Chandra’s Page

I’m almost beginning to see Second Life’s tendency to blow up while operating vehicles as a blessing rather than a curse. After buying some lovely aircraft at Boyoma Field, I planned to fly one of my purchases home to Drawbridge. I only got two sims from Fundama when I was violently hurled from the plane, face-first into the dirt of Georgiana.

I looked up and my jaw dropped. Rezzing in front of me was an insanely detailed starship, docked and hooked up to fueling tanks in front of an entire spaceport complex. I had just discovered the R.S.S. Impulsive and the port of Breaker’s Folly, a labor of love assembled by a team of roleplayers and artists.

As most of my discoveries of new places in SL happen, this one was the result of crash landing a vehicle. I caught air in my car, flew for three sims, and landed in the midst of a delightfully run-down waterfront called Broken Cove. This little area is marvelously detailed, with all the look and feel of a small rural business whose customers have long since moved on.

The Forest of Kahruvel covers much of the sims of Stinson, Rodeo, and Cowell, deep in the heart of the oldest portion of the SL mainland. Its primary caretaker, Salazar Jack, has led a team in replanting trees and discovering ancient ruins in the area, making it one of the most beautiful and interesting regions of Second Life.

I found myself returning to Kahruvel the other day after a long motorcycle ride, and it was obvious that Salazar and his crew had been busy. Since my last visit months ago, Kahruvel has sprouted newly unearthed ruins, a lovely meadow area facing the lake on the north border of the woods, and even weather; a furious thunderstorm was brewing when I arrived, making me glad I’d parked the bike back in Noyo and set out on foot.

A few days ago, I made a motorcycle trip from Drawbridge to the start of the Linden road system on the main continent. I like to make this trek now and then to see how things have changed on the mainland. It’s a pilgrimage of sorts, a journey back to the origin, a struggle against lag and common sense that culminates in a little parking lot in Noyo.

Due to an accident of slow rezzing, I spotted some graffiti beneath the major intersection in Gama. Governor Linden himself has been tagging the causeway supports, expressing opinions both favorable and derogatory to Linden Lab.

I’m sure this bit of scenery has lain here for ages, and I’ve just missed it in the many times I’ve driven through the sim. It’s always nice to see bits of tongue-in-cheek humor from the Lindens now and then.

While testing the limits of Second Life physics and my own patience on a motorcycle ride, I ran across an eye-catching store in the sim of Bishop. Had geometry not been rezzing in at its usual slow pace, a common problem when speeding down the roads of SL, I’d have easily spotted this place from a long distance.

Simtropia (SLurl link) has an iconic and attractive design, making good use of vertical space both to attract the eye and to provide surface area for product display. The architecture is clean, simple, and functional.

Aimee Weber never fails to amaze me with the detail in her texturing, so it’s no accident that on most trips I take to Midnight City I make it a rule to invade whatever skybox project she’s got going.

The shadows baked into the textures of this laboratory build are, hands down, the best I’ve seen in Second Life. Aimee is truly a master of the medium. There are more pictures of this stunning room in the portfolio section of Aimee’s website, without the map of the upcoming Relay For Life grounds, posing stands, or assorted clutter in my picture.

An island I tried to teleport to last night was offline, so SL performed its magic and dropped me in a nearby sim. In this case, it was a happy accident, because I ended up in the Korean language welcome area, which is still under construction.

The focus of the Korean welcome area is an attractive glassed-over enclosure on the waterfront of an urban area. The detailing is superb, but not so much that the area’s frame rate suffers.

Back in the middle of March, a small assortment of ne’er-do-wells (including yours truly) descended upon Bedazzle Studios’ set for their film Silver Bells & Golden Spurs. The set was a remarkably-detailed build, and in true Bedazzle fashion, it comprised nearly all 15,000 prims permitted in the sim.

Though the lag was intense in spots because of the excess primmage, it made for some amazingly beautiful scenery. The texturing was superb, and the inclusion of scads of little details made for realism like I rarely see in any 3D environment, let alone Second Life.

I followed a poster advertising skydiving at Cubey Terra’s store in Abbotts, and I was pleasantly surprised to arrive at the lovely island of Allure. Not only did I find a fantastic skydiving platform (complete with diving boards, a bar, and a dance floor), the entire island has been covered in a recent snowfall, giving it a cheery holiday feel.

However, the holiday magic quickly gave way to amusement as I surveyed a large number of snow sculptures, both macabre and whimsical, throughout the island. In the spirit of Calvin and Hobbes, the snowmen are engaged in activities unusual, and often dangerous, for snowmen.

Castles aren’t exactly a rare thing in Second Life. “A man’s home is his castle” is, more often than not, taken quite literally in a world where erecting a fortress is hardly more difficult than building a bungalow. However, there are some builds that stand head and shoulders above the rest.

The Elven Tower in Orwood is one example of such an exceptional build. I ran across it, like many things I’ve seen in SL, completely by accident, after a physics mishap tossed me several sims away from my workshop. (To my neighbors in Drawbridge: I apologize for the giant smoking crater. I’ll have someone in to fix that in a few days.) I looked up, and the distinctive outline of the tower immediately caught my eye.