Austin's Eye

Opensim can be  a tough place to get your arms around. It's like Second Life, but it also has distinctive features in terms of the technology and the culture. It's a dislocated, often quite mysterious place, in the sense that people often give a lot of weight to their subjective experience when talking about 'how opensim works'. 

That's a fun way to live the adventure, but solid information about resources, innovations, and changes to Opensim, (and where the two are related, in SL) is a must for anyone who's serious about understanding the platform. An outstanding source of knowledge is Austin Tate's blog. 

Ai Austin on RuthandRoth region OSGrid

Austin Tate, known inworld as Ai Austin (pronounced 'eye' not A.I.)  is an Emeritus Professor of knowledge-based Systems at the University of Edinburgh in the UK. 

His career in Information Technology started in the 70's, but his interest in computers goes back even further. We chatted during a tour of three sims on OSGrid, and you will find the HG Addresses at the end of the post, as usual.

It takes an eye for detail, and a talent for sharing complex knowledge in a way that works for both experts and casual readers, and Ai has achieved this with his blog, making it the go-to read for anyone trying to parse what's currently happening in Opensim.

One of the community projects he has consistently championed is the idea of an original open source mesh body for Opensim, called 'Ruth' and 'Roth'. That's the theme of the sim where we met up.

RuthandRoth sim has resources, information and teleports 

Ai Austin: This is the Ruth2 and Roth2 home region as you might know. Its where the open source Ruth2/Roth2 mesh assets and avatars are made available. The NPCs here are examples.

Thirza Ember:  Can you tell me a bit about how you got into computers to begin with?

Dreams on the 10th Dimension

All is like a dream

Star Ravenhurst's new grid Tenth Dimension is home to her art gallery Le Beau Retrouvé, and there's a big new show scheduled for September 29. 

You're still just about in time to participate. If you make art this could be your chance to exhibit alongside the likes of Tina Bey, Xenon Darrow, Remmy Ravenhurst (no relation), Savannah Joy, Forest Azure, Arcfury and a huge multimedia install by Cherry Manga  and Nico Kailani. The deadline to submit art is September 23, although the sooner you do it, the better it is for Star's nerves! Organizing art shows can be onerous, so why does Star do it?

Star Ravenhurst: It can be difficult to get into a gallery in the real world and most artists never get that opportunity. In fact, they are lucky if anyone beyond their family, friends, or instructors ever sees their work. Having my own grid, I can now give them more opportunities to showcase their work in virtual.

If you're a regular dipper-in to this blog, you may remember reading about Le Beau Retrouvé here although bear in mind, the location of the gallery has changed since then (just part of the way opensim is always in flux and keeping it interesting), and perhaps you caught the episode of Inworld Review where Star spoke about the gallery, among her many other projects. 

Star Ravenhurst:  What does the gallery mean to me? I am an artist in RL and have formal education in Fine Arts, Graphic Arts, Art History, and Design. During college, I worked for an art gallery and learned a lot during my time with them and also took classes in Marketing and Professional Practices to help me learn the business side of art. I do not have the funds in RL to open my own gallery, but in virtual, everything is possible. I have seized the chance to create an art gallery that is welcoming and supportive of new artists as well as established artists. 

Jimmy's Europa

 Jimmy Olsen's Europa has expanded! Most of you have already been to see this imaginative cityscape with its great Mall, sci-fi architecture and gadgets, and fabulous taxis, and soooo much more.

 HG Safari did a little tour last year - it was the season premiere, and (since we only have about an hour for each visit)  we only got a taster of this huge complex around the central build.

And now four months later the build has expanded even further.

Boom! another eight regions surround the original Europa. Seven are visitable, the eighth is a Sandbox, and there are multiple ways to see this build. You can use this greenish TP board to jump to Europa Raceway, Farm, Ranch, Mines, University, Colony, and Spaceport,

Lots of transport choices on Europa

 Loving that font, too - just comprehensible enough to make you feel like you're reading a foreign language you'd almost forgotten. A trip abroad without leaving your chair! Imagine the savings.

Victor's Great Gatsby

A great Great Gatsby build is taking shape over on FreeLife grid, and it has all that Long island loveliness that's a perfect match for the hot summer season of inworld exploration.

 It's built by grid owner, Victor DeAngelo. Free Life Grid came online approximately seven years ago, but Victor's virtual life journey began at another totally separate world from OpenSim called The Utherverse.  

Victor DeAngelo: That was eleven years ago.  It was there that I owned a large modern city where I rented out storefronts to business owners to provide links to their 3D stores.  The social life there was amazing but the graphics, compared to OS, are quite primitive.  It was one of the other builders, with whom I was associated as a provider of completed layouts, who first discovered OS.  She invited me to come and try it.  Of course, I was immediately hooked.  I rented a 3X3 from a grid owner who has since passed away.  After that, I was provided with the same size region by another grid that has since disappeared.  After those two situations, I made up my mind to own my own grid.  I downloaded Fred Beckhusen's "Outworldz" software which enabled me to set up Free Life.

3rd Wind, 3 Months In

 The 3rd Wind steering committee had just finished their meeting in the Infinity Classroom,  and were getting ready for the weekend community meet-up.  How lovely to be back at the Lyonesse Colony, now located on Zetaworlds grid.

It has been just about three months to the day since 3rd Rock, one of Opensim's oldest grids, closed its doors due to a series of events that had nothing to do with the solidarity and friendship of the residents.

As a group, they decided to find a new home (you may have read a bit about that process in this post). It's a story worth telling because, out of what could have been a huge tragedy, has come a great success story.It was so nice to meet up with old friends and new, the elected members of the 3rd Wind community steering committee. 

The committee includes Jedburgh Dagger, Ellemir Maven, Kestral Roffo, plus Dolfke Barbosa, who is Chief Security Officer in the Star trek Infinity group, and also there to help solve any issues 3rd Wind members may experience on the new grid. Then too there's Nila Mari who's the 3rd Wind Treasurer,  and produces the Starfleet Infinity Newsletter. And finally Alia Soulstar -  she is tireless in her work for the Starfleet rp group and the wider 3rd Wind community, doing a lots of building, organizing, researching and planning.

Kestrel Roffo, Nila Mari, and Dolfke Barbosa

Alia Soulstar: Nila is a community asset who just happens to be a lovely person on the side

Dolfke Barbosa: Nila does a few excellent jobs here for us all - we have a newsletter too, right Nila?

Nila Mari: for Starfleet Infinity we do

Dolfke Barbosa: Due to Alia's and others great work, I am able to call this here home again, Thirza, and much from 3RG is imported here, Land as well as Avatars

Touring the Starfleet Infinity build, you'd be forgiven for feeling nothing had changed for this RP group. In reality, after it became abundantly clear that the old grid couldn't be saved, a huge amount of work had to be done retrieving .oars, rethinking the way the new regions would be laid out, and transferring personal and group inventory. That was after the group did plenty of research and some serious thinking before choosing their new home, an enclave on ZetaWorlds grid. 

AviWorlds: Josh & Co

Sometimes, seeing is believing. AviWorlds owner Josh Boam discovered Second Life thanks to a friend who told him that 'there was a place you could live a virtual life and do anything create anything and meet people from around the world'.  

Josh Boam: I did not believe him it was all so much to take in so that night I went home and joined.

Josh Boam

In Second Life, Josh split his time between running RP regions and building stuff - JP Collections opened in 2008 and is still on SL Marketplace offering furniture, aircraft, buildings, and Josh's main love, yachts - he went on to build 100 different watercraft.

But, as we all know, SL is pricey!

Josh Boam: At one point our Friday Harbor RP had over 15 regions and the cost to run was just way too high, so in 2014 I was turn onto the open simulator platform by some friends.  It was at this point I could see the profit that could be made by running your own grid, and thus SkyLifeGrid was born.  I ran Skylife for many years and learned over the years more and more about the backend of opensim.  Having no previous knowledge of opensim or databases or anything I studied the code for opensim line by line during my working days and was able to develop a system that worked for me.

Racing in Pangea

Looking for somewhere new to put the pedal to the metal? Do you have the heart of a Marshal?

Whether you're an expert racer, or just a crazy driver, Pangea grid would love to have you come over and help test their new race track on a dedicated sim set up for an event set to be held in October, the Pangea Go-Kart Cup.

This competition will feature as part of the Pangea 4th birthday festival, they are planning a whole series of different activities. You will be seeing the details pop up in the socials, also don't overlook their website (worth bookmarking) called https://pangea-grid.com/ ...and right now, if you like your sport sitting down, you could be a huge help! 

What's the idea? Let's ask  Karsten Runningbear, the grid's script guru, what he and the Pangea Grid team, led by Grid Owner Marlon Wayne, have in mind.

Karsten Runningbear: you are welcome to try the track and give your feedback, so we can make the racing experience the best it can possibly be before the big day. In particular, there is an information evening tomorrow, Friday, 9 August between 11am and 1pm SLT (that's from 8-10pm, Berlin time). The focus of this evening is the planning and organization of our upcoming birthday go kart race.