A Bumblebee Safari

          They are large, noisy, and it was once thought that bumblebee flight defied the laws of physics. So, very much like the Safari experience, where anyone who is lag intolerant is going to fall at the first hurdle, but those brave souls who push through the freeze/chat lag/slow rez/crash/lost aspects of group hypergridding are rewarded by destinations that are positively blooming. This week we visited three destinations that are ripe, one might say, for cross pollination. Addresses at the end of the post, as always.

         Firstly we headed to Ignis Fatuus Grid. This francophone grid is without doubt one of the loveliest in the hyperverse. You could easily spend a month visiting the landscape and fantasy regions here, and still not see it all.

Ignis Welcome region

         It's one of those grids that is home to a small circle of friends, so there are no rent-paying residents, but it's open to the public, so you can visit any time. 

Max Hill (r) on the King's Staircase at Versailles

          The grid owner is Max Hill. A core team of regulars are working on an impressive reconstruction of Versailles  
          It took us a while to get started, because, yes, you guessed it, we crashed Versailles 2, the region where our tour of the palace began. Thank goodness the Welcome region, Ignis, stayed online throughout.

Ignis Welcome

        But when we all came back the region began to play nice. Our frequent crashes are quite an experience for anyone new to Safari, and hats off to all those who managed to stick with it, like Valibrarian Gregg and Phred Resident - impressive!

Thirza Ember: yay the region is working again!
Valibrarian Gregg: I see people from many different grids.
Han Held nervously ups my dd to 128 as I can't see s**t
Jeff Kelley: ok, greetings everybody. Welcome to Versailles, the next insane project from the Ignis Fatuus grid.
Sunbeam Magic: lol we love insane !
Jeff Kelley: "Le château de Versailles", near Paris, was the seat of the Kingdom of France where lived the royal family, from Louis XIV in the year 1682. It is an historic monument with incredible pomp and luxury. Versailles is HUGE. To grasp how much, please select the map behind me. It's a one-to-one scale, 1 real meter = 1 opensim meter. The building itself is outlined in red. The remaining is a gigantic suite of gardens. Each tile is a region. There are 7x11 tiles, so this is a 77 sims project. That's why it is insane.
Sunshine Szavanna: wow 77 sims
        (the pink area is where the hedges will be)

 Jeff Kelley: Why not leave the gardens out? Because the gardens were our initial target (to host garden parties with gorgeous water- & fireworks) , the castle being a simple "trompe l'oeil", some rough prims with a facade picture. But we could not resist to model the castle with its 2300 rooms, 352 chimneys and 67 staircases. 77 sims is obviously insane. So we cheated a lot, shrinking the whole thing in a cluster of 3x4 sims, the part highlighted in blue. The gardens are squeezed so the balance between the outdoors and the building is pleasing to the eye, without turning the avatar's experience into a exhausting marathon. These are standard 256x256 regions, so beware sim crossings and loss of voice.
Sunbeam Magic: Amazing, and love hearing the French chat in voice ... lovely language

Harthelie Deux, center, the Texture expert on Ignis. Jeff is far right.

Jeff Kelley: Please, let me introduce now the team in charge of this crazy project. Max Hill (also the owner of the grid) is the the main builder. He modeled the castel, textureless, in about 1 month. Harthelie Deux is our texture master. She browses myriads of photos on the web, patiently editing and refining them to make textures. Chip Angelvi (coming soon) is our mesher. He struggles with Blender to import models, and that's not easy! Making realistic hedges is a challenge. Any hint welcome. Finally, Jeff Kelley makes the coffee and occasionally some scripts. He also do the magical incantations to keep the server happy. Enough said, let's start the visit. Please follow Max, the master of ceremony. Have fun !
          We followed Max, and the big red arrows (extremely helpful) as we wound our way through stairs and passages, some textured, some not. The monumental dimensions of Versailles make it quite camera friendly. Here s the Mirror Gallery... 

 ... and an interior courtyard...

Aime Socrates: who visited versaille in real ? 
Lucy Afarensis: me
George Equus: As a young child, don't remember much of it...
Han Held: Not me, sadly... I have to say, this is amazing to the point of being overwhelming

Max Hill (Center)

Aime Socrates: maybe after this visit you will go to Paris
Thirza Ember: one of the most impressive builds in opensim, I think
Sunbeam.Magic: so true to the actual gardens ;))
Han Held agrees
Valibrarian Gregg: truly amazing....we have "entered the design"
George Equus: Enormous task, gardens alone
Sunbeam Magic: what an enormous undertaking :)
Jeff Kelley: we have 9 sims to cover in gardens... the project is about 10% done - meet you back in 2021, we promise a royal garden party
Thirza Ember: it is quite amazing to think that they really just wanted to make the gardens, to provide a setting for the new fountain scripts Jeff has invented ... the palace 'just happened'
Lucy Afarensis: creation creep ?
George Equus: Small "diversion" then
Valibrarian Gregg: amazing indeed
Han Held: all I know is I'd love to be able to do that sort of "tangent"
Wizardoz Chrome: a Huge Work ... beautiful texturization, many many very accurate "construction" of all .. 
Sunbeam Magic: love your geysers on other fountain Jeff, I can imagine them on this fountain :)

Jeff Kelley: oh yes, there will be automated waterworks, fireworks also
Sunbeam Magic: wowsa

      After an all too quick look at the Royal Chapel, impressive by itself, we moved on to our second destination on Tangle Grid. 

Leslie Kling

       There is a great family atmosphere on TanGLe, which is four years old. The name comes from the initials of the three founding members, Tmac, Gary, and Leslie. Relatively new resident  Rusty Sciavo sang the grid's praises, as a haven of good humor and friendliness, and the TanGLe atmosphere inspired him to set up his own social event
Rusty Sciavo: everyone is invited Sunday at the Coffee Shop 12-2 grid time [Pacific] for Bring a Buddy Sunday. 
Rusty Sciavo: i have oldies radio here the tower is up and building the station. Will landscape it and create a beach... you will hear about tangle grid on the net
Leslie Kling: he has a rl radio station and broadcast all over the opensim communities


Thirza Ember: i think the regular expos throughout the year are a great way to encourage the hypergrid spirit
Han Held: the more group things there are for people to go to and see one another, the better!
Leslie Kling: opensim is suppose to be about that. just my 2 cents.
        We talked about the ups and downs of Hypergridding, all the while camming out to look at the exhibits in the Steam Expo.

Thirza Ember: so Gary and Leslie... what is the best, and what is the worst thing about running your own grid?
 Gary Kling: the best? its ours not some jerks.. the worst? way slow growth, just my humble opinion
Thirza Ember: better to grow slow, than too fast and have too many Crazies as residents... a question for everyone...What is the one piece of advice you would give to someone making the jump from SL to OpenSim?
Leighton Marjoram: take your time
Rusty Sciavo: check out the grid you want to go to thoroughly
Mal.Burns: forget about walls!
Gary Kling: use the correct viewer
Lucy Afarensis: roll your own if you can figure it out
Leslie Kling: That Opensim isn't SL and that it takes ppl to make it as good as or even better then SL but take your time and look around for the grid that fits with you.

Phred Resident: host your own sim on your laptop. Outworldz makes it easy to get started with a sim
Mal Burns: yep - Outworldz works well as a home base
xSIBERIAx.ILFREDDOPURIFICA: the best advice would be - join HG safari to understand what opensim offers!
Leighton Marjoram: you need a strong constitution for Safari
Han Held: You need a strong constitution for *opensim*
Leighton Marjoram: sooo true but sooo worth it

Thirza.Ember: is it me, or is Billy dancing with Serena Williams?
Billy Bradshaw: anyone for tennis?

          And then our last stop on a relatively new place, VarTown!

Dancing and general fun awaited us, with Alya VonZ and Hans Nerido.
 George Equus: Hi hans  :)  brace yourself  lol  here we come..
Han Held: Strangely enough; I had the hardest time getting here.
xSIBERIAx ILFREDDOPURIFICA: hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii
Sunbeam Magic: Hiya Hans ! we meet again lol
Hans Nerido: welcome on vartown! ...first crash test now
janygarcia sabra: welcome to vartown

Alya VonZ: those who will make it, can find a lot of free stuff, all over the grid:) behind you in the shop, on world of this and that we have a few steampunk items, a lot clothes for you, pick up all what you like

xSIBERIAx.ILFREDDOPURIFICA: yeahhhhhhhh i go around *.* (i love freebie lol)
George Equus: Going for a quick shopping spree  :)   back in no time

Hans at the Racetrack

Hans Nerido: the whole grid is open for public so you can visit all sims here around

Ard Rhys:  I took the direct tp to the racetrack! will be back for a dance after I have tried one of these bad boys

       Hans' racetrack is one of the most famous in opensim, and was on OSgrid for about five years, during which time it had over three thousand visitors. The physics are great, the cars easy to steer... well, for people who know how to drive... I took mine for an underwater spin...

           Alya showed some of the other highlights of this grid. World of This and That is a lovely old-world sim fll of charming buildings.
Alya VonZ: welcome in city hall of town of this and that:) still very much under construction... this is a 3x3 VAR... some stuff is made and some stuff is found on whatever grid:)

Thirza Ember: very nice! what inspired you?
Alya VonZ: actually it is the traveling I did with Safari and exploring that gives me inspiration, and the wish maybe the real world could be like this:)
         Here is lovely region called Fairy...

... and don't miss VW Sailing by Wendy Angel. The VW stands for Vartown Witch, by the way. 

       It's a great place and we didn't even get to see the 90 thousand prims on the Vartown megaregion - but you should definitely go take a look!
Hans Nerido: the server was on 9% usage not more, so cool :-)
Alya VonZ: hahaha, good to know, we can give parties yay
Hans Nerido:  in about 3 weeks we want real open the grid, feel you all invite now
Billy Bradshaw: never fail to have a blast on Safari

HG Addresses

Versailles in opensim     ignis-fatuus.no-ip.biz:8002:versailles 2
Tangle Expo                  tanglegrid.net:8002:HG Station 1
Vartown Arrival point     vartown-grid.ddns.net:8002