Wednesday 15 November 2006

CopyBot Sculpture


A Second Thought stole into my head as I dreamed of multiplying avatars last night. With our customary collection of tools there is no way to create a lasting tribute to any notable person or to the beauty of the human form in all three dimensions, without employing hundreds of prims and the patience of Job, as Mr. Starax was wont to do.

After all our bodies are made of the same stuff as the rest of our world: we are nothing but a special prim, albeit one blessed with a more generous endowment of attributes than your garden variety cube. In other words, thanks to a built in camera obscura we have paintings and pictures in our world but no sculpture of the representational kind.

There are no doubt reasons why our building materials do not include the avatar prim: it is perhaps expensive to archive or render; one shudders at the thought of encountering one avatar wearing another as an attachment; in wicked hands it might be used to deceive. Our public spaces and classically inspired buildings are poorer for the lack of it, all the same. Quite separately from its potential for misuse and harm, the CopyBot apparently offered the ability to make such sculptures.

As I built my chestnut mare, I did often think how convenient it would be to employ a general quadruped prim, modifiable to a variety of human or animal shapes. I suspect now the cost in attorney's fees of such a thing unfortunately will far outweigh the convenience.

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