The Magic Auer

Shapeshifter, by Elif Ayiter, the Turkish artist and academic known in virtual by names such as Alpha Auer and Felix Ringtail,  is a magical sim on New Genres Grid, owned and maintained by Max Moswitzer. Over the many years that is has been here, there have been sea changes - alterations as irrevocable and gradual as the work of ocean waves.

It is a playground for ideas, a counterpane of imagination, a toybox full of concepts and genres. 

Sand Castle

It is an island, and yet it it not. It is an important religious seat, and yet only sometimes. It is a unique place, and yet not exactly. It is a place of sanctuary, and yet not always. It is a piece of ancient architecture, and yet not entirely. Mont Saint Michel, on the Northern coast of France in a sandy bay where Brittany meets Normandy, is a spectacular paradox in space and time. 

Mont Saint Michael, Serenity Grid

Erwan Elan has reconstructed Mont Saint Michel on his Opensim grid, Serenity, and it's a realistic piece of magic. The island takes up an entire sim, and is walkable in a way that creates a perfect sense of place. There are gaunt defenses and soaring vaults, dizzying heights and a warren of narrow streets. It is a tour de force, and most of the images here come from Erwan's build. Why not make the trip to see it for yourself, the HG Address is, as always, at the end of the post.

RL Photo of  Mont Saint Michel in the late 1800's

The White Stuff

A three dimensional mandala, a work of lace and light, a fragile skeleton hanging weightless between the sea and sky, that is Ivory City by Tosha Tyran based on an idea by Lumiere Noir.

If there is one point in the hyperverse that might be defined as its spiritual heart, this build is it. 

The location of Ivory City has not always been the same, and the configuration of the

Conference Call Ten

 This year is the tenth annual OSCC, and you're invited. Great! But what is that?  Who's behind it? What's happening? How much do I have to pay to go to this thing? Where is it held, and when?

Conference Hall, OSCC

Let's start with when and where. The OpenSim Community Conference is held on a dedicated grid with the snappy address cc.opensimulator.org:8002. The grid is online all year round but it is most

Outgoing and Upcoming

 After 60 destinations - well 62, if you count the two special Safari trips to the seasonal Hunt builds of Ange Menges and Nani Ferguson - over three seasons in 2022, the Safari is taking a break for a bit. 

Mandjelia on OSGrid was our first destination this year

In 2022 we went to 36 different grids, from Kitely to CopyKat and back. At last count, somewhere between 60 to 70 people joined us in person as Safari tourists, forming part of the group that gathers at the Clubhouse before setting out on the adventure - plus many more who came along to support their friends, our Hosts, at each destination. 

Safari trips begin at the Clubhouse -  last minute information, gossip and jokes

Aether Way

Air or sea? Light or dark? Either way, our final stop for this season of the Safari is an oasis for the senses. 

Nico Kailani invited us to visit sim Aether, whose definition defies simple terms. Part art sim, part clothes collection, part gallery, part party place, it is all worth seeing. HG Address, as usual, at the bottom of the post. Check out that EEP!

Nico Kaliani: So, anybody got a notecard? Imbedded in it is "The Story of Aether" Read it if you like. Alot of cool stuff about the Greeks and all

Forest Azure: yes... yes...yes...yes

Wizardoz Chrome: yes

Tree Kyomoon2: this is an excellent place to be hit with the epiphany that Hypergrid works, we already have a metaverse. Thanks everyone!!!

Fallingwater Finale

 Camryn Darkstone is a gem of a builder, and this her version of Fallingwater is a triumph in every way. It's beautiful, it's harmonious, it's informative, and it's fun. 

Together with Littlefield grid owner Walter Balazic, she ported the sim from its original place of creation in SL to their grid almost ten years ago, when Littlefield opened.

Walter and Camryn 

The Fallingwater logo is not, as might seem, a Japanese ideogram. Instead it represents the shape of the house and its cascade, although perhaps you can see a F and a L in the pattern also.

The house is primarily a prim build, indeed, it was begun before Mesh was even a thing in SL. Yet the quality of the construction is so perfect that the house, as it does in RL, seems to float above the torrent.

Dead Fall

 Three days in Autumn throw up some contrasting ways to think about the spirit world. Halloween kicks things off - it is the most widely publicized and also perhaps the most disagreeable of the three events, having been reduced by its secular, money-making possibilities to a world-wide rigmarole of ghoulish gore, with a lot of sugar and spite thrown into the mix. In Catholic countries, the morning after has a very different feel.  November 1 is the day when the cemeteries are bright with potted plants and bouquets, as people remember their loved ones en masse. The atmosphere in the graveyards of Europe where this holiday persists is generally serene, neither somber nor spectacular, just a time of quiet recollection and resignation, with flowers - and like Mother's Day, it's the time when florists finally get back into the black. 

But then comes November 2, the Day of the Dead. Not to be confused with either of the other two events, The Day of the Dead has its origins in Aztec traditions, particularly the figure of Chicunamictlan, the Aztec queen of the underworld. Its trappings are unique, and beautifully portrayed by Nyx Breen in Opensim.

Girl Power

More woman, less violence! That's the unequivocal message of Rosanna Galvani and her group on the region Piu Donna Zero Violenza, over on Craft Grid. This year is their second festival, aimed at raising awareness of the need for men to be less idiotic, for women to seek their voice, and for a lot less horrible acts of violence in this world. If the theme appeals, then the artwork that you will find on this unusual and interesting region will provide further food for thought.

This region is home to a multi level exhibition area, including a performance space about halfway up the construction,  and a park-like area at ground level. 

Più Donna Zero Violenza - in Italian, you can write it like this "+donna 0violenza" - means more (plus) woman obviously zero violence. Rosanna is Italian, but this is an international project comprising a long series of artistic and social events. Alongside Rox you will find artists and performers who speak French, English, Portuguese, Hungarian, Spanish - the common tongue is equal rights for all. 

Moon-scape

 The second destination for the Safari this week brought us into contact with great architecture, in every sense of the word! We were guests of Luna Lunaria, who specializes in mesh builds, often on a very grand scale, and she welcomed us into her Emporium on Wolf Territories grid, rather than her art installation  'Lunaria', because it is on Mobius, a grid that is sadly not open to OSgrid residents at this time.  It's a great strategy to have different pied-à-terres on different grids, because the ups and downs of opensim are never that predictable  and a presence on multiple worlds makes you nimble!

The very nimble Luna Lunaria

The Emporium is what the name suggests, a store full of creations, all original work by Luna, which she sells both here and on Kitely and in SL. 

Action Station

 Soul Grid has a great tagline - 'Living with friends' and it lives up to the name with a very friendly crowd on hand to meet the Safari gang on our arrival this week. Rudi Bakerly: Hallo, willkommen im Soul

Nasti Bakerly: hello and welcome

Star Ravenhurst: Hello Hello!!

Miguel Torres: hello  to all

Cosa Wiefel: hallo

Rudi Bakerly: Yes some residents wanted to join us

Nasti Bakerly [de→en]: nice to see you all here

Thirza Ember: wow 24 people!

Luna Lunaria: that's a lot

Star Ravenhurst: Good crowd!

Our first destination (you will find destination 2, the Emporium of Luna Lunaria, in a separate post) is a colorful, warm and friendly place with a name that has huge meaning in the history of Opensim - Weltraumbahnhof. The word means 'space station' but ask any oldbie what it really means, and they will tell you it was the iconic hypergrid hub built by Spike Sol about ten years ago, an essential place for discovering new places, good shops, interesting events, and new friends in opensim. That build is now gone, and this is its successor the creaton of Rudi and Nasti Backerly, owners of Soul grid.

Spooqued

 It's noon SLT on the first Thursday of the month, so that means it's Frenchie time! This month the Soiree Franco involved a visit to Quebec, in the form of the grid Creanovale, home to Kelso Uxlay and Dabici Straulino.

For those who don't know, once a month the French-speaking community of opensim has a grid jumping event. Things start off on Eden Cat's little grid, where there is a meet-and-greet, in Voice and in French. A great way for you to polish your pronunciation and irregular verbs! But don't worry, if you

Playing Ketchup

 Part one of this week's Safari was a visit to Aire Mille Flux, one of Opensim's oldest continuously operating grids, focused entirely on art.  There are a number of builds by the grid owner Marc Moana, and other builds that originally debuted in Sl, but have been ported here. This is an important aspect of Opensim, as a repository for installations that would otherwise no longer be visitable. 

Due to RL, our host wasn't able to join us on the grid. That is risky, because if anything goes wrong, the sim will crash (sometimes the whole grid, if it's a small one!) and there is nobody at the back end to start it up again. To try to mitigate any teleport shocks, we had a portal set up at the clubhouse on HG Safari, so we could arrive gradually.

I Dew

We all do so love builds by Azi Az and Danger Lytton. In the second part of this week's adventure, we visited the Dew Drop Islands, and what a contrast from the first part of our tour! 

Azi Az and Danger Lytton

This blog covered the Dew Drop  a few months back when it first opened. At that time, the sim was attached to OSGrid. Since then it's been moved over to Danger and Azi's personal grid, called Shipyards, where it is one among a whole clutch of jewel-like regions. HG Address, as always, at the end of the post.

We did manage to crash Sauce, our first destination, but with no casualties, as we were all kind of expecting the crash so we just relogged and rolled up a little early at the Dew Drop Islands, in ones and twos.

Azi Az: Hi Thirza :))) Welcome

Thirza Ember: woohoo we survived!

Kelso Uxlay: Drinking stuff was risky

Namirea

 It's Halloween season, and if you can't contain yourself, then Nani Ferguson and Ange Menges have the perfect Hunt for you - Namirea, on OSGrid. 

Plenty of containers here - a whole ship of them - unfortunately, shipwrecked. On a volcanic island. With zombies and giant spiders and all kinds of other monsters. Some people have all the luck.

Breen's Dreams

Nyx Breen: Hello everyone, and welcome to Aedifex in the AMV grid; Aedifex is an ancient greek name for Creator. 

Nyx Breen

 Nyx Breen:  Today we will explore both sides of Aedifex, the land side of highly detailed nature and builds. Then we will explore the skies of Aedifex and the 3D Artscapes that fill the heavens above us. Aedifex is a 4x4 70,000 prim land surrounded by water, allowing one to explore by boat, vehicle, horse, and walking. At the main welcome area of Aedifex for the land, you will find an NC giver with LMs for all the significant points of Aedifex. 

Snoots in the City

Mal Burns: Hi Snoots

Alexina Proctor: hi da Snoots.

Prax Maryjasz: Hello da Snoots

Sun Tzu: Greeting Snoots and thanks for having us

Sun Tzu: Odd my text does not show up in local for some reason

Kelso Uxlay: Hooo laggy

Snoots Dwagon: There are LOTS of textures and thousands of prims.  So it may take a while to rez.  Please walk in little circles to help it. :D

Thundergod Thor: It's been a while since I've been here but it's an awesome build.

          Lag is blamed on lots of things, on bandwidth, on less than stellar graphics cards, on poorly compiled scripts, on the Viewer (always a favorite), on server configuration, on voodoo - the list is exhaustive and exhausting.  That makes it an interesting experiment to have two avatars inworld, both on the same computer and using the same viewer, both having loaded the region previous to the trip, but each experiencing the sim very differently. 

          Safari Regulars will not be at all surprised to learn that the Thirza who arrived before the rest of the group had zero lag either in chat or in textures (call it 'owner's eye' - the way the sim creator experiences their own build), but the Thirza who was one of the last arrivals suffered the classic symptoms: seeing clouds, falling through floors, rubber-banding, and stuck in chat lag limbo. Immensely frustrating.

          It's handy to see the Safari this way,  it's a reminder that our trips have something of the quality of the bumblebee - flying in the face of all probability. 

Snoots Dwagon: Let me know when ready to start Thirza. :D

Thirza Ember: if you're suffering lag, friends, bear in mind the poor old server is trying to hand out hundreds of textures to everyone, so give it a chance 

Snoots Dwagon: There's THOUSANDS. :D

Lucy Afarensis: I sat but I am not

Alan.Scot: orange clouds everywhere :(

Dabici Straulino: even chat is laggy

Lorin Tone: yes

Thundergod Thor: It is indeed.

Snoots Dwagon: A bit of a note on building technique, for you builders out there. First, I am moving around and have no lag.   So such will have a great deal to do with your computer. Replicant City was built using original, ZERO-LAG scripting

Alan Scot: I got  a superfast pc and exposed breasts

Creative Mode

Wir Machen Mode !

 Loru Destiny has been incredibly busy in the last few months, and it all paid off yesterday night at the fabulous Fashion Show (German Modenschau) on her home grid ArtDestiny, attended by an incredible 64 persons.

Loru Destiny

Safari goers will recall this grid for the beautiful paintings of Loru's partner Tryad, the subject of a trip back at the beginning of the year (he was also a participant in the Pangea Art and Culture Festival in the Spring). We returned to the grid to hear a concert by Moses Rau, and made a tour of some of Stormy Scorpio's Start Trek regions, including memorable Vulcan and Klingon homesteads. 

This time the lights were up for the art of Loru, not only as an accomplished designer of clothes but also as a fantastic organizer. Pulling together the community is always a challenge, but it's one she excels in, and this beautiful event on a dedicated sim showcased seven German makers of fashion in opensim.

Cave Crave

 The first sign that this was not going to be your average hunt was when the bone fell on my head. 'Tis the season when people crave the pumpkin, the prizes, and the surprises, and Novale has it all. Plus caves.

But bones collapsing on me - wasn't expecting that! This is the new Halloween build on Creanovale grid, one of dozens of excellent seasonal builds you can find listed on Opensimworld, and around and about opensim in general.

Kelso Uxlay and Dabici Straulino

Into the West

Continuing our celebration of all things Rings on this the 55th Anniversary of the publication of The Return of the King, the final volume in the LOTR trilogy, we visited  an elven sim of quiet majesty. Roland Francis has been building at ViBel grid (Virtual Belgium, his homeland) for years, and the quality of his regions reflect his artistry and philosophy - a respectful, relaxed environment with a little spirituality thrown in. Perfect elf territory.  Roland's region WesLorien was our second destination this week, on the heels of his recent post about making animesh animals herd - something everyone would like to have on their landscape sim. But first, a little history.

Roland Francis, photo by Wizardoz Chrome

Roland Francis: Once the home of the Lorien Elves, the region was depopulated during the Fourth Age until all Elves were gone. The woods and the elven homes have been maintained by the creatures who reside there, hoping l that the Elves eventually will return to claim their home once again. Read Elbereth Elentari’s Diary entry about her visit to WesLorien here. You can see the  WesLorien Flickr photos here.