An Idea to Help the Kiddies

[redshoe]

SparklePixie and I were talking earlier, and we came up with an idea that I think I'm going to use. It was sort of spawned from the flats idea.

I'm going to make my son a virtual VMK.

I'm going to go into empty instances of every public room and take a screenshot. I'm going to take screenshots of our characters and all of our friends' and family's characters. I'm going to empty out all of our guest rooms and take screen shots of them, too. Then I'm going to take shots of all of our clothes and inventories. I'll probably do them of all the different kinds of magics being performed, too.

I will then cut out and laminate all the different pieces.

Yes, I realize this is a MASSIVE project. It will have to be done gradually and over some time, and really, it wouldn't necessarily have to be done on the scope and scale that I'm hoping I'll be able to do. But he can put the different rooms on his bedroom walls, he can dress our characters and have parties for them, and he can build rooms.

There won't be the sense of community, but I think it will soften the blow for him (and I'll admit, me also) if it at least gives us a way to "keep" all of our neat items that we've worked so hard for.

 

[Bugdozer]

SparklePixie and I were talking earlier, and we came up with an idea that I think I'm going to use. It was sort of spawned from the flats idea.

I'm going to make my son a virtual VMK.

I'm going to go into empty instances of every public room and take a screenshot. I'm going to take screenshots of our characters and all of our friends' and family's characters. I'm going to empty out all of our guest rooms and take screen shots of them, too. Then I'm going to take shots of all of our clothes and inventories. I'll probably do them of all the different kinds of magics being performed, too.

I will then cut out and laminate all the different pieces.

Yes, I realize this is a MASSIVE project. It will have to be done gradually and over some time, and really, it wouldn't necessarily have to be done on the scope and scale that I'm hoping I'll be able to do. But he can put the different rooms on his bedroom walls, he can dress our characters and have parties for them, and he can build rooms.

There won't be the sense of community, but I think it will soften the blow for him (and I'll admit, me also) if it at least gives us a way to "keep" all of our neat items that we've worked so hard for.

aww sounds great. Ink has been recording every possible sound noise song from every single inch of VMK and taking screen shots of all the rooms and he wants to build a web site as a memorial of VMK. He told me he was thinking of even possibly a discussion place. A big project but it would teach him about web building, keep VMK alive in his spirit and make him feel like he is helping others. Not sure I would be strong enough to do that as i tear up at just the thought of it gone.

Bug

 

[BlueHairedMonkey]

Open your son's character in Photoshop and give that boy some green flips...stat!

 

[Bugdozer]

Open your son's character in Photoshop and give that boy some green flips...stat!

Not sure if you are talking to me as that is inks character in the pic but ROFL you made me smile-first time in a few days. The one elusive item he does not have and I will never be able to get him

Thanks for the smile

Bug

 

[timber_dude]

Im a kid!

 

[LittleMermaidsMom]

I think it's a great idea, Red. I'm going to do a little of the same....

 

[aensming]

I have been thinking along the same line here - So far, I have pictures of all the main street rooms. I am trying to slow take all the screen shots I need. Now I just need to talk my hubby into buying me a color printer! I already have the laminator.

My girl will love it.

 

[redshoe]

Maybe we could even do an item exchange, and all of us send each other shots of the things that we didn't have in-game to expand all of our collections.

 

[WWEDUDE]

Im a kid!

What does that have to do with anything

 

[aliceblue]

I think that is a wonderful idea for the kids.

Here's an idea for a more advanced project; a digital version of the same thing, for anyone who has the heart to do it. You could create "cutouts" for positioning against empty room backgrounds in an editing program. I did a few of these for an experiment once. Lots of work, obviously, but if everybody cut their elements to the same size, they could coordinate their efforts and exchange the files.

 

[bevgray]

Another idea is to create a 3D House with various rooms. Heavy card board with each room "wall papered" with a VMK room would probably work. If you print furniture out and characters on heavier paper (such as glossy photo paper), you might be able to use some sort of velcro so you can have paper dolls to wear different costumes and "build" empty rooms. Again, a very long range project but once you have saved off the rooms, characters, costumes, etc, you'd have them safely saved to your PC and would be able to print out items as needed. If the velcro doesn't work, just print your people wearing the costumes they love.

For the interactive aspect, perhaps the DIS could use these old VMK forum boards to support where members can post their "doll houses". This way, the young ones could "tell stories" with their little avatars and share them that way with screenshots.

This might enable every one to get some of those rare costumes too. Just go around VMK and take screen shots of the costumes you want and don't have.

 

[NeonSunrise]

I have been taking pictures and am building a scrapbook.

 

[timber_dude]

What does that have to do with anything

you can send me the pics! bc I want them

 

[Melp]

I don't have kids to do this for but I have been also taking screen shots of anything I can and hope to slowly begin building a "virtual" VMK. Not to the extent of being a real game but a digital version where ideally if you mouse over the exit spots in a room you will go to the next room, and all of the rides me and my friends made will go in order like you are on it. I know it's a lot but I guess after a month I will have more time on my hands lol.

 

[piratesLifeYoho]

amazing idea. i would never have thought of this! now ive really got to get to those screen shots ive been meaning to do. hopefully down the line the electronic finished products can be shared with each other

 

[aliceblue]

I don't have kids to do this for but I have been also taking screen shots of anything I can and hope to slowly begin building a "virtual" VMK. Not to the extent of being a real game but a digital version where ideally if you mouse over the exit spots in a room you will go to the next room, and all of the rides me and my friends made will go in order like you are on it. I know it's a lot but I guess after a month I will have more time on my hands lol.

I'd been thinking of this as well. Knew I had seen parts of pictures turned into links before, but I have no idea how to do it, so I hope someone can explain.

 

[Melp]

I'd been thinking of this as well. Knew I had seen parts of pictures turned into links before, but I have no idea how to do it, so I hope someone can explain.

If I recall right it is called image mapping. I am fairly certain ImageReady is a program you can do this with, but if you don't have that I just did a quick google search and there are many tutorials out there of how to even do it with html.

 

[MissAriel]

Great idea! I bet your son will absolutely love it. I know I would haha.

 

[Disney Dreams]

you can send me the pics! bc I want them

I think the idea was.....

Here's an idea to help the kids feel like you still have some VMK-ness in your world.

You can follow the steps that Aliceblue explained in her post and make your own. It would be a cool way for you to keep VMK alive for yourself (in the event that it does indeed close).

 

[RachelNinja]

I started screencapping the rooms yesterday. I actually started editing them so that the rooms would be empty. This may have been entirely obvious to everyone else (I'm a little slow when it comes to anything technological, haha), but if you "print screen" right after the room loads, your character doesn't appear yet so then you can get a picture of the empty room without editing. Initially I was taking a picture of the room and then I'd move my character elsewhere, take another picture and then copy+paste the rooms together so that I couldn't be seen.

Again, that might have been a little obvious (and I was just really delayed in figuring that out~), but it'll help with those of you who want pictures of empty rooms for bigger projects.