My
production pipeline for 3D generally results in
cyberpunk urban environments. Inspired as it is by real life
urban environments and digital concept art alike.
So I want to provide the infrastructure for lego-like builders basic bricks which can be arranged to make the urban environment. I look at Brutalism, Deco and Gaudi, architectural styles. I look at Tudor and Japanese traditions which both follow very similar formats, not the oak, wattle and daub compared with bamboo and paper of the materials but of the black square with white interior aesthetic. Tudor has also the same 45 degree angle slants (okay so the degree varies organically because largely oak was used in construction, a wood which is flexible and organic in its grain - for our purpose of keeping things simple to reduce lag in cyberspace we will call it horizontal, vertical and 45 degree slant) as does so much of the 80s and post-80’s retro-80s cyberpunk house style.
My first experiment with making this interesting is the
SpiceHaus project, the colour scheme of which is from
Arabic / Indian sunset, from desert towns and rusty post-apocalyptic steampunk with eastern flavor.
After making several builds all involving the same basic format, when I recognized I was following a format, I decided it was time to make this easier for myself and create the basic pattern, a blueprint for later designs.
Tonight looking at pictures of Kowloon and Chinese multi-hi-rise dwellings, the same repeat pattern motifs, well - even with the intention of high-resolution Gaudi style organic living space, garden ledges and forest balconies, the same griddy horizontal and vertical is always necessary for simplicity of making cyber environments which can run on modern computers without crashing them. Thus even in digital my work becomes an era piece.
Coming into focus while working on all of this is the term
“medieval space opera”. Of course it has all been done before. The one good thing about technology is that as it progresses, it becomes smaller and less complicated to operate. The perfect technology is telepathic jewellery which re-structures atoms around us to conform the material world to our will, safely. Flowing fabrics which are light to wear and ray-proof and of course as stylish in design as they are comfortable in texture.
The medieval loom prints 3D digital scrolls and is of course a genetically-modified silkwork-spider creator-creature with whom we can converse regarding its output, much of which is stored in its digitally enhanced memory mesh.
So we don’t need the struggle of energy, mining resources, laying bricks. Flying drones print our dwelling spaces in 3D direct from their bodies hatched in pods. Mechanical insects hatch foliage batches placed in niches all around. Human lives are dedicated instead toward pleasure and hedonism, spiritual development and exploration.
Such dreams amuse me as I make grey boxes and attach them together inside my flatscreen computer using a clunky keyboard and wired mouse, watching in my minds eye touch sensitive holographic projections as interface for the environment by those who intend to be edutained.
Welcome to the holodeck. Something about the 80s cyberpunk genre refuses to die. Is it going out of fashion? Gritty cities at night where a fight in the street and beating your meat to cheap drug fuelled cuties with custom animal bodies and an occasional metalectric limb, toting big guns and a wicked eyed grin. Neon and rain, air that reeks of petro-chemicals and despair. Everything owned and everything has a price. Shadowrun, Blade Runner, simplified right down to the bare element basics.
The city is a multi-story maze in the desert, streets made of mud mixed with chemical to set it to stone, right angles and 45 degree slants, even the arches, even the chiseled faces and bodies of the denizens here with their less than straight lives. It is easy to build, especially now with my tool kit complete enough to work with.
My Builders Sets are available from
my store in the Secondlife Market - when it permits me to upload. I currently have backlog of items going back over a year which for reasons unknown the Viewers (I use SL standard and Singularity) have been refusing to send my objects to the store. Possibly this is a good thing because it will result in an inevitable and more cohesive re-brand of everything I have made so far (at best prices).
