050 - Treasure trove

Dim Sum slips and slides as she pads her way across the slippery mound of gold coins.


As I was wrapping up my shoot yesterday, I got a ding-ding from a sheep named Ham, which seems like an illogical name to me.

Anyway, Ham owns the volcano. He was telling me to keep following the path to discover a pile of treasure and other surprises. The chamber with the nest had two gates. one said "Abandon hope, all ye who enter here," flanked by two stone dragons, and the other said, "Turn back, it's not too late," flanked by two stone lions. Earlier, I had moved my cam to follow the path through the stone lions gate and found a chamber of crystals, then another gate between stone gargoyles and found a chamber of mushrooms, then another gate between stone maidens and more lava flows, then a dead end.

I mentioned the dead end to the sheep, but he insisted that I "go through 'Abandon Hope' and follow your nose." I told him that's how I got in, so it would take me back out. He reassured, "No, it won't. ... trust me :))" I secretly thought he's a wolf in sheep's clothing.

Cat that I am, I simply said, "If you say so," and I followed my nose. And it didn't point me through the Abandon Hope gate. ;)

If you follow that path, here are my tips:

• Don't just cam; actually go through it; you won't get to the dead end.
• Don't touch the plywood cube.
• And when it gets too hot, jump.

location: Avilion Loch

Technical notes

windlight: Bryn Oh's BLUNIVERSE (modified)

Depth of Field:
View angle: 1.047
FOV: 30.3
F-number: 7.0
Foc Length: 196
Foc Time: 0.5
CoC: 10.0
Resolution: 0.7
Aspect Ratio: 1.0

Glow Settings:
Quality: 8
Iterations: 3
Strength: 0.35
Luminance: 1.0
Warmth: 3.0
Width: 1.3
Alpha: 0.25

Again, the lighting here is mostly local lights. And one of those lights was rotating, so I waited until the lamp on the top right was red and lighted. Without the local lights, the scene is almost black, except for a few glowy things.

I didn't want another dragon picture, so I focused on the wonderful textures on the walls. It's not quite Celtic knotwork, but just as pretty.

049 - Dragon's tail

Dim Sum avoids the attacks of the pesky dragon brats by sitting among the eggs. Thankfully, the mama dragon was too busy nagging the lazy papa dragon.


Contrary to Mykael's warnings that it wasn't a safe place for a cat, I went into the cave. I also ignored the warning above the gated that said, "Abandon hope, all ye who enter here!" You expect a curious cat to pay attention to that?!?

location: Avilion Loch

Technical notes

windlight: [TOR] NIGHT - Moony (modified)

Depth of Field:
View angle: 1.0
FOV: 20
F-number: 2.5
Foc Length: 250
Foc Time: 0.0
CoC: 10.0
Resolution: 1.0
Aspect Ratio: 1.0

Glow Settings:
Quality: 8
Iterations: 10
Strength: 0.2
Luminance: 0.75
Warmth: 5.0
Width: 1.0
Alpha: 0.15

The windlight really didn't matter much here. Most of the colors were from the local lights, which were very red. The windlight, however, added some neon green so that the dragon colors were almost like those of a golden stag beetle.

I didn't use any shadows on this, because those didn't make much difference either. Without the local lights, the picture is very bland. Here it is with the basic noon windlight and no local lights:

048 - Morning breath

Dim Sum meows and hears her echo reverberating deep into the cave and mixing with the thick bubbling and grinding of lava crusts.


My dad used to have this habit of calling up very early in the morning on my birthday to greet me. He's a morning person; I'm not. Apparently, he did it to my sisters too, and they're not morning people either. Then one year, we all decided to call him up very early in the morning on his birthday. :D

He doesn't call in the mornings anymore. He calls at 3pm and asks, "Gising ka na?" (Are you awake yet?)

Happy birthday, Pa!

UPDATE: After I posted this blog post, I posted it on my dad's Facebook page to wish him a happy birthday. When I visited them two days later, his wife told me that, for some reason, my dad couldn't sleep and he decided at 1am on his birthday to check his Facebook messages. And he found this post. She said, I didn't wake him up by phone alright; I just woke him up by Facebook.  ;)

location: Avilion Loch

Technical notes

windlight: [TOR] BIG SUN - Slips through walls 5 (modified)

Depth of Field:
View angle: 0.606
FOV: 38.3
F-number: 8.38
Foc Length: 673
Foc Time: 0.8
CoC: 10.0
Resolution: 1.0
Aspect Ratio: 1.0

Glow Settings:
Quality: 8
Iterations: 3
Strength: 0.2610
Luminance: 1.398
Warmth: 0.0
Width: 1.3
Alpha: 0.25

I didn't notice the face on the cave entrance until I practically stumbled on it. The cave has its own local lights, and I found a modified windlight that I've used in the past. The combination of local lights and windlights caused the multicolored effect around the face. I thought it looked like either a Vegas show or a Cirque du Soleil mask.

As I was finishing up, Mykael came out of the mouth of the cave and tried to rescue me from the volcano. I had to tell him OOCly that I was taking pictures. Later, I remembered to give him a Canadian penny... errr, a fenye coin that got stuck to my fur the other day.

047 - Rock slide!

MMMEEEEEEEEEOOOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!
That means "RRRUUUUUUUUUUUNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN!"


I was getting bored. I gave up on the dragon castle and was heading towards the windmill when I suddenly saw some big rocks tumbling in front of me and over me on the path. And a message in the public chat said, "Adzer Thorne hit you with a scripted object."

I thought I was getting griefed, but there was nobody there. And, as I was about to file an abuse report, I found the source object and it's in the Avilion group.

It turns out that the rock slide happens pretty regularly, so I waited and tried to get some good shots. Unfortunately, the rocks kept pushing me out of my spot and I should have turned up my particles sooner, because the rocks stir up some "dust."

Anyway, the first photo is in the middle of the rock slide and I just got hit. Of all the photos, it was the best because Dim Sum looks panicked, and I thought that was priceless. I couldn't recreate that look. The second photo is after all the rocks have disintegrated. I was already pushed out of my spot, but, thankfully, still within the frame.

To Adzer Thorne of Avilion: Very, very cool idea.

location: Avilion Loch

Technical notes

windlight: Sunrise (modified)

Depth of Field:
View angle: 0.727
FOV: 39.9
F-number: 12.66
Foc Length: 302
Foc Time: 0.8
CoC: 10.0
Resolution: 1.0
Aspect Ratio: 1.0

Glow Settings:
Quality: 8
Iterations: 2
Strength: 0.35
Luminance: 9999.0
Warmth: 0.0
Width: 1.3
Alpha: 0.25

046 - For the little ones

Dim Sum lies in wait for the little fairies to show up. Surely, they must show up to have tea and dance sometime.


Somehow, these are taking me longer and longer to do. And I'm having a harder time deciding which version to pick. See below for two other options. And I already deleted a few.

location: Avilion

Technical notes

windlight: Raymond's Sunrise (modified)
water: Glassy (modified)

Depth of Field:
View angle: 0.630
FOV: 63.8
F-number: 7.21
Foc Length: 285
Foc Time: 0.8
CoC: 10.0
Resolution: 1.0
Aspect Ratio: 1.0

Glow Settings:
Quality: 8
Iterations: 10
Strength: 0.2
Luminance: 0.75
Warmth: 5.0
Width: 1.0
Alpha: 0.15

Alternative versions: