Creanovale in Summer

Truth to tell, Opensim isn't one of those places where you just automatically count on people to be reliable, communicative, and also talented. But if exceptions prove a rule, then look no further than Dabici Straulino and Kelso Uxlay. They bring together all these virtues not only in their kind offer to host our first field trip of the final Safari season of 2022, but also with their beautiful build on their grid, Creanovale.

Arriving on the grid is always an exciting moment. 

The main landing point is in an underwater environment, setting the scene for a visit full of seascapes, water sports, and a world so real you'll wish you brought sandwiches. Jump through the 4 seasons poster - almost a  postcard, I always think - and you're in the big tent on Novale.

There were quite a lot of us, 17 at least, and on a small grid, that is a pretty scary proposition, but Kelso and Dabici are organized even for that eventuality. Don't rush out of the tent, let your avatar rez and your viewer load the sim, and in the meantime you can get your bearings made us feel right at home. 

Kelso Uxlay: Welcome to Novale. Please take a seat inside the tent for a few minutes; Dabici will give some explanations before we start the visit

IAN  Ovale: Bienvenue à nouveau à Novale - Welcome back to region Novale. Profitez bien de votre visite - Please enjoy your stay!

Take time to get your bearings at the well thought out start point

Apollo Star: Thank you

Dabici Straulino: Hello everyone. Welcome to Novale, our seasonal region. it is changing 4 times a year to reflect our four seasons in Easte Canada, Quebec.  We are currently in Summerstate for another week.

Beth.Ghostraven: I love the four seasons

Apollo Star: Then our colorful autumn starts...

Dabici Straulino: we will close summer on Sept 21st and reopen in Fall State in early october

Kelso Uxlay: Exploring Novale completely requires several hours, and a lot of attention to details. We will only scratch the surface today!

Looking in at the window of the Welcome Tent

Dabici Straulino: Seasons do share common installation, in part but their context are changing. The common elements to the four seasons include the chapel, the farm, and the Mill

Kelso Uxlay: We restore from a OAR and add each year

Dabici Straulino: However almost half of the region (a 4x4) is very specific to the season. Emphasis on summer is Water and strand [beach] activities. In summer, our main navigation tool is the buoys network. The buoys, steam style, are distributed in the region and a 25 stations menu is accessible on click. The slide show here shows some of the destinations reachable with the buoys. 

The Mill

Dabici Straulino: many sport activities that you can try, surf, wind surf, sailing etc. One of the preferred site in summer is the underwater tour

ApolloStar: Great place to have fun

Roland Francis: the swimming experience starting from the jumping board is memorable (!)

Thirza Ember: How do you share the tasks when creating the grid?

Dabici Straulino: Kelso and I are the makers of Novale, I build most of the environment but Kelso add the magic, with scripting

Apollo Star: Good team :)

Kelso Uxlay: Hours of fun. We complement each other

Kelso Uxlay: We will start big with the Underwater tour; followed by a visit to the lookout platform where you will try a a prototype tourist binocular, followed by a bike on a wire tour, and subsequently a visit to Thirza little sister

Dabici Straulino: For the underwater tour, we have installed a special TP here in the landing camp - see the blue Captain Kelso. Let's use it to go there

Kelso Uxlay: Click on my face near the door to tp

Thirza Ember: that's not a phrase you hear every day

The Underwater tour is fabulous. A range of aquatic outfits are available, and when you're dressed as you see fit - anything from Mermaid/merman to full on sub outfits - you are ready to go. 

Kelso Uxlay: Touch the iris door and  press escape

Nara Nook swims through the Underwater Experience (gif by N Malone)

The Underwater ride is a scripted trail through a magic seascape with ancient ruins, shipwrecks, treasure, and monsters. The smoothness of the scripting, despite there being about 17 of us on the sim, was amazing.  After the swimming, Kelso brought us straight to the viewing platform, high above the sim.

This is a great idea, because it allows visitors with limited time to see the highlights of the region, but at the end of the day, strolling around with your Sounds enabled is the best. Birdsong, water noises, the sounds of animals all bring the place to life in delicious harmony.

The Lookout Platform

The beautiful retro binoculars been scripted so that that, if you touch them, they give you a whopping 38 destinations to tp to. 
Kelso Uxlay: The giant binoculars are a new design by Aaack Ardvark. His shop is in osgrid (hg.osgrid.org:80:ArcadiaShop). This is a team work. I created the script, and Aaack designed the binoculars and the animations. We plan to release the binoculars as soon as all the bugs are ironed out (still a few to kill).

Our second destination was to the 'Pennyfarthing on a Wire' ride which again, was not only fun but incredibly robust, given how many people were clicking and riding and moving around.

Next up was the surfing establishment.  The surfing setup is beautiful, although looking back on it, you're not really supposed to just stand there in the soup like a quimby, taking photos when a wave that size is crashing down on you. 

But not everyone in our group was a paddlepuss - even if we weren't all dressed for the occasion. Here's Beth Ghostraven showing us all her surfing skills.  Never mind the surfing skills, that dress deserves an award for becomingness.

Beth Ghostraven  getting locked in with style

Next up, the party pier where my little sister (though I swear she's at least ten years older than me) Trisha Ember was dancing with her pals. 

There's a very cool diving board on the pier,  the full animation is too long for the gif, but well worth experiencing if you visit.

From there lots and lots of sailing. The proper kind with wind influencing the sails. 

 Pretty impressive to see the little dinghies bobbing up and down on the water.

Thirza.Ember: Dabici, have you always made canada- based builds, since you came to virtual worlds?

Dabici Straulino: no, my first build in a team was the Maya Island at Washington U. in SL. Then I had a steampunk region in Mainland SL... my next project will be about history of photography.

Dabici explains about upcoming projects

Kelso Uxlay: Summer is great

Dabici Straulino: Fall is a great explosion of contrast between the fall warm colours and the dark side of Halloween

Beth.Ghostraven: I'm looking forward to seeing fall here

Nara Nook: me too. Always lots to do here

Kelso Uxlay: Great to see so much activity on the sim

The hour was up, and we had only seen a small part of the build. The 'shacks' or chalets are perticularly lovely, and include a photography shack (the attention to detail inside and out is lovely, as is the setting)

Photo Shack

and the Artist's shack, a building that's both original and charming - a work of art in itself.

Artist's shack

Creanovale grid will be offline for a bit, as this talented team, Kelso and Dabici, rebuild for the Fall. When it reopens, put it on you Must-See list - it's going to be yet another wonderful season in Opensim!