Style Info:

• Skin: [ROCKBERRY] Uma B tan
• Eyes: :: Exodi :: Zbilja Eyes (Hazel)
• Sandals: AOHARU – Ethnic Bijou Sandals, YellowBeryl
• Skirt: Skin Flicks – Georgie Skirt Cream, with belt
• Hair: .:[ Tiny Bird ]:. Girl Anachronism – Pomegranate
• Tube Top: MIEL – MO TUBE TOP – lapis
• Earrings: Zaara : Sarayi hoops *wood*, gold
• Bracelets: Zaara : Patra gold wire bracelets *amber*
• Sunglasses: Epoque -  Oversized Shades – Metal
• Bag: [Armidi Gisaci] Focsani Bag – 24k Gold

~Felicity

You can’t format notecard text much nor can you include photos. Enter the SL book, where each page is a texture, and you have complete control over its appearance. You’ve seen them around I’m sure. You can rez them and flip through the pages or wear them as a hud to do the same.

I recently wanted to publish a calendar (or more properly, and unCalendar)  for fun and give it as a gift to a friend. I’ve also been considering publishing technical and marketing information for my biz as an in-world book, so it was time to dig into book publishing.

The Basic Book

Basic book technology is available from a number of vendors. I’ll mention three:

• IntelliBook, by Intelli Group
• Thinc Book, by THiNC
• Master Animated Book, by J&M Creations

Book publishing in SL is pretty much the same for all these technologies, with some minor twists. You get a blank book, which is modifiable, and drop textures into the book’s contents. Each texture is one face of a page, and the order the pages sort in determine the order of the pages.

You can set the cover textures and spine using either specially named textures in the contents or via a config card. Once you’ve got your content set up and the master book looking the way you want, you run it through a publishing script. This produces a copy of the book that is not modifiable, but is transfer / copy, that you can distribute freely.

In the case of IntelliBook and Thinc, the authoring is done using a separate publishing machine (pictured above). In the case of the J&M technology, the master book does its own publishing.

IntelliBook and Thinc sell blank books in a five pack for 350L, while J&M’s master book is copiable you don’t need to buy subsequent blanks. You might think having to buy blanks is a big deal, but when you’re paying 10L a page for the texture upload, the cost of the blanks fades into the distance fast.

Using PowerPoint to Author

Photoshop is great for detailed work, but if you need to do a 100 page document with more text and diagrams than pretty pictures, you need something else to author your content.

I’ve been in high tech management so long, the tool I can breeze in faster than the wind is PowerPoint. For technical explanations that include graphics and diagrams, it’s hard to beat. So I set up a new PowerPoint template and set the page up so it was square.

I tweak away on color and fonts and background graphics, aiming for a clean look, and when I’ve got some test pages, a basic cover and back I use the PowerPoint export to .png format to dump the slides as images.

Now, Slide1.png, Slide2.png etc. is going to be hard to keep track of in my SL inventory, so I kick up another handy freebie tool I use, the Bulk Rename Utility out of the UK. This tool is a geek’s dream for handling bulk file renames.

Once I’ve got the files renamed, I bulk upload them into SL and drop them into the book, configure the cover graphics and bam. It’s ready to go.

Stepping Things Up for Serious Publications

For my purposes of preparing promotional materials, technical documentation and classroom take aways, the basic book stuff is fine. For serious publishers however, I have to say the IntelliGroup have taken things to a whole new level with their magazine product line.

Larger publications will benefit from a table of contents. For publishers serving advertisers, these products enable landmarks, slurls, notecards and URLs. There is a set of tabs on the edges of each page that indicate which of these offers is available when the page is shown. The higher end magazine product enables links from anywhere on the page, animated ads and even gifts to be offered straight from the magazine page.

It’s pretty hard to argue with the obvious benefits this offers a publication in terms of services to their advertisers, but it comes with a hefty price tag. The publishing system for the magazine system, while admittedly a one time cost, runs  7495L for Mag Factory Lite, and 14995 for Mag Factory v2.

This compares to a cost of 895 (Thinc), 1795 (Intellibook) or 2000 (J&M) for the basic book publishing systems mentioned above.

Interesting Places

I’ll leave you with a couple of fun slurls. Two interesting places I found in researching this to feed your urgent bookworm urges:

• The NASA CoLab – Library and Archives. They have a stack of space books. This is actually run by NASA, so if you’re a space geek, check it out.
• The Rack – Magazine Store. They have a ton of kiosks for freebie magazines as well as for sale mags. The porn is on the 2nd floor (you knew it had to be there).

For example; this skirt from Canimal… I LOVE this skirt.  I adore all the layered pieces to it, and the patchwork texturing!  So then the skirt makes me think about the Cubic Effect jacket, another love that I haven’t worn in about a year, and finally an ancient pair of Tres Blah glasses! =)

This is my heading towards fall look, tho it is still about a thousand degrees here in RL, I can dream, can’t I?

Style Info:

Skin: Laqroki – Jessica 04 [Fair] Glow skin (brown brows)
Eyes: Exodi -  Zbilja Eyes (Hazel)
Hair: fri.day – Deena – Jealous Red
Glasses: Tres Blah – counterpoint glasses (Tortoise)
Jacket: Ce Cubic effect – Short leather jackets for women(Brown)
Tank: Aphrodite Creations – Lace Old Red
Skirt: Canimal – Patches Skirt
Bracelet: DP YumYum – bracelet set (brown)
Shoes: Maitreya Gold – IXkin Champagne-Duo

~Felicity

Can we talk for a second about photo aspect ratios and profiles? I’m never sure if I should mention it, but a lot of folks walk around SL with profile pics and shots in the pick list that are just WRONG. That’s because your profile pic isn’t square. Photos in your picks aren’t square either. If you use a square cropped shot here, the effect is NOT slenderizing.

The pick example above is a case in point. It’s a classic 1024×1024 square cropped portrait dropped into a pick photo. Holy wide faces. We’re doin the chipmunk thing.

Here’s the original shot. It works well for passing around in SL and putting up on a wall because it’s square, and SL likes square shots. You can see that our faces are properly proportioned. Nice.

So, let’s figure out how to get this working for us, not against us.

Aspect Ratio

Aspect ratio is a description of the shape of a photo – how wide an image is as compared to how tall it is. Squares have a 1:1 aspect ratio, because the height and width are the same. A standard TV has an aspect ratio of 4:3 – four wide to three high. It doesn’t matter how big the TV is, the ratio is the same.

You’ve already dealt with aspect ratio when you flip channels on your TV. Some stations are sending video at 4:3, the standard TV format while high definition is 16:9. To avoid having short stubby people or tall thin people, you either have black bars on the top or sides of your TV on one or the other, since both formats won’t fill the screen completely without distorting the picture.

SL Aspect Ratios

SL has aspect ratios too. The aspect ratios the viewer will force on a picture that is uploaded is 1:1, 1:2 or 2:1. If you’ve ever uploaded a shot that looked good on your screen but was all wonky when upload, that’s why.

Let’s look at how to adjust our crop (DON’T re-size or you’ll just be distorting the picture yourself) to get an aspect ratio that works for a pick placement. It turns out the aspect ratio in picks is approximately 9:5, so let’s crop this shot as shown below:

and now our photo is cropped to the same shape (aspect ratio) as the frame in the picks tab of your profile. Go ahead and upload it now.

Hey, wait a second – the faces are wide again. Yep. That’s because SL wants to display shots in the viewer with standard aspect ratios – in this case it’s showing it as a 2:1 ratio, which means we’ve stretched the faces again. Wait for it though. We drag the photo onto our picks…

… and it narrows it up again. That’s because the picks frame is now compressing the width of the shot.

Doing This All the Time

So, I take a fair number of photos and folks seem to like’em. They ask “do you mind if I use that shot in my profille?” Well, yes. Yes I do. I gave you a square shot, so it would look good in the viewer. It’ll look like hell in your profile – so let me get you a profile shot. Or a pick shot. Or a shot for your land’s LM.

I’ve got crop presets configured in PhotoShop that I can dial up to produce a perfect crop for each purpose (cause folks, every one of these scenarios has a different aspect ratio).

It took me a bit of puzzling using screen captures to figure out the crop configurations to use for various displays in SL. I’m happy to share:

• Profile photo: 600×512 pixels.
• Picks photo: 900×512 pixels.
• Landmark photo: 721×512 pixels.

So there you go. Can I pass you a tissue to get that mascara off your face?

Style Info:

Skin: Laqroki -  Jessica 07 [Fair] Glow skin (brown brows)

Eyes: Exodi -  Zbilja Eyes (Hazel)

Belt: Dark Mouse -  Wild Animal Belt (Leopard/Gold)

Shoes: Detour – Glamour Metallic Pumps – Gold

Shirt: Armidi Gisaci – Cambridge – Gold Afrillia

Hair: TRUTH – Alex – cherry

Jeans: Tuli – Worn denim capris [light]

Bracelet: Zaara – Kaya onyx – bracelet

Earrings: (:;S&S;:) @ amerie’s NAUGHTY – GOLD LOVE Pierce

See ya next week kiddies!

~Felicity

This has been a busy week in RL and SL. When the heat is on, sometimes the fun factor kinda gets a bit thin. Isle and I don’t get out as much as we used to because of her bandwidth issues. A lot of our SL time is about getting stuff done when we can.

But this week, we got some fun in. We managed to spend a couple of hours exploring NeoKowloon, which is one wacky cool place. Tucked in a shop, what did I find? An Ornithopter! 200L!

So last night, we spent twenty minutes of silly hilarity takin it for a spin.

Fortunately, it comes with instructions.

右クリック「Fly」で飛行
右クリック「Stand Up」で停止
「W」or「↑」で前進
「S」or「↓」で後退
「E」or「Page up」で上昇
「C」or「Page down」で下降
「A」or「←」で左旋回
「D」or「→」で右旋回

Ok, it had some English in there too, but it was more fun trying to figure out the Japanese.

The metal cockpit cover slides back and I jump into the driver seat. Off we go. I think Isle said “Wheeeee!” but I might be wrong.

So here we are over our sim, buzzing the neighbors. I was wearing a huge hair from Helena Springer, and it kept flowing out of the top and back of the ‘thopter. Warning: You may have to consider your hair options carefully when flying.

So I go bald. There. Now we won’t look goofy flying our spherical metal ball with a propeller on its butt, flapping its wings.

You really can’t miss the propeller butt. It’s got a blinking red light just to be sure you notice.

We land gracefully enough on the lawn. Isle jumps out and I rev the engine.

Hey!!!! Wait for meeeeee!!!!!

Hahahahaha!

Not so hot on the second landing. I crash it into the Adirondack chairs and get it stuck on the barbeque. The poor thing looks pathetic, sadly flapping its wings. We jump out and I stuff it back in my pack. Time to go dancin.

On a more serious note, both Isle and I were impressed with how well this little thing flew. It banks and turns nicely and takes no learning at all. At 20 prims you can park it on your land as a conversation piece. Perched on the peak of the cabin we’re thinkin.

Only the owner can fly it though, so we’re heading back to Kowloon to get Isle one. Races and Dogfights comin’ up!

I needed that. Isle needed that. Not every hour you spend in SL needs to be too busy for words. Not every gadget post needs to be some in-depth analysis thing.

Don’t forget to have some fun now and then.

Ornithopter-3 by Raku Factory

For anyone who doesn’t know me; I am the creator/blogger of My Second Closet, as well as the Advertising Assistant for Second Style!

I don’t claim to have any particular style or taste, mainly just hoping to give you some ideas.  I am going to try and NOT blog newness, since I do that so much on my own blog, but more or less put together what I find at the bottom of my closet.   Which might give you some new uses, for old goodies!

So this week; I was feeling like dressing for some city shopping, something a little urban with a bit of attitude (and of course sex appeal).

Style Info:

Skin: *League* Skin Medium -Misty- Glam (BT)
Eyes: :: Exodi :: -  Zbilja Eyes (Hazel)
Bag: Celestial Studios -  Hobo Bag – (Leopard)
Shades: EPOQUE – Oversized Shades (Metal)
Tights: amerie’s NAUGHTY – TornFishnerTights MIDNIGHT
Boots: ETD – Sasha Boot (Black)
Tank: LaLa FooFoo – T-shirt Tank (Ash)
Skirt: WRONG – Animal Mini (black)
Hair: .:.Foam!.:. – Floe l (Reds) (**I hear they’ve closed?!**)
Bangle: *Ticky Tacky* – Hoopty Hoops of Love Bangle – Love Kills

See ya next week kiddies!  <3

Check out some pics from the last show, as well as a list of participating designers, after the jump …

Black Swan 077 Retouch

Black Swan 085 Retouch

• Amutey DeCuir – Bliss Couture
• Autumn Hykova – Tiny Bird (Hair)
• Ayesha Bisiani – Skin Within (Skins)
• Brandy Rasmuson – Shine (Jewelry)
• Callie Cline – Callie Cline Designs
• Candy Cerveau – Eye Candy (Jewelry)
• Cherelle Capra – C & D Designs (Home Style)
• Dezi Jarvinen – Staged
• Evangeline Miles – Evie’s Closet
• Ghanima Uriza – ++Blue Blood++
• Helena Stringer – The Stringer Mausoleum (Hair)
• Ivey Deschanel – SN@TCH
• Jamie Holmer – INDI Designs
• June Dion – Bare Rose Tokyo
• Kavar Cleanslate – Exile
• Kellie Iwish – Elate!
• Lorac Forella – Pulse (Skins)
• Morphine Janick – The Sweetest Goodbye
• Morrigan Denimore – The Black Canary
• Raven Pennyfeather – House of RFyre
• Rezit Sideways – Designs of Darkness (Tattoos)
• Rouge Darcy – Rebel Xtravaganza
• Ryker Beck – Exodi (Skins)
• Samsara Nishi – Sam’s Secrets
• Sissy Pessoa – Baiastice
• Sky Everett – Sky Everett Designs (Hair)
• Star Fairymeadow – Wretched Dollies
• SySy Chapman – SySy’s Designs
• Tabitha Ninetails – The Laughing Academy
• Zaara Kohime – Zaara

Black Swan 088 Retouch

From the Teen Grid, Arwyn Quandry is one of several teens that keeps a careful eye on content thieves, uploading pictures of theft to flickr so that Main Gridders can identify and report their stolen content for removal. While the Teen Grid is losing a great asset, we’re gaining one, which is why it’s essential that we make her feel welcome right from the start. To that extent, she has admitted that she has never snuck over to the Main Grid. A true MG virgin.

Click for larger pic and full details!

What do we do with virgins? We sacrifice them, of course. Come to Rouge on Saturday, August 1st, at 5pm SL time where we will take Arwyn’s (non-sexual) Main Grid virginity by showering her with gifts and friendship offers. We’ll also be celebrating her 18th birthday. Many thanks to our DJ for the night, Nexeus Fatale, and location host, Codebastard Redgrave. If you cannot attend and would still like to give her a gift, she will not be arriving on the grid until after 8am SL time. You can also drop a transfer gift to moo Money, who will ensure that it gets to Arwyn safely.

There will be a Blogger Pre-Party today at 4pm PST/SL time to pick up the exclusive Hunt Prizes before the Dog Days of Summer hunt kicks off from August 1st to 8th. There’s also a photo contest going on if you’re interested.

• Nexeus Friday @ Club Fusion – Friday, July 31 – 8:00-10:00pm SLT DJ Nexeus Fatale puts his own funky spin on house music, hip-hop and electronic music that will have you burning up the dance floor.
• Industrial Dreams @ Club Fusion – Saturday, August 1 – 7:00-10:00pm SLT DJ Dream Resistance brings her edgy, industrial style to Club Fusion every Saturday. You don’t want to miss this interactive and energetic dance party!
• Weekend Wrap Up @ Club Fusion – Sunday, August 2 – 2:00-4:00pm SLT DJ Dilly Dawes takes your requests each and every Sunday at Club Fusion. Dance with friends while you recap the weekend’s happenings. The perfect weekend wind down.

In case you weren’t sure, all of these events are at Club Fusion. As always, you can find these events in the Social Calendar.