Store Locations

**Update 2009-06-22: I ran out of Lindens and the stores closed. Now I'm back in the black I might open another, but nothing is decided yet. **

I've been looking into setting up a store for a while; and now I have two. They are 'stores' more in the literal sense of being places to store my games, rather than being shops, since everything is FREE.

The locations are:

Wild Hollow: SLURL

Celebration: SLURL

The Wild Hollow store has a higher prim allowance and so there are some extra decorations, but both will have identical content. Tell your friends.

Pocket Battler: Faery Update

... and the faery graphics/model - which still requires some work. In fact it's taking the most work in all respects; control, attack effects, attack coding, and texturing. Let's just say its not my favourite.

Pocket Battler: Pirate Ship update

... and here's the updated graphics/model for the pirate ship.

Pocket Battler: Tank Update

Just a quick update to show the tailored HUD and new model for the tank Pocket Battler. Area effect damage is now also working.

Inventor's Show & Tell - Joint 1st place

Yesterday (31/1) I demonstrated Cannons & Castles at the Rivet Town Inventor's Show & Tell, and was honoured to take joint first place; alongside Edwardian Halberstadt (who won my vote). It was well recieved, with an enquiry as to whether it was for sale, and recommendations for a tournament to launch it. I should really try and do something with it.

Rivet Town is Steampunk-esque role-play sim, and so all the items shown were in that theme. Yesterday's exhibitors were, in order and as far as I remember:

• Sidney Arctor: a submarine in the Jules Verne style, packed full of features.
• Edwardian Halberstadt: a highly detailed film projector, which could actually stream media (including a tiny version on the 'film' at the projection lens).
• Torus Heliosense: also highly detailed gramophone and 'steam compass'.
• -- at this point I was starting to feel ashamed about the plain wood textures I'd used --
• Maximus Ecksol: an ingenious crate that unfolded to four seats and a table.
  
• Professor Sadovnycha: a complex suit of armour, in what I've come to recognise as the creator's unique style, with many hidden surprises.
• Lakhesis Nikolaidis: well designed ear protectors and breathing apparatus.

The event is held every saturday (1pm slt - as shown in the image), and is a great place to see interesting creations; particularly if you have an interest in the steampunk genre.

*update*
The Show and Tell event is no longer taking place, and it seems that the actual Sim it was hosted in might be vanishing from the grid in the near future.

WAIN (Where Am I Now?)

Following yesterday's post, the navigation aide (now named WAIN) can load information from an object in the environment - specifically a UUID for the map, and a list of landmarks. Time for a video - including an unnecessary overlay that I just learnt how to add.

To be a useful system users would need to know where to get these updates, and so I've created a logo to identify WAIN info points. A user arriving in a new location and spotting one of these signs, would then know that some map information is provided.

I have the code to take SL's internal Sim maps and apply it as the texture (taken from a wiki example originally I believe), but the Lindens seem to be in the process of changing the way maps work so I might leave it for a while.

Virtual Navigation Aide

Navigation in virtual worlds is a similar challenge to navigating through the real world. You often need to identify the purpose of buildings and environments through visual cues, and identify a route that leads to your goal location. The nature of Second Life makes lots of people lazy complacent about supporting navigation, generally offering teleport coordinates to a specific location without considering how people will move around once there. Buildings are generally labelled (though often just a vague company name), but there is a distinct lack of directions.

This is to be expected through most of the mainland where ownership is fragmented, but many times I've landed in private Sims and had little clue what was North/South/East/West. Where are the "You are here" maps, the paths with signposts, the guide leaflets, or other examples from the real world? A reasonable answer is "Explore", but to have the desire to do so a person must know that there is something there that they want. If you go to a website, and nothing on the homepage hints at what you're looking for, you'll go somewhere else. Sometimes wandering is the goal, but builders should ask themselves "do I want to help people find things?".

The waffle is due to a navigation HUD that I've been inspired to make (below), which shows your current position and orientation within a Sim (represented by the blue arrow). You're probably wondering why it might be necessary when there are map tools built into the client; but one feature of this tool is that a Sim owner can include their own annotated map, highlighting the different areas. And there's more...

The HUD includes the option for setting landmarks, which are shown on the map as the user cycles through them. These are hard-coded at the moment, but ultimately I aim to have them added dynamically. A user could arrive at a sim and be given "todays" landmarks. If you have generic meeting or teaching rooms, then the landmarks could be for the specific meetings or lessons of that day; if a commercial sim has changing store rentals, then the landmarks could update to the current sellers etc.