Weekend at Winx 2

 Bloom Peters: I created a special viewer for serious creators, its a custom Firestorm that allows you to upload insanity mesh haha

Thirza Ember: is there a link to it? or maybe there will be in the future?

Bloom Peters: not yet but i can show u the city, it demonstrates that.

"swishing tp sound... to a region called Whiterun"

Whiterun

Bloom Peters: We can and should have better limits in place. What your about to see was uploaded all in one go in less than 4 mins on my viewer - full textures. With the custom viewer you have no limits to what you can upload. Super super complex mesh, like this town, and it doesnt lag us. I believe Opensim should not have the same limits as Second Life.

Thirza Ember: I have almost 80 frame rate and the build rezzed in about 2 seconds - all of it. Admittedly, there are only the two of us here, but still...

Weekend at Winx 1

 At the end of a long week, what better way to relax than visiting a nice resort in good company.

Off to visit with Bloom Peters, famed throughout Opensim for her funfairs, scripts, castles. mesh, and of course her grid Winxtropia.

Bloom wanted to show me a sim she has been working on. She's a creature of passion when it comes to creating. SHe has several different projects going, but has put much of the planned work on hold to focus on this fun place, the Frutti Music Bar. it's a region and a resort, all in low lag mesh, and just adorable.

Bloom Peters: Welcome to Frutti Music Bar

Thirza Ember: wow love the look

Bloom Peters:  It's designed to push animesh and dining experience, every NPC does their job. Use shared environment, you should see an orange like night

Thirza Ember: the menu is making me hungry!

HIE Times, High Tunes!

 It's still a long way off, the next Hypergrid International Expo, but we have a new region on a new grid for the next event so we are already making sure the bones of the place are nice and healthy.

This week, for our second destination, we jumped over to the region - still a work in progress - to see if we could crash the sim. Our Load Test only got up to about 26 at any one time, which was a good start... and it was a hugely fun event, thanks to everyone who showed up for a little or a long time!

Thirza Ember: This is the region where we will be holding the Hypergrid International Expo in the spring, so we are just beginning to test this 3x3 for performance

Sunshine Szavanna: hope everyone can hear well - I have tunes for you on stream

Tosha Tyran: yes, pretty nice music

James Atlloud: no lag for me

Tosha Tyran: no lag

Sunshine Szavanna: Taarna has the best moves

Jupiter Rowland: Okay, I'm putting some load on the server with a ridiculously over-equipped dance HUD.

Tosha Tyran: Hi Uta,  what a nice surprise!... waving to Dings

Sunshine Szavanna: welcome to the Crash test party :)

Thirza Ember: The HIE event in April will have 4 bit Art performances. One by Sunshine Szavanna, featuring Ubuntu and  African language also... the amazing Bink Draconia will be doing an Art performance, plus, Cherry Manga, and our lovely Tina Bey for the Spanish part... plus talks in German, French, Spanish and Italian  (with the usual subtitles, of course!)

Dings Digital: oh great

Star Ravenhurst: Love the music!!

Tosha Tyran: yes, the music is really great

James Atlloud: yes - it finally started!

Dings Digital: the sim is performing wonderful

Forest Azure: oh, my eyes!

Thirza Ember: do everything you can to crash it, people

Sunshine Szavanna: /me tries her best

lifted pixel: loading QUICK for me

Taarna Welles: O_oooooo

Sunshine Szavanna in the red top was our music maven!

Boldly Going with Prince of Amor

 This week's trip took us to visit the Prince of Amor on his megaregion on OSGrid, Maze Space. 

It was quite a daring exercise, because this was our first Safari visit to Prince's regions (he has a lot!) on OSGrid, and this particular region is a challenge for any visitor, due to the dimensions and the darkness of space. On top of all that, Hurricane Helene was knocking on Florida's doors, and so Prince warned us before we got going that anything might happen RL-wise, and if he disappeared that'd be why. Luckily our timing went well, nothing got unnecessarily damp, and we had an out-of-this-world tour of the sim.

The start point for Maze Space (full HG Address at the end of the post, as always) is at over 8000m just about the position of Pluto . It's really essential that you come up here to begin, because at ground level you'll be in the sun, not a lot to see and a little to close to the heat for comfort. 

Prince Amor, today dressed as a Borg, welcomes the tourists

Instead, at the Space Station, you will find a collection of freebies, some info about the ideal Graphics settings for this build (spoiler alert, set everything to the max possible for your computer) and the main means of transport, the flying saucer. 

Safari Gets Romantic

 The City of Light and the Island of Bled - two very romantic places in the real world, and also, it turns out, on the grid SV3d. This was our second destination of the trip, and a big thank you to Minord Loup for helping this event come about! The HG Addresses of the places we visited are, as always, at the end of this post.

Island of Bled

SV3d is a largely French speaking grid and we were guests of Draghan Marksman and his husband Belko Rau, and the very talented builder Glenn Dayafter. The trip began on a gorgeous sim with a distinctly non European name  ChomromDontri.

kjs Yip: it's a long stairway...

Glenn Dayafter: Yes :)

Belko Rau: It is in original island 99 stairs

Minord Loup: bonsoir a tous

LadyKa.007: Good evening to everyone who arrived :-)

At the top of this magnificent staircase, a beautiful square awaited.

Gino's Butterfly

Dale innis asked why we meet, and where we meet, before heading to destination 1 on Safari.

The 'why' is simple. If we all meet together before jumping to the first destination, then I can let the hosts know how many people to expect, so it's easier for them to know when to begin their presentation. Meeting at the Clubhouse means anyone new can make some friends beforehand, so they can ask for help if they get lost. Also, there are often last minute changes to the Safari, so if you come to the Clubhouse, you'll have the latest news about what's going on. Lastly - have you ever invited a group of friends over for a meal, and one person shows up waaaay too early, and you don't know what to do with them? We want to avoid that situation, which is embarrassing and stressful for our hosts.

Dale Innis and Karima Hoisean, on Gino's Butterfly

The 'where' is simple too. We meet at the Clubhouse on HG Safari grid and there's usually someone on the sim to welcome you half an hour before the event begins.

Thirza Ember: welcome Kjs, bonsoir Prodyck, grande soiree pour les frenchies ce soir!

Prodyck.Theas: hellooo... On va voir ça :)

kjs Yip: Hi, I know I'm early, but I don't want to be late...

Thirza Ember: omg Kjs sitting on that Hand chair I made... I feel very proud and happy now

kjs Yip: It looks very comfortable...

Tosha Tyran: incl. one finger for back scratching

kjs Yip: It's the thumb...

Kjs Yip on hand at HG Safari clubhouse

Thirza Ember: i hope it doesn't leave fingerprints on the clothes! I am really happy that Prodyck says he will be one of the French speakers at HIE in 2025. it's going to be a great event

Tosha Tyran: I am sure it will be! Hi Prodyck

kjs Yip: Hi all... I'm a newbee at the safari, please be kind ...I try my best to run behind you...

Tosha Tyran: if you want, kjs, I take you by the hand,  or better yet: Forest will, heheh

Forest Azure: you can always tp to Thirza's head, kjs, she likes pple landing on it

Thirza.Ember: I have big hair so it doesn't hurt me if you tp to my skull

Tosha Tyran: Holzkopf

Safari Goes Into the Light

 First stop this week, Dorena's World! We visited a beautiful art sim, more More Than Lights, in company with two of the creators, Miara Lubitsch and Kjs Yip. HG Address is, of course, at the end of the post.

Our arrival point on More Than Lights

Every Safari begins with an avalanche of greetings... and some teasing. ON the practical side, here's how Safari works. The LMs and a notecard explaining our trip are located inside a giant prim, at the Clubhouse on HG Safari grid. Simply touch and 'Buy' the pack, which has the Week number on it. The weekly LM pack is generally left up from Wednesday to Sunday, for anyone who wishes to take the tour but wasn't able to join the group. 

This week, we had the nice mixture of first time Safari goers, occasional and regular Safaristas, as you know all our welcome, and we're very happy to provide TPs and help if you're new to this group hypergridding lark, so don't be shy - join us if you can.

Inside the theater - very comfortable seating!

Star Ravenhurst: Hi Yara and Alex

Yara.Eild: Hi Star, Loru :-)

Loru Destiny: -*- HeLlO-*- everybody :-) I hope I'm not naked

Forest Azure: hi loru .. and no

Loru Destiny: ahh great, a new experience when I HG

Safari Maitai

May your journey and your drink never end, or be boring

Eiaha e pau to oe haereraa e to oe inu, eiaha râ e riri

Our second stop this week was on Alternate Metaverse grid, and a beautiful VARregion with low lag and dramatic scenery. As always, the HG Address is at the end of the post.

Thirza Ember: Welcome to Tahiti... waiting just a sec for any people are trapped between tps

Lynnestra Parker: Maldrul said he has to relog, he can't tp Star Ravenhurst: I hate when that happens, Microsoft did an update so that doesn't help

Thirza Ember: yes and that brings me to my next point... This region is by Yana Dakota - you can see her photo here Forest Azure: /me peeks Thirza Ember: it says 'offline' by her picture, that's because just a little while ago her computer did that update, and something went wrong, so Yana can't be with us today sadly. However, I have some of the background, if you'd like to hear about it... In RL, Yana in the Canary islands, like our friend from last week over on Astralia grid, Marpil (altho Marpil is a native of the Canaries, not sure Yana was born there). Star Ravenhurst: Oh wow! Small world.

Thirza Ember: Because Yana loves islands, she decided to make a sim all about Tahiti, as you may be able to see it's huge...

Safari Fall

It's September, so it's time for a new season of the Safari! We also have a new base for meeting up, on a dedicated grid, the address is at the end of the post. As usual, the event began at 12.00 SLT and as always, Safari trips are on Wednesdays. This post describes our first destination, you can read about our second destination in the post called Tierra de Marpil.

Appropriately, our very first destination for the Fall season was God Fall, by Tutz Zabelin, on Pangea grid, and Tutz was on hand to tell us all about it.

Tutz Zabelin: For those I haven't met before, a short history about me and Pangea. In reality I am a girl from Sweden. And i have a background from SL where i started 2007. Pangea started 4 years ago. Marlon Wayne is the man who came up with the idea.

 At Pangea, we are a blending of different skills and, like me, just a builder. There is much much  more to say about Pangea, there is some information about this on the Welcome sim. You will also find TP board to Pangea's various sims.

Thirza Ember: nice EEP

Tutz Zabelin: I was supposed to invent and write a story about God Fall but my imagination has been stuck in sim Construction.

Luna Lunaria: I get that way also

Tutz Zabelin: But briefly about the history of the God Fall is: It is at the beginning of the creation of the Earth. Good beings from space, gods and goddesses, come in a spaceship. They come to help create the Earth and protect it from evil forces that threaten to take over. On the way to Earth, the good gods spaceship is attacked by evil aliens The goddesses on the ship then stand around the ship and protect it. They succeed in using their powers to drive out the evil ones.

Safari Countdown

 It's just ten days until the new season of  HG Safari begins, on Wednesday September 4 at 12 noon Pacific time. otherwise known as SLT or Grid Time. 

If you are familiar with our region on OSGrid, please be advised that the OSGrid region is no longer online. HG Safari now has a new home.

The new Clubhouse is located on the grid HG Safari, here's the address:

grid.hgsafari.org:58002:HG Safari

Once again, we will have ten weeks of visits to different grids and regions all across opensim, visiting art and tech builds, some representing real places, others inspired by fiction and fantasy. It will be an opportunity to make new friends, meet builders, learn about projects, passions, and of course problems that all come together to make up the Opensim experience.

Close Encounters

Encounters - of any kind - it's not a word we always associate with Opensim. It's a whole lotta space! 

If you think that opensim's kind of empty today, then you should have seen it ten, fifteen years ago. The small population of pioneers was pretty sparse, and you'd be forgiven for describing it as a place of rare encounters, maybe even zero! 

Close Encounters - the space ship

Yet, for seven years from 2008, there was one fixed appointment on OSGrid where you'd find a regular band of happy dancers, some good tunes, the latest gossip - of a friendly kind, nothing hostile - and the chance to finally see someone after a week of building and experimenting in this brave new world.

The place was Close Encounters, a spaceship dance club on a region that was home to Dorothea Lundquist and Jay Maze. 

Twirling time!

Lost Summer

 It was the year when we had a huge party to wish Bon Voyage to Justin when he left to go back to RL, Total Sorbet's Outbreak was the breakout pastime of  OSGrid,  and Opensimworld was in its infancy - before the highs and lows of Traffic Classification, and the Box with its merry band of prolix commentators. 

There was AvatarFest, and the gloriously Cherrified Fest'Avi. Inworldz and Twinity were still places you could go (hard to believe that Twinity didn't shut down until 2021), Blue Mars and Cloudparty were already gone. 

The idea that these were real options for the grid-trotter seems a little crazy nowadays, when hypergridding is so easy and facilitated with all kinds of directories and events calendars but back then, they were serious options. OSCC unveiled its treasure hunt, a super way to motivate people to visit all the expo sims, and there was much dancing during the event.... 

The year - in case you didn't remember it, was 2015. We were all so young and energetic! HG Safari trips had become a common event,  and somehow, not sure why,  for about two months this blog went silent.

Snack-fari?

The HG Safari clubhouse on OSGrid is closing down, because now the travel group's main HQ is on a dedicated grid, hopefully you already know that if your planning on joining us in the next season of trips. 

The HG Address of the new sim is at the end of  the post, where it belongs.

New HG Safari sim

So - exciting times, but it is a bit of a sad goodbye to the sim that Ange Menges gifted in the fall of 2021 when it became very clear that our old home on FrancoGrid wasn't going to be viable any more as our main base for the revamped HG Safari group.

The FrancoGrid clubhouse, 2015-2022

Over past months, regular visitors to the HG Safari sim on OSGrid may have noticed gentle reminders that it's closing, as the land got smaller and features like the Archive House, the Self Guided Tours, the Marketplace, the dancing places, and the mesh clothing store, Meshanthropy, all gradually disappeared.

 Leaving just the mountain in the osgrid ocean. 

Finale on Atraxia

Our final destination for this season was a chill trip to the trippiest, most unusual VAR regions in opensim, owned by 3D artist, photographer, and curator Nyx Breen, whose talent is well known but never everyday.  Nyx Breen was on Inworld Review  a few weeks ago, check out the interview in which he discusses both immersive digital art, and a bit about his rl work. and the HG  Address for this enormous build is at the end of the post, as tradition demands. 

Nyx Breen

Nyx's work with EEPs (the Environmental Enhancement Project) has become something of a legend, he has hacked the usual expectations of sea and sky by adding all kinds of unusual and striking images, thus exploding the concept into a full blown art show that occupies all your senses rather than being a passive if pretty background. Every now and again, he changes the settings, creating yet another mood on the region.

Dorothea Lundquist: Hi Nyx :-)

Nyx Breen: hi there, everybody welcome

Forest Azure: heya nyx

Petlove Petshop: Thank you !! oh wow !

Safari's Wild Season

Little bit of pre-nostalgia on Safari yesterday, as we had our final meetup on the OSGrid region HG Safari. The sim was gifted by Ange Menges back in late 2021 to give the Safari a regular base (our sim on Francogrid was still in existence at that time, but the grid was in deep decline) and since then, it has been our life-off point for 160 trips around the hyperverse. The closure here marks the start of another adventure on the new HG Safari Grid, which will be our main base starting in the Fall. More about that in future posts.

Final meetup on HG Safari sim, OSGrid

Today's first destination was on Neverworld, another large and detailed build, with extra features! The full HG Address of Wild Kingdom is of course at the end of the post. 

lifted pixel: hello hello! sorry distracted how are all you lovely avatars today?

Taarna Welles: Hello sweet people.  :)

Star Ravenhurst: I am sad this is the last Safari for awhile

Thirza Ember: well there is so much happening in opensim, plenty to do always

Forest Azure: /me smiles... last one?

Thirza Ember: until September 4 when it all begins again... I hope you guys are ready to be eaten by dinosaurs today

lifted pixel: oh hell yeah

Tosha Tyran: if later he spits me out again - why not?

Thirza Ember: make sure you are wearing stain-resistant clothes

lifted pixel: i'll be sure to scotchguard my rings before we go

James atLLOUD: Hello - I just got home from work!  Barely made it.

lifted pixel: yay welcome james :D

Dangers await at the Wild Kingdom !

We jumped over to Neverworld Welcome, in a bid to make our arrival a bit easier on the servers. As time has gone by, avies have become more complex, so we take longer to load. But not that much longer...

Sunshine in Africa

The beautiful Africa region was our second destination this week, and Sunshine Szavanna was on hand to welcome us to this sim, one of three she has on the grid Virtual Worlds Zone, owned by Kashi Takeshi. The talented Shenn Tao, who also has regions on this grid (you may remember the post about Tonglen   back in 2023, the sim has evolved a lot further since then) also joined us, showing nice solidarity with his fellow residents.  We came for the panorama and stayed for the music, and much info about Africa - an ideal combination. HG Address is of course at the end of the post.

Sunshine Szavanna: welcome all to my - never ready - sim lol...we wait for all to arrive and then we move on to the Jazz club

Sunshine Szavanna

We all piled on top on one another, at the tp point. Our Safari travels are wonderfully captured by lifted pixel on her YouTube channel, by the way, so don't miss out on that, and please remember to like and subscribe.

lifted pixel: classic safari stack... hello Sunshine! Thanks for  having us :D

Shenn Tao: namaste

Kashi Takeshi: :) toggle the music thingies to start the nice stream :)

A Change of Venue

Bit of a different trip this week on Safari as our first destination was at home, in a way. We went over to a brand new grid called HG Safari and visited the place that will be (starting next season, in September) the permanent base for Safari trips. HG Address is at the end of the post, as always!

Thirza Ember: welcome This is the new Safari clubhouse on HG Safari grid

Francisco Koolhoven: nice new area

Thirza Ember: will take a moment to rez, when you do, please come find me at the new Clubhouse seating area

Tosha Tyran: oh, poor little alpaca arrived also...

Ayla Alvarez: this looks strangely familiar

lifted pixel: it's an elephant!

Nara Nook: Everything looks great Thirza

Sunshine Szavanna: looks very familiar for sure

Unforgettable Amnesia

Druskus  Zonenations welcomed the Safari this week back to his eponymous grid, and we visited Amnesia, HG Address at the end of the post as you probably know by now. The fun began on the HG Welcome sim, where we experienced some of that opensim voodoo that is hard to explain - some osgrid people simply couldn't tp onto the grid, while others had no problem at all.

The Safari always brings a lot of lag with it, so we're best if we wait for at least 5 or even 10 minutes on arrival for the group to re-form and for everyone to rez the place - the more complex the sim, the longer it takes, of course. We mostly try to sit down, so that we don't add to the problem by wandering around and giving the sim one more thing to register. Does it really make any difference? Not sure, but at least we feel like we're trying to cooperate with the system and be considerate. Some of us had more picturesque seats than others...like, on the photocopier...

James atLLOUD: Nara. Best. Sit. Ever.

Forest Azure: are those copies of your butt. Nara?

Nara Nook: I guess. I thought sitting would lower the lag some

Nara on the copier

Weekend Wolf Fest

Sometimes it pays to be cheeky - we asked and we got permission for the HG Safari group to get a sneak peek at a big event happening next weekend, the 15th and 16th of June. It's Wolf Fest, on Wolf Territories Grid, which has seen exponential growth in its relatively short life - with more virtual space in which to wander than even Second Life !

The Fest is all about celebrating the community, and under a deep blue sky, Lone Wolf and DJ Illusions were on hand to welcome us and explain all about it.

Lone Wolf: OK, I hope everyone's settling in.

Thirza Ember: apart from the nakedness, I'd say we are mostly here and good to go?

Lone Wolf: Uh. Nakedness. Ah, that's OK. There's always a bit of nakedness.

Thirza Ember: can never be sure if nakedness is a deliberate choice, or a glitch

Forest Azure: if it was only naked...

Safari Sees Scario

Craft grid was our first stop this week on Safari with a RL place, recreated, and some nifty reproductions of ancient technology that will make you think and wonder. The sim was NoiLab 2, we were guests of Tonino Lane, and the full hop address is, yes, as always, at the end of the post.

Tonino Lane [it→en]: follow me and take your place around the compass of the winds, I hope there are chairs for everyone, what a great group, I'm honored to have you here

The compass of the winds  is of course a great way to enter into the spirit of the Mediterranean world, and  to further facilitate our visit, Lorenza Colicigno helped out with some explanations in several languages in Local Chat so we could better understand the place. Some people think 'oh just tell the group to take a Notecard' but let's be honest, nobody reads notecards, especially long ones, and Notecard Givers fail due to the lag that a big group of people often makes, and anyway it's way more fun if you tell us about your build piece by piece, so we can absorb the information gradually, and ask questions. 

Tonino has been fascinated by virtual worlds and the possibilities of the digital worldwide community from the days of dialup, and his reputation as a builder covers the past 20 years in both SL and Craft Grid. We had arrived in the small port of Scario, about 150 km south of Naples. Tonino spent his summer holidays here for almost 20 years, and had a sailboat with which he used to sail around the Gulf of Policastro, reaching the wild and inaccessible small beaches.