Racing Roos at Live To Ride Store

I added the Racing Roos item to the Live to Ride store tonight.

Click here to view the listing.

Australian Dance and Racing Roos Event at Cafe LaPe'rouse @ Austin

I attended the last part of Belle's (Darlingbelle) Downunder@Austin race and dance event on December 5, 2015 at Austin. The event was to complete her GIS requirement to run an event - G111.

The Racing Roo race had been finished by then, but Belle told me the roos had been a huge hit, for which I am very glad.

The winner of the race was Bahkana Hadazuma, with second place going to Aqua Fearne, and the third place won by Marcus Massaro.

Afterwards, the participants retreated back into the airy comforts of a structure which looked like the Sydney Opera House, where DJ Nan (Nan Swindlehurst) spun some Aussie derived songs for their enjoyment (I didn't have media on, but I suspect the sweet strains of some Air Supply tunes were probably on the list).

The awards for best dressers were also handed out, with LG (Lord Glasswing) taking the award for the males, and Aqua winning as the best dressed female (which only shows that those darn Kiwis are winners...or maybe that down under people stick to their kind...whichever lol).

I managed to come inworld for the end part of the dance, and took a turn swirling around the floor with Belle, who looked quite fetching in her racing outfit.

The success of the Racing Roos in this event means I'll probably spend a bit more time upgrading the item, and perhaps placing it on market.

More pics from the event, courtesy of Belle.

Hopping Racing Roos

People seemed pretty ok with the Racing Roos for Belle's (DarlingBelle) event driving like a bike, but after some thought I decided it wasn't a kangaroo if it didn't hop up and down.

I added the hopping motion to the Roos such that the things started jumping up a few meters after riders sit down on them, and completed the Finish Line as well.

Take a quick look at the result in the youtube video above.

Racing Roos

I worked on scripting a kangaroo so people can sit on it and race for an event at Austin in early December.

Once I got the driving script in it, I added a few additional features, such as floating text with the last rider's name on it. I might add a way to change the speed as well, though to be honest that's probably not necessary.

I'll also be creating a finish line sensor that will work with the Roos so it'll be easy to determine the winner of any race, and I may try to put in a sit pose on the Roos as well.

Then Linda and I tested the new Racing Roos by riding them on the streets around our inworld stores.

My baby girl beat me handily, though I will protest that it's probably because my window was minimized and it was hard to see how the road meandered along the densely forested sim.

Then again, maybe it's because my biker girl actually IS a real biker girl in RL, and riding the Roos was very similar to driving a bike ;-)

Savage Saints Rally 2015

The Savage Saints MC held their 2015 Rally from March 27-29. It was the first rally held by the club.

Linda and I had contributed to the design and development of two of the games in the event, and we had stalls for our stores as well.

I could not really join in on the festivities due to the timing, but I did manage to drop in occasionally to take pictures.

As is usual for biker events, attendance was very heavy. On the occasions that I did manage to visit, the sim was crowded with 40 or more people.

I also liked the design of the entire sim. The event was held in an open field, surrounded by the various stages and games such as the Cage of Death, Balance Beam, and Bull Riding coral. But above the open field they had placed an amazing track that swooped and circled and  wound its convoluted way above the heads of the participants.

Congrats to Ron Casson (RonRon57), Papillon Casson (Papillon Chatnoir), Jasonn Mckeenan, and all those others who made the event such a great success!

Below are some pictures I took from the event.

The rally sim from high above

The Balance Beam I helped create for the event

The Cage of Death I helped create for the event

Linda's store and mine were side by side

Serena (xurtheone) also put up her own stall

Cage of Death Competition

Lotsa dancing going on too

More dancing!

Bull riding competition

Bull riding competition

Balance Beam competition

Balance Beam competition

Balance Beam Competition

New Store: Live to Ride

In order to accommodate any gadgets, equipment and accessories we may create for the biking community, we will be opening a new MP store called Live To Ride, which will be partly associated with the Savage Saints Bike Club. Linda created the awesome logo, and the first two items in the new store will be the Cage and the Balance Beam, both of which were first created for the Savage Saints Rally at the end of March.

Creative Linda

The Balance Beam that I scripted needed some finishing touches, so as part of her weekly assignment I had my girl Linda design, develop, and implement two items that would complete the system. I gave her  a general idea of the purpose of the items, and she immediately got to work Monday on both.

The function of the first item is to give out a wearable prim that riders would need to wear when doing the ride. This first item would also double as a registration and start signaller.

Item Giver and Start Signaller

When I came in later during the day, Linda had already completed the first item, and I was literally floored when I first saw it.

She had created a pile of tires, with one tire bearing a colorful picture of a girl and a bike, and the words "Balance Beam" and "Live to Ride" emblazoned on the image. Above the pile of tires, two checkered black and white flags waved in the breeze, and she also gave me textures for red and green checkered flags. The entire ensemble was seriously awesome looking!

Administrator HUD

The second item I needed was a HUD that an administrator of the Balance Beam would need in order to reset the system and clean up any stray cones. I had been using a really nasty looking thing that I had concocted awhile back that was composed of simple blocks of prims in three different colors.

Linda worked on it today and later sent me a a cleverly fashioned HUD that not only gelled with the look and feel of the other components of the system, but was clean and simple and easy to use.

I have to admit, I could never in a million years have designed and built the two. I'm creative in some things, but mama never accused this cold and logical science geek of being artistic! :-(

Back to scripting

I have to admit it. I haven't been scripting in SL for awhile...other than a nyotaimori table which I had to make poses for in December, but which didn't need any scripting at all.

I mean, it wasn't a biggie...there was no devil on my shoulder urging me to put source code to viewer, or bemoaning my lack of drive when it came to making new items for the store. I had many other things to occupy my mind, most of which gave me just as much pleasure.

But I have to admit there is a certain satisfaction that I get deep inside when I wave my virtual hands and presto changeo I make something come alive in Second Life - something that just moments before was a simple inanimate object, but which now can actually do things.

When my girl Linda mentioned last week that her new motorcycle club the Savage Saints needed some games for a rally that they would be holding next month, I took it as a challenge and dived immediately into the coding for two items that Linda and Ron (ronron57)/Papi (Papillon Chatnoir) Casson created.

The first is a circular covered torus called by the ominous name "The Cage of Death", which is hollow inside and made of gridwork. A bike rider would go in and start zooming around the cage, hitting a red bar with each revolution. The biker who hit the red bar most within 60 seconds would be the winner. A large scoreboard would show the top 5 riders during the game.

The second item is a long steel beam only a few centimeters across, bounded on its two ends by ramps. The goal for a rider is to make it from one end of the beam to the other without falling off. I scripted the beam in such a way that cones with the rider's name highlighted on top are rezzed where each rider falls off the beam, in order for the judges of the contest to see how far each person had managed to ride. The rare few who will manage to get to the other side are timed and the top five riders will be listed on a large scoreboard.

I finished both in about 2-3 days. I worked hard at it, and I was happy with the results. I created something that I knew people would use and derive happiness from, and I learned a lot in the doing of it. You can't ask for anything more than that.