Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting
Rwah Yeatly seems to have captured my desperate difficulty in trying to choose just three pictures. “Calling 1962” is a perfect pop art expression of the Sixties. Her description is also a delightful bit of self-deprecation:
I am absolutely top notch when it comes to using carefully created original items, with absolutely epic animations, for something completely different as was intended by the creator. Or simply mess an item up beyond recognition. I am proud to announce that I did both for this picture.
Service announcements from our exchange:
A chair was resized and a telephone was maimed beyond anything. The rest of the stuff was only abused a wee bit.
Now do your duty, all 3 of you who actually read this, and follow the trail.
For more absolutely original avatar pics, click here:
VRChat finally launched official monetization last week right before the Thanksgiving holiday, so it's likely most metaverse folks in the US missed this long-awaited, much-considered feature. (It was announced last May.) Here's the basic gist:
Paid Subscriptions allow everyone in VRChat to directly support the creators they love with dramatically less friction. At the same time, Paid Subscriptions also empower creators to build far more interesting creations with their supporters in mind. Creators can now easily create VIP rooms in their instances that only their subscribers can access. Or maybe they could have a special car or jet that is only available if you’re a supporter. Or maybe supporters get a special icon above their head in their instances. Or, for event runners, priority or exclusive access to your events!
How Do Paid Subscriptions Work?
All VRChat players can now purchase VRChat Credits with real-life money. You can spend these on certain perks that creators set via Groups. Generally, you’ll go to a creator’s Group page, click the “Store” button, and then be presented with a list of things you can purchase. These individual perks are known as Paid Subscriptions! You can purchase one for a certain amount of time: say a month, three months, a year. These are currently not recurring – but will be in the future!
Notable for NWN readers, the payment processing is provided by Linden Lab spinoff company Tilia. So Second Life and VRChat now share the same payment back-end.
Even more notable, the VRChat creators only take 50% of revenue from these paid subscriptions, with 30% going to the platform (Steam, etc.) and VRChat the actual company taking just 20%.
As I've written before, there's well over 1000 VRChat creators already monetizing on other third party platforms (YouTube, Patreon, etc.) , so the question is whether they'll also add this official payment channel.
So I asked some of them! Here's takes from three top VRChat creators, which roughly fall into the Good or Mixed category:
"I think we will look back on this as another milestone in SL history, as impactful as the introduction of sculpties, or mesh, or material texturing," Max Graf, longtime 3D content creator, tells me. Often gruff or outright cranky about Second Life as a platform, Graf is pretty bullish with this update, with some qualifiers: "It is a really good start, though I am most excited about revisions and updates to this process going forward, especially how it will affect environments and terrains. PBR is a massive step forward for SL."
As that suggests, there's been some reported issues with PBR for Mac users (see below). But for now, Max has some starting tips/links for creators who want to play with PBR:
"It does not work on terrain yet, and at first a lot of things are going to look odd, like water, which is a hot mess right now. Eventually terrain will include smart materials but not yet. It will most likely be a different texturing method in world (as opposed to the current hi and low corner limits) as well as GLTF. Reflection probes are critical to PRB really working as it should.
"Blender has smart material /PBR capabilities, but if you do not already have that, Material Maker, s a free, open source app that does a very good job doing what Substance does, without a sub, because fuck Adobe. Adobe does have one tool I would suggest, however, and it is free." (OK, so don't fully fuck Adobe.)
Here's a before/after tutorial from Max on adjusting water for full PBR effect:
She wrote a little about herself on her Flickr About page:
I love exploring all the beautiful places in SL and taking pictures, usually landscapes. I cannot claim any real skill or artistry but I do try to do justice to the spaces I am privileged to wander. Every picture is a memory, a moment of joy and I love that I am able to share these with you.
Well, if the person who created “Ghost" cannot claim artistry, the word has no meaning.
For more extraordinary EEP landscapes, click here:
Here's a survey on how much generative AI will change important parts of human culture, inspired by a debate posted last week. In case you missed it, read the different perspectives below here:
Roughly summarized, one argument suggests AI will totally remake our conception of movies and other culture, replacing many or most creative humans along the way. Another argument suggests AI will become just one tool, much like programs like Photoshop did in previous years — and humans will still be central to creating culture.
Read the debate summary after the break, take the survey, and expand the conversation in Comments below!
Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting
Svelte Blessed takes the most amazing landscape and decor pics. She also lists her credits. I love “The Tom Cat” who is sleeping on that battered, old nailhead chair. I love it.
I asked her how she got such intense color and detail:
“I start with a clear large image using Black Dragon and adjust the WindLight for every picture to create the angle of light and shadows I desire,” she told me. “I use Photoshop for post-processing and often spend a long time on each image, starting first with composite work, then tones, and finally refining details. My key piece of advice is to not be afraid to change things as you go. If something isn't working or [not] ‘popping,’ try something new, go back a few steps and try something new.”
When Charles Bristol was born in 1921, the electric guitar did not exist, and slavery was a living memory still, related to him by grandparents who worked beneath the lash themselves. But as fate would have it, Mr. Bristol would nonetheless live to see a black man made President, and perhaps just as unexpected, see himself made into an avatar, so he could extend his decades-long music career into something called the metaverse.
Second Life became Mr. Bristol's latest venue thanks to another blues musician, known in-world as Etherian Kamaboko,, who lives near him in North Carolina.
Accidentally coming across Mr. Bristol playing blues changed own my career course:
Cyber Monday special for the immersion fan in your life: I'm giving away my autograph plate to anyone who buys a copy of Making a Metaverse That Matters. I'll even write a special (short!) dedication message to you or a special someone.
Here's how to get it!
1. Get a copy of the book (if you haven't already) here:
Wagner James Au / New World Notes 