Alpha Channel Basics book in the Texture Library!

If you have ever wondered about Alpha Channels in Photoshop®, I finally have all the answers in a handy book form, in the Texture Library next to the Texture Tutorial in Livingtree.



The book is based on the lectures that I gave in October about Alpha Channel Basics, but it's expanded a bit, because I wasn't limited to an hour. :D

Inside, you'll find 36 pages of information explaining what an Alpha Channel is, why an RGBA image is 32 bits, how to make Alpha Channels in Adobe® Photoshop®, how to eliminate all trace of the dreaded "white halo", information about using .png instead, and when you might want to use .tga with a full alpha, instead of .png.

There are 40 colored images, and it was all laid out in Adobe® InDesign®, so it's like a real live book. Except, of course, you can have it in Second Life, where it's easy to refer to while you're working.

Come check it out! You can read it for free, and if you want to have a copy of your own to take away with you, it's only L$100. So you really can't lose!

Once again, you'll find it (along with the book about Making Gradients in Photoshop, and placing textures accurately Inside Hollow Prims) at the Texture Library.

See you there!

Moon Boots for the Snow!

Hi!

It's starting to cool down at Livingtree, and that means snow!

I have some moon boots out in my store now that are modifyable and transferrable. They are specially designed to keep the snow out and your feet in so you can outlast anyone on the snowball battlefields.

;-D

Come take a look!

Pygar Bu

New Prize in the Kick the Can Lucky Chair!

If you haven't encountered a Lucky Chair yet, you should know that it's a chair that will give you a prize if the first letter of your first name matches the letter the chair has randomly generated, and you sit down in the chair.

They are lots of fun, and you can find them scattered around the world, here and there.

I have one at Kick the Can Main Store right inside the door.

From time to time, I change the prize in the chair, and I just changed it.



From now until I change it again, if you sit in the chair when it's showing your letter, you'll receive a Treasure Chest. It's not big, and it's not bitsy. It's just the right size to hold a kid's treasures!

It's made of rough wood, with ornate iron corner protectors on all the corners, and iron banding, held in place with rivets. On the top is a Celtic knot design, burned into the wood. On the front is a plain brass latch, with a loop to put your lock into.

When you touch the chest, it opens to reveal a green interior with gold stars; but only if you are the Owner. Otherwise, it does nothing.

It's Modifiable, so you can put your treasures inside as actual prims. If you have mod/transfer privileges on them, you can even link them, so you can carry your box around, or move it from one shelf in your room to another, or tuck it under your bed, or take it into your Inventory, or whatever you like. When you pull it out and open it, your treasures will be intact. (There are full instructions in the Chest Contents, that tell you how to do this and other things.)

It's also Transferable, so you can tuck something special inside, in the contents, or as Prims, or both, and give it to someone you love.

However, you can't buy it. I hope to have other treasure chests; but this one will never be for sale. You can only get it from this Lucky Chair, and only until I replace it with something else.

So come soon, and try your luck!

New All Season Maple Saplings!

Do you want to change your land as the seasons change in the Real World, but you're tired of having to take up all the trees for one season, and put down new trees for the next?

Then my new All-Season Trees are for you!



Put one of them out, touch it, and choose the season you want from the blue Menu. You can choose Bare, Bare branches covered with white lights, Snow covered branches with white lights, Snow covered branches, Early Spring, Spring, Summer, or Autumn.

Once you've chosen, Select the tree, go to Tools > Set scripts to not running in selection, and the scripts will become dormant, so they won't contribute at all to your sim overhead.

When the season changes, Select again, set the script to running, change the season, and turn it off.

Since these are Maple trees, in the spring they will drop "helicopters" and in the Autumn, they will drop colorful leaves.

The trees with lights are FullBright, but not actual Local Lights. However, since they are all Mod, you can set them to be Local Lights if you choose, and even set how much light they are giving.

At the moment, there are 5 Maple Saplings available, simply called Maple Sapling 1, Maple Sapling 2, Maple Sapling 3, Maple Sapling 4, and Maple Sapling 5. Each one has its own unique coloring for Early Spring, Spring, and Autumn, and each also has its own shape, so even in Summer, or when the trees are bare, they won't look identical.

They are available now from the Robin Wood Home and Garden Store at Livingtree (85, 128, 24), behind the AV store. They come in several different packs, ranging from single trees at L$150, to packs of three (yellow or red) for L$375, a pack with all five colors for L$500, or the Estate Pack, with 3 of each (15 trees) for L$1250.

Since each one is really 8 trees in one, that's like getting a single tree for L$19 or less!

Come and check them out! Full size demos are at the store.

See you there!

Clothing 101 Lectures Start!

The first of the Clothing 101 lectures tonight was a great success!

We had about 25 people in attendance, which was far more than I anticipated, as I showed people how to make clothing using the Appearance Dialog, explained what the Avatar UV Map is and how to use it to design clothing, and showed people about the problem areas.



I also gave out 3 handouts; one with a t-shirt, in tucked and untucked styles, in the section on making textures into clothing, the UV Map Suit, and a Test Suit.

It was a great audience; but I had only scheduled the class to run for an hour, and the first part, with the Appearance Dialog, took longer than I expected. So, sadly, there wasn't time to go into how to make wrinkles on clothing.

I explained this to everyone, offered to stay late and give that section, since it was in the listing, if anyone was interested in it. Several were, and seemed to enjoy it. But since there wasn't really time for it, I'm going to expand it a bit, and give that as its own lecture. At the moment, that series is planned for February 2009. (January is going to be Seamless Textures.)

So, next week, when I give the same lecture, I'll be skipping the part about Wrinkles, and instead briefly touching on the various Clothing Layers, and which ones overlap which. (Something which Immy reminded me that not everyone is familiar with. Thanks, Immy!)

If you missed it, and you'd like to attend, I'm going to be giving this one every Wednesday at 6 PM SL time, in the lecture area behind the Texture Tutorials.

New Stuff for Halloween!

I'm a bit behind on this blog, but I'm catching up now!

First off, the new Limited Edition 2008 Halloween Bear is ready!



This year, the bear is built on the same easy to pose Sculpties as my other bears. He has black fur, with bright purple eyes, an orange muzzle and orange paddy paws. On his head is a sculpty Witches Hat with "Samhain 2008" in gold letters on the band.

Like the other bears, you get five bears in the pack. One sitting, one standing, one to cuddle to your chest, one you can hold in your right hand, and one to hold in your left. The last three have built-in animations. (In SL, we need animations to hold things, or do much of anything, really.)

Because it's Halloween, he's also holding a cute little Pumpkin Pail filled with Candy Corn. Trick or Treat!

His ribbon has a menu-driven color change script, like my other bears, but this one has special Halloween colors, not the usual set.

He's for sale now through Nov. 1, in the main Kick the Can Store and the Robin (Sojourner) Wood AV store on Livingtree. L$150. Mod/Copy/NO Transfer (but there's a gift button on the vendor.) Those two stores have demos you can play with. You can also buy the bear from any Kick the Can Store in world. You'll find it in the big Halloween Vendor, along with the other clothes and special things I have for Halloween.

I've also finished a slew of new t-shirts for the Holiday.



There are five designs, on four different shirt colors (Black, Navy, Orange or Purple.) As always, they come as tucked in shirts on the Undershirt and Shirt layer, and untucked on the Jacket Layer.

On marbled fabric, with no seams on the arms, or other places there wouldn't be seams in a real shirt.

Only L$50, Mod/Copy/NO Transfer. Also in the Robin (Sojourner) Wood AV store, and in the Halloween Vendors in all Kick the Can Stores.

There's more coming out in the next few days, too; so check back soon!

Happy Halloween!

Hallowe'en Stuff!

Boo!

I have some Hallowe'en items out in my store: paper masks (modify, transfer and they attach @ mouth) and the Hallowe'en HowdyKat Doll.

The masks are only 5L$ each, and I have a couple that are themed after some of my toys this year: a HowdyKat mask with a cute bow and a One-Eyed Alien from my Space Explorer's Playset are available.

The Hallowe'en HowdyKat Doll has a light feature for those really dark scary places while you trick-or-treat. And she gives out caramel apples to all! :-D

These items will be available until 1 November.

Enjoy!

Pygar Bu