Sweet Sixteen

Sixteen is an important milestone in any aspect of life, and OSGrid, the 'crossroads of opensim', the Test grid, and home to hundreds of residents, has reached this grand old age with the traditional parties and of course the Expo regions, all shaped like the OSGrid logo.

The expo regions are in a circle in the sea, all around Event Plaza, and contain all kinds of lively tributes to the grid, by its residents.

Matilda Charron: Osgrid is a great community home to many talented people (and creatures) from programming, scripting, wide variety of creativeness and well run events for all to enjoy. It is a great social platform and I wouldn't want to be anywhere else. I admire such talent and thankful to be a part of such great place and thankful for the people I call friends.

Jazzed Up in Opensim

Poppy Fields and Forest Azure organizing a Jazz and Blues Weekend and it's coming up on September 9 and 10. It's sponsored by Masala Estates, (thank you Unadecal!) and will be held on a dedicated sim, HG Jazz & Bluesfestival. It will cover both Euro and US-friendly hours, 11am - 3pm on saturday, 11am - 5pm on Sunday, for your listening pleasure.  

The full lineup of performers is: Rez Rezzal, Icky and Sum, Charice Singer, Acidicloop, Ruud vandeSande, Clan's Band, and Poppy and Forest themselves.

September is still a month away, but preparations are already well in hand, with this stage, built by Poppy Fields, featuring a great dome in dark blue, filled with stars and

Tropicana fun!

Mike Townsend has been in opensim since way back when. If you're an oldbie, you may remember his UKTurk grid, with its freebies - such a precious resource at a time when finding content was a painful business on the HG. These days, you'll find him in his OSGrid estate, Tropicana. Hot or what. So, what's the story?

 Mike Townsend:  I have never really left OSgrid, just dabbled in other grids and moved around a bit. I guess for me the appeal of it is the building and creation of environment. And of course the friends that we meet in our travels. I don't miss having a grid of my own. Not at all. Most grids, as they get larger, become cumbersome and problematic. Tropicana was not here a couple of years ago, it is really the result of the pandemic. It was built very quickly and homes and lands were added as an afterthought, and it just grew and grew from 9 SL sized regions to around the 600 that it is today. 

Makes sense, after all OSGrid is known as the crossroads of Opensim. You can check out the

To the Manor Born

The best building is like the best writing - the rule 'write what you know' becomes 'build what you know'. That of course doesn't mean that people have to go to Jupiter before they can write a sci fi novel or make a Jovian EEP.  'Knowing' can be a flexible factor. Some people do lots of research, some look within themselves to find that magical harmony of design. Look at the builds on Outworldz, like Virunga, and their Alexandria build, blogged about here.  Or how about Tosha Tyran's Taj Mahal or Angkor Wat, or Dalaran, by Wendie Blackthorn over on Kinky Haven - thoroughly researched and thought through. The same goes for Nyx Breen and his Jazzland builds. Another great example is Star Ravenhurst's Land of Xzar - based on her own novel. You can think of a dozen more, no doubt. Add them in the comments section, if you'd like.

This is Serenity Manor on Serenity Grid, by Erwan Elan. If the grid name is familiar you may remember it from a post about a year ago about the Monet House. This region doesn't have the same aim at realistic precision as Monet's place, with its phenomenal attention to factual detail,  but it is a masterclass in authenticity of genre, instinctively right in tone and proportions. 

OSFest 2023

 Over the years, the idea of a general festival for all opensim has led to many entertaining events, and this year another is planned. The organizers this year are more or less the same team from last year, with Shelenn Ayres taking the lead, Banker Ibor organizing the volunteers, and Rosa Alexeev coordinating the musicians, along with many more helpers, as you can imagine.  

The festival combines space for the commercial creators in opensim to exhibit their wares, as well as many displays and installations by the Free community. People are being encouraged to organize tours and demonstrations on their builds during the festival, and they plan to have musical guests performing over a total of 60 hours during the festival's 2 week run, from September 15 to 30. 

Last year, the overall theme for OSFest was medieval/fantasy, and this year the theme for exhibitors is Jazz in all its many forms - from the Art deco period, the Roaring 20s, right up to the psychedelic 70s and beyond, and includes all kinds of cultural offshoots, from New Orleans, to South America, so there's no end of choices for how to style your build.

How can I participate? 

Missing the Sky

 Are you the kind of person who can't wait for the next update in the Firestorm viewer, and eagerly test its many windows and menus? Or do you wait until you think it's been tweaked into reliable behavior - maybe even wait till you absolutely are obliged to update?  As grateful as we all should be by the people who do the testing and reporting of problems, it's probably fair to say that the majority of us just want the thing to work, and are not entertained by bug hunting. 

Firestorm 6.6.8 (68380) was released this January. When I finally bit the bullet and changed over to it,  it seemed a pretty painless transition. 

With one exception - all the Windlight settings were gone. Urk. 

For a few weeks I just let it slide, but eventually I had enough time to check around to see what was up with that and found this thread on the SL community page. The new way - well, not all that new, but never mind about  that - to make skies is called EEP (meaning Environment Enhancement Project) and you may have seen some stunning EEPs around opensim like this beauty...

Dew Drop Islands, by Azi Az and Danger Lytton

and this one:

Scripted Artwork

 If you've been around Opensim for a while, you'll recognize this familiar face: Wordfromthe Wise. Yes, back in the days of Metropolis you may have experienced his fireworks region, or perhaps you remember dropping in on his Cornflakes Tribute sim during Cornflakes Week.

Word and Cornflakes were good friends, which is why  he has still owns that treasure-trove of early opensim original content.

But there's more to Word than this.

He and his scriptilliscious colleague Sixtus have a small grid where you can find some delightful creations. Called scripted artwork, it's exactly that. Everything in movement, interactive, moving, flashing and generally immersive.

Planet A with Tina Bey

 Tina Bey is one of those outstanding artists who make opensim a joy.

In OSGrid since 2010, Tina's an enthusiastic supporter if opensimulator's Test grid, and this year once again she is contributing to the  Auction event at the end of September (here's a blog post about the auction).

Tina's sometimes perceived as being a little shy, not the loudest voice in the room for sure, but she has always impressed with her willingness to explore opensim, encourage others, learn what is going on out there on the HG, and make stunning original creations. If you're a safari oldbie you may remember our visits to Arcauana back in 2016, and Waterworld in 2015. Tina's from Argentina, so her first language is Spanish, but of course, the language of her art transcends all that.

Tina's art is deeply rooted in real world cultures and issues

Auction objects are sold for real money and won't be free to copy - but that's a huge exception from Tina's usual practice.

Tina Bey: Usually my sculptures are completely free, since the spirit of opensim has been free since its beginnings. That is why I benefited from working here and moving from Second Life to work better and more freely in all aspects, including economics. This "Antarctica" region generously lends me Mazzo Ganitano, a Spanish gentleman I don't even know personally but who gives many of us the possibility of having a region free of charge. I am very grateful for so many people who have given me their regions since I started, and that is why I generally put my created objects free, like in different shopping centers, among others LANI Mall. free copy.

Francopholie

It's the world's 5th language, in terms of speakers, and comes in 4th for most-used language on the Internet. But in Opensim, the French speaking cohort often appears not to reflect those kinds of numbers. Minord Loup, together with friends LadyKa and Athena, would like to do something to redress the balance. 

The idea? Make it easier for people who speak French to find each other, and make opensim more attractive and user-friendly for Francophiles in Second Life who are contemplating the jump into other worlds.

It makes sense. It's already a pretty steep learning curve to leave SL for opensim if you speak English, imagine if your first language is something else. Francophones - often called 'frenchies' in this blog - are in reality from all over the world, not just France, and it can be hard for them to find a place in opensim where everyone speaks their language.

The First Thursday of the Month group

In an attempt to create a centralized point of reference, there is a once-a-month meet up for networking, catching up with the news or maybe asking for a bit of tech help, and occasionally exploring franco-friendly destinations. It's hosted by Eden Catharine on the first Thursday of each month at 9pm Paris time.  You may have seen the poster at the Safari clubhouse. If you know any French opensimmers, it would be a kindness to let them know, you can never have too many resources or friends.

Portal Palette

 The Safari is on break, but of course that doesn't mean that nobody wants to go hypergridding!  

If you're looking for company, or a music and dance event, the Beacons of opensimworld are a very handy way of finding where it's going on, just open the OSW website and look at the Regions or the Events page. 

If that's not your thing, maybe you'd like to take a tour of art regions, or some other themed trip around the metaverse.  On the HG Safari region on OSGrid, you will find some suggestions. 

These self guided tours are a low-tech and wide ranging way of exploring opensim, but because virtual worlds are always in a state of flux, with people changing grids, taking down or moving their regions, and with new regions emerging,  it's quite a task to keep the lists of Landmarks up to date.

Vive la Evolution

 Mech Lab on OSGrid, by Symphony Vive, has a cool teal vibe to it, and thrilling motto: 'are you ready for the cyborg evolution? '  If you weren't when you arrived on Mech Lab VAR region, on OSGrid, you will be very soon!

In the parlance of manga and anime, the term 'mech' or 'mecha' refers to, well, machines! Robots and large, pilotable vehicles, with their beauty lying in their complexity. 

An inspiration for Symphony is the 2011 movie Real Steel, with Hugh Jackman, Evangeline Lilly, and some rocking boxing robots. But mostly, it's just based on personal childhood dreams of futuristic builds.

Life Goes Oni

It turns out, not everyone knows that the words 'tribute' and 'obituary' aren't synonyms. Oni Kiri, perhaps best known for the freebie regions with the umbrella name Adachi, hasn't died or anything so dramatic. However, Oni has retired from opensim, and closed the grid CopyKat where Adachi was located.

Having made countless friends over a decade-long career in opensim, Oni's friends wanted to celebrate the person who had given them so much good advice, kindness, prim space, and content with an upbeat retrospective of Oni's oeuvre.  

The new sim Adachi is on Blackswan Grid, and is the brainchild of close friend  Maurice Shamroy - you'll find the HG Address at the end of the post, the sim is visitable anytime.

Maurice Shamroy by the big 'I Quit' poster on Adachi CopyKat in Blackswan  

Maurice Shamroy:  Oni has been active in virtual world for 17 years, and I understand his choice to take a break (definitive or not we will see), my self I started in SL in 2007 and created Blackswan in 2010, so for me it's very easy understand Oni's choice. I think the best way to understand  what he did is resumed in the message I published in Adachi at landing point. 

Zoey Cutie standing by the message for Oni from OSW

At the party on the Adachi region of Blackswan grid, (check out their  Flickr Gallery !!) we all read the illustrated info boards that explain the many iterations of Oni, reflecting the ups and downs and crashes and comebacks of Opensim.