Second Life friend Ziki Questi has put together her archival footage of some of the spaces I created in Second Life into a concise and fun video. You can find more videos on the same topic here on my blog.
This is a fictional vintage landspeed record car I designed and built using Second Life ages ago. I started off building a classic belly tanker “lakester.” These were made from the external fuel tanks of World War Two bombers. On the inside I modelled a tube frame which you can see in the image. Then i started to work with the lines to mimic a p-47 thunderbolt. Then I pushed the front tires way out front, mimicking 1920s and 1930s race cars. I realized I’d designed the car very thin, and I wouldn’t be able to put in a flathead v8, which would have been expected anyways. So I modelled a fictional straight 6, based roughly on a blue flame 6, with an even more fictional 3 carb setup. I did do some googling and there was a company that did make a manifold for such a thing. I used p51 mustang air speed and engine RPM dials and other details.
Once the modeling was done I programmed a 2 speed automatic transmission and a separate lever to engage a separate overdrive gear, along with the functioning engine, steering and wheels. If you accelerated just right and used the overdrive you could get the car to more than 200mph as advertised in the manual that came with the car. I mixed engine sounds using harley motorcycle recordings which were layered in Audacity to sound more like 6 cylinders.
For the heads up display, shown in the second color image I used vintage comic book motifs. The buttons and levers function and the levers are inspired by the throttle controls in old bombers.
I also built the desert location which was well suited to breaking speed records. Second Life was and remains a wonderfully creative medium.
I was back in Second Life for a bit today and built this rusty old car to put in my wheat field there.
One of my Second Life creations, when I was doing such things, both the land/lighting and the car. The idea was to make a car that recalled a nostalgic belly tanker race car, but also to make it look like it had literally been crafted from an airplane fuselage.
It’s official
I have become the not found.
Some of my 3d art work is now on the 404 page of secondlife.com.
http://secondlife.com/not%20found
How oddly fitting. Ironic, yet maybe not. Goodbye to you too Linden Labs. It was fun.
edit: Yes, this use was legal as detailed in their terms. No worries.
Fat Tires
I built this in Second Life. I suppose it’s a 32 Ford, but I deviated some. I built the desert location as well. I used a texture by Buckack in this image.
