Top Secret Project

Ok...so it’s not really THAT top secret. There has been no 007 involvement (not as yet anyway) and it’s certainly not something that hasn’t been done before! The only top secret part was me hiding hundreds of metres in the sky preparing a purpose built venue for….. 'Fashion from VR Designs - Spring 2008'. My latest fashion parade!

The venue itself is a pure self build and has been kitted out with some super gadgets from Lucky Designs and Fnordian Furniture. Plants from Heart Garden Centre & Eric Linden!!

The event will incorporate an auction powered by Bidbox. See something you like in the parade and bid for it there and then!! The date is still to be confirmed (confirmed for 5th April 2008 @ 1pm SLT), watch this space for more information!! You can also join my group ~ VR Designs ~ (search groups and include the ~ OR select the group from my inworld profile and choose join).

When VR Designs Met Fnordian Furniture

One morning I was minding my own business - literally - building a new store for my Plush Rho site when I got a new IM; it was from Fnordian Link. I know that name from somewhere… Ah yes, he teamed up with Shep Korvin to provide us with ‘Whats in the box?’ from Lucky Designs. He was also involved in the same testing group for Shep’s 3rd Generation Lucky Chair as I was.

Knowing that I have been a tester before, Fnordian asked me to test his new ‘Security System’, and as I knew he works with some of the better known Second Life® residents, I assumed he was reliable and the project wouldn’t be too time consuming and so was happy to help out. The system is great, very easy to use, menu driven and does exactly what it says on the box. Having run some tests and used the security system for a few weeks with everything running smoothly I was confident that he was a top quality scripter. I visited his new store in Blue Moon and purchased a multiporter system and what can I say? Another high quality product, easy to use and does everything I want… and more! I had a conversation with Fnordian and told him about my current project - still top secret - and to cut a long story short I bought a clever little script from him.

Fnordian’s texture changing script is fantastic, just what I wanted for my project! I had intended to manually change textures by dragging them from my inventory as and when I needed. Now all I have to do - after pre-loading my textures - is click on my 2 prim object to access a menu system that not only gives me the option to use any of the many loaded textures, but also the ability to add colour, bump mapping, shininess, full bright, transparency, etc etc. This script has so many uses, I have also added it to my photo booth (available for public use at the side of my store in Plush Rho). It would be a great tool for builders who want to experiment with texture effects via a menu driven system rather than through the drop down menus within the edit control box; fewer mouse clicks for great timesaving. Once satisfied with their project all they have to do is remove the script and textures to fix the changes. The script is on sale at Fnordian Furniture for a fantastic price of only L$300. Should you have any questions I am sure Fnordian would be happy to help you out, but if you would like to see it in action check out my photo booth, just click the floor to set the floor texture and the background to change the background texture!

The script is also available on SLX and OnRez.

Thank you Fnordian for such a great versatile script at such a bargain price. A retail outlet can only be as good as the materials the owners use!

Itchy Feet And Virtual Removal Vans

I’ve been around the (virtual) world, oh yes! I’ve had shops in the strangest of places! Some successful, some not so successful and some expensive mistakes! I have learnt some lessons and no doubt I have more to learn. My main store has had to grow with my business so I have had to move around quite a bit but have hopefully now settled happily on my very own 4096 square metre parcel in Plush Rho.

Initially I ran my business from a 20 prim ‘pod’ at TE’s mini mall in Dingo, then realised that 20 prims just wouldn't do! I moved up to a rented 512 square metre parcel in Bunyip but within three months was running so short on prims that I packed up and moved to a rented 1024 square metre parcel in Canfield.


Canfield was a busy place! I spent a lot of time there in my basement designing, picturing and boxing up lots of new designs, until eventually in October 2007 I outgrew the store.

I moved back to my original starting point in Dingo where I shared a 2048 square metre parcel with TE Yates (around ¾ of it was for my use). This was one of the highlights of my time in the SL™ community. I had great neighbours at 'Knuckleheads Tatoos & More' and it was Halloween - wOOt! I decorated my store with webs and ghosts, dressed up for the occasion and best of all.... I took part in Shep's Hallween Hunt 'Trick or Treat 2007'. I rented a vendor spot over at the central hub and designed some great themed outfits for the event.

Unfortunatly - I knew it was going to happen - TE sold up all her land in December so that she could enjoy a more ‘come and go as I please’ life. I considered my options and decided it was time to buy my own land so I headed over to Anshe Chung’s Dreamland.

On December 23rd 2007 I bought a lovely, peaceful, lag free 3072 square metre parcel in Plush Eta, built my store and installed all my wonderful Lucky Designs paraphernalia. I was happy! I had never imagined life could be THIS free from lag! Not complaining though, it was wonderful to teleport in and have everything there, rezzed and ready to use! But one morning I logged in and was a little confused, was I back on the mainland? I’ve never known lag like it; not even on the mainland to be perfectly honest. I went over to the central island to check the SIM stats and found that performance was running at 20%… ohh dropping to 16%… ohh no dropping again to 12%. I contacted the wonderful Dreamland Angels and the SIM was restarted, there was clearly something wrong as it was only running at 30% after the restart. On my way back to my parcel I noticed some new buildings on the previously empty parcel adjacent to mine. Assuming this probably had something to do with the drained resources I took a look and found that they had built a casino and nightclub. They were running so many scripted items, spinning, flashing lights, particle emitters, moving light rails that were entirely voice activated. I couldn’t believe it. One inconsiderate neighbour had destroyed my peace and 50% of my store wouldn’t even rez. Dreamland restarted the sim several times a day but the situation got worse as the ‘Lag Monster’ neighbour continued to install more and more flashing things. I battled on for a further couple of weeks before getting in touch with dreamland and requesting a move. Within 24 hours I had found the perfect spot, a 4096 square metre parcel in Plush Rho…. My current haunt!!!

Now remember the ‘learning curve from hell’ I spoke of earlier? I really hope I have finished climbing it now!!! I think it’s about time to sit back a relax a little and start designing again !!

Moving every three months is not fun at all so I wouldn't advise it to anyone!! I've got more prims than I could have dreamed of last year so I certainly wont be outgrowing the new store!!

Lag, Lost Inventory & Objects that Vanish On Rez!

If you don’t know what lag is you have clearly never been to the Second Life® world! If it wasn’t such a great place to hang out I’d have jumped ship long ago. I’m not even talking about NOW, I’m talking about more like April 2007. I know the lost inventory problems have been going on since long before I joined SL, but I learnt yet another lesson. One weekend every third item I rezzed vanished and I had quite a few customers ask for another copy of a ’No Copy’ item they had purchased, since I had suffered myself I obliged and made my decision to set everything to Copy/No Transfer.

After making this change, only a copy of the item would be eaten, as the original was still (hopefully) safely in the customers inventory! So there you have it… another valuable lesson learnt and eradicated! (also the answer to a question I have been asked time and time again - Why are your items set to No Transfer?)

Empire Building Take Two: One Part Cement, Two parts Sand & One Part Water!

I may have climbed the ‘learning curve from hell’ but things would get much easier from here for sure! I had shown my work to my friend TE Yates along the way and she offered me a small shop in her mini mall. Thank you TE, where would I be today without you? In return for her kindness I gave her a full perm copy of my two dresses for her to put into her Lucky Chair - whatever that was - and asked her to set the perms for next owner to ‘No Copy’ when she distributed them. She did exactly as I asked and I tested it with her - though it took many resets to get the chair to call a V - I figured that it would be nice to let people pass the dress on to a friend if they hated it or had already won one. Mistake number…. What am I up to? Three??


One morning I logged in and went over to my little shop only to find somebody had rented the shop next door and put my dresses up for sale at half the box price. How could this be? I was very upset, after all I had gone through, someone was trying to sell MY hard work as their own. As it turns out they were single copies that he had won from the Lucky Chair a mere 20 metres away. Once TE came online and I spoke with her it was cleared up quickly but I my confidence had been dented. The freeloader himself actually became a friend, though sadly he has since left the SL™ community completely. SO just in case you ever read this, thank you Ernesto, you helped me in the hardest of ways!


So having learnt a lesson about the lack of morality in our previously lovely, happy, flowery world I decided that freebies were best set to No Transfer! I continued to grow my collection and opened a bigger store on a rented 512 square metre parcel in Bunyip. I installed four of these ‘Lucky Chair’ things that TE had and business started booming. So my third big thank you is to Shep Korvin of Lucky Designs for his fantastic invention. If you don’t know what a Lucky Chair is… where have you been? Get yourself over the Bermuda immediately and start living a lucky life!!





Pictured Right: Bunyip April 2007- my first 'real' store... featuring my four lucky chairs (spot me on the left in my 'little black dress')

Empire Building Take One: The Sand And Water Way!

I started building my empire in January 2007 and had lots of fun learning about the wonders and pitfalls of working with flexi prims! Ok I admit I was useless! I made some lovely skirts and as soon as I added flex they drooped and hung around my knees and ankles! Mmmm I must have been doing something wrong! I worked on it for a few days before realising that the flex clearly works from bottom to top rather than top to bottom! I had cracked it! I made my first two flexi dresses, Lava Queen and Blue Lagoon.

Ok so that was surely it, I could just make clothes now! wOOt! I decided to make a cute black leather zip-up corset and thong set; your virtual life isn’t complete until you own one and ladies can wear them too!! I downloaded a set of Chip Midnight templates and set to work. It didn’t take very long and soon I was ready to upload. First was the corset, everything went great and it looked cool, not bad for a first try! Then time for the thong, how could anything go wrong now? I paid my L$10 for the texture upload and created a new set of underpants but strangely something HAD gone wrong!! My thong - from the front - looked like a pair of shorts that had split up the inner leg. I took another look at the texture and decided I had obviously created too much fabric so I started to reduce it, shorter and shorter. A dozen or so uploads later I gave up, I was defeated. It was a painful experience and I couldn’t think about anything else for days. “OK one more try” I thought to myself, and this time….. It worked!!! I wished there had been a way to test the textures without paying L$10 each time, but accepted that succeeding was worth all the L$ I had wasted! It took me many more months, but I finally found the preview clothing feature on the upload screen!!! “Can I get my wasted L$ back now please?”!!

Hello and welcome to my first ever blog!

Ok so the title is a little unimaginitive! ..but it is a description of the aim of my new blog!

I am VictoriaRose Daniels and I own 'VR Designs Ladies Fashion' in the Second Life® virtual world. I hope to have some lovely pictures and information here very soon so watch this space! In the meantime why not check out my store inworld at Plush Rho.


This picture is of me at a friend's wedding in one of my earliest outfits, made especially for the wedding. I also made this outfit in Blue and Green!