One hour sim

July 17, 2008

Imagine, if you will, having a whole region at your disposal, but you only have an hour (or so) to turn it into a work of art. Eshi Otawara did. Her blog post explains more, but she built this entire region-sized poem with only the letters r, o, g, u, and e to start with, left over from an earlier project. (Eshi, by the way, is the person who ran the marriage proposal poem contest I won a while back).

I don’t think I could make a single letter in an hour (at least not ones that looked this good). What’s more, the whole thing is really Art with a capital A. Extending the poem along the ground, the positioning, the use of different text colors… wow.

These one hour builds only stay up for a couple of days, hence the quick bog posting. I wanted you to see this one before it disappeared. But if you don’t read this in time, don’t worry. There will probably be something equally stunning in it’s place. Which gives you a reason to keep coming back, doesn’t it?

No pressure, Eshi.

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Desperado/153/255/65

1 Comment | art, builds, wow | Tagged: , | Permalink
Posted by Garth Goode

Disorientation station

July 14, 2008

When I was flying through Second Sweden I found what I was expecting for the most part: neat rows of IKEA-like structures. Except off in one corner was this giant die in the air, exactly the sort of thing that gets my attention. 

A nearby sign instructed me to click a side, and sure enough an entrance appeared. The rest of the instructions said to hang on and have fun.

Hang on? Okaaaay, I went inside.

Floors were where walls should have been. Couches hung upside down from the ceiling. Then something nearby announced, Rotation starts in 5… 4.. 3… 2… 1.

Suddenly everything changed. It’s not just that the die rolled (and it did, watch the die from outside and you’ll see). Walls and objects shifted as well, so I quickly lost any point of reference. The rotations occur ed every 60 seconds. After sitting on a poseball for a few minutes and and adjusting my camera to compensate for the changes, the direction I fell in when I stood up was a complete surprise.

It’s the sort of marvelously creative thing that you only see ion Second Life. Imagine if this were adapted to a club setting? That would either pack ‘em in or scare ‘em off. In fact, some of the poseballs inside the cube are dance balls, so the idea isn’t that far fetched.

The notecard you get when you when you click the instruction sign suggests setting your environment to midnight, as the multicolored interior lighting helps in figuring out where you are. They also suggest bringing your friends, which can only make this more fun. WTF moments are best when shared.

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Second%20Sweden%2010/207/27/25

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Posted by Garth Goode

The crying game

May 24, 2008

I saw a completely grey island on the map. After a while I realized it wasn’t “rez grey” — it was just grey. Naturally I had to take a look, and this is what I found. The entire island was covered with prims stating “NAME WITHHELDIS A BITCHT, ESCORT, IS VERY FAT IN RL AND IS A MAN! NAME WITHHELD IS A TRAVESTI!”

I’m assuming “travesti” is German for transvestite. In any case, there’s one pissed off German out there dropping these prims on unprotected land. The land owner is not the same as the prim owner, so I don’t think they intended their island to look like this. Actually the prim owner is not the same as the prim creator. Maybe there’s a horde of pissed off Germans dropping these prims everywhere. Name Withheld gets around.

That said… this informaion about Name Withheld comes as a surprise to the prim dropper? What they’ve said is true of a lot of (maybe most?) escorts in Second Life. Caveat Emptor, if the real life gender of the person behind the avatar matters that much to you.

No, I won’t be revealing the SLURL or the name of the victim here. There’s no need to spread the message further, and she… he can file their own abuse report.

2 Comments | sick, wow | Tagged: , | Permalink
Posted by Garth Goode

Giant mushrooms and the retail experience

May 20, 2008

I try not to post too much about retail areas, because there are plenty of shopping and fashion blogs out there. Sometimes, though, I find someplace that is so visually interesting that I have to say something about it.

Nth Dimension is such a place. The whole Fantasie Wells region is pretty much filled with giant mushrooms, pipes, fireworks, animals, and plants. The vast majority of the scenery is sculpties. Or you think it’s scenery until you realize that almost everything is for sale.

I can deal with that because even if you’re not shopping for giant mushrooms or monstrous blades of grass, it’s still quite a thing to see. And if you are shopping for giant mushrooms or monstrous blades of grass I either a) am worried about you or b) want to see what you’re building.

Oh, right near the landing point there are some multicolored smoking things. Click them. Go ahead. Nothing bad will happen. Well, nothing really bad. Something kind of cool, actually.

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Fantasie%20Wells/128/128/0

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Posted by Garth Goode

Castle in the sky

April 21, 2008

For reasons of blog space and sanity I try to limit myself to no more than six pictures per blog post. Otherwise I’ll show you everything there is to see in a region, and then what’s the point of you going? I like to leave you a littlemystery. That said, it was damned hard to narrow down the thirty or so pictures I took of Saarpfalz Kreis (Saarpfalz Circle, in English), where the main attraction is a magnificent castle in the sky.

Just outside the gates to the castle is what seems to be a wizards laboratory, but I had to cut that picture. Just inside the gates is one of those nice touches I love. Two skeletal guards in armor watch over the palace entrance. You head up the stairs and then you notice that their heads are always turning so they can keep an eye on you. (Okay, and eye socket on you).

Hey, there’s a table, and it’s round! Hmmm. There are a number of interesting rooms like this in the castle — you just have to go looking for them. I’d have shown you more of them but I had to cut those pictures.

The palace stands on floating rock, and if you find an entrance to the underground areas (underground areas in the sky?) you’ll find yourself in a maze of maze of twisty little passages, all alike. Well, actually, they aren’t all alike. Some are rough stone, others are bricked, and there are huge chambers, as well. But I had to cut most of those pictures.

Down on the ground is a lake surrounded by a village and a forest. This includes what appears to be a church courtyard, but I decided not to use those pictures. There’s also a non-working clock in the lake. I have no clue what that is for.

In one corner of the region is a welcome area where a greeter robot exhorts you in German to enjoy yourself. I agree. The region is decidedly empty, which is a shame. It doesn’t appear to be tied to any roleplay group and there are none of the usual things meant to attract visitors. It just stands there on it’s own, content you please you on the strength of it’s merits.

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Saarpfalz%20Kreis/117/44/243

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Posted by Garth Goode

You’re so funny

April 14, 2008

Friends don’t let friends SL on Ruth.

What’s your caption for this photo? Leave it in the comments!

6 Comments | cute, sick, wow | Tagged: , , | Permalink
Posted by Garth Goode

What a relief

April 6, 2008

secondearth1.jpg

When I landed in a region named Second Earth 1 I figured I’d see something different. What I didn’t expect to find was a giant region-filling sculptie relief globe of the world. In a word… impressive.

secondearth2.jpg

Beneath the globe is a platform where you can enter a place name. A red dot will appear on that second of the globe. There’s not much more to it than that, but it is pretty amazing to see.

secondearth3.jpg

It loos like the region is sponsored by Intel. Adjacent to the island are 8 more Second Earth regions, empty except for some terraforming. I hope tat the remaining regions are just as cool.

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Second%20Earth%201/128/122/29

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Posted by Garth Goode

Some like it big

March 16, 2008

ntt1.jpg

You know by now that I spend an inordinate amount of time in Japanese regions, looking for the strange and surreal, mainly because I’m likely to find it there. With notable exceptions, however, the build quality hasn’t blown my socks off.

I’m also impressed by builds that are big. Things that make you go whoah. Maybe it’s a guy thing. So there I was in Dejima checking out a life-size replica of Tokyo Tower (an accurate 333 meters tall!), which is impressive all on it’s own, when I saw what appeared to be a big metallic bowl in the distance. As I moved closer it’s size became apparent. It filled up almost the entire NTT DoCoMo region. That little speck in the center of the first picture? That’s me.

ntt2.jpg

On top of the bowl is a small city, dedicated to marketing NTT DoCoMo (a Japanese mobile telephone company).  The build quality excellent and surprisingly engaging. Oh, sure, there’s the usual boring kiosk full of giant mobile phones. But I found the old mobile phone museum oddly entertaining. Check out that giant 1985 bag phone. Is it a phone, or is it luggage?

ntt3.jpg

Look around and you’ll find a little men’s and women’s hair display. Collect the full set of freebie phones from the shelves behind the hair and you’ll be allowed to pick up the six freebie hairs. (Once you have the hair you might want to delete the phones from your inventory *ahem*). The hair is actually very nice quality, although the one I’m sporting in the picture above was probably not the best choice for me.  

ntt6.jpg

Elsewhere in this floating city you’ll find a Lego-themed building promoting imode.net. It looks like it allows communication between laptops and mobile phones, but don’t take my word for it — I don’t speak Japanese. Why is the building Lego-themed? Beats me, but it sure is some nice eye candy.

ntt5.jpg

At the center of the Shibakoen region next door is the Tokyo Arena (which looks nothing like the real-life Tokyo Arena). It’s a lovely performance space, though at the moment is is set up for wrestling.

ntt4.jpg

And finally, back to the Tokyo Tower. It’s big. It’s freaking big. You get a real sense of the tower’s scale. It feels like it has mass. It’s probably the closest you’ll get to the real thing without going to Japan. I took an elevator to the top and was surprised to find the windows covered over with photographs. So much for a Windlight sunset at 333 meters. What gives?

Then it hit me. The photographs are the actual views from the same windows in the real Tokyo Tower. On one of the lower nightclub floors you can see the equivalent views at night. Sweet… I just saved myself a whole lot of airfare.

http://slurl.com/secondlife/NTT%20DoCoMo/128/158/129

http://slurl.com/secondlife/dejima/161/132/129

1 Comment | builds, commercial, international, wow | Tagged: , , | Permalink
Posted by Garth Goode

How Scheherazade got her groove back

February 13, 2008

1001nights5.jpg

When I landed in Purgatorio I expected something just a little bit like Hell. Instead I found a stunning 1001 Nights roleplay region. I wouldn’t have thought this level of detail and realism were possible in Second Life. This particular sort of roleplay isn’t my thing, but… Oh my, this build is something to see.

1001nights2.jpg

You land at a rez point where you are given some basic rules and an observer tag. The rules are reasonable. Try to blend in as best you can (Medieval or Middle Eastern clothing), wear the observer tag, and don’t interfere with people’s roleplay. There are also instructions on how to participate, should you desire to do so. Then click the transporter and you find yourself in the desert outside a tent encampment. The castle looms impressively in the distance.

If what you see doesn’t take your breath away… pinch yourself, you’re probably dead.

1001nights3.jpg

Walk to the castle (no flying allowed here) and open the gates. The interior lives up to the promises of the outer facade. It’s a complex maze of rooms and passages, all with different themes and roleplay items. The detailing is beautiful and varied. It’s easy to lose your way, just like you might in a real castle.

1001nights4.jpg

Trying to find my way to the highest tower was an exercise in frustration. I never did figure out how to get up there. But along the way I saw so many impressive sights that I really didn’t mind.

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Purgatorio/220/198/502/

Update: I went back to Purgatorio while using the new Windlight viewer and changed the lead picture for this post. Wow. Here’s the same one with the environment set to sunrise.

1001nights6.jpg

1 Comment | builds, wow | Tagged: , , | Permalink
Posted by Garth Goode

Hot Pocky

February 6, 2008

pocky1.jpg

While flying through the Japanese regions I couldn’t help but notice something new and large. A huge green pentagon-shaped island filled an entire region in the middle of the usually orderly MagSL grid. On each side of the pentagon a giant Pocky rose majestically out of the water. In the distance I could see chocolately buildings and trees.

Holy cow, Batman, this is different.

I tried to fly in but access was denied. My pilgrimage to Pocky heaven would have to wait a few days until the region opened officially.

pocky2.jpg

This is, without a doubt, a fabulously creative build, and skillfully done. You walk down cracker pathways between trees made of chocolate swirls, or Pocky, or splashes of milk. At the end of each pathway is a small building for you to explore. If it isn’t grass, it’s made of carbohydrates. It’s like a Keebler elf’s wet dream.

pocky3.jpg

There may be more to do here besides look around, but I haven’t figured it out. One cottage had a bell I was able to ring and an object shouted that I had completed a task. There’s a welcome sign in the center of the region, but of course it is in Japanese.

This may be one of those corporate “Second Life as 3-D Brochure” regions, but it is absolutely worth a visit, nonetheless. If corporations are going to do 3-D brochures, please let them be as well executed as this. It’s a visit to Candyland. It’s a dessert oasis. It’s Chocolate Oz and the Land of Diabetic Smurfs all rolled into one.

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Pocky/128/128/40/

2 Comments | builds, commercial, wow | Tagged: , | Permalink
Posted by Garth Goode

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