Saturday, October 20, 2007

Without Megaprims...

this post by Douglas Story


Without megaprims...Light Waves' Man Angel would have disappeared.
photo by Finny Yates. slurl


Ah, the power of them three little dots! I refer to the ellipse... Useful in this case because we were all ready to write a scorching propaganda piece with the theme, "Without Megaprims... All This Great Shit Will Go Away!" But now with things looking up on that front (latest word is that the all-powerful Lindens are leaning toward keeping megaprims) I only have to change the part after the ellipse to "...All This Great Shit WOULD Have Gone Away! And What A Damned Shame That Would Have Been!!!" Hmmmm...the first title was snappier though, you have to admit.

Without megaprims...DanCoyote Antonelli's Hyperformalism would have disappeared.
slurl


Without megaprims...Rezzable's Greenies' Home would have disappeared.
slurl


Without megaprims...the irritatingly prolific Juria Yoshikawa's Liquid Light would have disappeared.

I make something new about every seven months. With Juria, it's about every two minutes. I find this annoying. slurl


Without megaprims... Sabine Stonebender's Zero Point would have disappeared. slurl

You'll find a lot of shots here that include Bettina's booty in them. The author wishes to point out that most of the pictures here were taken by Bettina herself. Any booty issues should be taken up with the management.


Without megaprims... The International Spaceflight Museum would have disappeared.
slurl


The thing is...the artists and builders who use megaprims tend to be the most creative, charming, and well-dressed avatars who bring us joy in SL. How lucky we are to have them!

Without megaprims... Douglas Story, Aldomanutio Abruzzo & Desdemona Enfield's FlowerBall would have disappeared.
slurl


Without megaprims...Artoo Magneto's anyMOTION would have disappeared.
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Without megaprims...Gazira Babeli's 'Gaz of the Desert' would not have been possible.

I don't like most of the machinima I've seen. This is 23 minutes of spell-binding, slow-cut magic. See it. slurl



Without megaprims... Cube Inada's Alien Flying Circus would have disappeared.
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Without megaprims...Earth Primbee's Inspire Space Park would have disappeared.
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Yes, it's true that I took this shot myself. But you'll notice - there's no booty. My pictures are entirely booty-free.


(photo by Wellington Bahram) slurl
Without megaprims we would not have Bettina's forest home - Chakryn - by Andrek Lowell,






nor this,








nor this (spanning three effing sims!)
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nor this.
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I'm sure we've missed many wonderful items (I'm sure you'll point them out, gentle readers) but I think we made our point here. The loss of megaprims would be a cheapening, deadening blow to the fields of imagination and creativity that Second Life opens up to people. We hope that this wonderful creative tool remains open to us, for both our creative impulses and for those who appreciate same.

Yoo hoo! Linden Labs? Paging Mr. Michael Linden... Please give the waiting (second) world a favorable answer, and soon!

7 comments:

Bettina Tizzy said...

Douglas dear... I think all will agree that we need MORE posts by you, often and *a lot*.

Anonymous said...

For accuracy: I'm pretty sure that there are no megaprims in the rocket ring of ISM, in particular because their measurements are to scale, and megaprims cannot be rescaled. They don't even use megaprims for the "earth from space" layer across the entire sim at 400m. They do use some in Spaceport Bravo.

I'm pretty sure that Starax's handstand sculpture does not use megaprims either, because I think it was made before they were available.

Bettina Tizzy said...

Hi Seifert!

I just spent a very agreeable time with Jimbo Perhaps, the lead builder of ISM, where he pointed out a number of megas used there. We then went over to the JPL sim and one other, where some *fabulous* satellites and rockets exist thanks to megas. I will post pics soon. It is TRUE that ISM would not "disappear," but megas made it possible to do more.

P.S. Douglas will scrap the pic of Starax's handstand man tomorrow. You might be right about that one.

Douglas Story said...

Bettina, any chance of getting an SLURL for the fab satellites and rockets at JPL?

Anonymous said...

Any prim of any size can be used irresponsibly to cause trespassing issues, unsightly creations, hazards when flying, etc. Many prims linked together to make a large object exacerbate these issues.
Users create such problems, not the prims themselves.

The megaprims are a valuable asset to many of my projects. Sometimes the multi-faceted spheres generated by SHAPEMAKER are just not accurate enough, or smooth enough.
I promote science, technology and education through my constructions.
I have built a Bussard Ramjet, an Asteroid Habitat, RINGWORLD (Larry Niven has seen it and approved it!), ocean-current power generators, windmills, solar power satellites, the Space Shuttle Orbiter Processing Faciility (OPF), and NASA's "Terrestrial Planet Finder" satellite using megaprims. My N1 Russian Moon Rocket uses normal prims only, and totals 500 prims but with judicious use of two or three megaprims, that total would be only 300! This is a huge savings.

These items are on display at:
International Spaceflight Museum, Spaceport Alpha
International Spaceflight Museum, Spaceport Bravo
Space Frontier
Space Studies Institute
NASA JPL Explorer Island
Spindrift

Contact me if you need/want more information.


Jimbo Perhaps

Thea said...

You made a great case here, Bettina : )Perhaps you should have been a lawyer!

Bettina Tizzy said...

Thanks, Thea! However, credit for this post goes to the ever articulate and always fun Douglas Story. I'd say we need to hear more from him, don't you?