Contemporary Ijinle well underway

Non-denominational Christian church in Ijinle

Being too uncomfortable and fractious from my cold to grade exams, I threw myself into building this week. I wanted to really see some accomplishments! So, after shrinking the new palace and throwing up the build that emerged during the conference, I started to work. What next?

In fact, what content? What should a modern Yoruba town show, albeit truncated and in miniature? I want the mix of building styles to be clear–Afro-Brazilian intricacy, Yoruba concrete spinoffs of the same pleasing, old style buildings, something sleek and modern, paint deterioration–so, a mix of styles.

And what of content? I want to discuss religion, both as a major bulldozer of traditional patrons, but also as an interesting force within the country. I first lived in the Middle Belt, where Muslims and Christians (really perceived outsiders vs. indigenes, rather than religious rivals), and just last week several hundred were killed in clashes there. As I started building the cathedral, I realized the Yoruba aren’t usually involved in these clashes–perhaps because they are normally inter-ethnic problems, and the Yoruba are fairly evenly divided between Muslims and Christians. That’s quite a success story.

Tamsin piously reading her Bible and sneaking a peek at other ladies; outfits

So, the church and mosque became my first two complex structure from scratch, the church a somewhat modern building, the mosque in full-blown Afro-Brazilian style. It has loads of little sculpty decorations and pastel details. Even the roof–corrugated sculpties, rather than a flat textured surface.

Placing things inside has been terrific fun, and shows just how skilled and in love with building many of SL’s creators are. My church pews are very reasonable, built by Duke Magneto. If you click on the back of a pew, you’re offered a candle or a Bible, and multiple poses are available to make you a very pious set of prims!

Looks like a cathedral, but it's a mosque!

The mosque has poseballs I first saw in the fantastic Al-Andalus mosque build, back when it was the Chebi Mosque. They include the poses for salat and can be timed according to the various times of the day. The maker, Ruuh Cassini, also has a fantastic build that allows a virtual hadj (pilgrimage) to Mecca, as well as free copies of the Noble Koran–not just books with a cover, but USABLE full Korans–incredibly complex and time consuming!

I wanted both builds to include select YouTube videos of specifically Yoruba hymns, Yoruba Koranic recitations, and the were music played during Ramadan, and merrily gathered them. And then–yesterday YouTube changed something, and no SL YouTube viewer works. This has happened before, so I’m hoping the maker will develop a fix–it added so much!

Skilled emancipated slaves from Brazil built plaster-detailed mosques, churches and houses in southwestern Nigeria and the Republic of Benin

The church also has bells, and I’m developing a specifically Yoruba call to prayer, which will make me explore sound further. Wonderful free sound scripts are available at Twisted Thorn’s ScreamShop on the second floor, courtesy of the wonderful soundstress Meriadne Merlin, who is incredibly kind. More on the sound adventures later.

I love sticking in the little details, like a few pairs of shoes in the mosque vestibule.

Today I put up the tailor shop, with treadle machines and some of Meriadne’s sounds. Finding some of the textures for posters, etc. was time consuming, but it makes it come alive for me, at least!

Need a new blouse? Stop by our tailor's!

Now what other builds should modern Ijinle have? The conference building is going to be a library (each modern sector will have one, each with different contents). There will be outdoor hair braiding somewhere, and an assortment of signs. An Internet cafe? An art gallery? Certainly a wealthy family’s house or two, and a not-so-wealthy room and parlor. A tall office building is a possibility, but it might be disproportionate. A little beer parlor/buka restaurant. Some market stalls. What am I forgetting?

Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education Conference

The Conference display build will become Ijinle's library

Last Friday and Saturday was my first VWBPEC  conference in Second Life, along with the accumulated craziness of readying a poster (actually a build) and a paper/tour while also writing two exams and preparing to travel. I enjoyed only a little, because of teaching Friday and traveling Saturday, and regret how much I missed. I was proud to have figured out a mix of new slide viewers and speak with pre-typing features.

I wanted to socialize more, since that’s where you often pick up new info. The Preso-Matic Turbo slide screen, by DoctorPartridge Allen, was recommended as the most lag-free (very nice!), so I stopped by the Doc’s shop and picked up his GameKit as well (no chance to try yet). The good Doctor stopped by and I had a very pleasant chat with him.

A casual acquaintance pointed me toward a very interesting booth that produces inworld “CDs” and does language training. They’re known as earworms–see http://www.slevolution.com — and they look very intriguing.

My build was a relatively simple little Afro-Brazilian structure, like those still used as stores by many urban Yoruba. Even so, it required constant adjustments. I stuck info notecards in everything, from the hair braiding sign to the roof. This is going to be a structure in Ijinle, so no time lost. But did it have many visitors? I don’t know!

And then, after a 15 hour trip, a vicious cold struck. So, the Spring Break broke me.

Resizing Ijinle’s new palace

Last week a West African SL friend took a look at Ijinle’s 20th century palace addition, admired it, reminisced about similar buildings in the Republic of Benin, and said it was too tall. Oh, my poor cannibalized structure! I resisted, but I knew he was correct–it just wasn’t in proper scale, so I zapped it with a shrinking raygun (would that it were that easy). It is going to need further tweaking and adjustment, but I’m happier with the scale issues–this is going to be a recurrent problem, too. Sometimes I will just have to ignore it, if I want to fit enough on the sim to give an impression.

Shrinking a building with lots of pieces requires temporary linking (accomplished by highlighting one, then tracing a highlighting box around everything), then going into edit, grabbing a white corner box and bringing it down. Inevitably something will be missed (or picked up by accident) but it saves time.

More landscaping possible with the newly shrunken palace!

Furnishing the palace of Ijinle

Building is taking longer than I’d hoped. I had started on the modern Ijinle palace thinking it would go up very quickly, since it was in essence a prefab. But cannibalization was so thorough, I may as well have started from scratch. Having whipped it into shape, I had to think about the furnishings.

This is where the scale of SL is problematic. In order for an avatar’s camera (particularly one newer to the platform, but it also applies to everyone) to swing around well, buildings have to be bigger than usual. Doors and windows can be gargantuan, giving an Alice (“What did I eat?”) in Wonderland feel at times. I am trying to be prim conservative (ha!) so I can use as many enticing items as possible, but a palace must be furnished!

Nigerian rulers tend to commission modern thrones that are gilt and red velvet or brocade–Louis XIV would feel right at home in their atmosphere of lush draperies, red carpets, chandeliers and brass. They get gifts from their subjects, so the walls are covered with cuckoo and other clocks, decorative brass ewers adorn display units, and wealth is evident.

But how rich is the Oni of my fictional, composite Ijinle? Fairly wealthy, but not a multimillionaire like the Oni of Ife or the Alafin of Oyo, businessmen both before they took the throne. We are only seeing two rooms in the new palace, an anteroom and his reception room. So how opulent should it be for prim purposes? Well, he has a planked wooden floor–unusual that it is not marble or tile, but I kept the original floor planks because of the building’s date. Now that I think of it, this should probably be changed, since the present Oni would doubtlessly do a little tinkering even if he were not ready to erect an even newer structure.

Imported rugs, often in regal red, would cover the floor, no matter its own material. Curtains behind pelmets would probably be satin, however, so I’ll have to see if I can change their texture. Modern palaces, just like modern mansions or poor men’s homes, are primarily decorated by large framed photos stuck up on the pelmets, and by calendars featuring clubs and unions. The Oni of Ijinle must display his loyalty to his state governor and his president–after all, he–like every Nigerian traditional ruler–is paid by his governor. All traditional rulers are on salary, and fall into three tiers of payment, dependent on the wealth and influence of their kingdom in the past and (somewhat) in the present. The Oni is a Class One traditional ruler, and is concerned that another oba about 80 miles away is lobbying the governor to be upgraded from Class Three to Class Two (oh yes, it happens, and can be successful).

A Yoruba lady stands outside the palace wall of Ogbomosho

One thing I must make for the Oni are a series of certificates and awards that should also bedeck the walls, as well as some religious images. I haven’t decided if he should be Christian (Christ, the Madonna and Child) or Muslim (Arabic inscriptions, the Kabba at Mecca), which will determine that line of decoration. Certainly the modern Ijinle will have both churches and mosques.

I’m going to have to change the governor’s photo. Because composite Ijinle is in a composite state (Ibile), it really needs a fictional governor. Who better than my friend who supplied a town name and oba’s title when requested? He will get a kick out of this promotion into a royal family! Though, of course, I will have to create a suitable royal personal name–Yoruba royals (and there are many!) usually bear names that include the word “ade” (ah DAY), which means “crown.”

The photos are the only place I’ve added content so far, and already it will have to be changed!

Some animals are already in residence. The oba has an albino peacock (I’ve seen them at the palace in Okene, and pigmented ones throughout Nigeria’s southwest), as well as an enormous tortoise. The latter is a reference to Alagba, an actual tortoise kept at the palace at Ogbomosho, and said to be (possibly) 300 years old. So, not random choices! No cats or dogs, of course–these animals are thought to be gateways for witches to gather information, so dogs are for hunters or as watch animals, not indoor pets.

Cannibalizing Barnesworth Annubis

The original Barnesworth Anubis Riviera shop--lovely, just waiting for a boutique owner to pull up in a chic outfit after lunch at her favorite bistro

Well, not literally. Though he’s an exceptionally nice guy, so he might be sweet…

Okay, okay. As mentioned previously, Barnesworth (a great and famous SL builder) had some Riviera structures with shuttered windows, plastered finishes, many things that I was was interested in. He doesn’t sell any of the window or other units, but kindly urged me to get a building or two, take it apart, use its components, and learn from it.

I decided to lay down a decent-sized two story type to serve as the base of the “modern” Yoruba palace of Ijinle, built in the 1950s. Immediately I saw it was too tall, and started cutting it down. Then its windows were disproportionate, so I started moving those, too. Barnesworth didn’t create a usable second floor, so building blocks upstairs are solid 10m…umm…blocks. A very quick and useful solution! Working with the shuttered windows, I saw that Barnesworth uses a thick enough shutter that it (and its frame) show up on both sides of the wall–an elegant and economical (prim-wise) solution!

All respectable royal and government buildings have a curb painted in the colors of the Nigerian flag! Only one Mercedes is shabby indeed--the Oni of Ijinle has sent his cars out for his daughter's wedding!

Even better, he creates holes for windows by using the “hollow” command on a flat wall, rather than building rectangles all around the window. It had never even occurred to me! And here’s where it creates regret–why didn’t I use my memorization skills to pay attention in math, lo those many years ago? I could be calculating angles, etc. without agonies of despair and doing everything the long way first. Finally, a practical use for those accelerated math classes and I feel as if the dunce’s cap is my only appropriate choice!

G.J.A. Ojo's photo of the Ado Ekiti palace from African Arts journal 1 (3, 1968)

In any case (did you feel that gusty sigh?), I went ahead and bought sculpty balustrades (and am VERY happy with them–thank you, Anthonys Republic, another skilled and generous builder!) and made a staircase and balcony for the palace. I’m modeling the building (somewhat) after the modern portion of the palace at Ado Ekiti. Multi-story buildings, glass windows, decorative plasterwork, balconies and balustrades were introduced at the turn of the twentieth century by Brazilians who returned to West Africa after emancipation in 1888. Initially their style was confined to colonial towns like Lagos and Porto Novo, because even if they knew how to get to the towns and villages of their birth, reaching them was perilous, for they risked reenslavement along the way. The British and French, entrenched at the coast and beginning to force expansion of their territory through colonialism, ensured both personal safety and a clientele for expert work in a Western style.  From the early years of the century through the 1960s, the style grew in popularity for wealthy Yoruba, such as the obas (kings), rich traders and cocoa farmers. As the first generation of Brazilian masons died out, the Yoruba had adopted and adapted their methods. Cement blocks, stuccoed over, became the medium of choice, and decorative pierced blocks and panels replaced the wrought iron or elaborate masonry balconies of the past.

Cement animals, particularly lions, leopards and elephants, decorated some of the gateways and walls, again inspired by the Brazilians. Lions are not a familiar sight in Yorubaland; their appearance on architecture came from European heraldry via Brazil. As such, many of the Yoruba lions have a slightly goofy appearance, so the anatomically correct lion statues in Second Life would have looked completely wrong. I searched on Xstreet, and hit the jackpot! Some rather abstract sculpty animals were present, and just right for my plans. Two became goofy leopards, while I added a textured hemisphere to the head of the other and got a lion. I can’t tell you how pleased I was!

The lure of the forest

Those jagged teeth are tearing my lace wrapper!

We leopards love to see our human counterparts, the kings of the palaces

It was a snowy gloomy weekend, and I was feeling a bit glumpy, so I decided to work on the forest behind the palace–all Yoruba palaces used to have them, and they’d often cover 100 acres or more. Ijinle’s is very compressed, but I felt that seeing some foliage and animals would start to make the place come alive and inspire me–oh, it did! As much as possible, I am trying to be true to the real plants and animals that exist/ed in Yorubaland, and was delighted to find not only ubiquitous palms but also things like cashew trees, kapoks, and more.

An Ngas friend from Nigeria once told me snakes would follow me if I wore python shoes--apparently the snow discourages them

And oh, the animals! Can I speak of the unspeakable delight of finding a real termite hill to pair with my pangolin (scaly anteater)? A kingfisher already programmed to swoop into the water, grab a fish, and come back to eat it? Of an albino peacock for the modern palace (the obas and the wealthy dot their compounds with exotic animals), or a threatening python?

Satisfied kingfisher

I normally avoid cartoon-like animals, but the angry crocodile, isn’t really too cartoony–and how could I resist him? For one thing, when I set him up he said, “Yo, Tamsin!)–he was evidently a Philadelphia croc. And when clicked on, he will devour the avatar–barrels of unexpected fun. He lurks by the waterfall….

Sculpties, sculpties, sculpties and prim building too

Sculpty wall sections by Belial float over the Ijinle landscape

Last week saw me fully succumb to the power of a good sculpty builder. Belial Foulsbane (a fellow Philadelphian!) became a Team Ijinle member. He’s an expert sculpty maker, and tackled the problem of “pleasing irregularity” in the Old Ijinle palace and town walls with gusto. For those new to SL, objects can be built in two ways: with prims (simple
primitive” geometric objects, which can be manipulated or textured in a variety of ways–but there’s a limit as to how many can be on your sim!) or with sculpties. The latter are made outside SL in a 3D program, like Maya ($$$$), Blender (free), or 3ds Max (in the middle), then imported. Apparently the way most of these programs work is by creating a mesh, but SL doesn’t use meshes outright, so they have to be converted. From discussions in Builder’s Brewery, I understand “bad” sculpties aren’t built with this factor in mind, and take a long time to “rez” (come into focus), often reverting to a blob-like state, particularly from a distance. Belial usually uses Tatara (http://kanae.net/secondlife/tatara.html), created by a Japanese developer with Second Life in mind. He is dangling the temptation of redoing the palace in sculpties for me, and I’m waiting for a quote to see if it’s possible. He’s very reasonable, and it is oh-so-alluring. Ah, the other thing about sculpties? One “prim count” each, so a room that “costs” four prims in prim building might only be one prim in sculpty building.

Oh that irregularity!

I’m also cannibalizing a building by the great SL architect Barnesworth Anubis. I lived in Barnesworth’s Moroccan house for years, and worked in one of his prefab shop builds, and admire how he is prim conservative yet creates handsome structures. Well, you can modify everything in the builds, so I bought a shuttered French Riviera house and am transforming it into the modern Yoruba palace, built in the Brazilian style that developed after 1888 and grew regularly in popularity through the 1950s in Yorubaland (more on that later). I’m learning a lot by changing the proportions, altering the windows, etc.

oh, once you get your corrugated metal roof and doodads, Barnesworth himself won't know you!

The proportions are much roomier on the Barnsworth, because he knows SL’s camera limitations–but in the sim’s first incarnation, I can’t normally be as spacious. So another issue as the palace develops is literal climbing of the walls. SL operates on a scale somewhat different from real life, and doesn’t care much for walls placed too closely together, as they are in some of the palace sections. Before you know it, your avatar is off the ground, wall-scaling. Those great folks in Builder’s Brewery told me how to solve the problem. Here’s the transcript:

mirror your build in a linked set
[3:22]  Mayah Parx: the walls tha is
[3:22]  Mayah Parx: now reduce height
[3:22]  Mayah Parx: dramatically so only like 1 mte high
[3:22]  Mayah Parx: phantom your original walls
[3:23]  Tamsin Barzane is listenng intently
[3:23]  Tamsin Barzane: ooooh!
[3:23]  Mayah Parx: then make your new walls transperent
[3:23]  Prometheus Flux: Are the walls sculpties or prims?
[3:23]  Mayah Parx: and slip them back inside
[3:23]  Tamsin Barzane: prims
[3:23]  Mayah Parx: round about the middle
[3:23]  Mayah Parx: this will create an invisible barrier
[3:23]  Tamsin Barzane: oh, Mayah that sounds like a good idea! and at the moment at least, I have plenty of prims
[3:24]  Mayah Parx: that avatars wont climb

Meetings…

One of the blogger's pristine work surfaces

Last week I had two meetings with other faculty who are interested in participating in an expanded project. Our horrid snow predictions (which didn’t come true for my side of town, at least) kept some away, and I’m meeting with some as individuals as well, but the possibilities are exciting. If we have the involvement of theater and film, history and English, plus sculpture and ethnomusicology, it will make for a very rich environment with many possibilities. Now is the time for “next steps,” but it’s a busy week with outside assessment visitors and extra meetings, as is next week–and there’s a book chapter due by mid-month, AND a scratchy throat. Housework? Pfffft!!! I’ll just take out my contacts and toss my glasses aside and it will look just fine! I need power music, like that supplied by iTunes for the Nike+ shoe–but will “How You Like Me Now?” by The Heavy really do the trick?

Laying out Ijinle

In starting with Ijinle, I have to plan the town in both 1796 and the present. Some elements, like the city wall, will only be complete in the earlier time period (though I’d like to show remnants of it in the modern section). The palace and market will exist in both, crossing the “time gate”, though represented in fragmentary form.

Ijinle being plotted with colored plywood rectangles

So how to differentiate the two and produce a sense of change without negating some continuity? And how to block out the settlement? Well, I decided to get a sense of the latter by laying down different colored rectangles as mental notes, almost like giant Post-Its. My code tells me which are palace courtyards, which chiefs’ houses, ordinary folks’ houses, stores, etc. This is just the first stage, so I realize my spatial limitations if I want to include all these structures, and I think it worked for me (maybe because I haven’t started the buildings yet!).

Mentally, I had to distinguish categories of change. All older buildings were earthen, with thatched roofs. Only an occasional building in the town will be earthen on the contemporary side, but corrugated sheeting replaces thatching–and the cement buildings will have it, too. Courtyards will dominate both sides of the palace and the old chiefs’ houses, but be limited in the present. Many of the new buildings will be storeyed, some in the “Brazilian” style, some in ultra-modern expensive modern mansions.  Today will have churches, mosques, stores, schools, and certainly house Ijinle’s library. It should probably have a pharmacy to contrast with a 1796 traditional healer’s place. Cars! The current Oni Ijinle (our oba, or king) must have several nice Mercedes, while his ancestor had stables, and there may have to be a Mr. Biggs (Nigeria’s most widespread fast-food chain) in the new side. Oh, these are the fun decisions!

The Agony of Irregularity–no, not the intestinal kind!

This is Hausa, not Yoruba, but gives a sense of pleasing irregularity

One of the earmarks of tradition-based (a term Chris Kreamer prefers, and I like too) African art is a pleasing irregularity, expressed sometimes through offsets, shifts in pattern direction, and variations that reflect human, not machine, involvement. This is certainly true of architecture. While geometrically-based, houses–whether rectangular or square–do not necessarily conform to precision measurements, or meet at sharp angles. When earthen “stucco” smooths over sun-dried bricks, hard edges are hard to find.

So it’s probably clear that my building efforts are starting with Ijinle, the sim’s composite Yoruba town. In former centuries, Yoruba towns were walled, usually in a distorted circular fashion–so my 1796 version will be, too. And that seemed like a good place to begin. Easier said than done! Linden Labs limits the maximum dimension of any shape (“prim” or “primitive”) to ten of their “meters”, but increments of ten use up prims quickly. A more efficient solution is to use megaprims, whose dimensions can far surpass 10m. The only problem is, one must use them as is–as soon as you try to fine-tune and reduce them by a meter or so, they revert back to 10 m–like Cinderella’s coach, they’re magic. In order to get just the size you want, the best two methods are to get the free SALT HUD (look in Classifieds within SL under All) or a website that will deliver them to you: http://megaprim.sl/

Sungbo's Eredo at Yoruba town of Ijebu-Ode

Another problem is that few city walls still exist–most have eroded as cities expanded and colonialism and independent governments ensured a Pax Nigeriana–or at least situations developed that city walls couldn’t defend against. But a few segments are out there to give an idea, and their shape has been tracked. Ojo’s book Yoruba Palaces gives a good sense of numerous town walls, palace walls, and palace layouts.

The fortifications for 1796 Ijinle begin!

Okay. I built my basic wall, which is not just straight up and down. Its segments curve because, under the objects tab, I made it a cylinder instead of a box, then set hollow to 95, then did a path cut to get a curve (the path cuts vary according to the length I wanted, but “begin .350 end .550 is a sample). Aligning them is inexact because their edges are diagonal–I need virtual mud! Still, though imperfect, the basic wall is workable.

A cannibalized NMC adobe build with curved wall top

However, a free NMC teaching space had caught my eye and was giving me further ideas. It’s an open adobe courtyard, and had some of the feel that I was after. From it I had learned the wall looked more accurate tapered, but that it really only works when it’s a box, not a cylinder. As a box, it’s wider at the bottom than at the top; as a cylinder, it’s severely banked. In any case, the NMC build had another feature I liked–a rounded top for the wall. Unfortunately creating one to follow a curved megaprim wall is a nightmare! I’m still trying, with the help of an ultra-kind builder, Poetry Sorbet (join her builder’s group, Shop Talk!), but it’s a hit and miss affair with toruses (torii?). If I get it, I’ll let you know how.

Even with this method, the walls will be too uniform for reality, but that’s an SL handicap. At least I think they’ll be more on point than my earlier efforts at Nupekwo on Saminaka.