http://www.sluniverse.com/php/vb/blogs/verkin+raven/ Second Life discussion forum and photo sharing en Sun, 22 Nov 2009 07:57:06 GMT vBulletin 60 http://www.sluniverse.com/php/vb/images/styles/bingo/misc/rss.jpg http://www.sluniverse.com/php/vb/blogs/verkin+raven/ http://www.sluniverse.com/php/vb/blogs/verkin+raven/340-little-gift-myself.html Wed, 17 Dec 2008 19:37:27 GMT I've been using a pen tablet since 1998, but I haven't been able to use it since I've built a new computer a couple months ago. Same goes for my scanner. The peripherals are serial and parallel, respectively.

I've been considering replacing both of them with newer USB versions, but the sort of art I need to do through my computer has changed since then.

Well, what the hell, I've been dreaming and pining after one of these bastards for years, so I finally gave in and bought a Cintiq. Stick had already owned the 12" version for a while and stated he wasn't impressed with the size, so I skipped up to the 21UX. The 21UX is a bit more like a drawing table, whereas the 12WX is like a sketchbook.

This wasn't without a lot of consideration, but after a day of drawing and playing with this thing I have to say I'm absolutely blown away. I've spent most of my time with it already laid flat on the table with the ability to rotate and work with it like a piece of paper, and given that I'm doing this directly into Photoshop with it's features is insane.

The only issue I've had so far was that I had to plug it into the video card's primary DVI port for the pen's cursor to show up on the Cintiq. When it was plugged into the secondary DVI port, the pen's cursor only reacted on the other monitor, regardless of trying all the dual monitor settings in Windows. It's all sorted though.

The pen isn't the most practical thing in the world for regular applications, but anything that involves actually drawing does damn well, especially Phun. I've yet to try an RTS with it, but for MMOs it's only really novel. Penning people to death is funny.

As a monitor it's actually quite nice. The color and brightness hold for higher angles than the Dell monitors I use. Colors are sharp and games don't blur any more or less that I've seen so far. The Cintiq's stand doesn't let it stand straight up though.

With some more extensive use, I'll write out a more detailed review. However, I'm NOT disappointed. I think it's worth far more than Wacom's asking price. ]]> Verkin Raven http://www.sluniverse.com/php/vb/blogs/verkin+raven/340-little-gift-myself.html http://www.sluniverse.com/php/vb/blogs/verkin+raven/65-stuff-i-cant-cram-into.html Sat, 01 Mar 2008 01:42:49 GMT I'm not much of a blogger and I'm not really doing this just to flaunt some sort of ego, but I do get people asking me to clarify some things in my profile (which I don't have room for). This is definitely a passive writeup for those who have asked for it, I'm not trying to shove myself out for the world to care about (thus why I'm not much into blogging in the first place).

So anyway.

The wrong impression people would have had by my saying "Not building anymore boats for a while" is that of quitting SL entirely. That's not the case, and it's why I mention we're working on "something else". So, even though I'm not really comfortable with talking about our new project yet, I make the mention just to let people know I'm still hanging around, enjoying SL, providing support, taking suggestions, etc.

As to why I don't really talk about the new projects, it's mostly just a case of predictable detraction based off of people's common knowledge of SL's limitations. I know this thing works. I log in and see it working every day. Besides, first impressions matter, and without any sort of historical reference in my capability of producing something besides boats, nobody knows what I can or can't do with this. So we'll just wait and get it complete and polished first.

Besides, I mentioned the Tetra early in development, thinking it was going to be done soon, and it wound up being half a year late. A few people got annoyed by it... so I'd rather not go through that experience again. (No launch parties for any of my new stuff either, I'm not into those.)

So why not boats anymore? I'm honestly bored with them. I've felt my soul drain a little when I started assembling a new hull. It's not money or customers, it's that I've been building other things in SL and it's been a lot more fun. There are things which are just far more enjoyable for me to build which has so much more character and robustness. Stuff that plays off of my main interest for the past decade, which doesn't have much to do with boats. Boats were an interest entirely born from my specific obsession to explore SL's nine bajillion waterways in a method more realistic and social than flying around like Superman. Most people these days just seem to treat them as capsules to hump each other in, so whatever.

Along with a new genre, I get to start over fresh in the area of marketing, with which I want to have very little to do with. I'm not fond of SLX anymore and I'm definitely not into the sort of aggressive, arrogant and insulting advertising that far too many people think they need to sell anything. It might be elitist of me to say so but I really don't want my new creations to have any sort of relation to that.

I hear that the justification of venomous, nasty advertising is "That's business!" and that it's done in real life. I can guarantee if the adverts provided factual information without insults and arrogance that they'll sell just as well. It's just sad that people are so greedy, nasty and bitter that they'd never attempt it.

Also pretty sad that three people felt the need to rip off a couple of my designs prim-for-prim. It didn't affect me much, although the two people I spotted running around in the ripoffs got a free genuine copy and an explanation. They were pretty happy with me. (These were painfully obvious ripoffs, not debatable, and pretty old.)

Well, whatever. It's best not to dwell on the negative.

I'm extremely thankful for the customers I've had. I've met some awesome people in the past few years. I'm hoping to meet some more interesting folk this summer, because I'm definitely going to (try to) be more community-oriented. The only reason I didn't make an update group for the boats was because I knew I wasn't really going to be too involved with them anymore.

By the way, If I become too busy to handle officially supporting the boats, I'll make them free. I wouldn't ever charge money for products I couldn't help people out with. I have no idea if it'll ever come to that, but in the meantime we have a very comprehensive wiki nearly finished which should replace the in-world documentation.

I hope the RFL goes well this summer. I have a complete retexture of the Tetra started with wood decks and such. I was happy for last year's auction, the sailboat went for more money than I could donate out of my pocket, so I'm happy I could make that happen. I just wish I had a completely new model this year. Oh well, at least I'll have something for 2009 (and this time releasable at the end of the auction, heh). ]]> Verkin Raven http://www.sluniverse.com/php/vb/blogs/verkin+raven/65-stuff-i-cant-cram-into.html