April 1, 2008
yay! Come one, come all this Saturday, April 5th at 1pm SLT for the grand opening of the Newseum in SecondLife! We’ll have music by the emmy award winning Kurt Bestor and music by DJ Nexeus Fatale. Thanks everyone for all the positive feedback, this should be a really great time!
As always check about http://www.newseum.org for information on the Newseum or http://www.kurtbestor.com for information on Kurt Bestor.
http://slurl.com/secondlife/The%20Newseum/123/186/26
March 29, 2008
It’s finally going to open. That’s right the project Beth and I have been working on for more than a year is going to open next weekend. The island is based around the real life Newseum, the interactive museum of news located in Washington D.C. Located right on Pennsylvania Avenue, between the White House and the U.S. Capitol, is a huge 250,000 square foot of glass building. In SecondLife, it’s on a private sim not quite yet open to the public.
Although the SL Newseum is not an exact replica of the RL building, it is heavily inspired by the look and feel of the physical structure. Inside you’ll find a ton of content which has been based on the RL exhibits – and some totally unique ones. I have two favorites that I’ll mention, the Pulitzer Gallery and the 9/11 Gallery.
The Pulitzer gallery is a collection of award winning photos. We’ve all seen the picture of the US Marines raising the American Flag in Iwo Jima during WWII – but in the Newseum we hear the photographer talking about how he almost missing getting the picture and experience what it was really life to witness the historic event. Oh and if you haven’t seen the picture go here.
The 9/11 gallery is a collection of front page newspapers from around the globe about the attacks, most from September 12th 2001. With headlines like “BASTARDS!” and “Our national saw evil” it’s hard to not be moved by the exhibit.
That is just a sneak preview of the massive amounts of content the Newseum offers. We’ll be opening up the doors on the 5th of April. We’re glad to finally be opening the SecondLife version on the weekend before the grand opening of the RL Newseum.
For more information on the RL Newseum take a look at http://www.newseum.org
September 26, 2007
Good friend, and Pemberley owner, Nachema Nagorski IM’d me yesterday to let me know Prim Perfect had written a really nice review on Pemberley. I love building and being able to share my creativity with others. It’s always very rewarding when people really like and appreciate what I create… so I very much enjoyed reading Kghia Gherardi’s opinion of my work. Thanks so much Kghia for the lovely write up. 
August 25, 2007
Xenius Revere’s Scifi Alpha prefab skyboxes are 216m of sculptie goodness, blended into a sci-fi style habitation that will fit neatly on the average (mythical) plot of First Land.
The entrance hallway extends from the airlock toward the cozy bedroom, which is separated by a partition from the elevated living area. The living area has built-in seating for about seven avs, with shelves on several sides to decorate it with the tiny details that make a home. Make no mistakes, this is a tiny, cozy space, but at 92 prims you’ll have a well turned-out home where you can entertain and decorate. The texturing and baked-on lighting bring out the realistic feel of the skybox, and make it feel a bit larger than it is.
Xen has created several different styles of texturing of the base structure to fit a variety of tastes, from a clinical all-white cube straight out of 2001: A Space Odyssey, to a sumptuous glam-red lounge-like area, to designs with a more industrial feel of rust and decay. The blue lighting in the floor and ceiling of the Alpha 2 could be straight out of Battlestar Galactica, making it the one with the most cinematically accurate feel.
There are a few details with seams where the prim edges meet, and you know that cozy is a euphemism for really tiny. Also, the skybox will require you to build it a landing area if you ever plan to actually get in through the doorway, but these are minor details when talking about a build of this quality. There are also rumors of a “girly” version in the works, which may be a bit warmer in its decor than the mostly masculine dècored versions available at present.
Xen has built a successful business with his Maya experience and scuptie awesomeness. With these skyboxes, the in-demand work that he’s been doing for large scale corporate customers through the Electric Sheep Company is now available to the average avatar for L$5000.
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Luxe%20Island/224/170/22
July 12, 2007
Not long ago, I reached my first rez-day in Second Life. Beth threw a huge party for me to celebrate the occasion with all of my friends. The idea was to have a formal event, but with a slight twist. The party was themed, paying homage to the old Hollywood crime dreams of the 1940s and 1950s. Of course, such a special event requires a special custom build. We decided to make an entirely black and white building, a huge circular shape with a stage in the middle. We’ve received so many rave reviews and requests to sell the build, that we have decided to put it on the market.
The EBC Film Noir is inspired by the stylish Hollywood crime dramas of the 1940s and the 1950s, carefully crafted with custom hand-made textures. The building itself is huge, nearly 173m in circumference and 427 prims. The entire interior is black and white, giving you the illusion of walking into an old vintage film; we’ve even had custom-made black and white plants by Lilith Heart coming to the store very soon! This would be ideal for a jazz club or any other large unique venue.
L$2,000
No Mod/Copy/No Trans
*Furniture and plants not included.
May 11, 2007
Several weeks ago, Beth was contacted in-world by a mutual friend of ours. He was looking to create a custom avatar for Italian pop sensation, Irene Grandi. Irene had planned to shoot a music video within SecondLife. She wanted her avatar to very closely resemble her real life self. With the help of Haver Cole, we were able to make her SL avatar look amazing. Thanks for your help Haver!
The music video was filmed and around half of the scenes are from within SecondLife. It has been very successful. It’s just appeared on youtube, so we wanted to share it with everyone.
Irene will be playing live in SecondLife tomorrow at noon SL time, stop by here and check her out.
May 10, 2007
By popular demand, we’ve decided to sell the signature house from The Villages at Pemberley. This is a medium size house designed to fit a 960m plot using 150 prims. As always, the textures are custom drawn and make used of “baked lighting”. Put together with detail and elegance, this home is sure to be a match for you. The doors and windows are scripted, and we’ve included some rose bushes for landscaping. Stop by the store and check this pre-fab out for only $300L.
May 8, 2007
In September of last year, Starwood Hotels entered into the virtual world of SecondLife with aloft island. Their intention was to offer the public a sneak peek oh its newest hotel, and solicit design feedback to improve the real life plans. The sim has been closed for the past few months for a remodel, to reflect design changes made, in part, based on feedback from SecondLife members. These changes are also reflected in the design of the real hotel, slated to open in 2008. The grand re-opening is tonight at 5pm SL time.
The virtual version of the hotel, created by the Electric Sheep Company, highlights the bar and lobby areas, the hotel rooms, and the poolside. All the textures appear to be hand crafted, with excellent use of baked on lighting where appropriate. Walking around the hotel and the area surrounding, it’s very nicely done.
As they get closer to opening to real life hotel, the virtual one will go away. In an effort to give back to the community, the sim will be donated to one lucky winner. To compete, simply head on over to http://virtualaloft.com/ and read the details.
May 7, 2007
Since Beth is away and can’t stop me, I’m going to give another product away free! For Christmas last year, I wrote a facial expressions auto-emoter. You wear it and it makes your face animated based on the things you say. So if you type “:)” your avatar will smile.
I’m not sure how long this will be free, so if you want one head to the store and get one today. Don’t forget to join the EB Creations group for product announcements and even more freebies!
The Keywords are:
afraid help!, eep, eek, :s
laugh lol, hah, rofl, :d
anger grr, >:(, rawr, >:-(
bored, yawn, sleep, bor
cry :c, cry, pout, weep
disdain >:-|, damn, shiver,
embarrassed embarras, oops, oof,
frown, sad, ::-c, pff
sad ):, hmm, hrm, sigh
shrug :/, shrig, idk, dunno
smile (:, mhm, :>, hello
surprise, wtf, gawd,
tongue_out :p, neener, ~~~, heh
toothsmile
wink, gotcha, raise eye,
worry :s, worry, jeez,
May 5, 2007
So, if you don’t know what a sculpted prim is, check out my previous post. Linden Labs released the new version on the beta grid today, which includes the use of the new prim type “sculpted”. This new prim type allows more organic shapes, such as rounded corners and the one prim banana.
The current release also has a bug where flexi prims cause you and people around you to crash. If you log on to the beta grid, be sure to take off anything flexi. It’s an annoying bug, but does make some funny pictures.
I haven’t found many cool shapes yet; this sculpted face is my favorite.
And if you haven’t seen enough fruit, here is a whole plate of it.
If you want any of the free sculpted maps head on over to http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Sculpted_Prims_Textures.
