IOW Design Projects General

Goals:

- Clean up mess we caused over the years.
- Follow Daryth's vision and default design (Fantasy, not Modern Day, Sci-Fi or Urban etc)
- Replace all LI-Eaters with "slim" and modern items
- Optimize textures
- Note: Hollus will not mess with the content of any objects, he will only replace the outer shells
- First Sub-Project: Cathedral

These are some additional notes/thoughts/estimations concerning the harmony and visual quality of the IOW landscape (public areas Cathedral and Limbo). They are NON relevant as to the progress itself (no calls for help with certain objects/access).

We still have a lot of clutter from the time when we were down to 3 regions, when the most important question was if IOW would survive at all. We had developed the tendency to use makeshift items that only had to fulfill a certain function. Luckily and thanks to the economy and traffic specialists of the staff, as well as private investors, land owners, renters and donators, who managed to largen the estate beyond imagination, it may be a good time to look at cleaning up some of the old clutter.

Nobody has ever mentioned the wish to try a different genre, so it's always a good idea to take what's already there. In this case it's Fantasy (ancient-medieval, Dungeons & Dragons, Fairytales etc. ). In order for any artificial environment to work, harmony and homogeneity are most important. This is usually the job of the set designers. I have worked mostly in character-design, but we don't have too many options in this department atm.

Some people love reality settings, and even bombed out and destroyed "real" world surroundings, like in contemporary military games. A different examply for this are real life sports games.
Others must have a richer environment, before they can start to enjoy entering a virtual place. Often, the subject of the game isn't as important as the wish to explore the exotic fauna and flora presented to them. I believe that the majority of IOW inhabitants feel similar, since most of us are Tinies and other fantastic creatures, and see the purpose of SL in becoming something they can't be in RL for a while. This also is true as to the scenery that surrounds them.

Style-Mixes are possible, depending on the subjects, but always harder to do right. Sci-Fi and Fantasy can work together in movies, but within the limited area of the 2 regions, this would be very difficult to do right. What works, however, concerning all Sci-Fi fans, is shooting a hovering space station in the orbit over IOW, and decorate it futuristically (Example: Old IOW SpaceLaserCast Bar & Arena). Horror and Fantasy always go together well. Cyberpunk elements may work occasionally. Endtime scenarios are usually very hard on the soul, so I wouldn't recommend this.
The only thing that never works, is mixing a fictional genre with "Real-Life/Urban" elements. Going through a forest with tree-high flowers and mushrooms, and then running into the "supermarket from the corner", or an old concrete bunker from the 40s, immediately beats dead any illusion, that may have captured the mind a second ago. Big disappointment!

We can't save all: Certain items are so popular/useful, that we have to deal with them, even though we can't customize them to look less unpleasant. Silver plastic bots of the cheapest kind, with sunglasses and highly saturated undershirts make many a beholder's glasses break, whenever they visit gameday. Why those can't be timeless wooden dummies is beyond any reason. They're not even funny, except in an unvoluntary way. However, there doesn't seem to be an alternative, so they, for example, must stay.

WILDLIFE ("ROAMERS")

One of my first questions concening the landscape back then was, if we could have animals randomnly roaming our world.

Unfortunately, this option wasn't possible then. "Pathfinding" didn't work sufficiently yet, and the few available creatures were either "too heavy on the LI", or simple bitmaps.

I had met with the leading dinosaur avatar creator of that time, asking him if he could set up one of his avatar-animals for roaming a set area, but that didn't work.

Now, after so many years, SL has improved immensely ! We now have the ability to "awaken" any "mod" avatar to act as a roaming creature, without a human player directing it.

Latest LI-info says we have more than enough ressources, so I will try to experiment with one. It will, of course, be reasonable "performance-wise".

Current state

It doesnt help anyone, if we restrict a "design project" to certain areas, and leave others for all citizens to "decorate" randomly. (Always excluding private parcels, of course). The landmass is just too small for that.

So far, the process is frozen, and I'm on "standby" until further notice.

Hopefully, a unanimous decision will decide wether it will go on, or if we leave things as they are.

One thing we all must agree upon, is that staff can't maneuver themselves in a position, in which they feel that they have to justify decisions as to this possible "design project". We must be able to pick up and delete stuff in order to clear the "canvas".

Instead of being afraid of offending, explaining and encouraging to participate would be a good way to go.

Staff, of course, must be open to answer any questions related to a possible "design project".


Everybody can participate and contribute to create a positive illusion and visual harmony in their environment, everybody can treat themselves to the challenge of being creative within an established margain. It is easier than some may believe.

Some suggestions:

- Those interested in looking into a 2D-program to make textures: All who haven't worked in Photoshop so far, the best idea is not to start with it at all. Once used to the interface and functions, it's harder to switch to a different tool if needed. Gimp is supposedly a more than adequate alternative, and it's completely free!

- The same goes for 3D-programs: The most popular one atm seems to be Blender. It is also free, and video sites are full of related tutorials.

- The marketplace today has many incredible items, and a very good source is the "Building and Objects Components" subcategory.

- The by far easiest items to work with are those, that SL - for several years - likes to advertise as ("brandnew") mesh. In reality, this is the only material ever used in all other 3D worlds, and has been ever since "2D" developed to"3D". The advantages are, that this material can take any shape, and that it's highly economical on the Land Impact. Further "pros" are the easy way for developers to produce customfit AO maps of the very object. They immensely support the creation of textures. The biggest disadvantage is, that it costs the creator more to upload such an item to SL.

- I would be careful with sculpts. They used to be the only material in which complicated organic shapes could be created. However, this material is "hard on the hardware", especially when compared to what it can contribute. Sculpties also have polygons, but they must create a certain number of those, even on their inside, where nobody can see them. This is a lot of completely useless material which the system has to deal with. It is very "dangerous" to link sculpt and "mesh" items, because the LI will explode drastically.

- Placing gag items: Instead of planting a blown up rubber floatie from the 1$ store, why not go back to the toolshed and dig out an old scarecrow from your ancestors ? You may also want to look into building a turd-troll with a wig made of flies, who knows ?

- Most people already know that plastic and rubber are two of the few materials that don't work in the specific context of the IOW world.

- It's better not to use the easy shine feature in the editor. It only works in combination with the advanced lighting model and a specular map on top of it. Without these, objects will look like polished plastic, or car metallic. Pure metal or glass surfaces behave differently. Maybe not so much, but enough so we can easily spot the difference. The easy shine option can work for certain items, so taking some time to judge the effect.

- Light casting objects: It's extremely important to make up your mind, when putting out an object, if it can/should/could possibly have a light emitting surface, or not. Posters, pictures, and other types of images typically don't create light, they can only reflect it. Slapping a "full bright" effect on a non light object makes that object stick out as a foreign body. It will always escape any inworld light and shadow effects.

- Magical items: Fantasy worlds can have all kinds of magical items. But the creator must insure that they're credible (different from realistic). If you want to create a magical self glowing poster, there must be more to it than an editor effect. Also, it will stop being magical, when everyone else hangs up their own magical posters.

- Gotta see! : If you worked with designs you will soon find out that even the most visual concept can be misleading, as long as it stays only in the head. It's always best to actually see what it really looks like, when the imagined elements are placed. Most builders got to see it first, before further deciding. Certain objects might stand around for a short period, either to ask others, if they they agree with the design or not, or, to be clear about it for oneself.

I'm glad we've got you cause most of this went over my head. Are you speaking Izo-ese? LOL I've added "Sim Project Planning" under the Administration window where we can add discussion like these.

(Of course: Admins/Moderators/Communications Department are always free to move threads to the most appropriate sections)

Izo and I been speaking about the general IOW-Logo/-Crest. We think the following is a good solution:


Update of IOW-Crest. Traditional colors red, green, gold remain. Design has been simplified:


New Crest:




Old Crest:





Initials will be kept in the old form for "IOW" only. For anything else, there will be roman/latin font used for easier readeability.


IOW Initials:




All other texts:

(Just noticed that IOW designs look similar to the Hollus Sweetwater-Gazoo crest. This is not intentional. The original Sweetwater-Gazoo crest as used by Gertie is green/orange/purkle, while the Hollus colors are gold, red and white/ivory. These, as well as the IOW colors have been established independantly of each other)

Progress in Cathedral, Gameday may follow in time

This is not another "push" to try to clean up Gameday as fast as possible. I'm sure there will come the time, and it doesn't matter when exactly it will be.
I hope, however, that these pictures will convince everybody that something has to be done, and much more importantly, that we will find a "system" to prevent sharing quick infos and gags in the way displayed below.

Throw out prims, take the nastiest an most saturated colors you can find, and - MOST IMPORTANTLY - cover it all with an everlasting glow in the dark effect, that will definitely resist all lighting preferences the engine can produce. Don't bother with any edges, just make them bright plywood, so they stick out in a mighty contrast. The sun may come from above, but actually, who cares ?

I don't know why this very unique concept was established for creating the Gameday atmosphere, but I imagine it had to do with (not enough)time, as well as "form follows function".

The pictures are real screenshots. You can tell that you view these here "directly" through my eyes on my monitor (notice Firestorm HUD on the left and top bar). They were all made in the same minute and under the exact same preferences.

Personal tastes can't be argued, but even those have to stand in a comparable relation to one another.



???...




... as opposed to harmonic atmosphere in Cathedral

I like the gold iow letters on a plain background.
I think it gives them a clean classy look

I can see where spreading out comments to specif sections to make them easier to keep track of.

And because a discussion of changes will involve different that need to be included before changes are made.

Perhaps breaking according to the areas effected will help identify which of those areas where the designer can have a free hand from those that effect others. Like the Market where a discussion of changes must include those responsible for market operations.

One thing I don't much care for is the frequent make overs the stone heads get but it is a tradition. On flicker there are pictures of stone head silliness dating back to the beginning days of IOW. And some are pretty funny, lol

I like the stone heads and changes to them. Its something fun that shows we are not taking ourselves to seriously. I think we need to consider that the Cathedral and the games area ARE different areas.

The criticism as to gags (for example Easter Isalnd Heads) was probably a bit misleading. Now, we can have gags all we want imo, but please, to whoever this concerns: The gag can't be to slap some crude prim over a head, turn it to permanent phosphor glow-in-the-night and not care for any light and shadow that our collective eyes are forced to deal with by nature.

I can see the natural light causing a shadow area below the brow ridge of the statue. Ok. Why doesn't the same feauture appear on the lower half of the masks ? Are they illuminated from below ? If so, why isn't there a visible lightsource ? And why does this invisible lightsource only work for the mask then ?

It doesn't fit together, and it makes me sad that people don't care. This is a "wanted" gag, but it fails, because it isn't done with any effort to make it work. As I said: Give prim, turn to permanent glow, and just slap it on anything you want.

Gameday is a special area for citizens to decorate, but there's no reason to make it look ugly. Use your eyes and study the surface of the object you want to decorate. It's not hard to do. Then come back with something that actually works. I haven't built the SL engine, but that's what we all have to deal with.