Rumor has it that he's contemplating installing search lights, some additional banners and maybe 8m braziers on the top.
Hopefully something more useful will draw his attention next week.
More later ...
Showing posts with label Simuality. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Simuality. Show all posts
Sunday, February 15, 2009
There he goes ...
Well, you can't say you weren't warned. Eschatos was needing to work out his "building" muscles, and had a monomaniacal itch to scratch, so he built himself a peristyle suitable for Speer's Germania, all around one end of the island!
Rumor has it that he's contemplating installing search lights, some additional banners and maybe 8m braziers on the top.
Hopefully something more useful will draw his attention next week.
More later ...
Rumor has it that he's contemplating installing search lights, some additional banners and maybe 8m braziers on the top.
Hopefully something more useful will draw his attention next week.
More later ...
Friday, February 13, 2009
So what do you do when there's nothing to do?
OK, that's a totally unfair question, as Eschatos' typist has been racking up a long string of 12-hour days, which leaves Eschatos "unRezzed" most of the time. Admittedly, there isn't very much happening on the island these days, and whatever amusement there was with having the Pattern9 sims next door has gone away.
So, Eschatos has been up to no good ... he'd gotten that groovy "socialist leader" image done a few weeks back, and was trying to think about how to add it into his environmnent ... somehow having it right over his desk was too cliché ... but then he recalled having all those huge prims! So now there's a 32x48m poster of it hanging over the island, all nice and Big Brother-ish!
You can tell Eschatos is pretty proud of himself, and figures that as long as nobody's coming to see him over there, he might as well be the megalomaniac ruler of his little corner of Second Life ... heck, he might even get all Albert Speer over there and start building columns!
More later ...
So, Eschatos has been up to no good ... he'd gotten that groovy "socialist leader" image done a few weeks back, and was trying to think about how to add it into his environmnent ... somehow having it right over his desk was too cliché ... but then he recalled having all those huge prims! So now there's a 32x48m poster of it hanging over the island, all nice and Big Brother-ish!
You can tell Eschatos is pretty proud of himself, and figures that as long as nobody's coming to see him over there, he might as well be the megalomaniac ruler of his little corner of Second Life ... heck, he might even get all Albert Speer over there and start building columns!
More later ...
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
All alone ...
Well, Eschatos went up on the roof today to take a look around ... things are very quiet on our island, but are tidied up, waiting for the next big (can't talk about it yet) change.
However, we're suddenly all by ourselves. The whole "Pattern9" complex, six sims worth, has gone away. I understand that a couple of those sims got moved elsewhere, and the rest, well ... it looks like they just sank beneath the waves.
We'd been the initial developer on the Club Mannequin and Pattern9 project, but the client decided that he could "do it himself" and hired some in-world day labor to get it set up ... and never ever had any traffic (except for the pitiful camping mall) after we weren't managing things. Pretty sad, actually, as it was a great initial concept.
Eschatos is sad that his buddy ChooChoo ended up disappearing with the rest of that ... her store (full of really cool sculpty prim furniture) did end up moving with the remaining 2 sims, but now they can't just yell across the lagoon at each other!
Not generally one for making "mix tapes", Eschatos is considering piping through the Gilligan's Island theme through the media feed, maybe broken up with and occasional playing of "So Ronery" from Team America.
More later ...
However, we're suddenly all by ourselves. The whole "Pattern9" complex, six sims worth, has gone away. I understand that a couple of those sims got moved elsewhere, and the rest, well ... it looks like they just sank beneath the waves.
We'd been the initial developer on the Club Mannequin and Pattern9 project, but the client decided that he could "do it himself" and hired some in-world day labor to get it set up ... and never ever had any traffic (except for the pitiful camping mall) after we weren't managing things. Pretty sad, actually, as it was a great initial concept.
Eschatos is sad that his buddy ChooChoo ended up disappearing with the rest of that ... her store (full of really cool sculpty prim furniture) did end up moving with the remaining 2 sims, but now they can't just yell across the lagoon at each other!
Not generally one for making "mix tapes", Eschatos is considering piping through the Gilligan's Island theme through the media feed, maybe broken up with and occasional playing of "So Ronery" from Team America.
More later ...
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
"Look for what seems out of place ..."
Eschatos is having one of those weeks, and it's frustrating the virtual heck out of him. He really really wants to shoot some machinima to post here, but there's been NO TIME ... and the home computer (assuming his typist can go without sleep) is just not up to making movies. Bummer.
However, Eschatos did get a number of things taken care of in world. Here's a shot of him when he got done with the "biggest" of these projects ...
... do you notice anything different? Why ... didn't there used to be a big honking multi-unit gallery hovering over that plaza?
Yes, it was finally time to ship the old Avatrait Gallery buildings off to storage (as noted in a previous post) and possibly get the island ready for a total revisioning. The fact is, we had a BIG PROJECT come through today, and we have a scant few weeks to make stuff suddenly appear as part of that, so we could very well be handing over the island for a substantial make-over, or we might just do all this stuff up in the air above it.
Speaking of missing buildings ... one of the new Avatrait Island (LINK) buildings suddenly disappeared around new year's and we'd sort of been waiting for it to re-appear ... after several weeks, Eschatos figured that it was time to ring up the builder and ask him if he knew what was up (heh, heh, floating island humor!). As it turned out, he was as mystified as everybody else, but re-installed a copy of it ... just as well we hadn't moved anybody in there yet.
Speaking of moving folks into places ... WHY DON'T YOU GO OVER AND SIGN UP FOR THE NEW AVATRAIT WEB SITE???!!! It's going to be a veritable temple to Second Life art, and already has some very cool stuff, on its way to becoming totally awesome. We want everybody who has an interest in SL, and appreciates art from the virtual world, to come on over and sign up for a free membership ... don't make Eschatos hold his breath, purple is so not his color!
More later ...
However, Eschatos did get a number of things taken care of in world. Here's a shot of him when he got done with the "biggest" of these projects ...
... do you notice anything different? Why ... didn't there used to be a big honking multi-unit gallery hovering over that plaza?
Yes, it was finally time to ship the old Avatrait Gallery buildings off to storage (as noted in a previous post) and possibly get the island ready for a total revisioning. The fact is, we had a BIG PROJECT come through today, and we have a scant few weeks to make stuff suddenly appear as part of that, so we could very well be handing over the island for a substantial make-over, or we might just do all this stuff up in the air above it.
Speaking of missing buildings ... one of the new Avatrait Island (LINK) buildings suddenly disappeared around new year's and we'd sort of been waiting for it to re-appear ... after several weeks, Eschatos figured that it was time to ring up the builder and ask him if he knew what was up (heh, heh, floating island humor!). As it turned out, he was as mystified as everybody else, but re-installed a copy of it ... just as well we hadn't moved anybody in there yet.
Speaking of moving folks into places ... WHY DON'T YOU GO OVER AND SIGN UP FOR THE NEW AVATRAIT WEB SITE???!!! It's going to be a veritable temple to Second Life art, and already has some very cool stuff, on its way to becoming totally awesome. We want everybody who has an interest in SL, and appreciates art from the virtual world, to come on over and sign up for a free membership ... don't make Eschatos hold his breath, purple is so not his color!
More later ...
Friday, January 23, 2009
A Long Week ...
Eschatos almost didn't manage to get an update in this week. Frankly, Eschatos has been MIA from SL quite a bit due to the grind at the RL Simuality offices, getting ready for several new things, as well as updating some old stuff.
One of the things that Eschatos' typist did was cranking out the HTML "templates" for the new Gallery section over at the new Avatrait site. Right now there's just one artist's stuff available for real-world sales, but another 50 have pages set up and it's just a matter of adding new art in there!
Even the thought of that coding is exhausting, and the prospect of finding a nice comfy chair like this sounds very appealing ...
... there's Eschatos with his "neighbor" (her store and his office are right across the Pattern 9 lagoon from each other) Choo Choo, in her store full of very cool furniture called "One Grid", checking out one of her new (and obviously very comfortable) Flower Chairs!
Eschatos had a disappointment today ... he'd gotten a notice that there was a new Chicago-themed sim, and he scooted right over to check it out. There used to be a couple of very cool Chicago sims (like the one that used to be around the Four Deuces poker hall), but most seem to have died when gambling got kicked out of SL. So, he was excited when he saw the pic on the Landmark that was sent out.
Unfortunately, it turns out that this is a "role play" sim, and you can't even get out of the upper levels of the Sears Tower without signing up to play some game. Eschatos is not a gamer, so he peeked around as much as he could using Ctrl-Alt zooming, and headed back home. Now he's doubly bummed due to this not being open, and it reminding him of the cool places that have disappeared!
Speaking of home, Eschatos' typist should be heading that way as well ... this week has been a long string of 12-hour days at the office, and it's beginning to tell on everybody involved. Eschatos had actually really hoped to have surprised everybody with a machinima post in here this week (well, he sort of wants to do it for another project, but it would work here too!), but there weren't enough hours to even shoot some scenes, let alone cut it, record and synch an audio track, and get it up on the web. Maybe next week!
More later ...
One of the things that Eschatos' typist did was cranking out the HTML "templates" for the new Gallery section over at the new Avatrait site. Right now there's just one artist's stuff available for real-world sales, but another 50 have pages set up and it's just a matter of adding new art in there!
Even the thought of that coding is exhausting, and the prospect of finding a nice comfy chair like this sounds very appealing ...
... there's Eschatos with his "neighbor" (her store and his office are right across the Pattern 9 lagoon from each other) Choo Choo, in her store full of very cool furniture called "One Grid", checking out one of her new (and obviously very comfortable) Flower Chairs!
Eschatos had a disappointment today ... he'd gotten a notice that there was a new Chicago-themed sim, and he scooted right over to check it out. There used to be a couple of very cool Chicago sims (like the one that used to be around the Four Deuces poker hall), but most seem to have died when gambling got kicked out of SL. So, he was excited when he saw the pic on the Landmark that was sent out.
Unfortunately, it turns out that this is a "role play" sim, and you can't even get out of the upper levels of the Sears Tower without signing up to play some game. Eschatos is not a gamer, so he peeked around as much as he could using Ctrl-Alt zooming, and headed back home. Now he's doubly bummed due to this not being open, and it reminding him of the cool places that have disappeared!
Speaking of home, Eschatos' typist should be heading that way as well ... this week has been a long string of 12-hour days at the office, and it's beginning to tell on everybody involved. Eschatos had actually really hoped to have surprised everybody with a machinima post in here this week (well, he sort of wants to do it for another project, but it would work here too!), but there weren't enough hours to even shoot some scenes, let alone cut it, record and synch an audio track, and get it up on the web. Maybe next week!
More later ...
Friday, January 16, 2009
Strange days ...
Eschatos had a very frustrating day. His typist was working from home today, which meant that Eschatos had to deal with rezzing via a Celeron processor rather than the quad-core he gets at the Simuality offices. Eschatos does not like having to manifest through that home system ... he is OK if he stays in one place and doesn't look around too much, but if he has to walk, or fly, or even ctr-alt zoom, it's bad news. Heck, even making/editing things is hard as it takes the better part of a minute just for the edit screen to figure out what's in something!
Fortunately, just about all Eschatos had to do today was go to meetings. Starting off with the regular Friday meeting of the Non-Profit Commons. Now, at that point, Eschatos was already feeling frustrated, and actually timed how long it took for the NPC amphitheater to fully rez once he sat down ... ten minutes! He later had a voice conference with the Avatrait team over in the Simuality conference room, and then an IM conference with one of the track chairs for SL-BaSE ... but at least he was "parked" for both of those.
Eschatos had snapped a couple of pics today, but when he checked them out, there were a lot of "Ruths" and un-rezzed landscaping in them, so didn't feel like sharing. He did, however, take a recent pic of himself over to the ObamIcon site and made this very "Big Brother"-esque image!
Perhaps he could have come up with a cleverer saying, but having things rez was pretty much top-of-mind for Eschatos today! If you were a bunch of un-organized pixels and were being stared at by this poster, wouldn't you try your darnedest to resolve into whatever you were supposed to be? You betcha!
More later ...
Fortunately, just about all Eschatos had to do today was go to meetings. Starting off with the regular Friday meeting of the Non-Profit Commons. Now, at that point, Eschatos was already feeling frustrated, and actually timed how long it took for the NPC amphitheater to fully rez once he sat down ... ten minutes! He later had a voice conference with the Avatrait team over in the Simuality conference room, and then an IM conference with one of the track chairs for SL-BaSE ... but at least he was "parked" for both of those.
Eschatos had snapped a couple of pics today, but when he checked them out, there were a lot of "Ruths" and un-rezzed landscaping in them, so didn't feel like sharing. He did, however, take a recent pic of himself over to the ObamIcon site and made this very "Big Brother"-esque image!
Perhaps he could have come up with a cleverer saying, but having things rez was pretty much top-of-mind for Eschatos today! If you were a bunch of un-organized pixels and were being stared at by this poster, wouldn't you try your darnedest to resolve into whatever you were supposed to be? You betcha!
More later ...
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
New S.L. art site ... Go Sign Up!!!
Oh, dear ... it's another dreary picture of Eschatos standing by a computer monitor trying to express excessive excitement and enthusiasm across the electron stream. But, yes! He is very excited about the new Avatrait Web Site, which has opened its doors this week.
This is the long-awaited (yes, for those paying way too close attention to these scribblings, this is the third "new site" in a year) Avatrait "Second Life Art Site" that we had hoped to have been able to announce in tandem with either the debut of the Avatrait book or the opening of the new Avatrait island over the past few months. However, we wanted to get it right this time, so had to deal with a mountain of technical issues that took way longer to resolve than we had anticipated.
The new Avatrait.com is a special site, dedicated solely to the art of Second Life, that not only features the works of the Avatrait Gallery artists (available to order in real-world framed prints), but will also allow other users to store, show, and even sell their images on-line!
Being the SL-pixel kind of guy he is, Eschatos was an "early adopter" over at the Avatrait site ... and if you're real nice, he may even embarrass himself by posting some of his "snapshots" over there (amid all the awesome art that's on display). But do take a click over to sign up for a free account ... it would make Eschatos very happy to have all his readers on board with Avatrait!
More later ...
This is the long-awaited (yes, for those paying way too close attention to these scribblings, this is the third "new site" in a year) Avatrait "Second Life Art Site" that we had hoped to have been able to announce in tandem with either the debut of the Avatrait book or the opening of the new Avatrait island over the past few months. However, we wanted to get it right this time, so had to deal with a mountain of technical issues that took way longer to resolve than we had anticipated.
The new Avatrait.com is a special site, dedicated solely to the art of Second Life, that not only features the works of the Avatrait Gallery artists (available to order in real-world framed prints), but will also allow other users to store, show, and even sell their images on-line!
Being the SL-pixel kind of guy he is, Eschatos was an "early adopter" over at the Avatrait site ... and if you're real nice, he may even embarrass himself by posting some of his "snapshots" over there (amid all the awesome art that's on display). But do take a click over to sign up for a free account ... it would make Eschatos very happy to have all his readers on board with Avatrait!
More later ...
Friday, January 9, 2009
Another tease ...
Things have been insanely busy around the Simuality offices trying to get preliminary paperwork together for a HUGE project which will hopefully be coming to fruition in the next week or so ... frankly, Eschatos' typist is likely to be working most of the weekend on this!
Here's a bit of a tease, though, about what's coming up. Yeah, Eschatos is not exactly the "DJ type", but he's running the turntables up in a skybox garage club. He'd been busy shooting SL snapshots of various avs up there today to provide some illustrations for the documents we're working on. Hopefully we'll be able to say something more substantial in the next week!
More later ...
Here's a bit of a tease, though, about what's coming up. Yeah, Eschatos is not exactly the "DJ type", but he's running the turntables up in a skybox garage club. He'd been busy shooting SL snapshots of various avs up there today to provide some illustrations for the documents we're working on. Hopefully we'll be able to say something more substantial in the next week!
More later ...
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Always busy ...
Some days Eschatos has inexplicable gaps in his schedule ... times when specific things don't need to be done by particular deadlines ... and he looks around for stuff to do. The early parts of today (before he ended up scooting off to an unscheduled meeting with the developers of two multi-sim university builds) were one of these times.
Well, as you can tell from the pic, Eschatos is pretty proud of himself ... ever since the Avatrait Gallery moved to its new, dedicated sim (LINK) the old gallery building had been sitting empty, and looking rather desolate, over on our main island. While he'd put numerous signs up noting the move and offering the new SLURL, folks were still following old links there, and Eschatos would often have to go over and explain that Avatrait was not gone, but just in a new location.
So, Eschatos got out his tool kit (including some previously unused "mega prims" whee!) and set into boxing up the old gallery, and having it ready to send off to storage. There has been some talk about having a significant re-design of the island, and clearing the old Gallery space would be a good start on that. As you can see from the aerial view, these are big boxes ... and Eschatos has been chuckling that he may have given Disney an idea for a new building for their Pop Century Resort!
More later ...
Well, as you can tell from the pic, Eschatos is pretty proud of himself ... ever since the Avatrait Gallery moved to its new, dedicated sim (LINK) the old gallery building had been sitting empty, and looking rather desolate, over on our main island. While he'd put numerous signs up noting the move and offering the new SLURL, folks were still following old links there, and Eschatos would often have to go over and explain that Avatrait was not gone, but just in a new location.
So, Eschatos got out his tool kit (including some previously unused "mega prims" whee!) and set into boxing up the old gallery, and having it ready to send off to storage. There has been some talk about having a significant re-design of the island, and clearing the old Gallery space would be a good start on that. As you can see from the aerial view, these are big boxes ... and Eschatos has been chuckling that he may have given Disney an idea for a new building for their Pop Century Resort!
More later ...
Monday, January 5, 2009
New Year, eh?
Well, Eschatos thinks that he will have some Very Big and Very Good news to report in the next day or so ... which is, of course, a Good Thing! However, at the current point, the details have not filtered down to him, so he's waiting for his "being in the loop" before getting all excited about the second-hand report of a recent phone call.
Aside from all the other stuff that Eschatos has to keep him busy, he's done some "volunteer" work for a friend's group, having previously set up an info center in the same high-rise where he has an apartment. With the end of the year, there were some big changes in that group, and it looks like they might be getting a bit more involved in SL, so Eschatos went "house hunting" for them, looking for a good spot for them to have a "center" ...
... he found this swanky place right over on Broadway Live, with two floors so that they could have their info center and a shop downstairs and hold classes upstairs, and he's feeling quite pleased with himself! If he gets the go-ahead, he'll grab the place for a year, and start moving down the stuff from the high-rise location.
Eschatos has been doing a lot of "beating the bushes" to find some new business opportunities for Simuality, and has come up with a Very Good Idea, which he's hoping to get rolling in the next month or so ... once again, it's nothing he can talk about right at the moment, but another Big Secret Thing that he's dying to let you in on.
Oh, by the way ... do drop in over at the Avatrait Gallery (LINK) and check out the new show by Monroe Snook that just opened over the weekend!
More later ...
Aside from all the other stuff that Eschatos has to keep him busy, he's done some "volunteer" work for a friend's group, having previously set up an info center in the same high-rise where he has an apartment. With the end of the year, there were some big changes in that group, and it looks like they might be getting a bit more involved in SL, so Eschatos went "house hunting" for them, looking for a good spot for them to have a "center" ...
... he found this swanky place right over on Broadway Live, with two floors so that they could have their info center and a shop downstairs and hold classes upstairs, and he's feeling quite pleased with himself! If he gets the go-ahead, he'll grab the place for a year, and start moving down the stuff from the high-rise location.
Eschatos has been doing a lot of "beating the bushes" to find some new business opportunities for Simuality, and has come up with a Very Good Idea, which he's hoping to get rolling in the next month or so ... once again, it's nothing he can talk about right at the moment, but another Big Secret Thing that he's dying to let you in on.
Oh, by the way ... do drop in over at the Avatrait Gallery (LINK) and check out the new show by Monroe Snook that just opened over the weekend!
More later ...
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
What a year ...
So, there's Eschatos, up in his Broadway Live apartment, sitting around contemplating the meaning of life as a loose collection of data points and pixels ...
... Eschatos is never much for partying, so he may just see if there are fireworks and otherwise commune with that bottle of Wild Turkey he has out on the bar.
Sure, there were good things this year, the Avatrait book, the trips to Florence, Tampa, and New York, the new Avatrait island, and stuff like that ... but over-all it's been an emotional buzz-saw with precious little to recommend it. As such, all concerned are pretty happy to see 2008 get the bum's rush out the door.
Here's hoping that 2009 will be all bright and shiny and full of fresh possibilities.
More later (next year!) ...
... Eschatos is never much for partying, so he may just see if there are fireworks and otherwise commune with that bottle of Wild Turkey he has out on the bar.
Sure, there were good things this year, the Avatrait book, the trips to Florence, Tampa, and New York, the new Avatrait island, and stuff like that ... but over-all it's been an emotional buzz-saw with precious little to recommend it. As such, all concerned are pretty happy to see 2008 get the bum's rush out the door.
Here's hoping that 2009 will be all bright and shiny and full of fresh possibilities.
More later (next year!) ...
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Ho, ho, ho ...
Eschatos was running around in-world today looking for just the right Xmas tree to serve as a background for a "festive" shot. Yes, that is Eschatos trying to look "festive".
Somebody should have suggested to him that he take off the SL-BaSE convention badge before posing!
Eschatos may or may not be much in circulation the next few days, as his typist is off on a road trip ... which always leaves open the question of internet access. So, if Eschatos doesn't have the chance before the end of the year, he wanted to make sure to wish everybody "Happy Holidays" and remind folks to get in those presentation proposals for SL-BaSE!
As there are a few hours left of shopping frenzy, Eschatos also wanted to suggest that the bestest gift ever for your favorite Second Life avatar would be a copy of AVATRAIT: From Second Life To Florence, and for their RL associates the very cool swag available here and here!
As always, lots of Big Secret Projects in the works ... hopefully Eschatos will have exciting news to report as soon as he resurfaces.
More later ...
Somebody should have suggested to him that he take off the SL-BaSE convention badge before posing!
Eschatos may or may not be much in circulation the next few days, as his typist is off on a road trip ... which always leaves open the question of internet access. So, if Eschatos doesn't have the chance before the end of the year, he wanted to make sure to wish everybody "Happy Holidays" and remind folks to get in those presentation proposals for SL-BaSE!
As there are a few hours left of shopping frenzy, Eschatos also wanted to suggest that the bestest gift ever for your favorite Second Life avatar would be a copy of AVATRAIT: From Second Life To Florence, and for their RL associates the very cool swag available here and here!
As always, lots of Big Secret Projects in the works ... hopefully Eschatos will have exciting news to report as soon as he resurfaces.
More later ...
Thursday, December 18, 2008
Eschatos Speaks!
Well, not in here, of course ... but last night Eschatos was on a panel about "Business in SL" along with Aimee Weber and MadamG Zagato, on a program hosted by Shiger Seattle over at the "Bright Idea Lab" on Canada Post's "Maple Grove" sim (LINK).
As I understand it, there was a "podcast" being recorded, but I can't seem to track down the URL for that, just in case you really wanted to hear Eschatos speak!
Eschatos got to cover Avatrait, SL-BaSE, and a number of things that we have in development (you know, the Big Secret Projects), plus a bit of the history of Simuality. Eschatos was, however, mortified that he neglected to plug the Avatrait book during the panel (although he did bring it up right afterwards), but this was a relatively new experience for him, and he was working without notes!
More later ...
As I understand it, there was a "podcast" being recorded, but I can't seem to track down the URL for that, just in case you really wanted to hear Eschatos speak!
Eschatos got to cover Avatrait, SL-BaSE, and a number of things that we have in development (you know, the Big Secret Projects), plus a bit of the history of Simuality. Eschatos was, however, mortified that he neglected to plug the Avatrait book during the panel (although he did bring it up right afterwards), but this was a relatively new experience for him, and he was working without notes!
More later ...
Friday, December 12, 2008
Busy, busy, busy ...
Eschatos has been bad about keeping up with posts here ... and he's very sorry about that. Unfortunately, part of the side effect of "big news" (like the new Avatrait Gallery opening, as noted in his previous post), is lots of work which even keeps his typist out of SL for days at a time!
However, Eschatos came into a few Lindens this afternoon (thanks, Track!) and ran around in-world paying his rent. After finally getting the rental box to rez over by his Maxwell Street pad, Eschatos took a bit of a walk-around, and had this snap taken in the lobby of the theater that had recently appeared on the ground floor of his tenement.
The past few days, Eschatos has been very busy creating real-world "swag" for various Avatrait projects ...
Right now there are just two stores up, one with Avatrait Logo stuff (as pictured) HERE, and one with Avatrait Books stuff HERE. Avatrait chief Track Hax has started a contest among the Gallery Artists to have a design for a promo for the gallery, and that will likely be the next of these "swag shops" going up. We are also planning a rather extensive series of "wearable art", possibly in connection with each month's Gallery shows, and are looking at how closely we can parallel the same items in-world!
Anyway, Eschatos didn't want to let this week slip completely by without checking in ... he was very miffed that he didn't end up with any pictures of his presentation to the Non-Profit Commons folks (about the SL-BaSE program) last Friday, but he really wasn't in much of a position to do any snapshots.
More later ...
However, Eschatos came into a few Lindens this afternoon (thanks, Track!) and ran around in-world paying his rent. After finally getting the rental box to rez over by his Maxwell Street pad, Eschatos took a bit of a walk-around, and had this snap taken in the lobby of the theater that had recently appeared on the ground floor of his tenement.
The past few days, Eschatos has been very busy creating real-world "swag" for various Avatrait projects ...
Right now there are just two stores up, one with Avatrait Logo stuff (as pictured) HERE, and one with Avatrait Books stuff HERE. Avatrait chief Track Hax has started a contest among the Gallery Artists to have a design for a promo for the gallery, and that will likely be the next of these "swag shops" going up. We are also planning a rather extensive series of "wearable art", possibly in connection with each month's Gallery shows, and are looking at how closely we can parallel the same items in-world!
Anyway, Eschatos didn't want to let this week slip completely by without checking in ... he was very miffed that he didn't end up with any pictures of his presentation to the Non-Profit Commons folks (about the SL-BaSE program) last Friday, but he really wasn't in much of a position to do any snapshots.
More later ...
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Waiting for "Black Friday" ...
Ah, there's Eschatos, always the eager one ... sitting in the Avatrait Book Store over in "Book Island Publishing Village" (LINK), waiting for the turkey-besotted crowds to surge over the parapets with lust for literature (or at least picture books) gleaming in their eyes!
Obviously, he's a bit ahead of things, as the traffic by the store has been less than dramatic (and yes, he does look bored). However, he wanted me to specifically mention that if you're looking for that special gift for the Avatar in your life (first or Second), a copy of AVATRAIT: From Second Life® to Florence could hardly be beat!
This full-color hardcover "coffee table" book features the works of 47 of the Avatrait Gallery artists, and has a Foreword by S.L. creator Philip Linden ... and is available for direct order from http://avatraitbooks.com now!
Speaking of the Avatrait Gallery artists ... here's a cloud-occluded sneak peek at the new Avatrait Island:
The Grand Opening of the the new sim will be on Saturday, 11/29, at 1pm SLT ... featuring a gallery show of all the artists from the book, and a party featuring music, fun, and fireworks. The new place (while still "under construction" to a certain extent) is quite impressive, so do drop by on Saturday!
More later ...
Obviously, he's a bit ahead of things, as the traffic by the store has been less than dramatic (and yes, he does look bored). However, he wanted me to specifically mention that if you're looking for that special gift for the Avatar in your life (first or Second), a copy of AVATRAIT: From Second Life® to Florence could hardly be beat!
This full-color hardcover "coffee table" book features the works of 47 of the Avatrait Gallery artists, and has a Foreword by S.L. creator Philip Linden ... and is available for direct order from http://avatraitbooks.com now!
Speaking of the Avatrait Gallery artists ... here's a cloud-occluded sneak peek at the new Avatrait Island:
The Grand Opening of the the new sim will be on Saturday, 11/29, at 1pm SLT ... featuring a gallery show of all the artists from the book, and a party featuring music, fun, and fireworks. The new place (while still "under construction" to a certain extent) is quite impressive, so do drop by on Saturday!
More later ...
Friday, November 21, 2008
Another day, another in-world meeting ...
Eschatos has been very active in-world this week, and feels like he's done little else than sit in meetings, classes, and get-togethers! As wonderful as Second Life is for being able to do this sort of thing, some days there is SO MUCH going on that Eschatos wishes he could split his pixels and be two places (or more) at once!
This morning at the Non-Profit Commons meeting Eschatos had a last-minute chance to give a bit of a shout-out about the SL-BaSE conference that Simuality is doing (through the Metaverse Conference Management division) next June out in Portland, OR. Initially there'd been discussion of having a full 15 minute slot, but it turned out that there was just time today for Eschatos to rez and arrange his boards (seen here after I'd been up) and make a bit of a pitch. The "full presentation" has been re-scheduled, however for two weeks hence, and he will then hopefully have some more Track Chairs with him (Coughran Mayo, our Non-Profit track chair, had a conflict today and couldn't make it).
One fascinating thing at today's meeting was a demonstration of Virtual Guidedogs, a sculpted, scripted, assistant for blind users of Second Life! Needless to say, in a largely visual and text-based environment, there are huge challenges for the sight-impaired. These guidedogs provide info about things in the virtual environment in tandem with text readers that turn typed conversation into audio. I guess there are some significant problems still (like logging on ... the form is not audio-friendly) but this was a pretty amazing bit of virtualization!
Just in case you might have had some trouble picking Eschatos and the Virtual Guidedog out of the NPC overhead shot (had to get those SL-BaSE boards in frame, y'know), we've added handy arrows from insets of other pics taken at the meeting ... although I suspect that it might have just been a ploy by Eschatos to get a bigger image of him in the blog!
More later ...
This morning at the Non-Profit Commons meeting Eschatos had a last-minute chance to give a bit of a shout-out about the SL-BaSE conference that Simuality is doing (through the Metaverse Conference Management division) next June out in Portland, OR. Initially there'd been discussion of having a full 15 minute slot, but it turned out that there was just time today for Eschatos to rez and arrange his boards (seen here after I'd been up) and make a bit of a pitch. The "full presentation" has been re-scheduled, however for two weeks hence, and he will then hopefully have some more Track Chairs with him (Coughran Mayo, our Non-Profit track chair, had a conflict today and couldn't make it).
One fascinating thing at today's meeting was a demonstration of Virtual Guidedogs, a sculpted, scripted, assistant for blind users of Second Life! Needless to say, in a largely visual and text-based environment, there are huge challenges for the sight-impaired. These guidedogs provide info about things in the virtual environment in tandem with text readers that turn typed conversation into audio. I guess there are some significant problems still (like logging on ... the form is not audio-friendly) but this was a pretty amazing bit of virtualization!
Just in case you might have had some trouble picking Eschatos and the Virtual Guidedog out of the NPC overhead shot (had to get those SL-BaSE boards in frame, y'know), we've added handy arrows from insets of other pics taken at the meeting ... although I suspect that it might have just been a ploy by Eschatos to get a bigger image of him in the blog!
More later ...
Monday, November 17, 2008
A very proper gander ...
Yes, there is a long joke involved with the title, deal with it. Eschatos and I are very confused, however, as we thought we'd updated with the below picture on Friday, but here it is Monday and it's not there! We even remember somewhat how the title of that went, something like "A peek for all you lookie-loos!" ... how odd that it didn't "take".
Anyway, here's a picture of Eschatos, over by the soon-to-be-unveiled new Avatrait Gallery, eyeballing the "propaganda" that he set out right by the main entrance. That's a stack of in-world postcards that parallel the real-world postcards (promoting AVATRAIT: From Second Life To Florence, natch) that we're having printed pretty much as I type.
As you can sort of see, there has been some substantial progress in the Gallery sim, with three and a half new buildings (one building really feels more like being inside a sculpture) in arcane juxtapositions requiring nearly non-Euclidean geometries to explain them (we have Avatrait Board members designing the new sim, and I'm convinced that one or more of them are graduates of Miskatonic U.!). We're due for a Grand Opening a week from Saturday (yes, you will be hearing more about it in this space ... what, are ya new?) and Eschatos figured it was better to be early with the propaganda than late!
We're still scratching our heads about this not going up on Friday, but here it is ... a peek at the gallery, and yet another reminder to wander over to http://avatraitbooks.com to take a peek at (and order) the book!
More later ...
Anyway, here's a picture of Eschatos, over by the soon-to-be-unveiled new Avatrait Gallery, eyeballing the "propaganda" that he set out right by the main entrance. That's a stack of in-world postcards that parallel the real-world postcards (promoting AVATRAIT: From Second Life To Florence, natch) that we're having printed pretty much as I type.
As you can sort of see, there has been some substantial progress in the Gallery sim, with three and a half new buildings (one building really feels more like being inside a sculpture) in arcane juxtapositions requiring nearly non-Euclidean geometries to explain them (we have Avatrait Board members designing the new sim, and I'm convinced that one or more of them are graduates of Miskatonic U.!). We're due for a Grand Opening a week from Saturday (yes, you will be hearing more about it in this space ... what, are ya new?) and Eschatos figured it was better to be early with the propaganda than late!
We're still scratching our heads about this not going up on Friday, but here it is ... a peek at the gallery, and yet another reminder to wander over to http://avatraitbooks.com to take a peek at (and order) the book!
More later ...
Thursday, November 13, 2008
No, it's not déjà vu ...
Yes, the last three pics in here have looked remarkably similar! However, most of the recent "news" has dealt with stuff on the web ... so Eschatos has been doing nice shots with computer monitors in various locations.
Eschatos has looked approvingly on images of the http://avatrait.com site (which keeps getting better and better ... with a new update just today!), and the new http://avatraitbooks.com, which now features ordering directly through us (which should speed things up as opposed to everybody ordering the book having to wait 2-4 weeks!). Well, now he's sitting having some quality time with the Second Life web site! The book, AVATRAIT: From Second Life To Florence, just made it onto the "Recommendations" page, in (naturally enough) the "books" section.
So, it's not that Eschatos has done nothing but surf the web over the past few weeks, but most of the "news" has been coming from that front ... and, don't be fooled by Eschatos' dour expression here, he's understandably thrilled that Linden Lab has put us up on the site ... and he's fervently hoping that all and sundry will head on over to order a copy!
Oh, yeah ... hopefully Eschatos will have some Big News (with more interesting pictures) to report about the new Avatrait Gallery in just a few days!
More later ...
Eschatos has looked approvingly on images of the http://avatrait.com site (which keeps getting better and better ... with a new update just today!), and the new http://avatraitbooks.com, which now features ordering directly through us (which should speed things up as opposed to everybody ordering the book having to wait 2-4 weeks!). Well, now he's sitting having some quality time with the Second Life web site! The book, AVATRAIT: From Second Life To Florence, just made it onto the "Recommendations" page, in (naturally enough) the "books" section.
So, it's not that Eschatos has done nothing but surf the web over the past few weeks, but most of the "news" has been coming from that front ... and, don't be fooled by Eschatos' dour expression here, he's understandably thrilled that Linden Lab has put us up on the site ... and he's fervently hoping that all and sundry will head on over to order a copy!
Oh, yeah ... hopefully Eschatos will have some Big News (with more interesting pictures) to report about the new Avatrait Gallery in just a few days!
More later ...
Monday, November 10, 2008
Oops ...
My, how time flies ... I can't believe that it's been TWO WEEKS since we last checked in on Eschatos! Frankly, in the wake of all the news around the Florence trip, there's been very little to report. Somehow something like "Eschatos went here, here, here, and here to pay his in-world rent" doesn't have the post-worthy ring to it that we're looking for in this space!
There has been one reasonably significant change to update y'all on ... we got blind-sided by Lulu (the print-on-demand place that we're using to do the Avatrait book), first with a fairly substantial price increase on the printing (after we got locked in to the $49.95 cover price), and then discovering that they only print the hard-cover books in the USA, which has been resulting in insane shipping charges being quoted to our European artists and friends ("insane" as in €71 ... well over $100! ... to ship book that weighs under two pounds).
Obviously, "that would NOT do!" ... and may have seriously cut into the potential orders that we would have had from the Festival della Creativita. So, we have opted to pull all orders in-house, and are hopefully setting up a system where we order the number of books that we guess we'll need over the next month, and have them on hand to send out, and then re-order (due to this being a print-on-demand, large-format, hard-cover, full-color book, the printing costs are very high, and we have a razor-thin margin) as the money comes in.
So, please go to http://avatraitbooks.com, and take a look ... there is now a little green "ORDER" button which takes you to a page with twenty payment options (19 via PayPal, and one via Lindens) in everything from Euros to Zlotys to Yen! Also, once "the system" gets rolling, it will be MUCH faster, as we'll be doing the 2-3 weeks of waiting up front, and will be able to just shoot the books out as you order them!
Everybody with an interest in Second Life, and Virtual World art should get a copy! It really IS a "landmark" in the field of "Digital Impressionism". You can also visit our in-world storefront (LINK) for previews of the art.
Oh, yeah ... one more thing. The Avatrait Gallery is temporarily closed at the moment allowing us to make a "clean move" between the long-running site on Simuality Island to its new home on Avatrait Island ... look for the Grand Opening announcement soon!
More later ...
There has been one reasonably significant change to update y'all on ... we got blind-sided by Lulu (the print-on-demand place that we're using to do the Avatrait book), first with a fairly substantial price increase on the printing (after we got locked in to the $49.95 cover price), and then discovering that they only print the hard-cover books in the USA, which has been resulting in insane shipping charges being quoted to our European artists and friends ("insane" as in €71 ... well over $100! ... to ship book that weighs under two pounds).
Obviously, "that would NOT do!" ... and may have seriously cut into the potential orders that we would have had from the Festival della Creativita. So, we have opted to pull all orders in-house, and are hopefully setting up a system where we order the number of books that we guess we'll need over the next month, and have them on hand to send out, and then re-order (due to this being a print-on-demand, large-format, hard-cover, full-color book, the printing costs are very high, and we have a razor-thin margin) as the money comes in.
So, please go to http://avatraitbooks.com, and take a look ... there is now a little green "ORDER" button which takes you to a page with twenty payment options (19 via PayPal, and one via Lindens) in everything from Euros to Zlotys to Yen! Also, once "the system" gets rolling, it will be MUCH faster, as we'll be doing the 2-3 weeks of waiting up front, and will be able to just shoot the books out as you order them!
Everybody with an interest in Second Life, and Virtual World art should get a copy! It really IS a "landmark" in the field of "Digital Impressionism". You can also visit our in-world storefront (LINK) for previews of the art.
Oh, yeah ... one more thing. The Avatrait Gallery is temporarily closed at the moment allowing us to make a "clean move" between the long-running site on Simuality Island to its new home on Avatrait Island ... look for the Grand Opening announcement soon!
More later ...
Monday, October 27, 2008
Back from Florence!
So, you were wondering what had happened to Eschatos? Not paying attention, are we? Eschatos (or at least his typist) has been off in Florence, Italy for the opening of the Rinascimento Viruale exhibit, part of the Festival della Creativita art festival.
Aside from the big news of the launch of the new book AVATRAIT: From Second Life to Florence at the show, we also announced the exciting new Avatrait.com web site. Eschatos is checking out the front page there, but if you click through on the center logo it will take you to the fabulous new "gallery" site where S.L. artists (and art fans) can upload their works, share them, form groups, and even sell their art to the general public. The site's only been "live" less than a week at this point, so there are new features and design elements being added daily, but go have a click and sign up for a free account!
One thing that we'd hoped to have good-to-go by the Florence event was the new Avatrait Island, but that is progressing at a bit more reserved pace than we'd anticipated. However, when Eschatos went over to check that out today, he found that there is at least a pretty snazzy sign waiting for the finished Gallery. When completed, Avatrait Island is going to have a big new gallery, classroom and workshop spaces, offices, a gift shop, event spaces, and a swank European café! Needless to say, you'll hear about it here just as soon as that's ready for visitors.
More later ... ciào!
Aside from the big news of the launch of the new book AVATRAIT: From Second Life to Florence at the show, we also announced the exciting new Avatrait.com web site. Eschatos is checking out the front page there, but if you click through on the center logo it will take you to the fabulous new "gallery" site where S.L. artists (and art fans) can upload their works, share them, form groups, and even sell their art to the general public. The site's only been "live" less than a week at this point, so there are new features and design elements being added daily, but go have a click and sign up for a free account!
One thing that we'd hoped to have good-to-go by the Florence event was the new Avatrait Island, but that is progressing at a bit more reserved pace than we'd anticipated. However, when Eschatos went over to check that out today, he found that there is at least a pretty snazzy sign waiting for the finished Gallery. When completed, Avatrait Island is going to have a big new gallery, classroom and workshop spaces, offices, a gift shop, event spaces, and a swank European café! Needless to say, you'll hear about it here just as soon as that's ready for visitors.
More later ... ciào!
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