News From 2007:
12/31
Second Wildlife (TM): Last entry of the year! I've been
away visiting family for a few days so I apologize for the slow
response of late, I am trying to catch up on IM's and hopefully will be
back up to speed in a couple of days. I want to thank all of my loyal
customers that have seen me through the transition to being an SL
creator this year. I rely on every one of you to help keep the lights
on & heat running here - without you returning to support my work
& spreading the word among friends I wouldn't be able to keep
creating new & interesting critters. I look forward to another year
of making great art and (knock on wood) breaking even with this
endeavor. I've already begun the next animal, though I'll hold off on
details until I have some time to test out the new critter in-world.
With the Island up and running I hope to be able to devote most of my
time to animals now, so the coming year should be quite exciting for
Second Wildlife, and I hope for all of you as well!
Best Regards to all and HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!
- Cloud Insoo
12/22
Garden Wildlife: As promised, I finished up a white
rabbit and placed in the Garden vending machine. The Garden Wildlife
web page has been updated with the latest info. I've also been working
on expanding the garden hut, it now has a second floor where I'll have
Hodgie move her plant vendors. It's a very open shopping space, I had
in mind a framework for her to build a hanging garden where the plants
could be seen from afar and where the external garden could be viewed
while shopping. It should be a beautiful place to visit when Hodgie
gets moved upstairs. On the first floor I'll split out the food and
props from the Garden Vending machine and use the wall space for
notices and demos.
In other Garden Wildlife News, I've fixed a couple minor glitches in
the rats & gray squirrels. The rats were saying they loved "moldy"
cheese instead of "fresh" cheese while they ate, was carried over from
the Gothic versions most likely so that's fixed. I had a customer
request an option to have the rats say "Tracy it's up to you" based on
a line from the song "Good Morning Baltimore" in the movie
Hairspray. It's a hidden easter egg now ("Options" --> "Rename"
--> "/8 tracy it's up to you" or "/8 it's up to you") for the newest
rats. As always, re-entering the code cancels the mode. The Gray
squirrels also had a glitch with the twig I had added for another
customer. Apparently SL re-set the perms on me so the twigs were not
copy, that's been fixed as well now. For updates on either critter just
create a folder with your name on it and drop in your pet and send to
me. I'll return the folder with the updated version the next time I'm
on.
Gothic Wildlife: I'm
finishing up more tweaking on the bats which I am not satisfied with
yet. I've removed the phys/non-phys option since they do seem much more
stable than I expected in phys mode and they look more realistic with
physical flight. I've sped up the wing animations and the flying speed
- although if you set the North-South or East-West limits down toward
10m the bat will fly much more slowly. Depending on how the holidays go
I may have the updated versions in the vending machines next week, but
they may not be ready until the following week. I'll let everyone know
as soon as they are ready, you'll be able to send in your old bats for
a free upgrade at that time as well if you wish.
This will likely be the last post before Christmas, so everyone enjoy the Holiday ... may good friends and family and good health be with you all!
12/19
Second Wildlife (TM): You may notice the website is
undergoing some changes. I've moved most of the news to archive pages
now that we're approaching a new year. This should improve the home
page load time, and I'll keep posting new entries on this page and move
older posts to the archive locations. I've been catching up on some
support and fixes, not sure what the next critter will be just yet. The
next few weeks are going to be busy with holiday/family activities, so
I may not be in-world as much as I'd like. If I'm slow to respond I
apologize, just be patient and make use of any animal instructions
& the FAQ page. Hopefully I've covered the most common issues in at
least one of those locations & you may find the answer you are
seeking.
On a related note, I've recently been trying to help a customer that
was unable to pick up a new bunny (Brain if you're there, please read
further)... seems her "Busy Mode" was set. Not only was the vendor
unable to deliver to her, but my IM's are getting bounced back, I can't
send her notecards, etc. The lesson here is - if you want to shop &
have support you MUST turn off busy mode ("World" ---> "Set Not
Busy") otherwise I have no way to reach you! There's a JIRA entry on
this and I've already posted & voted on this SL bug, but since the
Lindens have already inserted a dialog box on setting busy mode (it'll
tell you chat & IM's will be hidden & inventory transactions
will fail) I'd be surprised if they fixed this one. Seems I do need to
add this to the FAQ so I will do so shortly, Brain is not the only
customer I've had trouble reaching by IM's. If you come across this
yourself, definately give the Lindens a verbal reprimand as well... I
understand the reason for having a busy mode in SL, but sheesh.
12/16
Garden Wildlife:
Bunny is finally done! For now he can be found in the Garden Vending
Hut's vendor and in the Second Wildlife (TM) Gardens (where you can
watch him hop around). I've worked hard to deliver some
cool behaviors. He has many animations, is only 1 prim and has
behavioral coding that causes him to hop around, become tired and sleep
to rest up. Just like real rabbits, Second Wildlife (TM) bunnies are
nocturnal and therefore tend to sleep more often during the daytime.
They also recognize their owners, often following you about (within
their defined limits) and may befriend nearby strangers on rare
occasion. Generally, these bunnies are wary of strangers and will try
to stay closer to their owners when threatened. I've added food seeking
as an option and for the first time the food - "Fresh Carrots", also
available in the Garden Vending machine - will provide the added
benefit of giving extra energy to your rabbit causing them to sleep
less often. What else can I say... they are adorable and have been a
joy to create and script. The "Feral Rabbit" and "Pink Bunny" are in the vending
machine and I will try to get at least one other color rabbit in the
vendor by weeks end. For now definitely check out the latest critter at
the home location, I'll update the Garden Wildlife web page with all
the details as well over the coming days.
12/9
Garden Wildlife:
Things are finally getting back to normal somewhat now that the
replacement computer has most of my old files and programs loaded.
Again, I apologize to those I was slow to reply to over the past week.
Now that I'm back to work some of you may have noticed the new Demo
Bunny near the Garden Vendor Hut (set to the low-low price of 75L's).
This is a 1-prim bunny that basically sits in place looking cute &
twitches his nose & tail. I'm working on animations &
behaviors, the fully scripted version will hop around, get tired &
sleep and will have other behaviors I'm experimenting with. I plan to
have the first versions for sale this coming week with at least 2 color
choices. The scripting will be similar to the squirrels & rats with
many of the same options. This looks like it'll be by far the cutest
addition to the Second Wildlife family and will have some very new
& exciting behavioral enhancements. I'll provide many more details
later in the week with the formal announcement, and if you can't wait
for the full version by all means scoop up a copy of the Demo version
while it's available!
12/3
Second Wildlife (TM) Updates: Happy
December everyone! Here are some new shots of the park, in the near
future the website will get a re-freshing and I'll replace the old
photos with photos from the new location. I'm also in the middle of
recovering from a computer failure as well (the old desktop lasted over
4 years and was constantly struggling to keep up with SL) so I may not
be in-world much for a little while and I apologize to those I've not
been able to respond to right away. The Garden area has more new trees
now, and I've re-built Maggie's hideaway shown above on the upper right -
it's now near the Gothic area and has a hidden entrance off of the
nearby walkway. I have many more plans for the Garden area and will
continue to add to it organically as time allows.
Over at the Bar area (lower left) I've given the dance floor its own platform and
moved the group's jukebox upstairs, as well as the dance ball. The
dance floor includes a glass section where you can see the whales and
other sea life swimming below while you dance. The bar area will become
enclosed and provide some wall space for some demos & the general
vending machine I have out. Not sure what else I'll add, more
interactivity here is a goal but we'll just have to see how the build
comes along. The surfboard leaning up against the wall isn't for sale
yet but you can ride one at the docks nearby...
Across the lagoon from the bar is a dock (lower right) that will eventually be
attached to some kind of boathouse. I'm experimenting with a surfboard
rental system here. The rentals are free use boards that operate for 15
minutes and self-erase when the rental is over or when you hop off -
anyone can take a ride around the island on one of them. The boards
themselves will be available in the near future, Hope Tesio will have
the Second Wildlife scripted versions available in the Seaside vendor
hut along with her classic version and I'll have a Second Wildlife
branded version for sale as well at Seaside. I still have some
scripting details to clean up before we can put these out for sale, so
in the short term come visit and give the free rentals a try! (BTW,
they'll also work on the Something Fishy sim will have limited
particle/sound effects due to script permissions on that sim.)
11/26
Second Wildlife Updates (TM):
Finally some updates I can let everyone know about! The wands are done
and in the vending machines. The summoner's wand can be found with the
three critter wands in the Garden Wildlife vending machine. This wand
has 5 spells total, but only the first one is unlocked. The wand tracks
how many shots are used and only when you've used the lower spells
enough will the higher ones become available. Saying ? in chat will
cause the wand to tell you what spell it's learning and how far along
it is to unlocking the next ability. The later spells take a good deal
of use to unlock, and I did test unlocking all the spells so I know it
can be done with enough time & patience. Although anyone can fire
off shots all afternoon to get to the last spell, it's a tedious
process - trust me - and normal fun use over time should get most
people to the last spell eventually. This wand is only available at the
Garden Hut on Second Wildlife Island, so be sure to check it out when
you have some time to wander over.
Also in the Garden Wildlife vending machine I've updated the gray
squirrels. Not only do they drop small twigs occasionally now, but I
added a small easter egg for a customer that only those that keep
up-to-date here will know about. Basically the trick is to select
"Rename" from the options menu, but instead of a name, enter "/8
protect your nuts" and the secret mode is unlocked. When standing up
the squirrel holds up a twig as if to warn you away and occasionally
says "Protect Your Nuts!!" OK, so it's not exactly highbrow humor but
hey it's a fun little secret twist and now you all know about it as
well, hehe. I may add in more secret easter eggs to my critters as time
goes by, some I'll post about here some I may not. In any case, the
twig wielding squirrels are only the gray ones and are now available in the Second Wildlife vending machines.
A third updated item this weekend was the Flying Seagulls at the
Seaside Wildlife vending hut. I was alerted to the fact that the newer
versions don't scale the sound at all (older versions had an on/off
option that worked but was replaced with fully adjustable sound) so I
went ahead and fixed that. The sound adjust fix should
help out those that want to use the seagulls in areas where the old
emitter was just too intrusive, such as near apartment complexes.
I'll need to update all external vending machines with the new
squirrels and seagulls, I'll update them as quickly as I can but as
always the newest stuff can easily be found at the main shop location.
I'd promised a park update as well, and there are quite a few changes
to let everyone know about but I'm already running a little long here
so I'll save it for later in the week. I have more projects in the
works as well, so be sure to check back in the near future!
11/15
Second Wildlife Updates (TM):
Lately I wish I had more time to get things done, I have so many ideas
for things I want to do and can't seem to generate them in SL as fast
as I can think them up. I do have a couple (or more) new items to
announce though.
First, for the Seaside Vendor I've added an XL version of the bamboo
drawbridge (pictured above) that adds 4 meters of water passage over
the standard version. All the other functionality remains - same
open/close action, same steel drum melody, etc.
Secondly, I've finished up some wands I had kinda wanted to do for
Halloween. The bats took up more time than I expected, but such is the
way of new design development (more on that shortly). These wands give
off colorful surface effects and particles. And if you're holding one
in your right hand you can voice command a projectile to shoot! Each
wand produces different types of shots, the red one shown above does
20% damage when the projectile hits if land has damage turned on. Other
wands summon tiny critters - spiders, grasshoppers, etc. depending on
the type. Currently the Gothic vendor has the Shard wand for sale and
the Garden vendor has the Spider wand for sale. The others will be
available in a day or two as I get vendor textures done up. Also, the
Summoners Wand (which can produce any of the available summons) is
still getting some detailed textures and fine tuning. I want it to be
the wand from the set most people aspire to own, so it'll get
sharper/prettier textures as well as a learning sequence - you won't be
able to summon spiders until you've used the shard enough times, etc.
It also has it's own secret spell that will be the last unlocked, I
just need to decide how difficult to make the last spells to unlock.
You all know I'll have to make it a good challenge ;)
Gothic Wildlife (TM): Speaking
of challenges, I wanted to update everyone on the bats that have taken
so much of my time recently. Looks like the 0.14's are much more stable
so far although Fabry did have one unlink so I made a few further
adjustments and placed the updated v0.15 in the Gothic vendor. As an
aside, I have some early prototypes from August that are still running
without problems in various sims, so this still appears to be a rare SL
glitch. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that Fabry doesn't see any more
issues, he was pretty much able to break every bat I gave him within
hours before the latest two versions. Such is new development, I do
want to continue using the design techniques I developed for the
bats as they have produced the best visual results imho (check out some
of the bats in the Second Wildlife Gothic area if you haven't already)
so I'm continuing to monitor these closely as time goes by. The bottom
line seems to be if you're not having problems with your bats by now
you're probably ok, and the newest ones seem to be much more reliable.
As always I'll stand by my work so IM me if you do have problems and
I'll upgrade any misbehaving pets if they can't be fixed.
Ok enough of that, I have more to report regarding park updates, but I'll save that for the next blog post!
11/08
Second Wildlife Updates (TM):
I've received my first batch of data from the new vendors, and I am
hopeful I'll be able to get more of the things customers love most out
there. For instance, did you know Second Wildlife customers prefer
Light Coffee to Dark Coffee by nearly 3 to 1? Or that Black/blu Rats
and Ghost Rats are among the most rare of their species? Well ok, so
it's not exactly Earth-shattering data, but does provide entertaining
reading, maybe I'll learn something useful as I look closer at the
numbers over the next few months.
I've had a few bug fixes come up in recent days I wanted to get
out to you loyal readers. One customer discovered a lock-up in her
cricket, I went through the scripting and sure enough found an issue
& fixed it. The new Crickets & Gothic Crickets have been placed
out in all the Vending machines. The fixed version is v4.50, if your
cricket isn't making any sounds or you simply want to upgrade just make
a folder with your name on it and drop in your cricket(s). I'll return
your folder with the latest best version replacements.
The new bats also required some troubleshooting this week and I have to
give a thankful h/t to FabryFloz as he was very patient in helping me
locate a difficult to isolate SL bug (gotta love SL for it's hidden
issues). The poor guy had a half dozen bats lose their wings on his
sim, and I was unable to repeat the bug at the Second Wildlife shop.
Thanks to his help I was able to add a workaround to deal with SL's
tendency to erase batwings and I've updated all the bats in the vendors
with the latest version v0.14 as of today. If anyone wants to update
their bats to the latest version just create a folder with your name on
it and drop your bat(s) into it. Send me that folder for free
upgrades/replacements. I've only heard from one other customer
concerning this issue, so it doesn't seem to be very common, however
the upgrade is free (and I'll return your folder usually within a day)
so I'd recommend everyone take advantage of the replacement offer.
Remember, if you already have v0.14 or higher you should be in good
shape. Oh, and in case you're wondering I never did find FabryFloz's
missing bat wings... SL ate them??
I also have a new product I'm working on, and hope to have available
soon. Once the above item updates quiet down I'll finish up the project
and announce it formally. Until then, here's a teaser photo to help
hold you over until the next post :)
10/24
Gothic Wildlife (TM): Sorry
everyone for the long delay in getting another post up. It seems I need
a breather after doing a major release like the bats, it takes a lot
out of me building & testing them. BTW, if you haven't had a chance yet to see the bats in action, there's a YouTube video here (h/t to Hodgie Garfield who made & posted the video - thanks!) Fortunately I do also have a couple
of small releases to announce so fear not!
Another Halloween critter, I modified a garden cricket with glowing red
eyes for the Goth vendor. He's a bit larger and has darker textures as
well. When he chirps the eyes glow brightly, then go back out. These
are already in the Gothic Hut vendor, I'll place some out in the Gothic
park area soon and add to the external vendors as well at a later time.
I also needed a fog machine for the graveyard, and wanted one I could
program to be off during the day except in October (as Halloween
approaches). So, I made one. The graveyard area has some running, and I
added to the Gothic Vendor. These are copyable, just like the tiki
torches in the Seaside Vendor so you can buy one and place as many out
as you need. I calculated the fog generation in case you're wondering,
and each generator should have only about 90 particles out at any given
time. So, these shouldn't interfere with other particle generators even
if you have a few of them out.
10/4
Gothic Wildlife (TM):
I've been a little late catching up here. I've put some new critters
out for sale. The Halloween Crab on the left is similar to the others,
except with bright new textures and he has a habit of eating dead kelp
(as well as the fresh variety) in October. This was a critter I had
planned on back when I introduced the crabs at Seaside, but put off to
celebrate Halloween. He's definitely my new favorite of the three crabs
I now have for sale. I'll have him in the Seaside vendors shortly as
well, in case people are only looking for sea life so they won't miss
this beach crawler (although the goth landscape is coming along nicely
and worth a visit anyhow)!
The big news however is the pair of Bats I've placed in the Gothic
vending machine. They are only *two prims* and include animated wings!
They have 4 operational modes and a bunch of optional settings:
Freeze Mode - Same as every other animal.
Hover Mode - There's a couple bats hovering inside the Goth Hut, basically they are animated but don't move.
Loop Fly Mode - They'll circle the outer limit of the boundary you
define, there's a few circling the Bates Motel in the Goth area.
Free Fly Mode - They'll fly randomly within your limits.
Additionally, they can have the "Sleep" function turned on. When the
sun begins to rise, they'll head to the home point and wrap up their
wings and hang upside down for the day. You can also save individual
sleep points (up to four places) and the bat will choose a saved point
to sleep at instead of heading to the home point! Also, the bats in the
vendors are set to no-physics as a default, but there is an option to
turn physics on & off to suit your needs! The usual options also
apply - sound adjustment, friend access, range adjustments, etc.
These guys took a ton of time to develop, so hopefully they live up to
people's expectations. I've tried some new things both in modeling
& scripting so definitely check the live ones out at Second
Wildlife's Gothic area, and if you like them please share the news with
your friends, I rely on my customers to support further animal
development. I'll try to put out another Goth critter this month to
celebrate Halloween if I can fit one in.
09/26
Seaside Wildlife (TM):
I'm a little behind these days keeping up with announcements - fall
yard work is upon us here and I'm trying to keep ahead of the falling
leaves! I took some time last week to release the kelp food for the
crabs. I decided to try an alpha texture on a sculpted prim for a
different look. If sculpted prims ever get
flexi I may add flex to these as well. Anyhow, if you set these out
& your crabs have food seeking turned on they'll occasionally crawl
over and snip at the kelp! Around 18 days after the first rez the kelp
will go bad, and another 7 days or so later it'll die & need to be
replaced. Just like the cheese, these go for 15L's so they're
practically free. Again, these are primarily sold for so little as a
reward for teleporting/visiting the main shop and are meant to serve as
a reminder to visit often to see new releases.
Gothic Wildlife (TM):
I'm still hard at work on Halloween critters. I'll try to have at least
a couple ready for Monday, October 1st so mark your calendars! I'll
post details here when I have them out in the vendors. The latest
critter is going to exceed anything I've done so far IMHO. I've tried
some experimental stuff that seems to be working well so far, so I
can't wait to finish them up & get them out for everyone to see.
09/14
Garden Wildlife (TM):
I've continued landscaping various parts of the Second Wildlife Sim,
I'm going to shift over to concentrating on the Goth area shortly in
celebration of Fall & Halloween. I did want to do a couple quick
updates, so I set out for sale the little critter above. He's a
European version of the red squirrel, they're essentially the same as
their North American cousins except for darker red fur and long tufts
of hair behind their ears. These guys are in the vendor at Second
Wildlife's Garden Hut, I'll try to roll them out to the rest of my
vendors today.
Seaside Wildlife (TM):
Based on feedback from customers and on my own personal
experimentation, I've updated the crab scripts. I think these versions
(v0.10) will perform better. One note, I've found people setting their
crabs out to 'Run' and they were tripping up on the ground if it was
higher than the home point. The new code adjusts for the land height
now, but turning 'Ground On' in the Options menu will work much better
if these animals are set loose at terrain height. Also, phys objects do
not like abrupt terrain changes. I've adjusted the code to handle
transitions to steep terrain better but the best suggestion I can give
is to smooth your land or set the crab's limits such that they remain
on smoothly changing terrain. Just a couple helpful hints, and yes I
now see how much of a pain phys animals are to develop - I'll keep at
them, but I wish SL was a bit more forgiving with phys objects. All the
'live' crabs at Second Wildlife are running the new code, I'll update
the vendors with these new versions by tonight as well.
As always, stop by the sim and check out the changes, I'm trying to
keep adding new pathways, etc. If you have any suggestions as to what
you'd like to see added to the landscape, drop me an IM. I'm trying to
make this a fun place to hang out, so there'll be more benches, etc.
soon but I can always use other people's perspective on what to add.
09/09
Second Wildlife (TM):
Everything has finally been moved out of Kishijoten, whew! All my
items have been updated with new landmarks (I hope, drop me an IM if
anyone out there gets an old landmark to Kish in a package) and I just
finished updating the Garden Wildlife animal scripts.
Garden Spiders can now be worn! And the Garden Rats and Squirrels now
have floating text during setup and I've arranged the menus to be
similar to all the other updated animals. All the vendors in Second
Wildlife now have the latest animals in them. I'll update the Garden
Wildlife (TM) web page shortly, as well as all the standalone vendors
across SL. As always, I get nervous messing with established scripts.
The Garden animals are testing fine since the updates, but if anyone
discovers a glitch let me know so I can fix it. I'll also provide free
upgrades for any malfunctioning critters should there be any issues
found. I've set out a bunch of the new versions in Second Wildlife, so
I'll keep my eyes on them over the next few days, as I mentioned they
do seem to be quite happy so far.
09/01
Gothic Wildlife (TM):
The Move continues. The Goth section at Kishijoten never lived up to
what I wanted so I've taken the time to do a much nicer landscape for
the new Gothic Wildlife area at Second Wildlife. Above are a few
snapshots of what the new home looks like so far. There's a pathway
that leads through the Gothic Wildlife area and there are a variety of
looks as one walks through, from the barren peninsula with it's
rickety old rope bridge to the claustrophobic cane plant pathway that
leads to what will become the Gothic Cemetery. There's still much to be
done, but I hope to have this area landscaped by October so I can start
placing out new critters. Not much else to report just yet, but wanted
to share some pretty pictures of the landscaping work that's kept me
preoccupied lately.
08/22
Gothic Wildlife (TM): I've been trying to clear the
Goth
area in Kish so i can set for sale a large section of land. Above is the latest picture of the
Goth vending hut. I'm trying for a creepy atmosphere, for those of you
that (like me) enjoy a good scare now & then. Definately turn off
the sun and turn on the background music while visiting! New signs in
Kish
will offer LM's to the new location. I've also updated the Gothic
Wildlife (TM) animals - and they were in dire need of updating...
The Gothic Rats now have all the functionality of their Running Rat
cousins (Naming Ability, Multi-User Access, Food Seek, etc.) plus an
extra option - Glowing Red Eyes. For maximum creepiness, turn on this
option and watch for them at nighttime! The prim count has also been
reduced to 8 prims. A new version is now available as well - a Ghost
Rat. He's basically the same as the Gothic Rat except with translucent
body parts and Glowing Green eyes, and he eats Ghost Cheese, hehe.
Moldy cheese for the Gothic rats can be bought from the Gothic vendors
in the hut, after ~13 days it becomes etheral and the Gothic Rats won't
eat it... but Ghost Rats do love etheral cheese!
The Dropping Tarantulas have also been updated. The "Show Sns" command
now works for any size sensing area (even I was having a hard time with
the previous version), the sensing & drop adjustment menus re-post
themselves after each adjustment and the code was generally cleaned up
so that setting up the spiders should be much smoother now. I've also
added a new function - you can now WEAR your Tarantula! This was from a
request I had, though you may find these spiders look much larger on
your shoulder than they did when dropping from a tree. When attached, the web
goes invisible and the legs become animated. The Garden Spider will
eventually get the same treatment, and perhaps eventually other animals.
These revised animals will be available in the vendors around SL in the
near future, but can be purchased at Second Wildlife (TM) today in the
new Gothic Vending Hut. Come check out the new location!
08/16
Seaside Wildlife (TM):
So much going on, where do I start? First I apologize to anyone that's
had trouble reaching me, I've tried fitting in some vacation time
in-between all the work I've been doing so I've been away quite a bit
and IM's are often capped. However I have some long-awaited good news...
Momma
Blue Whales are here!! I've been testing them at Second Wildlife and
they are ready to set loose on the grid! At 30 meters long, these
whales are HUGE, and require a great deal of space to swim. The ground
avoidance scripting works well though, so in smaller areas they should
do fine (probably as small as 40x40m), though the movements may seem a
little confined. There's
also the option to set Momma Whales out in "float" mode as well where
they will be animated but won't attempt to swim around the area.
There's a Momma Blue Whale in the Southwest corner of the Second
Wildlife Sim for those of you that would like to see one swimming
around. I've
improved the baby blue whales scripting as well, much better ground
avoidance and improved mom-link behaviors. Anyone that has a baby blue
that wants to upgrade to version 2.1, simply drop your whale into a
folder with your name on it and send me the folder, I'll return it with
the latest version newborn whale. I'll make an announcement shortly in
the Second Wildlife group, but those of you that have been paying
attention can get your Momma Blue Whale today at the Seaside vending
hut http://slurl.com/secondlife/Second Wildlife/117/139/24/.
08/04
Seaside Wildlife (TM):
Still working away at the Seaside Island on the Second Wildlife (TM)
sim. I've started working out the Garden area as well, so hopefully
I'll start transferring operations over to the new Sim very soon.
In
the meantime, I've started updating product landmarks and am doing some
menu updates to try to get most of my animal's menus to have a similar
layout & feel. I updated the seagulls this week. Those of you that
pick one up may notice some small changes, such as the help text that
appears above the base when setting up your seagull, the Options menu
that includes full sound volume control as well as a new Access option
so you can give your friends menu access. There is also an
'Instructions' button on the Main Menu that will give you set-up
instructions (so you no longer need to look in the animal's inventory
for help). Many of these Improvements I'll carry over to other animals
as I update their Landmarks.
Speaking
of other animals, I have an all-new critter to announce - Second
Wildlife (TM) crawling crabs! Each of these crabs are only 2 prims and
include animated legs that move faster as the crabs crawl around
faster. There are several running around Seaside Island on the new Sim
and I've released the Beta versions of the crabs into the Seaside
Vendor there as well. These new critters are my first official physical
motion animals. I've been very cautious to avoid phys movements in
animals because when done incorrectly they can drag down server
performance. However, physical movements do provide very realistic
behaviors so there will always be a place for that type of movement
engine. I've been testing these in a number of locations and their sim
impact so far has been minimal, as I had wanted, so they appear to be
ready for sale. After a few more days of testing I'll release them to
all the other vending machines I have out. They also eat fresh kelp
which I need to model up and place out soon as well. Stop by the new
Second Wildlife (TM) sim today to check out these new critters in
action!
07/27
Second Wildlife (TM):
The new home is coming along slowly but is beginning to look very nice.
Seaside Island is about 1/2 covered. The Vending Hut is open for
business holding both the Seaside vending machine and the Garden
vending machine, I'll add the Gothic machine soon as well. Landmarks to
the new place are posted in Kishijoten so be sure to grab one, I'm not
sure how much longer I'm going to hold onto Kish land.
To the West I've created an underwater stairway that will
eventually lead to an Oceanic pathway between Second Wildlife (TM) and
Something Fishy (TM). BTW, if you happen to visit Maggies Island on my
West side, the land was terraformed by yours truely for her. I also
need to get on with the Garden section, I've placed a drawbridge but
need to work out the riverwalk. The drawbridge & tikki torches can
also be purchased from the seaside vendor inside the Vending Hut.
I'm also working on a new little critter for the Seaside Island area, I'll let you know when I get it a little farther along.
07/22
Second Wildlife (TM):
Yesterday morning I had a message arrive - "Your new island has been
delivered!" Woo-hoo! Yes, I decided it was finally time to try an
island as I was quickly outgrowing Kishijoten. It'll take some time to
transfer things over and I want to sell off Kish to lower my Tier
payments ASAP... but wow... all those prims I now have to play with...
can hardly sleep with so many unused prims at my disposal!
I spent some time yesterday creating the terrain map, and not bad for a
first try, if I say so myself. Plenty of room to expand and the land
portions are the center sphere w/Seagulls from the Second Wildlife (TM)
Icon. Maggie Morgan (from Something Fishy in Kishijoten) has also
purchased an Island and will be located on my western border. We plan
to do some kind of undersea path between the two sims.
I'm working on the Seaside Wildlife section first since that will
probably be the easiest section to build, the pic above is as much as
I've been able to do in 12 hours since the island was delivered. The
Seaside section will cover the land created by the two flying seagulls
on the map and includes a tidal pool for jellyfish & other small
sea life. There is also a lagoon for small whales and other larger
marine life.The very center of the Seaside Wildlife section contains
the Vending Hut where all my vending machines will be housed until I
can expand further.
I hope to have enough done today to start updating landmarks, and I'll
have signs out so visitors to Kishijoten are aware the move is about to
occur. Not sure when the 'official' move will occur, the island
probably won't even show on the map for a few days. The sim name is
"Second Wildlife" and it is open to the public unofficially. Very
exciting - and a little scary - but Second Wildlife (TM) has just taken
another step to becoming a real business (granted an artistic version
of one) in Second Life. And again, many thanks to those of you out
there supporting my work, this island could not exist without your
support. So, come enjoy the new place when you have the time, I promise
to have plenty of little gems down the road to enjoy now that prim
usage is not an issue ;) And in the short term there will be plenty of
changes between visits as I build a new world!
p.s. I've already moved the hammock to the new island in case anyone was looking for it, hehe.
07/17
Garden Wildlife:
The vending machine in the Second Wildlife (TM) garden area has been
updated with the latest version Running Rats - there are now 5 colors
to choose from! The Running Rats are one of my oldest critters and I
felt they needed a serious update. The original Brown is now joined by
Black, Black/Blue, White and White w/Brown spots. Sculpted prims cut
the prim count down to only 7 prims per rat! Also, I've added many of
the Squirrel functions (you can now name your rats, friends/partners
can be given menu rights, terrain follow has been added, etc).
A new function (Food Seek) has been added as well. As seen in the photo from 7/15 rats are attracted to Second Wildlife (TM)
cheese, that is now on sale in the Garden Wildlife vendor. When Food
Seek is turned on and if rats sense cheese nearby they will run to it
and nibble for a little while, then when they are full they will scurry
off on their merry way. This is my attempt at increasing some traffic
through the Second Wildlife (TM)
home location. Cheese will only be available at the 'Garden Wildlife'
vendor, and will only cost about 15L - the trade off is that it expires
after ~7 days (once rezzed) and will then need to be replaced. This is
meant only to be a means to pull in some traffic so I have no plans to
do a copy version, nor a non-expiration version, nor a bulk box. The
effect is quite cool to watch, and is IMHO worth the trip to Second
Wildlife and 15L's for a rodent snack ;) I may continue to offer other
snacks for other critters down the line when I have the time to code
them up.
All 5 new Running Rats will soon be available in the other vendors,
cheese will be on the outside vendor displays but will not be
purchasable except at the home location. Until outside vendors are
ready, definitely come by the Garden and see the rats poking around the
flowerbed and take one home for yourself!
07/15
Garden Wildlife:
There have recently been unconfirmed reports of rats running loose in
the Cityscapes Subway. Although Cityscapes officials are uncertain as
to why there has been an increase in rat sightings, it appears human
activity may be partly to blame... a recent photo circulating the web
seems to show a careless subway worker left behind a wedge of cheese
that has attracted some curiously hungry critters.
07/13
Second Wildlife: Happy
Friday the 13th Everyone! If I'd been thinking ahead I would have done
Gothic Updates this week... but I've been going in so many directions
lately it's hard to keep ahead of it all sometimes. This whole
adventure has been a bit of an organic experience, growing and moving
in directions I had not expected. Each day brings something new, which
is why I decided to take a chance and make this my main job in the
first place. As with any new endeavor there are sure to be some growing
pains, and I wanted to take a moment to address a couple of them.
First off, my IM's have steadily increased over the past few months and
I'm now occasionally getting capped. Should I fail to get back to you
after you've sent an IM while I was offline please understand that I
may not have actually received it. I try to be diligent in getting back
to people, but sometimes a couple of days away from Internet access
(uggg!) can cause things to get backed up or lost. Make the best use of
the instructions I include with all animals and definitely check here
when you have questions. I try to be thorough in both places, and I
plan to add a FAQ here in the future to answer the questions I hear
most often.
Second, the main shop in Kishijoten seems to be slowly outgrowing it's
usefulness, so I need to look into some options there. I'd like a
longer, nicer river walk, more water space for the sea life, more prim
support for the Garden Wildlife area, more space for the Gothic
Wildlife section. Basically I need more land to spread out on. However,
Kish isn't going to open up anytime soon so I'm going to have to find a
new location soon rather than continue to squeeze more stuff into the
existing sim area. I'll be sure to give everyone plenty of notice when
I find a new home, but wanted to give an early heads-up to my favorite
customers. Um, yes... that would be you! ;)
Garden Wildlife:
And now for the latest updates!! I've not had any issues with the new
Red Squirrel so I've released him to all my vending machines. The Gray
Squirrels also have the same great updates which include the following
new enhancements:
>> Full
range Sound Volume Adjustment (0% to 100% in 10% increments).
>> Name
your Squirrel Option, so that now you can personalize your wildlife pet!
>> A new
Access function in the Options Menu lets you add friends to the menu
keylist so they can make adjustments for you.
And of course if you haven't seen the new sculpted squirrel yet you
should definitely stop by the Second Wildlife (TM) Garden and check out
the little one running around near the vending machine.
Also... I'm continuing to update Garden Wildlife critters so there will
be more to share soon. Yes, our Running Rat is due for an update. I've had a few things I've
wanted to add for awhile, including some sweet surprises for you rat
fans out there. I'll do an entry in a few days with all the good
details.
07/02
Seaside Wildlife: I've
been catching up on a lot of cleanup that I've needed to do for awhile,
there are some enhancements that should be noted today. I've
concentrated on the Seaside Wildlife items lately as they were in the
greatest need for attention...
First
off, I've changed the Flying Seagull dialog boxes to denote
North/South/East/West to help make setting position and tilt a bit
easier. This helps in getting the correct placement immeasurably, as
someone who's constantly placing these I attest to that. The "Status"
button also now reports the Sound On/Off setting as a volume % (either
0% or 100%). I've also added a bulk package option in the new Seaside
Vendors throughout SL - 10 Seagulls at a 15% discount, same as my other
discount items.
Next
I've re-written the Jellyfish code to eliminate the SL bug that would
occasionally cause the object to unlink. It required adding 4 prims,
but the durability is worth it. I also adjusted the animation settings
a bit for improved behavior. By popular request I've added a GIANT
jellyfish (see photo) with all the same great features of it's smaller
relatives. All of these improved Jellyfish can be found both at Second
Wildlife and Something Fishy, plus I've rolled them out in the new
Vendors to all my smaller shops.
And
lastly (at least for now) I've corrected a minor glitch in the whales
where they wouldn't stay facing where one would want in "float" mode,
and always snapped to 0-degrees. Now they will float in any position
you choose before selecting the command (remember to "Freeze" before
attempting to set a position, "Home", then rotate how you want the
whale to face). And for those of you with a tiny pond that want
to hear whale calls in your sim I've created a Whale Call soundscape
rock you can place out. These are all also available at Something Fishy
next door to Second Wildlife. Definitely stop by Second Wildlife and check out the new Giant
Jellyfish and Blue Whale in the water near the river walk.
07/01
Second Wildlife (TM): You may begin seeing new vendors in my shops replacing the
holo-vendors I've been using. I've been using the holo vendors almost
since I've started in Second Life last year, but they have their issues. Updating
them is a pain, the 3D displays take time to build, under heavy sim
load the holograms don't always rez, and so on. I wanted a good
networked vendor system so I bought one and attempted to set it up.
However it was only working once or twice before the vendor server
would lock up... of course it still took people's money, it just didn't
deliver product >.< I then tried a non-networked texture
vendor but the side panel textures wouldn't load, only the main. Could
be a change in LSL affected the vendor, or a bug I found with it but
who knows since the code was no mod, after two frustrating days dealing
with vendors I decided my time would be better spent building my own!
So the vendor on the left in the pic above is the prototype I've begun
placing in stores, it replaces the holo-vendor shown on the right.
While the new vendors don't display 3D models (everyone is most welcome
to visit Second Wildlife (TM) for "live" animals) the
texture displays provide much more information than the old display
did. I added some changes to make my life easier although building a
networked version is something I would like to accomplish at some
point, so long as it always works! The new vendors will provide
informational notecards related to the item on the main display screen
if you touch the blue "INFO" button at the middle bottom of the vendor.
The forward and backward buttons move 4 items each way to display
previous and next pages of items, and touching a side panel image makes
it the current item and will display it on the main screen.
All in all I believe this will be a better system, both for myself and
for customers to use. As my lineup grows this vendor will be much
easier to browse through since you can view and skip through 4 items at
a time. I'll probably set one each up for Seaside Wildlife (TM) items,
Garden Wildlife (TM) items and Gothic Wildlife (TM) items. A side
benefit is that my store prim counts will be lower since I'll pull out
all the box displays, so I'll probably place more live animals in the
stores for people to see and touch. Not sure if I'll ever place the new vendors
for sale, I still need to polish them up a bit in any case. But I'm so happy to
finally have a good working vendor after a couple of not-so-fun SL days.
Ok, I'll continue a bit later... still have new product announcements
to make. Second Wildlife (TM) in Kishijoten has the latest out and for
sale, I need to update some documentation still, including this web
site. I'll post an entry very soon with all the exciting details!
06/23
Garden Wildlife: The
sculptie Red Squirrel is in Beta testing now, you can find one in the
Garden area running around near the boxed items. If you feel brave you
can buy one, same price as the Gray Squirrels. The code is actually an
updated version of the Gray's so there isn't much to go wrong (knock on
wood), if anyone finds something let me know and I'll fix it right
away. I've added a couple goodies as well.. you can now name your
squirrel and you can give menu permissions to your friends! I've added
both mods to the Gray Squirrels as well, and if you buy from the boxes
in the Garden Wildlife area you'll get the updated Grays. I'll go
around and update the vending machines in the next few days, as well as
the loose critters in the Wildlife Reserve, and update the Garden
Wildlife Page here. Sheesh, so much work to do, and I have more critters to get to!
06/19
Garden Wildlife:
After a couple of intense software coding weeks, I'm going to take this
week to catch my breath a bit. I have a few requests I've received from
various people for slightly modified versions of existing products, so
I'm going to try to do those small changes and add the revised critters
to the vendors for everyone to buy. After two or three of these
re-models I'll go back to doing some completely new animals, I have a
few new ideas I would like to explore. In the meantime, have a peek at
my first fully sculpted animal - this small red squirrel is modeled
after one my folks have hanging around their place in RL. They were
kind enough to send some photos for me to use for his textures. As for
sculpted prims I love the detail I'm able to get from a single prim now
but it is so much work to get good shapes. I'm happy with the way this
little guy came out, so I will try to keep bringing sculpted animals
out. I'll probably add a couple software goodies to this version as
well. I'll post more info for everyone when I get this guy and his
cousins into the vendors.
06/03
Seaside Wildlife: The
new NSBW (TM) baby blue whales v1.0 are looking excellent. I'm
going to do some minor
tweaks and place them out (hopefully) by tomorrow night in all the
shops. I'm going to review transactions for May and send those that
bought the beta version a fully released version to replace their
earlier versions. At some point I'll go back & finish the momma
whales, but I need a break from sea life for a bit. For those of you
that have been asking, don't worry I will finish them up - I promise!
05/27
Seaside Wildlife:My
first week of SL work has been as crazy as it has been enjoyable.
Still getting things taken care of here at home in RL. With the whales
updates I haven't had time to get down to some new
critters yet, though I hope to very soon. I'll fill everyone in on the
projects that have been keeping me busy as they become public!
05/12
Cloud Insoo:
As many of you have heard I'm leaving RL work later this month to
concentrate on SL businesses. This will free up significant amounts of
time for me, especially the 2 hours each day I've spent sitting in a
car commuting. I hope to be able to add many cool wildlife pets in the
coming months, but will be relying on all of you to keep me going.
Early on I'm going to be quite a bit in the red, so if you like the
work I do please spread the word and help support me in this new
endeavor. It's all very exciting and I'm looking forward to doing
something new, something creative and above all, something I've really
enjoyed doing. I'll continue to strive for creating some of the best
wildlife in SL, so stop by from time to time and see what's new!
- Cloud Insoo
Second Wildlife, CCO
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Second Wildlife/117/139/24/