The Pink Flamingo and the Purple Cow
Backstory: The Lindens left Zander a kiosk to offer info on giving a person some gift from SL. Hobo Village is an info hub, so that is reasonable. You can see the kiosk now across form the train station. I called it the Purple Cow. It is ugly.
What do you do with ugly? I checked with hobos in my head. No Problem. That’s what they said. Not the first ugly they have met. The did say that the would make fun of it. “A source of innocent merriment,” one of the hobos said.
So I got Zander to put it right there by the train stop. For God and everybody to see. My hobos had several ideas. The best was a reminder that I have a pink flamingo in my inventory. Now you know that a pink flamingo is the poster bird for cheesy lawn art. An ideal companion for the Purple Cow. Something that a hobo might easily find in the local trash dump.
So I rezzed it. And right away, I know the story. Pinky fell madly in love with Purp. Now I want to tell the story of Pinky trying eagerly to win the affections of Purp.
Initially, Pinky is too shy even to get close to Purp. He (yes, he) stands around looking at her from a distance. (Think Charlie Brown and the little red-haired girl.) He will go between hope and despair several times, as he thinks she may have noticed him and realizes it was something else
Initially, she is impassive. Eventually we run out of ideas for this phase. Then his eagerness brings out a “human” side of her. Giving us a new story line. She is first disdainful. Later she feels sorry for him. (“Happiness is a pat on the head.”) Eventually, she may fall in love with him. I am not sure about that. We may gather suggestions for alternative endings.
I think we will play out this story over several months. Each stage (equivalent to one panel in a comic strip) would remain posed for several days. I will take jpegs and post them on my website. Perhaps we will make a stop-motion vid when we are finished.
How do we show feelings? I talked with Zander yesterday and he suggested putting a heart on Pinky. I reworked that idea and put in a particle script, with images. Now a heart or some flowers float from Pinky about every 15 seconds. Later, we might aim the floating images at Purp. Zander will work on modifying new versions of Pinky to show emotion. I will be working with Zander to pick the emotions we need to show and to develop the mods. Conceptually, this is a straightforward step from cartooning. That does not mean it is easy. (All the easy things have already been done, anyway)
We may also use thought bubbles to tell the story. I have tried out thought bubbles generated by the particle system. The give an interesting effect. And they would give out several thoughts in the same setup. We can also put a thought bubble over a head. And put expressive sounds around. (Think R2D2.)
We can’t modify Purp, but we can make other objects associated with Purp. For example, that pat on the head would be done with cartoon hand and arm in appropriate color. Probably we could do it in 2D as texture on glass.
So there is my idea as it stands. Any suggestions?
What do you do with ugly? I checked with hobos in my head. No Problem. That’s what they said. Not the first ugly they have met. The did say that the would make fun of it. “A source of innocent merriment,” one of the hobos said.
So I got Zander to put it right there by the train stop. For God and everybody to see. My hobos had several ideas. The best was a reminder that I have a pink flamingo in my inventory. Now you know that a pink flamingo is the poster bird for cheesy lawn art. An ideal companion for the Purple Cow. Something that a hobo might easily find in the local trash dump.
So I rezzed it. And right away, I know the story. Pinky fell madly in love with Purp. Now I want to tell the story of Pinky trying eagerly to win the affections of Purp.
Initially, Pinky is too shy even to get close to Purp. He (yes, he) stands around looking at her from a distance. (Think Charlie Brown and the little red-haired girl.) He will go between hope and despair several times, as he thinks she may have noticed him and realizes it was something else
Initially, she is impassive. Eventually we run out of ideas for this phase. Then his eagerness brings out a “human” side of her. Giving us a new story line. She is first disdainful. Later she feels sorry for him. (“Happiness is a pat on the head.”) Eventually, she may fall in love with him. I am not sure about that. We may gather suggestions for alternative endings.
I think we will play out this story over several months. Each stage (equivalent to one panel in a comic strip) would remain posed for several days. I will take jpegs and post them on my website. Perhaps we will make a stop-motion vid when we are finished.
How do we show feelings? I talked with Zander yesterday and he suggested putting a heart on Pinky. I reworked that idea and put in a particle script, with images. Now a heart or some flowers float from Pinky about every 15 seconds. Later, we might aim the floating images at Purp. Zander will work on modifying new versions of Pinky to show emotion. I will be working with Zander to pick the emotions we need to show and to develop the mods. Conceptually, this is a straightforward step from cartooning. That does not mean it is easy. (All the easy things have already been done, anyway)
We may also use thought bubbles to tell the story. I have tried out thought bubbles generated by the particle system. The give an interesting effect. And they would give out several thoughts in the same setup. We can also put a thought bubble over a head. And put expressive sounds around. (Think R2D2.)
We can’t modify Purp, but we can make other objects associated with Purp. For example, that pat on the head would be done with cartoon hand and arm in appropriate color. Probably we could do it in 2D as texture on glass.
So there is my idea as it stands. Any suggestions?
posted by Selby Evans at 11:22 AM
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