Seven Year Grid

OSG7BW

OSGrid turns seven this month. Take a look at a map of the grid, and you'll notice it is mind-bogglingly large. Those are not simply cookie cutter regions or abandoned builds, either; the variety and wealth of creativity going on here are equally impressive, not least because, as a non-commercial grid where resources are less plentiful, a lot of ingenuity goes into making even the simplest thing. Just a little bit of the magic of OSGrid is on show at the birthday celebrations, held officially this weekend July 26 and 27.  There are three exhibition regions this year, OSG7BW, OSG7BN, OSG7BE plus a performance region, and the sims themselves are special, because they're the new 0.8 release Varregions, much bigger than an ordinary sim and with many other bells and whistles. This also means to get to the show, you need to depart from an upgraded sim... long story - the simplest answer is, go to sim LBSA, and teleport from there.
All kinds of interests and initiatives are expressed through stands and exhibitions, from the real life natural world to the history of virtual environments, to building and scripting ideas

Jeff Hall, for example, is a forestry engineer in the real world, has a fascinating exhibition on trees and the way they make our world beautiful and livable. Enjoy the woodland feel, complete with owls and boards giving some pertinent lessons in the way our planet's forests are being maintained - or not. He has a particularly interesting element, the tallest tree in the world. The best bit for me is the part of the install where you go up to the exact height of the tallest tree, and you can actually feel what it must be like for a bird or an insect to perch up at the top, and it gives you renewed respect for our barky friends.
Fabulous creators Sarah Kline and Ada Massenberg have a completely different build but equally useful and interesting, it's on how to build better, in scale and proportion.

 Sarah Klein: I missed the first 2 Birthday celebrations here in OSGrid. It wasn't until the 3rd one that I had a stand. (here's a video of that). We used the same set up from the previous years and it was an impressive build by Adam Frisby and others. There were 4 regions, which the next year was turned into a Megaregion. We had a few problems with that though and the amount of people it could hold initially, but now we have Var regions and other improvements - it's so much better! This year there are about 50 exhibits across 3 var regions compared to about 30 across 3 regular regions last year so Vars definitely have been an advantage to us, there are always many new faces joining the exhibitors each year which is always encouraging and makes for a great exhibition. Looking at all the amazing creativity amongst the community here is certainly enjoyable and last year we left the regions up for a couple months afterwards for people to see. The party and music at the end is always great fun! 
          There's Danger Lytton's OSMax Theater, and Caro Fayray's Tree of Life, Samuel Greenway's Hatteras Lighthouse; Nebadon Izumi's stand which will teach you more about the Periodic Table than you've a right to know.

OSG7BE

          There's a Roman Bath and Temple right next to a Greek fantasy night club. There are goodies from Wickenshire, Lani and much much more. Some builds are still in a work in progress, the fun doesn't start till Saturday,  but it's clear this is going to be quite an event.

            Gimiso Cerasa's script house, to Tina Bey's hot and hollow hill that represents the heart of football players, are two more unmissable stops. Wizard Gynoid has a geometric tower, with a meeroo barbecue on the roof.  Each of the birthday sims has its own dance hall, and there will be live music with Truelie Ellen on Sunday.
          Fuschia Nightfire has put together HG Safari's contribution, including a machinima showing some of the many grids we have visited so far.

OSG7BN

OSG7B starts on Saturday 26 July. See you there!

Safari High

          You know you've been on safari when the trip starts out with an elephant farting, and ends with a dinosaur eating a giraffe.

          The new HG Safari meet up point is still in OSGrid, but we moved to a different sim, Teravus Plaza, a homestead township where the weather is less picturesquely stormy. Probably just as well, since a whopping 24 people showed up for our trip this week. I'm not sure Ilha Magica could have taken the strain.

          There is an indoors to the clubhouse, with freebies, and chairs, a TV showing some of our exploits, 'helpful' posters, and a patio with a meeroo cooking on the barbecue, but everyone ended up in the front yard, somehow. Please drop by any time. TP to Teravus Plaza and look for the waterfall. We are next door. Feel free to grab freebies, get the notecard with LMs to freebie stores, and do not forget to click on the elephant's tail.
          It was so cool to have valued regulars with us, and also lots of new friends along, including SL pals like Apmel and Desdemona Enfield. Finding a look that works for you on a grid without all your favorite shops, let alone marketplace, is a challenge and they both made it work in different ways.

Apmel Opensson and Desdemona Enfield. Apmel is the one with pants on.

           Just friending everyone took about 5 minutes. Why friend everyone? Well, obviously they're all exquisite human beings, but on the practical side it makes it easier to keep track of who has crashed or lost the group, and you can tp and chat to someone when you're on another grid. Sometimes. 
            Fuschia Nightfire had organized our first jump to a truly lovely ensemble installation called Dreamtforest, on a tiny grid which frankly I doubted could take the strain of two dozen avies. Art Blue aka Ervare Farroretre was there to meet us. He explained how this build is part of the RL contemporary art expo, the Santorini Biennale, and that it's an interactive install. You get a tree from the dispenser near the big blue stargate, and then plant it and water it. I'm not sure how you water it, but I have my suspicions. Anyway, then it grows leaves and such, and you can go back and visit it, and see it develop. 

          We are those tiny dots and clouds on the tray being held by the gardener high above the lush vegetation of the adjoining sim. It is a place to return to, not only to visit your tree, but to explore. Here's a link to get more information about what it's all about.

          Safari lasts more than 3 hours usually, and nobody expects anyone to stay for the whole thing because you people have lives to live and Wednesday is often a busy time. Not only that, jumping is frustrating and laggy and annoying at the beginning, so it's only natural that people get fed up and go off to do something more comfortable and/or productive. So it was quite a shock to find  that almost everyone was able to stay with us to make the next jump, to Calchester on Kitely grid.

Calchester panorama

Some were able to use the Landmark, some used the map address, others needed a tp, some hopped back to OSGrid and then on to Kitely, some had to change sims in order to get the Landmark to work for them. We haz strategies. There's been quite a bit of talk about making a HUD for Safari, and while I appreciate the thought, honestly, hypergridding is way too unstable right now for that to be a viable option. But it will be, in the near future. For sure. 

Arriving in Calchester, Kitely grid

          Alexina Proctor and Prax Maryjasz welcomed us to Calchester, a 4 sim region, or 'world' as they call it in Kitely, with a truly enchanting atmosphere. There are castles, cottages, and creatures everywhere. If you're looking for a calming place to visit, this is perfect. Many simply cammed the regions, hence the standing-around pose here in the gazebo, but take time to ride one of the animals (find nessie if you can!) and just soak in the loveliness. 

          I went to take photos for a poster before the event, but snuck back several times, just to enjoy the scenery, which is probably very naughty because as I understand it, Kitely charges sim owners for every time somebody goes to visit. I hope not in this case! 

Foreground: our hosts Paislee, Prax and Alexina

          More gorgeousness on the Tolkein themed build of Paislee Myrtle, also in Kitely. I wondered what her response was to people who say that open sim is a 'desert'.
Paislee Myrtle: I say any virtual world is what you choose to make of it. Opensim forced me to learn how to make most of my own things.
Serene.Jewell: How many worlds have you built here, Paislee?
 Paislee Myrtle: hmmm... at the moment... 6 worlds. But there have been several more...in storage. I hope to start a straight up fantasy build soon. Have the flat land. If one gets in the flow...it goes pretty quickly.

Serene.Jewell: You do a lot with windlight settings.

Paislee Myrtle: yes. I love the option windlight offers. I tinker with them and make my own versions.

Serene.Jewell: That must take hours of tinkering. so many options.

Nara Mistwood: It's lovely.

Paislee Myrtle: not as much time as you would expect.

Alizarin Goldflake: soft and misty

Paislee Myrtle: after a while of doing it...you catch on to what to change and what to keep hands off of!

          The interesting thing about Kitely is that it gives you the genuine feel of being in another country with other customs. Like, you know, the way blowing your nose in public is considered very rude in Japan, or like the whole multiple kiss greeting you get in France. It's an underlying cultural difference that lets you know you're truly abroad. In OSGrid, the idea that you'd want money for the things you make is not considered 'quite nice'. It's like a social contract: If you take freebies, you ought to, in turn, make freebies, and pay it forward. But Kitely seems to be not like that. It's different. Different is good, seeing it helps us grow.

Paislee Myrtle's Ismadril region on Kitely

          By the time we'd explored both these regions, and taken LMs so we can return because boy there is way too much to see in one short visit, we were down to about seven or eight avatars. Nine weeks ago, when this adventure started, it was just me and wizzy. More than twenty is a bit mad, to be honest. Not what we expected at all. But we'll work on a plan to keep things managable and pleasant for all. 

          Six of us were still up for some grid hopping, so we did a bit of a tutorial: try to get to Triton Grid. 

The Fellowship of the Blam

Step 1. We went to Kitely Welcome Center, using the viewer Map. (Whenever trying to jump to a small exotic place, go to the 'main' sim of the grid you're on, it's more likely to work from there.)  

Step 2. We tried to jump to Triton via LM (didn't work) and copy/pasting the address (ditto)

Step 3. We went to Sanctuary Grid using the Map; that's sanctuary.homelinux.org:8012 For quick copy/pasting, I keep a grid-address Notepad doc on my desktop. Tip - need to quickly find out the address of a grid? Google the *name* + grid + 'URI'.

Sanctuary is home to dozens of hypergate portals or Blamgates; you arrive high up in the sky, and must go down to ground level on sim Eld, the main arrival region, to find them. 

          The Triton grid gate was hard to spot in the forest of portals, so we let Alizarin pick a destination - she chose Selea Core. Using gates is fun, but since it's a scripted item, if you click on it too much too quickly you just confuse matters. Four of us blammed there, me and snowy just copied the address into Search on our Map, and tp'd there that way. But the blam of the blamgate never loses its charm.

           Selea Core contains other portals, with a more futuristic look...

          Someone said, let's go to PMGrid! Where HG Safari has its new sandbox, and where soror Nishi has a sim full of lovely trees. Trees first.

          And then the HG Safari sim, which is just getting started. It's odd how sometimes your hair makes the jump and sometimes it doesn't. All those proxies probably. If you just went back to your home grid each time you jumped, that might fix the situation, but where would be the fun in that? Before long, the high jinx had begun. The T Rex (I call him Harrison) was eating the giraffe, and there was some funny business going on in the Official Landrover. Shocking behavior that is typical of this group. 
Nobody tell Bob.

Cornflakes Woodcock

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

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

License to Jump

Hypergrid jumping is a bit like driving. Learning the basics and getting experienced requires a good amount of will power and humility, but the freedom it gives you makes it so worth while.

There are four ways to grid jump. The simplest, someone can just tp you - a 'personal chauffeur'; you can use a Landmark - a 'taxi', you can find a hypergate, which is a scripted portal to another grid - 'public transport' or you can use your Map, which is the equivalent of driving stick. You ought to learn how to do the last one, even if you rarely use the skill, because dude, you're not a noob, you ought to know how to read and write addresses, and it will help you grasp the overall sense of the hypergrid. Plus it's excellent practice to get your spelling and copy/paste skills up to scratch, which is good for your soul.

          The lovely little house on Ilha Magica is getting too small for our group - we were a whopping 15 yesterday, including such luminaries as Ferd Frederix (aka Fred Beckhusen), Pathfinder (aka John Lester), and Mal Burns. That's Mal with the top hat. There seems no logic to why some OSGrid avies were clouds - could it have been that some people had tp'd from regions using the new 0.8 release?
         Our destination was Nara's Nook, belonging to Nara Malone, Tina Glasneck, and Siobhan Muir. It's a classy, stable grid, a place for authors, poets, and people who love writing and imagination in general. They had put a lot of work into preparing for our visit, and we all appreciated it very much, a lagless, gorgeous group of sims full of interesting spaces and inspirational scenes.
When we arrived, I overheard John'Pathfinder' Lester asking Nara what a selkie was.
Nara.Nook: A selkie shifts shape between human and seal. When you wear the avatar you turn into a seal under water.
Prax.Maryjasz @grid.kitely.com:8002: wants to grow up to be a selkie
Nara.Nook: thanks to the scripting magic of Fred Beckhusen. There are other shapeshifter avatars in our swamp. Those change when they fly - a Tardis, a turkey, and a butterfly.
Fuschia Nightfire's attachments survived the jump this time; she has a new strategy, don't bother wearing attachments when you jump, just wait and put them on when you arrive!

Nara's open sim experience has been a voyage of discovery.
Thirza Ember: When you started in SL did you ever imagine something like this would happen? a grid of your own?
Nara Nook: No, I didn't even want to know how to build, now I'm scripting. Open sim forced that.      

            You'll find a lot of NPCs on the grid, the writers use them to make the characters in their books come alive. It's one of many tools used to pollinate creativity. The Nook is a place where people with no previous virtual life can get inspired at a 3D level without being mocked. This non-mocking of noobs is against my religion, so I kept pretty quiet while the group murmured noob-supportive remarks.
 Nara.Nook: I started this grid so I could help other authors learn to use the metaverse in a safe place, something set up just for newbies, where no one makes fun when you get a box stuck on your head
Siobhan.Muir: Or hair to your hand
Miso Susanowa: *looks at Wizzy & giggles*
Nara.Nook: or a guy can comfortable ask why he suddenly has boobs
Mal Burns: ha - like earlier lol!

Nara.Nook: 99 percent of these members had never been in the metaverse before here. We bring them in and teach one on one.
Tuna Oddfellow: that's really cool
Pathfinder.Lester: So you really have to focus on having a good new user experience.
Talla.Slade: you've done a wonderful job Nara. You done yourself proud girl
Nara.Nook: I find the only way to do is is personally, it is too complicated to be automated. We meet here weekdays to encourage each other because writing is a tough and the support helps
Siobhan.Muir: Most people have their own project, Serene, but sometimes we get together for group projects like the interactive fiction we did a few months ago

Mal Burns: we were all noob once!
Prax.Maryjasz @grid.kitely.com:8002: I like noobs, and if you take time with them, they become permanent residents
Nara.Nook: and even our SL transplants have a noob stage here.  If we want to grow, noobs have to realize we appreciate them and how hard this is
Mal Burns: metaverse needs noobs to continue to grow - fact!

Pathfinder.Lester: Here's a research paper from a while ago that I love. It basically proves that new user retention is critically dependent on getting them connected to people as soon as possible.
Nara.Nook: I was trying to teach someone to add our adress to the viewer the other night and it was not sinking in, and within a day they are hypergridding and making NPC - it took me a couple years to learn all that on my own.
Siobhan.Muir: It also helps that people feel comfortable asking question
Nara.Nook: Right, no question is unreasonable here
Prax.Maryjasz @grid.kitely.com:8002: ty, Nara, this is a wonderful place.......and I love what you are doing.
PatriciaAnne Daviau: this place is really awesome
Pathfinder.Lester: Thank you again Nara. Not only is this place so creative, it sounds like you're giving folks a wonderful new user experience too. That's fantastic.
          It really is.

Safari Lite

Peace and Freedom

Lumiere Noir

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Safari goes South

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

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

Star Struck Safari

Thirza Ember: Hypergridding is about weird shit. 

Our main purpose is to experience the weird shit together.

Fuschia Nightfire: weird shit is good

Wizard Gynoid: i love drinking my recycled urine. ;-)

Miso Susanowa: THE SPICE MUST FLOW

Ten of us, there were, this week on the Safari. We 'assembled' for about half an hour, at Ilha Magica on OSGrid, just to try to make sure we didn't miss anyone. Of course, I bet we did, but as you probably know, if you IM us in Facebook, we will wait for you, or send you our hg address, and help you figure out how to use the address to hypergrid, if you're a novice. The key thing is to say beforehand you are thinking of coming.

Romenna on PM Grid

Mercalia Beck, who has a Travel Centre at Wright Plaza, and Kosmos Unlimited and Alex Zed were among the newcomers to the group, though not to hg in general. When there are such different time zones represented, from Australia to America to Europe, it's impossible to find a time that suits everyone, but we appreciate so many people fitting in with the current arrangements. First off, we all try to friend each other so that if hypergridding hoodoo fails us we have the option of attempting a personal TP. 

Opensim is full of people, it's just that most of them are busy. However, there are socials and meetups happening, like the one Lani Global organizes. We also heard Arcadia Asylum was on the grid, *starstruck!!* but it didn't seem right to bug her while she was building. So we left her alone. Or most of us did. Wizzy attempted to TP to her location but the sheer quantity of sims in the sandbox where Arcadia was working seems to have ejected Wiz right back to Ilha Magica.