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. 

A Haven for Jimmy

Everybody hopes to have one, a little private haven somewhere in the virtual world. So many creative people share their fabulous sims with the general public and enjoy and allow strangers just to pop in at any time, and that frequently includes having lots of freebies in the form of art and assets - we're very fortunate to have them ! But it's also nice to have a place where you can kick back. 

This is Jimmy Olsen's hideaway, Tromsø, on Alternate Metaverse Grid.

You might have heard him called the Norwegian Elf, in reality Jimmy is Brazilian. That's a very un-Scandinavian country, where right now it's very hot! As a way to beat the heat, his inworld home sim is far cooler and darker than his RL experience. Jimmy has a special script that makes it rain on his region when it's raining in Tromsø (and it rains 234 days a year, on average) so no wonder he suggested I bring an umbrella when dropping in on him!

The EEP is everything to Jimmy. That's how he starts every build, with the feel of the sim, the colors and the shadows becoming an integral part of the construction - and incidentally, covering the occasional imperfection. It might seem impractical to some of us who prefer to build in mid daylight so they can see what they're doing. But too much stark daylight can crush creativity for some people. Which category do you fall into? Or do you do a bit of both?

Atlas à la Mode

It was all about the outfit, today over on Atlas Grid, on a dedicated sim called Atlas Grid Fashion Show.  If you missed it, here's a little glimpse of what went on.

The wild haired lady is Cherry Manga

The venue is a formal garden with ponds and flamingoes, framed by palm trees, with a large écru-colored  Maison de Maître in the background - the departure point for the mannequins.

Harthelie Atlas, with Mike Helsing and the evening's MC, Chip Atlas

The fashion choices were all selected by Harthelie thanks to her many freebie shopping expeditions all over the hyperverse.

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