Ciaran Laval

February 10, 2011February 10, 2011

Rod Humble in Villa Fan Shocker

There’s a rather spiffing interview with Rod Humble over at Rock, Paper, Shotgun. However, before you head over, a word of warning, it’s a general gaming site, they’re very cynical about Second Life and the comments are particularly cynical, but that cynical nature actually makes the interview somewhat interesting as you get questions from a different perspective to that of the average Second Life user.

There’s the shocking revelation that Rod Humble is an Aston Villa fan, so that’s Rod Humble, Prad Prathivi and me… of course, I’m more suave, sophisitcated, better looking, wittier and conceited than those two, they may have a headstart in the success stakes though, but you can’t have everything! Where was I? Oh yes, the Rock Paper, Shotgun interview, this gives a good sense of Rod being enthusiastic about Second Life.

Continue reading “Rod Humble in Villa Fan Shocker”

February 8, 2011February 8, 2011

Penny Patton’s Guide to Better Camera Placement

Penny Patton, long time advocate of better scaling and camera positions, has posted in the blogrum a guide to improving your Second Life view, via better camera placement. Penny has also granted me permission to reprint the post here, which I will do shortly.

Why is camera placement important you may wonder, well it simply is, it’s one of the most important features of any video game because it gives us perspective, and the problem with the default settings for the camera in Second Life, according to Penny, is that the camera view not only isn’t very good, it has distorted perceptions so that pretty much everything we build, from our avatar to our homes and stores, is oversized. The problem with everything being oversized is that we use more space than we need to on our sims, meaning we have less room for landscaping and features.

This is quite a compelling argument and after altering my camera as Penny suggests, I can see where she’s coming from. However not everyone will agree with this or feel the advantages, that’s down to personal choice of course but knowing about features like this can improve your view of Second Life. Continue reading “Penny Patton’s Guide to Better Camera Placement”

February 8, 2011February 11, 2011

AcousticEnergy Nitely

“I will hold you like a melody;
Sing each word into your soul;
Breathing in your skin, you speak to me;
And I cry”
AE

I’ve seen and heard AcousticEnergy Nitely perform before, but recently I was able to go listen and watch AE “let his hair down” for lack of a better way to describe his show that night….A friend tp’d me to where AE was singing and the first thing I saw pop on my screen was “Ae has the most sexiest voice in sl” (copy, pasted). So, being the woman I am…..of course I paid close attention. I heard this sweet male voice….with just a hint of an accent (Scottish, I believe) and decided to save the rest of this commentary until I finished the interview, which follows.

AcousticEnergy Nitely first started messing with music and the guitar as a teenager. He would strum a 12 string Yamaha guitar that belonged to his buddy, Rob Wier, and listen to the sounds he could make. His mother put on lay-a-way, his first 6 string Honer guitar which, with the help of his friend Rob, he learned to play basic guitar. AE was into writing poetry at this point in his life and though he may not have known it at the time, had started his song writing career also. Such originals as Rise and Breathe On Me Continue reading “AcousticEnergy Nitely”