Old Virtual World© is mine too

I like that phrase too. Old Virtual World© What do you think?

Enjoy Your Virtual Life©

Ethos Erlanger

First Virtual Life© is Mine!

I hope you do not mind, but I will copyright this phrase to keep it out of the clutches of the Old Virtual World.

First Virtual Life© is now the exclusive property of Ethos Erlanger.

I hope we can all agree that this is important stuff.

Enjoy your Virtual Life© (I Said It First)

Ethos Erlanger

Look for my Virtual Building Blog

I expect Linden Lab to ask me to change my blog address because it had an “S” and an “L” in front of the word “builder”.

So, here I am starting a new blog that will use none of those two letters if it can be avoided. Look for Ethos Erlanger’s Virtual Building Blog.

We may not be able to use VW to refer to Virtual Worlds either. I expect to hear from Volkswagen about that one too.

I am hereby coining the words “First Virtual World” and the letters FVW to be used as my own, with exclusive rights. In otherwords, I have just copyrighted these two terms. You may see me use it liberally (or not. As I choose.) I intend it to mean the preferred place to be when I am in my full virtual glory. This may not be in “their” virtual region, or it might be, but it may become a generic term for the place I choose at the time.  Almost like the term “Home”. Gee, I wish I had copyrighted that word. It has a warm ring to it.

Now. On to other world!

Enjoy your Virtual Life.

Ethos Erlanger

I have changed my Blog Title

Seeing how Linden Lab has requested a highly respected website (See: http://tinyurl.com/ydgq75s)  to change their name because of their use of the copyrighted, trademarked or otherwise not-to-be-used-by-anyone-for-any-reason word, two-word-phrase, or image, I am taking a preemptive step to forestall the wrath of the almighty.

I never meant any infringement.

I actually like Second Life.

I just think that now is the time to begin thinking of them as less than the premier virtual world and stating this in my blog. If I happen to raise their ire… well, so be it.

It is simply beginning to look like they have a sour attitude towards their own customers.  Some of their actions are driving a wedge between them and their clients that send them real currency every month to pay the electric bills and salaries of their employees.

Give me your thoughts please.

Back to Building – The Guggenheim

I have found a collaborator to work with on building the Guggenheim in Second Life.  Sirius Selona is a fellow member of the Frank Lloyd Wright Museum in SL. She brings enthusiasm and a spark of energy to this project.

The Guggenheim is a large project. At a scale that I am familiar with, the Erlanger Scale, it will be approximately 100 meters wide and about 60 meters deep. The Erlanger Scale is a scale factor of 1.6x. Remember that the main rotunda in Real Life is listed in many documents as having the dome 95 feet above the floor. Well, translated to SL, this is about 47 meter high. And the Annex Building (designed by Gwathmey Siegel) is 135 feet tall or 67 meters tall in SL.

Sirius and I met with some of the directors of the FLW Museum and we assesed the space available to the museum. We have come to the conclusion that the Guggenheim Museum building should be built at a 1:1 scale in SL. This means that the area for the build will be approximately 60 meters wide and 37 meters deep. Of course, there will be some open space around it to allow it to be viewed from all sides. We also determined not to include the Annex with this rendering of the museum building. We endeavor to replicate the design as it was in 1959 when it was first opened.

I am working on a study of the ramp that winds counter-clockwise up and around the rotunda. As my avatar walked down the six stories and quarter mile path I was at the ground level in slightly over 3 minutes.  This translates to a walking speed (more like a brisk trot) of about 5 miles per hour. This brings me back to the realization of the need for a “museum walk” as I have discussed before. This is one of the few areas where I allow myself to complain a bit about Linden Labs not allowing us the controls needed to manage the walking speed of our avatar.

Enjoy your Second Life,

EE

The Absence of Ethos

It’s been a while.

In my real life, you know, the one that puts food on the table and keeps the wolves away from my door, I have started working again. This is such a happy thought. Ethos does not typically discuss Real Life here, but many of my on-line friends in SL know how long I have been searching for work.

After a few more weeks of certification training, I will have time for more in-depth work/play in my Second Life and some new things on this blog.

Enjoy your Second Life,

EE

The Viewer Makes the Difference When Uploading Sculpty Bitmaps

I did a rather detailed test of an upload of a cylindrical sculpty and the results were quite different between the SL viewer and the Meerkat viewer. This was totally unexpected.  I will show photos later of the two different uploads and the resulting prims, but I am interested if any other users have experienced this.

The CONSTANTS are:

Open Sim in Local Sandbox Mode

the bitmap image file that was exported from Wings 3D

The VARIABLES are:

Meerkat Viewer used to upload the image

SL Viewer used to upload the image

Crosscheck used:

Both viewers display the same image of the best sculpty or the inferior sculpty.

I expect the results to be reproducible by other users.

Has anyone else experienced this?

I am still looking for plans to the Guggenheim

How can I find dimensioned plans and cross sectional drawings for the Guggenheim?

Has anyone seen them? Would you please share them with me?

Thanks.

Looking for an On-Line University That Offers a Degree in Architecture

Why not?

I’ll take the courses, and the test.  I’ll become a real architect. Is there such a thing out there?

Index of Viewers for Second Life and Open Simulator

I thought I would use this post to list the viewers that I have tried and any comments about them.  I should try to figure out how to post a chart or spreadsheet that shows some of the key features. (I’ve never posted a chart before.)

Here’s a start.

1)  Second Life

2)  Hippo

3)  Meerkat

4)  RealXtend

DETAILS AND COMMENTS

1) The Second Life viewer may seem like it is the defacto standard, but there are subtle differences between all of the viewers.   I think of it as one of many. It is built around some of the features that are unique to Second Life and that are an inherent part of the product that Linden lab offers. in the context of SL, it is evolving.  Some features of the viewer are always being tweeked and that can be both good and bad. Features get moved around and some features are relegated to the advanced menu and are forgotten or ignored.

You may find me comparing the other viewers to the Second Life viewer simply because I believe everyone knows it and can related to it as a reference. This fact will not indicate that I have a preference for the Second Life viewer.

2) Hippo – to be written

3) Meerkat – to be written

4) RealXtend – to be written