Death and the Diva

 We keep going back although I'm not sure any of us become any the wiser. 
Art Blue's latest theater production is called "True Death" and the Safari was invited to load test the sim. 

Load testing, that's something we do understand, and we're good at it! This was week 68 of the Safari, so you might say we're experts at this point.

Art's invitation read as follows: "Load testing Blue Venus and Art Blue's latest theater production,  You may crash during the performance. Please arrive promptly at the sim for the show." There's another good reason to show up. Blue Venus is known for her magnificent particle effects.

But no, we did manage to crash it. Not quite sure what's going on, on Metropolis, of late. Perhaps it's the way Art's regions are connected to the grid. Or maybe it's just not our week for hypergridding - it happens. 

Let's hope all gets sorted soon because the big community art event on metropolis is coming soon. It's a chance for all Metropolis netizens to show off their building skills, and also an invitation for lots of creators from other grids (dare we mention SL also?) to dip their toes in a big opensim event where their creations will be viewed, not by the very occasional and casual passer-by, but by a focused and engaged crowd of admirers... more about this soon, when the Safari goes to visit! Got our fingers crossed for Wanda Shigella  and all her team.

Onlook Viewer logo

Our Second destination was with Diva Canto, aka Crista Lopes, who wanted to show us her new viewer OnLook.. part two next week. This viewer is based on good old Singularity. The difference is that it tries to make life easier for the occasional, or not very tech savvy person. Many many of the bells and whistles of your standard viewer are hidden. This makes some sense, you'll agree, because Viewer is gadget rich. If you're not a sim owner, a builder, a tester or a scripter, there are dozens of features you've probably never used, like 'wireframe', or 'Area Search' - not to mention the Cheesy Beacon - when was the last time you felt a desperate need for that?

Crista's concept goes quite a lot further than that. Some people find it confusing that the default setting of the viewer is that you can see yourself in the scene, the camera is just over your shoulder, most of the time. 

UCI Mondego

Many other MMORPGs prefer the 'first person shooter' approach, Mouselook type situation (think of Minecraft) as it makes the focus of the game the other people and the landscape rather than your own appearance, and it mimics reality much more closely, making the experience more immersive. You can read all about it on Crista's blog, Metaverse Ink

Crista invited us all over to think about downloading the viewer and trying it for a week... more in following posts about our experiences and questions, and of course, her answers!

 HG Addresses
Art Blue Performance Space                  hypergrid.org:8002:futurelab
Crista Lopes Region                             nile.ics.uci.edu:9000