Cafe Bucky

TravelTime is a Prim Animation Tool I have been writing in Second Life.  The gist of it is to be able to send a prim along a path, and have a lot of control over what happens at each point.  You can make a traveling slide show, or particle emitter, or even rez objects.  It’s pretty flexible.  See the video (I recommend full screen)   I’ll have more to say about TravelTime soon.

For three years, I have been very much into SecondLife.

A problem is that I really wanted to work in it.  I wanted to be a good enough scripter / engineer to be worthy of real life pay in a virtual world.

Some are.  Some do make a living in SL.  But they seem to be few and far between.

I did write a piece recently about how I think OpenSim will win.  I stick to that.  I am not clear on how I will personally make much money in that area at this time, but I do think there is a clear comparison to the development efforts of Apache in the 1990’s.

My experience in SL has been that I could pick up a gig here and there and get paid in Lindens (but never very much), or that I could occasionally get a building gig that paid real money.  It was never anything consistent that I could consider living off of.  Most development in SL is done on a very slim budget, or simply for free as part of volunteer / community efforts.

As for my store, I give away my interactive objects for free, in part because it is a way of getting my portfolio out there.  I get < $10 a week from donations.

So my conclusion is, I will pay attention to SL and OpenSim, but I am going to stop developing in them for the time being.  It takes away too much time that I really need to spend doing RL work.  I am certainly open to gigs that pay; I just dont see how I can count on that though.  I see gatewaying to the web, and the trends of Google Wave and Augmented Reality, as being areas where there will be big opportunities.  Some of that will map nicely into SL/OpenSim.  They’re just not here yet on a big enough scale.

Kim and I will use our SL time to explore and attend events, and basically chill out together :)

Buckaroo is on Eduisland 4.

I am happy to say that my store, Buckaroo, is now open!  This is where I provide scripted objects for free (or for commercial purposes, 300L).  The primary idea is to get my stuff out there, so that my portfolio is known.  It is also a way of giving back, especially to the Info Island Archipelago.

The items at this moment are:

• WebMon  – browse and launch external web pages – menus or search
• VidMon   – per-person video – pick from menus or search
• Slider      – slideshow/texture viewer – give items and visit web sites on a per-texture basis
• SimpleSlider – slideshow/texture viewer – give notecard (more of a kiosk than Slider)
• VideoPoster  – per-person video, defined in description field of object – no menus
• LMGiver    – browse, launch, and get Landmarks – menus or search

There are a few things that will quickly follow that list (such as TPFromDescription).

Here is the SLurl to Buckaroo: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Eduisland%204/43/177/26

Pricing and Perms

Items are Free for Personal, Educational, and Non-Profit use.

Items are 300L EACH for commercial (300L for each copy you make, or get direct from the store)

Items are mod and copy, but not transfer.  I dont want others reselling my work as their own.

Support

Support calls start at 500L if I come out (or at my discretion).  I strive to provide good documentation on my web site, and recommend checking out the great videos that Torley has done (see the Second Life Video Page).  I am open to custom work, at Rl rates.

Roadmap

I have a definite roadmap in mind.  The next steps are to round out the products with TPFromDescription, BuckyRadio, TPMap, GiveHints (a welcome mat that provides direction to whoever steps on it), and FlipSide (toggles between two images, for giving more info).

There will also be more consistency across the products, and more documentation (which will be moving to my main web site)

There are a lot of things I will be able to do to take advantage of the upcoming prim touch functions (which will allow scripters to detect WHERE on a prim a click occurred).

Of course, there are things beyond that such as swapping objects in one place (such as a collection of sliders), and integrating WebMon/LMGiver into one object that allows a user to search across different types of items.

And it’s rumored that I built a thing or two :)

I’ve done a demo implementation of Imagemaps for Second Life.  The upcoming release of the server side includes several new functions for handling touch events on a prim (the face and the coordinates!)

I will be writing documentation for this, but for now, pop this into a prim and look at the extensive comments near the top of the file.  The script should serve as pretty good example of how to use a list to represent clickable regions for an entire prim.

NOTE: You need to be running on the Beta Grid (Aditi) at this time to see this in action.

MultiFaceImagemap.lsl

(try this with a plain box prim.  Faces 1 and 2 have some actions bound to them)

More soon!

I have been pondering for a while on how to reopen my store, Buckaroo.

I want to provide tools, and do want to show my portfolio in action.

So, look for a return (soon, as in this month) of WebMon, Slider, SimpleSlider, VidMon, and VideoPoster.  Also look for BuckyRadio, LMGiver, and perhaps more down the road.  I have more ideas than time.

These will be free for Personal and Educational/Non-Profit Use.

I will ask for Commercial Buyers to make a donation of at least 300L per item. (and if they make copies, they should donate something for that too)

Permissions: Copy and Mod where it makes sense.  Scripts are Copy only.  No Transfer!  I dont want people getting my products for free and then turning around and selling them (yes, this has happened with BuckyRadio)

This brings me back to Support and Custom Work.  I’ll come out and help / answer questions for a fee, starting at 500L.  I’ll be improving the documentation I already have on my web site.  I am open to Custom Work, so always send me a notecard or email that details what you have in mind — dont rely on an IM.

There will not be any retroactive price reductions or refunds, etc.  The $L earned up to this point was a small bit of encouragement to keep improving the products.  Come to the store when it is ready and think of as free updates!

I’ll follow up on this when the store is ready, and will do my best to answer any questions that this brings up.