Elements of Azure

 In virtual worlds, the weather tends always to be nice. Bright sun, azure sky, or something dramatic to create the setting for a particular build. But sometimes it's good just to stop and think about the weather itself. What is it, how does it affect our moods, our sense of self and our interactions with others? A change in windlight can dramatically alter the context of an art build, ask any artist who has seen their installation wrongly lit, they generally get pretty steamed up about it. Weather is mood, and mood is fundamental to any creative endeavor.

Forest Azure at her build on the Opensim World's Fair

At the Opensim World's Fair build, on Wolf Territories Grid, (exact Hop at the end of the post) Forest Azure explores the theme of 'The Elements' as experiences inworld. She has evoked a potent portrait of the emotions that the weather can fill us with - mysterious, passionate, pensive, and more. 

It's a series of beautiful black and white photos, beautifully presented in a structure by Rez Rezzal that embraces and proposes the images without encroaching on their atmosphere. Forest is a fan of his style, and with good reason!

Forest Azure: he is all about the feel of something, an the story.

'Winter Wreath' is a glimpse into the liminal world of windows... what side are we on?

A lot of work goes into creating these scenes and tableaux, since, of course, Opensim has no natural weather of its own! So to get the right balance and vibe is down to the artist herself. The delicate brutalist walls of this build perfectly set off the monochrome images, topped off with a thundercloud in miniature, hanging above it at just the right height. 

Forest Azure's The Elements is one of the many art gems on display at the World's Fair, be sure to check it out, in this final week of the show. You won't regret it!.

HG Address/hop

hop://grid.wolfterritories.org:8002/OpenSim%20Worlds%20Fair/1168/1215/22

Bloom, and the Cat's Meow

Bloom Peters has made a major breakthrough with her ongoing project to make it possible to use MIDI  (the Musical Instrument Digital Interface that lets you connect electronic instruments to computers) to musically animate objects inworld. If you have ever read this blog or been on Safari, you'll have been blown away by Bloom's region Crescent Melody, with its fabulously crazy orchestra - here's us all enjoying a concert for Cornflakes Week 2024.

Looking at this gif, are you thinking what I'm thinking? How cool would it be to have the possibility of making your own musically inspired animated scenes - even a whole region - of objects all playing along to a tune. Well, that opportunity is just around the corner...

Before we get into the nitty gritty, I had to ask about the cats.

Thirza Ember: you'll keep the same look, the same animal orchestra?

Bloom Peters: nope it's getting a much more professional design so that on release date people can use it right away to create music or use it to control regions and things. There is a major breakthrough with the machine. I created a program in python. It's called "Midi to Opensim"

Lampi's Heart

Perhaps you're been depressed recently by that rather mean spirited ad on Opensimworld. Somewhat damned by self praise, it has probably turned off more people than it has attracted, as a possible home grid. To take the taste out of your mouth, why not go and see something completely different, and yet, in a way, an allegory that both real and virtual communities can benefit from, while enjoying some exceptional art. HG Address at the end of the post, of course.

The celtic ethereal beauty of Lampithaler Artist's Cloudshead Worldheart is breathtaking. Islands float and even fly away, uprooted from the great sim sea, seemingly freed of all the laws of physics, they form a little archipelago, untethered and fancy free. It's on Pangea Grid, a fabulous collective of truly creative people, run by the wonderful Marlon Wayne and ably maintained by the paws of Kitty Sarrasine,  who keeps the place in tip top shape, technically.

On arrival, you'll se a topiary lady with a book. It contains the German text outlining the story, but go to Lampi's website and you can read a sample of the plot in English. 

Party On

It's the weekend - Saturday night, and the place to be os Event Plaza. But wait - OSGrid is offline for long term maintenance! 

How can this be? 

The familiar triple tent and steel structure, a semicircle of dancing fun. It all looks very familiar, with just a little bit less lag than you generally would expect to find, even when arriving long after the party has started.

Destiny at the Movies

 It's finally here, Loru Destiny's fabulous Opensim Film festival. Months in the making, this unique event pitted the wits and witticism of all of Opensim's filmmakers, representing people from many different grids, languages, and parts of the world, all sharing their visions of the virtual world with us.

The sim has that 'somewhere way out West' look to it, with ruddy bluffs and a bit of a canyon, the ideal space in which to have a vast Drive In with all your favorite muscle cars and rusty trucks.

Getting International on AMV

Once again AMV grid is having their special International Diversity concert - indeed, maybe it's still going on! The idea, just like in 2024, is to have a bunch of singers from all over the planet to come in and do a 30 minute set, each one with a personalized backdrop reflecting their cultural roots, creating a feeling of vitality and world-trotting wonder from the comfort of our own desks, or, if we're honest, from a nice comfy chair.

Hypergridding has been a lagfest for the past few weeks, so I was expecting low framerates and a bit of a struggle but with over 30 people on the sim, once all the mesh boobs and brains shrunk back to their respective places, the whole sim was popping! 

Mr Mikie was singing when I arrived, followed by Cataplexia, who stepped in when Joao Frazao had an electrical outage. 

A Bayou Bye Bye

The final part of the final Safari of the season took us over to the brightly colored N'awlins build on Wyldwood Bayou Grid. It's a great combination of historical recreations, party venue, freebie mall (definitely worth exploring the sim for some unusual, useful, and beautiful finds) , and landscape with both swamp and street plan, a complete delight - HG address at the end of the post, of course! 

On hand to greet us, two Wyldwood stalwarts, Fitheach Eun and Kith Whitehawk. They held over the their traditional Carnival celebrations for us, so that the Safari could go out in style with a Louisiana spring in our step.

Kith Whitehawk: Now that's Mardi Gras brother!!!!

Luna Lunaria: These guys love playing rock blues :-)

Safari Boosts its Brains

Our first stop of the week was on Virtual Learning Village, usually this grid is mostly closed to Hypergrid tourists because it is a place of learning and meditation, for improving your brain health. What better place to end a hectic 10 weeks of HG travel. The sim has a European feel, like an elegant suburb in a historic city.

Lisenna welcomes the HG Safari group - arriving a little bit at a time, and in grey.

Lissena Wisdomseeker: Welcome to Virtual Learning Village!  VLV was created in 2018, but I have been active in Opensim since the first OSCC. I volunteer at the conference every year.  I had a region on Avacon first, then Max and I talked about developing our own grid. Our vision was to have a place outside of Second Life where we could offer our programs for organizations and groups who would benefit from a more private, controlled environment where they can design their own regions. Max's team has given this grid a very special ambiance and I am very proud of what we have built. Many thanks to Max and Buildwerk.

Lissena Wisdomseeker: whispers: Sunny has a place here, and Fran has helped us too

Maximillian Merlin: We are now in the Hypergrid region of Virtual Learning Village. The Virtual Learning Village is a non profit virtual 3D platform. The grid was developed by Lynne Berrett (Lissena Wisdomseeker) and Maximillian Merlin with his volunteer Buildwerk  team. Our umbrella nonprofit organization is the Ageless Mind Project. Our purpose is to provide lifelong learning of many kinds, all based on best practices for promoting brain health and total well-being.  The VLV grid offers limited access to and from the hypergrid, to protect our students. We have devoted much time and thought to making this virtual world more user-friendly and sheltered than SL can be. 

Dismayland, Undismayed!

Dismayland is one of the most unusual regions in Opensim, for its 'ban' on attachments, for its insulting NPCs and many scripted rides, and for the risk to life and limb! For the HG Safari visit this week, which was also Cornflakes Week, Spax Orion, the grid owner and the magician behind all these rides, lifted the no Mesh no Attachment rule, and allowed HG Safari to come and visit. 

Spax Orion

Spax had also prepared a special flying saucer ship toshow off the rides from the air, with the idea that people will get a good glimpse at the park and return to the rides on other occasions. It's one of those places where you can spend hours enjoying the variety or imaginative machines, but also the funny NPCs chatting and arguing with each other. Here's the lovely Siwas, resplendent in her many Biker attachments, enjoying the Nuclear Haste ride, as the rest of us rode around in the sky.

This week Opensim has been acting weird (well it has been doing so for several weeks, as many have noted) and lots of people are getting kicked or banned messages from places for no discernable reason. Poor James Atlloud managed to get refused entry on avatars from 3 different grids! And similar problems were found by many others. These are almost all not intentional messages by the grid owners.

There is, I'm afraid, nothing that I or the grid owners can do about that except to invite you to try again at another time, and say we're sorry we didn't have your company... and invite you not to make a drama out of a technical glitch, if at all possible.

Going Stag

Our second stop on Safari this week was on a roleplay grid, where Lavia Lavine has made a pastiche of life in the days of the 'wild  west' where she reinterprets what has often been overplayed in movies, the less savory side of life. 

The sim is the setting for play but at its heart are some serious observations, making it interesting for any visitor as a cultural commentary on a famous part of US history. We arrived in the sumptuously glazed railroad station, close to the ticket office.

Lavia Lavine: Stag Hollow is located in the Oklahoma territory in the late 1850s. They were just getting the Trains and Telegraph in.  

Lavia Lavine: Stag  Hollow isn't just for RP though that is my hope but it is also for historical value. The western cities and towns were not the dustbowls that Hollywood portrays.: Most of them were actually like this with dirt and gravel roads.

Tosha's Timbuktu

Timbuktu is a thousand year old frontier town, the southern gateway to the Sahara. A slightly newer, slightly more accessible version of the city was our first destination on Safari this week, the sim of Timbuktu... HG address, as tradition demands, at the end of the post, where it belongs.

The name of the city has been synonymous with the utter limits of the world, an unknowable place in the middle of nowhere, and it's a reputation earned through the centuries, through the writings of people like Ibn Battuta in the 1300s and Leo Africanus two hundred years later. Timbuktu is protected by the port town of Kabara twelve miles to the south, on the Niger River, the chief communications route in this part of the world. Many a disappointed traveler in both ancient and modern times has been turned back at Kabara, adding to the mystique of the city of learning that few outsiders have ever had a chance to see firsthand.

Edinburgh born explorer, scholar, and soldier Alexander Laing is thought to have been the first European to see Timbuktu, hoping to win the 9,000 Franc prize offered by the Société de Géographie to the first non muslim to visit the city and come back with information about it. After a traumatic crossing of the Sahara, he arrived in town in the summer of 1826 and spent some time in the legendary libraries. Weeks later, as he departed the city, he was killed by the men he had paid to protect him, just a few months shy of his thirty-second birthday. 

Less than a year later, Frenchman René Caillié won the prize, bringing back a firsthand account of this almost mythical city of learning and culture. Today, travelers face very similar risks as those first journeyers did. The city has been on the edge of a war zone since about 2012, with the usual mix of tribal interests, global politics, poverty, historic resentment, opportunism, way too many weapons floating about, testosterone and religion all causing havoc to the fabric of the fragile treasures of the town.

For that reason, we're lucky to be able to visit the city virtually, on Craft Grid, thanks to builder Tosha Tyran's sim Timbuktu. It comes alive with NPCs and interpretive boards, making the experience one of the richest in opensim, if you like learning about exotic places. The biggest obstacle for anyone who hasn't teleported to Craft before, is a few clickies to authenticate your avatar. It can be a bit confusing, but no firearms are involved in the process! 

Expo-Sure!

 HIE stands for Hypergrid International Expo and the main event, a conference in different languages, with talks about scripting, everyday opensim life stories, tales of the history of our platform, and art shows - 4 amazing performances! - is not until the first week of April. But the 'Expo' part of the event comes together long before that.

Mal Burns had the idea for the little booths back in 2017 for the first Hypergrid International Expo, as a fun and  crowd-friendly way for people to participate. Around the auditorium, the market-stall style creations brighten and enliven the place, but it's a trade-off between community and sim efficiency.... So... Many...Textures.
Yesterday we did a little load test to see if all this hard work has turned into a lagfest or not. It was a good day to choose, because the whole of opensim is in a state of trembles, with the ongoing OSGrid asset -cleaning event.

Mal Burns: this venue looks familiar!

 LadyKa 007: hello, everyone is good ?

snowbody Cortes: hello LadyKa, hey Minord:)

SoA BAD: hello all

Forest Azure: /me regrets it her horse did not travel with her

Taarna Welles: Put the horse in your Suitcase Forest. Just in case :D

Thirza.Ember: Welcome back to HG Safari Grid, this is our 3x3 sim called HIE. It is set up for the annual Hypergrid International Expo, which in 2025 will be held on the weekend from Friday 4 April (when there's an opening concert) and then the conference and art performances on Saturday and Sunday. The purpose of this conference is to give a chance to people whose first language isn't English to give a talk about their interests, their philosophy, or technical inventions or developments.

Go Westeros

First stop of the day, and after an exhausting week, inworld and out, this was one of those absolutely perfect tours that we dream of on Safari. New hosts for us, but hopefully they will let us come and bother them again, on Wolf Territories. The sim is called Westeros Medieval RP and as always the HG Address can be found at the end of the post.

Thirza Ember: with all the osgrid thing happening we may be fewer than usual

Steve Zodi: yes, i was  expecting that a bit, but word of mouth is always the best way to let people know, so if a few people show up, even if only one, its good to spread the word

Thirza Ember: lol they can be chatty and rowdy like a bunch of tourists when first arriving... well... they ARE  a bunch of tourists

Steve Zodi: its ok, the important is that they have fun and yes they are

Steve Sodl on hand to welcome the merry band of Safari tourists

Thirza Ember: here they come

Tosha Tyran: all naked again...

Steve Zodi: Greetings to all, welcome

Taarna Welles: Hello Steve

Steve Zodi: yes losing our clothes when teleporting is part of the fun... chuckles

Mal Burns: hi all

Tosha Tyran: hahaha, Forest, I see I am not the only one with the lipstick wrapped around the thigh

Forest Azure: lol... if that was all!

Taarna Welles: why are the woman always naked after TP??? Well....?? *Grins

Tosh Tyran: howdy Mal... why don't we ever get to see YOU naked?

Forest Azure: do we want that, Tosha?

Mina and King Max

Safaristas. You can't take them anywhere. 

Safari in the Clouds

 Neverworld Grid was our second stop this week, we were there to experience the grid's unusual and exciting weekly event, the Never Riders Club, on Cloudburst Roads. 'Club' in the widest sense of the word - locals and hg visitors are all very welcome, the only qualifications are an ability to ride a bike, and the desire to have fun.

Meanwhile, the Safaristas had their own challenges...

Taarna Welles: Am I headless still?

Thirza Ember: I see white people

Taarna Welles: I see James.... with clothes! :)

James Atlloud: OH? I see fewer clothes here than Risa!  lol

Lynnestra Parker: ღ¸.•* LoL *•.¸ღ

Best Resort

Our first stop this 6th week of the season was on sim Lothlorien, by Stormy Scorpio. We were there to see a piece of Star Trek paradise....

Moses and Stormy

Stormy Scorpio: welcome to Risa Forest... this is the ruins

Thirza Ember: the spaceship in the sky is so startling!

Stormy Scorpio: it is hovering over the planet,  hehe, a lot of shore leave right now

Star Ravenhurst: It looks fabulous up there! Beam me up Scotty!

Stormy Scorpio: I hope you all enjoy exploring risa there is a lot to see

Ankh Senaton: the pleasure planet ;)

Loru Destiny[de→en]: I like the story from Star Trek as a Picard on Risa vacation, very much

Lavia Lavine : Spock was my favorite character.

Loru Destiny: live long and prosper Lavia :-)

James Atlloud: Spock was a breath of fresh air to my young self.

Forest Azure: you have a young self, James?

James Atlloud: I do, really I do.

Karneval Is Koming!

Will your grid participate?

Pangea grid is gaining a reputation for art events, and also for its 'hands across the hypergrid' approach to social events, like RL festivals. Why do it? Grid owner Marlon says it nicely.

Marlon Wayne: carnival is a good thing to bring grids and people together.

In a big way, Pangea goes in for Carnival Cologne style ...or as they call it  Köln or, if you don't do umlauts, Koeln. It's a city that does a straight week of crazy days - a sort of teutonic Rio or New Orleans - with the highlight being Rose Monday, March 3 this year. Costumes, a lot of drinking, candy, more drinking, a parade and dancing, and some more drinking, are the main features of the day.

Fish Love Money

For our second stop this week, another take on the Japanese theme. Our host wasn't able to join us on the Isle of Nara, so the crew had to put up with some factoids from me, much like the time when we went to Yana Dakota's Tahiti sim and she had a power outage. The Safarians bore the burden with great stoicism.

Thirza Ember: This is a Japanese style GOR region owned by Shinji Takahashi. We are on CounterEarth grid. This is a Gorean community that moved to Opensim in the very early days, and was first located on OSGrid. Some may remember the sim Sardar Fair which was still exists, back in the day it was one of the few good shopping places in opensim. Some of the founding members of CounterEarth are content creators and offer their stuff for free in opensim, while selling it in  Second Life. We thank them for their generosity over the years!

Star Ravenhurst: I have been excited to visit! I am sorry they're not here though.

Yana's Samsara

 The circle of life - birth and death, and rebirth - that's Samsara, a process that leads over time and many repetitions, to the state of nirvana. Samsara is the name of Yana Dakota's var region on AMV, a region that's undergoing renewal and growth. HG Address at the end of the post, as always.

It was a pretty quick rez as the hordes of Safarians arrived - we've been having slow textures for a few weeks, but this time, they all arrived in the little dock house with seconds of lag only. It's a big region, so everyone tried to keep their draw distances and other bells and whistles to a minimum, of course.

Yana Dakota: Namaste to Samsara. Creating the Samsara region in the Alternate Metaverse has been a labor of love. My goal was to design a space that encourages introspection and spiritual growth. Every detail, from the high-detailed builds to the serene environment, was crafted to provide a peaceful and immersive experience. The music and viewer settings are optimized to enhance the overall atmosphere, making it feel more engaging and calming.

Elegant and lagbusting the ladies of the Safari are unbeatable!

If the name of this sim is familiar to you it's because there was an interview with Yana on this blog a few weeks back. This was an opportunity for Yana to show off her favorite pieces and also to explain so much about this belief system that is so close to her heart. 

Crystal Craft

 Craft Grid is celebrating its Crystal Anniversary - fifteen years of community, international friendship, big art, lovely residences, educational projects, and a warm sociability that has kept its residents amused and absorbed all these years. It's a tightly knit community, with people from all over the world, though it's fair to say, a nice slice of Italians who will make you feel welcome in the grid's general Chat group whenever you log in. 

It's a grid that has always been generous - for example, for many years, Licu Rau, the owner of Craft, donated the regions for the Hypergrid International Expo. Licu has also invited the HG Safari group more than once to celebrate Cornflakes Week with him - here he is, dressed for the event, back in 2016. 

I asked Licu  what is planned for this birthday party on Monday 27 January starting at 12:30pm SLT on Jubilee sim.

Licu Rau: We will have a musical evening in an environment inspired by crystals. Being a moment of transition in which various technical changes and specific needs overlapped, we were not able to organize special events as done on some other occasions.

Thirza Ember:  What kind of changes? Tell us more.

Khiron's Voice

If you know Opensim, you've almost certainly heard the beautiful mezzo soprano voice of Khiron Ametza at one venue or another. And yes, you're right, I did have to restrain myself from calling this blog post Ametza Soprano, and no, it wasn't easy, you know me so well. Anyway. The very talented Khiron (check out her SoundCloud page!) started her career as a vocalist back in in 1986, singing with lounge bands, in bars, dance halls and parties in general. Then about 15 years ago, she made a change. 

Khiron Ametza: I decided to focus on the virtual world in 2009 and stopped performing in RL. 

She's a seasoned and busy performer (you can find her calendar here) so I was curious to know what she feels are the most significant differences for a singer between these very different realities.

Khiron Ametza: The difference between RL and Virtual Worlds is that in VW I can sing what I like to sing, while in RL I had to sing all kinds of rhythms and songs that were bad for my ears and used to make me sick, and what's more, singing with playbacks gives me the pleasure of listening to the music the way it is, without musicians inventing different melodies for the songs.