Bullet Train

I've decided to escape to the North for a few days to get the bones of my web-essay written.

I've had a load of responses from people to get involved, and I'm going to do one of the interviews in Second Life and video it!

Ricard made a trailer for Machinima-Island the other day, and it'll be available to view just as soon as the guy who's making his site publishes it - watch out for the new link down the side next week!

I nipped into Second Life today, to see if Cory Edo (who I'll be interviewing) was about. She wasn't, so I decided to take a trip on the mini bullet train in Nakama, a Japanese themed sim.

Also, we (me n Ricard) discovered a slow motion animation setting in Second Life the other day, which give more frames per movement, so you get better walk-cycles etc., which will be great for the tracing project!

Do Avatars dream of Crocheted Sheep?

I just made this image for the MA booklet. I've decided that instead of a paper dissertation, I'm going to make a website about the internet and creative process and practice on the web. It seems to make more sense to use the web to write about the web.

I'm going to include skype chats, podcasts and second life in world meetings with other web users, to find out how the web has developed and perhaps changed the way they approach their work and even the work they make. - It will be at www.digital-me.co.uk, which I'm about to register today, and I'll post the link down the side when it's available to view (or try this one).

If you're interested in being interviewed, or contributing comments to the new site, let me know, and I'll set you an account up.

The other elements of the MA are a study of my shop, and animation processes using Second Life as a live space. Yesterday, me and Andy captured some Second Life footage of my latest avatar (above) moving around, which I'm going to trace over like I have been doing with these pics.

More tracing paper pictures, played with a bit in Flash;

Tracing Paper

Hmmmm... I'm glad now that I didn't go for that September deadline for Pictoplasma - Mainly because I stumbled on this!

It hit me yesterday, while we were playing on MAYA toon settings (a set of lines and fills that give a cell-rendered effect in 3-d modelling), that what I actually wanted was a scruffy pen line, so that the characters look like doodles.

The idea is to capture footage from Second Life, then redraw over the frames on animation paper and scan them back in. It sounds long winded, but I really like the drawn look - I like it when pens don't always give an even flow of ink, so you end up with scratchy lines, then sudden bursts of ink.

So, last night, I printed out a few of the Machinima images I've posted previously, and traced over them. I really like the effect. In a nostalgia note -when I was little, my mum used to dry out the bits of greaseproof paper you get between frozen slices of meat, and give them to me and my brother to use as tracing paper. "I'm not saying we were poor" (Les Dawson voice goes here). It wasn't as bad as it sounds.

Then again, I am a vegetarian now, so maybe it was!

Next week, I'll post a short animated sequence to test it out. Let me know what you think!

Spooky Second Life Ghost Picture

More messing about with image editing from second life screen grabs...

Ok, I realise it's all just lame filter nonsense, but it's quite nice all the same I reckon, and done in a rush.