The Sound of Mesh - New Gramophone Released!

It took me a while from realizing that meshes are the future in SL (which isn't really hard) to actually getting started with making them. Well making meshes is - compared to building in SL - utterly complex and demands a completely new kind of building (not speaking of making UV maps and baking textures on them), but the benefits are almost unlimited freedom in creating and manipulating shapes - something I could only dream of in SL ;-)

My first Mesh!

So instead of using tools to convert SL-prims and make them to meshes I took the high (and pretty tough) road of learning Blender.

After watching about 30 tutorials and more or less successful attempts to get used with the controls and the idea behind its UI (which did quite confuse me at first - again, SL is much simplier there), I felt ready to start a serious project.

There were of course some obstacles. And some "walls" I ran against, until I got used to its vices (and there are many), strenghts and limitations. But the result looks quite satisfying. Its been a steep learning curve but I can definitely say: its worth it :-)

The Gramophone shown as wireframe. Looks pretty cool, huh? ;-)

Additional to its great looks the Gramophone has a menu-operated radio script, animated handle and turntable and several access levels (group, owner public) - and weighs only 2 prims :-)

The plan for the next weeks and months is to piece by piece remaking my current products in blender and throwing some new products out too. I - for example - haven't made a zeppelin yet...

The Steampunk Mesh Gramophone is available on the Marketplace and inworld - stay tuned! More coming soon! :-)