creations – Page 26 – Cubey Terra

October 23, 2005

My art deco monstrosity

The hardest thing about retirement is that there’s too much to do. Since I stopped putting so much time into new aircraft designs, I’ve started getting these ideas for other projects.

Like yesterday morning, for example, I woke up with the urge to build an art deco monstrosity on my land in Abbotts. That meant, of course, that I had to wipe out my existing hangar and airstrip to make room. Today, I’m mostly done — still have some texturing and tidying up inside, but I think it’s pretty much what I had in mind.

The new Cubey Terra building, northwest corner of Abbotts. (Click the image to embiggen.)

I tell you, this retirement is hard work. I might have to retire from retirement.

September 4, 2005

Vehicle testing in SL 1.7 preview

This week Linden Lab opened up the Second Life 1.7 preview grid to volunteer testers. Although I’m thrilled with some of the great new features, like rotating attachments and the new HUD, that’s tempered by the fact that most of my vehicles are currently “b0rk3d” by 1.7.

I’m sure it will be fixed before release — well I hope it’s fixed before release — but at present, most moving parts on my vehicles will rotate in unexpected directions. For example, the Ornithopter’s wings and stabilizers rotate right off the vehicle.

Also broken is the WARP and Infinity speed boost packs, as well as my parachutes. In any attachment where a part resizes, the part slides way out of position. Hopefully that will be fixed too.

But because I have so many vehicles, I can’t test them all adequately by myself. I’m hoping people will pop into the preview and take one or two out for a spin, and maybe report new issues to me (by IM or e-mail) and report SL bugs to LL (Help > Report Bug).

You can find the test vehicles at Busy Ben’s in Oak Grove. Just right-click the gigantic cube and “Buy” it for zero L$ to get copies of several vehicles and attachments. Any help is greatly appreciated!

August 31, 2005

Aerodrome update: new things and stuff

Although I’ve been pretty busy with non-SL things, there are some new developments that you may (or may not) be interested in.

First — and this announcement is greatly overdue — I’d like to welcome the two new Aerodrome Liasons to Abbotts: Rei Kuhr and Arrekusu Muromachi. These two aviation buffs have been very helpful in the past in promoting all things that fly in SL, and I’m very happy to have them around Abbotts to answer questions, run events, and look cool in matching flight suits. Say hi to them if you get a chance.

Second, there’s a new aircraft lab for the use of any aircraft designers in the northwest corner of Abbotts. It’s not very big, but it’s semi-isolated and less likely to have gun-toting griefers. Think of it as a mini sandbox for aircraft builders.

Third, and this is partly connected with the first point, be sure to check the event calendar for weekly events in Abbotts, like build contests and skydiving competitions. See you there!

August 21, 2005

Back to “real” life

Real life demands that I pay attention to it again, so I’ve spent the last few days finishing up projects, tying up loose ends. After today, I won’t be able to spend much time in SL, except on weekends.

Abbotts Aerodrome will continue to run as usual. In fact there’s more now than before… I recently added a new teleporter system to help people get around. It’s slower than a regular “sit target” teleporter, but it has more special effects. It was something to do.

And for fans of Apotheus’ 737 and my airship tours, I’ve added two new AI flights.

An AI-controlled Whistler light aircraft leaves Abbotts every 15 minutes.

Every 15 minutes you can catch a flight on a single-engine light plane (“Whistler”) to the city of Nova Albion and back. Every 20 minutes, you can catch a flight on a stripped-down L-18 Lodestar transport to the northern continent and back.

Hm. As I type that, it occurs to me that the flights will synchronize occasionally and rez two planes simultaneously on the runway. I’ll have to fix that… or hire an air traffic controller.

So have fun with those, and I’ll see you on the weekend! If you need immediatel help with something, you can try me at my e-mail address: cubeyterra[at]cubeyterra[dot]com. Change the “at” and “dot” to the appropriate punctuation.

August 14, 2005

But what is it called?

Over the last few days, I’ve worked on an upgrade to the old drop ship. I’m sure you’ve seen it around — it’s the twin-hulled, seven-seat skydiving ship. As usualy, I added a few new features, like the ability to land at high speed after dropping skydivers at high altitude. That seemed like a good feature after going 4 kilometers up in seconds, then finding myself stranded up there with nothing but regular thrust to get back down.

It also has a slightly redesigned model. The pilot now sits in a centrally-located cockpit instead of the left-hand pod, and it’s more compact in general.

Version 3 of my skydiving drop ship: now dubbed 'DS3'.

The biggest question on my mind is this: what’s it called? When I made it in 2004, I just called it the “drop ship”. No name, just… “drop ship”. But that doesn’t seem right. After all, my other vehicles have names, so why shouldn’t this one? I thought about “Icarus” after the ancient Greek guy who flew too close to the sun and burned his wings. But since Icarus fell to his death in that incident, I think maybe a more positive name might be appropriate.

I considered naming it H.A.L.O., a military acronym that stands for High-Alititude, Low-Orbit, but when you consider that no SL vehicle can go any higher than 4096 meters, it didn’t seem very much like “low orbit”.

In the end, I took my cue from Sony. I’m calling it the DS3. Drop Ship version 3. It’s sort of a name, isn’t it?