Monday, April 15, 2013

Dipping a toe into Cloud Party

I finally spent a few minutes in Cloud Party yesterday. They moved away from requiring a Facebook login to create a Cloud Party identity, so now, thanks to Google+'s more enlightened policy, there's Melissa Yeuxdoux on Cloud Party. (Now, if Cloud Party would stop nudging me about Facebook each time I sign on...)

I went through the tutorials--zoom back from the wall they ask you to build, to avoid hassle when you extend it one dimension or another--and there I was. (Now, how to delete the wall I built?)

I spent a little time tweaking my avatar--and have downloaded the Avatar Construction Kit. What a difference from Second Life!

Using Second Life height-related sliders is like trying to fly a helicopter. There are multiple controls that interact in perverse ways. Lengthen one part of your body and other parts shrink.

Cloud Party isn't like that. I wouldn't have thought  that the simple act of lengthening my neck and seeing that the sole result was that my neck got longer would give me such a feeling of... OK, I have to use a word that I have come to despise... empowerment, but it did. I have to suspect that one of the design goals for Second Life shape sliders was being difficult to use!

The Avatar Construction Kit requires familiarity with a 3D program like Blender, so it's going to take some time, a resource I don't seem to have much of these days, but eventually, I'll get there.

2 comments:

Dierdre MacStachlannan said...

It's great news that CP ditched the FB login requirement! Thank you for keeping us informed about SL and other "gridley" phenomena - yours is a fantastic blog!

ameira_loire said...

Tell us how 'Hello Skirt' works out and how long it took you to do it, please.