Hidden Art, Part Two

The other hidden art in Second Life are particles! Have you seen of this form of art in Second Life? There are particle emitters where you can poof anything you want from pictures of your love to butterflies, ghosts, and spiders.

Objects spew particles like volcanoes, stars, pictures, and fog. These are only the tip of the particle as to what you can poof in Second Life. There are quite a few of famous particle scripters that I know and you do too! The most widely know is Outy Banjo who makes particle scripts for builders to buy. For example, Julia Hathor will purchase a script from Outy or in her case pay him for an exclusive particle script to do something specific for her builds on the Creative sims!

Then there are other artiste's such as RacerX Gullwing who scripts moving particles for charity, funny fountains, and similar items for Burning Life, where I met him! He's irrepressible rabbit who races around Second Life promoting, "The Great Snail Races" for which he is very famous, but won't say a word about his charitable donations to raise money for the Relay for Life!

I loved RacerX's Very, Tiny Castle so much I featured it in my Art Gallery as a permanent center feature on the Second Floor of Elven Enchantment. I consisted of two prims and had a castle at the center and the outlaying village, that went through morning, noon, and night and at night there was a fireworks show! An incredible work of art!

Particles are scripts told to do something specific. Poof this texture, like this:

default {
state_entry() {
llParticleSystem( [ ] );
}
}

And yes, it does look similar to a script because it is a type of script, if this looks like fun you can go to: The Particle Laboratory and you can learn step by step how to make particles. Follow the arrows on the floor and touch all objects. You will get one or two paragraphs per notecard and hopefully by the time you are done, you will be a particle scripter bar none!

You can identify a particle script because you can walk right through it, this is not to be confuse with the ability to make something flexible such as hanging tree limbs and leaves!

If you are thinking that particles are not really hidden because you can see them, here are some interesting facts about particles. Particles can be emitted from any prim. Particles don't create sim or network lag, because they exist only on the viewer's computer; and only the texture and the particle definition needs to go over the network!

Particles are fun, flashy, and you can surprise your honey with hearts, quotes, or a picture! Enjoy your particle emitters and if you want head on over to The Particle Laboratory, to learn how to make these wonderful scripts, the SLurl is provided within this article!