Digital designing

Venues retextured for event: 1 (good); No. of items of clothing created: 7 (or 9 if you count all the bits of shoe separately) (good); Neon cherry blossom balloon dispensers deployed: 1 (good); Notecards created: 1 (good); Magic bottle created: 1 (good, if accidental); Quantity of floor mysteriously disappearing: half (bad)

In fact did all the above yesterday: today was digital literacies seminar that advertised a few days ago, where was being Chair and organising venue. Am now in brief post-event Euphoria, and chief desire is to zoom round SL acquiring new clothes and getting new Home to rights (in fact am going to have to do Emergency Marking even if it IS a Saturday night, v. depressing)
May or may not write more about the event on this blog: can legitimately put something on Serious Blog about content. Therefore on this one will mainly concentrate on fripperies i.e. clothes and decoration.
Had already retextured the venue used for ESRC conference in March, picking up colours from cute poster. Decided to push out boat with seminar memorabilia, starting with a skirt using semi-transparent textures of the poster, then to get a bit more creative did t-shirt (the well-worn template from Robin somethingorother) and Jeans (a template on some LL site), using the bluebird from the poster to create patches. Reused bolero template (bought for last event) putting said cute bluebird on the chest knot. Also found some sculpty full perm shoes on xstreetsl (I hope legit, they didn't look good enough quality to be ripoffs) and made blue shoes and stockings to match.
In fact for first time decided that could bear wearing my customised clothing for the event, though with some Shiny Things flats rather than my shoes. The Infolit Week in SL necklace and earrings rounded out the look, and also a small bluebird on my shoulder.
Before this had tinkered around with other sculpties, to make some kind of artifact to put in the pack. Ended up by stretching bottle sculpty, putting a sort of label on it with the seminar banner and "sit on me" and when you sit on it it disappears and you are sitting in a meditation pose in mid air.
This was not altogether deliberate. I WAS intending to put the pose in the bottle, and I was able to change some of the parameters, but I didn't know it was going to disappear when you sat on it (think the script must be assuming it is a pose ball, that you would want to disappear). Didn't work out how to rotate the sitter round 90 degrees either, but in the end thought it was quirky enough to pass muster. You could have a circle of them as seating, then when you all sat you would be suspended in air. Cool or what (don't answer that one)
Other disappearing thing that will mention was the floor. The venue floor is taken from the "Cercle" build that used as HQ from Infolit week in SL, rather a nice stone round. When standing about chatting afterwards noticed that half of this had vanished. Also could no longer see a variety of other things e.g. posters, Farradane Centre, half of Hobbiton. Had had a couple of people in the event who dashed around fruitlessly for most of the afternoon (and continued to do so as we stood and talked) so worried that had been griefed. Going back in later, it seems that the buildings are ok, and the posters are back, but the floor isn't. Did I delete it by mistake?

Garment Making

Garments created successfully: 6 (good); Garments created unsuccessfully and deleted: 5 (bad)

Decided that must follow custom and create freebie clothing to publicise Centre for Information Literacy Research. Have decided that if create clothes of any merit will offer them free as incentive to visit office.

In RL never wear t-shirts with round necks or t-shirts with logos and have felt no need to start in SL either, however seems de rigeur to offer logo t-shirt. Therefore sought out info on how to do this.

Found good powerpoint on how to make a customized t-shirt on that excellent resource Slideshire, namely http://www.slideshare.net/trottahe/making-a-tshirt-in-second-life by Heidi TeeCee and Corwin Carillon.

This led to link to their v. good "Hit the ground running" page http://sl.nmc.org/wiki/NMC2007_Hit_The_Ground_Running which will bookmark for use by students & colleagues. Includes link to template of a shirt (for use in Photoshop) http://www.heiditrotta.com/second_life/rswt_shirt.psd and also Robin Wood's Second Life tutorials site (template is his) http://www.robinwood.com/Catalog/Technical/SL-Tuts/SLTutSet.html

Followed through Wood's tutorial for creating t-shirt with logo in Adobe Photoshop. Already use Photoshop a lot, but only in elementary way e.g. had never really bothered with Layers. Found tutorial v. good and easy to follow. Would recommend it.

Had not previously realised that if don't want garments to look strange swirly mess have to use templates which have garment elements on them. Having created the template with patterns and colours of choice in RL, then import image to SL and use it as Texture when creating garment.

There is the SL official collection of templates http://secondlife.com/community/templates.php, their Texture Templates http://secondlife.com/community/textures.php and Chip Midnight's templates http://goodies.onrez.com/shop/chipmidnight/ Also useful areTexturing Tips forum http://forums.secondlife.com/forumdisplay.php?f=109

Made some mistakes e.g.
- When using Linden Labs template forgot to hide background layer initially which led to garments all having strange lines on them. Photoshop Layers were in fact mystery to me before now and still have not quite got hang of them.
- Still can't work out where different parts of the sleeve end up (front, back or side of arm)
However, reasonably satisfied with first efforts. Pictured here are:
1) A Nigl Forder t-shirt (Nigl is one of my colleagues). There is also a Sheila Yoshikawa t-shirt.

2) Centre for Information Literacy Research t-shirt. This is female version (as with Nigl t-shirt - men's versions have higher necks and are longer)

3) Black Dept of Info Studies outfit. LL provide a black leather jacket template, which customised with Sheffield University logo on lapel, name of Dept on back of the jacket (not seen), Information Managers written on sleeve (not quite in position intended) and Information Managers down side of trousers. Also made clumpy black leather shoes.

4) and 5) Patterned shirt with no logos on (me lounging by the pool in Bedfordia, as in pic 2) It is worn with White Lily trousers, a white camisole from an ICING dress set (just seen, as they say in women's magazines), and some of the Earthtones jewels that I bought in their sale.

Kimono, Kitten, Creation, Meeting

Kittens bought: 1 (v. good); Kimono bought: 1 (good); Meetings: 1 (good); Poster created: 1 (v.v.good)

A busy evening. Decide this is night for Creation. Find sandbox, Build, Create, and Edit. Create cone and delete. Then manage to reshape cube into flat sheet. Had previously created ppt slide which says Centre for Information Literacy Research, made into jpg and imported into SL. Now add this as Texture and hey presto, have cool poster. Am v. proud.

Unfortunately cannot yet put in office as can't Create there. Therefore travel to University of Southern Queensland and to take pic (see above).

Whilst back in SL office, contemplating purple wall, IH IMs to say has found kittens for sale. Hurrah again! Teleport over to shop and purchase tabby. Comes with pillow, toy and instructions. Still cannot Create in Eduserv office so off to Abo Akademi to play.

SL Kitten has certain disadvantages e.g. is not soft and furry, and goes strange colours if viewed from too far away. On other hand obeys commands, can be stashed in inventory, unlikely to be run over by car and will not develop picky taste in catfood.

Have not yet named it. Was tempted to name after RL (ex) cat, but seems disrespectful (i.e. to RL cat). Or would it be tribute?

Celebrate return to SL further by purchasing yet another kimono. When get back to office realise that kimono is same colour as carpet.

Oh well. At least isn't same colour as wall.

Have discovered can sit on top of window whenever like. Do so.

Finally, accept kind invitation to meet with IH and CH in Second Nature. Other 2 look v. cool. Really must find way to edit own appearance.

After chatting stand up and discover am balancing on glass table. V. amusing.