14 November, 2009

in the fields of love, you're the scarecrow

One world, one avatar certainly doesn't work for me; apparently, it doesn't work for a lot of other people either.

Ann O'Toole explains lag again. It has nothing to do with ARC, it has nothing to do with your shoes or your hair, she says--unless they're scripted to resize. Mostly, it comes down to three factors: scripts each avatar is carrying (in the HUDs, the fishing rods, the AOs, the resizing clothing/shoes/hair/accessories, the gadgets, the multi-tools, Tiny Empires, Bloodlines, the Hunger, and every other resource-clogging HUD it's possible to wear), enabling Windlight, and actually walking around in avatar form ourselves.

Sucks to be us.

Dragon Age apparently is having some bizarre avatar problems. I have to say, based on that, they have SL's fold-in-half-for-proctology move beat.

In other (decidedly NSFW) news, the age of sculpts and ultra-realism have hit...genitalia. And it's not pretty. (Think that's bad? Try this on for size. Now even cheaper-looking!)

I swear, I saw either of these coming at me--anywhere at me--I'd throw salt and run screaming, I'm not kidding. A), they do not look "ultra-realistic". B), they do not look "natural", or even "natural for SL" (which in my estimation is even more important). Basically, if you're going to use photorealistic textures, and it looks artificial and scary, you are fail at photorealism. And C), this is Second Life! We're used to male genitalia--and female genitalia--looking wonky! Trust me, this does not help!

On occasion, Twitter shakes me to my foundations:

"Such silence tonight. The earth might be uninhabited. I told her it was no use going on and she agreed."
~John Larroquette
That's just...damn. That's hard. Beautiful, but hard.

And the image below comes from Wordle. One of the earliest entries on the Train Wreck turned into a word cloud. It fits...


Wordle: The Train Wreck Love Life, in short

2 comments:

Dio said...

Hey Hon, with regards to your news and links to images of those delightfully textured sets of wedding tackle:

I can now say I have seen the prim-based manifestation of why the act of carnal knowledge is known in some circles as "bumpin' uglies."

If products like these don't foster a renewed fervor for cyber-celibacy, I don't know what will.

Emilly Orr said...

That was my basic reaction.

I mean, okay, long and short of it (pun understood if not intended) comes down to, I'm not a guy. If I'm in a skin without genitalia, I can just fake it. Technically, even my best skins are just painted on, where it counts.

Guys, well, they don't have default genitalia to work with. So I get the worry on wanting something that looks right, but...and maybe this is just personal bias...we're in a virtual world. "Right" can vary wildly.

Not only that, but as far as guy stuph goes--is it better to have something that works and is relatively functional--and attractive enough? Or is it absolutely essential in some way that it looks like real human skin? And in that case...isn't there a problem matching skin tone?

Hells, I have a friend who makes rent on the basis of selling wedding tackle--and I've never heard anyone complain that her work isn't "realistic" enough. Why did the world need more?

hide away, they say, 'cos we don't want your broken parts

Yeah, so...remember that thing I was recovering from? You know, last year ? Yeah. I did it again. So this is Em Faw Down Go Boom part ...