Day 72: Pre-Show Check and Putting Animation in Objects

As I have probably made you painfully aware, tomorrow (Wed 12/6/2006) is the big day: the Miss Second Life Formal Wear Event for my group. The voting website is www.MissSL.com/gallery (only works from 6:00pm-6:30pm Linden/PST). Just select Rank 1st under my picture and click the Vote button. That's it! You dont need to be in Second Life or even have a Second Life account to vote. But the votes *MUST* be cast between 6:00pm-6:30pm Linden/PST to be counted! Thank you so much in advance! :)



So where does a stressed out mermaid like me go when she needs to relax? Back to Siren's Grotto at Selune's Kiss in Elf Haven, of course! For a mermaid, its probably the most beautiful, peaceful place in Second Life. Ive even brought my human friends there to swim and hang out. Until my mermaid tank is ready, this will be my new hangout!

In fact, the Elf Haven sim itself is full of wonders to explore. There are castles and lakes and beautiful landscapes catering to the fantasy mindset. To come here, Search under Places for keyword "selune".

But I dont have time for mermaid tails today! Ive been locked up in my workshop all day putting the finishing touches on the Formal Wear outfit. This is by far the most intensively built outfit I have ever made.

Thanks to everyone's kind comments, advice, and patience, it has turned out beautifully! :) Thank you ever so much!

Lets see it from top to bottom:



I struggled quite a bit with the hair color. For one thing, my Miss Second Life Profile picture uses blonde hair. I had intended to be blonde all the way through the Pageant. Unfortunately, blonde does not go with this outfit! I tried a number of different hairs I have, and black definitely looks best. So black it is.

I listened to my friend Sorcha and looked for a dramatic hairstyle. Im not normally a classy girl, so I dont have any classy hair :P So I went back to Gurl 6 and looked for "wedding" hair (the style that goes up into a fancy coiffure instead of down). BTW, Gurl 6 has a nice free holiday gift hair (just inside the entrance), and a VERY good deal on another hair for $15L per color pack or $75L for all colors (in the carousel outside to the right of the store).

I ended up getting "Abundance" in black, a static (non-flexi) hairstyle. This is definitely the formal ball/wedding hair. I guess I am going to have black hair if I ever get married in Second Life :P



I made the diamond earrings, necklace, and bracelet today.

The earrings are the easiest, basically a diamond solitare, 3 small metal spheres, and the stud. One trick of note is that the small metal spheres are well below the 0.01M minimum prim size. This is done by hollowing out a sphere (Hollow = 50), texturing it with a completely transparent texture (a texture file with 100% black in the Alpha Channel), path cutting the sphere temporarily (Path Cut B=0.000,E=0.500), texturing *just* the hollowed part with a metallic texture (click "Select Texture" and then on the hollowed part), closing the path cut (Path Cut B=0.000,E=1.000), then twisting the sphere inside out (Twist Begin and End B=180,E=180). You can then play with the Hollow setting to make very tiny spheres.

Diamonds are less than a dime a dozen in SL. In fact, you can make as many (and as large) as you want as long as you have the textures. I must be wearing about 30 carats on this outfit alone!



The diamonds are based on a texture I picked up from class yesterday. It is basically a flat photo of the surface of a diamond. This is then used to texture a torus with Profile Cut B=0.150,E=0.300. Go ahead, make one of these tori in front of you! It looks just like a gem. I used the class recommended texture repeat values of Horizontal=4,Vertical=0.5,Rotation=90. This looks pretty good, particularly when seen from a distance. And anyone getting any closer to me should be buying me the necklace anyway :P

Pyxel Courier's comment was right: I need something on my neck. The necklace was the most difficult and time-consuming part today. I wanted to make a necklace with a center stone and 3 separate links with occasional stones on each side. I chose onyx as the center stone (another texture I picked up from the jewelry making class) to match the dress. I alternated diamond solitares and metallic spheres along the 3 links. All with NO BLING (not a big fan of bling :P). The challenging part is fitting.

Another one of my SL pet peeves is the necklaces. The texture ones (clothing items) look awful: looks exactly like someone tattooed a necklace on you. The prim-based ones look nice, but are impossible to fit properly, particularly for the general public. I feel for the SL jewelers who have to come up necklaces that fit a range of body types.

Also, its hard to make a necklace flow along the neck line. After all, its just a bunch of stiff prims. Any flowing effects have to be done when the necklace was built.

Most generic SL necklaces are made either too big (and just magically hovers around the neck), or has a funny bend to accommodate the part that goes behind the neck and the part that goes on the chest.

But I have an open neck line, so I needed something. So I made the necklace and fitted it by hand. My necklace fits me beautifully and flows along my neck line. Unfortunately, unless someone has a very similar neck line as me, the necklace may not look good on them.



The bracelet required the use of the Necklace Generator. This time, its actually being used to generate jewelry and not a skirt! But much like a skirt, theres a lot of tweaking to get a good final product. It still beats putting together an 18 diamond bracelet (with a metal backing under each diamond) by hand.



As Taimi Valeeva pointed out, the red skirt lining was a bit bright. I toned down the red to make it look more like a skirt lining. Also, the black edges on the back skirt panels are ugly against the red lining. I change the color of the back edges to red as well to blend in better.

And as Laurelee mentioned, my shoes would be highly visible. So I need to do something with my old basic black pump. I decided on a quick fix by adding a couple straps (tori) and a diamond on top (whats another 3 carats?). Since the back and sides of the shoes are behind the dress, they should not be too noticeable. Ill put more work into my shoes at a later date :)

One trick I picked up in SL modeling school (yes, I went to modeling classes!) is to embed a "Sexy Walk" animation into your shoe instead of using an Animation Override (AO) device. OK, they actually said you should "buy" shoes with built-in "Sexy Walk". I guess they werent expecting models to make shoes :P

Anyway this works better under heavy lag situations. I tried it at Ahern (a busy area). Theyre right!

You can put walk animations in any object (a bracelet, necklace, earring, whatever). It can even be a Single Prim Attachment.

To embed a "Sexy Walk" animation into a shoe or an object, you need Mod rights to the object.

The best script to use is the "Franimation Overrider FLIP MOD - WAY LESS LAG" script. You can pick up a copy of the "Franimation Overrider FLIP MOD - WAY LESS LAG" script for free at my store, Sirena Hair & Fashion (click Search, select Places tab, and enter "sirena" as keyword; the SLURL is West Sunset (160,50,22)). You can also use the standard Franimation Overrider script (without the Flip Mod) from Yadni's Junkyard. But the FLIP MOD really cuts down on lag!

You will also need a Sexy Walk animation. Yadni's has a "Walk: Sexy" animation available. You can also buy slightly better ones for $60L-$100L.

Finally, you need to fill out the "*Default Anims" Notecard. Basically, just put the *exact* name of the animation file under the "-=Walking=-" heading.

Now, edit your shoe (or whatever object). Right click on the object, and select "Edit...". The select the "Contents" tab. Finally, drag and drop the following items from your Inventory to the "Contents" tab: the Franimation script, the Sexy Walk animation, and the "*Default Anims" Notecard. The script will automatically read the Notecard. Wait for it to tell you that it has completed reaing the Notecard. If all goes well, you should be walking sexy when you Attach (Wear) the shoe or object.

Overall, I gathered from the comments that I should stop messing with the dress. I got the message! :P In fact, I decided against using the masquerade mask and the special pose at the show because of lag and too many things potentially going wrong.



So this is where the show will be tomorrow (Wed 12/6/2006) at 6:00PM Linden/PST! *nervous* *nervous* Wish me luck! :)

If you are around a computer between 6:00pm-6:30pm Linden/PST please vote for me :) The website is www.MissSL.com/gallery (only works from 6:00pm-6:30pm Linden/PST). Just select Rank 1st under my picture and click the Vote button. That's it! You dont need to be in Second Life or even have a Second Life account to vote. But the votes *MUST* be cast between 6:00pm-6:30pm Linden/PST to be counted! Thank you :)

The event takes place at Montserrat (41,121,22) in case you want to see it live!