I just ran across a new (at least new to me) open source video/photo/graphics/audio sharing site called Media Goblin. It is open source, so you can actually host your own media site if you have the technical proficiency and desire.
Anyway, the details can be found at http://mediagoblin.org.
Enjoy!
The Second Life Birthday event is coming up soon, and once again I will have an exhibit. The theme I selected is called Dreams, and is an immersive journey that “looks forward and looks back” in order to fit in with the overall event theme.
Stay tuned for more info. I have my build ready except for some refinement I’m doing this week. So more will be posted soon.
Recently Adobe announced that most of their creative software titles such as Photoshop, After Effects, Illustrator, Dreawmweaver, and so forth will no longer be sold via perpetual licenses. Instead, these titles will only be available as subscription “rentals,” meaning that essentially access to your work will require paying Adobe a fee each month.
As a creative professional and hobbyist (why are these terms always used as an either/or situation? Can’t we be both?), I am not alone in viewing this model as untenable. The tools I use to create my work contribute to my creative process. However, the process and steps used are my IP, not Adobe’s. So the thought of having to pay Adobe a monthly fee simply to access my IP is a non-starter for me.
So it is with that in mind, that I decided to start looking for alternative solutions to the tools I use. This is the first post in what will be a series covering this topic. I am starting with Photoshop because it is central to my work process and creative process.
The first application is called PhotoLine. This is a cross platform app (Win/Mac), 32 and 64 bit. When I first visited the website, my initial impression was that this package is probably a simple photo manipulation tool. However, don’t be put off by the lack of marketing focus, regardless of how it looks, PhotoLine does have a serious pro focus. It does not have everything that Photoshop CS Extended has… yet. But it does have a lot in it, such as this to start:
The image processing part of PhotoLine contains all standard features like painting, copying, filtering, color gradients and fill functions. In order to eliminate interfering background in pictures PhotoLine offers various lasso functions, a flexible mask handling and a magic wand function.
Layers are an important feature for professional usage. The number of layers is only limited by the available memory.
The number of undo and redo steps can be set in a range from 0 to 500.
Not mentioned above is the fact that it handles 16 bit images. It continues:
In PhotoLine you can create, load, edit and save CMYK pictures.
The filter section contains a large quantity of features: sharpen, unsharp masking, soften, outline, video for correcting interlaced pictures, relief, glow, shadow, …
Morphing and distortion functionality is already integrated.
If that is not enough, PhotoLine is extendable through plug-in modules in the 8BF format.
BTW, plug-ins are a big concern, so I tested my CS6 plugins (NIK, Magic Bullet, Akvis, Digimarc, etc.) in PhotoLine, and they all work. Some users on the PhotoLine forums report that their plugins don’t work, so check yours in the free demo to make sure. Photoline has a preference setting where you can specify the location of your Photoshop plugins, making it easy to integrate.
PhotoLine supports numerous import file formats like PLD, PDF, TIF, BMP, GIF, JPEG, CMX, PCD, PCX, PNG, PSD, EPS, PICT, TGA, IMG, ICO, ANI, XBM, IFF, ESM, CGM, PIC, CVG, GEM, WMF. On Windows you can also import pictures via the Aldus import interface. There are many import filters for this interface like PS, PDF, CDR and WPG. In all formats layers and transparency are preserved if possible.
Yes indeed, it does import PSD files. I have not had a chance to use this extensively, but the few tests I ran worked perfectly. This is very important because I have oodles of files saved in PSD.
PhotoLine has special functions for saving web graphics. It can create, import, edit, show and save transparent and animated GIF files. To save valuable web space and bandwidth GIFs can be saved highly optimized and interlaced. Saving of progressive JPEGs is supported, too.
There are a number of functions for working with images to HTML. I have not had a chance to test them, but it looks promising, and is another of those essential Photoshop items that I need.
Due to the various import and export drivers and its integrated batch function PhotoLine is well suited as a file format converter. In combination with the action recorder the batch function is a very powerful tool. For example with one mouse click it is possible to read all pictures from a directory, reduce them to 256 colors for usage in the web and save the pictures to a different directory.
Pressure sensitive graphic tablets are supported, too.
Yes it works with my Wacom tablet. So far so good.
It has other features such as vector creation and editing, adjustment layers, Multi-Touch (on OSX only AFAICT), a Healing Brush, a Remove Brush (which is similar to the Content-Aware functions in Photoshop), and it comes with an extensive user manual . The program appears to be well supported and is up to version 17, so it has maturity.
As for Camera Raw functionality, PhotoLine does have support for it, but I have not had a chance to test it. Nevertheless, I have several options for Camera Raw (such as Aperture), so I’m not worried about it vis-a-vis replacing Photoshop.
The UI is one that is best described as function over form. It isn’t that the UI looks bad, but coming from Photoshop CS6, one might find it to be a bit prosaic and dated. Nevertheless, don’t let this fool you. Photoline definitely has a lot going for it, and personally I would rather have function over form in terms of priorities.
What is noticeably absent for the Photoshop CS extended user is that there are no 3d texturing tools (at least that I could find). This isn’t a deal breaker though because there are plenty of options for that sort of work. All in all, for me PhotoLine is a worthy challenger to Photoshop. As I work more with it, I will update this post with findings. If I missed anything, please feel free to comment on it.
Rating: Excellent alternative to Photoshop
Link: http://www.pl32.com/index.php
Witches Forest Sim in Second Life – December 2010
Recently I made the decision to sell the Witches Forest sim in Second Life, which was not an easy decision to make. For over three years, we had countless visitors to the sim, and many found it a relaxing nice place to hang out. But lately I’ve not had time to devote to it, and rather than allow it to languish, I decided to sell it.
I want to thank everyone who supported it over the years, and there is always the possibility of it returning in some shape or fashion again in the future. But for now, I have enough other things on which to concentrate.
As for the Nuanced Art Gallery, there will be a continuation of it, but I haven’t designed the new layout yet, and it will likely be relocated to the Wonderland Beach sim.
The website is back up and running, with a new look as well. A number of posts have gone missing from the past several months due to a technical issue, so much of that content is gone.
I will replace some of the important items such as photo tutorials, and of course will have new content from this point on. 
As you might already know, Linden Lab had announced a few weeks ago that SLB9 (Second Life Birthday) would be a “community event” this year, and that in essence meant no centralized set of sims for events and exhibits. Many of us who have participated in past SLB celebrations were disappointed, and quite frankly, the whole idea of distributed events across the grid just didn’t feel right. Fortunately, members of the community have stepped up and donated ten sims to the cause, so SLB9 will happen as it should.
The details can be found by clicking here. I am very happy this has occurred, and it just serves to demonstrate how great this community of Second Life is. Spread the word!
The Fool on the Hill
Like the Fool, we all start our SL journey as a fresh Noobie, unaware of what adventures await. As we go and grow, we experience love and loss, success and failure, bravery and fear, and with enough persistence, we find redemption.
It is easy to quit when things feel dark; it is easy to surrender when we are unsure of the path; it is easier to run away than it is to stay.
But darkness always yields to the sun, and eventually the Fool becomes the Sage, lighting the path for all the other Fools who will soon traverse the same road.
If it sounds as if SL is the same as RL, it is.
Life is life, and life is experience, wherever you are. Enjoy it, be strong, grow, and do something along the way to help those who are travelling behind you.
Pi Day 3/14
If you use the numerical format of mm/dd/year for todays date, it is 3.14.2012. So as things go, someone named Larry Shaw declared it as Pi Day. Of course if you remember your geometry class studies, you’ll remember that the number Pi is usually expressed as 3.14, hence the correspondence between todays date and the number usually expressed for Pi. You might also remember that it is the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter , and as far as we know, it is a number that seems to have no end.
That is interesting, but it makes me wonder about possibilities. For example, humans have long considered the circle a sacred space. Astrology is calculated using the circle. The Pi Day occurs in the sign of Pisces according to tropical astrology, and Pisces is the sign associated with the transcendental, which coincidentally is also what Pi is described as being. Now I realize that none of this might mean a thing, but it is interesting because it reminds me that even as we come to believe our modern knowledge is immense and rational, the universe throws us a curve ball that allows us to look at things differently, if we so choose. But it is equally rational to look at connections and ask yourself what they might mean. The answer might be “nothing” or it might be something more profound.
In any case, have a happy Pi Day!
Real Love
True love is something that lives deep in the soul, the very fiber and essence of our being. It conquers fear, it dissolves hate, it fuels dreams, and it gives us strength to face the tough challenges in life. It is eternal when it fully engulfs and infuses the internal, and then made real by the words and deeds we give to those in our lives. Love is the strength to stand in the fire and hold your ground when everyone else has chosen to run away in fear.
It is said that to get love one must give love, but this is partially true, for love should never be expected, bartered, sold, traded, and treated as a commodity. It is not something one can take, keep, possess, own, or conquer. It exists at every level from the physical to the spirit, and is far greater
than the limitations of lust. It is found when you understand that is the foundation of everything, the essence of everything, and the goal of everything. It is found when you have the courage to rise up and embrace it fully, to finally be free of the fear of it, and to know that has always been there.
Are You?
Nevertheless, I still do on occasion encounter that thing or two that completely makes me do a double take Mind you the tagline for Second Life is “your world, your imagination,” so on some level what I expect to be surprised by is some sort of new cool creative idea, or some fascinating conversation, or perhaps even some new attempt at scamming people (for the latter unfortunately seems to exist no matter where you go).
But this recent event falls into none of those categories. In fact, at some level it seems rather prosaic, being that is was simply a question that a stranger asked me at random, for which I had no answer, at least immediately. The question was this:
“Are you a witch?”
Now this took me aback for a few minutes, not because I was offended, but rather because I was wondering why someone would ask me this? True, I do have a sim named Witches Forest, which has some pagan inspired themes and loosely pagan inspired artwork. I also have this blog, which at times touches on the same subjects. But nowhere does it say “I am this or I am that.” Further, the profile of the person who asked me the question had nothing in it to indicate that they had any interest in wiccan related subjects, and the tone of the question (yes you can pick these vibes up) felt hostile.
Further, it struck me that this was a very personal question, and what right does someone have to just ask a person something of that nature? Is it acceptable? Is it acceptable to ask a person out of the blue “are you a Christian” or “are you Jewish” or any other member of something? I certainly don’t think so, and I don’t know people who go around asking people these things. What a person believes is their own private decision, and is none of my business. And what was the purpose in asking me something like that?
Don’t get me wrong, if someone chooses to wear their belief system on their sleeve, that is fine with me. But let’s get something clear, religious affiliation has been used as a tool of persecution and genocide for ages, and it continues to this day in some places in the world. And to be asked by a stranger, for no apparent reason, if one is a member of a group that has suffered persecution is something that is out of bounds. It is simply not acceptable.
The other aspect of all this is that I am an artist, and as an artist I am willing to explore the human experience and all of its belief systems, but I do so with respect. I set up Witches Forest as a sim wide art piece, And when it comes to witches, I apply the same level of respect I apply to everyone else. What I don’t respect, however, are individuals who think they are above everyone else, and imply or assert that some other group is “evil.” That is at the heart of what bothers me about this question:
“Are you a witch?”
My answer: it is none of your business.