A Triple Space Safari

          This was week 150 of the Safari, and one might think that after a hundred and fifty trips around the hyperverse, we would have run out of new things to see, and just be tootling around previously seen places... if you think that, you could not be more wrong! 

Pangea, Metropolis

           Here are three amazing first looks for the Safari, on three iconic opensim grids. Details of how to get to each one at the end of the post, and you're definitely going to want to see all of these this summer. 

Safari Double Parks

              This week, once again, two destinations with a lot going on! We started on Kroatan Grid, and then went to explore 3rd Life grid (as usual, addresses at the end of the post)  where, once again, we got to meet the locals and get some of the backstory of the places we were seeing. 
               There's nothing better for appreciating your surroundings than to have a bit of context, don't you agree? So here's what we found out, hopefully you will take a trip to see these lovely places, and make some new friends.

              First up, Kroatan, a park-like grid, where the opensimworld Beacon registered our arrival and bumped us up to the top of the webpage... you could tell that, because suddenly some people from a Brazilian grid, and from  partydestinationgrid showed up, rather bemused to come across a crowd, it seemed. We invited them to join us, but it appeared that the concept of a tour group in hg was beyond their ken... maybe next time...

Three years of HGSafari

          Sunshine Szavanna, Whirli Placebo, and Joao Frazao, with some help from the magical special effects of Cherry Manga, and in all about 60 friends and fellow conspirators, all came together to celebrate three years of crazy crashing, awesome art, intrepid investigating, and excessive exploring around the metaverse.

          Sunshine shared with us some fabulous World music, from Africa and Asia, on the theme of travel and family, both central to the hypergrid experience. 

Safari Does Stuff

          This week was a whistle-stop tour through three smallish grids, each one uniquely beautiful and interesting. 
         The grid addresses at the end of the post, so you can go and take a look for yourself... they're all well worth a visit!

            First up, Phaandoria. We landed in the shadow of a Linda Kellie creation, the Autumn Castle, a symbol in a way of the share-alike mentality this grid is famous for. Then we moved over to Nerdpol region, distinctly different in design... time for some fireworks!

It Takes Two

 They say it takes two to tango, but in the case of our second destination this week, it was really a case of three... we visited Condensation Land on Metropolis, to talk to Zonja Capalini Ludmilla Writer and Plastichansa Bade about collaboration in art and the journey these regions have taken from SL, to an eponymous mini grid, to their current home in one of opensim's favorite grids. 

Mal Burns: Hi Zonja, all
Juliette SurrealDreaming: wow Zonja, looking pretty cool there
Zonja.Capalini : Thank you!  It's impressive to see all of you coming at once :)
Wizard Gynoid: Hiya Zonja. We've met in the multi-verse years ago.
Juliette SurrealDreaming: yeah instead of mass exodus we are mass becoming
Thirza Ember: We just had a presentation about the Kokua Viewer, I feel smarter, yet dumber at the same time
Juliette SurrealDreaming: lol omg i know what you mean Thirza
Wizard Gynoid: Zonja and I first met prolly five years ago.  We are both Klein Bottle experts.
Zonja Capalini: First of all, Plastichansa, then creator and owner of BRBP, the wonderful island we were going to visit, sends his apologies ...A RL commitment didn't allow him to be present Anyway, he's left here an NCP of him
Ludmilla Writer: Explica que estoy presente pero no escribo bien en inglés, por favor, Zonja
Zonja Capalini: Actually, two of them :) There's an npc of Libdescent, an alt of him, at the bar

LibDescent NPC

Juliette SurrealDreaming: yeah that one is really nice
Zonja.Capalini: Then, also: we have Ludmilla Writer here. She's one of the creators of Arrabal Tango Club! The other one being Favio Piek, but he seems to have left virtuality, which is a pity... Inside you'll find some gifts, and some notecards informing you of some basic facts about Arrabal
Zonja Capalini: Plastic has also created this sculpture in the center, and the moving HG Safari letters, and a number of other things :)  What's in Arrabal? On one side, the tango club -- there's a dance ball stuffed with plastic's npcs, which we'll be able to try later. People who came here liked to take snapshots of the club,  and donated these snapshots so that we could make an exhib
Arielle Delamerlibre: do you have regular parties?
Zonja Capalini: No, not for the moment, Arielle. The exhibition is at the right of the club. I've also put six (iirc) TV sets over there. These TV sets will show you pictures of parties celebrated at arrabal, Even a wedding party :) Decoration was decided by Ludmilla and Favio... You can read the story of Arrabal here 
Ludmilla Writer: I love Arrabal... It's a very beautiful place in SL and Here, now, too
Arielle Delamerlibre: okay thank you a nice environment so far. has to come to life

Zonja.Capalini: And you will find tons of interesting pointers in the notecard, when you buy the HG Safari thing with the flashing light bulbs... In the exhibition you'll find photos from Andromeda Volare, Jaja Lubitsch, Ro8 Avro, India Leigh... Sura Abismo, Favio Piek, Ludmilla Writes, Mikil Tiki... Regarding the migration, we were caught in the Openspace fiasco, I was paying for two full regions, And converted one into four Openspaces, Then the price was raised from 75US$ to 125$, Obviously, there was ample outrage... First we migrated to Openlife. Then we created out own mini-grid,: Hosted in a shared machine, On a *slow* SDSL line,: But it worked, The mini grid allowed free registration and had up to 100 users at the time.

Ludmilla, 'Plastichana' (NPC) and Zonja

Arielle Delamerlibre: and why did you finished with the mini grid?
Zonja Capalini: Then I had problems in RL, stopped caring, the machine had no maintenance, the database got corrupted, and finally we closed the SL version of Arrabal...  Because my RL crashed, and required a cold reboot :), I don't like to mix levels, but it was horrible. All my attention was required IRL
Arielle Delamerlibre: yeah sometimes it does
Zonja Capalini: Then, one year ago, Ludmilla by chance met Plastic. He told her that he was attempting to recreate the full Condensation archipielago from his memories alone! I entered SL and talked to him, I had lost all my technical expertise, but I still had some very old OARs. They didn't work with the then current version of Opensim.  After some iterations, we had Condensation running.: I asked Plastic to co-maintain Condensation with me, and he kindly accepted. And we have since established a creative partnership which is fantastic for both of us :).
Arielle Delamerlibre: I will see the further development and I will dance Tango here
Zonja Capalini: You can read a quite detailed account of the story of Condensation here . And of course today's meeting will have a video and will end up in a TV set here :)
Thirza Ember:  We need more dance animations in opensim, for the Tango would be great... is this site any good for finding useful dance animations? https://sites.google.com/a/cgspeed.com/cgspeed/motion-capture/daz-friendly-release compared with when we first found opensim, there are so many more free and opensource resources available
 Billy Bradshaw: I have used some action type animations, the dance routines require additional work

Zonja.Capalini: Yes, absolutely. Now the performance of Opensim is outstanding
Pathfinder Lester: very true...more content...better performance...
Zonja Capalini: Even in SL, in 2007, with so many people the sim would have difficulties
Thirza Ember: half the problem is tht we just do not know what free resources are out there
Pathfinder Lester: yes, finding the stuff!  lol
Zonja Capalini: And for a very reasonable price...: Metropolis isn't cheap, and still, 30€/mo for a 1024x1024 is a bargain...And with the introduction of mesh, you can have many more objects, since the land impact decreases... What I love of Opensim is that you can always come back and make it a little more beautiful, a little more detailed, a little more perfect. It's like a picture that you can always perfect more and more...
Thirza Ember: and unlike SL, there is less stress about money and time... you can take a long time to make your build
Zonja Capalini: Exactly.  The people I'm meeting here are much more focused on creating and sharing

Thirza Ember: I know, like Cendres,  Plastichansa is a big fan of the free share alike community, that's an important part of the experience,
Zonja.Capalini: Yes, he's so generous with everything he creates
Cendres Magic: for me, in opensim,  no chain
Zonja Capalini: Yes :) The only problem I have is that I can't log in as often as I would love
Cendres Magic: specially thanks to hgsafary helping to discover 
Thirza.Ember: We are having a big party on May 24 to mark the 3rd year of this adventure...it's nice that Wizard Gynoid is here today....she was my first 'victim' on May 20, 2014
Pathfinder.Lester: guinea pig?
Wizard Gynoid: I thought Thirza was my first victim.
Thirza Ember: yes wiz, we were reciprocal victims
Wizard Gynoid: Thirza and I hosted the Safari every Wednesday without fail for a year.
Thirza Ember: To mark the three years of Safari, we will have 3 hours of music and I hope many will come... on FrancoGrid today, Nino Whitman made available a region, on its own server, it is another example of the generosity of opensim... so we can (in theory ) have 200 people... so spread the word!

Zonja Capalini: Well Condensation Land turns 10 this month... We'll be celebrating on Sat the 27th I think
Pathfinder Lester: congratulations!: that's quite a milestone
Zonja Capalini: It's an enormity :)
Thirza Ember: the great thing about opensim is even after 3 years we have not exhausted the number of places to visit, or revisit, because many times 1 visit is not enough to see it all
Zonja Capalini: Sure, it's so huge that you'll never finish it...
Wizard Gynoid: This avie has logins on dozens of virtual worlds.
Mal Burns: think am now 12 yrs - but that dates to before i escaped walled kindergarten
Thirza Ember: Mal you don't look a day over 9
Mal Burns: tks Thirza!!!
Zonja Capalini : But I don't move much, to say the truth -- I spend all my time creating and filming :)
Mal Burns: nice films Zonja
Thirza Ember: that is really the paradox of opensim... it's important to take time to be creative, but if we do not support each other, by visiting the builds in other places, then there is no 'audience' and the creativity can stall, it needs to be a flow of both making and sharing, also, because that's how collaborations can happen...for example: there is the Kroatan Photo competition... anyone from any grid can give a photo for the competition... the photo should be something funny or strange that happens in opensim... it can be taken on any grid... that's the kind of multi-grid experience that really helps the hypergrid to become one family 
Pathfinder Lester: Thirza, I remember back in the old days of the Hypergrid Adventurers Club, sometimes I would have trouble finding new places to go.  Amazing how that has changed...
Zonja Capalini: Exactly -- that's why Plastic and me are so happy to cooperate, we are each one the audience of the together one :) I think the HAC came once to Condensation, but I might be mistaken...
Cendres Magic: lot of things around - great
Zonja Capalini: Yes... It's very detailed... You can spend a whole afternoon here and not finish with Arrabal...That's why I'm trying to document it all.. It's a lot of work, but I think it's worth it
Billy Bradshaw: I will test the dance facilities

Zonja Capalini: Yeah let's go dance! :)The dance ball is on top of the bar. All npcs are from Plastic.
Billy Bradshaw: Big girl, but I shall mange :)
Thirza Ember: bad internet tonight...  it's like what we were saying with Gavin, talking about the Viewer.... when everything works perfectly, we don't appreciate it... it's only when there are problems that we notice
Zonja Capalini: Well we had router problems yesterday, I was so afraid that I wouldn't be able to properly host the meeting...So that I tried tethering using my phone's 4G. It works perfectly ...in the end I've not had to use it, tho.
Billy Bradshaw: I find if I change my socks things go so much better
Thirza Ember: Billy's Universal Sock Theory also works
Billy Bradshaw: Quantum socks
Zonja Capalini: Yes. I'm used to a level of performance and smoothness that's vastly superior to the SL of 2007 here...
Billy Bradshaw: This chick tries to remove my specs I swear !!
snowbody Cortes: lol Billy
     Here is Zonja's vid of our visit, please, take time to watch it, it's beautiful, and some amazing quality shots, proving that HG Visitors do not necessarily mean impossible lag on a region.

Thirza Ember: Zonja are you going to make an avatar for Fest'Avi?
Zonja Capalini: Oh, I'm not good at making avatars. Plastic is great, tho. You should ask him :) And he's very unconventional, which is good... Look at the Libdescent npcs, for example, or the one I'm dancing with...
Thirza Ember: I think Billy is a bit at risk though
Billy Bradshaw: ha - live a little, Thirza
Zonja Capalini: Ah! Hadn't seen that one myself. It's superb!
Thirza Ember: that's the fun of group hypergridding, I find, the presence of a group is a sort of catalyst,: a load test but also it has an interesting effect on the way you see a region, changing its personality, somehow
Zonja.Capalini: Sure, one feels compelled to prepare everything so that it's beautiful...

HG Address: Arrabal Tango Club is on Condensation land on Metropolis: 

hypergrid.org:8002:condensation land

Safari: Art and Science

          On average, how many minutes a week do you spend thinking about the Viewer you use to access Opensim, or SL?  I bet it's not many. Like air, or legs, we tend to think about the viewer only when there's something wrong with it, and rarely remember how much we owe to this free resource. But this week, the Safari went to XMIR grid to learn more about one such Viewer, Kokua. We followed up the tech talk with Gavin Hird by going over to Metropolis Grid to met up with Zonja Capalini and Ludmilla Writer, on Condensation Land, you can read about that in the next post. How to get to the places mentioned in this blog? The HG Address is given at the end of the post.

Gavin Hird

Genesis Metaverse Grid

 Our second 90 minute destination was on the commercial grid, Genesis Metaverse.  It is a huge contrast to the opensource, commerce free feel of FrancoGrid with its almost decade-long history, that's the beauty of opensi, there is such a lot of variety here, and so many different ways to enjoy the hyperverse.

        The Genesis Metaverse website is hazy on specifics about its origins, but reading between the lines it seems to have begun in 2016 and the guys there seem to have been on a grid where customer service was not a top priority. But there is nothing hazy about the welcome you will get when you arrive on GMV, as they call it for short.
           Gage Logan was the GMV mentor who kindly agreed to show us around. Now usually, when someone agrees to act as guide on a grid, they choose to showcase their own regions. So is was quite remarkable - and a testament to Gage's commitment and love of his inworld family - that he chose to show us regions belonging to Roffellos Kisses, (Angelorum Enim Est) Kit Capone and bonnie dean, (Bonova)  and Kim song and Fred Blogs (Perfect Waters).
       A bunch of people were on the Welcome sim to meet us, including grid owners Dragon Genesis and Candi Genesis.  The source of any lag experienced by those coming in seems to have been down to Vivox, not for the first time in Safari experience. I you're not planning on talking, it really pays to uncheck the Voice option in Preferences before hypergridding, it can save a lot of trouble. That, and anything scripted you're wearing.

Genesis Park

Dragon Genesis: have fun all :) and enjoy our homes
Candi Genesis: y'all will love Fred & Kim's place, amazing people those two
Aquarius Dragonella: they was the first couple I met here and we been like family since!
Getting to our first stop proved pretty challenging, but about half of us survived the crashing and made it to Roffellos Kisses' region Angelorum Enim Est. The lag kind of made it hard to raise draw distances too high, but he passed out a funny dance - so mission accomplished! I went back today to try and get some pics, sadly, the region was closed to outsiders.

        Our second stop was a shopping region called Bonova built and run by Kit Capone and bonnie dean.

        Lots of toys, carousels, trains and planes here as well as a store with clothes and so forth, all on sale for the local currency.

Sunbeam Magic: Cute place! I love the guy with the bagpipes.
Thirza Ember: Gage, tell us about this region
Gage Logan: This is owned by Kid and Bonnie... they are a bit shy lol
Kid Capone: Our land is not based on anything in Particular.  It's a mixture of all sorts of wonderful stuff we just enjoy building no matter what. There is a lot to see here. Make sure you visit Versailles !
Gage Logan: ...and if there is something you want ...they will make it for you!

The vast Bonova region, and beyond

  Finally, we got where the dancing was already hotting up, on sim Perfect Waters. What felt like dozens of local residents all made us feel very welcome. The music was supplied by fantasia Logan, whose rich, warm voice was the perfect match for a lively, noisy, fun-loving playlist.

The outstanding DJane talent of Fantasia Logan

Lady Lissa: this is Fred and Kim's region
Gage Logan: Perfect Waters consists of three units, the Mall, Blue Waters Ballroom and the H20 Nightclub. To see the region at its best it is set to midnight. The Mall is a small cozy affair with stores by RFF, Anna May, Hair by Ulrika, Velvet Rhythms, This and That and Cats Claws.  Blue Waters ballroom is for those romantic evenings, dining, music  24/7, chapel attached and couples areas on the balconies and surrounding areas. H20 Nightclub is possibly the best looking club in Genesis with regular live singers, dj`s, events and contests. A family atmosphere is promoted with everyone welcome. A good place to meet friends new and old.

Thirza Ember: i was taking a photo inside the ballroom, with the glass floor, very nice!
Aquarius Dragonella: the world would be an amazing place,  if everyone just got together and partied!
Kim song: feel free to look around
Sunbeam Magic: Love the bubbles and dolphin talk !!!round
Thirza.Ember: wow we are an energetic bunch, even after all that grid jumping, we still have the stamina to dance
Maggie O: AND to have Fantasia to DJ for us! what an honor!!
Isis.Ophelia: we had power drinks before we left
Thirza Ember: i had wine, I won't lie

Kim song: whoot
Gage Logan: hahaha
Our host, Fred Bloggs, came in to greet us too
Maggie O: OOPS THE BOSS IS HERE!
Fred Blogs: WELCOME EVERYONE FROM HG SAFARI!! SORRY LATE..FUNNY THING CALLED RL WORK!!!  So has everyone had fun while I`ve been working???
       We couldn't deny it!

Lady Lissa: hey y'all, to keep up with the parties and events, check this link to the Genesis Events calendar... https://teamup.com/ks00a59b6aa516c720
      The secret of Genesis is the community.
 Gage Logan: When I first joined, I thought ok here we go another grid who has no one to help you find things or answer any questions i might have...BUT when I came on I was truly amazed ...landing here at this very spot ...and wow a what welcoming group!!! they all spoke to me ...showed me the freebies and asked if i needed anything else...They made me feel more welcome than anywhere I've ever been.  And boy, did I jump in...but yet they were right there...ready to help me ..no matter what i did wrong and believe me i did wrong ..lol  and now I want others to feel like I did and this is why I find it such a pleasure and honor to show ya'll ....our lives here on Genesis!

GMV Welcome sim                      grid.genesismetaverse.com:8002