New Texture Set for SL™

If you like Victorian millwork, and you're in Second Life®, you'll love the texture set I just finished!

I designed it to use as a porch for my Wheel Cottage textures, but it makes great free-standing buildings, like gazebos, as well.



There are 30 textures here, including millwork railings, spanderels, and two kinds of brackets, both single brackets and double brackets (which work great as the inside of a box, so you can save prims on your builds.)

There's a seamless banister texture that matches the railings, beadboard for the ceiling (in two colors,) and a porch edge with either vertical siding or lattice below the facing. You also get stair edges to match, with seamless siding or lattice. And, because lattice is good, you'll also get two seamless lattice textures, one diagonal and one square, to make arbors, trellis, and windbreaks.

And of course there's gingerbread for the gable roof, both "painted on" and freestanding (with a matching shadow texture for the gable,) and a mask so you can recolor it easily in your graphics program, if you choose to do that. Or, if there's a limit to the amount of millwork you want, you can use the gable with no gingerbread decoration.

Best of all, you get sculpts to make a beautiful turned porch pillar and newel post, with shaded textures to match them, so you can have a lovely porch with surprisingly few prims. (The porch in the picture, for instance, is only 15 prims!)

All of this goodness comes with railings, banisters, spandrels, siding and lattice in either white or green. (There were too many things to put both in the same package.) If you want to recolor it, I strongly suggest buying the green, because it will give Hue and Saturation something to work with!

L$950 for the package, in either color (or splurge and get both; they look fantastic mixed!) 30 seamless, full permission textures. TRU license applies. (You're buying a license to use the textures, not the textures themselves, so you cannot resell them or give them away as textures, or on a single prim. They must be part of a build, consisting of at least two prims.)

On sale now, at TRU, and at the Texture Library in Livingtree (113, 97, 25). Come check it out!

We can now take PayPal!

For quite some time, people have been asking me if we could take PayPal as payment at RobinWood.com, (my website.) And for just as long, I've been wanting to, but unable to figure out how to do it.

Well, tonight I found out that the shopping cart we use more or less has PayPal functionality built in. All you have to do is get the certificate from PayPal, and activate it.

So, as of several hours ago, when you put things into your shopping cart on my website, you'll find the little yellow PayPal Express Checkout button, up at the top. That's the one that takes you to the PayPal site, where you log in, authorize payment, and that's that.

If you'd rather use your PayPal credit card, you can do that, too! It's one of the Payment options, when you check out normally.

So there you go! And there was much rejoicing!

New Teasets for Easter in SL™

I've been busy in Second Life®, since Easter is right around the corner, and I've made 3 new tea sets to grace your festivities.

One is just a fun one, called "Easter Artist," with a bunny painting Easter Eggs.



One is a bunch of flowers, featuring an "Easter Lily".



The last one, done with a young friend in mind, is cuddly "Easter Bunnies" in a clump of violets.



The latter two will also be avaiable, with other napkins, after Easter, since they would be nice anytime.

As with all my tea sets, you, or anyone in the Group the set is Set to, can click the tray to serve tea, which causes the pot to steam gently, the cups to fill with fresh, hot tea, the creamer to fill with cream, and 3 yummy iced petit fours to appear on the plate.

Click again, and it all goes away, leaving sparkling clean dishes. (Oh, if only it were that easy in RL!)

Click on the napkin, and a menu pops up, in the upper right of your screen, that allows you to choose from 3 different embroidered napkins, and changes the glass of the tray to harmonize with them.

Anyone at all can click on the pot, and recieve an empty saucer to hold in their left hand, and a steaming cup of tea to hold in their right. Click on the cup, and they'll get a menu that lets them choose from among 11 different types of tea to "drink." (Animations for all of thiss are included in the items, of course.)

Click on the plate of petit fours, and you'll get your own plate with 3 of them, to hold in your left hand.

All this seasonal goodness is only L$450, Transfer Only. Available now at the Home and Garden Store, Livingtree (85, 128, 24) or in Practical Magic, on Serenite.

There's also a Doll's version of the "Easter Artist" set, with the other tea sets in Kick the Can, and wherever else my kid's things are sold.

Come check out the demo! I think you'll like it!

Art Glass One for SL™

I have a new set of textures for making stained glass in Second Life®.



This set of 15 seamless textures is based on the Art Glass that Tiffany popularized at the turn of the last century. If you have my Stained Glass for SL book, you know how to use this.

At the moment, the license will only get you usage within SL; but if you love them, contact me if you want to use them somewhere else, and I'll see what we can do.

They are available now from TRU (search for 'glass') and at the Texture Library at Livingtree (105,90,20). L$350 for the set of 15 seamless textures. Come check them out!

Easter Egg Windchimes

For spring in Second Life®, wind chimes in large eggs with delicate, ornate kaleidoscope patterns on them, in a dozen different colors and patterns, each more beautiful than the last.



Pick your favorite, or collect all twelve!

They all play a totally random series of six pure sampled chime notes. There are no repeating loops to drive you crazy here, just wonderful, relaxing chimes.

Touch the egg, and the owner can change the volume, or turn the chimes off or on. When you have turned them off, you can choose to start playing again at a new volume, or Resume at the volume you were using, so you don't have to remember what that was.

You really have to hear these to appreciate them! So come and play with the demo, in the Home and Garden store at Livingtree (85,128,24). L$125, Transfer Only, so they make perfect Easter gifts. Tuck one in a basket for someone you love.

See you in world!

Wheel Cottage Textures for TRU

As I mentioned, I'm now designing textures for TRU (Textures R Us) in Second Life®.

The first 3D set is now done, and available both at the TRU store and website (look under 3D Build - New Sets) and in the Texture Library at Livingtree (105, 90, 20).



It comes in two sets, for the interior and exterior of a little Victorian style cottage, with gingerbread featuring a wheel in the gable. Which is why it's called Wheel Cottage. (It doesn't have to be this tiny, of course. This is just to show the textures. Anything not included in the two packs is black.)

I tried to make the texture flexible, and easy to recolor. So, along with the gingerbread that's part of the texture, there's a gingerbread "stand alone" and a texture with just a shadow on it, so you can put the gingerbread on a separate prim, if you want. I also included a mask for Photoshop, so you can easily recolor the siding without touching the gingerbread, if you'd like to.

The windows are included with Alphas, so you can see through them, and without, so you won't have any alpha sorting issues. They also come with shutters, with curtains, with a flower box full of purple petunias, with any combination of the three of them, or just plain with nothing; and masks are included to make it simple to change the colors of anything very easily (except the petunias.) There are instructions, too, in case you're not sure what to do in Photoshop. (That's all I use, so if you use something else, I'm afraid you're on your own.)



On the inside, the windows have curtains, flowers from the flower boxes outside, both, or neither; and once again the alpha and no-alpha versions are included. All the interior textures are also included with molding that runs along the ceiling, or without. So if you want to have the wallpaper extend up the inside of the gable, you can; or, if you prefer a flat ceiling, you can have that, too! Most of the inside textures you can mask yourself with just a rectangle. But there's a mask for the door, because it's slightly more involved.



All together, there are 30 exterior textures and 23 interior textures, to make a very charming little cottage. L$750 each pack.

Check them out! I think you'll like them.

Hot off the Presses - Stained Glass Book for SL™!

I just finished the latest book in the Livingtree Lecture series, based on the weekly lectures that I give behind the Texture Tutorial in Second Life®.

This one is a 76 page THiNC Book called Stained Glass for SL™. Like all the other books in the series, there's more here than I could cover in the one-hour lecture.



It starts with a discussion of how to make your own stunningly realistic stained glass panel in Photoshop.

Next, you'll learn how to painlessly make an Alpha Channel that has opaque leading and semi-transparent glass with varying levels of opacity. Techniques for doing this with a separate "leading" layer in your layer stack, with a separate "glass transparency" layer, or with nothing but a flat image of your stained glass are all covered; and you'll be delighted to know that the only selection needed for any of them is the super-easy "Command/ctrl click the thumbnail" trick.

Finally, you'll discover how to make four different kinds of Art Glass to use in the windows. (One more than was covered in the half-hour bonus session after the lecture.) When you finish you'll have Textured Glass (with any texture you want pressed into the glass,) Ripple Glass, Wispy Glass and Seedy Glass, in any color your heart desires, to use in your own windows.

(In case you don't want to take the time to make your own glass, I also have a few vendors up with various seamless glass textures in the Texture Library.)

All of this is available now, for the introductory price of L$100, in the Texture Library at Livingtree 113, 97, 25. (Book prices will all be going up in the middle of April, because there is a tremendous amount of work in one of these books.)

Come read the book for free, and buy a copy if you think you can use it!

See you there!

Too Busy to Blog...

The last few weeks have been crammed with activity for me; so much so that I'm afraid I've neglected this blog (again.)

To just hit the highlights, I've been dividing my time between my website and Second Life®, pretty equally.

On the website side, I have remade all the catalog pages, so that there are no longer frames, and there's no presentation markup. The Essay pages are about half done as well (I still need to do the Links section there,) and I'm going to tackle the Tutorial pages after that.

I've also put a Search Engine on all the revamped pages, and added a custom 404 error page so if you were linked to a page that's been moved or removed in the renovation, you won't be totally lost.

Best of all, there will be new content by early next week, if all goes according to plan, after way too long without any.

On the SL™ side, I have started to work with TRU (that's Textures R Us, in case you're not familiar with them) to sell full-perm textures in world.

At the moment, all I have is a couple of vendors of seamless Stained Glass textures (15 textures per vendor.) But I'm going to go put together a pack with some 3D Building Textures as soon as I finish this blogging. :D

I've also started to work with The Brewery, which does a lot of in-world instruction and training, and I'm going to be giving the Livingtree Lectures again, in case you missed them the first time through, or have the book and would like to ask some questions.

Pygar Bu, a young associate of mine at Livingtree, is doing Fishing Tournaments at Cheep Cheep Landing, on Livingtree every Saturday, and I've made a couple of shirts as prizes for them, with more on the way.

Finally, in SL, I've been working on the Stained Glass book (more in the next post) and I'm developing the Wrinkles and Folds lecture, to start at the beginning of April if all goes well.

So, that's what I've been up to while I haven't been blogging!

If you have any comments or questions, I'd love to hear them.

Valentine's Scripted Gift Boxes for SL™

If you're a resident of Second Life®, present presents to your Valentine in style!



Fully scripted gift boxes use a menu system to allow you to choose from 11 different wrapping papers, 11 different color choices for ribbons, bows, or lace (depending on the box style), and 11 different colors for floating text (or none at all, if you don't like it.)

Put your own sound file and particle in the box, or use the default of a honky-tonk piano playing "Let Me Call You Sweetheart" and valentine heart particles.

The scripts step you through setting the name of the SL Resident who can open the box, along with a message that will appear in the floating text, and another one that will show up in Chat when the box is opened. You can also set the date, and keep the recipient from opening the present early! (No one but the recipient (and you) can open it at all, ever.)

Pack the box with presents. They don't have to be copyable, although they do have to be transferable, of course.

On the specified day, your Valentine can open the box, and when they do your message will appear in Chat, the sound file will play, and particles will shoot out in every direction. All the contents of the box will also be delivered, and your Valentine will get his or her present(s.)

Then you can choose to give them the box, as well, or pick it back up to use again and again!

Yes, this means that they don't have to Own the box to open it; they just have to be the person whose name you've set.

Available in two styles; a Heart shaped box, with color-changing lace around the bottom,(shown above) or a traditional box shape with a bow and ribbon,(shown below.) Both are Mod/Transfer (NO copy) L$100, available now from the "Gift Box and Card" vendors in Robin's Home and Garden Store, Livingtree (85, 128, 24), and in all Kick the Can stores, including the main store in Livingtree.



Come play with the demos! See you there!