Fetch a Ride on My Broomstick!

The Cloud Party crew is busily decorating the Beginner Zone for Hallowe'en, complete with rideable witches' brooms!

I also spent some time yesterday exloring, and found that Maxwell Graf has adjusted the atmosphere of his cloud island Rustica, to fit in with a Hallowe'en storm theme!!

It's very realistic and well worth a visit :-) also come out tonight and enjoy the evening with a group of joyful witches and goblins and broom-makers and scripters and other things that go bump in the night ....

https://its.cloudpartytime.com/#4.3,23.8,-0,2_2000

Neighbourhoods of Note: Xanadu

Xanadu is the brainchild of Intox, a cloud island with a large Egyptian-style pyramid.

Inside the pyramid are a small number of artistic exhibits.  Xanadu is well worth a visit, to see what the creative mind can do with a small cloud island.  https://its.cloudpartytime.com/#-41.4,-7.6,0.2,-1.7_2256

Let`s Go Dancing!

New animations are slowly starting to trickle.... a couple of sambas, and an upper left jab in boxing.

First Customized Face

Fritz Meier has gone and pulled another first; his is, to my knowledge, the first avatar to have a customized face!  (You'll remember an earlier post where he was the first to have a customized skin.)

And the face he used?  He did a Google search for rapper Snoop Dogg, and took the first good image he could find!

Note that ol' Snoop is missing some ears!

Outfit Outlay: My Halloween Costume

Outfit Outlay is a new regular feature of the Cloud Party Bugle, where I shall display an outfit (male or female or whatever other avatar) and then detail each piece, including vendor and price (or "Outlay").  For the first Outfit Outlay, here is my Halloween costume, the Demoness!  (Click on each picture for a larger size.)

HAIR AND SHOES: My hair is the Loose Bun style, one of five styles available on the Marketplace for free by the talented Lilli Thompson.  They are tintable and I coloured this hair FF0000 (hexadecimal for red).  The ballet shoes are part of the basic outfit available to all female avatars, and I tinted them red as well.

GOWN: The long black granny dress is my own creation, made from the female body mesh available via the Avatar Development Kit.  I edited the mesh extensively in Maya 2012, removing the hands and feet, and using the Merge command multiple times to stitch together vertices in the two legs into one long skirt.  It is not up in the marketplace yet, but I will be posting it for free later this weekend (it is not perfect, there are a few bumps here and there, but good enough for a costume).

ACCESSORIES: The horns, magnificent wings, and tail by Mykael are part of his male and female demon outfits, also free on the Marketplace, and all are modifiable.  I decided to modify my horns by adding the flames-and-smoke particles available for free on the Marketplace, part of a set of sample particles made available by Cloud Party.

Total Outfit Outlay: FREE

Utopia is Cloud Party's First Featured Island

Congratulations to Claudia222, whose island Utopia has been named Cloud Party's first official featured island, which means that it is highlighted when someone selects the Navigation icon on the cell phone menu within the virtual world.

Feel free to come visit Claudia's eerie island: https://its.cloudpartytime.com/#-34.5,-5,1.1,-1.2_2169

Mykael's Demons

Mykael took his inspiration from balrogs when he created the male and female demon outfits seen in these pictures.  Look at the huge wingspan!  He says he "wanted to see how far he could push the avatar modeller".

He is placing both outfits for free onto the Marketplace for Halloween, so you can go out and be a devil in this season of horrors!  Thank you for sharing your creativity with us, Mykael.

My Clown Costume!

Well, today I took my leotard outfit and did some stretching in Maya and some retexturing, and I now have the perfect set of clown pantaloons, here is my clown costume!  The masquerade mask comes from the Marketplace and is by Mykael, and the little clown hat is your prize for completing the first new user tutorial.

Black Leotard

Today I have been working on a bglack leotard, starting from the skin of the female avatar as a base point.  I still need to make a UV map for it, but on the whole I'm pretty happy with it.

My confidence in my Maya skillset is slowly coming back!  Some of the commands are driving me crazy though, because they don't do what I expect.

First Dress

Well today I made my first dress using the new Avatar Development Kit, basically by stretching the shape of the women's T-shirt.  It's a little boxy and stiff, especially when you sit down, but it counts as a dress.  Yay!

I've put it up for sale on the Marketplace -- the first dress created under the new Avatar Developers' Kit to be placed there! -- and I've thrown in a pair of matching granny panties!  Buy buy buy!  :-P

And here I am dancing the Samba in my new dress:

Fashion Update: Four New Tops for Women!

If you go into the Marketplace beta and select the category "Main Avatars - Female - Tops" from the drop-down menu, you will see no less than four new tops available, one each from the designers Mochi, Maxwell Graf, Vanity Fair, and Real Burger!

Check back for more photos!

Just Another Evening at the Beginner Zone...

Clothing Galore!

It`s been a busy day in Cloud Party as dozens of avatars are experimenting with the newly-released ADK (Avatar Development Kit).  Here are examples of some new clothing designs:

The T-shirt Vanity is wearing (second from right) is a limited-edition gift from Mochi, thanks Mochi! :-)

One thing we all notice is that there is a much higher level of detail possible on the clothing in Cloud Party than there is in Second Life.  The tiny details of the patterns are incredible to see.

Men's Freebies on the Marketplace

Well, I have sorted out my problems with the women's shirt I mentioned in the previous post (turned out I have to start from the .dae file and not the .ma file), and I have been experimenting with various clothing pieces and textures all day.

I have placed two men's items up to give away for free via the Marketplace, a blue horizon T-shirt and a green camoflage pair of pants (the camo pants are modifiable, the T-shirt is not).  Click on the image below for a full-size version:

Happy shopping!

Today I also created my first ever shoes and hair, but they are UGLY ugly ugly and NOT for sale ;-)

Adventures in Shirt-Making

Well, I have discovered that I have to review/re-learn all the Maya stuff I learned two months ago while I was learning how to make clothing for the first set of avatars.  Darn!  I am trying right now to reproduce the women's shirt from the Avatar Development Kit in-world.  So far I get something like this when I try to wear it:

Oops.  I think I have the Y and Z axes mixed up again.  Oh well, try, try again.  

New Avatar Development Kit

The new ADK (Avatar Development Kit) has been released.  See it at:

http://wiki.cloudpartytime.com/wiki/Avatar_Development_Kit

Dancing on the Fourth of July