"Floating" by Bryn Oh and Cica Ghost on LEA 13

On Sunday at 12 noon SLT will open a collaboration project between Cica Ghost and myself called Floating.  Very crazy way this came together.  Ok so let me preface this post a bit.  So I usually create everything I can on my own because in the past people I have worked with have been a bit unreliable.  The worst was several years ago when I got Linden Lab to give me five regions to use for the Spanish pavilion at the World Expo in Shanghai.  It was a pretty massive event and the curator, named Aino Baar, wanted five or so of her artists to build one region and I would build the other four.  Or was it three, i forget now.  Anyway, a week before it was to open I got a message from an artist saying "Have you seen what they are doing with the final region?"  I hadn't as I was pretty busy doing the other ones and when I popped over it was a dreadful mess.  They didn't work together and created a really messy ugly sim.  Each tried to outdo the other.  So I spoke to them and said they had to clean it up and gave suggestions.  The speaker for this other group said he didn't like my attitude, and if I didn't show more respect they would walk away from the project.  I don't take threats very well so I told them to pack up and I would do it myself.  This was a week before it opened!   If you are curious then I have added the final fifth sim I built below.


There have been other situations over the years but back to now.  I guess four months ago a person contacted me with some 2D images they had done.  I liked them and suggested they apply to LEA for a sim.  They were shy and said they didn't know how to build at all.  Now at this point my brain said to my mouth "Don't say anything! you don't have time to help!" my mouth completely ignored my brain and said "Don't you worry about building I will create something special to display your work".  My brain was just pissed off and shocked with my mouth.  So long story short this person applied and got a LEA sim.  I began to build for them and three months later they disappeared.  The persons friend would be updated on their hiking trips and things like that but they were not creating the 2D work for the show.  I gave them a deadline, deadline passed, then I withdrew.  I told Patti from the LEA committee and she said that it was three months in to a six month grant and there likely was no time to give it to someone else.. so why not make something.  I messaged Cica and so here we are.  We made something together in a week.   I would like to thank Desdemona Enfield for a script she gave us and serenity mercier for her thoughts and encouragement.  Here is the SLURL http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/LEA13/121/105/21

There are a few directions at the start where you arrive.  There are umbrellas to float on and balloons to hold onto as well.  The build is a city that spreads from the wealthy to the poor pod people.  I won't get into that, but there is also a zap gun on a table which you can wear and go into mouse look to shoot.  Mouselook - press esc and zoom in with scroll wheel or press M.   Cica and I spent quite a while running around shooting each other so bring your friends and do the same.  When you hit the other person they will tp back to the start PROVIDED they are in the experience (Bryn Oh's experience) if you are not in the experience you will be tpd to your home, which will be pretty irritating.  There is a sphere to click to join the experience at the start.  I like to just float around working on things listening to my stream there.  And shooting Cica.  If Cica says she is better than me at that game then please don't listen.  It is all lies.  I am way better than her.

Lady Carmagnolle

     My new artwork "Lady Carmagnolle" is now open to the public.  I am writing a new elaborate story like Hand right now, but the whole process takes several months, so during that time I will be releasing a series of single scene poems.  The poems are ones I have written which are some of the initial ways I formulate or begin to shape an idea for the various characters or concepts I wish to expand on later.  This first character is named Lady Carmagnolle.  A carmagnolle is one of the very

earliest full metal diving suits.  Monstrosities of protection that allowed people to explore the depths, and in her hand she carries the helmet.  In her other hand she holds a rock which she has drawn a face upon.  She imagines the rocks to be injured birds who she cares for.  When it rains the ink washes away leaving a simple stone.  When Lady Carmagnolle looks to find these rocks and instead finds them gone, she wistfully imagines that they have grown back their wings and returned to the sky, finding others to fly with.  In her loneliness this is her most beautiful dream.

     Lady Carmagnolle first appeared several years ago in the Rabbicorn Story also known as Standby. 

She resides in an decrepit theater in the abandoned Amusement park where the Daughter of Gears and the Rabbicorn eventually find and make their home.  She stands in the ruins of a place that once was the world to her,  and as it slowly collapses around her she doesn't fall into despair but rather performs for her stone friends and smiles in a beautiful melancholy.  Many of my characters live in this area of the world I created,  and I hope to create single scene stories for some of them.  Also I am considering making this character into a bronze sculpture similar to the dancer... if you like that idea let me know.

To visit the artwork in the multi user virtual environment of  Second Life then take this link after installing the viewer.   http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Immersiva/25/103/31

"Hand" closing

Flutter and her suitcase

I will be deleting my work "Hand" on Sunday night or Monday in order to begin something new.  It has been a good run with close to 40,000 visitors, and still 40-50 visitors a day all these months later.   So I am pleased.  It  has all been filmed now too so one day I can turn it into a machinima movie similar the Singularity of Kumiko, Imogen and the Pigeons and The Rabbicorn story/Standby.  That might not be for several months though.  Hand was a very elaborate creation for me and quite exhausting to make.  Coming up with the story, writing it, building and

Cardinal Drone

texturing, sounds and composition.  It took four months just to build it and to create something similar is kind of exhausting to think about.  So having said that I have decided to create a series of works based on poems I have written.  These will be simpler and might focus on characters I have created in the past that were done before mesh existed.   I will focus more on the composition of a single scene rather than that of an entire virtual environment.  There will still be all the hidden bits people expect, but likely wont have a hud and excessive scripting.  Though if there is a scripter out there who excels in

Flutter taking the hand

pathfinding I have a few ideas to try.. so contact me if you like.   I should also mention that on Saturday there will be a music event set up by Phemie Alcott.  I was asked to build a stage for the event and decided to make it a tiny elevator where everyone will be squished together invading each others imagined personal space.  Even the musicians will be squished into the elevator.  I am going to be away this weekend so I don't think I can be there so hopefully someone will take a few pictures on flickr so I can see how squishy it was.  If you would like more info message Phemie Alcott.  Oh and I made it using materials and advanced lighting... so if you can put those on yay! but will be laggy so probably not many can.                                                  What else.... oh I found a

pen and ink sketch

monarch butterfly caterpillar and it is in a jar now.  I have named him Steve and he has been chewing milkweed leaves like crazy.  I will do a post on that later.  What else do I have to say?  I don't have anything.  I must have  something interesting to say! .. but what?  Oh I just put a half dozen paintings into a gallery... that is kind of interesting.  I already talked about the bronze sculpture.  There is one left btw if anyone would like it.  Also I am thinking of making 30 more so if anyone is thinking they would want one then message me at brynohhh@gmail.com   Oh here is some news.  So a new movie is coming out in a few weeks or so called "It" by Stephen King the horror writer.  It was filmed in my neighbourhood!  and Warner brothers have allowed us to show "It" in a local theatre early before it opens to the public.  And I am going I think.. even though it looks scary as fuck.  Clowns in sewers .. what a great combo.   Some of  the kids from Stranger Things is in it. 

The Elevator

 Ok I think I ran out of things to say.

Sansar award

Lady Carmagnolle with Virginia and Fern in the background

I am pleased to have won the award in Best Visual Design for my artwork in Linden Labs new virtual space called Sansar .
The artwork that won is entitled "A night at the Ballet" which essentially is every character from all my various stories put together into one room where they are watching a ballet.  Upon the stage is the dancer while off to the side are the other ballet performers who are captivated by something on the screen of a cell phone rather than that which surrounds them.  For me it was

Left is 26 tines, Rabbicorn, The Daughter of gears, Milkdrop and Lady Carmagnolle

enjoyable to imagine the various characters I have created then to juxtapose them against one another to see how each personality might conflict or compliment one another.   For example, how might Anna from Anna's many murders react to meeting Mr Zippers from the Singularity of Kumiko, or lonely Fern from Lobby Cam meeting Virginia and all her life history
.
After I take down Hand, which should be in a few weeks, then I will explore single recreations of some of my characters such as from 26 tines and Lady Carmagnolle. 

left: Willow, Juniper, Flutter and Birdy

     Sansar currently is a bit laggy and takes time to load, so this creation was built around making the work accessible.  The areas are shrouded in darkness and in most cases your computer only has to render objects in the light, as I don't place any objects in the darkness.  An object in the darkness, even if you can't see it, still needs to be rendered.  I have

Left: The Dancer and the cell phone dancers

also given no physical shape to all the objects, meaning you can walk through them as though they are ghosts.  When you give an object a physical shape processing power is used to calculate how that object should react to other things in the scene, such as avatars or another physical object... setting them phantom means physics do not need to be calculated.  Another important thing is keeping texture size fairly low. One of the current trends in Second Life is people assembling sims out of gacha items.  Gacha items are usually quite lovely and make for nice additions to a sim.. however most creators of these items want them to look their best naturally, because they wish to sell them, so they are often 1024 texture size.  Textures usually are saved at sizes from 256, 512 and 1024, though you can also have models set lower.  So imagine if you had four objects at 256 they would add up to one object at 1024 etc.  Think of it as details.. you computer has to compute and render each texture, so if you have a region with ten objects all at 1024 texture size it would add up to 10,240.  Ten objects at 256 is 2560.  That is quite the rendering savings if done at 256.. so now imagine a sim full of thousands of objects all 1024... terrible lag.  It is when you combine a bunch of things such as textures with inefficient models and too much or inefficient scripts that it adds up to lag.  So a well planned sim might be assembled where essentially the focal points of a room or region are 1024 (though they probably could be 512).. like a letter on a table with a few objects around it.. that is important for the narrative and should be clear because people will inspect the scene to a greater degree than perhaps another area in the narrative. While objects that are barely noticed .. like, for example, a ceiling fan they could be 256 or 512.   Especially if it is spinning and you don't have time to see its texture well.  So essential elements can be high resolution texture with fringe elements being low res as opposed to every object high resolution in a scene.  To check the textures on your land simply go to (on firestorm) developer tab at top right.. (if you don't have that tab showing just press ctrl alt and Q and it will appear)   Developer - render metadata - texture size.  This will show you the texture size of everything around you.  If you see a white napkin with just a hint of a texture and it is 1024, then take it and burn that bugger in a fire.  Throw it away!  An object with 512 instead of 1024 in most cases looks almost identical to one with 1024 in SL.  When it goes down to 256 it can be a bit blurry in some cases so you decide what is important.. but for a napkin? well for the sake of lag it is better to use 256. 

Left: Gretchen, Teddy, Elliot Amber, Rabbicorn, The Daughter

Anyway, I got on a rant there.  So I have read a fair amount of reviews for Sansar lately and most are fairly negative, which is a bit perplexing to me.  Granted Sansar has a long way to go, there are plenty of improvements needed.  But to me, slagging it now is kind of like hearing a child sing while playing and saying "God that is not as good as the Rolling Stones.. they should stop singing!" or making a cake and putting the flour in a bowl only to have someone beside you say.. "That is just flour in a bowl!  That is the worst
chocolate cake ever!".  Hey I am not f-ing done you pantload!  Sansar is beta.  It opened a week ago.  What you see today will not be the same Sansar in a year (if it lasts), exactly how SL was when it opened and then as it grew.  Do you know it used to cost money for each TP in Second Life when it opened?   A lot of it is testing what works right now and they are constantly collecting feedback as to what people would like added or improved.  Hey WTF! this old image of early Second life shows a continent named.... Sansara?!  I am not sure how old this picture is but it is before islands I think.  Probably 2003.

Old second life

The way I currently see Sansar in relation to Second Life is more of a fancy spot to visit.  So imagine hanging out with friends at a home in SL and saying "Oh hey lets go over to see that experience in Sansar"  maybe it is an interactive movie or whatever... and then after going to Sansar and having some fun you return home to SL to chat about it.   You live in SL and go out to dinner or a movie in Sansar.  The problem with Sansar, for me, is that I don't know how to script in C#.  I also don't know any programmers who do.  So my current works look nice... but are static and not interactive.  What Sansar should work on next is to have some kind of scripting database where you can take scripts you need to use.  Such as opening doors or whatever... and the directions to use these scripts have to be explained simply.  Essentially you should be able to drag a script into an object and then edit variables in the script.  Sansar needs plenty of things, I know.  Avatar customization is pretty important ... an avatar is often an extension of the person using it.. so they must be able to create an identity and look that they cherish.  Right now the avatars are very basic and everyone looks the same.  But I have faith that all these things will come over time, and because they don't exist perfectly now does not, to me, mean that Linden Labs are "idiots" as some suggest, but rather that they are at the beginning of a process. 

To visit "An evening at the Ballet" in Sansar click this

Happy Canada Day!

Happy Canada day everyone!  We are celebrating our 150th anniversary .. .yes we are a young country.   To celebrate, here in Toronto, we have a giant yellow rubber duck.   Largest in the world I understand.   It symbolizes our...  well it reflects the deep roots of.... well...   Ok it has nothing to do with Canada or our heritage, its just super fun to have floating in the harbour. Yay giant rubber duck I love you.

Bryn's music stream

     I was talking to a friend named Radicalrazor the other day about music streams and he told me about streams he offers and so .. yeah I got one.   I figured it would be nice to listen to music while I build on my sim and can also share my favorite music with people.  I like sharing.  I could be on fucking Seasame Street I like to share so fucking much!  Excessive unnecessary swearing is so funny .. I don't know why?  Maybe it is just me.  Anyway, so the stream is kind of mellow and generally the type of things I listen to while working.  It has a fairly wide range of musicians and I will keep adding to it over time.  There are no commercials or anything like that naturally ... I don't even have one of those sporadic station identification things.  Come to think of it one of those would be cool to have, so if you know how to make one message me.  If you are curious what I listen to and would like to put it in your land or parcel music stream then you would use this link..   http://Bryn-Oh.tranquilitystreams.stream:8000


Here is the land stream

 http://Bryn-Oh.tranquilitystreams.stream:8000

If you want to listen outside sl then you can use these below.

 Winamp https://ts320kbps.tranquilitystreams.stream/tunein/tranquil24.pls

 Windows media player     https://ts320kbps.tranquilitystreams.stream/tunein/tranquil24.asx

 Real player     https://ts320kbps.tranquilitystreams.stream/tunein/tranquil24.ram

 Quicktime        https://ts320kbps.tranquilitystreams.stream/tunein/tranquil24.qtl

Bronze casting of the Dancer complete

     The Bronze casting of the Dancer is now complete.  If you were able to visit my latest work called "Hand" you might have come across a figure in one room who danced in front of a wall of blue butterflies.  I have, in the past, created studies for my characters in wire, wood and something called Hyrdrocal but after speaking to my friend Toy, I decided to make the jump into Bronze.  It is a big jump because it is quite expensive to do and you kind of just have to hope someone will want to buy them after you have invested in having them made.  In the picture to the right you can see some of the stages I went through before finally arriving at the bronze casting.  The first shows the model I created in Zbrush, a 3D program.  The middle image is of the Dancer within the virtual space of Second Life.  The third image to the left in white is the 3D print.  From there is created the wax model which you can see below.  We used the lost wax process to create a mold to hold the molten bronze.  Essentially you create a cast around the model then melt it so that the wax runs out leaving a cavity to pour the bronze into.  Then 30 were created with each being 4 inches tall.

Below you can see some more images showing molten bronze being poured.  So yeah I am really excited.  If you are interested in purchasing one of the 30 bronze sculptures then please email me at brynohhh@gmail.com giving your address for shipping as well as the edition number you wish to purchase.  There is a list showing which ones have already been sold and what is still available.  I have decided to first put the work up for sale to Second Life users who have supported me for the last ten years and then what is left over will go into a first life gallery or exhibitions to be sold.

         

The Dancer

Each is sold in US dollars with shipping extra. 




1st =  $400 (Sold)
Trezi Sensair
2nd= $375 (Sold)
Venus Adored
3rd= $350 (Sold)
San
4th= $325 (Sold)
Inkspot
5th= $300 (Sold)
Nickola Martynov



6-10 =  $275 (Sold)


6 BelAmi Runningbear
7 John01 Freng
8 Bine Rodenberger 
9 Nadia and Ericah
10 Amase Levasseur




 
11-15= $250 (Sold)

11 Kristine Schomaker
12 Mara Zaslove
13 Florence84
14 Elora Lunasea
15 Mireille Jenvieve
 
16-20= $225
16 Lovers Lane Studios
17 Anonymous
18 Art Blue
19 
20
 
21-25= $200 (Sold)
21 Fitch Lekvoda
22 Sandrine Han
23 Mr/Mrs Johnson
24 Sandi Glas
25 Janet Shaffstall




26-29= $150 (Sold)
26 Rowan Derryth
27 Frederica Lexenstar 
28 Doc
29 doob
 




And here to the right is the finished bronze sculpture.  I am pleased with the sales and it encourages me to perhaps make some more of my characters into bronze sculptures such as the Rabbicorn, Mr Zippers, Anna, Flutter, The daughter of gears or others.  Something to think about anyway.  Perhaps once a year.

So yes anyway if you would like one of the remaining works please email me at brynohhh@gmail.com and say which one you would like along with your shipping address and I will reply with the total cost after shipping.