Safari Lets Go

          Teravus Plaza on OSGrid is where the Safari meets these days, and if you haven't seen the clubhouse yet, please drop by. Southwest corner of the sim, next to the waterfall. There are freebies, posters with info about the group and now also the trail head of the OSST, the OpenSim Scripting Showcase Trail. This week's Safari seemed a good opportunity to talk about what the trail is, and how everyone can contribute, before we headed off into the blue.

Thirza Ember: You can obviously visit the destinations by yourselves, but also we hope that you will bring people you know (in SL especially) who think that OpenSim doesn't have particularly good scripting. We do. It's unstable, but it's amazing. As you probably know, some of the grids on the trail are quite small and can't handle large groups, that's why the OSST is a self guided tour. Many of the scripting destinations are part of a much bigger build. For example, Gimisa's little grid is jam packed with scripting ideas, and Kayaker has that fantastic water sim, to name but two. If you'd like to 'give back'... it would be great if you can spread the word in social media, let the scripters feel the love! There is a group in G+ where you can post your thoughts and photos, where you can give them a sense of your appreciation.
Selby.Evans: and get to know the scripters and their work
PatriciaAnne.Daviau: I have visited a few of the scripting places and think they did a wonderful job on them
Thirza Ember: a special thanks to Fuschia for her fantastic machinima
Stephen.Xootfly: yay, Fuschia
Fuschia Nightfire: i've gone all pink now
Thirza Ember: and don't miss the gifts as you tour around. Gimisa has an inworld search engine, Ferd has cheetahs and elephants, and Kayaker has a flyer - that's a lot of fun.
Fuschia Nightfire: Ferd has the bee too
Stephen.Xootfly: hmm, the cheetah. one of the world's most dishonest animals
Stephen.Xootfly: the other one is the lion
Thirza Ember: note, the scripting trail does not go to Inworldz. But I am sure they contributed something to it.

Spike Sol beautifully garbed in a kasaya, next to Lucy in an embroidered gown, 
with Neo and Nara in the background. Nara's modelling one of the scripted OSST tanktops. 
Happy trails!

       Kalasiddhi Grid is where we headed to after the Trail presentation. This is a small and relatively new grid so we tried to mitigate the stress on the server by arriving in stages at the meeting area on Sandbox2, which you have to see from the sky to appreciate fully. 

Drang Po and Nyom Chung took time out of their day to welcome us, and explain a little bit about the inspiration behind the grid.

        .....But first as the mist rose from the endless sea, our hosts had to endure the Safari Chat - that's the ten minutes we spend commenting about who all is a cloud, or missing bits, or struggling with their a/o, or (which is often me, but not always) showing their boobs, or lost, or looking funny.
Drang Po: nice avatar Jessica
Jessica.Pixel: thank you drang :3 it's good when all my pieces make it across the hypergrid.
Han.Held: It must be nice, Jessica, being all there...I have no idea what that's like :D
Jessica.Pixel: haha well, just cause all the pieces are there doesn't mean they're in the right order o.O
Thirza Ember: i see Selby cloudy
Fuschia Nightfire: yes Selby is a cloud to me too
Han.Held: I'm scared to ask if I have hair or not..oh @#%^ I just did...
Jessica.Pixel: Mal's jacket is a bunch of bubbles for me
PatriciaAnne.Daviau: Mal looks fine but Fuschia is missing pieces to me too
Selby.Evans: parts of fuschia are transparent
Fuschia Nightfire: i am like that in RL too Selby
Mal.Burns: should i be om-ing or um-ing?
         Eventually we all settled down and meditated on Drang's insights into grid making and bringing spirituality into OpenSim.

Drang Po

Drang Po: My SL avatar has been in SL for about 8 years or so, and I've been a Buddhist for a long time as well. One day I was reading that the Dalai Lama said that he was interested in someone creating a Buddhist game. So one day I found out about OpenSim; it was and is way cooler then SL... then shortly after that in a meditation it came to me a vision that we could create meditation experiences for people in Open Sim. So they would have the experience in their mind of traditional Buddhist meditations and the monks, lama's and teachers would be able to teach in world with out people disturbing the monks in meditation which is what happens when you get tour groups in the monasteries. So I ran it by my Linage Rinpoche and he got very excited about the whole thing. Next, just started to learn linux, to run the server, then the OpenSim program...and here we are... it's taken a bit longer then I would have liked to get this far.. :)
Nyom Chung: our welcome center does not have a statue of Padmasambhava as of yet. I am still working on it.

On the fresh bright Welcome sim with Nyom.
It's a work in progress, but the mountain atmosphere is already installed!

Neo.Cortex: i read you are mentioning the Oculus Rift.... does that mean you are building to scale?
Drang Po: the Oculus Rift will allow a total immersion into the meditation experience and the way our minds work is if we experience it in Here... our mind in meditation will build on that visual and audio experience. Thus people like me that have a hard time visualizing the complex meditation will have that aid.
Neo.Cortex: And one wonderful to combine Rift & opensim to realize it
Drang Po: I'd like to see Wiccans, and others represent themselves and their experiences as well - Thus a Sacred Space in OpenSim. We are just simple people...
Selby.Evans: The simple is what is hard to understand
Drang Po: ... who are struggling as other people are with emptiness, and letting go of the attachments of samsara. In Vajrayana school it's said the Perfect Buddha is our true nature, thus we merely have to let go of the false conceptions and attachments that keep that enlightened realization from manifesting.
Thirza Ember: I think I speak for the group when I say, we are at peace with the concept of letting go our attachments
snowbody Cortes: they go with hyperjump, usually :)
Fuschia Nightfire: funny, i was also thinking of Jessica when i heard 'letting go of attachments'
Drang Po: This grid is a service for all sentient beings, the Buddha said that we should not preach, but should live by example, and what is a better way to live then the whole OpenSim open sharing concept, where it's for the whole rather then the I.

        The Safari moved on to visit two other places on the grid, the Drolma Lhakhang temple on a sim of the same name, and the grid's freebie zone, with some very pointed signs about Linden Labs. 

Patricia Anne, Fuschia, Thirza and Drang in human form outside the Freebie collection on Kalasiddhi

          For many of us, Fuschia remained alpha in the middle throughout the Safari but on her viewer, it was quite a different story. So I nicked her photo, since we are all one, aren't we? 

Oh dear, maybe not.

          Our final stop for this week's adventure - Spellscape. Again, a smaller, newer grid, ours was the largest party they have had so far. This UK based grid is geared towards magic and spell-making, using scripts and ingredients you can find by exploring the various sims. It's the home of Xander Bing, who met us on Honeywood. 

Xander in the Lodge, one of Gawwain Inglewood's many fine builds on the grid.

            Honeywood is a var region which supports a little town full of shops, community buildings and open spaces, and is fun to visit just to see the lovely constructions including the lodge, the spell-casting gallery, and the waterfront.
            Xander is a big fan of the Destination feature (hidden away in Singularity towards the bottom of the World dropdown menu) and has his grid set up to use it, a rarity in OpenSim. As HG travelers we're not really used to bells and whistles working, and don't trust them. Who knows though, maybe it will catch on and become a useful tool for grid jumping. When you put together Teleporting around a var region and HG visitors you are bound to get a lot of problems, with missing people, missing attachments, a/o's going crazy and so forth. But the grid rezzed beautifully, and so did most of us...

Xander and Wizzy offer Jessica a moving target in the spell casting range.

          The downside of Spellscape is that at least for now, HG visitors can't participate in the spell side of things, and a lot of the nice free items on the grid are not exportable. But before all you Free, Full Perm, OpenSim Content Creators gnash your teeth and start saying - 'well in that case, if they don't provide content to outsiders, I hope they don't bring MY fp content to their grid!' - bear in mind that Spellscape has given back to the common good. Alicia Raven their Code Goddess, has written several patches. 
          For example?
Xander.Bing: we have given code back to the [Open Simulator] project a few times. Now when u fly in bullet sim, u get a kick up now, before u would skim your belly along the floor, that was ours.
          The upside of Spellscape is surely the free land for residents (renewable every 30 days), the RP theme of the grid, which is all about Quests, competitions, and crafting spells, and their very much underexploited Marketplace site, which even supports free content. And being able to zap people with your wand. 

Wizzy hones her cauldron skills. 

Xander.Bing: our version of os also won't allow items to go out via HG unless they are full perm. We also just opened a script library on the site http://www.spellscape.co.uk/resources/scripts
James.Atlloud: interesting about item going offgrid.  Not an admin setting?
Xander.Bing: its not part of default opensim code
Truelie Telling: can folk from other grids use the scripts?
Xander.Bing: we added it ourselves as part of content security
James.Atlloud: Ah, TY.
Xander.Bing: sure, but some scripts use functions that will only work here, we use a modified script engine that supports extra things for the game.
Jessica Pixel: i was looking at the script to set a wand target... you have your own LSL functions here, that's very cool
Xander.Bing: yes, any that begin with SS are unique to spellscape, so far most are for the game we are developing.
          Last of all, a dance at Spellscape's Red Moon Club, with the always lovely LadyJo doing the deejaneing for us. She is unfailingly delightful and her choice in music is spot on, and the girls introduced Xander to the concept of Aine's <fp> dance machines, so it was a good result all round.
              Next week, the Safari celebrates with a big party our first anniversary. If you've ever been on Safari, if you've hosted a Safari, or simply just read about it here, we would be delighted if you would stop by to say hello. 
          See you all on Event Plaza, OSgrid, from 12-3pm grid time next Wednesday!
          URIs
The Scripting Showcase Trail    hg.osgrid.org:80:Teravus Plaza
Kalasiddhi                                kalasiddhigrid.com:8002
Spellscape                               grid.spellscape.co.uk:80:honeywood