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P U B L I S H E R Libby Farleigh
L E A D - D E S I G N Libby Farleigh
FA S H I O N - E D I T O R Daija Arida
MARKETING-MANAGER December Dollinger
FUSION S t a f f contributors
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Bliss Windlow Rylan Carling Chaotic Monday Auryn Beorn
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PHOTOGRAPHERS Rylan Carling Harvest Dezno Jada Tigerpaw Ivana Lockhart
FA S H I ON - T EA M Emilianamarie
Alex1985 Diabolito
On this month's cover:
Photography by Bethany Heart Modeled by Biblar Heliosense
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Oakley Foxtrot
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pring feels sooo close in my part of the world these days! We've had a week of sun, although it's still very cold it's a joyous thing to be able to open the curtains in the morning and be greeted by something other than grey and rain! I know traditionally the New Year is the time for resolutions and life changes but I think this is the sort of time of year when it becomes viable. After all, who feels like doing anything but sleeping in January?! So, in the spirit of Spring resolutions, I've decided to start the 365 photography challenge. You could do this in SL if you're not RL photographically minded but the general idea is to document a year of your life by taking a photo every day, and then ideally journalling it on a blog or, if you're of the analog era, a scrapbook. I'm challenging myself to do this and restricting photos of my dog to one a week (I feel like she's all I photograph lately!). If you're interested in doing this too here's a website where you can find out more: http://content.photojojo.com/tutorials/project-365-take-a-photo-a-day/ There's even a website where you can claim your free Project 365 blog: http://365project.org/ (although I reckon Flickr would work just fine too!) I hope you all enjoy the issue, we're covering residential communities, spring cleaning, inventory organising and of course, lots more!
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SPRING s
Cleaning by Bliss Windlow
In my opinion, when it comes to Spring cleaning, there are basically 5 approaches. Controlled Ebb and Flow. Today you work on a closet. You do the top shelf, clean and tidy and organize it completely, then the second shelf and so on. Once you have the closet done, you move on to the laundry room, working around the house until every room is done. Take lots of drugs because as soon as you cleaned that top shelf, your oldest daughter will destroy it looking for her favourite lipstick even though you tell her 12 times it is definitely not there. You know that because you just spent 3 hours cleaning that shelf. That, and the fact it is now in your purse where she originally got it, back in the day when it was YOUR favourite lipstick. Yes, you never get the house clean because Spring slips into Summer and Summer to Fall and Fall to Winter and nothing stays clean and you get a headache and your 12
lipstick will be missing again only now you find out it is your son’s favourite.
Seeing is Believing. Clean only those things which are visible to the immediate eye
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upon entry into the house. Stuff all the junk and mess into the freezer or behind the shower curtain in the bath tub. Put up a ‘no touching’ sign. Duct tape people’s hands behind their backs if they are going to be staying in your house for any length of time. Yours is a visual house and any hand movement towards any closed doors or sofa cushions will only spoil the carefully crafted illusion. Bomb. Open up everything; pull everything out into the middle of the floor. Clean where all that stuff was. Clean the stuff, sort it as you go. Put it back neatly. Or alternatively, a slightly altered version is to open up everything, pull everything out into the middle of the floor, suddenly develop a rare illness and drive yourself to the hospital, stay for a few weeks, or until picture proof is presented that the ladies from the church by-law enforcement officers came by and cleaned forced your husband to clean your house for you.
Move somewhere it is NOT Spring. Ever.
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Throw everything out, buy all new stuff.
PHOTOGRAPHED AT VOGUE ESTATES
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the best of
Residential Communities article & photography by Libby Farleigh
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PHOTOGRAPHED AT VOGUE ESTATES
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Vogue Estates Tyler Witherspoon
Availability:
Rent level:
House provided:
Social meeting place/events:
Theme:
Woodland village
Notes: Exquisitely landscaped, reasonable rents. Popular with creators and the place to live for peace & quiet! Waiting list available.
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Owned by:
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PHOTOGRAPHED AT VOGUE ESTATES
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PHOTOGRAPHED AT THE GROVE
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The Grove Umberto Giano
Availability:
Rent level: House provided:
Social meeting place/events:
Theme:
Tuscan estate
Notes: One of the original communities of this type. Large plots, large rents. Lots of attention to detail and picture perfect spots.
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Owned by:
PHOTOGRAPHED AT THE GROVE 24
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PHOTOGRAPHED AT THE GROUNDS 26
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The Grounds Harlow Heslop
Availability:
Rent level:
House provided:
Social meeting place/events:
Theme:
Woodlands village
Notes: Home to The Pixel Bean Coffeehouse. Evokes imagery of laid back Southern charm. Large plot sizes & gated entries.
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Owned by:
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PHOTOGRAPHED AT THE GROUNDS
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PHOTOGRAPHED AT SOMERSLEY 32
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Somersley Gabrielle Somersley-Montana
Availability:
Rent level:
House provided:
Social meeting place/events:
Theme:
Family surburban
Notes: Perfect for family roleplay, complete with schools, parks and doctors. 16 sims to explore!
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Owned by:
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PHOTOGRAPHED AT THISTLE ESTATES
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Thistle Estates Liz Gealach
Availability:
Rent level:
House provided:
Social meeting place/events:
Theme:
Countryside village
Notes: Open space, winding waterways. Owned by the creator of Thistle homes so you know it’s going to be adorable!
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Owned by:
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The Pixel Pot
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Restaurant & Café Article & photography by Rylan Carling
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ixel Pot Restaurant & Café is found on a lovely, quaint island and caters to your every need for the most realistic dining experience. A perfect setting for a family, a group outing, or a romantic meal for two, the staff at Pixel Pot makes every accommodation for satisfaction guaranteed, above and beyond! There are a number of dining settings to choose from. The inside is cozy and gives you more of a restaurant appeal. You can dine out on the porch or deck if you prefer the outdoors. The choices don’t stop there. Situated in lush gardens, you can enjoy an intimate meal with your sweetheart completely secluded in the Green House.
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The Gazebo is breathtaking. Tables outline the middle dance floor area and allow the couple a wonderful evening of dining and dancing. The Gazebo is also available to be rented out solely for a private dinner. If you enjoy the water, you can choose from private dining on the boat, just for the two of you, or dining out on the dock. The dock is also available for private rental. Each dining experience comes with a to-go bag and a framed photo, as well as other goodies that are part of certain packages.
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The Lighthouse Bed & Breakfast Suite is perfectly suited for a romantic evening get away. A three-course meal, drinks, and the amenities of the lighthouse are a click away. In the morning, you will be served breakfast, and some other surprises, which I'll leave for you to discover; I don't want to give everything away! Hours are from 10 a.m. – 7 p.m. SLT. Reservations are required for bigger groups, it’s best to book in advance to get the full dining experience. The staff is willing to help in any way to make your dinner magnificent!! The options are endless, and it will be an event that you remember forever. It’s something everyone should experience at least once in their SLives!
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FUSION COVER MODEL article by Chaotic Monday
Biblar Heliosense
joined SL at the urging of a good friend back in November of 2008, and he was immediately intrigued by the building and scripting aspects of SL. His friend encouraged him to find his SL 'self' by dropping landmarks on him and pushing him out onto the grid. For years he explored SL, rarely shopping, mostly spending time with friends and slowly taught himself how to script, make animations, sound editing and how to make simple mesh projects. From these, he enjoys scripting the best, starting out with making simple scripts for friends for little to no compensation.
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He has made a wide variety of scripts for his friends, such as door and drawer scripts, texture and color change scripts, particle scripts and simple toy and tool scripts. His first big solo project to date has been the Cheshiresoft Buddy System HUD. This HUD uses the SL RLV system, allowing you to seamlessly follow friends around SL, even across borders and teleports. Recently he was contacted by the Holiday Appreciation Association, and he was tapped to script the Mingle Hunt. The ingenuity of the hunt really put him on the map, it was well done and fun and
being the problem solver he is, he was able to write it in a way to keep the lag down. In his words, “If your scripts are laggy, there is probably a better way to do it.”
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Biblar's inspiration and his future projects are fueled by his own desire to solve problems. His mind is a cache for random ideas and he chooses what he goes forward with by gauging his own personal interest. In other words, he works at things he likes, and has interest in – that is how he continues to work in SL and enjoy it. Balance is found by having a clear picture of what he's doing and being able to multitask, as he's constantly thinking about scripting in the back of his mind. His number one priority is enjoying himself, if anything useful comes of it, then that's just a happy, fantastic bonus.
Find Biblar Online https://marketplace.secondlife.com/stores/148255 http://www.plurk.com/Biblar
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Being an easy going guy, it's hard to get him to nail down favorites, but for clothing, he likes Deadwool, Razor and Etham. He doesn't follow bloggers or have an interest in furnishings, but he is impressed by the photography skills of Bethany Heart, Anya Ohmai and Fusion’s very own Ivana Lockhart. When asked what was lacking in SL he jumped on the obvious answer; “scripts!” He would love to see every day static items improved with the use of scripts and interactive menus.
UNDER CONTROL
PART ONE
Keeping Your inventory
by Auryn Beorn
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reetings everybody! If there's something unpleasant, yet necessary to do in SL, it's sorting inventory. There's no denying it, it's frustrating to search for an item we want to use, and not being able to find it. There's also the fact that an excessively large inventory may carry with it some other bad side effects. The first important thing to realize is that this is a task that has to be performed periodically. If we sort our inventory today, depending on our shopping habits, perhaps we need to sort it again every other week or maybe every month. The frequency is not the same for everybody, but it is something you'll have to do from time to time.
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If this is the first time you're going to seriously sort your inventory, or if it's been a long time since you last did, keep in mind, this is no five minute task. It may take you from several hours to several days. It depends on how many items are left to sort, and how thorough you want to be. As a matter of fact, even setting our
mindset to inventory sorting, and establishing a routine that works for us, takes some preparation. For this reason, we'll be outlining here the stages that will be developed in future articles.
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We will first talk about choosing a folder structure for our inventory that reflects the way in which we naturally look for information. This is a personal decision, and so several alternatives will be presented. We have to think which structure works better for us, and so decide. After this, we will see how to create this folder structure in our inventory, and which tools SL has that allow us to move items, create copies or even special copies called 'links'. Once our inventory is organized, we aren't done. We have to get used to packing, otherwise, our total number of items will grow out of control. It's a good idea to do our sorting and packing at the same time, but while we learn, we will do this in separate stages.
Join me, starting in the next issue. Enjoy your SL. ď Ž
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When packing, we will realize that there's a lot more than clothes in our inventory. Textures, poses, notecards, furniture, landmarks, calling cards. What do we do with all this stuff? We will study some tools created by SL residents, learn about embedding in notecards, and more.
The Just Right AO by Rylan Carling
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T
he search for the right AO for you can be time consuming and grueling. I have stuck to my usual one from Vista Animations for years. Out of curiosity, I went into my inventory to see how many AOs I’ve collected, and, sure enough, there was a whole list of them! If you’re anything like me, you’ll be surprised to see exactly what you have hiding in that inventory of yours.
Even though I have this collection, I’ve never found the AO that had everything I wanted. Sometimes it’s as simple as a walk that I didn’t like, so I chose not use it and only walked one way. Or, at times, I liked the majority of the stands, but there were one or two that annoyed me. Clearly I didn’t know enough about AOs to figure out I could delete the ones I didn’t like.
However, now, I bring to you the option of creating your own custom AO in the Firestorm interface (this isn’t new, but it’s new to me.) That’s right; you don’t need to have an attachment anymore! What’s the best part of it? It’s simple enough to do that even I could figure it out on my own without any help. (I did watch a tutorial which I’ll link at the end of the article.)
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The longest part of the process will be picking through your AOs and choosing which runs, walks, stands, and sits you like best. Make sure you copy everything before you start breaking things apart, always the number one rule. You can mix and match using all of the AOs in your inventory. After you have a list of preferred AO components, you simply transfer them over into the Firestorm AO.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Owl-Dv3dg8c
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Once everything is set into the right category, you have it! You now have your own AO, filled with the animations that you like best and no more need for any attachments to your interface! Make sure you set it as your default, simply checkmark it on, and now you are ready to go. Congratulations! As promised, here is the tutorial that will show you step by step how to do this:
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Fashion Editor N O T E I hope everyone had a happy and sexy Valentine’s Day with loved ones or alone. I know this section has been a little skimpy lately, but that’s because I’m planning BIG things for our March issue. So prepare to be wowed!! It’s going to be awesomeness, so keep your eyes out for it.
Stay awesome, Daija Arida
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If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to IM me in world or contact me via email at daijaarida@gmail.com
blogger's corner
By Alex1985 Diabolito
Some say you can 'tell' a man by the suit he is wearing. Personally, I call bull...t. You can 'tell' a man by many things, like his mind, personality, the way he treats others but surely not by an (admittedly iconic) piece of fabric. That of course, doesn't mean a nice suit is any less important for a man and his wardrobe and that's why I chose to do a SL suits (or SLuits if you like) feature for this month. There are so many good pieces in SL and most top creators have at least one in their store inventory but I chose to show you my two most recent ones. So let's suit up! 58
Skin Tableau Vivant - David Suit Epia - Pinstripe Suit (Mens Dept February round) Watch Mandala - Sitennoah
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Skin Tableau Vivant - David Hair Dura - Boy&Girl 50 Suit Zaara - Classic Suit Shoes Kauna - Wingtip Brogues 60
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O N E I T E M THREE OUTFITS
BY EMILIANAMARIE F U S I O N February
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looks of the month
Modeled & Photographed by Ritch Nicholls http://www.flickr.com/photos/ritchnicholls & http://boystowncloset.blogspot.com 66
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Modeled & Photographed by Anya Ohmai http://www.flickr.com/photos/ohmai
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Post Valentine
Apocolypse (or 'How to Tell When it's Really Over') by Bliss Windlow
OK Valentine’s Day has come and gone. He wined you, dined you . . . you announced on social media you were ‘in a relationship,' you got matching sweaters, and you shopped for china patterns. Now it is time to talk about ways to tell your SL relationship is over. • You are discussing your relationship and he tells you he loves you and then asks if you can wrap it up, he needs to go … he has a date. • Whenever you track him in SL maps you always see him in the midst of a bunch of dots … all on top of one another. • When you try to invite him to voice chat, it says he is already engaged. Coincidentally, so is your girlfriend. Further coincidence, they both show as dots at the same venue. Those dots are on top of one another.
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• You keep getting strange IMs from him, when SL shows him to be offline, where it appears he is either typing with one hand, or has fallen on a single key. “oooooooooo. . . “
• Your best friend is wearing a t-shirt that says, ‘ I belong to Studmuffin.’ (‘Studmuffin’ being your boyfriend’s name).
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• There is a picture of a muffin with a stud through it on SL Secrets and someone has written, "He has been with me for over a year now and we just do not know how to tell you." • Everything finally rezzes in your bedroom and that thing in the corner is not another hat stand. It's a tall, naked blonde. • The guy in all those really sexy Flickr pics with all those different women looks eerily familiar. • You find three different penises all with different names in his inventory, 'Big Hammer,' 'Butchy,' and 'Your Daddy.' None of them is the one he uses with you which you call, 'Buckeye.'
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• You hear his mother calling in the background while you are having phone sex that he is grounded off the computer for the next 3 months because his math teacher called and he skipped school again.
• Reception calls. There is a 50 year old, 500lb bald man, missing some teeth, waiting for you with flowers. He has a t-shirt on with "Studmuffin" emblazoned on it.