New Art Glass Textures for making Stained Glass!

I have a new set of textures for making stained glass in Second Life®.



This set of 15 seamless textures is based on the Art Glass that Tiffany popularized at the turn of the last century. If you have my Stained Glass for SL book, you know how to use this.

At the moment, the license will only get you usage within SL; but if you love them, contact me if you want to use them somewhere else, and I'll see what we can do.

They are available now from TRU (search for 'glass') and at the Texture Library at Livingtree (105,90,20). L$350 for the set of 15 seamless textures. Come check them out!

Windchime Easter Eggs

For spring, wind chimes in large eggs with delicate, ornate kaleidoscope patterns on them, in a dozen different colors and patterns, each more beautiful than the last.



Pick your favorite, or collect all twelve!

They all play a totally random series of six pure sampled chime notes. There are no repeating loops to drive you crazy here, just wonderful, relaxing chimes.

Touch the egg, and the owner can change the volume, or turn the chimes off or on. When you have turned them off, you can choose to start playing again at a new volume, or Resume at the volume you were using, so you don't have to remember what that was.

You really have to hear these to appreciate them! So come and play with the demo, in the Home and Garden store at Livingtree (85,128,24). L$125, Transfer Only, so they make perfect Easter gifts. Tuck one in a basket for someone you love.

See you in world!

New 3D Texture Set from Robin

As I may have mentioned, I'm now designing textures for TRU (Textures R Us).

The first 3D set is now done, and available both at the TRU store and website (look under 3D Build - New Sets) and in the Texture Library at Livingtree (105, 90, 20).



It comes in two sets, for the interior and exterior of a little Victorian style cottage, with gingerbread featuring a wheel in the gable. Which is why it's called Wheel Cottage. (It doesn't have to be this tiny, of course. This is just to show the textures. Anything not included in the two packs is black.)

I tried to make the texture flexible, and easy to recolor. So, along with the gingerbread that's part of the texture, there's a gingerbread "stand alone" and a texture with just a shadow on it, so you can put the gingerbread on a separate prim, if you want. I also included a mask for Photoshop, so you can easily recolor the siding without touching the gingerbread, if you'd like to.

The windows are included with Alphas, so you can see through them, and without, so you won't have any alpha sorting issues. They also come with shutters, with curtains, with a flower box full of purple petunias, with any combination of the three of them, or just plain with nothing; and masks are included to make it simple to change the colors of anything very easily (except the petunias.) There are instructions, too, in case you're not sure what to do in Photoshop. (That's all I use, so if you use something else, I'm afraid you're on your own.)



On the inside, the windows have curtains, flowers from the flower boxes outside, both, or neither; and once again the alpha and no-alpha versions are included. All the interior textures are also included with molding that runs along the ceiling, or without. So if you want to have the wallpaper extend up the inside of the gable, you can; or, if you prefer a flat ceiling, you can have that, too! Most of the inside textures you can mask yourself with just a rectangle. But there's a mask for the door, because it's slightly more involved.



All together, there are 30 exterior textures and 23 interior textures, to make a very charming little cottage. L$750 each pack.

Check them out! I think you'll like them.

Hot off the Presses - Stained Glass Book!

I just finished the latest book in the Livingtree Lecture series, based on the weekly lectures that I give behind the Texture Tutorial.

This one is a 76 page THiNC Book called Stained Glass for SL™. Like all the other books in the series, there's more here than I could cover in the one-hour lecture.



It starts with a discussion of how to make your own stunningly realistic stained glass panel in Photoshop.

Next, you'll learn how to painlessly make an Alpha Channel that has opaque leading and semi-transparent glass with varying levels of opacity. Techniques for doing this with a separate "leading" layer in your layer stack, with a separate "glass transparency" layer, or with nothing but a flat image of your stained glass are all covered; and you'll be delighted to know that the only selection needed for any of them is the super-easy "Command/ctrl click the thumbnail" trick.

Finally, you'll discover how to make four different kinds of Art Glass to use in the windows. (One more than was covered in the half-hour bonus session after the lecture.) When you finish you'll have Textured Glass (with any texture you want pressed into the glass,) Ripple Glass, Wispy Glass and Seedy Glass, in any color your heart desires, to use in your own windows.

(In case you don't want to take the time to make your own glass, I also have a few vendors up with various seamless glass textures in the Texture Library.)

All of this is available now, for the introductory price of L$100, in the Texture Library at Livingtree 113, 97, 25. (Book prices will all be going up in the middle of April, because there is a tremendous amount of work in one of these books.)

Come read the book for free, and buy a copy if you think you can use it!

See you there!

Fishing Tournaments!

Hi!

Your Fishmaster here, to tell you about some of the stuff going on at Cheep Cheep Landing.

We've started creating custom fishes and other stuff for the 7Seas fishing game. We are also holding tournaments on Saturdays at 6:30pm SLT, hosted by yours truly! :-D Prizes are custom trophies by Mari and Gift Certificates to Robin's stores for the first through third place winners.

The customs are being made by all three of us, and we are planning a lot of them! Mari has been making cute toy fish, and she has a topiary fish that must be seen to be believed! I have made a balloonfish (be surprised there) and am working on a custom rod with my own animations - usable with the invisible rod without the standard animations. And Robin has a nice shirt in there, with her standard three different clothing layers (undershirt, shirt and jacket layers). We are also thinking about making a craftable thing, but so far that's just a thought. :-)

We also have set up the bounty hunting minigame. It's set to randomly select any rarity of catch right now, and I set it to randomly select Common fish during the tourneys so fishers of all skill levels can catch something!

I am also exploring the idea of holding Neo-Realms tourneys on our dock. Feel free to tell me what you think in IM or notecard. :-)

Come on down and fish anytime!

Pygar Bu, Livingtree Fishmaster

New Balloon Hats!

Hi!

I made some new balloon hats and they are now on the rack with the others! There is also a bulk hat vendor on the wall behind the rack. All of the different hats are in there, either sold in groups of 5 or 10 at a discount, or the all-in-one bag which has one of every hat!

The hats are modify/transfer and attach at the mouth. :-)

Enjoy! :-D

Pygar Bu