Xanna's Designs

Christmas is Coming!!

2011-11-24T10:35:00.001-08:00

Creating things in Second Life is fun, rewarding and often challenging as you try to manipulate prims to suit your needs. I've been enjoying creating jewelry for the last year, and have just discovered that a lot of my sculpted prims can be made super small! I created a sculpted dolphin for a fountain a while back, and it looks even better as a necklace! If you are looking for great Christmas Gifts in Second Life, check out these necklaces:
Dolphin Pendant Necklace

If you check out my store, you will also find Christmas Trees, wreaths, stockings, and other items that will decorate your home for the Christmas season!

I'm still working with the LSL scripting language, learning is slow though because RL work has me busy (gotta support my habit somehow)

That's all for now friends!

Scripting LSL language

2011-11-14T10:00:00.001-08:00

Ok, so I've been reading and trying to absorb. It all makes sense and is the same as what I've learned many years ago, so nothing new so far. This language is similar to C, which I've learned many years ago but have nearly completely forgotten. Haven't exercised my brain in it for many years, but it's coming back!

This is going to be a long process, but like many other things I've self-taught myself I will learn it! More on this after I've read more tutorials and tried some exercises.

Scripting LSL language

2011-11-13T09:10:00.001-08:00

Being a teacher type person, I learn best by helping others and explaining things or figuring them out first hand....but with that being said, I can't seem to grasp the lsl scripting language! Grrr...

I can read it, I can find errors in it, I can change values and re-create scripts or change what they do slightly...but, for the life of me, I can't wrap my head around the order of this style of scripting. So, it's back to the basics I guess.

I will update with what I learn in the next few weeks, as I have an idea of something I'd like to make and it is going to require a script that is unique. Wish me luck!

Sculpting Jewelry

2011-11-12T20:00:00.001-08:00

Something I've become quite good at now is creating items that are very simple, but creating multi prim items as a single prim. For example, a string of beads...I can string these beads together with anything from 3-8 beads per strand or prim. The set I'm about to show you has 4 pearls per prim, so it cuts down on the prim count on body.

Gold and Pearl Belly Chain:

Belly jewelry and waist chains are very popular! They look great with low cut jeans, bikinis, summer shorts, short cropped tops and even worn over some dresses. Check these out on my marketplace too, they are reasonably priced and look very realistic and sexy of course ;)

Saturday and we've got Jewelry!

2011-11-12T09:53:00.001-08:00

So today I decided that I'd introduce some of the intricate work my partner and I have been doing with jewelry. First showcase today is a custom heart pendant necklace. This has a chosen name on it, within a heart and comes in gold and silver. I sculpted the heart in 3ds and the part that the heart hangs from. The letters are a builders kit that was purchased. Builders kits have proven invaluable to us in getting products out there. Here it is:

Definitely check it out on the Second Life Market

Wow...has it been that long? Texturing and scripting Christmas things!

2011-11-11T22:10:00.001-08:00

Well, life keeps me busy for the most part, and I keep forgetting this project...always seem to have something new on the go, and don't find time to write about things. So, that being said, here is the latest.

I've been learning so much, my mind is bursting with the knowledge I've gained over the last year. When I started this blog, I was going blind into something that I knew I would enjoy and it was a huge learning curve for me, but I've since learned a lot and although I've learned so much, there are things I've not even come close to touching when it comes to this 3d world.

I am the proud owner of over 200 designs in Second Life now. Mostly I create my own 3d sculpts and use them in my own designs or hand them to my partner to use in his. Some things are in still in progress, so I won't talk about them, but I will start to showcase what I have put out there on the market.

Last time I blogged, I was making Christmas stuff. Christmas lights, trees, stockings and other things. Since then I've improved the design of my trees, and with the help of a friend, I've tweaked the twinkling of my lights. They no longer just flash green, red, blue...but, randomly flash those colors together, separately and alternating. The effect is a really neat, here's a few pictures to show how it looks.

New Items and Updates

2010-12-01T00:18:00.000-08:00

Well, I've been busy as of late, creating some Christmas stuff! Check out the SL Marketplace for my items and look for more to come. Here's a sneak peek!

Christmas Stockings! Single prim sculpted 2 stockings. I finally got textures to bake on nicely..more on that later!

Next is my Christmas Lights. These lights are scripted to change colors and the effect is great! Single prim 10 meter string is copyable and modifiable so you can stagger them for different effects or change angles for every roof design.

And finally for now...My sculpted low prim color changing lights Christmas Tree! The lights blink red/green/blue and the tree itself comes with or without a star. It is 3 prims and I will be adding a version with gifts under it.

Hope you all have a Merry Christmas!

I haven't updated in a while

2010-11-08T09:30:00.000-08:00

I have been trying to learn a lot of new things recently, getting the hang of texturing and creating clothes, still trying to learn how to bake textures onto 3d sculpts, learning the adobe cs5 software instead of paintshop pro and learning more about 3ds max. I have had limited time over the last couple weeks due to higher hours at work, so I feel like I'm stalled on my building. I'm still at it though and will update as I finally master each of the new things I'm learning.

Baking Textures - 3ds Max

2010-10-18T10:19:00.000-07:00

I had never created anything in 3d for anything until recently, but have always wanted to do so. My head is so full of ideas that I'm trying to learn and implement. One of biggest challenges is mastering a good 3d program to do my work in. I've chosen 3ds Max with a plug-in called Prim Composer that allows you to create and export objects for Second Life. I've spent hours watching tutorials on both the program itself and the plug-in and getting a grasp on how to create my objects and export them, and I have already imported projects into Second Life that are currently selling on the Second Life Market Place and in my stores in-world.

The next step: Creating textures for complex objects. This is challenging because each object is basically a wire frame 3d image that has a texture wrapped around it. The texture itself needs to be painted flat, then it wraps around and there is a seam or seams. You need to paint the image to match up at the seams and to accurately represent what it is you are trying to make. For instance, I have made a single prim stack of eight hay bales. When I apply the hay texture, the seams don't match up and there are separate faces on each bale that go in different directions so it looks kind of like a patchwork of images. My goal will be to make these patches all face the correct direction! Here is a picture of what it looks like when the texture is not "baked" onto the actual sculpt and just applied to the prim in-world with no editing.

I hope to be able to update this page with a new image that has a baked texture on it. Wish me luck!

Update! Redone hay bales:

Projects

2010-10-13T20:32:00.000-07:00

Some of my 3d projects for Second Life:

Lily pads - This was my first project, and was a request from a friend in-world. I built them using sculpt studio and first made them with 4 leaves/stems, then I proceeded to build a flower for them, I will post a picture of the slices and how they looked, it was confusing at best! It turned out to be a pretty decent little piece of art for the most part, and I went on to create a 10 lily pad version that had 2 flowers.

The next picture is of the slices used to make the flower, beside a picture of the finished product. Gives you an idea of how complex some of these sculpts are and how hard the sculptors work at this. It is no easy task to keep track of 64 slices!

My next project was not done with sculpting, just regular prims. I wanted to make some Halloween items that would be low prim as well, so I first made some Jack-o-lanterns. How I made them glow is my own little secret (at least for now), but they look awesome at midnight and very realistic!

I have so many items, please check out my SL Marketplace listings to see them all. I won't bore you with too many more at the moment.

Designing in Second Life

2010-10-12T11:18:00.000-07:00

Learning about creating items for any type of game is challenging and fun. I've begun creating 3d objects with single prims for Second Life and can't believe how much easier it's gotten in the last month or so! I use a combination of programs, and one in-world program.

In world, I use Sculpt Studio with a plug-in that helps to build basic shapes, the plug-in can be found at Tama Tools. Sculpt Studio is a great program and is quite simple to use, although I'm sure I have not touched anything more than the basics in this program. I've created a number of my sculpts with this product.

Recently I began using another program called Sculpty Paint and basically use it to create simple object sculpt maps to import into 3ds Max for tweaking. It's rather fun to play with and I'm sure with some mastery it will prove invaluable to my sculpting. The great thing about it is that it has a painting program built right in where you can paint your textures directly onto the sculpt and then save them for import into Second Life.

3ds Studio Max is the third program I'm using. This is coupled with a plug-in called Prim Composer this plug-in allows you to save sculpt maps to be imported into Second Life. 3ds Max is a program I've had for many years, but have never really sat down to learn. If you go to the Prim Composer link I've added into this blog, you will find the tutorials invaluable. Make a slice of pie and I can promise you will learn lots, I did! Who would have known one basic object would kick start me on the road to being able to figure out this complex program? I certainly didn't know, but now I'm building stuff!

Please visit my Halloween store Xanna's Halloween Emporium for low prim items for Halloween! You will find single prim hay bale stacks (8 bales/1 prim), single prim spooky trees, single prim spider webs, low prim spider and lots and lots of jack-o-lanterns that glow! I also take custom orders for the jacks, if you would like a particular design just IM me in world and I'll be happy to oblige. My pumpkins are only 19L each, and I have an MM board for a free one. Customs will be 25L and up depending on the intricacy.

Look for my latest items on the Second Life Marketplace and save money with monthly promo's and more!