Earthdance 2011

Last weekend, Friday through Sunday, I attended Earthdance 2011 at the Solano County Fairgrounds in Vallejo, California. Yeah, I know Vallejo is not in Second Life but Earthdance is so cool it's like SL plus I have some photos I want to share :)

Earthdance is a 3 day festival held simultaneously in hundreds of locations in dozens of countries. The vision of Earthdance is a world of communities joining in a common goal of global unity, collaboration and evolution toward a Culture of Peace through music, dance, prayer, and activism.

The lineup in Northern California this year included Ziggy Marley, Balkan Beat Box, Les Nubians, Trevor Hall, Indubious, Beats Antique, Delhi 2 Dublin, Faun, Tipper, Mimosa, Emancipator, and many many more.

Here are a few of the photos I took this year:

The Amazing Art of Marcus Inkpen at The Looking Glass

Sharni Azalee and Marcus Inkpen have created a beautiful art gallery and surrounding sim, The Looking Glass at Horizon Dream. I initially visited to see the artwork of Marcus Inkpen as featured in the SL Designers Challenge. I was quickly drawn to the exquisite artwork of J. Matthew Root, on display in the gallery. Astounded, I looked him up on the web and in SL. Duh! J. Matthew Root is the RL artist also known as Marcus Inkpen in SL. Anyway, the art is awesome. Here is a selection of snapshots I took of some of his art starting with the one I went to see, La Mer, a 64 prim glass violin aquarium with animated tail & fins (L$600):

The next two snapshots are a piece titled OPIUM (L$600)

Next is a piece called ESCAPE (L$600)

This next one is called SLEEPY FAERIE (L$600)

The next snapshot is of THE IMAGINE WIND (L$600)

Next we have DISCOVERY (L$600)

Finally, this one is called WATER LILY (L$600)

Truly amazing. Thank you Marcus Inkpen. Hey, did everybody notice how all the art (even the animated aquarium) is only L$600 ? That is a way great deal. Go to Looking Glass and look around.

Black Transparent Latex Cape

The black transparent latex cape from Unique Needs can give any outfit a mystical look. Here I chose to go sexy mystic with the black lace trim top by Valen Texan and black thong by PussinBoots String. Sn@tch Royal bangles, Mandala rings/nails/bangles, and shoes from Kalnins complete the look.

Secret Rock Pool from Zinnia Karu

Zinnia Karu gave me (and all the Organica Happy Clam group) this secret rock pool she made. It's only 11 prims, comes with several animations, can accommodate more than one, and looks great! See the video I made of the secret rock pool.  You can visit Zinnia's cute little store inworld. Thanks Zinnia!

Second Life DJ Scruff Oh

I really think the quality of DJ's in Second Life is amazing. Not only are there a lot of great DJ's but they seem to be gigging all the time and playing for pennies (or maybe a 50L tip here or there). Anyway, it's pretty cool that these talented DJ's are providing us with all this cool music and fun parties.

So, I wanted to give a shout out so some of my favorite DJ's in Second Life and provide a few links to their sites and sounds. I previously highlighted DJ Nico Flux. Today I want to focus on one of my favorite DJ's and follow up in future posts with several others. Please add your own links and shout outs in the comments.

DJ Scruff Oh is one of my favorite DJ's. Scruff is an Australian DJ with a great sense of humor and a feel for tunes. He also runs a website where you can see him spinning via his webcam while listening and dancing and chatting with him in SL. Pretty cool.

• DJ Scruff Oh Facebook Page
• Get Scruffed website
• My video of DJ Scruff at The Gap
• Free DJ Scruff Mixes to download
• Scruff's broadcast stream
• Second Life Profile

More to come! Check out my favorites on Soundcloud and my favorites on Mixcloud.

RL/SL DJ Nico Flux

The other night just by chance a friend teleported me to a dance party with cool psychedelic art and fantastic music. I met and befriended the DJ, Nico Flux. There are so many great DJ's in Second Life. I really think that aspect of our virtual lives is underrated and somewhat overlooked. I mean, c'mon, how often in RL do you go to a club, find great music there, meet the DJ and then get to follow him or her for every gig ? It's cool.

Anyway, I took a few snapshots and wanted to share them with you. You can get an idea of the kind of music Nico plays by listening to this Soundcloud mix he uploaded. Ummm, also, maybe he is a vampire. I really don't know or care - the music he plays is awesome.

Sinful Needs Seraph II Wings

Sinful Needs recently updated their Seraph line of wings, drastically reducing the prim count and improving performance as well as appearance. These are fully featured wings and integrate seemlessly with the Sinful Needs A4 Hud. Extensive controls allow you to configure the texture of the upper and lower wing areas, set the gender and status of emote responses, size, control the movement, automate movement or visibility when flying or landing, and much much more. You can read the Sinful Needs recent blog entry on their wings after checking out my pics below:

Credits:
    Wings by Sinful Needs - inworld shop or SL Marketplace

Pandorabot & Actorbot Add-On

Disclaimer: I am reviewing my own products in this post. They're cool relatively inexpensive products though so I forgive myself :)

The Pandorabot from Restless Studio is not your typical chat bot. Yes, it chats with you in local chat using an artificial intelligence programmed at pandorabots.com in the AIML programming dialect. However, the Pandorabot will also query Wikipedia for appropriate responses, check your spelling, send email, greet new arrivals, and deliver a notecard, landmark, and user guide. All for L$245 and consisting of only a single prim (the perched 3D sculpted parrot Pandorabot is 12 prims). If you don't have a place to rez objects there is a wearable 3D sculpted parrot Pandorabot (11 prims).

For an additional L$150 the Pandorabot can be integrated into an Actorbot to create a realistic 3D animated avatar bot that includes all the Pandorabot features as well as the programmability  of the Actorbot from Sine Wave. The Pandorabot Actorbot Add-On kit consists of a Pandorabot V4, an Actorbot integration script, and a script that can be used to position your Actorbot on a prim and animate it according to what is in that prim. Watch a demonstration Pandorabot Actorbot in this short YouTube video and visit the Restless Studio demonstration Pandorabot Actorbot.

Both the Pandorabot and Actorbot Add-On come with extensive documentation available in PDF online and plain text inworld. Here's a few photos to give you a sense of the Pandorabot look:

Pandorabots are available on the Second Life Marketplace (search for "Pandorabot Missy Restless" or just "Pandorabot"). The Pandorabot Actorbot Add-On is also available on the Second Life Marketplace (search for "Pandorabot Actorbot").

The PDF documentation for the Pandorabot and Actorbot Add-On is available online at http://www.scribd.com/missyrestless . There is also a Pandorabots Blog with lots of How-To's, many more pics, and updated info/links.

Michele Merkin Pool Party!

Michele invited me over for a pool party at her palatial estate. So much fun hanging out in RL in my SL avatar but Michele's hair is really starting to bug me. I'm soooo jealous.

Michele Merkin Hot Tub Party!

My close personal friend and fellow supermodel Michele Merkin stopped by last night for a late night hot tub. With all the string bikini wearing and unwearing and Michele's hair flying in my face I only managed to snap this one photo. Jealous much ?

Photography & Digital Photo Editing by Missy Restless. Michele Merkin photo released under the GNU Free Documentation License (http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Michele_Merkin_1.jpg).

Cyber Shark Machinima

My first true attempt at creating Second Life Machinima (machine cinema), a 2 minute video of a cyber shark swimming in circles at the University of Western Australia Sim. Recorded with Fraps and edited with Windows Live Movie Maker this machinima will be entered into the UWA 3D Art & Design Challenge machinima contest MachinimUWA II: Art of the Artists. 

The video is titled "Yearning For The Sea" and uses "Open Sea Theme" from the movie "The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou" as the audio track. I just fell in love with this beautiful mangled displaced creature and felt like it was constantly struggling to free itself from whatever magical binds held it and swim headlong to the sea that perpetually taunts it on the not so distant horizon.

Quantum Matrix 3D Math Art

Second Life artist/builder Gingered Alsop has recently created a new device that automates the generation of beautiful mathematical 3D sculptures. Called the Quantum Matrix, these creations must really be viewed firsthand to fully appreciate. I'll attempt to present here a few snapshots, a video, and several links to view a demonstration of the Quantum Matrix. The Quantum Matrix will be on display at the University of Western Australia 3D Art & Design Challenge. Go see it!

This is a video I made of photos Gin and I took at her lab.

Parameters for prims and mathematical equations are provided via notecards to a sophisticated LSL script to generate these awesomely beautiful works of art.

Gin owns Phi Designs which runs an in-world store with demos. See my review of the Chamber, a particle lab by Phi Designs.

Many more photos of the Quantum Matrix (those used in the video above) can be seen at my Flickr photostream.

 The artist herself! Photo taken by Gingered Alsop. Gin is way super smart, funny, sweet, nice, and as you can see, cute!