Issues with learning in SL and forums?

I am curious has anyone else experienced this or can offer hints, or experiences with this?
Learning is really important thing for me in Second Life, also often reason why I come to
forums.
I have repetitively run into issues with this perhaps it's communication issue.
Even in the few in-world classes.
I am English speaker, so it's not due to second language thing.
Often it has to do with certain things others do when describing how to do something
or communicating about it.
Sometimes it is just lack of communicating the idea or it's brief in language
that is really helpful for those trying to understand.
I realized this issue shows up when I am trying to remember how to do something when I have tried to help others or sometime just when I want to remember how I did something I did few weeks or months back after taking break due to illness or social distractions.
I have set way I see or do things when like creating, yet explaining how that is done
is hard.
I found sometimes when I create things I stumble upon making things that turn out
right but I forget how I did this to re-explain to myself or share with others later
how it was done.
So a while back ago I tried to do this experiment with things I do well in my art program.
My goal was to keep track of the steps, write it down and share it on blog.
What happen is the process of creating or not creating then creating got in way
of keeping record of the steps or things like accidentally merging layers got in way
so I couldn't go back to the history of what I had done.
Thanks, FD

Do you smoke copius amounts of marijuana? I generally find that to be factor when trying to remember what I did yesterday.

hahahahaha!

Some people are better able to break things down into steps and explain them, than others. Probably a left brain, right brain thing...

Also, some people are better at following instructions than others. Some newbs can follow instructions quickly and catch on fast, while others can't seem to listen long enough to figure out how to get the box off their heads.

No I am eligible for medical reason but I choose to be in pain so I can use my mind as much as possible but who knows I may break down and let myself become over-medicated soon.
Hehe
I don't need drugs to become forgetful.

My boyfriend joined two months ago and he can figure out door and touch scripts. It took me a long time to figure out how to copy touch scripts correctly.
One time I did door script in a class nothing worked and the teacher had no clue how to advise me to get it to work either.

That kinda sounds like me. If I do anything creative, I get very targeted and lose track of a lot of stuff. (>_<

I play music, if I do something that sounds cool and I get asked how it was done, I honestly don't remember. (=_=)

I write software. For the time I spend writing code, I can't be engaged in any kind of conversation because I lose a lot of my sense of spoken language. (=_=)

I do mechanical design. It had a lot of the same effect on me as programming. I use SolidWorks and Alibre, 3D modeling is so engaging to me that I often tune out the outside world. My co-workers know that it's not the best time to approach me, and when they do, the know not to be offended if I don't respond or respond oddly. (^_^)

Yea I create things a lot sort of gone in zone in it's self.
Sometimes I try to multi-task and try to listen and pay attention to my boyfriend at same time but something often is missing.
He is talking and often I hear maybe every 10th word or only half of the sentences.
Yet sometimes its like that with learning too, sometimes the words just don't register but
if they give me something visual to see it helps more.

Try some very simple exercises to change the way you explain things to people. Write a step-by-step description of how to do some very simple everyday tasks. If you pay attention to detail you will have written many more steps than you thought were necessary.

Write a step-by-step on how to:

-Make a Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich.
-Tie a knot in a bag.
-Mail a letter.
-Braid Hair.

Try to do as many of these as often as you can top re-train yourself.

.

Yea, nothing is tougher than trying to break down the creative process into step-by-step instructions. Its almost like trying to describing sex to a virgin blind man.

But once you get the hang of it, and get a system going, it will be very easy. After that you get to drive yourself nuts trying to find ways to make it even better.

I had it somewhat easy. I was always the guy who read the directions & stuff. So I kind of got used to breaking things down into steps.

Well, I know when I'm at work trying to explain a procedure, I've been doing it too many years and there are some things so second nature to me, I assume everyone else knows them too. So I leave big chunks of it out.

I think something like that may be happening at those in-world classes. If it's all text that would make it even harder to back track and insert things that were left out. I don't think I could focus on those classes either. I do better reading notecards and web pages.

[Edit: But I understand different people learn in different ways, so the classes would be very beneficial to those that learn that way.]

I can't explain what I do in a step-by-step thing. I try and wind up either tripping all over myself or forgetting steps. Doesn't help that I am easily distracted when talking. It's only when I'm creating that I am able to focus on something to nearly the exclusion of all else.

I umm... ahh.. yeah.

I think this is the key point you've hit on, FD.

I've done a lot of teaching at the college level and public speaking RL. I am naturally a very "linear" thinker, meaning I want to go logically from step 1 to step 2, etc. I mentioned this in another thread, but like many things in life, teaching is a skill that can be developed, but there is also a certain amount of natural ability that goes into it as well (how to deal with problems one (usually very vocal) student is having without getting the other students offtrack or derailing the class, knowing various learning styles of students and using different methods of instruction within the same class, and so on).

When I see someone "teaching" RL or SL and jumping from step 1 to step 4 - that drives me nuts. So, I think you've hit on a good plan to keep a record of your creations as you go so you can refer back to it later.

Hm. Have you tried dictating what you're doing, as you're doing it? The problem here seems to be that you're having to stop what you're doing (essentially interrupting the creative flow) to open up a text editor and start typing out what you've done, then heading back into the creative stuff again. It's a stop-start process that's guaranteed to kill creativity.

If you have a voice recorder, then maybe you could say what you're doing as you're doing it; kind of talk yourself through it: "OK, now I'm creating a new layer..." etc. Or, if you find remembering to do that is *still* a break in your creativity, try visual recording software so you can go back and watch it *after* you've finished creating and then write down the steps as you watch?

I love this idea

Thanks all...
I must remember save often. Do not merge no matter what.

Yes! Yes! Yes!

Not only does keeping your stuff unmerged help dramatically when you want to make further changes to the file - but it can also help with your questions in this thread.

Once you have finished a job, and unzoned from creative-mode, you can often take a look at the various layers, layer masks, effects layers, adjustment layers, etc etc etc that you used to do the job. This information helps you to understand (now that you're back into thinking-mode) what sort of workflow you were using, how you might improve it, and how you could explain what you've done to other people.

I am saving more but there certain point I am forced to merge.
It like art program runs out of paint and nothing works paint wise.
And so often how I fix problem is merging so the paint with work again.
Someone suggested in forum 2 techniques for dealing with resolution loss when
shrinking details down so I go and I try to search for the terms, I find them
and of a course I am not feeling too hot I just can't figure out what I am reading
or how to do the steps....
It is like I want to go in that creative mediation space yet I am stuck doing same
pattern that causes the resolution loss of details.
I spent eight hours making something collar turned out great but damn
buttons and details I spent hours pasting in edited patterns basically didn't show up when
I uploaded it into SL.
I guess sometimes things do just take practicing, experiment, observing patterns, trying
to change styles or patterns that interfere with learning and then doing more and more of it
until it turns out or becomes instinctual but damn it so hard to stop merging or changing the pattern once you get stuck in certain mode of creating something.
Anyway this is what came out of eight hours of work, still got tons of mistakes.
My arms literally ache all way to bones rights now so I am not going to do it over today.


I would think after all hours and years I have been trying I would make less mistakes but I still make numerous ones even when it turns better then my earlier designs.
If anyone is interested I practice later explaining how I did this and what went wrong how I fixed it as experiment.

FD, you did an excellent job. I don't get everything so even. Of course collars are tricky and you didn't show the top of the shoulders where front and back collars almost never meet perfectly. One thing that will help a lot and cut down on the number of steps and probably layers as well is to use a cloth that has either some texture or some sort of muted pattern.

Look around for solid batiks, tussah silk, noil, burlap, oxford cloth etc... You can also texture your own cloth by maknig a 150*150 seamless pattern tile and using the overlay, dodge, or burn pencils and then smudging the whole business. The texturing means details don't have to be exactly perfect and the details, even perfect ones, look even better when the clothes are actually on the avatar.

And SL can use sportwear that looks like its not for fifteen year old high school burnouts. Keep up the good work.

Entire outfit and all its mistakes from all sides is here http://fdspark.blogspot.com/2008/09/counting-mistakes-but-collar-was.html
I usually make fabrics of my own but this one I wanted to go for different techinque just using brushes, shadows, highlights, base templates, stamps and other items and effects with photoshop.
Interesting ideal though. using 150 by 150 sized textures in clothing.
Burlap can be easily made and silks too within art programs its just get the effect.
Same with other effects of textures it just figuring out how to get them to look right and lay on the avatar right.
Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.
Example this tussah silk I could trace, reproduce as texture http://bachinternational.com/images/Tussah/Tussah_10.png put it on 3d viewer paint type program in avpaint or 2d view of uv layer made by Chip, Robin or this wonderful shadow mask made by ugh I don't remember name(oops it is from Aeron Kohime) but I used the shadow template to do the outfit up above.
I have no clue how to do shadow and highlights nor mask like this person does.
Yet texture details in world isn't going to exactly be the same as created or may not even be seen in way it was intended because of resolution size or graphic cards.
Yet I have gotten lights to show but it always hit and miss how to reproduce this look consistently, a designer friend explained it has to do with white high lights but explaining and understanding how to do that isn't easy and it takes a whole lot of practice and I can't produce nor remember how to do exactly this from photo here that I found and get it flow and sit exactly nor educating others how to do it by hand is easy thing to do....
http://www.aurorasilk.com/fibers/images/silk_tussah_big.jpg

Awesome work on the buttons FD- I know you said they have given you problems before. Really good work.

Thanks I didn't like exactly how they turned out because you can't see the details.
The button is shape of sun with pearl like centers.
It only distorts when you loosen the shirt. If you make shirt lose the buttons turn into this dark blobs.
I have made very detailed ones the issue is resizing, the appearance changes once its on clothing template.
I haven't uploaded or posted them any where the best are the brass copper carved flower ones I used gradient and preset stamps and embossing.
I haven't showed anyone those because I am not sure how to save the appearance in them.
By the way check out in texture forum's Aeron Kohime's shadow templates they are incredible it was the base for the outfit I made I am showing here.

Yes, I have been making use of those templats myself- in fact, they "taught" me also - I have a better idea now about shades and shadows and have played with adding them to some T-s I made. Next - wel, when I get to it- I want to try and make something latexy.

I would love a male shadow template that is anatomically correct if I could figure out how.
I keep trying to draw realistic details in Men's clothing and little details in pockets like
actual things inside pockets, details in fingers, skins,etc. but boy I can't seem to get it right.
Perhaps it just not possible.
Part of it is I just don't know how to get those details right be it using av paint or in my art program.
There some things I am trying to learn no matter how many times I try I just hit the wall, be it energy, time or know how.