Micrographia

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Graham Mills
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Micrographia

Post by Graham Mills »

Although it's far from finished (not due until January 2015), I've opened Micrographia for anyone that wants to have a look round. At the moment it's probably more historical than science-oriented but I hope to balance things out over time.

The hypergrid address: http://grid.kitely.com:8002:Micrographia/245/205/22

More background: http://www.kitely.com/virtual-world/Gra ... crographia
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Graham Mills
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Snow a la Micrographia

Post by Graham Mills »

Given that Micrographia was published in a snowy January I've added a snow effect to the build using a script by Ener Hax and a particle texture based on a snowflake image from Micrographia (it's contentious as it may have been plagiarised by Hooke).

The generator is available as a copyable semi-transparent prim to the left of the Welcome sign, i.e. rightclick|copy. Just position it and set transparency to 100%. If you need to find it later, Ctrl-Alt-T will highlight transparent objects in most viewers (and toggles off again).
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Re: Micrographia

Post by Graham Mills »

Still working on this but thought it worth showing a video on progress to date: https://vimeo.com/113786968
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Re: Micrographia

Post by Graham Mills »

I decided to add a build based on the Dorset Garden Theatre in London. Although this wasn't contemporaneous with the publication of Micrographia, the first performance of Shadwell's The Virtuoso was staged there. This was a satire likely based in part on Micrographia's author. In keeping with the times it was very bawdy! :shock:

Exterior view: https://alpha.app.net/ed3d/post/46520206/photo/1; interior view: https://alpha.app.net/ed3d/post/46524984/photo/1. The latter image incorporates an interior view of the stage and clearly shows that it lacks a lot of the ornamentation of the original. I doubt I will add it in short order.

For anyone seeking a really good build of this type, I recommend the new Palais Garnier build on the Ignis Fatuus grid. A few days ago it was on the Tremplin region but I was told it is likely to move. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ShGwkwNOD_Q from 02:00 onwards for a guide to the build. There was another operahouse build on FrancoGrid in the operabis region though I've not been there lately.

Back in the day there was a large educational project in SL called Theatron3 (http://cms.cch.kcl.ac.uk/theatron/). It closed in 2012 -- I'm not sure whether any builds made it into OpenSim although the main contractors were Beta Technologies so it's possible.
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Re: Micrographia

Post by Graham Mills »

I mentioned that the ornate decoration of the theatre may have to wait. That's still true (time is limited) but Nalates Urriah has blogged a new tool that may allow me to generate useful textures, viz Mandelbulb. As far as I can make out it is fiercely complex and Windows only. However, in my case zooming into the default fractal image generates something with potential.

Blog: http://blog.nalates.net/2014/12/31/mand ... more-13891
Download: http://www.fractalforums.com/index.php? ... ew;down=43
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Re: Micrographia

Post by Graham Mills »

Still working on this when time permits. Great Fire of London in September 1666 next -- stocks of the book got burnt when they were shifted to Old St Paul's Cathedral for "safe keeping". Flames on the timber scaffolding courtesy of Handy Low's fire system product.

https://alpha.app.net/ed3d/post/56861839/photo/1
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Re: Micrographia

Post by Graham Mills »

One of the original conceits for Micrographia was that there would be 3D versions of some of the wonderful illustrations in the original book. This taxed my limited building skills to the extent that this core feature was largely absent -- until now! https://alpha.app.net/ed3d/post/60671247/photo/1

If you remember Archipelis, all you need to know is that there's a (currently) free web-based version at http://www.smoothie-3d.com. Realistically it isn't going to earn you much by way of kudos or currency on the Market but it's arguably the quickest way to turn an image into a mesh, albeit that it works better with some images than others.
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Re: Micrographia

Post by beverly Zauberflote »

Thank you for that link! Very cool software!
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Re: Micrographia

Post by Graham Mills »

Today Micrographia was pleased to host a visit from the Metaverse Tour. We had about a dozen visitors from five grids and I'm delighted to report that the world ran smoothly despite a significant number of large textures, meshes and scripts. Hopefully everybody had a good time and got a general idea about Micrographia and its context, albeit that the story has now been spun in many different directions with more to come.
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Graham Mills
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Re: Micrographia

Post by Graham Mills »

A couple of great G+ posts based on last Saturday's visit -- thanks to both for sharing pix (I was a little preoccupied). I love the "cool brainiac Disneyland feel" comment as well. Exactly!

Serene Jewell (first four): https://plus.google.com/105460496117845 ... dvGAzmGdkn
Serene again: https://plus.google.com/105460496117845 ... gTg3A1Zvjd
Virtual Christine: https://plus.google.com/104785701846641 ... 5rVR6TcEY7
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