Mission Home Store in Second Life

Cyber Bullied

2011-10-25T09:50:00.000-07:00

I have been the target of a vicious cyber bully famous for her ornate lengthy posts about fake-crises most of which revolve around how she is tormented in SL. This person has had an axe to grind since I posted some tongue in cheek rebuttals on a now discontinued online forum about SL.

I just would like to say that anything you may have read about me on this person's awful blog is just a fabrication of her disturbed and sick mind. There little if any connection with real facts and that was just last year's posts.

Furthermore this year, she has moved on to claiming that I attacked her estate and caused her sims damage etc. I do not have time to go and set some time aside to create an alt account and spend hours ruining the landscape of her already awful looking sims terraforming them beyond recognition. She has gone too far in this latest bout of drama and pulled in my real life info from google, and reported me to Linden Labs as an attacker.

I have reported her to Linden Lab as a cyber bully, a perpetrator of drama and lies and worse a person who divulges real life info about SL avatars -- a crime punished severely by LL in most cases -- except hers. I also have a cease and desist letter ready for her next attack and am in touch with attorneys in her state to serve her in her own state as well as my own. I have contacted the company that hosts her blog and Linden Lab informing them of my intention to serve them both for hosting content that's disparaging to my person and invading my privacy online. So all the weapons have been drawn, I just do not wish to fire them as I feel getting into a legal battle is exactly what this attention whore of a person would love to have -- I can see the blog posts already.

This person's so called estate -- an amalgam of ugly shaped plots with buildings and "landscaping" dating back to 2006 is an eye sore for the mainland and has maintained its status as such since its founding. Her estate requires no giefer attack to look like it's been griefed, it's already abhorrent looking and an opportunity for innocent passersby to experience the wonderful Sudden SL Blindness Syndrome, luckily curable by some offline time and rest.

This blogger is the closest thing we have to a cyber bully in SL and it boggles my mind that Linden Lab has continued to enable this sick disturbed and certifiable person who has poisoned anything and everything that has had the misfortune of falling into her radar. She has written reams of bad publicity generating material that makes SL look like a joke online to all that may stumble upon her well indexed pages from google.

This blogger is one of the biggest liabilities SL has had. Furthermore although I admit she has been to some degree brutalized and attacked regularly, her fate has been a result of her own behavior in SL towards others. More than likely if you hate everything and everyone, twist the truth, lie, use demagogy and persistence and length monologues to claim you win arguments by bullying people online -- you will find yourself hated, marginalized, ignored or worse attacked and pestered by those who have nothing better to do. Everything she has suffered from in SL is a direct response to the awful person she is and has been to SL and everyone in it.

After 7 years in SL, I must admit, the only way I can explain to myself why this ugly person with an uglier heart has continued to exist in SL despite all the shit she has pulled is that she must have a relative at LL or worse she must have something that could expose Linden Lab in a very unfavorable way. I can not imagine why else this person would still be allowed to have a membership.

While I wish her much healing and wish that she finds peace, I have the feeling she never will until her last breath. I just wish she can find her heart first in her body, and then find in that tiny heart to avoid writing slurs and ugly prose about me and my creations until her last breath.

That's all I have to say...

Finally some references:

Primer on Prokofy and how to deal with her:

Benjamin Durankse Write up

Her Profile on Encyclopedia Dramatica:

http://encyclopediadramatica.ch/Prokofy_Neva

The Jim Jesus Blog post:

Prokofy Neva, the biggest idiot on the internet

Mesh is here, New Light & Shadows are here!

2011-09-13T13:29:00.000-07:00

We should expect to see a major overhaul of merchandise in SL in the next year or so as the arrival of mesh will no doubt prompt content creators to revisit old creations and revamp them.

Much of the light fixtures etc will also require a redo as the new light and shadow settings set the lights as much brighter than the legacy engine that was only able to render so many lights at a time. I am not sure if the light & shadow code is settled enough to start making the alterations. I went ahead and dulled down some of my "too bright" lights just in case. Redoing the light fixtures was easy as I simply edited the scripts inside them.

Redoing prim items as mesh will be a much longer, much more laborious process and will require me to learn a whole bunch of new skills.

I used sculpts in my furniture due to market pressure but I made few sculpts and bought most of the sculpts I used. I was never happy with the sculpts however as they performed terribly with LOD (level of detail) settings.

TXSTATE OpenSim Virtual Campus Opening Soon

2011-02-21T12:05:00.000-08:00

This is what I have been working on for the last couple of months: A new version of the old TXSTATE Bobcat Village campus in SL built in opensim on our own grid at TXSTATE.

The challenge really has been downloading all the buildings despite all the insane TOS requirements that ruined such great apps as Second Inventory.

The hurdles I speak of are:

Huge Prims: Creator name does not match mine, and the new TOS forbids the download of blended creator objects.

Sculpt Textures: Depending on the whims of the download software these too can be a problem as I did not create them and that makes the object a blended creator object.

Door / Window / Sit Scripts: Paskis Doors and Windows and Piero Padar's Perfect sitter are scripts I use every day to make my SL easier as a content creator. Who would have thought that relying on the smarts of these two great coders would come back and bite me in the you know where down the line. Any item that has these scripts needs to be first stripped off of scripts, exported, imported and somehow scripted from scratch using my own scripts or some open source scripts I found on the net.

Animations: As I do not create any animations, all the animations I used in my chairs are not impossible to download and re-use.

Don't get me wrong, the things I am trying to download, I own full permission to. I guess the full permission only covers the grid they're in and nothing beyond.

I wish there was a way to invite these builders to the grid we are working on so that they can come in under their own name, be paid, and make their scripts and assets so that their work can keep serving the public.

Clearly TXSTATE grid will not be in the business of selling furniture, but it would be nice if our furniture could have the nice animations my SL furniture has.

In terms of tools I used to export things: I used Second Inventory heavily but it was klugedy to go back and forth between the SL client and SI interfaces. Imprudence offers a much better export function however I noticed that it does a VERY sloppy job of exporting textures --- even those I made myself.

I honestly think LL came up with this new TOS edit just to sabotage the steady migration of SL generated content to other opensim based grids.

But either way, difficult or not, it is happening and here are some snapshots to prove it:

New Items at Mission Home Store

2010-10-27T16:46:00.000-07:00

This picture does no justice to the amount of work I have done in the past couple of months.

Practically I have retextured, and "touched" almost all of the living room furniture items. I have also made additional new items.

My next steps will be to revisit the Marketplace store and update the MHS offerings there.

Right now the best place to shop for Mission furniture in SL has been and still is the Mission Home Store. I have been in business since 2006 and have been building since 2004.

Come down to the store and see the new items in person, you won't regret it:
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Mission%20Home%20Store/219/135/24

Quick Flythrough of the Mission Home Store Island (Vintage)

2010-09-13T12:20:00.000-07:00

This is an old recording I made earlier in 2010 before I left the FLWVM project and Builder's Brewery.

Believe it or not, I shot this with a Flipcam that I was holding with one hand while with the other I navigated my avatar. I had the cam pointed at my Apple Cinema display. It seems the two were in perfect sync and you care barely tell this was shot with a handheld.

If I was going to use this footage professionally, I would probably edit the colors a little bit to cool it all down as things are quite saturated. But you seriously can not beat the frame rate. :-)

New Modern Mission Style Bedroom Set now available at MHS!

2010-09-09T16:20:00.000-07:00

Well I bit the bullet and purchased a mission style sculpt set from a vendor to give this thing a try. I think the end results are quite good. I had to make a custom texture to accentuate the quality of the sculpts but it was overall a lot of fun creating this set. The end result was a more modern take on my design sensibilities. I think this set will offer a more progressive and prim savvy alternative to those who are mission style fans but do not have the means to host some of my furniture in their smaller land lots.

The set is Mod/Transfer permissions with the exception of the bed that's delivered with Mod / Copy permissions. Total number of prims for the set is 19. The suggested retail price of the bedroom set is L$500. The set includes:
1 Bed (4 poses Male / Female with Multisitter functionality)
1 Armoire
1 Dresser
2 Nightstands
1 Vanity with Mirror

Petit Lake House Released

2010-08-24T12:28:00.000-07:00

As everyone seems to be obsessed with smaller homes and fewer prim counts, I find myself working on smaller and smaller projects and more and more prim efficiency.

Though the new restrictions on size and prim count do provide a lot of inspiration at times. The Petit Lake house is the end result of such restrictions.

The Petit Lake House measures 10x10meters in terms of footprint. It is a single room residence with one sliding door. The structure is one linked object except for the door and comes with a rezzor for convenient placement on desired land lots. It is 37 prims total.

I tried to roll in most of my recent lessons learned into this build and I would like to think that many SL residents will find this little house to be a great addition to their already existent estate or perhaps find it just the right fit for a small residence on its own on their favorite piece of SL.

To visit this house in SL, teleport to:
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Mission%20Home%20Store/186/68/23

Zimmerman Revisited Now Available for Sale!

2010-08-13T15:15:00.000-07:00

Well I just have to say, I hope you enjoy this prefab because I sure did put a lot of work into it. It is roughly 220 prims and comes with Paskis Window and Door scripts as well as a keyserver that allows you to give access to controls of windows and doors to just about anyone you desire.

I also included several of the light fixtures I used in staging the house and a few other goodies like planters and such.

I hope that the pictures below inspire new owners in decorating this house with fine furnishings from the Mission Home Store.

You can visit the model home within Second Life at: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Mission%20Home%20Store/145/64/23

Here's a slideshow of pictures from the model home:

Coming Soon: The Zimmerman Prefab

2010-08-11T16:15:00.001-07:00

I have been absent from the blog for a while working hard at work. I also took the month of July off for vacation. I hope everyone is having a great summer.

I have great news for you all. I am almost done with the Zimmerman Prefab that's based on the RL house called Zimmerman that was designed out of the Frank Lloyd Wright studio. Here's a link to the original house:

Visit the Great Buildings Online for more info on Zimmerman House

And here's a preview of my version of it adapted for SL:

The house is going to be rougly 220 prims or less. It will have scripted windows and doors and keyserver built in.

I originally built a version of this house in SL for Gayle Cabaret back in 2006. This new version is a complete rebuild. I must have replaced every single prim and repositioned everything else during the rebuild process. I brought the house down from 500+ prims to rougly 200 prims. It took a bit of texture work and some utilization of huge prims here and there as well as some cool uses of sculpties. I think overall it represents the peak of my building abilities.

I hope people will like it as much as I enjoyed building this gem.

MHS Grid Collection: Living, Dining, Study!

2010-05-13T16:30:00.000-07:00

After weeks of design and build work, I am happy to share the MHS Grid Collection with you all. This is a new set of furniture that's truly Troy Vogel but also borrows from all the great design sentiments of the past masters such as Frank Lloyd Wright and Charles Rennie Mackintosh.

I used all the sculpted prims I could to keep the prim count down to a minimum and if you inspect these pieces you will agree that the prim counts are quite reasonable.

The livingroom seating section is a truly versatile set of items that act as a vocabulary for any willing SL resident to formulate their own space using the building blocks. The seating sections come in 1x1, 1x2, and 1x3 dimensions and also include a corner side table piece. The panels and dividers allow you to define the space better while the round coffee table throws in a surprise in this 90 degree world of the Grid Collection.

The triangular tables and the upholstered armchairs throw in even more variation allowing customers to truly cater the look of their space to their liking using these basic building blocks.

The set also including a new dining table and low prim chairs as well as a rectangular table that can be used as a desk or dining table or even as a console table.

I hope you like these pieces as much as I liked building them for you.

The whole set is available for purchase at the entrance of the Mission Home Store in Second Life.

Enjoy the Summer

2010-05-07T16:26:00.000-07:00

A month ago or so I premiered my first ever outdoor furniture collection. Today, I made color variations for those with different tastes and boxed it all up again for your convenience.

Please check them out at the Mission Home Store...

Enjoy the Summer, every single perfect day of it in Second Life.

New Ideas for What to Build

2010-03-19T09:44:00.000-07:00

I would like to reach out to the Mission Home Community and ask you to make some suggestions as to what I should build next. I would like to build more furniture for the store. I have some ideas but before I get started I wanted to check your pulse and see if you had any suggestions or things you absolutely need and haven't found at my store.

Please send all suggestions to: steelskyblue (at) gmail (dot) com.

Sagittarius Prefab Available for Sale!

2010-03-17T09:35:00.000-07:00

Sagittarius Prefab was created as a part of the SL Pro Build off competition. Unlike most of my other prefabs it was built in a very short period of time: 3-5 days.

It represents the culmination of several years of work in SL as well as the journey I have taken from Frank Lloyd Wright to a style that I can call my own.

This prefab is a sign of things to come from the Troy Vogel Enterprise in SL.

I hope you like it.

It is available for purchase at an incredibly low price of L$1000, roughly 4 US dollars.

To see it in world, teleport to:
slurl.com/secondlife/Mission Home Store/128/128/16

Claimed my Linden Home

2010-03-02T09:56:00.000-08:00

I decided that there's no point in turning down land that I can own for free and a house I can choose that will not count towards the prims on the lot. So I caved in and selected a Linden home yesterday.

To read more about Linden Homes go to the LL Blog

If you are a premium member you already should have received an e mail with the link that lets you sign up and claim your home. I had to dig around a bit to find mine as I disregard most e mails from LL.

There are four distinct styles to choose from and when you make your choice in style, you're given four variations in that style. Once you make your choice, a few things happen in the background and then Governor Linden offers your avatar a landmark to your new home. It's that easy.

Here are the sims with the Linden Homes:

Elderglen (the main fantasy themed infohub)
Fern (to see the fantasy themed houses)
Batry Park (to see meadowbrook, the california modern area)
Buckeye (to see tahoe, the A frame log cabin theme)
Kagero (to see the Japanese themed regions)

Overall the homes are well built, very low prim, professionally done but still a little newby for my taste. I did not like the California modern style although most people would think I would have chosen that.

Instead I picked one of the Elderglen fantasy homes, one with several circles coalesced together. I saw a modern design in the bones of this building and saw an interior space that would hold up my design point of view while remaining quite discreet from the outside.

I must admit the homes are packed in real close so no extended prim yiffing for anyone. You have to be careful about conversations be they text chat or voice chat.

Still it is nice to have a private place where I can hide and hang out with a friend or two from time to time.

I am infamous for being overly-critical and demanding but I must say for Linden Lab, this was a step in the right direction -- however a little late. I think with time these estates can be improved and look less like the projects of SL.

When LL enters a market like the prefabs, and estate management it always creates waves in the economy. I just hope that the waves this move creates is more in the way of creating a demand for furniture (as the prims of the house do not count towards the 117) you can have on your lot.

Here are some pictures of my Linden Home. I used my own Metaverse Collection to furnish it, not only because I think it suits the setting but also because the Metaverse Collection was built for starter lots and I wanted to prove that you COULD furnish an entire starter home with this collection and save on prims.

I hope you like what I did with my new Linden Home.

New Location and New Lease on Second Life

2010-02-11T09:39:00.000-08:00

I have been to hell and back in terms of my store and my island in the last 4-6 weeks. I went through a phase when I planned to derez everything, pack it up and sell my island. Then I decided to downgrade to homestead only to find out that Linden Lab does not allow people to own JUST a homestead, you have to at least own a full island. I thought about joining another estate and renting land from them.

I almost joined the Frank Lloyd Wright Virtual Museum estate but could not work the details about accounting and branding.

I finally changed my mind thanks in part to what seems to renewed interest in SL for my work. I have had so many visits from brand new customers in the past couple of weeks that I decided maybe SL is not quite done with me just yet -- maybe the new styles I am trying ARE starting to garner interest.

This is why I have kept my island and started to build it back out again.

I am still looking for a good few folks who wouldn't mind renting a model home from me or a store on my sim to provide some financial continuity to the fluctuations of a typical furniture business.

Also I have finally decided to join where I honestly belonged from the get-go: Costa Del Mar estate. I will be a part of their commercial / shopping district within a couple of days as soon as LL processes the region change order.

Once this change period is behind us I am planning on building new prefabs and a whole bunch of new furniture for all my fans to enjoy.

I want to thank all the people who visited my store and all the wonderful comments sent to me encouraging me and supporting me.

Your support and continued patronage make my SL worthwhile.

Thank you.

New Store Layout & New Products

2010-01-12T09:19:00.000-08:00

I am having to downgrade to a homestead sim due to troubled finances in Second Life. But do not let this despair anyone. I am still here with the best of my offerings still available for purchase.

I completely redid the store and the interior layout. I believe most of you are going to like it as it has so much more negative space that helps highlight the goods. With the addition of new products the old store had become quite crowded. The new store is a move in the right direction.

I have designed a set of lawn/patio chairs. Come by and check them out. I am also in the process of revisiting and creating new light fixtures. I expect that sometime very soon I will have a store dedicated to Troy Vogel Design Lighting Fixtures.

Sometimes you have to take a step back before knowing where to go next. Consider my current move as such. I am very much dedicated to SL and my clientele in SL. I am doing my best to be here for you, create new items for you, and meet your in world needs.

I depend on your purchases, suggestions, and patronage to continue my existence in SL. Your loyalty and continued patronage ensures that a high quality and high value shop like my continues in existence in SL offering residents the best in style, design and value.

Please keep Mission Home Store in mind in this brand new year of 2010.

Happy Holidays & Merry Christmas Gift

2009-12-26T02:21:00.001-08:00

I will be traveling during the holidays. I want to wish everyone happy holidays from here.

The Mission Home Group members all received a very nice floor lamp that's also available for sale at the store. I hope everyone loved the lamp cause I had a lot of fun building it for you all.

I hope everyone had a merry Christmas and is ready for a happy new year! :-)

Thanks for all your support in 2009, I could not have made the Mission Home Store island a reality without the support of my customers and fans.

New Items flood MHS Store!!!

2009-11-17T09:23:00.000-08:00

I strongly suggest my past customers to take one more look at the store this week as I have released tens of new items and several variations on older items as well as several of the old items as mod enabled.

Some of the new items Include:

The Metaverse Collection -- low prim glamor for all (available as a set or separately)
The Alien Empire Collection -- If Lady Gaga was in SL, she would live on furniture this exquisite (available as a set or separately)
The FLW Museum Furniture set -- created exclusively for the Frank Lloyd Wright Museum in SL
The Prairie Spindle Set -- More spindles than you can shake a prim at
A Growing Office Collection with Chairs, Stationary, Desk Supplies, Lighting

I have been reorganizing and cataloging the store in the last four weeks. The effort is by no means complete but most of the items you find in the store with a MHS # prefix have been cataloged and identified as a unique version. The numbering scheme is not random. It is actually loosely based on Dewey Decimal System. I know it's funny but I had to make sense of the chaos of items that surrounded me.

Mission Home Store Catalogue

000s Decorations, Rugs, Decor, Curtains etc.
100s Living Room Furniture
200s Dining Room Furniture
300s Bedroom Furniture
400s Kitchen Cabinetry, Appliances & Furniture
500s Lighting
600s Office / Home Office Furniture
700s Outdoor Furniture
800s Bathroom Fixtures, Cabinetry
900s Prefab Buildings

I am still going through setting permissions and cataloging some of the older items, and some items that need some version control (read many slightly different versions in my inventory as well as inworld with possible multiple names etc). This is a very tedious project and it takes a long time.

Once items are cataloged, they are photographed and the final stage is upload to XSTREET. I would like to have EVERYTHING I ever created and sold as well as new items I am creating cataloged and uploaded to XSTREET by Christmas. We shall see if I complete that effort on time or not.

I think this effort however will make shopping at the MHS store very convenient as the user will be able to look up products by codes on XSTREET, view them in world and buy them either from the in world store or from the Xstreet website.

I am open to any suggestions, comments you may have, and this is the perfect time to send them to me. Please do not hesitate to contact me with suggestions / thoughts.

FLW Museum: Craftsman Build Off Winners announced

2009-11-10T09:26:00.001-08:00

This was quite an exciting weekend. Pro and novice builders duked it out on the Usonia sim building their best interpretations of craftsman homes competing for the first place.

There was also a staff category that was not considered for prizes but added great visual interest as well as camaraderie to the weekend's flair.

Each of the pro and novice categories had 10 contestants. I think everyone did a great job overall and put in a bunch of honest hours and hard work into their creations. I take my hat off to all the contestants for participating in this tough contest.

Here are the results of the competition from Barbara Collazo's report:

For the Peoples' Choice awards, I'm pleased to say that every builder got some votes. I wish you all could have seen some of the comments that came with the votes while you were building; there were a lot of encouraging words along with the voting. We had at least two builders for whom this was their first house.

Among the novices, there was nearly a three-way tie, but Sierra MacIntyre turned out to be the favorite.
Among the pros, some of you seem to have fan clubs. Apollo Reinard was the clear winner.

The judges scored contestants in five categories. Each judge had a maximum of 100 points to award, so a perfect score would be 400. They also provided a written critique that will be given to each contestant.

The objective judging categories were:
Theme match
Wise use of prims
Texturing
Cleanliness of build
Overall aesthetics

Overall, the novices scored a bit higher than the pros!

In the novice category, the winners are: (400 total points possible)

3rd place, with 268 points, Novice Entry #5: Sandi Glas

2nd place, with 273 points, Novice Entry #1: Deshar Au

1st place, with 325 points, Novice Entry #4: Jadyn Firehawk

In the pro category:

3rd place, with 301 points, Pro Entry #4: Levi Ewing

2nd place, with 311 points, Pro Entry #8: Granelda Oh

1st place, 319 points, Pro Entry #3: Corri Dawodu

In the staff category my favorite was Terra Tepper's house, Staff Entry #3.

Below are some pictures I took of the winners:

Pro Builder Winner: Corri Dawodu's Craftsman House

Novice Builder Winner: Jaydn Firehawk

Terra Tepper's Delicious Staff Buildoff Entry

To see the rest of the entries please teleport to:
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Usonia/110/82/22

Metaverse Collection Released: Low Prim Low Price MHS Lifestyle

2009-10-30T09:53:00.000-07:00

I have re-released my Metaverse Collection at the MHS store. It is prominently displayed at the entrance of the store. The collection is marked by good design combined with low prim building style, and incredible low prices on each item: 50 lindens each.

The collection is meant as a welcoming gift for all new members of Second Life. However I am not enforcing this rule, so anyone young or old in SL can buy these items and use them in their homes and offices. I think you will find the style to be attractive as well as versatile.

I hope you enjoy these items as much as I enjoyed building them for you.

Alien Empire Strikes Back!

2009-10-28T17:06:00.001-07:00

If you're a member of the Mission Home Store group in Second Life then you must have gotten one of my latest status updates that informed the community that I am moving onto other styles. I may, in a future post, go into the details of why, and how etc of this decision. But in the meantime I think it is worth celebrating all the refreshing new ideas that have inundated my to-do list.

I have been diligently creating one to two pieces a day for the week and a half; Trying new styles and just letting my mind wander and create without boundaries. I am happy to share the first batch of things that came to me during this first phase of exploration. Though the items are no longer explicitly mission style, you will find that the workmanship on the items is consistent with my previous work if not even better than before.

The first cohesive collection I have created is called Alien Empire. It draws its inspiration from French Empire style and takes it one step further by using non-conventional materials, textures and shapes giving the set an eerie hint of touch of Aliens. This collection is currently on display at the entrance of my store.

I hope you will visit my store and take a look at my creations and give me some feedback. Purchases also do not hurt. *hint* *hint*

Thanks for your continued interest in the Mission Home Store.

Craftsman 101 Presentation at the Frank Lloyd Wright Museum Today!

2009-10-25T10:53:00.000-07:00

My presentation for introduction Craftsman Style for builders participating in next week's build off content is today Sunday the 25th at 1PM SLT at the Frank Lloyd Wright Museum in Second Life.

Here's the SLURL for the event:
http://slurl.com/secondlife/DiLemma%20City/224/151/22

Here's a copy of my presentation for those who can not make it and/or have slow internet connections:

Craftsman 101

View more presentations from Troy Vogel.

End of Buy One Get One Free Fridays

2009-10-21T14:50:00.000-07:00

I wanted to let everyone know that while it's been fun hosting the Buy One Get One Free Fridays I realized that every good thing has to stop at some point.

Last Friday was the last of these events. I will make sure that everyone got their second copies of everything they purchased that's no copy.

Also things are changing at the Mission Home Store. I am moving a significant part of the collection to XSTREETSL so that most of these items will be available in XSTREETSL exclusively and will no longer be featured in world.

This is an attempt to reduce prim usage on my island and avoid doubling up all the furniture I already display in the prefab homes I sell.

2009-09-16T10:10:00.000-07:00

Following is my latest comment post to the Frank Lloyd Wright Museum announcement blog entry on the Linden Blogs -- the one that got irrevocably trolled by Porokofy Neva -- everyone's favorite hypocrite and grinch. I wanted to set the record straight one last time -- not that it will change anything for Prok but I had neglected to look at this thread since the early days because it infuriated me so much when it first started to unfold. Now that some time has passed by, I find it easier to talk about it in a calm manner:

Here's the original Frank Lloyd Wright Post on the Linden Blog

Not that this will stop anything but I refused to read this thread in full until today because it is just so off kilter, so twisted, so upsetting and so inaccurate one does not know where to begin.

But since we have more than heard Prok's point of view in what seems like Homer's Iliad, I find it is necessary for me to spend the time and the extra paragraphs and put my view in full:

I am five years old in SL. Since day one I wanted to build, I wanted to create. I have rezzed my heart out since 2005. I have built things that reminded me of home as I live away from home. I built houses in the style of those in my home town, I built replicas of a few pieces I own in RL and changed them for SL and made the design my own. I built hundreds of pieces of furniture that simply do not exist in RL. Most of what I sell in my store not only represents one of the best set of resident created furniture in SL but it's a set of all original items that simply do not exist in any shape or form in RL. With this said, none of us can claim to have invented the chair, the table, the spindle bed or the sleigh bed, the console table, the bedside stand. These pieces have been in their skeletal forms been with us for centuries if not thousands of years.

Most of my seating items such as the bow arm chairs, the couches, the prairie chairs and couches have each taken up to 8 hours of rezzing and texturing time plus countless hours for the upholstery scripts, hunting for the right animations, the right sit script, research development and later testing and customer support. I sell each of these seating items for a little over 1 US dollar each at my store -- hardly a compensation for my work. Many other pieces have taken several hours. Some of my prefabs take up to a couple of months to build. All of my prefabs are original designs, their look and feel and interior plan and textures used etc are all original and my own. If you can find my prefabs in RL please let me know I have an award with your name on it.

I am a humble individual who would bury himself first before taking credit for his work. All of my customers and friends know this about me. I spend most of my time in SL hiding from people and working silently in my corner of the world, the Mission Home Store island. I love rezzing things, I love that people like my work and from time to time buy a few items.

I do not make any money from SL. I give Lindens full authorization in this post to make my finances in SL public for all to see. I have nothing to hide. I pay for my only island out of pocket most months and if I am lucky I make half my island fees -- roughly 150 US dollars per month which is taken away from me by LL and I get charged an additional 150 dollars on my card.

My participation in the FLW Museum projects was a jest of friendship and support. Everyone on the staff of this museum knows that while the style of my builds are mistaken for FLW often, I actually am building in the style of Ottoman Residential Architecture. I am more than thankful for the fans and friends I made from the FLW community. It is such a compliment to be even remotely compared to FLW.

My store in the FLW sim has not made any sales that I am aware of, it is there as a showcase and favor to Frey -- who personally invited me despite my own reservations. The art glass items in the store are my own hand drawn art in the spirit of FLW but not exact copies of any of his art glass. Each panel took about 4-8 hours of vector drawing in Flash and later compression in Photoshop for SL.

I love being a part of the FLW Museum project and see its potential value for SL residents. I would like to continue being a part of this project. And no amount of speculation or accusatory statements from marginal self-claimed experts in SL is going to stop us from what we love doing.

How many content creators have to leave SL before LL stops these parties who sabotage our fickle, financially cash negative businesses into complete oblivion? And oh BTW, I am not going anywhere. I can pay my island fees until kingdom come. So don't get excited.

Where does it stop? What is the price of freedom of expression?

I suggest LL think long and hard on this point.

Finally it is astounding to me that anyone in SL, save the Lindens, could have the audacity to adopt a tone that demands information from anyone else like they're under investigation for a crime. I love that SL is so many things to so many people but apparently it also gives a sense of worth that's much higher than what's warranted to some. This is troubling I find.

Thanks for listening

Troy Vogel

Petit Trianon Revisited Prefab Almost Ready!

2009-08-28T16:04:00.000-07:00

I have been secretly working on a new prefab. Well actually it was no secret, it was set right there out in the open on my sim. I do not believe in working on something non-stop and finishing it in one sitting. The process of creation is a very intermittent and interrupted process for me that requires much patience for any client that dares to get attached to anything I am building before it's finished. This is why I usually hide my new projects because I never know when they will be done.

Well Petit Trianon is almost a year old. I have set it aside for quite some time because I was somewhat disappointed with the french doors for which I had to use sculpted maps. Level of Detail settings in SL still leave much to be desired when it comes to how they handle sculpties from a distance. It is one thing to remove vertices from a bligtard's 255 prim hair piece, it is completely something else to have melting french windows on a French mansion. I wish SL could know the difference...

The house looks very close to the original on the outside though I have made several modernizations in finishing and details. The style comes across more as a neoclassical or perhaps even post modern architecture. This is intentional. I did not want to create a verbatim replica, I wanted to add some of myself into it.

The interior starts off with the basic floor plan on the lower level that is quite close to the original and then rapidly departs in another direction by placing the staircase in the middle and joining some rooms together. Small rooms in SL are useless. There's no two ways about it. When you create a replica of a building in SL, you have to enlarge the rooms.

A Petit Trianon in SL does not need extra bathrooms, guest rooms, servant staircases and quarters etc. Most prefabs in SL need, a living area, a second living area, a bathroom, and a bedroom. If you ask me, the list would even be shorter -- one living area -- hernce my Belletris Prefab. But a traditional looking structure requires a more traditional layout on the interior as well. So I played along and made the interior of Petit Trianon Revisited as traditional as possible: Entry hallway, library, kitchen, service entrance, downstairs living room, upstairs game room, upstairs bathroom, master bedroom, and the central staircase.

I am still working on the prefab finalizing details, fixing textures, ironing out wrinkles but I must say I am very close to being done with it. I wanted to share this story with you all and post some pictures before the big announcement goes out in a couple of weeks.

Hope you like it.

Video from Troy's Rez Day Party

2009-08-17T12:06:00.001-07:00

Video Credits: Juana Manuel

My heart felt thanks to go all my friends who could show up and spend some time celebrating my 5th year in SL. It was also a pleasure to see some new faces.

We had fun. It was an informal music packed evening.

Thank you all :-)

New Second Life Bug Prevents Sit Scripts from Running

2009-08-11T13:37:00.000-07:00

As you may have read on my blog earlier this week, there's a new bug in town. This bug is in the release client of SL and may not be present in the alternate viewers.

The link to the bug in JIRA is: http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/SVC-3806

Also a duplicate entry of the bug report with further information can be found at: http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/SVC-3811

The Summary of the Bug States:

Sit is disabled on prims (without a sit target) that are inside a sculpted prim's bounding box, and it can be much bigger than the visible sculpt: see attached image.
The same happens on prims that are inside another phantom prim.
This can inhibit sit on large areas, with content break and security (sitting shields you from many attacks, immediately) implications.

Unfortunately there's little I can do to fix this bug as it has nothing to do with my furniture.

DON'T PANIC. At the present time any items I have with sit scripts for only one avatar are FINE. The items that are affected are the new beds with multi avatar multi sit scripts v.1.1 and the bow arm couch version 1.6.

If you have these items in your home that's close to say a huge prim volcanic rock from Heart Botanicals you may notice that in the current release version of the SL client, you are no longer able to sit / lay in these items.

I think patience will prevail, we have to give Linden Lab enough time to fix the bug.

Thanks for your patience.

Troy Vogel is 5 Years old in SL! Come Party Aug 16 7pm SLT

2009-08-11T12:43:00.001-07:00

Please come to my Rez-day Party on August 16th. I will be 5 years old, that's 50 years in SL years and I will be feeling it so come on down to the Mission Home Store island and cheer me up.

The party will begin at 7pm SLT and go on as long as we are having fun.

I will try to bring back DJ TEDI although I may settle for another DJ this time so that I can meet and greet. Any Suggestions?

Teleport to the Odaesan House to join the party.
SLURL:http://slurl.com/secondlife/Mission%20Home%20Store/85/146/29

There's a new SL bug for items with Multi Sit Scripts

2009-08-11T09:57:00.000-07:00

Is your couch suddenly saying, no where to sit on here? Then do not despair. It is a new bug.

I contacted Piero Padar, the provider of my Perfect sitter scripts that allows my items to have multiple sit positions with multiple avatars and multiple adjustable positions for as many animations as makes sense for the item. Whew... that was a mouthful.

I got my second problem report ever yesterday and after a whole afternoon of investigation, contacted Piero who returned IMs very promptly.

I am going to log in and see if I can implement the changes he prescribes to fix the new SL bug today. In the meantime please check your bow arm couches -- the new ones named V1.6 that do not have poseballs. If you have one of these items and the sit sripts in them are not working please watch this blog for the next day or so. If I am able to circumvent the SL bug, I will issue another blog post and a group notice invoking a full on voluntary recall / replacement program.

I hope this helps. Thanks for your patience.

Buy One get One Free Fridays

2009-08-07T13:42:00.000-07:00

I hope everyone is doing well as the summer comes close to its end. I can not believe it is August already! Where did this year go?

As fall rolls our way I am guessing people will be abandoning their sun shiney outdoors in lieu of the indoors and Second Life of course.

To make your transition back to living a more active life in Second Life, I started a new campaign where all furniture you buy on Fridays is half off -- well almost half off. Every Friday, buy any furniture from Mission Home Store and get a second copy free. This only applies to transfer only items (no copy items, as copy enabled items already give you endless copies).

So teleport to the Mission Home Store and see what you can buy for your new residential / business projects and the next day receive a second copy of everything you buy FREE!

Frank Lloyd Wright Builders Panel Full Transcript Released

2009-07-31T15:54:00.001-07:00

Here is a link to the full transcript of the builders discussion that was held as a part of the Frank Lloyd Wright Museum opening last week. The discussion took place over SL audio so I was unable to release a chat log earlier. But someone in the team actually had the foresight to transcribe it all. AMAZING! Thanks a lot guys/gals. :-)

Link to PDF: Download PDF

Frank Lloyd Wright Museum Grand Opening Reflections

2009-07-27T11:08:00.000-07:00

My heart felt congrats go out to the Frank Lloyd Wright Museum in Second Life team for the grand opening this past weekend. The opening ceremonies spanned the whole weekend starting on Friday evening and ending with the final silent auction and dancing Sunday night.

I was lucky enough to attend most of the events though I did miss the grand opening ceremony on Saturday. I also had the privilege to participate in the big round table of architects/furniture creators in SL discussing FLW and the intricacies of building / emulating his style structures in Second Life.

I personally find it very amusing and rewarding that I was included in this group as I never really consciously set out to build in Frank Lloyd Wright's style. If anything I would identify myself as more of a disciple of Charles Rennie Mackintosh. My residential structures such as the Istanbul Villa (my first large scale structure in SL), Odaesan House (originally built for a client), and the Ottoman Prefab all inherit their style from the Yali paradigm from Istanbul. Yalis are wooden and masonry mix houses on the shores of Bosphorus -- a strait that divides Istanbul into two pieces, the European side and the Anatolian side. Most of these structures date back to the glory days of the Ottoman Empire. Typical characteristics of the Yali buildings are:

Location(immediately on the water)
Having a dock incorporated into the lower level -- much like today's garages
1-2 storeys with many windows facing the water
Tile roofs (copper if the owner is really rich)
Shutters on the windows for privacy
Parts of the building extending forward away from the center onto the water with supports underneath to hold the weight.
Sparse interiors with plenty of space in the middle of the rooms
On the interior focus on the fantastic view of the city
A more flamboyant waterside facade, a more plain land facade.
The front of the house is the waterside not the land side.

low pitch roofs that extend way out from the structure creating awnings that provide shade for the windows below

It is very interesting that the same inspiration that created this look described above was also a source of inspiration for architects like Frank Lloyd Wright that came back from their trips to the East with similar motifs to try out on their own projects. The quintessential Asian influence is ever present in the Yalis of Istanbul -- especially earlier ones before other influences such as Rococo and Art Nouveau and Deco reflected back from the West like the answer to the Asian tidal wave that hit Europe earlier on. How ironic is it that the influence travel East to West and then back to East. This is why Istanbul is such an exquisite place to visit because you CAN see it all there. The city was open to the East, to the West, to the North and to the South. It did not refuse any styles, it never sent anyone home, it adopted, it acquired, it milled and it mixed all these varied styles and influences into a mix of all its own.

I grew up in Istanbul and my mother is an architect. I think it is impossible to grow up in a city like Istanbul and not be inspired by architecture. I spent my youth under my mother's drafting table at the university studio, playing with the pieces of vellum paper cut off from the big sheets that they spent days working on diligently with the 0.5,0.3 tipped ink pens. As I grew up modernism gave way to post modernism and then to deconstruction and to the regurgitations and variations we see now in present day architecture. As the times changes, the architecture I was exposed to changed but the influence of the vast catalog Istanbul kept hurling my way every time we traveled to another part of the city was ever present, ever flowing, ever insistent.

From day one in August 2004, I have strived to build "what looked good to me". I trusted my SL eye, and realized early on building in Second Life and things in built in Second Life are not exactly close to Real Life. Second Life has its own parameters, abilities and restrictions. It turns out what I build in SL is very Frank Lloyd Wright indeed in terms of its aspect ratios, principles and mix of materials. Having a strange affinity to FLW art glass, and fountains pretty much sealed the deal for the visitors as I used these elements in plenty in my earlier structures.

As more fans and friends poured in to deliver compliments and questions I found myself drawn into the world of FLW and his ever devoted energetic fans. FLW crowd has been good to me in SL. And for the longest time I was more than happy to be known as a FLW builder. I still am one. However earlier last year I was a little alarmed to have my buildings be identified as FLW replicas. With the exception of one private commissioned structure, the Zimmerman House, I have never built a true Replica of any FLW buildings. In fact most of the time when people approach me and tell me that my house is a replica of a certain FLW project usually I have to go and look it up on Google to see what they mean.

I love that so many people even would compare me to FLW. It is the best compliment in the world but in all honesty while I am definitely NOW a fan of FLW, when I began to build in SL back in 2004, I had no intention to become the avatar I have become now.

So my current SL is more about finding a balance between carrying the FLW flag while also preserving my individuality and own point of view as an amateur architect. I am still excited about any and every FLW related effort in world and you can see this in my full support of the FLW Museum in SL.

Other things we discussed in the panel were:
Many people trying to create replicas from RL plans for buildings have run into the problem of realizing that once built in SL most of these structures are TINY for use in SL. This is why different teams of people have come with the aspect ratio multiplier of 1.5 that is to be used when using RL plans. Multiply everything by 1.5, make sure your ceilings are not less than 4-5 meters.

Early on I realized that a ceiling height of anything less than 5 meters was going to create spaces that I do not want to be in as an avatar. A 5 meter ceiling height is quite tall for RL, and would rarely if ever create a cozy environment in RL. But in SL because we are all 6 feet 7 feet creatures and because our cameras (our point of view) hover even another foot or so above our heads, we have to design accordingly. Since day one I have hated the mouse look (looking through the eyes of the avatar) and I can not imagine expecting other avatars to use mouse look to be able to live happily in my prefab buildings.

Textures are also a big part of the equation in creating pleasant spaces in SL. A sim that's well done not only uses the best textures that are realistic, but also makes smart use of textures and keeps the number of textures down to a minimum. This is why early on I actually selected a few good textures from a freebie pack and to this day I have stuck with them. After all a good concrete texture, a good wood texture, and a few extra custom build shaded panel textures are all you need to build something in SL and make it look decent with a little help from the prim / texture gods.

As my good friend and mentor Barnesworth Anubis once told me, the good textures are the ones that people take trouble to make. Photographic sourcing is fine and all but it is meant to inform and not be the texture. Use photographic sources as what they are -- source. Do not make them seamless with a few brushstrokes and upload them into SL thinking they will look right. They won't. SL is cartooney. For things to look right you need to respect that cartooniness and perhaps if you like you can bake some of the shading onto the textures ahead of time since SL does such a poor nonexistent job of shading things.

One thing I did not get to voice in the panel (because there were many of us there), is that sometimes you can do everything right and still in due course fail. This happened to me back when windlight was released. Still to this day I have not had the chance, the time, the energy, to go back and fix all the wood texturing work that was obliterated by the release of windlight on all my furniture. My furniture right now appears to be too dark. The only reason I have not fixed this is because the windlight is still not settled and who is to say that after I fix the darkness values of thousands of texture surfaces (yes I texture them individually), that windlight will not change again and throw everything off again.

The biggest challenge that remains in SL for us builders who are particular about their creations is the uncertainty of the environment. With a wave of the want, the Lindens can do something, change something that completely throws all our work down the drain. I don't have a fix for this; They need to be able to change things when they need to change; I guess this is the way life is for a content creator in SL.

SL is just like anything else in RL. It is a work of love. And you can always tell when people put in the time the thought and the blood sweat and tears -- likewise it is always easy to tell when someone slapped some prims together, selected all and then slapped a freebie texture on and then uploaded it to xstreet for sale as a prefab for L$5000.

Overall it was a great discussion and I hope the audience got as much out of it as I did. FLW Museum expressed an interest to have follow up discussions in the future. I think this is a wonderful idea.

Photos from the Zachh Cale Concert

2009-07-23T19:30:00.001-07:00

Video of the Zachh Cale Concert

2009-07-14T09:44:00.000-07:00

See what you missed? I hope those of you who could not be there can join us next time. I hope those that joined us enjoyed this night as much as I did.

Zachh Cale Plays His Compositions for Piano at the Odaesan House, July 9th, 7PM SLT

2009-07-08T12:36:00.000-07:00

Come and join us for a wonderful evening of music and friends.

Seeing Double: Odaesan House appears on another island in SL

2009-06-30T11:05:00.000-07:00

I never know who will end up where in SL and what they will see and what they will think. So to kill any rumors before any start, I want to share the following with you.

The Odaesan House, the big mansion on Mission Home Store, is being cloned to Costa Del Mar island as a part of a new estate. The house will find new life as a social center, club, health spa, events venue, and leasing office. I am in charge of the replication process and I am also making some changes to the building to accommodate the functions it will house in the future.

The original Odaesan House is staying put and not going anywhere -- don't panic. I am also not planning to sell the house as a prefab in the future. I may from time to time clone it for an estate that really needs a structure of this kind. I will be very selective and there will be a fee involved for the custom installation.

The rationale behind not selling the house as a prefab is simple. This is a grand structure, it culminates close to 2500 - 3500 prims depending on the detailing preserved during a move. Such a structure also demands 2000-4000 prims just to do it justice with the interior furnishings. Add to that the landscaping etc and you get a whole sim's worth of prims. This is a tall order for most people.

I am approached frequently by wide eyed enthusiast who want to buy the Odaesan House only to have them quit after a couple of e mails when they find out about what they will need in terms of prims. While I love to meet people who are fans, you must understand that the constant process of answering questions, negotiating prices only to have people quit out on me every time is very depressing and a waste of my time.

For future reference, if you do not have at least 6000 prims to dedicate to the project please do not contact me about buying this house. I will never offer a boxed version of the house because the prefab boxing process does not work for a house this large -- it just does not make sense. I need to build it for you with prefabbed pieces so that it sits in the right place, is located at the right sim height, is placed correctly with respect to the water and so on.

July 9th 7Pm SLT Zachh Cale Recital at the Odaesan House

2009-06-30T11:04:00.000-07:00

Save the date for the upcoming concert featuring the multi talented Zachh Cale performing on the piano live for our guests.

Check the blog in the upcoming week for more details...

I have neglected you all!

2009-06-02T22:31:00.001-07:00

I am so sorry. I was traveling in the first half of May and then catching up with things in the second half of May so I did not have much of a chance to log in to SL much less post anything here.

I am back in world and back to updating this blog.

I have exciting things in store.

Stay tuned :-)

New & Revised Bow Arm Chairs / Couch with 6 Poses, 24 prims!

2009-04-24T15:20:00.000-07:00

I completely rebuilt the bow arm chairs and the couch to reduce the prims down to a meager 24 prims for the chairs. I included 6 poses without a poseball and a menu driven interface that lets you adjust the position of your avatar --- and here's the kicker: The chair WILL remember it next time you sit there again. It has a memory of up to 100 avatars.

I used sculpties for the cushions and some of the woodwork. I think you will find that it all works well with LOD, level of detail, optimizations SL has.

Oh yes before I forget, you can recolor the cushions as you like from the swatches I provide. The interface for cushion recoloring is nice and simple and unlike my previous furniture one click controls every cushion.

Please visit my store to pick up your copy today.

I insist that the sculpties I use match the quality of my prim work, this is why I have not been so forthcoming with adopting sculpties and working them into my items. Lately I have found items that I think are up to par and I am doing my best to bring you the best furniture with the least amount of prims possible...

I hope you like the new chairs and the couch.

And as always, thanks for being a supporter of the Mission Home Store Island.

Concierge Group Censored / Closed / Opened / People banned by Linden Lab

2009-04-24T09:26:00.000-07:00

Here's my open letter in response to the latest drama going on in the concierge group in Second Life. As some of you may know, Concierge Group is dedicated to sim owners and it is meant to provide a platform for sim owners to get quick tech support and updates about issues affecting the grid. The group chat is supposed to have a Linden Lab employee monitoring and helping out whenever appropriate -- though this last part rarely happens.

Here's the letter:

Dear Linden Lab,

I just wanted to communicate some of my latest observations in a civil, calm, and detailed way to you. For this reason I am writing this open letter to you.

First off, a few thanks. Thank you for innovating and putting together Second Life. Thank you for taking the recent steps to make the experience better by improving stability, uptime and performance metrics. Thanks for doing a good job maintaining fairly good communications with your user base.

Now that's out of the way, here begins the more critical part of my letter. I have been in SL since August 2004. I have seen the good, the bad and the ugly and I really do not want to talk about incidences past. So I am going to dive into the current issue at hand.

As some of us estate owners have gotten a rude awakening lately when we tried to chat in Concierge Group and were not able to bring it up because Linden Lab had decided to take it away without making so much as an announcement. Since then the Concierge Group has been brought back with some threatening statements and warnings from Linden Lab telling us to pretty much behave and mind our language within the chat.

I resent this tone and treatment from Linden Lab. The Concierge Group was intended to be a hotline, a place where estate owners could interface with a Linden rep on call monitoring this chatline. The truth of it is, the only time I have ever seen a Linden on this chat line was back last year when 20 of them showed up randomly as a joke -- yes a joke. In the last 2-3 years the Concierge members, that is your paying customers, have been taking care of each other: providing moral support, technical support, banning information for griefers, spreading news about problematic situations, showing up to each other's sims to help trouble shoot. Through this same time frame I only saw a Linden show up to a sim once due to Concierge chat request.

So is it really surprising that the participants of this group have in time developed shall we say a certain disdain, lack of respect and or dislike for Linden Lab employees? I think not. You promise terms to a relationship and then you do not honor the terms of the relationship, more than likely you will face these very same reactions. It is undeniable that your support team was completely absent from the Concierge Chat in the last few years well except for monitoring dirty language and promptly banning estate owners.... an agility you have not been able to show for even the most serious griefers to attack the grid.

You keep telling us that the problem is with us. I beg to differ. The problem is with you and with your company culture. You see I am not convinced that Linden Lab realizes that it is a business -- with paying customers. Never before in the history of commerce have the paying customers been the ones to get this kind of tone and treatment from the company at hand. Sometimes people get rowdy and silly on chat, this is the internet culture; This does not mean we're a bunch of kids. If your phone line kept going down every other day would you be kind and calm when you call the phone company? What makes you think that you're different than the phone company? Perhaps because you deliver a service that's "cool"?

I got a notice from the Concierge Coffee Group this morning saying that after an estate owner said "Fuck you linden lab" in the Concierge Coffee Group (where we were told to have our free for all conversations), several Lindens got upset and left the group and that we should never act like that again.

Repeat after me *pointing to myself* "CUSTOMER", *pointing to you* "service provider". Let's do it again: *pointing to me* "CUSTOMER paying you hundreds of dollars*, *pointing to you* "Employee and Service Provider". Please get this right in your head.

Your customers can say "Fuck you", you have to keep smiling and do your job that is: a. calm them down b. gather information c. attempt to fix the problem d. document and escalate the issues if not resolvable by you. You may want to take some notes while you're reading this as it seems to be completely unclear to you what you are to SL and what you do in it. Lindens can not leave the Concierge Chatline, you can't. This is your job. If you don't like it please join the unemployment line at your city.

Do you think I behave like this when an instructor comes to my desk driven mad by technology malfunctioning and their deadline approaching shouting expletives, making threats? Do I shut my door and lock them out? No, I calm them down, try to make them understand what's going on, document their problem and contact authorities that can resolves the issue. This is called Tech Support. Please continue taking notes.

I am not a big player in SL but a fair amount of my creations litter the grid. I have no intention of leaving SL nor do many of us in the Concierge Group so I am not going to deliver the usual threats about leaving SL and rallying other people to do the same thing. No. We are not going anywhere. Many content creators and I are here to stay and you're going to shape up if it is the last plywood cube we rez.

Get your act together, start treating us with respect so that you may get the respect you seem to be so desperately craving.

Yours Truly,

Troy Vogel

Abby Calisto's Amazing Linden Bear Collection

2009-04-03T16:02:00.001-07:00

It is a must see. I got to see it for the first time this afternoon and got inspired to take some snaphots.

If you want to see the whole set of snapshots go to:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/steelskyblue/sets/72157616228352993/

If you want to see the real thing in SL, teleport to:
http://slurl.com/secondlife/MLCC/74/26/22

The Sounds & The Furry Party Video...

2009-04-03T09:16:00.000-07:00

Check out what Juana captured:

SL: Resident Choice Awards. Please vote for Troy Vogel

2009-04-02T11:59:00.001-07:00

Click here to vote for Resident Choice Awards

To all fans of my work, please go to the following url and vote for me under "My favorite awesome Architect/Builder" category. Your support is much appreciated.

Sculpty Bow Arm Chairs Now Available

2009-03-27T16:02:00.000-07:00

I finally broke down and converted the Stickley replica Bow Arm Chairs to a sculpty version. The conversion was quite conservative. I probably could whittle off more prims if I were to build this from scratch in Blender but even with this version I was able to save total of 7 prims per chair. So the prim count went down from 31 to 24.

Plus to sweeten the deal the new chair comes with multisitter poseball-less sit scripts that allowed me to pack in a total of whopping 6 six animations. The sit script allows multiple avatars to adjust the sit position and stores up to 100 users.

Come and pick up one of these updated chairs today.

I will be revisiting and revising several of my seating options in the next couple of weeks to bring better prim economy and better seating options AND a few surprises.... but you will have to wait for those. ;-)

The Sound and the Furry

2009-03-24T16:50:00.001-07:00

Come over to the
Mission Home Store Island
next Thursday April 2ndat 7pm to 10pm PST (9pm CST, 10pm EST)
For a Rave Dance Party

Come as you are
or
Come as a Furry

Teleport There Now

Some Wordle Fun....

2009-03-24T09:34:00.001-07:00

Created by: Wordle.net

I do not know if this is useful but it sure is pretty...

Tip of the Week

2009-03-16T10:30:00.001-07:00

Silly silly I know but until recently I just made snapshots and landmarks and never bothered to rename them. In fact I didn't even know I could rename a landmark.

So the tip of the week this week is, keep your inventory super organized by renaming your snapshots and landmarks as you make them.

Simply make a landmark, go to your inventory, select Recent Items, find the landmark, right click it, select Rename, type in the new name and hit return. You will thank yourself for taking the extra time when you are going through your inventory looking for the correct landmark.

The Taurus Prefab Re-Released

2009-03-12T09:42:00.001-07:00

As some of you know, I used to have a prefab named Prefab #2. While people liked the style, many did not like the prim count, and the name. Well I reworked the prefab a little bit to bring down the prim count, and have re-released is as "The Taurus Prefab".

Prim Allocation

The package contains two different versions:

A low prim version: Only 264 Prims
A full version: 320 Prims with new additional detailing

Both versions make use of huge prims by Research Project to pair down the number of prims while improving the performance of your SL client by reducing the data that needs to be transfered and processed to display the house.

Additional Perks

The house comes with additional yard walls, platforms, lighting sconces for interiors/exteriors, FLW planters amongst many other mod/copy goodies I included in the package.

Style Comes First

I made absolutely no sacrifices during the rebuild of the house. If anything buyers will notice that the house now comes with an attractive ornament / Chimney. All the previous detailing has been further dialed in and refined. I double checked all textures, re-applied all scripts and tested everything for optimal performance.

Visit The Taurus Prefab In-World

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Mission%20Home%20Store/218/237/23

Troy Vogel Guarantee

As always, this build comes with the legendary Troy Vogel guarantee. I stand behind my products and claim that you will be hard pressed to find any work in a similar style that's as refined, thought-out, and well-executed as my builds.

Despite my best efforts from time to time, things may get overlooked and a bug may slip into a product. It is unlikely but still remains a possibility. In this case, I want you to know that you can always send me a notecard with your complaint and I will send you a response within 24 hours.

Time to Live Well

No matter what your needs, I am sure there's a Troy Vogel prefab that will suit your needs and resources. So why not make the Troy Vogel Prefab your next dream home? Buy one today and your dream will become a reality.

How to Buy

Buy The Taurus Prefab directly from Mission Home Store Island (Second Life Client)

Buy The Taurus Prefab from www.xstreetsl.com (web)

The Little Prince Prefab Released

2009-03-02T15:52:00.000-08:00

The Little Prince Prefab has all the charm of any other Troy Vogel build but features a restrained prim count of 110 prims only for a 20x10meters two storey structure that can fit on most starter lots.

The front entrance has two smooth sliding doors. I provided built in teleport scripts for use to reach the upper floor. As always I used Paskis window and door scripts -- one of the very best service script sets in SL.

The rezzor box is my favorite Jack in the Box rezzor.

The house arrived nicely packaged in its own folder with instructions and extra freebies such as custom wall sconces I built for this house. The permissions is set to Mod / Copy.

All of this for the incredible price of L$250. Come and get your own copy and start enjoying the Troy Vogel lifestyle no matter how small your land holdings....

To see / buy this prefab in-world, please teleport to:

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Mission%20Home%20Store/115/237/23

You can buy this prefab also from www.XSTREETSL.com:
Little Prince Prefab on XSTREET

Car Crash

2009-02-27T13:53:00.000-08:00

No I am not talking about the SL economy.

This week I got rear-ended by a student on our campus while waiting at a stop light. My car has been totaled and I am trying to juggle a thousand calls with insurance companies, adjustors and healthcare professionals.

I am fine, no scratches but a mild case of whiplash -- sore neck and back etc.

I have not had a chance to post here due to all this drama in RL.

Give me a few more days before life returns to something that resembles normal.

Strange Fruit

2009-02-20T14:02:00.001-08:00

Strange Fruit

Second life trees bear strange fruit,
prim on the leaves and prim at the root,
Mesh bodies swinging in the simulated breeze,
Strange fruit hanging from the linden trees.

Pastoral scene of the gallant mainland,
The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth,
Scent of palm trees, sweet and fresh,
Then the sudden smell of burning barrel cages.

Here is fruit for the griefer to pluck,
For the casinos to gather, for the lag to suck,
For the forums to rot, for the resmods to drop,
Here is a strange and bitter crop.

A Billie Holiday song adapted for SL...

Tip of the Week

2009-02-16T13:56:00.001-08:00

I figure I should pass on any good info I get in world to the followers of this blog. So I am going to start a new type of post: Tip of the Week.

This week's tip is:
To keep sculpties from deforming at a distance do the following: click on Debug Settings. On the window that opens, write RenderVolumeLODFactor and change it to 8.

Now remember, when you make this change, it only affects your client and your SL client alone -- unless all your customers go and make the same change the observed results will be the defaults.

Also remember that increasing this value may slow down the 3D rendering on your machine and result in choppy experience. So you may need to revert to the default value of 4.

I hope this helps.

Video from the Rave Globales

2009-02-13T12:28:00.001-08:00

It was an incredible night as you can sea and hear in this video taken by Juana Manuel.

I will be hosting more events like this in the coming weeks.

Rave Globales hosted by DJ TEDI

2009-02-12T13:36:00.000-08:00

You are all invited. Come and dance until your avatar drops.

February 12th at 8PM SLT (PST)

Teleport to Mission Home Store island to join the party.

Troy Vogel's Koinonia Church now on SL Showcase

2009-02-11T09:48:00.000-08:00

I was preparing for teaching a workshop on how to use Second Life for educational projects at universities when I was very surprised to see the church I built for the Koinonia United Church of Christ located on Xenia on the Showcase tab of the search window.

Here's a snapshot of the Showcase Page in the Second Life Client:

The official Second Life website describes the showcase as:
(Source: SL Showcase FAQ)

The Showcase section of SecondLife.com and the Second Life viewer highlights some of the best inworld locations and Resident creations. For new and existing Residents alike, this is the place to go to explore and discover what's most exciting in the Second Life world. Showcase features Arts & Culture, Education & Nonprofit, Fashion, Hot Spots, Music, Photos & Machinima, and Tutorials.

Venues and content featured in Showcase are not paid placements.

Visit Koinonia Website:
Visit the Koinonia Church Website

To visit their church in Second Life click the SLURL below:
Visit the Koinonia Church in Second Life

Here are more pictures of the church right after its completion. The current church looks a little different on the inside as I had to dismantle some of the ceiling due to the subsequent prim shortages of the client.

Visit the Flickr Photo Set

Troy Vogel Build on Main Second Life Homepage!

2009-02-04T16:40:00.000-08:00

I am very flattered that Linden Lab decided to include a snapshot of the Bobcat Village Campus, built by Troy Vogel, on the main Second Life homepage. As some of you know Bobcat Village is the official virtual campus of the Texas State University - San Marcos.

I built this campus for TXSTATE in late 2006, early 2007. To this day I still am the admin of the sim and we try to keep the sim updated and changing slowly but constantly to keep it interesting for our students and visitors.

If you would like to visit this campus please use the following SLURL:

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Bobcat%20Village/129/68/27

Or Simply teleport to "Bobcat Village" -- warning due to the fact that we have several spots that people visit, I can not set a teleportation spot for the whole sim so you will most likely arrive under water. Please towel yourself up before walking around the sim -- it's a PG sim! :-)

Buyers FYI: Known Permissions Bug

2009-02-03T14:32:00.001-08:00

I have been notified by a buyer that one of my builds, the Mini Belletris, is exhibiting a strange behavior where although the structure is set to mod/copy permissions, when you select a single prim from the linked set and unlink and delete, the rest of the object becomes no mod, no copy, no trans.

TRANSLATION: For those not familiar with all this jargon, if you delete a part of the structure, the rest of it becomes uneditable.

Diagnosis: This is not a problem unique to my creation. It has been documented in the JIRA bug tracking system for Second Life. It is a problem with Second Life. Here's the link to the bug in the JIRA bugbase: https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/SVC-3456

As you can see Linden Lab does not consider this to be a high priority item... so please vote this item to get it more exposure and get it fixed before more items get this bug.

I am not 100% sure but I think this bug spreads by cloning objects from one build to another which is let's face it how most of us content builders work. Content creators, be careful while working on new builds.

To test if a build of yours has this bug or not do the following: (this is an object you created from scratch)

Make a back up first
Set the permissions on the linked object to Mod / Copy / no Trans
Set the object to sell -- set it to sell as original (it does not really matter if it is original, copy or content for this bug)
Buy the object
Now select one of the prims on the object using "edit linked parts"
Unlink this part off of the linked set
Delete the single prim you just unlinked
Select the Linked Object
Check the permissions under the General tab
If all permissions are now grayed out yes your object is affected by the bug. Read below for possible fixes.

Fix: For those of you that have already bought the Mini Belletris, as long as you don't try to remove parts of the structure you will have no problems with it. If you want to change the structure -- try doing it without deleting any of the objects.

In the meantime I am working to re-build the Mini Belletris from scratch, unfortunately the only fix available is this one at this time.

I have tried unlinking, duplicating and other operations with little or no success. I am still looking for remedies that do not involve complete reconstruction.

More than likely new builds you create scratch will not have this problem. I have tried to create the bug using brand new plywood cubes and could not replicate the behavior.

I will send out a notice when the fix is in place.

Thanks for your patience.

Please Add to Your Picks

2009-02-01T14:36:00.000-08:00

It is very important for the success of my store to be included in people's picks. The picks affect me two ways.
1. They give Mission Home Store good word of mouth advertising
2. The search engine in SL favors stores and land plots with higher number of picks listings.

If you have added Mission Home Store to your picks before, please revisit my sim and recreate the pick as the old one is probably pointing to the wrong place -- as you know we moved recently. The new store location is at:
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Mission%20Home%20Store/231/115/26

I would like to thank Arius for reminding me that I need to get more people to add me and my work to their picks.

Once again I am much obliged for all the help, support, and patronage.

Yours truly,

Zeugma is Mission Home Store

2009-01-29T14:26:00.001-08:00

The move is complete. I am officially the owner of the Zeugma island and now it has been renamed as "Mission Home Store".

I am told that the old Zeugma landmarks will still be functional so if you have visited the Odaesan House and made a landmark, you're still good.

I will be spending the next week or so redecorating the interiors of the prefabs and settling in.

I am also reworking Prefab #2 to reduce prims and polish a few impeerfections I found the other day during the move. It should be available in a couple of weeks latest.

Also expect many more exciting new furniture from me coming soon to a Mission Home Store near you.

Zeugma Fundraiser: Final Numbers

2009-01-28T11:11:00.000-08:00

I think we did good. I think we did good....

My most sincere thanks goes to everyone that donated, helped, attended events and spread the word. The island transfer are taking place as I type this post. I am hoping by the end of the day everything will be settled for good so that we can all get back to creating great products for our SL customers.

As you all know Sensuous and Supremius Maximus are my new neighbors. If you visit my island drop by next door to the West and say hi. They also make mission arts & crafts deliciousness... :-)

Paparazzi Footage of Intimate Odaesan House Moments Leaked to Press

2009-01-25T22:00:00.000-08:00

We were notified that against our best efforts a member of the papparazzi task for managed to penetrate our property the morning after the party and filmed the new owners of the house Troy and Juana while they recovered. While it is regretful that a member of the media would go to such length to expose us when we are at our weakest we feel that we have no apologies to make as everyone that attended the party knows how much fun it all was.

So with no further ado, here are the much talked about clips:

Troy stumbling to his bed after the party

Breakfast the next morning

Major gossip dish about SLU

Save Zeugma Party Take Two

2009-01-24T21:11:00.000-08:00

Well we're doing it one more time. Last Monday's party was incredible. Everything went according to plan. We drew large crowds and it was a fun time for everyone. The sim performed like a trooper. Knock on wood, it was great. I would like to repeat the party this Monday, the 26th at 7PM SLT again.

This time I am going to try to DJ and play some World mix stuff including Turkish pop. It should be fun. DJing will also allow me to answer questions over voice and that way save me some time responding to people.

So come on down to Zeugma on Monday evening 7PM SL time. Put on some fancy clothing because we will be taking photographs. As always try to limit the number of attachments if you can. So it will be a challenge for us all.

We will be accepting donations so bring your wallets. All furniture in the house will be still for sale. There will be drinks, Hors d’ Oeuvres, dance machine, and unique Turkish, European, Middle Eastern music you probably never heard before along with the usual crowd pleasers.

Save Zuegma Project Update

2009-01-22T15:48:00.000-08:00

This may come across as an overshare but I do believe that for all the ruckus I am creating in SL I need to provide information about how much money is needed, how much money has been collected and where we are going with this.

Here's the story:
Zeug had to pay $590 to get the island back to good in the books. This happened two weeks ago. I paid him $300 of this fee already. We have filed a ticket to have the Zeugma island transfered over to me. So in terms of the future of Zeugma things are looking a lot more certain.

As for my financial future things are not AS certain.

I have already found a buyer for my other island and filed the tickets and everything but Linden Lab takes care of these matters at the pace of a glacier. I called them up and they refused to address my case before it comes up in the queue and the queue is still processing tickets from the 9th. Not comforting.

So, I am looking at pretty much paying $600 for two islands on the 27th of this month. I will also pay $200 for the two island transfer fees.

The sale of my MHS island is bringing me $500 including the transfer fee so this is some help.

Through the fundraising efforts I have been able to raise a little over $400 and I am grateful for this amount. As of now I am looking at paying a little over $500 out of pocket.

I would sleep a little better if it was possible to bring this number down to $250.

This is where you all come in. Please spread the word that we are looking for more donations. You do not have to donate huge amounts of lindens, every little bit helps.

Please browse both the store on Zeugma, the items in the Odaesan House itself, and the store and prefabs on Mission Home Store Sim and see if anything tempts you. Remember it is for a good cause.

I am also accepting cash donations in the amount of $100 for becoming a member of a new exclusive group: Mission Home Store VIP. The membership of this group requires a one time donation of $100. Members will have access to copy enabled versions of everything I make including the prefabs -- FREE.

I will talk more about this new exciting group tomorrow. However I AM accepting donations at this time, your name will be added to the list as soon as I create the group.

If you would like to paypal money to me, pls e mail me at steelskyblue AT gmail DOT com for directions.

These past two weeks have been a wild emotional roller coaster of serious financial troubles and great support from friends and fans. I truly, TRULY appreciate all the support I have received. I will not forget this.

Thank you. Thanks from the bottom of my heart.

Yours Truly,

Linden Lab buys XStreetSL and onREZ shopping sites

2009-01-21T11:26:00.000-08:00

As some of you may have read this morning LL announced that it acquired both of the largest web based SL shopping sites. To read the full blog entry go here:
XStreet and OnRez to Join Linden Lab!

There's a lot of speculation and angst around this piece of news. I personally do not have a formed opinion yet. I am relatively uneasy with this development but not panicked and/or angry.

As some of you know I have a modest store in XStreet (Access my store by clicking here). I never established a service with OnRez mostly because I did not have the time to maintain two separate online stores.

I want to tell you all that I intend to keep my online store in XStreet. Even before this announcement was made, my plan was to shift several of my older furniture pieces to sell directly and exclusively out of XStreet while displaying more of the recent works in my in world store on Mission Home Store Sim. This decision still stands.

I will send an update when I get a chance to move the older items to the XStreet store.

Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns.

Monday Night @ Zeugma Fundraiser Party

2009-01-20T12:30:00.000-08:00

The party was a success, people came to the island in droves. Everyone got to enjoy the builds, DJ Fmeh's music, refreshments, great conversation and a wonderful chance to network with other fans of the mission / arts & crafts styles.

The sim was full for the entire event. Some of the party spilled over to the Mission Home Store Sim next door.

We raised $45 half of the island transfer fees in two hours. I would like to thank everyone for coming to the event and contributing.

What's best news is if you missed this party there will be a second one next Monday the 26th.

This time we're going to do a theme party. I will announce the theme later on this week. Check back around Thursday / Friday to get the details. Let's play dress up for this next one.

I will once again provide the sim, the food, the music, you just come and enjoy yourselves, shop a little, donate a little and have fun.

Zeugma is Mission Home Store

2009-01-14T18:46:00.000-08:00

I made my decision, I am moving everything back to Zeugma. I will sell the Mission Home Store sim and make Zeugma the main sim for my SL presence.

I am still planning to have the party on Monday, so please come on out and get a drink and have some fun.

It is going to take me a few days to move everything over to Zeugma so I am slow with responding to IMs now you know why.

Save Zeugma Party Monday the 19th 7pm SL time

2009-01-14T09:03:00.000-08:00

Zeug Thalheimer is leaving SL or at the very least will no longer be the owner of Zeugma. As I already have an estate I am looking for options to save the famous Odaesan House that resides on Zeugma.

In the short run, I am planning to move the store back to Zeugma and get rid of one of the sims or convert it to openspace.

But as you know changing island ownerships names and such all cost good money and I am already strapped for cash with my Mission Home Store sim.

I want to do a benefit event January 19th Monday 7pm SL time on Zeugma for all of those that want to visit and walk through the house with me and have questions answered. I ask that all visitors contribute at least a minimal donation to the house fund when they visit the house during the next week. All proceeds will go towards renaming the sim and the ownership change expenses charged by Linden Lab.

I may also entertain renting land out to businesses and / or residents who want to live on Zeugma. Please send me an e mail at steelskyblue@gmail.com if you're interested in renting land on Zeugma for a store or residence. For those that want to live on Zeugma, I can provide one of my prefab houses for free if you like.

So at this point, I am looking at what my options are. If you have any ideas that you think might help me please let me know.

Let's save Zeugma, let's save this beautiful sim.

Thanks for your support.

Are you ready for the Christmas Sale?

2008-12-15T14:58:00.000-08:00

You heard it right... if you thought the prices on the prefabs were great during the Thanksgiving weekend, you will be glad to hear that the same prices are going to be available from Dec 21st to Dec 26th.

I have not changed the Thanksgiving sale prices back to normal prices after thanksgiving. The new sale prices therefore are available for you right now.

Most of the livingroom seating items will be discontinued after Dec 31 2008. They will be replaced by new items. So if you must complete that living room you've been working on, now is the time.

The Ottoman Prefab Re-released as Version 3.0

2008-11-29T10:19:00.000-08:00

Unfortunately the remote I installed on the door for version 2.0 was not working as planned. It was making a significant part of the house phantom. I had to repackage the house.

While I was doing the repackaging, I also changed the root prims of each of the sections which should result in better rezzor behavior and fewer complaints about pieces getting trapped in land.

If you've bought the version 2.0 of this house and would like the new update, please send me a landmark to where you have it rezzed and I will visit to confirm and drop you a new copy free of charge.

Thanksgiving Weekend Sale

2008-11-28T09:38:00.000-08:00

To thank all my long time customers, to welcome new customers, I am having a Thanksgiving weekend sale on the Mission Home Store Sim. The sale will extend through Sunday November 30th evening.

All my prefabs are discounted considerably:

Istanbul Villa: from L$10,000 to L$2000
The Ottoman: from L$2,000 to L$1000
Prefab #2: from L$5,000 to L$2000
Belletris: L$500 (already an incredibly low price)
Nasrettin Hodja Pavillion: L$500

Rush to Mission Home Store island now and buy them all for less than the regular price of Istanbul Villa alone.

Seriously do not miss this sale.

Mission Home Store Sim Now Open!

2008-11-20T20:32:00.000-08:00

We have now moved to our own sim: Mission Home Store is the name. Easy enough to remember when you just need to get your mission style furniture and Troy Vogel Prefabs fix.

Current Store Address until November 30 2008:
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Zeugma/230/120/26

New Store Location as of November 30 2008:
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Mission%20Home%20Store/38/126/25

Mission Home Store Philosophy:
My building rationale and point of view can be summed up by one word: Quality.

If it does not look right, if it does perform well then it is not for sale, then it is not given out, then it is not even made public.

I build everything prim by prim, to look aesthetically pleasing in the SL rendering engine. I first build primmy prototypes and then refine the prim work until only the most essential prims are left behind and every opportunity for prim efficiency has been explored. Is my work still primmier than the rest? Of course it is; But you must admit the look and feel is also quite different.

I texture everything a single face at a time to make concrete look like concrete, to make wood look like it was quarter sawn from actual trees, to make fabrics wrap just right around the cushions.

A typical chair like the bow arm chairs that are Stickley replicas can take up to 8 hours of rezzing and texturing and additional cost of the top of the line animations and sit scripts I use.

My philosophy as a builder is forever remaining in quest of that perfect balance between primmy and texture heavy builds. I think builds should look like real things; This is why it is very important not to overdo the textures.

I have lately employed the use of sculpties in my furniture as well as huge prims in my prefabs to still bring you the Troy Vogel quality you've come to expect in a lower prim footprint.

I am also bringing you the best in SL animations with each item providing at least 2-3 animations and poseball-less sit scripts that allow you to adjust your position, angle using menu driven easy to use interface that actually remembers your settings in future visits up to 100 users.

Join the Mission Home Group!
Don't forget to join our free admission "Mission Home" group to get updates about new products, updates and other info about our events. Members can also vote for new products.

Thanks
Finally I would like to thanks all my customers and fans who have made it possible for me to keep motivated despite all the changes Second Life is going through. Your support means the world to me.

I also would like to thank friends such as Zachh Kale, Juana Manuel, Gayle Cabaret and a dear friend, mentor, critique and prim master Barnesworth Anubis.