Tag: BlakOpal Designs

Vanity Fair Models the Latest Fashions from the Sinespace Shop

Did You Know? Sinespace female avatar fashions are designed to fit EVERY female avatar body. You don’t have to check to see if apparel or footwear are designed for a specific brand of female body, like you have to do in Second Life (e.g. Maitreya Lara, Belleza Freya, Slink Physique, etc.). Also, you don’t have to fuss with a HUD to make parts of your body invisible under apparel; the clothing fits perfectly, and it adjusts if you make any changes to the body sliders!

Oh, and did I mention that Sinespace has working in-world cloth physics on skirts and dresses? Check out the videos to see it in action here and here!

As you might already know, I have brought former Second Life supermodel, Vanity Fair, over to Sinespace, where she models clothing for this blog! Here, Vanity Fair is wearing her standard, go-to casual outfit at the Sinespace Welcome Centre, which consists of:

I decided to check out the new line of female T-shirts by Z-Art, and I picked out this Music Notes tee (only 40 Gold). There are many designs available!

Next we have a real bargain! This Moon top by ELL costs only 1 Gold (or 1 Silver, Sinespace’s promotional currrency) per colour. It comes in six different shades:

To go with the Moon top in blue, I added the frilly denim Jay skirt, also by ELL (99 Gold), which also comes in a variety of colours:

Looking good!

Our next outfit is the sexy, short, bodycon Eris dress (99 Gold) by PrettyDeceased, which comes in six different patterns (here, I chose the flamingo design). You might also want to spring for the matching Eris thigh-high boots (also 99 Gold per pattern), not shown here.

The sandals I used on that outfit form part of a bundle, the Boho Evensong outfit from Daz Originals (1,105 Gold). You get everything you see below: the sandals, faded jean shorts, a tank top, a lovely see-through lace top you can wear over the tank top, and even a set of bangles for your wrist!

Remember that when you purchase a bundled item like the Boho Evensong outfit, you first have to go into your Sinespace inventory, click on the icon, and select Use (see the green arrow in the image below):

Once you have clicked on the Use button, you will be presented with a list of all the items in that bundle. Simply click on the Get button below the list (see green arrow below):

…And it’s all unpacked, and each separate item is automatically added to the appropriate section under the Outfit tab: Top, Bottom, Accessory, etc.:

Here’s a look at the entire Boho outfit. You’re all set for the next virtual folk festival!

This Boho outfit also comes in four other colour combination bundles, and if you prefer, you can purchase each item separately in the Sinespace Shop.

Happy shopping!

In all these pictures, Vanity Fair is also wearing:

For more information about the Anatomy body system, please see this blogpost.

This blogpost is sponsored by Sinespace, and was written in my role as an embedded reporter for this virtual world (more details here). 

Sinespace Creator Spotlight: Some of the Latest in Male Fashions from the Sinespace Shop

Following up on a recent blogpost of the latest fashions for female avatars from the Sinespace Shop, I thought it was time we looked at what was new in the store for male avatars.

Our first look is for LGBTQ Pride! The Prideful tank top by Pretty Deceased comes in two versions, one black and one white, for only 1 Silver each! These absolutely fabulous, tintable, resizable wings are the Angel Wings (male) by wolfgraphics, and are for sale for either 10 Gold or 1,000 Silver in the Sinespace Shop!

The second outfit is a retro aviator look from Daz Originals. The Retro Aviator boots, Retro Aviator pants, and the wonderfully-detailed Retro Aviator jacket are 159 Gold each:

Our final, casual, contemporary look consists of the Loose Tee (male) by BlakOpal Designs (which comes in 10 colours for only 49 Gold each, or the complete bundle of 10 for 346 Gold), the Jaleano ripped blue jeans from ELL (99 Gold), and the HG Atlas Hope sneakers by Virtual Dispensary (200 Gold):

The detail on the red, white and blue Atlas high-top sneakers is amazing!

This avatar is also wearing:

Happy shopping!

This blogpost is sponsored by Sinespace, and was written in my role as an embedded reporter for this virtual world (more details here). 

Sinespace Creator Spotlight: Anatomy (Turning Vanity Fair into a Sinespace Fashion Model!)

Yes, Vanity Fair is also in Sinespace! This is her default, “before” look.She is wearing the Tiredi dress by ELL (10 different colours, only 99 Gold each colour), plus Misty ballet slippers by BlakOpal Designs (5 different colours, also 99 Gold each). The golden Crescent Hoop Earrings are also by BlakOpal Designs, and they are only 39 Gold.

Not bad, but I wanted to see if I could make her look more like a fashion model today—really pull out all the stops!

Luckily, I was able to find a brand new content creator in Sinespace, named Gaby, whose brand is called Anatomy (website), that sells six different kinds of female mesh bodies: Classic and Curvy, both of which comes in three different bust shape options: classic, perky, and push-up:

The two types of Anatomy bodies: Curvy and Classic
The three bust types of the Anatomy bodies: Classic, Perky, Push-Up
All told, there are six different Anatomy bodies

So, I bought the Curvy body with a Classic bust (499 Gold), the Emma head shape (699 Gold), and the Emma skin in vanilla (649 Gold), all from Anatomy. I also replaced Vanity’s hairstyle with the Dream Glory hair in brown by Newsea (only 99 Gold).

The vendor recommends that before (or after) you wear any of these new bodies, that you reset the body sliders so you get a clean canvas to start with your new body shape. To do this, just go to the avatar editor (click on the Outfit button), then click on the  Body section and click on the Reset button up top:

Here is what Vanity Fair looks like after her complete model makeover! All I kept from her Before look were the dress and shoes. I kept all the default face and body slider settings after the above reset, only making her bust slightly larger and her hands smaller (for some reason, the default Sinespace avatars all have huge hands!).

The following poses are part of a single animated gesture you can buy on the Sinespace Shop, called Ladies Fashion Poses Gesture by De Landria Creations (only 75 Gold). It slowly and smoothly moves the avatar through a number of different model poses, allowing you time to take pictures. Here are just three of the poses included:

Looking good! Tools like this pose set are going to prove popular among the growing number of fashion bloggers in Sinespace, and I am very glad to see them make an appearance! Hopefully we will be getting more fashion bloggers in Sinespace to showcase the amazing work that so many talented designers are creating.

I also bought a Catwalk Linear 101 gesture from Trilo Byte Design (only 59 Gold), which is a simple model catwalk runway animation: walk to the front of the catwalk, pause, pose, and walk back. To demonstrate it, I had Vanity model a gown I had blogged about before on the official Sinespace blog, the beautiful, flowing Allegro gown in cream, created by BlakOpal Designs. This garment, which comes in 10 different colours, actually has full in-world cloth physics enabled!

Below is short promotional video from the creators, BlakOpal Designs, showing just how naturally this garment moves with the wearer (and it even includes a very useful tip on how to fix the skirt, if it should snag somewhere on your avatar).

Each individual colour of the Allegro gown is 199 Gold each, and you can buy the complete bundle of ten different colours for only 1,399 Gold.

So, Vanity Fair is finally a full-fledged model in Sinespace! Expect more reports on the ever-growing fashion market in Sinespace, for both male and female avatars.

This blogpost is sponsored by Sinespace, and was written in my role as an embedded reporter for this virtual world (more details here). 

Sinespace Creator Spotlight: BlakOpal Designs

One of the nice things about avatar clothing in Sinespace is that you can incorporate in-world cloth physics, as shown by the skirt of this dress created by BlackOpal Designs, in a recent video posted to YouTube:

In a recent interview with 80 Level, the couple behind BlakOpal Designs explains how they got started creating content for virtual worlds, starting off with Second Life in 2008:

We are BlakOpal and Trilo Byte, based in the San Francisco Bay Area in the United States. We’re artists in both the real and virtual worlds. Together and separately we’ve worked on real-world projects such as bespoke clothing (like pirate coats, corsets, and dresses), custom bars and furniture, a human-powered carousel, a 40-foot long space pirate ship, and even a large climbable ziggurat. BlakOpal has a strong background in graphic design, 3D and animation, while Trilo’s background is a bit more varied and also covers advertising, marketing, and industrial design. We love art and technology and have been doing this for most of our lives.

We got into making content for virtual worlds in 2008 when we were taking a year off from Burning Man (an arts and culture festival in northern Nevada) and had a lot of time on our hands. At that time, we discovered a BBC documentary called Visions Of The Future presented by Dr. Michio Kaku – a brilliant theoretical physicist and futurist who we are big fans of. In the program, he talked about virtual worlds, specifically Second Life, and he even mentioned that they had a virtual version of Burning Man that took place in-world. We decided to look it up and check it out and were immediately hooked. We had been making 2D and 3D art for years at that point, and immediately started making things and playing around to see what we could do.

When BlakOpal and Trilo Byte discovered that Sinespace had in-world cloth physics, that was enough to get them hooked! They were the first people to create avatar clothing with working cloth physics in Sinespace, in December 2016.

Trilo is quoted in the 80 Level interview:

One of the great things about making things for SineSpace is that it’s based on the Unity game engine, and Unity can work with almost anything. You can use whatever 3D modeling program you like, as long as it can export an FBX, DAE, or OBJ file. You can use anything from free programs like Blender to commercial programs like ZBrush, Modo, Cinema 4D, Marvelous Designer, Maya… the list goes on and on.  It’s just a matter of finding a program (or programs) that you like and is within your budget and learning how to use the tools.

For texturing, you can use free programs like GIMP (the GNU Image Manipulation Program) or Krita, or commercial programs like Pixelmator, Photoshop, Substance Painter or Mari. A lot of modeling programs have pretty good tools for texturing built in, too. The choices here are endless, it’s about finding the right program for your budget and learning how to use it.

For more information on BlakOpal Designs, you can visit Trilo’s website or follow their Twitter, Instagram, or YouTube.

So today, I decided that Vanity Fair would pay a visit to the in-world BlakOpal store, and do a little shopping. You can also do your shopping using the in-client Shop button, or from the Sinespace Shop website (here’s a link to take you directly to the BlakOpal Designs store).

The BlakOpal Designs Store in Sinespace
The BlakOpal Designs Store: in-client shopping via the Shop button
The BlakOpal Designs Store on the Sinespace Shop website

Here are a few of the outfits she picked up today:

This is the Bettie top and matching miniskirt, available for 149 Gold each. This outfit comes in red as shown, as well as purple, blue, green, and black:

The next outfit Vanity models consists of:

  • the Crescent Hoop earrings in Ripple Gold (only 39 Gold!);
  • the gold Mirabelle Wrap Dress (physics enabled; 179 Gold); and
  • the black Misty Ballet Slipper (99 Gold).

Watch how the skirt of this dress moves as Vanity walks! You will never see this kind of cloth physics in Second Life, folks! (Even Sansar only has cloth physics enabled in Lookbook mode as you dress and style your avatar, not in-world cloth physics.)

The following, final outfit consists of four separate pieces:

  • the blue Moto Jacket F Dragonfly (149 Gold);
  • the black Lillian Lace Top (79 Gold);
  • the blue Marco Jeans F (99 Gold); and
  • the blue Sineverse F Dragonfly Sneakers (149 Gold).

As you can see, the detailing on this clothing is remarkable!

So hurry on down to BlakOpal Designs and pick up some wonderfully crafted outfits for your avatar! They sell menswear as well as women’s clothing, in styles ranging from modern to steampunk to pirate!

This blogpost is sponsored by Sinespace, and was written in my new role as an embedded reporter for this virtual world (more details here).