A Building Frenzy...

Well not really. But one real nice thing about doing Second Life projects is that there are so many different things to do. So, if you OD on scripting there is always something to build. I like doing both and I decided that maybe when I dream about scripting that it is time to do something else. So last night I played a bit more with Blender and sculpted a pair of very simple guard cells for my photosynthesis project.



This picture shows the result. Probably the sort of thing a master builder would snort at but they are pretty dramatic. Guard cells have a much more complex form than what I show here so for advanced students I might want to show that. Right now these are phantom and the visitor has to walk through them to enter the photosynthesis module. And since Mat Chatnoir has already asked about this...yes eventually they will be scripted to open and close: eventually ;-).

I have also redone the sky box* that my photosynthesis module is in. Originally it was built like the lab where I do my scripting and prototyping as a 20m x 20m x 10m box made from 10 x 10 x .1M prims, plus extra prims for window framing and entrances. My lab module bare bones has 16 prims. But since I currently do my work on my own private region on the mainland I need to watch prim count. You can visit the photosynthesis module in world at http://slurl.com/secondlife/Carmine/118/142/296

In my inventory I have the infamous mega prim package from Alberto Linden, so decided to play with them. Generally I avoid mega prims because the big ones are really intrusive. In fact one of my neighbors has rezzed a big one for some weird reason and it goes right up to my property line...but that is another issue. My neighbor seems to only speak Japanese and while I typically wear a Kimono, I do not. Fortunately my neighbor did blend it so it is textured the same as the region's ground. A few eucalyptus trees and that mega prim is hidden.



At any rate I put together a barebones box, the same size as my SL lab/office but uses only 4 prims rather than 16. Astute biologists will recognise that it is textured with a scanning electron micrograph of the upper epidermis for a leaf. In fact both the inside and the outside were originally textured the same way which is really cool and immersive but maybe over kill. So I retextured the inside with the same sorts of window textures I use in my lab/office and the result is basically what you see in the first picture showing the guard cells at the entrance to the photosynthesis module.

Also this weekend, worked a bit more on the Caminalcule menuing system so that it is a bit more sensible; I was making things way to complex to follow and so I am having to reorganize the scripting a bit.

You're also welcome to stop by my lab/office at http://slurl.com/secondlife/Carmine/174/217/137 You can also TP there from the photosynthesis landing spot.

* Generally I loathe skyboxes..but creatively textured they do have their uses.