365: Sky 98 - dry snow

As promised, here is the long render. Still not quite how I would prefer it to look. Might keep working on it.

365: Sky 97 - green

The sky I was going to post today disappeared when I accidentally turned off my iMac just as the three-hour-plus render was finishing. I was cleaning the monitor and grasped the iMac firmly in the lower left corner. Because, yes, I am right-handed. Those of you who have a machine like mine know that the on/off switch is on the back of the lower left corner. I have to believe this is a design flaw because most of the world is right handed and you have to hold the iMac steady when you clean the screen. And, eh, voila! My render is gone. This is also a Bryce flaw as it does not save your render until it is complete. Sure, Bryce is free but then you pay with hours of learning how to use it and lost work when stuff like this happens.

So, enough with the whinging. Here's today's sky. It's quick, it's easy, and it's a standard SciFi sky from Bryce. 

Kinda cool, really. It gives this old sky a whole new twist. Could be a keeper!

I'll post the other, more traditionally-beautiful sky tomorrow. It will render overnight while I'm sleeping and unable (and unwilling) to clean items in my proximity. 

You can log in but you can never leave

Bumped! A standard occurrence since I got my free Linden home and land.

I still have a paying account in Second Life (SL) due to the weekly bonus being enough to cover my quarterly dues. I also have a free alternate account and thought that having a paid account stopped all the spurious logouts. I was wrong.

Regional density of my home in Second Life. Every grayed square represents a house.

I availed myself of the free home and land deal which comes with any paid account. I chose an Asian theme thinking that I would be online while most of Asia was offline. I was right about that. What I hadn't realized from the enticing images of free homes is that the homes are packed in. Every square inch of available space is crammed with houses. No yards, no gardens, no public areas – in short, no free space at all. How many 512 parcels can you fit into a region? The Linden answer: too many!

Continental density of my home land. Obviously the servers weren't made for this kind of greed.

The set up process was easy, if a little funky. I had to log in from the email notification and not the online landmark to actually log into my home. However, once at home, it's nearly impossible to leave. 90% of the time when I try to teleport elsewhere I end up logged out. In the few experiments I've conducted, I have been able to teleport if I log back in right away and then teleport. Is this how it's supposed to be? I think not.

If I were a Linden, I'd try to make SL enticing, easy, and fun, not a technological, mystical, unexplainable, frustrating horror.

365: Sky 96 - troubled

The mountain should be snowy on the bottom, not the top and the snow on the rock is glitched. Bryce took 3 hours to render this scene so I'll not be starting over today. Maybe tomorrow. Anyway, the primary purpose of this image is to show the sky. Sky by itself has no context. 

365: SKy 95 - more gray

365: Sky 94 - grayness

365: Sky 93 - drama

365: Sky 92 - contrast

Yesterday I thought I needed to put something besides clouds in the sky. Today I think I should take pictures of nothing but clouds.

365: Sky 90 + 91: sparkle and misty blue

Sparkle (green changed to pink) (#90)

Misty Blue (#91)

I've missed a day or two, so this makes up for that, whenever it happened. I'm fiddling with this scene trying to get fog to be how I remember it on that day I couldn't stop to take a picture.

I prefer rounded mountains, like the Blue Ridge or the Taunus, which means every Bryce mountain needs to be modified. Bryce prefers sawtooth ridges.

I am noticing that most of my skies involve clouds. I have a good one for tomorrow that reflects that. I'm trying to come up with other things that can be in the sky. Flying cows? Planes? Dogs? Hawks? We'll see.

365: Sky 89 - solstice evening

365: Sky 88 - dreamy bright

365: Sky 87 - foggy cloud

365: Sky 86 - tall trees

Tall trees make the sky higher.

365: Sky 85 - summer morning

365: Sky 84 - cloudy moon

I wasn't going to post today, and then I thought, "What the heck. The camera's right here." And here it is.

365: Sky 83 - pre-storm

I continue to be enthralled by the shade of purpley grey against a lighter, pinkish cloud as seen at the bottom of this shot.

365: Sky 82 - cloud brushes

Made with JavierZhx Cloud Brushes. It really is all about the clouds. A plain blue sky is boring.

365: Sky 81 - another sunrise

365: Sky 80 - sunset mod

Yesterday's sky modified. I prefer blue skies and less haze and fewer clouds.

365: Sky 79 - sunrise/sunset

Another Bryce preset sky. Just add water!

365: Sky 78 - rainbow

Made with Bryce 7. Yes, I've upgraded. It's free! 

This is a preset sky. It's a bit hazy. I lowered the bow because the preset rendered so high that it was only partially visible. I checked the secondary bow option, yet only got one bow.

365: Sky 77 - reality

If I'm going to take pictures at night, I'll need a tripod.

365: Sky 76 - facsimile

Tonight I made photos of the new moon, or the sort of new moon barely first quarter. I'm sure they are much nicer than this facsimile which I made in Bryce. Perhaps some day I'll be capable of making a prettier replication. Although the size of the moon is much closer to what I see compared to what the camera captures.

365: Sky 75 - arcade

Skies are everywhere!

365: Sky 74 - orange bird

365: Sky 73 - vapor trail

365: Sky 72 - tree branches

365: Sky 71 - pelican

Over the British Virgin Islands (photo by Kathleen Bleach)

Current Fads
Listening. Healing Sounds; birds
Watching. The Spy Who Came in From the Cold (1965)
Activity. crocheting
Gadget. iPhone 3GS
News Source. the news feeds in Safari
Reading. The Cat Who Wasn't a Dog - Marian Babson; The Passionate, Accurate Story - Carol Bly; The Complete Idiot's Guide to Communicating With Spirits - Rita S. Berkowitz and Deborah S. Romaine; A Most Dangerous Method - John Kerr (No danger in anyone complaining the movie is not like the book because no one will have read the 592 pages. And if they have, they'll be grateful that someone summarized it into 90 minutes.)
Writing. On a White Palfrey and Like Nothing On Earth