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.

Kitely: somewhere and no wear

           You know that sweater in your wardrobe, no, not that expensive one you shrunk but don't have the heart to throw away, the other one, the one that's not a weird color, or too small, or anything like that, yet every time you're looking for a sweater to wear, you think no, not that one, not today.

          That's me and Kitely. But wait! Hosoi Ichiba is in Kitely, and has been for months!

          You know, there probably is a reason you don't wear that sweater, if you really think about it. Something subconscious maybe. 

With Kitely, I don't go there because of the minutes. In March 2012 I joined up and got my free sim Chocolate and it was great but only kind of great because sure, it was free and that's always nice, but you could only be present on your sim for something like 100 hours a month for free - any more than that, and you had to pay. You could go see other people's stuff - if those other people have the right kind of membership - but you couldn't hang out gratis in your own place for more than those hundred hours. Which, if you're already paying in SL, Craft and Veesome, is going to make a girl think twice.
          There was something about that concept of the tick tick tick of the meter that drained all the creativity away, too. Perhaps you're the kind of person who already has OARs prepared, or at least a plan on paper, but for those of us who like to contemplate the land and develop it slowly, 100 hours a month seemed way too few to form the basis of something like a relationship with the grid.

          Time went by and Kitely developed in my absence, and there were murmurings of neat builds like this one, and (by all accounts) great strides being made with their commercial website which hopefully is better than that dreadful one SpotOn3D had with its Double Dutch system. It speaks to the affection in which SpotOn is held that nobody could be bothered to point out to Tessa and co what 'double dutch' actually means. 
          The thing with websites and selling is, if you came to open sim to make your own stuff and occasionally share it with others, how much is a place where you buy stuff going to have you whooping for joy? If you're committed to capitalism, wouldn't you just stay in SL, or if you really have too many enemies there, go to InWorldz?

          But OK, Kitely promises they have a lot to offer, and hey, they're going to find a way to make being a commercial grid compatible with hg travel to no-money grids. Right? With lots of lovely content. And that would be good, because this is what Kitely Thirza looks like. Back in 2012 apparently Kitely noob outfits included undershirts made in Appearance. To fix that, instead of going to Kitely Market, I went for Import textures, because I have a whole store of freebie clothes on my own grid.

          Because why buy what you already have? 
          Although, I may be missing the point.
          Face and sweater, leggings and undies, easy peasy, texture uploads, all free. But when it came to shoes, there was a problem. I have neat .obj boots I made on my grid, but to import an object to a new world, you need to be somewhere you can Build, like a Sandbox. OK, there were a dozen listed on the Map. Oh dear. I tried them all, and wasn't allowed to visit any of them. OK then, perhaps my famous free-hundred-hours-a-month sim that I've barely used shall now come in handy. Taxi to sim Chocolate, right away!

          Newp.
          You may say - 'Things changed while you were away.' and 'Kitely is obviously looking for consumers, not freebie hunters and the self-sufficient.' or 'They're looking for commitment, not people passing through, you're just not their target audience,' or 'Get some KC, you cheapskate.' Maybe.
          I kept thinking of fried chicken.
          So, OK, give up on the hair and the shoes and the earrings and other goodies of my own invention that would typically be my first uploads to a new grid. Let's just be a barefoot traveler, and go in search of Edo villages.

            Years ago, my mother would make us all go and spend Easter with an old aunt who had a sprawling house and garden in the country. Dad would sort out the vegetable patch, Mom would get the spring cleaning done, and the children would help out with both. Auntie was glad enough for the help, and we were on our best behavior. She was a nice old bird but she had the irritating habit of switching off lights all the time. If you went from sitting room to library to get a book for five minutes, you'd find the light switched out in the sitting room when you returned. The same if you went to the loo at night, you'd come out of the bathroom to find the corridor bathed in darkness. It was a pessimistic, penny pinching, claustrophobic habit not caused by a shortage of money, but a reaction you often find in people who have lived through Tough Times. It paid off in a way, for when she died, the Donkey Sanctuary got enough money to keep the lights on in the stables for another ten years.
          The 'on demand' feature of Kitely gives that same rather depressing sense of everything being in darkness until it's absolutely essential to turn something on. True, the Hosoi Mura sims loaded very quickly, but there was something of my old auntie about the process.

          But the build is a joy. The Matsumoto castle, the gardens, the hiroba, the walls and the houses, the countryside with fields and hills, even the spare buildings, hovering just off the ground as though waiting for aliens to take them off to another planet, it's all so well made, and charming. True, a 9 or 16 sim build is not the big deal in open sim that it would be in SL, but Ami has made excellent use of the wide open spaces. It feels like a real place. Once that 'wait for me to turn the lights on' feeling has passed.

          Walking around was cool, but there weren't any poses or moving vehicles and with no interactivity, it wasn't long before I started wondering what else there might be to see.

          A number of SL friends have set up homes and builds in Kitely, and one name came to mind, as a possible source of good places to visit. Opening her profile, it was kind of disappointing to find the Picks closely resembled her Facebook posts - nothing more than a long tribute to Self. Unappealing. When someone lavishes that much public love and attention on their own creations, there really is no room left for the rest of us to admire it without feeling a bit sick.
          Back to the Map, then, as a source of inspiration.

          Back to Evergreen? That sighing, slightly long-suffering little grey window 'oh, ok, if you really must, just a second, and we'll turn it on' message again. I felt guilty at making them waste the electricity, and decide not to go after all.

            But then Woot ! The Map and I got lucky and found Time Vault, a region by Paislee Myrtle, one of the Devokan storytellers. It loaded pretty fast, and was way nicer than my dim recollections of Evergreen.

          Nobody around doing RP or anything, thank goodness, (good lord, memories of Grimmrfell! Urk!) Instead, a strange, thundery landscape and fabulous flights of alien fancy, with steampunkesque buildings and mechanisms littering the land.

           This might be turning a corner. The never-worn sweater might become a favorite after all! More hunting for regions on the Map, and pretty soon it yielded another big build, Brian Robert's Dragon's Bane. Tp!

          No, sadly no Bane for Thirza. The same thing happened about ten more times.
          Sigh. Well OK, you know what, all this faffing about sticking a pin in the map, it's not the way to do things. Every grid has its Welcome sim, where all is made clear, and newcomers or prodigal sons can return and be made, well, welcome. Let me and Kitely give each other a proper chance in the orthodox manner. Wow, and maybe I'll even find an A/O and a pair of shoes! Yay! I am still not giving up on Kitely!
          Oh noes...

          Except Welcome Area is only for Premium Accounts.
          OK, OK, hold on, there's a Welcome 2, maybe that's for folks like me...  shows they don't know me well, if they've got me down as Moderately Mature.  Although, I did find the Edo village moderately interesting, so perhaps they're partly right. Let me pop the whole thing back in the wardrobe.
          Aren't Paislee's mushrooms nice, though?

What dreams may come: FrancoGrid

         Pixel for pixel, Francogrid is probably the most beautiful grid in the metaverse. If you enjoy art or are involved in education, or heck, just want to be somewhere with a gallic flavor as deliciously diverse as baguettes, Chanel number 5 and Veuve Clicquot, then this may be the grid for you.
          Praline Barjowski is an artist, researcher and curator. She works with African artists, getting them involved in digital creativity, and was based in Dakar when she first learned about SL via an artist she met at a conference in Marseilles. That was in 2009. The jump from SL to Francogrid was a natural one... for a researcher.
Praline B: I realized that the most resources were in English and I'm in a French zone, and my students are French speaking, and also I'm involved in open source system, so I did a research and I found OpenSimulator and FrancoGrid. I came here for the first time in 2010 and at the same time I discovered hypergrid. Open simulator is a very different way to move but very interesting. I feel me more free here to create, it's also more experimental and that adds something more pepsy !  and yes, I feel more at home too. And I have this mad dream, lolol, that Linden Labs decides to go to open source, to liberate their code and to be a part of the huge metaverse.

         Dream on.
         It's very attractive, this businesslike approach to art.  Everything above board, designed for low levels of pointless drama and high levels of real world exposure, with a strong sense of respect for creator's rights. The goal, one guesses instantly, is to be taken seriously in a world where playing about online is still often viewed with derision and suspicion. The whole grid is that way, and it came as no surprise to find that Praline is a bit of a tech person, as well as an art person.
 Praline B: Well, here I'm studying code, I'm learning how to manage a Linux server. It's funny but not so easy for someone who is always dreaming! The first time i got a pc, I de-constructed it immediately. I think I'm very curious, I love to know how things are inside, so naturally now I want to know how is the backstage of a virtual world. For now here, I don't have artwork, I have an archipelago of regions.

        The regions are going to be home to a number of virtual artists, principally coming from West Africa, via her MetaTrame project. Diversity, and a different 'look' are the hallmarks of Francogrid, and that's obvious from your first arrival at Accueil sim, seen above, recently re-worked by Cherry Manga and the wonderful, beautiful DJ Phil who you can see in the last picture as a very adorable white bunny!
         The the big blue blob is a cave that contains TP machines and a 'Guide to the regions' that owners can update  with their latest developments. It also shows if a region is offline, which in opensim, is a handy tool, since teleporting is a little bit hit and miss.
         So, which is better, SL or FG?
Praline B: I think both are good. Diversity is a very great thing  disadvantage is definitely the closed side. Its like a frontier. Also the fact that your art , your objects are not yours. that is a mistake from LL. You have to let people improve new system, new territories and they will learn how to be nice and ethic. I always think that we have to be trusty there will be always bad people but SL is always a very amazing place for artists, creators, because they can have a feedback quickly they have a public in opensim, this is the disadvantage, population is less you may feel sometimes alone but you may experiment more things here, you may push the limits Here at FrancoGrid, this is a community very newcomer friendly and people help participate to your projects you don't have to be good in script or all the stuff.

This is monsieur le president, ssm2017 Binder (no, I'm too shy. You ask him!)  He was on his way to the weekly grid get-together on LeVillage sim, which if you're planning on coming to check out the lie of the land, would be a good thing to attend. It's every Wednesday evening, French time - that's 9 pm in Europe and midday in California - I leave you to do your own math. And it's village life, but not a grey concrete arena or hopelessly huge theater that dwarfs rather than embraces the group. It's another Cherry Manga build.

          OK it is grey, and it is huge. But in good ways. No rows of samey cinema seats. No stale poses.  That alien is the lovely Gill. Wave! No, not the giant figure below, on the box, which is actually a building. LeVillage in its various incarnations has inspired machinima by people you've heard of like Morlita Quan and WizardOz Chrome. Sounds like a cleaning product, actually a film maker.  Which raises the question - where does Francogrid stand in relation to the SLuggernaut?

ssm2017 Binder: in FrancoGrid, there are some people from the art, from education, from research etc... actual FrancoGrid residents are in a sharing point of view instead of mercantile.
         Which is the sexiest way ever of saying they're not in it for the moolah.
         Now, you may be thinking, sheesh Cherry Manga is all over that grid like a rash. Is there room there of other artists? Or has she kind of bagged the big stuff? Well, she knows you might think that, so - let's ask her - " Hey Cherry, is there room for other voices on Francogrid?"
Cherry Manga: Of course there is, see, I just gave the opportunity to JadeYu Fhang to try opensim by giving her my region, childhood, and there are other projects like Praline's, Metatrame which will involve African artists. I personally think that artists bring something important to any grids- candies for the eyes. They make us think about how combine visual effect with ideas. I am not here to be THE ONE Thirza, you know, if I was looking for art lovers recognition, I would stay in SL. Here most people don't care about my art :)
         So there. Speaking of other art, Praline was keen for Katia from Parc des Arts to show her stuff, and immensely impressive it is too. The organization is based in real life Bordeaux, France, and it is all about real working artists showing their stuff both in virtual and physical environments. Katia is a stunner in palest blue. 

         This is their clubhouse and the photos behind her are the founding members. They have that whole 'this is serious stuff' down at the Parc des Arts (unlike artsparks, yeah yeah) and these two sims are just stuffed with things to see and spaces for performance and exhibition. 
         Don't be alarmed if your French isn't up to much. This is an International grid, and they are very accommodating; Katia's good at Italian as well as French, and of course many others like Praline and Cherry are perfectly fluent in English (and typonese).

          Again, everything is designed with panache. Here in this beach-grunge outdoor hangout, last year, they had an evening with a two-handed performance piece called La Planque (watch it here on youtube) by Arlette Fétat with Myriam Douhi. The playwright came into Francogrid to talk to the audience, how cool is that. Katia also showed us the work of engraver and painter Julien Schuster whose March 2014 art show in Honfleur Normandy will be echoed by a parallel exhibition in Francogrid. Tere's a neat little news stand on Parc des Arts where you can pick up more info about all the events here, and tp to regions in different parts of the metaverse where art rules supreme.

         Praline is right, it's this kind of organization with room for diversity that makes the difference. Katia actively encourages independent artists on the grid, and they make a point of showing up to see exhibitions, and offering landmark links to shows and installations, wherever they may be in opensim.
Praline B: What I love here is this mix between reality and new creative territories. Also, its very important , to feel you are not alone, to feel friends around you. You may stay alone and work and you may have them around you for all discussions around your doubts! I really enjoy the spirit around Frangogrid, people here knows what they want, be happy in their projects and share this happiness and in the build, you have always people to help you, to push you more further.

         Another aspect of Parc Des Arts is the big AIDS memorial. It's a reminder, as Katia said, of the people who haven't made it, love ones lost... but also a celebration of the ones still fighting, still fighting in elegant clouds of red. Extremely effective. On the other side, the 'protected' obelisk that reminds us all that this is a very French grid. I totally love it.

         Terra Mater is Cherry's home sim, scroll through in this blog and you'll find a post about it ages back. It's another great feature of Francogrid, well of open sim in general. You've got the space to keep up builds that in SL would have to come down for reasons of space. 

          Here, Cherry can maintain a big install like Red Riding Hood (built for SL in collaboration with soror Nishi and Fragile Fanou, as well as her Collection, and still have room for more. Cherry's latest venture is learning anough Blender to make all her own mesh and leave the full perm sculpties and mesh of the past behind her. But art breeds art, doesn't it? Perhaps more installs, and photography, or machinima?
Cherry Manga: I think la collection is one old work I like still thinking it's like wine, goes good with time lol.  I don't want to inspire art, but creativity, I want people imagine they can be free from reality here, physics, imagination, there's no limit. I wish people creative and dreamy, not specially arty.
Praline B: Cherry Manga absolutely has a great impact on the grid. She is very strong and her artwork talks for her.  I think that opensim and Francogrid  gave Cherry a new boost. Here she has the time to learn more technical stuff and with her talent is amazing. 

omg DJ Phil he is such a hot bunny

         So, what is the future for Francogrid? More art, more fun, more family! They also encourage all to make an avatar here, so you can enjoy Voice in all its splendor. There are some things hypergridding doesn't quite do right. 
Praline B: I think that is the magic side of this grid if someone is a true one a real creator, all the grid is under the charme. That gives to the community the desire to put the level more high and that is a very good thing, that is what i was expected here.  I think we will see the same phenomena in opensim now because of LL politic for one part and in another part because open simulator is now more efficient. ssm our President confirms that he would love that we have here at Francogrid one region for permanent exhibits and one devoted to the artist in residency; a season for exhibits and artists in residency here.
         So might that be you, the 'artist in residence?' Might be worth a thought.... and in the meantime, drop in on this exquisite grid and its happy denizens.   

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!    

          

Building an after Life

building is building, no matter the grid... talent is what show.

Hairy Thor

When bloggers are out of interesting topics, they give you the 'SL is Doomed!' routine. Supposing you're drinking that particular Cool-Aid, you may have wondered, what would happen if I went to build in other worlds? 

weirdness in veesome

On the downside, You're going to look like a noob for a while, and WEIRD STUFF WILL HAPPEN. If you go to a commercial world like InWorldz, and are prepared to pony up, you'll soon have good hair and skins. Otherwise, it's DIY or freebies. DIY can be an education, freebies are getting better all the time, but whichever way you go, be prepared to lose time reinventing yourself on your new grid. 

soror Nishi: I looked like a bagwoman for the first year, before we got shops in InWorldz!
   Personal appearance is only part of the learning curve. Don't be fooled by the laid back attitude outside SL - grid owners aren't lying down on the job, when it comes to protecting residents and their rights.

Elenia Llewellyn: My advice for builders leaving SL - not all licenses are the same! Keep your work legal!
Leannan Shi: Remember to check and make sure that everything in your SL builds is fullperm and YOURS before you bring it over. Sculpted parts do not export well.
Raphaella Nightfire: Scripting and animations require patience. And be prepared to be noob for a few hours.
Alizarin Goldflake: Builders need to be aware that not all SL scripts work here. Some have errors that can cause horrendous lag. And you can't edit linked parts.
Leannan Shi: Boobs don't jiggle in InWorldz. But next week though, right? LOL