second Life, where capitalism reigns. No money! No economy! Content creators freely share what they make. Take everything you want – it’s free!

On the other hand, it also presents a challenge for builders, especially those for whom quality is important. Most suppliers of high-end building materials in Second Life – textures and sculpts especially – are professional graphic artists who make a living at content creation. Not many of them are willing to provide materials for use in Opensim. They are, understandably, reluctant to give their livelihood away in a grid where they can’t easily be reimbursed. Without their supplies, quality materials are not plentiful.

Thus, Opensim builders typically have been faced with difficult choices. We can try to rely on whatever freebies are available here, which can be hit or miss. A few builders, sadly, simply steal materials. Others do their best to learn to make their own original textures, sculpts, scripts and animations, and while that’s probably the best solution, the learning curve can be extremely overwhelming.

However, there is another option. As OpenSim based grids like OSgrid grow in popularity, more and more creators of high-end building materials are willing to license their textures and sculpts for use on other grids, not just the commercial grids like Second Life, Avination or Inworldz. If you want the best quality, and if you are willing to pay a few pennies for it, you now have a lot more options.

We would like to thank these pioneering content creators for their willingness to support OSgrid builders. In my next post, I list their names and URLs. I hope that all OSgrid builders who value quality will support their businesses, as they support us by enriching our world.

We want to encourage high-end content creators to continue providing great textures and sculpts for use in Opensimulator. Support goes both ways. If we expect them to support us, we must be willing to return the favor – by buying their products, and also by treating them with respect:

  • PLEASE respect licensing agreements. If the license says you don’t have permission to export building materials to other grids, don’t do it, no matter how much you want the item.
  • It is NEVER okay to give away purchased textures. It is okay to share things you made with the textures, but not the textures themselves. Do not pass textures to friends. Do not share textures.
  • When you use a purchased texture, do not give out your creation with full permissions. Make it no-transfer or no-copy. If you need to make something that is both copy and transfer, use only building materials whose creator clearly intended them to be freely shared.
  • If you have permission to export a texture to Opensim, do not re-import the texture into Second Life. This is the main transgression that stops most content creators from supporting Opensim. Also, if you make something in Opensim using a purchased texture or sculpt map, and import that item into Second Life. replace the texture or sculpt with the purchased version that shows the original artist as the creator.

If you don’t respect licensing agreements, you are only hurting yourself. Every time you use a texture or sculpt without permission, you make it less likely that high-quality textures and sculpts will continue to be available for to Opensim. Maybe you don’t want them; but when you don’t respect licensing agreements, you help to close off the supply to other builders who do want them. So please respect your fellow builders as well as the content creators whose work enriches our virtual world.

Victorian store: a Painted Lady

I decided to try Victorian…! We wanted to make our new shopping area reminiscent of New Hope, PA and other small towns where the original Victorian houses have been converted to funky, eclectic shops. I made most of them fairly simple, but on this one, I got inspired to go full tilt. As they say, if you stood still for 5 minutes, the Victorians would try to decorate you… so the last thing a Victorian house should be is simple!

It’s loaded with highly detailed authentic features, including a wraparound porch, turret tower, sculpted balustrades and spandrels, fretwork, decorative shingles and “Stick” detail. The interior was painstakingly textured to match the Victorian styling. The double hung windows even work!

I took my inspiration from various Queen Anne style houses in New England, and the famous “Painted Ladies” of San Francisco. I had a lot of fun researching the style, and planning the materials.

This is one of those “only in OpenSim” builds at 985 prims (no problem, we’ve got plenty more). A residential version will be forthcoming soon, with authentically styled interior. I might try to do a somewhat less primmy version for SL.

The store is offered rent-free. Land ownership is included, also free. We want to encourage content creators to share their creations with our residents by offering them free space to do it. If you’d like to move in, contact Walter Balazic or Camryn Darkstone inworld in OSgrid.

Come see it on the Littlefield NE sim in OSgrid.

See more of Littlefield at our Flickr page.

In Remembrance 9/11

9/11 memorial in Littlefield

To commemorate the 10th anniversary of September 11, 2001 I built this replica of the 9/11 Memorial in NYC that opened today.

Members of the Littlefield community gathered here at 8:46 a.m. to be with each other, and remember and reflect together.

9/11 memorial in Littlefield

Death is not extinguishing the light.
It is putting out the lamp
because the dawn has come.

–Tagore

The Backwoods Cabin

It has been awhile since I posted. I want to put up photos of some new things from the other grid, and of course the Chinese Garden. But first, I will just take a moment to share a quick skybox I did for some friends. The assignment was to create a backwoods cabin with a certain… um… atmosphere that tells a story. Let me explain… (click thumbnails for larger photos)

You’re hiking in the wilderness, two days’ walk from the nearest road, when you stray from the trail. You try to You stumble into a clearing, where you see a small, run-down shack.make your way back, but the forest only gets thicker. You start to wonder just how lost you are, as night begins to fall. Suddenly you stumble into a clearing, where you see a small, run-down shack. Hidden in the deep woods, nearly obscured by tall grass, it’s unlikely that anyone would know it was there unless they were looking for it. At first, you think it must be an abandoned hunting cabin. But there is a thin wisp of smoke rising from the chimney, and a faint flicker of firelight warming the windows. Someone has been here recently. But who would live in such a remote place?

Something tells you that you should just leave, but your curiosity gets the better of you. You walk up the rickety front steps onto the porch. You hesitate a moment, but then you knock. The heavy wooden door swings open with a creak. You call out, but there is no answer. Stepping inside cautiously, you find yourself in a small kitchen. The furnishings are spare; you realize that this place is so far from civilization that any supplies would have to be packed in on foot. The old fashioned hand pump at the sink, the kerosene lantern and the pot-bellied wood stove tell you that this cabin is way off the grid. Still, there are neat stacks of cans and sacks of food, and a few simple, clean dishes. Someone is definitely living here.

The warm glow of a crackling fire in the large stone fireplace draws you further inside the small cabin. The sparse decor is limited to a few well worn rugs, an old armchair, solid woven curtains, and… That’s when you are startled to see the block and tackle hanging from the massive beam overhead. The heavy equipment looks out of place in this tranquil setting. What could the cabin’s occupant need to hoist? Beneath, metal cleats are bolted to the floor. Nearby, an odd-looking wooden crate with doors stands in the corner; a tattered blanket lies rumpled inside, and an empty old bottle is on the floor beside it. So very strange… What goes on inside this dark little cabin?

Certain now that you are alone in the remote backwoods cabin, you slowly open the single bedroom door and peer inside. At first glance, it seems spartan but normal. Illuminated by the glow from two old fashioned oil lamps, a soft brown blanket is draped over a worn but clean mattress on a sturdy steel frame. It’s only when you notice the objects on the dresser that it all begins to sink in. A coil of rope. A tube of some substance. A black scarf. A glint of metal in the open drawer… was that a knife? Handcuffs? A chill runs down your spine. It’s time to get out of here.

You race down the path, away from the creepy cabin and into the darkening night. The tall pines that just a few moments ago towered with majestic beauty now seem to hover threateningly, concealing dark secrets. You wonder how you will ever find the trail again, to take you away from this place. Through the trees, you see a waterfall, and you rush toward its cleansing sound.

Water cascades down the granite cliff in sparkling streams. The natural beauty, hidden here in the wilderness, leaves you awestruck, in such contrast to the dark scene you just witnessed. Then you see her. A young woman, quite naked, is bathing in the pool at the base of the waterfall. Her long blonde hair and wet skin glisten in the moonlit night. You can’t help but stare; she is beautiful, and splashes in the water as if she had no cares. But you see the rope knotted tightly around her delicate wrists. Images flash before your eyes: the ropes tied to the rafters… the crate… they must be meant for this beautiful captive. Yet something is strange; if she is a prisoner, why does she seem so content? Where is her captor? You wonder, but realize, then, that this story, whatever it is, is not for you to know. Silently, without disturbing the girl, you turn and leave, to trace your path back to the world.

…

About the build: This was wicked fun to do. I completed this entire build in less than two hours, using a cabin I’d made before, and the wonderful Wild Mountain Pine materials from Heart Botanicals. The whole landscape, on a 100mx100m platform, consists of pre-made arrangements, matching grasses, and off-sim islands (which work great as a surround for a skybox/platform) and it was done in minutes. For the scripted furniture that needed to have… er… certain animations, a little astute shopping led us to Dirty Deeds and then to the block and tackle which is the inspired work of Britt Halberstam. I built a few things, then completed the environment with atmosphere pieces from Rustica, Alchemy Immortalis, Dutchie and Shade. Two hours of dark fun! It may have been quick to build, but the owners have many hours of rich RP to look forward to…