Slipping Into Fur

 Until I bought my first furry avatar, I had never given much thought to how they were put together. Now that I’ve spent some time wearing them, modding them and looking more closely at their construction, I think it’s safe to say that furry creators are some of the most clever and creative people in virtual worlds. That’s not an exaggeration.

A furry maker has to create prim body parts, alpha layers, skins, tails, ears and shapes. Most furry avatars come with male and female versions, so they’re doing all of this times two for every release. And let me tell you, furries are picky. They won’t buy crappy avis.

There are a huge range of furries out there, from tiny realistic animals to anthropomorphic versions like I wear. There’s also some pretty fantastic mesh furries available. The first time I dropped a furry folder onto my avi, I have to admit I freaked out a little. The head of my furry avi is made of prims, and the shape, before those prims rezz, is pretty scary. The head is shrunken and misshapen to accommodate the prim head parts.

The avatar I’m wearing here is currently hugely popular, which puts me in the front seat of the bandwagon. It’s the chinchilla from Curious Inc. The creator is Uchi Desmoulins. But most furries running around in this avi have modded it, replacing ears and tail, or more. Furries are masters of modding- they have to be; there are very few clothes that fit furry shapes without modding, and no hairs that do. But I like my chinchilla, and only made a few mods.

My favorite mod, though, I didn’t do myself. A friend added my freckles for me. There’s no way I would be “me” without my freckles. While she used photoshop to add the freckles to the prim textures, I can easily add a tattoo layer of freckles for the body.

In this picture I’m also wearing Chinchilla Blush, which you can find here, and it comes with a kissy script. Next time you see me in Chinchilla form inworld, be sure to click my nose to kiss it!

The chinchilla avatar comes with a HUD for changing my eyes, opening and closing my mouth, and even changing my eye color and iris size. I hate that my photo cuts the HUD in half (I forget how to prevent this and can’t be assed to go back and figure it out now) but you get the general idea from this shot. The jaw is a separate, hinged piece that moves when I talk inworld. It’s incredibly well made and fun to watch.

Putting hair on a furry avatar is a challenge. I’m not even going to tell you how long it took me to mod this hair to fit (but it was 2 full hours). If you decide to try a furry avi yourself and want to add hair, you’ll find that the round, wide shape of the head lends itself to certain hair styles, while others can’t be fitted, no matter how long you spend modding it. Look for curls rather than straight, I’ve found, and hair styles with a “wider” profile are easier to size to fit.

Bangs are hard to fit, due to the generally larger eyes on a furry, so look for sideswept bangs instead of straight down. But I’ve found that the hairs that work best on the furry avatars I’ve bought have all had hair pulled back or to the side, with no bangs to hang into the prim eyes in that scary way you see. (That always makes me shudder.)

After you get the hair to even fit the head, you’ll have to get brave enough to use “edit linked parts” to further mod the hair piece by piece. I posted a tutorial on doing this a couple of years ago, you can find it here. It’s based on working in InWorldz, but will certainly work for any world.

 
 

One thing to note about furry avatars is that often their feet are made of prims, and the regular “human” shaped feet are hidden by alpha prims. Here’s my feet without the alpha.

You can see the prim feet and how they attach to my legs. (It looks like I’ve got a furry hidden under my skirt!)

Here’s after I wear the alpha prim.

 
 
The frustrating part about these feet is that I can’t wear pants over them. I can wear shorts, but you’ll usually see my chinchilla avi wearing dresses for this reason. My human avi is normally found in jeans.

I have to admit, it took a while for these chinchilla feet to grow on me. They weren’t my favorite thing when I first rezzed them, but over time I’ve grown to kinda like them. Many furries leave their feet human shaped and wear regular shoes. One of the great things about being a furry is that pretty much anything goes, no one’s gonna knock you for your choice of feet, hair or clothes. Furries are one of the more accepting groups in SL, I’ve found.

Dressing a furry can at times be frustrating. Now that I have a computer that can handle better viewers, dressing my furry is far easier. You need a V2 or V3 viewer, so that you can “add” more than one layer or attachment to the same spot. My skirt and my tail both attach to my spine, and reworking either is frustrating at best. Using an advanced viewer allows me to “add” one instead of wear it, and they both fit fine.

Wearing mesh clothing can be a challenge for a furry, mainly because a furry shape tends to be far different from a human shape, and you can’t mod the mesh to fit. Also, mesh generally comes with an alpha layer, and if you’re already wearing an alpha for your avatar, you’ll again need to be able to “add” the layer to wear more than one alpha at a time. I’ve only bought one mesh dress for my furry so far, and only because it came with a demo so I could try it on first.

I still tend to spend more time in my human avi, but being furry is a great change and I’m still amazed by how different I feel when I slip on my chinchilla or bunny avi. It’s easier to goof off and have fun as a furry, not to mention furries tend to be inherently kinky, which works for me too.

If you’ve never tried a furry avi, why the hell not? They’re not too pricey, they’re fun and they can make you creative in a way that a human avatar doesn’t. Maybe it’s the amount of work that goes into fitting stuff onto a furry avi, but I feel like a more artistic version of myself when I’ve put my furry avi together.
 

I’m wearing:

Chinchilla avatar from Curious Inc.
(pretty heavily modded in shape, head and size of ears & tail)

Hair from [e]

Outfit from The Sea Hole

Pearls from Dark Mouse

A Whole New World

I celebrated my 5th official rezz day in December. All the years I’ve been in virtual worlds, I’ve been using an ancient desktop and various sub-par laptops. I’ve never had a machine that met the minimum requirements for Second Life. Since that’s all I’ve ever known, I’ve learned how to enjoy virtual worlds my way, through various basic viewers and lowest graphics. In most situations, I’ve had to zoom my camera into the floor to reduce the lag enough to type. I have loved my time in virtual worlds, even with the limitations I faced.

One of the most difficult things about having a laggy, low graphics experience in Second Life is keeping up with chat. I’m an outgoing person and enjoy fun local chat. But when you have  3 FPS and you’re looking at the floor and every letter you type shows up on the screen 2 seconds later, it’s hard to talk. And so you wind up being quiet at events, and people have a hard time getting to know you, and they might think you’re shy or snobby or buried in IMs, when in reality you’re seeing chat pop up out of order or far too late to respond. It’s incredibly frustrating and makes it hard to do  much of anything. I’m always patient with people inworld when chatting, because I know all too well the feeling of being left behind by local chat.

Even though I have a gorgeous home on a great sim, I logged in and out underwater on a sim with no textures to bog down my machine as my inventory slowly loaded each time. Even on this underwater sim, I often had to cam into the ground in order to chat.

So when a friend sent me a pretty fierce gaming laptop to see if that would help my experience, I was excited, but the most I hoped for was to be able to type or walk around my home sim freely. So I unpacked the beast of a machine (it’s ginormous!) and the first time I logged in, I’m not ashamed to say that I actually got teary eyed. I felt like I was seeing Second Life for the first time. And I guess in some ways, I was.

For years, I have crashed every time I took a pic. It’s just what I did, and I’d become so used to it that I fully expected to crash after taking this first snapshot on the new laptop:

My underwater home away from home.

I didn’t crash, and I could see. Really see, in a way I’ve never seen before. Sure, I’ve seen pictures of what others see inworld, but those snapshots can’t compare to being really immersed in it like I suddenly found myself.

Even my home sim, which has been a huge challenge for me (sculpty hell), looks amazing now. I finally saw my home, which I had only really seen in parts and pieces, or in photos like these kindly taken by others for me. And guys, it’s gorgeous. I kinda love it there.

So I finally see the world. And it’s stunning. Have you seen the water? I hadn’t. I had never seen water move, never seen it reflect, never been able to use any water windlight settings… the water looks like water! Who knew?

I can’t stop looking at it. And I can’t stop playing with windlight settings and camera angles and yes, I’ll be honest, I keep looking at myself too. I am truly falling in love with virtual worlds all over again, but this time with an appreciation I might not have had before, had I started out with this view of it. Feeling this sense of wonder and amazement 5 years in? That’s a gift. And I’m thrilled to receive it.

I’m going to take so many pictures! I’m going to explore sims I never got to see before, artist’s work I could only see in the most basic of ways. I want to visit  races and plays and events! I want to go to Soror Nishi‘s sim in InWorldz! I want to use exclamation points! (Apparently.)

But for now, I want to enjoy looking at my world through this new lens, and fall in love with it all over again.

If I can ever pull myself away from the beautiful water.

A House is Not a Home

(This is a long, image heavy post. The photos of our home were all taken by the immensely talented Alexandra Bayn. You can see her Royal Living Magazine blog here. Big thanks to Alexandra for taking time to snap these for me!)

I have a roomie in my Second Life home. Moxie and I needed a house that appealed to both my warm, homey aesthetic and his spare, more modern tastes. It took me a long time to find a house that would work for us both.

When I look at a build, I rarely choose it for its current shape. I’m no builder, but I love to mod builds to make them work better for me. I’ve never rezzed a house and used it as it was made. The process of modifying a build to make it my own helps a house become my home. Our home.

The build is Y’s House Cafe 001. It was intended for use as a coffee house/cafe. Y’s builds are fantastic, and her textures are some of the best. While this building was a bit big for a cozy home, I knew I could work with it.

Here’s the house as it’s rezzed. I borrowed these images from Y’s House flickr.

Here’s my heavily modded version. These pics are small for blog use, but I’ve uploaded the larger sizes to my flickr account, so click through if you would like to see them bigger.

I modded every room in the house, added windows and doors, fireplaces and changed some of the flooring. The end result is a house that has become a home. Maybe I shouldn’t say “end result” however, as I’ll never stop tweaking and changing things. The battle for prims on our property is something of a constant joke.

One of the rooms that is most heavily modded is a little side porch that is off the kitchen in the original build. I completely rebuilt this room, making it a cozy den with a back door. It has fast become our favorite room in the house.

In the kitchen, I replaced a wallpaper’ed wall with a large window, and opened up the space.

The living room and office occupy one large room. I took out a door on the large wall and replaced it with a fireplace.

Upstairs, I enclosed the space and created a bedroom.

While I’ll never be finished modding, decorating or adding items, I’m very pleased with how our home has turned out. It’s an open, yet warm space that satisfies both Moxie’s and my decorating tastes.

When I lost my home in InWorldz and decided to build again in Second Life, I was struck  by the number of specials, sales, hunts, projects and discounts available in Second Life these days. The trend of offering deep discounts and specials has literally taken over the grid. It is far easier and far less expensive to decorate a home in Second Life now than it was when I left over a year ago. And while I appreciate the leftover Lindens in my pocket, I have to wonder about the effect this practice has on the Second Life economy. I enjoy supporting creators inworld, and will happily pay full price for something I really love and want to have. But the specials and sales are a treat, too.

If you would like to know the deets on anything you see, feel free to leave a comment here, or ping me inworld. I’m Whiskey Monday in SL. If you’d like to drop by and visit, just knock! Moxie’s nickname is Streak, so if you pop in unannounced, you might see more than you bargained for.

Your Voice Heard Here

I try very hard not to compare Inworldz to Second Life. They’re totally different worlds, despite their common code. But I was a resident of SL for more than 3 years before moving to IW, so I can’t help but compare my experiences in SL and IW. There’s no way to avoid that.

This thread at the Inworldz Forum is a good example of why SL and IW are so totally different. The IW Founders queried the residents (specifically land owners in this instance) regarding introducing an option for voice. There are 10 pages of civil discussion between residents and founders, and the bottom line is that the decision will be made based on the input there.

Now, I don’t own land (yet) and I would rarely use voice. I much prefer the written word, and I have this dorky southern accent and little girl voice. I hated local voice in SL- the sounds of mouth breathers, televisions and kids in the background made me want to punch a puppy. So I don’t really have any ducks in this race. But I watched this thread with interest because it’s an example of how IW operates.

Now, don’t mistake the founders for pushovers. They are anything but. And I do realize that, even though IW has around 20,000 registered members, only a small minority of those post on the forums, and I’ve never seen more than 209 residents in-world at a time. So it’s easier to poll your residents and consider their needs when your numbers are small. I’ll watch with interest as the world grows (by leaps and bounds every week!) and the varying needs and desires of the community change.

But I don’t think the basic way that our founders handle things will change. I think their steady vision and a roadmap based on thoughtful plans will keep Inworldz on the right track. And I’ll be here, even if you don’t get the pleasure of hearing me sing along with Lady Gag Gag anytime soon.

skin yada yada Pulse
shape yada yada mine
hair yada yada Vanity

shirt: Panties Optional

jeans: Cow

microphone: Misty Harley

Real Life

Real life has me hopping this weekend, and I’ve not been in-world. I finally had a few minutes to sit down and log in tonight, but luck was against me. Every time I snapped a picture, I crashed. Doesn’t matter which viewer I try, Inworldz  or Imprudence both shut down on shutter click. I managed to catch one shot of myself. (I also crashed upon TPing or opening inventory.)

I’ve yet to find shoes I love in Inworldz, so I’m still running amok barefoot. But I’m not looking very hard; I tend to run amok barefoot in RL too.

I was at a volleyball game today, and eavesdropped overheard 3 teenagers talking about an online game. Well okay, I’ll be honest; I leaned so far over to hear their conversation that I just about fell off the bleachers. These kids were around 15 or 16, and were talking about shooting people, which is really what made me start listening in the first place. When I realized they were yammering about a game, I just about tuned out- until one of them mentioned The Blarney Stone. I used to hang out at the Blarney Stone in Second Life, it’s on the Dublin sim. It’s fashioned after, and named for, a real life pub in Ireland. It took me a few minutes of hardcore spying to confirm that they were actually talking about Second Life.

And what these kids were talking about was basically griefing. While I sat there listening, I had an internal dialogue with myself: should I say something? ignore it? They were talking about creating multiple avis just for griefing; stalking; and worst of all, targeting gay men. Their language was crude and ugly, and I just wanted to smack them all upside the head.

But what could I say? I couldn’t march up and demand to know their screen names. What, I’m gonna AR them from the bleachers? I could have located their parents and told them… what? That their sons were wreaking havoc in an online world? Reckon they’d care? (I would, were it my kids, but then I’m among the minority of people my age who understands the online world in the first place.) And besides, a 40 year old mom butting into their conversation unbidden to talk about their behavior in an online “game” wouldn’t go over so well.

Before I could decide the best thing to do, they were up and gone. I didn’t see them again for the rest of the tournament.  I hated myself for just sitting there. I came up with a dozen things I should have done, could have said. And even though I’m relieved that I’ve not run across anything near this kind of behavior in Inworldz, I remember how annoying and frustrating it was to deal with their ilk in Second Life. The sheer number of people in Second Life, the ease of anonymity, and the lack of attention to Abuse Reports makes Second Life an easy place to be ugly.

In Inworldz, we don’t yet have the capability to ban or eject people from our land. You might think, if you’ve been in SL for any length of time, that this would lead to griefers running around and playing their jackass games with no recourse. So far, that’s not been the case at all. There’s the odd asswipe who gets his jollies irritating folks on their own land, but otherwise it’s a pretty quiet, peaceful place. I think instant attention would be given to any reports of abuse, as our founders spend time in world and at the forums and actually read & answer support emails, quicklike! I hope those little wee creeps never find out about Inworldz, and that karma is swift and accurate when it smacks them upside the heads one or ten times.
_______________________________

in my little pic (which you can click to enlarge):

Skin is always Pulse, shape is always mine

longsleeve shirt: Sassy!

vest: Deviant Designs

jeans: Boho Hobo

hair: Stellar by Lexi Morgan

What’s it to ya?

I didn’t have a dramatic leaving of Second Life. I didn’t flounce, there were no long letters  announcing “I’m leaving and I’m never coming back!”, and I wasn’t banned. I simply logged out one day, and never logged back in.  In fact, I left my avi standing in front of the now defunct IW/SL ATM.

I still get offlines from SL sent to my email. I get messages like this:

(names are changed to protect the  innocent idiots)

[5:59] Whiskey’s Nice Friend: where have you been? I love you and miss you so much and SL isn’t the same without you!

(no, I didn’t embellish at all!)

I usually respond with, “I’ve left SL, thanks for checking on me! You can find me at Inworldz, come check it out- I’ll show you around!”

Yesterday, there was this exchange:

[3:10] Whiskey’s Asshole ex-Friend: where have you been girl?

[3:55] Whiskey Day: Hey! I’ve moved over to Inworldz, wanna come see?

[4:21] Whiskey’s Asshole ex-Friend: wtf? are you crazy? you don’t build and there’s no sex there! i’ll see you when you get board [sic] and come back home. have fun slumming lol

First of all, I never get bored (learn to spell, asswipe!). There’s far too much to see, to read, to explore in life to ever be bored!

And b), you suck.  I am home, in Inworldz. What’s with the attitude?

And 3. There is too sex in IW,  just not with you.

Lastly, fuck you.

Then, I received this message today:

[8:07] Whiskey’s Other Imbecile ex-Friend: I heard there were a bunch of copybotters over there. When did  you get into that?

I promptly went and turned off my email settings and will no longer be getting mail from SL.  I expected that most people wouldn’t understand my moving to a new world; what I didn’t expect was the animosity. It’s not as if I’ve left a partner or business in Second Life. I simply grew disenchanted with a world that was going down like a ship, and the rats that were still dancing on the deck.

The longer I’m gone, the less I miss Second Life, and the happier I am to have found Inworldz.

[kuh-myoo-ni-tee]

In any discussion about Inworldz, the word “community” gets tossed around. A community is a group of people who share a common locality, interest or characteristics. Doesn’t that apply to folks in SL too? But the sense of community is getting lost, for me, in SL. There’s a difference.

In IW, people still use local chat. I’ve been in places in SL where there may be 20 avis, but local chat is dead silent. Or places where local chat is filled with nothing but annoying gestures, shallow greetings and fake emotes. In IW, people are having conversations. Talking about where they are finding things, where they’ve bought land, what they’re building… about the weather in RL or something they read in the news, or laughing about a glitch. There’s chat happening!! And if you walk into an area with a few avis chatting, they will generally say hello and include you. That’s what people mean, I think, when they talk about a sense of community. A sense of actually sharing space with the people around you.

The community in Inworldz is vibrant in many ways; it’s creative and energetic. And so are the people. I have many theories about why it seems that everyone in IW is crazy and contagious busy and creative and doing something… but I’m not gonna go into those here. Yet. But it’s true, the majority of the people who are using IW right now are not standing around a club waiting for something to happen. And for a few weeks, that bugged me. I wanted crowds and banter in local chat in a club, noobs with freenis’s (freeni?) to do teh sex with, and the energy of many people in a room interacting. But I realized that that energy was contrived, in those SL clubs, and that the energy is IW is real, because it’s derived from creation. People buzzing about the world they’re creating, instead of yammering on about themselves.

And when I realized this, I settled down and started to really enjoy IW in a way I never have SL. I started to appreciate the real sense of community that is thriving. Things like creators who are willing to take time to show you how they create; shop owners who chat about their products and actually ask your opinion about them; and good friends who not only build you a house*, but stop by for breakfast in it:

*yes, she built my dream house. I’m not unveiling it here yet because I haven’t taken the perfect pics of it yet. But let me tell you, it’s stunning and I’m beyond lucky to have a friend who’d take the time to build exactly what I saw in my head. Next post, I’ll show it off.