Safari Goes to the Shows

George.Equus: Now stuff makes sense  :)

      The one thing that is always the same about our safaris is that they are never the same. Most weeks, two or three new friends join us and even when we go to places we have visited before, it always seems to result in a different experience.
Take yesterday's trip to Metropolis and Francogrid, for example. 
Billy Bradshaw: I have some chores in RL, will join the safari a little later
Alya VonZ: so glad it is wednesday, I could use a break:)
Thirza Ember: they are restarting the sim for destination 1 in a few minutes, so all should be ....dare I say perfect?? is that tempting fate?

Arriving on Futurelab

Alya VonZ: hehehe
Lucy Afarensis: probably
Thirza Ember: hey Lyr!! welcome!
Selby Evans: hi everyone
Lyr Lobo: Hiya Thinkerer *grins*
Thirza Ember: Lyr almost all the sit poses in the jeep are non embarrassing... also the elephant - apart from the tail seat of course
Truelie Telling: yeah, I'm sitting with my feet in elephant brains
Thirza Ember: how come James never sits on the elephant?
James Atlloud: I don't know about never. Usually getting myself sorted at this time.
Alya VonZ: hehe, haven't sat on it either yet:)  - have to be earlier on I suppose to do that, hehe
James Atlloud: lol - right after the elephant ... spoke?  the music started. lol
Selby Evans: I can sit on the elephant

        The conversation turned to operating systems and new laptops, and then poof it was time to go to Futurelab on Metropolis. HG Addresses at the end of the post. There was some climbing of ladders, and some jumping jack poses, then some sitting and having our cam control taken from us. Futurelab currently hosts the gigantic model of a sterile lab, which is part of a project for a real world company not named here by request of Art.

The Trick of Treats

      Kodinpump is the latest build by Nani Ferguson and Ange Menges. Available contemporaneously on two different grids, Metropolis and OSGrid, it is a Hunt, and celebrates the Autumn season with a Halloween theme.

      Kodinpump is a mesh build, richly embellished with capricious pumpkins that answer you back when you speak to them. Some will give you gifts, some insult you, and some will throw you off the sim. I absolutely love it.

        The regions will be open for a limited time, just a few weeks, so do not delay your visit or you could very well miss it. The HG Addresses are as always at the bottom of the post.

      The setting is Kodinpump, a care-worn, weatherbeaten port, complete with sailing ships and netshops, and a bridge to nowhere. Or is it?  In the center of this Lovecraftian town you will find a rowdy tavern, merchants and their goods, and large stone-faced houses fringing a broad square that looks out onto the endless Offsim Sea.

Happy EVER After

 When the French invite you to dinner, you'd be crazy not to show up. When they say 'dinner theater', then even more so.  

            Grid EVER is the virtual home of the University of Strasbourg, and the performance was 'Au fil de l'eau' by Ann Rocard, performed by the Adret Theater Players - Jenny Bihouise aka Cheops Forlife and Lorenzo Soccavo are the guys behind the event. The audience was limited to just 15 avatars for technical reasons, and it was the perfect size for the group.

AAA Little Nightfire

          Flashing can be bad for people. But if you don't have a photosensitive health issue, then animated attached art - let's call it Triple A ! - is probably the best thing out there, especially when combined with live music. Fuschia Nightfire put on a cracking display for the HG Safari First Anniversary party this week, and it was interesting to hear a bit about what went into it. 

          First off, where did the inspiration for all the bright colors and attachments come from?
Fuschia Nightfire: I think it was Wizzy's idea actually. We were chatting about the party and said it would be good if we could get SaveMe to come, but realised that probably wouldn't happen, so we joked about making a NOT SaveMe performance, and I realised that with the dancing cat animation and the avatar starter kit, I probably already had some items that we could use. I also have some of her pieces on SL, so it was not difficult to look at those and make my own versions here, like the personal ban lines.

Thirza Ember: technically, did you find it a challenge?

Safari goes extramural

         This week Littlefield Grid celebrates two years of existence, and Walter Balazic and friends are celebrating with a gigantic fair on Littlefield Anniversary sim. In honor of the event they have put up a VAR region, and all kinds of residents have contributed stalls stands and exhibits showing the talent and wide range of interests of Littlefield folk.

Walter Balazic: it's a fairly large VAR, so there's a lot to see. I've been looking at it for 2 weeks now, so it looks small to me now! The users here love to build.  Mudpuddle put an interesting Yellow Submarine display up. The Germans put a village up, I put a little display up, I really never build, but it's the one behind you. People do things that are geared toward what they know, mine is all prim and minor scripting, cause that's all I know. Some people are really good at mesh and focus on mesh things.

Safari crosses over

            Institutions. We all love them, and most of us belong in one. This week three SL/opensim crossovers were our destinations, each one an epic in its own way. First up,  Seanchai Library which this month celebrates seven years since it was founded in Second Life. That's a big deal when you think of all the performances that this group has put on, and all the money they have collected for charity too. We met on sim Inis Arcain in Kitely to hear the short story 'The Bard' performed by Caledonia Skytower. This is a tale of druids and warriors and ancient angst, and one of the most memorable menacing laughs in the metaverse.

          Caledonia set things up so we could hear her via streaming anywhere on the sim, making it possible to go wandering around the build without missing any of the story, also making it easier on those of us who find that Voice does not work well when

Janufari

            Pathfinder.Lester: hear circus music and feel a sudden crushing weight? that's just the Hypergrid Safari. we come in peace.

      Rome wasn't built in a day. It took Joe Builder about a month, if you add up all the time he spent on the magnificent region on Lost World Grid. The Coliseum, a Theater of monumental proportions, an exquisite bathhouse, and a shipyard.As always, the Safari took just the briefest look around. Another place to return to!

Safari In Wonderland

Wizard.Gynoid @hypergrid.org:8002: this is starting to look obscene

Clustersled!

 Not one Wonderland. 

Three. 

On three different grids. 

Because this is OpenSim, not merely SL. We saw Alice, rode dragons, made new friends, honed our ability to grid jump, and thoroughly came to terms with the instability - and beauty - of hypergridding. 

Cherry Manga's new Alice build on Francogrid

First up, a Winter Wonderland, Canadian style. L'Hiver du Grand Nord is on Dabici Straulino's VAR region full of snow and fun, and oh boy did we take advantage. Kelso Uxlay and Dabici herself were on hand to welcome us when we arrived, via a gate she supplied, although the Safari Landmark seemed to work OK for most. The HG Addresses are at the bottom of this post, and of course, the LMs and explanatory Notecard (not reading the NC can make your life more difficult) are still available on both the Metro and Francogrid bases, and in Group Notices on Craft, Francogrid, and Metropolis. 

L'Hiver makes you shiver

Creanovale is the biggest little grid, and has a gallic smart ass bot called Jean-Givre on hand to keep you company if you go over there by yourself. If you're into festive stuff, there loads of decorations in the winter market. James ATLOUD found what he described as an HG Wells lost underground vessel (an excellent excuse for another visit) but that's not why we came. 

The Kids are Arles Right

James AtLLOUD: Thank yous to our hosts and organizers. W00t w00t.

If you'd been on Metropolis about 3 hours before the start of this week's Safari, you would have found Art Blue rehearsing his performance on a perfectly functioning Futurelab sim.  Art's Performance, which kicked off the first Safari of the month had as its theme 'open sim identity', although this being Art, it was a lot more complicated than that. But to help him illustrate the point, there were four Thirzas online, three of them hanging out in Futurelab, his combination workshop, theater, community sandbox and meeting-place sim, complete with Harry's bar. We sat in the Safari zoo and tested the stage as he went through his lines, little thinking that by 12 noon grid time, something sinister would happen.
 Here's Lena's 11 pm post on the Metropolis Forum *thanks, Google translate!*

Beach Safari

And if you said, "This life ain't good enough"
I would give my world to lift you up
I could change my life to better suit your mood...
Santana, Smooth

Ahoy mateys, this week Safari went from the sublime beachfront of Strannik Zipper's Pirates Atoll into the apocalypto landscape as The Mayans Knew It, according to Wordfromthe Wise, and finally washed up in the spookiest of Party Islands on Kai and Seya Devin's Insula Aeternum. (URIs at the end of the post.) Ask anyone who was there, this was the most people with the most hair to survive right though to the final hour of Safari so far. And that's not a phrase you hear very often.

Strannik Zipper is a real pirate and his grid is a gem.

There's loads to do, from dancing on the beach to dancing in the Irish pub, to taking a water taxi or taking a dip in the lagoon, or visiting the lovely Pirate Museum on a brigantine. There are some informative pictures outlining the history of pirating, and a chance to walk the plank and meet the mermaid. Jessica Pixel, shown here, wisely chose to stay on board. I'm not sure her springs would react well in salt water.

Big Cat Safari

         First off, the nudity was all Nara Malone's fault.
        This week Safari (which meets every Wednesday at 12 noon PDT on sim Outlands, Metropolis Grid) was accused of being a bunch of cat ladies by SLave Me Oh (the sister of the famous SL artist and provocateur).

          Of course, those who doesn't follow Safari on Facebook had no idea why we were all kitted out this way, but this being Safari, they didn't bother to ask. If you are curious, well, go look here.
          We have been adding stuff to the sim this week, including hypergrid LMs to freebie shops .and a number of giveaways, so drop in at Outlands if you'd like, even if you can't make the event.
          And it was an event, this week, a Big Art day in every sense. In terms of the combination of art destinations, probably the most mindblowing safari yet. This was the lineup. 

Cornflakes Woodcock

          His name was Ulf, but I don't think too many of us knew that. We knew him as Cornflakes, Corn for short. He had been in SL, and then he found a true home in OSGrid, where he made things, and made visitors welcome not just by giving us a chance to see and own his creations, but with a sandbox where anyone could visit, collect, and build. 

          One look at his things would inspire anyone to create, whether it be your own invention or a little scene put together of Cornflake's creatures.

Safari Lite

Peace and Freedom

Lumiere Noir

           It was a funky day of DSKCHK and bluescreen warnings about kernels, and Singularity crashing after sixty seconds. The only sane solution seemed to be to get Firestorm, and deal with all the hassle an unfamiliar viewer might add to the chaos which is Safari Night. I never thought I'd even get to Ilha Magica, and when eight-thirty came around (11:30 SLT), the  sim was funky too, as the Safarinas began to arrive, Fuschia Nightfire, Wizard Gynoid, and Wizardoz Chrome. On top of that, I'd had some really sad news, but that's for another time. Grr. Ilha Magica wasn't going to work as a meeting point - and boo hoo! There were even special new posters in the little house!

          You're thinking, 'shame you didn't research the Firestorm built-in a/o - shame you swear by Singularity'. I was thinking the same thing, believe me, as I struggled with the Firestorm UI. 

          Since Ilha Magica was acting weird, Fuschia Wizardoz,and Wiz tp'd over to our first  destination, Cuteulala Park (OSGrid) along with  snow, Avia and gradually all the others - Nara, Serene, Alex, Mercalia, Han Held, and the lovely Sarah Kline. 

            Endora came too, just for a bit - she has an art show coming up soon, and was busy with that. So twelve took the tube ride, and visited the haunted house. 

          Here's the thing. Obviously it's easier to travel alone in open sim; you can do everything in your own time, and grid jumping is comparatively stress free. But it's nothing to the feeling of good companionship. It was especially nice to have Sarah with us, she kindly pointed out my mistake at attributing the haunted house Cuteulala Artis, who instead is the mastermind - or should that be mistressmind? - behind the rollercoasters, along with the scriptalicious Takni Miklos. I think the Haunted house is by Eryn Galen. Sigh - so much easier to tell who made a prim object - you just click on Edit and voila! But it's a groaning, laughing, brilliant horrorfest on Recreation Plaza, home of the OSGrid Speedbuild, the smaller green sim south of Cuteulala Park, and a perfect foil to the exhilaration of the Big Wheel and the flume. 

          Check out the map - the Park is huge.There is fun to be had for hours here, but we had an appointment not to be missed, with Lumiere Noir, on sim Glow, part of Sean Emerald's Sanctuary Grid. 

          Famed for his Ivory Tower of Primitives in SL, Lumiere's been in open sim for many years. I first met him when we were both on Craft grid, and I'm kind of proud and humiliated to say that he taught me to use the 'Select Texture' button in Edit. I'd been in vws for 3 years by then, and had never noticed it.

           Lumiere and his partner Tosha Tyran are getting into mesh, watching Blender tutorials together and figuring it out, gradually, The buildings on the sims we visited were all by Tosha, but Lumiere, whose color changing avie was made up of about 5 or 6 different mesh shapes, also shared some of his own recent creations with us. 

          As usual, not all our attachments made it from OSGrid; since snowbody's whole outfit was made of attachments, he made quite an impression. Clothes were provided: his idea of 'traveling light' was a wee bit too light! Serene has the very sensible idea of not wearing a bald base, to avoid the 'just out of chemo' look that I was sporting, on everyone else's viewers. Fuschia has a robot look going on, so she's always elegant, and Wizzy's hair must be superglued on or something, it follows her everywhere.

           Lumiere talked to us about his choice to come to open sim, about the Ivory Tower, and its griefing problems in SL, (who knew anyone would grief a place like that? Apparently they do, and in quite sophisticated and horrible ways) about the joys and headaches of coming to grips with Blender in its complexity, and in terms of the loneliness that builders experience when using off world programs. Serene made a great suggestion, to combat the isolation of blending, she listens in to inworld Spoken Word performances.

Lumiere showed us some of his blends, some buildings, a table, and this pencil. That's when the trouble began. Somebody moaned about this blog being slow to load because of all the photos, so I have put the worst of them on Flickr; let's just say ...

          ...it was all Wizzy's fault, and Avia survived suffocation, but only just. 

          Lumiere's answer to the question - why open sim? - was succinct. The peace and the freedom of open sim. Freedom to create things not possible in SL, due to size and prim number restrictions, and the peace and quiet essential to getting on with your work. 
          Speaking of work, Tosha Tyran's builds here are amazing! One short visit is not enough. The quality textures loaded instantly, even in Ultra graphics. A little bit of sim-to-sim tp trouble, but we got around that by using our Map. 

          The Taj Mahal is just one piece by Tosha that we admired on Sanctuary Grid. I'm not saying that anyone peed in the pool, but the water did get warm at one point, and Fuschia looked a little pink... nuff said. 

          By the time we were ready to set off on our last stop (Wizzy's right, the 3 hour safari is a little too long) we were down to about six travelers. The destination was PM Grid. The LM everyone got worked just fine for Wizard and Serene, and eventually snow and I got there, but it was late and laggy, and Bob Wellman's PMGrid deserves a more thorough visit, a dedicated safari.That'll be upcoming - will you be joining us? I hope so!

Safari goes South

          People keep coming back. And new people joining. HG Safari is about friends and patience and sure some art also but mostly about the amazing possibilities opening up for creators and community, free and independent of SL. It is like standing on the edge of the prairie. Yes, it's not easy. You do have to think your way around the bugs, and compromise, and not mind if your hair gets stuck on your butt occasionally. But it is fun. A world of optimism and missing attachments.
          We met on Ilha Magica again. After weeks of thinking about it, I actually put up some freebie clothes. 

Nothing fancy or even meshy, just a few shirts and skirts. Where Pathfinder's group had a camp fire and dealt with real open sim news, we sit on the furniture and make jokes. But Wizard Gynoid asked a pertinent question.
Wizard Gynoid: why is it that every world's search works differently?. 
Thirza Ember: because every grid owner makes what they want of the material available. Each version of Open Sim is like this massive catalog of bits... the main stuff obviously you don't mess about with, but things like partners, Search, Map, they are extras, in a way. So when you set up the grid, you decide which bits are more important to you. Since it's a massive number of plug ins, everyone chooses the bits they care about most... 
          You may have a better answer than that - put it in Comments, it would be great to hear.

Craft Turns Four

Tonight was the big party on Craft, celebrating the grid's fourth anniversary with a building competition, a ceremony and of course a knees-up. There were 23 of us, by the end, and I don't think a single one of us didn't get kicked off the grid, or the sim, at least once during the night, although (as always happens) it got much much easier once the speeches were over and the prizes all handed out.
At the beginning though, the lag was eye-watering, and did scary things to some of the guests.
I've never seen a clustersit quite like this one.

Taking photos was challenging, between the clouds and the mesh and the grays popping in and out but it felt all very familiar and deliciously nostalgic. 

About an hour after I got there, the prizes were awarded. Debbie Lighthouse took third place, Rumegusc Altamura came in second and Dade Catronis got first place...  but they're all winners on Craft, not because the grid doesn't occasionally shrug everyone into temporary oblivion, but because when it does, you just have to go back. That is the secret of the grid, the sense of loving community, and they know it.
Tosha Tyran: Craft is the place where I feel at home, can wander about, meet the nicest bunch of people and can build all I want to build :) and I love it to be absolutely non-commercial! I am here since the very beginning and have seen it grow and become the nice place it is now - and I feel very proud of having participated in the making of this wonderful grid.

Another long-time resident is Ger Orsini, and he is proud of the way the grid has been growing, especially since this last summer, and has been sought out by educational initiatives like edu3d.
Ger Orsini: Craft is what Italy ought to be like, and not just in this time of economic crisis. Here we help one another!

Prize-winning teacher Michelle Tech seen above has been here three years and loves it too. Hey try out your translating skills! There will be a quiz at the end.
Michelle Tech: Io sono entrata qui in corrispondenza del primo anniversario. C'era una grande esposizione dei lavori e subito ho capito l'ottimo livello tecnico quiil mio ingresso qui ha fatto si che potessi utilizzare i mondi virtuali per la didattica. C'era una grande esposizione dei lavori e subito ho capito l'ottimo livello tecnico qui. Il mio ingresso qui ha fatto si che potessi utilizzare i mondi virtuali per la didattica perchè la comunità aveva quello spirito di condivisione delle conoscenze che mi ha aiutato.

Blogger, 'builder'  and collector Virtual Christine hasn't been here as long as many, but she's here to stay. She has a collection of Arcadia Asylum treasures that makes her the envy of the metaverse, and it's on display right here in Craft at Monte Gorgo.
virtual christine: I chose Craft, because had I not stumbled onto this grid and met GeR and Licu and Tao, I would have left OpenSim and never come back!  I have been here two years.  I have gone from having a region full of junk  to having  the first Arcadia Asylum museum in OpenSim! Craft actually donated an extra region to the museum, instead of saying 'make it smaller!!' They dumb things down and give me articles to read They never complain no matter what crazy bullshit Shawn and I try. To someone like me, with virtually no technical knowledge, Craft has been a godsend. I tell EVERYONE to try Craft first on the hypergrid. This grid has a tremendous amount of heart and soul. It is an honor to be here, with these people.

Well done, Licu and Tao. May they bask in this much deserved praise, and may their Craft go on virtually forever!
And now, some more dancing!

Dorena's World, and The Singing Sands

Depending on the day, hypergridding is five parts serendipity, four parts tenacious determination, and two parts swearing. There was no particular reason to hypergrid to Dorena's World yesterday, except that it's always easier to jump on a weeknight when the voodoo gods of internet provision are at their most beneficent, ie nobody's in the house sucking up my bandwidth watching videos of One Direction and Violetta. Don't even ask.
Dorena's World (URI:  dorenas-world.de:8002:Nihilon) has been around for a long time, in virtual terms. I've been through here before a few times, and always found it empty, so it was quite exciting to see three avatars were in world, among them the actual Dorena!

Dorena Verne and Anachron Young met in SL, and ended up getting together in RL. They built this grid about four years ago as a sort of hideaway, but now share it with over a hundred friends.
The grid took ages to load, then sim-to-sim tp'ing wouldn't work, then there was some freezing, then some crashing and having to re-start my journey from my home grid, jumping through Hyperica Lower (I don't know why they insist they've fixed that 4095 bug, because the latest Kokua and Singularity viewers both still show me the 'No go' message). When I got back to Dorena's World for maybe the third time, I was in the presence of Dorena  and  Anachron. They could see me, but all I could see was deep endless blue sea water, although when I'd seen them for a millisecond on my first arrival, they were in a fairly conventional living room. Knowing I'd probably crash again, I got some quick questions in about the grid, this way in the 7-8 minutes it would take me to come back, they could think of some really good answers. Stuff like: had they found it hard to make their own grid, and what's the greatest satisfaction it gives them? Anachron answered as his English appeared to be the best.
Anachron Young: It took a while to get into making our own grid, but some experience in computers and network technology proved helpful. The best thing is we don't depend on other commercially interested companies. We are a big family, and care for each other.
Well, that's about all I found out. I did ask what I know you're wondering, 'what's up with the people wanting to live at the bottom of the sea?' Apparently, they don't know.

When it comes to events, this week is a good time to visit, because they're celebrating their 4th anniversary and in fact tonight at 10pm they'll be holding a guided tour. They have a bi-weekly dance night on Tuesdays, from 8pm European time, and I would have liked to know more in general about their philosophy regarding community events, because as you're aware that Hypergridding is a slow, serendipitous, open-ended activity. Anachron dismissed me with a link (I hate when people do that) http://www.gridtalk.de which you'll not be surprised is all in German. It would also have been cool to get a picture because by now I'd finally rezzed on dry land, at a spot of high ground overlooking the town. Fearing that a point-to-point TP would once again screw things up, I asked if they could kindly come up on the hill for a 2 minute photo-shoot. They couldn't. They were off to SL. So that's all folks.
Here's the thing with hypergridding. It's all about patience. After those four or five false starts, the problems melted away. It may also have been that the three avies on the grid had taken off by then; that sometimes helps. Time to sight-see; there were some rough patches when crossing sim borders, but no more freezing and the crashing.
The grid has an old-world SL feel in many ways, primmy, not meshy, so if you have to fall back on Imprudence Viewer (my ancient but remarkably stable HG viewer of choice) you'll not miss out on much. One of the oldest things to see is a picture-show of, let's call it 'Big builds in the real world' (real, and a bit legendary) on sim Anachronia.

Then Vanish appeared.
Vanish Seriath (sometimes Vanish Sands) has been playing music since he was 6, and started playing the guitar at 15. he had a band, the name of which has followed him into virtual worlds: TGIB which is The Grey In Between, but also The Good In Bad and a host of other things. He did a show here in Dorena's World a few days ago, performing on this stage. I missed it, but he has several more coming up, notably in OSGrid (on Events Plaza) on February 16th, and in Metropolis on March 7th.
Apparently all the cool kids of open sim are in Google+ nowadays with explains eloquently why I know jack squat about what is going on; if you'd like to have Vanish come perform his music on your grid, you should look for him there.
Vanish.Sands: I've been writing my own stuff since 1999, so far about 60 songs or so. Much of that predates Virtual Worlds, and I'm really pretty embarrassed about many of them.   Since I've been in Virtual Worlds, I've been writing some poems, and lots of musings and stuff about VW, but no songs so far.  But honestly, the cool thing is that here I can play for audiences from all over the world, which is really the best part of being a musician.

With his partner El Firecaster, Vanish inhabits a fairy-tale grid called TGIB (of course) This is the terrace on The Loom. All the sims have poetic names; the grid is semi-private, but if you get the chance to go over there, I highly recommend it. It is a magnificent confection of light and space. It's one of the first places I visited back in the good old days of Pathfinder and the Hypergrid Adventurer's Club. So many grids fall into the trap of replicating the boring concrete boxes of the real world - actually a lot of them are worse than RL architecture, let's be honest - but this place is a fluid fantasy, a symphony of sinuous curves at twilight.

Vanish came to open sim after two years in SL, where he had been a fee-paying sim owner. Out of curiosity, he experimented with an early copybot, to understand how it worked, and got banned. The adventure had begun.
Vanish Sands: That was back in 2009. The biggest differences I've seen in open sim since then are the thousands of bugfixes that make it as stable as it is today. I don't want to sound like I'm talking about how things were back in the war, but man... it was rough. Other than that, I really like the way the hypergrid works now.
As you know Vanish runs OpenSim Creations, an excellent online resource for free content.
Vanish Seriath: We've grown roughly double the last year, both in terms of items, as well as in terms of users. Right now, we get about 5000 visits per day, which puts us in the upper spots of OpenSim related sites. There's about 1500 items and they've been downloaded about 250.000 times.
I wondered how he deals with the age-old problem of provenance on his site. You know, people in SL claiming their stuff has been ripped off and is 'selling' in open sim.
Vanish Sands: Hm. As a provider, I don't check. There's several reasons for that:
          1. I can't possibly know every single item in SL and whether or not someone has the right to upload it to OSC. 
         2. Even if I did, it's really not my job to police the site. That's the police's job.
         And 3. I would put myself in harm's way if I did so, because it could be held against me when someone does something wrong. Like: "Why didn't you remove this item when you say you're checking them; it's clearly infringing." There were a few court cases that went terribly wrong because someone gave the impression that they were actively policing items and then something slipped through. I'm kinda professionally interested in copyright law, so I keep track of all manner of stuff like that.
So what is available on the website?
Vanish Sands: We definitely have a lot of buildings, like houses and such. And all manner of oddities. Avatar accessories and clothes not so much, so those are always needed. The most popular item is a butterfly generator, which is basically just a scripted box that emits butterfly particles, but people seem to love it.  I made a small shop for myself, which is going better than I thought it would, so that's a plus. What I want to do more is make OpenSim items more attractive to merchants, i.e. creators who try to make some sort of income off them. I've started a site where you can click yourself a shop to sell your items online, but so far it didn't get a whole lot of attention. I guess the Kitely Market will be the place to go.
Having your own grid is a bit like having your own tardis. You can keep all kinds of stuff in there.
Vanish Sands: Mmmh, want me to show you something?
Thirza.Ember @tunderbird.dyndns-ip.com: sure
Vanish Sands: You remember AM Radio from SL?
Thirza.Ember @tunderbird.dyndns-ip.com: i do
Vanish Sands: WEll, hold on.Let's go to a region called "surface".
Vanish Sands: When he announced he would leave SL, it broke my heart to think that his artwork would just be gone, so I made a backup for myself.
Thirza.Ember @tunderbird.dyndns-ip.com: just lovely. This is the beauty of having your own place
Vanish Sands: I know. I loved his items so much.
Thirza.Ember @tunderbird.dyndns-ip.com: it makes me laugh when you hear in SL the artists squabbling about one poxy sim in the LEA
Vanish Sands: Haha, yeah. I've got about 6 sims full of his stuff. And with the power of OARs I can load them whenever I want.
Thirza.Ember @tunderbird.dyndns-ip.com: "with the power or oar". I like it.
If you'd like to read more, go to TGIB is the blog of Vanish and El, with lots of musings, fashion thoughts, philosophical ramblings networking and techie advice, and/or follow him on Twitter. There is a nice article by Johnny Waugh about Vanish here  - hey! that's my photo of Vanish, John you picture bandit! I tell you, these open sim people.... shocking.

More Emphasis

The Emphatic Eccentricia show is still on, at the sim of the same name on OSGrid. It marks the 4th anniversary of the group which started in SL but which has high hopes and big plans for an open sim future. 

OhMy Shalala; Systemic Candida Build

          We were at the opening event on January 5th, which featured music by Danger Lytton who had a pirate-themed build in the event, in the shape of a ship and some pretty noisy cannons. Danger is a mesh guy; despite all the detail, his cannons only count 7 prims, which means you can get a lot of firepower on deck without risking lag. (Lag I hear you say? What's that?) With that Jack Sparrow look going on, you won't be surprised to hear that ships are kind of his specialty - and not just the water-bound variety. 
Danger Lytton: I am trying to create a battle sim patterned after Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean, complete with cannons firing and ships on fire and sinking. With availability now of NPC Clones it is fun to populate a scene with 'real' avatars. Currently my Region names are "The City at Night", "OS Shipyards" (currently under renovation) and the "OS Proving Grounds - Dry Lake Flight Test Center"  which is being patterned after the dry lake bed aircraft testing areas in California. The Proving Grounds are currently being used to construct a club for the Sohlarious mega region which will include a space ship ride from the ground, into orbit, through a wormhole and finally arrive at the space station in orbit around a distant star.

The City at Night

 It was also nice to see some soror Nishi trees in OSGrid; they are at ground level, or should i say sea level? and are enlivened by OhMy Shalala's ghostly flame dragons. 
soror as you may know mostly builds in InWorldz these days, although real world art has in many ways gotten the jump on her virtual activity there's a lot about it in her excellent blog. how's that working out, and how do the two creative processes compare?
Soror Nishi:  I spend a lot less time on the computer than I did. When I was very busy in SL it was partly because my RL job was not full-time. I had time to spare and no workshop in RL so virtual worlds gave me some great opportunities. Over the last 12 months I have a garage/workshop and, after finishing my latest RL sculpture, have turned my hand to woodwork. If I lost the RL workshop I might go back to spending more time in VWs.  Real life art is easier in that you can use your hands. Your fingers and hands are amazingly clever... on the computer you can only use your finger tips. I do like Matter. I like materials, so I think both RL and VW are valid media.
If you've read her blog at all, you will have seen how her love affair with wood grain is blossoming into a real passion. the agony and the ecstasy! To see how she has beautifully combined the two apparently different art forms,
click here to see a recent painting by soror of a build in SL, and look at this adorable bonsai reminder of her great virtual forests.       
You can also see it on Flickr so don't forget to go there too, and show the love by favoriting the pic!
       Both Danger and soror started out in SL (duh) but have moved on; I wondered why they think more artists don't leave, considering the much-hated TOS which have driven even the likes of Bryn Oh out of the arms of the Lindens. 
soror Nishi: I think artists think that they have to have the maximum "traffic". They have to have lots of people seeing their work. Many think that there are more people in SL and therefore it's a better place for artists. I think this is rubbish, but it is what keeps people in SL in spite of the ToS, lack of prims, poor building tools and so on.  Making art is not about how many people see it, that is just egoism. Everyone wants to be famous...but I have no idea what could be done to help people move.
Danger Lytton spends a lot of time talking up OS Grid in Second life, using his profile pics to showcase places and scenes in OS.

The Lytton shuttle

Danger Lytton: I have invited many people to come here. Although most of them find OS Grid a challenge compared to Second Life, many of them have stayed. 
Almost since day one in OSG I have said coming here was like packing up the Conestoga Wagon and moving West. It feels more primitive yet more alive. We all share our challenges and our solutions. There are builders and scripters here that are far better than I am, but I still have some of the best there are ask me how to do some things.  The biggest difficulty in OS is stability. Unfortunately I have restarted regions many times because they refuse to work. Often this appears to be because the build I have created is too hard on the system. Other times I think as I am also fond of saying, "It's Sunday." The greatest thing about OSG is that there is no pressure. There is no cost to do most of our work here therefore no rush to finish. I do things over and over again until I am happy with the result.

OS Shipyards

      A lot of pixels have been spilt recently on the subject of the projected figures of SL and OSGrid. Predictions are bunkum, and the multiplication of sims is no guarantee of use or quality.  Call it loneliness, call it traffic, call it community, call it exploring the boundaries; the virtual experience is in the end what you make it. 

If you go online looking for company, and you're not too fussy, you can always find people in SL. Not true of OSGrid. Yes, moving is irksome, finding a place and a look and a group of like-minded individuals is not child's play in any grid, just as it isn't in the real world.

Danger Lytton: One of the things I would like very much to see happen is for the Burning Man Regional in Second Life to branch out into the OSG. Collaboration is the best way to get folks to come here. Listening to what they would like to accomplish here  and then helping them find ways to do it will go a long ways towards keeping them interested. I keep a welcome package of avatars and clothing for noobs to wear so they can feel presentable before they head out into the Grid. One of my desires would be to attract my RL artist daughter to discover the medium of a virtual world. 

   I for one can't wait to meet her!    

          

Metaversel: Double Take

Last night, in a dual exhibition on Francogrid and SL, Anne Astier (known as Mariaka Nishi in Second Life) presented her new show, Welcoming Woman. It's a sort of family album, looking at the thoughts and feelings surrounding parenthood.

To be honest, not something I could get fired up about; pictures of, and by, other people's kids aren't that interesting. At least not as much as Mum and Dad imagine. However, the show was part of IMAB, the intergrid arts festival, and was the first to involve a dual stream in both worlds. There was a nice big screen at Francogrid, and of course in SL too. 

The transmission wasn't perfectly smooth; for some of us, on FG, there was no picture despite furious toggling; but luckily the thing was also transmitted on Livestream, so we could all get a chance to see what was happening. Well, we got a good look at the cleavage of the ladies present at the event, anyway. Which I suppose is something Mothery, right?

It took 5 attempts to get to FG from home, via Hyperica; when I finally got there, only the ticker tape at the bottom of the screen would load for me. Maybe not being a 'local' FG resident prevented me seeing the picture - but it didn't matter. I was far more fascinated by the kilt worn by Francogrid's genial president Fabrice Parisi. Nice knees.

While the group attending the opening in FG was small, there was a fine turnout in Second Life, in part to recognize the work of the Tournicoton Gallery (which closes this week due to financial constraints), and in part no doubt because Ultraviolet Alter was due to perform after the presentation.
Ultra put on a great show, and there were many familiar faces at the event, including the Monarch of SL art, Bryn Oh, sporting an unfamiliar face - this is his new look. 

I like it a lot; the post-apocalyptic beanie, the army boots and the greatcoat suggest austere times for which the artist is prepared. I suggested a sidearm might be in order - not a utility belt, please, they've been done and done. He mentioned a possible accessory, which would be a paradox of utility - I hope he shows it off to the world soon.

As usual, the Imprudence Viewer makes mesh far more amusing than it's meant to be; Apmel got some great photos of the SL side of the event, go to his blog or his Facebook page to check them out.
On the whole, from the IMAB point of view, the show was a moderate success. Most of the public seemed to know little or anything of Francogrid prior to Mariaka's presentation, so that was a positive step forward, but having identical exhibitions in both worlds does not really encourage anyone to get off their pixellated butts and go into open sim. And although appearance is not everything, people do like to feel they can look their best at events - in many cases it's their only contribution to the evening. Clothes, skins and poses are available, it's up to us to make the most of them, however 'superficial' that side of things may seem. It kind of matters.
Here's hoping we will get more shows in Francogrid soon. It is a lovely grid, full of interesting projects in Cognitive Science, Cinema, Art and Literature. Perhaps, too, more SLers will get the open sim bug, and come and see what's going on.
Kilts will be optional, of course.