Month: June 2024

SL21B – Captivate and Celebrate

On By altathiemenIn Second Life, SL EventsLeave a comment
A distant view of a city like area. In the foreground is a knife sharp water front. Several light coloured stone roads can be seen receding into the distance breaking the view up in to about five city blocks. Each block is filled with a very different construction. A tall cylindrical building with red decorations is on the right. In the center is a very tall tree with some sort of climbing walk way in it. On the left is a big rectangular green building with some sort of narrow metal towers extending from its roof. On the far left is what looks like a small volcano. Two suns shine over the scene. A large one dominates the upper-right corner of the image. A much smaller sun hovers in the low-middle sky.

By the way, I’m not including individual SLURLs for all the exhibits this year. They’re all already handy at this page from the community blogs.

SLB Captivate

Captivate is another region on the northern edge of the SLB lands. To its south is a purely decorative ocean and shoreline region, Wave.

Forget ME Not

Two floors of arts and crafts made by people living with Myalgic Encephalomyelitis. There’s an information giver with a group joiner and web site link near the door. Forget ME Not had and exhibit at SL20B where I remember learning a great deal about this condition. If you’re not aware of ME, it might be worth a few minutes to stop in and learn a little about it.

Katellasphere Designs

On one side, four garden paths leading to tiny homes, each in a different elemental theme: Serenity by the Sea, Fireside Retreat, Luminous Sky, Tranquil Trails. On the other side, four like elemental themed club floors.

The Element Coaxium

The crash-landed Millennium Falcon model is a bit of a giveaway that this might be a Star Wars themed display.

Recurring Dreams

Enter from the west side. You can get information about the exhibit and the artist from a box at the entrance. If you don’t get too distracted by the dancing, leaping mushrooms at the pond, you can try the teleporter in the keyhole in front of you. (It wasn’t working for me, but there’s a log ramp you can climb on the far side of the pond to get to the top.)

The recurring dream looks to be a bit Daliesque, perhaps if the dream sequences in “Spellbound” were filmed in the deep woods. Eyes look out at you from all kinds of unlikely places. Yet, the fungus infested wood doesn’t really feel threatening in any way. This is a recurring dream after all, not a nightmare.

Sunny Studio Gallery

A display of eight panels of RL art. The styles run from cubist influenced to more conventionally representational, if slightly colourist, examples.

Landmark giver in the corner.

Woolfyy’s & Akiv Wizardly – Ukraine’s Art Garden

A young girl in a pajamas with a red top and light gray pattered bottoms shelters beneath a Ukrainian flag. With her under the flag is a collection of eight soft toys. To the right is a wheel of fortune.

An art installation focusing on the war in Ukraine. Sunflowers feature prominently. There are a number of RL photographs. A large panel showing a young girl sheltering beneath a Ukrainian flag with some of her soft toys is particularly evocative.

WizzzBox Showcase – “From Pandora to TRON”

A very busy, and to me confusing, multi-story display centered around movies. “The Crow”, “Dirty Dancing”, “Avatar” all feature to some degree.

The Elements Within – Stone Styx

A large stone statue of a head with a hand grasping its chin looks out at the viewer. The head has been sliced horizontally into five sections and each section is offset slightly to the right from the one below it. Behind the head is a heavy stone arch through which a deep space nebula can be seen partly obscured by the head. On either side are two tented arches through which different faces of the moon are visible. Other smaller arches show views of ocean, woodland, and fiery scenes.

Captivate seems to be the region of art and art installations. Here we have a number of stone arches with occasional giant stone hands (which may be positioning the other elements?). Some of the arches appear to be portals to other realms: icy mountains, verdant forests, fiery castle, a nebula in space. Two contain full moons. The thoughtful, and oddly divided head up front points to all these things being part of our internal world.

There is beauty in those elements, in us, all of us; regardless if we don’t always understand each other.

The Pact of Affinity

An extensive display about a fantasy RP community that appears to cover several realms. Many information panels inside.

Passengers of SL

This looks like a repeat of last year’s exhibit. Climb up the mobile stairway into the airplane to see a video about the group along with some pictures. Given how miserable RL air travel has become, I can see the attraction of doing it in Second Life instead.

Foundations of Second Life

This exhibit includes a quest for keys. Enter from the south and click on the signboard for instructions. Essentially, you’ll be solving element based riddles as you gather keys to open a treasure chest. Good luck!

Climb to the top for more information about the exhibitors near the whirlwind.

Radio Spiral

The long running electronic/ambient/space music streaming station has set out a garden with sections for each season (and so element as well). Would be a fine place to relax for a bit, but I’m way behind in my wanderings.

Celebrating the Elements – Angel’s Amazing Creations

There’s a liquid dance floor (water), a balloon festooned photo area (air), a game room (fire), and TV room (earth).

Elemental Enchantment: Magick of the Forest Clearing

Four paths, one for each element, wind through trees to a central clearing. Inside are displays of magical creatures and symbols as well as a garden.

WWII Campus

The WWII Campus is a history group dedicated to the topic. According to the main information panel, at their main location you can

  1. Take a pod tour of the WWII Timeline
  2. Chat with the WWII Librarian
  3. Watch a WWII show
  4. Visit WWII Vendors
  5. Remember the fallen

Group joiner and landmark giver not far from this panel. A collection of some WWII information and photographs is included here.

Bears Gone Wild by Randy Firebrand

Once again, Bears Gone Wild returns with lots of Linden and Mole bears out and about on the Second Life Grid. They seem, mostly, to have been behaving themselves.

SLB Celebrate

Celebrate is the north-east most corner of the main SLB lands. It’s bordered by two other exhibit regions and endless sea.

Elemental Harmony SL21B Exhibit by Bellisseria Citizens Group

Behind golden lettering standing several feet high and reading "BELLISSERIA CITIZENS" is a water filled garden with a small house in the middle. Surrounding the house are some moderate sized trees, the one in front blooming pink. Small boats are moored at either side of the house.

Inside the little house in the middle of the water garden, you’ll find a gift box with landmarks, notecards, along with yard signs, a cookbook (?!), a radio and a few other oddments. It’s also a great place to relax and sort all the gifts, landmarks, and notecards that have crept into your inventory recently.

I could sit and watch the wandering spirit all day, but time to move on.

20000 Leagues – Helena Kiama & Torgon Woodget

This is the second time I’ve encountered the 20000 Leagues theme in five regions. This time it’s a fun fair ride. Walk into the (clearly marked) entrance on the south side and accept the experience. Hop on the seahorses and they’ll take you for a several minute underwater rollercoaster ride through a richly decorated seascape. Quite well done!

Premier Wrestling

I was wondering when I’d run across some of the SL wrestling communities’ displays. Here in the far north-east corner of SL21B, we have Premier Wrestling. Looks like they’re recruiting. There’s also a ring up top so, presumably, they will be holding some events.

Hawt Mafiosa Grid WIde

A water filled plaza fills the foreground. Large, metallic puzzle pieces float off to the sides. A Rainbow path runs away from the viewer just beneath the water's surface. At the end of the path is a large stage with a hemispherical roof. A big purple disk fills most of this roof area. Across the stage, eight giant lava lamps in assorted colours have been placed. Two either side of the view, lining the plaza are intensely bright hued trees in green, magenta, and blue.

Now this is one brightly decorated display! Have to love all the giant lava lamps up on the stage. There’s little information here beyond the lettering on the stage front, “We take Hawt Party all over the Grid!”

Click the box at stage-right to buy a Hawt Mafiosa motorcycle for L$0.

Elemental Trees of Life

A small display of abstract tree sculptures for each of the elements. Looks like you can buy your own copies for L$0 from the gift marker in the back-middle. They look really nice, so I grabbed a gift.

Join Me Join Us – It’s Time

There’s an obstacle course if you’re inclined. So far as I can tell, this is a group that encourages social connection in order to facilitate more social connection. There’s probably more to it than that, but the mission statement is a tad vague.

Elemental Wonders: Ode to Nature’s Forces with a Hint of Hippo

Happy Hippo Building School and Sandbox Delight have constructed a set of dioramas on top of small rock plateaus. There a fountain and brook for water, a volcano for fire, Stone Henge for earth, and a tornado for air. Shinny up the rope to the first platform. There are free bottled elements and elemental themed gifts to be had.

There’s also an underwater section you can get to through the conduit on the west side.

Liberty Fire Department

Liberty Fire Department is a fire and emergency services role play group that works with some SL airports and a couple other role play regions. They’re recruiting. Pick up information notecards from the sign out front. There’s fire safety information throughout the exhibit. You can also rez a Segway like scooter for continuing your explorations.

SL United

A group working to unite Second Life communities. Click on the gift box to get your own potted mushrooms. Discord link available out front.

Elementary my dear Watson

Enter the model of 221B Baker Street, complete with garden and mews, from the east side to look for elemental clues to find prizes.

Zombie Outbreak Response Team

The elements must be badly out of balance in this parcel; it’s crawling with zombies. A zombie role play group? Uncertain, I did not find any detailed information.

Beast Mode

A display of a number of elemental themed breedable cats in assorted poses.

Disaster Preparedness

Lots of information about how to be prepared for disaster, in general, and a few elemental disasters in particular: flooding (water), earthquake/tsunami (earth), wildfire (fire), tornado (air). The information panels are very comprehensive!

Cagla’s Park

Tree of Life Camping developed the park with areas for yoga, a cattery, caravan and tent camping, dancercize, cinema therapy, beach play, and a café. According to the information panel at the entrance, this work was done to raise awareness about the positive impact of nature on health and well-being. If you’re looking for me, I’ll be in the cattery.

Elements of Mandroid – Mandroid Music / Dylan Biddle

First Second Life mirror I’ve encountered at SL21B!

Mandroid is an art collaborative with material available on YouTube. Information from the panels about the display.

Voice by Notable

An astrologically themed display build around four giant, apparently singing heads. Four free artworks to be found about the installation.

With that, I’ve made it across the northern extent of the main SLB lands. Tomorrow I’ll head south along the east coast.

SL21B – Beguile, Blissful, and Breathtaking

On By altathiemenIn Second Life, SL EventsLeave a comment
A far view of a straight edge sharp shoreline. Light hued stone streets can just be made out dividing the landscape into blocks. Each block is filled with a wildly different construction. Two pyramids, one near and one further off, Floating circles, hot air balloons among many other things.

SLB Beguile

Starting at the top, Beguile is the north-west most of the main exhibit regions. The Nimbus flies to its west and the ocean and shoreline region Fame is its southern boundary.

Crossroads – New Orleans

The first stop is a role play exhibit for a group whose focus is 1890s New Orleans, the dark side (A World of Darkness Role Play Sim). Click the sign on the boardwalk for a notecard with landmark.

SL Coast Guard (SLCG) & SL Environmental Corps

Both of these groups have been around a while and I’ve seen their exhibits from time to time. This year they are doing a joint exhibit. Lots of information from the panels in the exhibit.

Asgardian Temp & Bifrost Bridge by Bonny Greenwood

A golden temple with broad steps is fronted by tall columns looking a bit like a six story high pipe organ. The sky overhead is dark with a couple of moons (or are they massive bubbles) hanging above. The horizon appears to be filled with pyrotechnics, or perhaps that's just what the local stars look like.

Very impressive entrance! The place gives off a bit of a Marvel Amazon/Wonder Woman vibe. Make your way inside and across the bridge for a gift from the very creatively designed gift giver. The gift contains a notecard about the exhibitor.

ATG Productions

ATG is a virtual world news organization of which I had not yet heard. There are several floors of information to be had. Grid News with avatar anchors, Around the Grid, Dating Game, Show and Tell appear to be a few of their brands. They even have a news chopper warmed up on the roof!

Ascend to the office floor for gifts.

You can stop for some tea out front if it’s that time of day.

Sitearm’s Interactive Multimedia Expression Kits

A woman with glossy black hair wearing a light purple long sleeved blouse and form-fitting dark purple slacks stands with her back to the viewer looking at a set of information panels in front of her. They are labeled "Multimedia", "Identity as Avatar", and "Sound Models for Synesth..."

The past couple years, Sitearm has had exhibits focusing on music and its production, including interactive tools. This year, the topic is 3D building. The exhibit is, as usual with Sitearm, packed with deeply thought through information about process and techniques. I’m on a quick browse through everything at the moment but will almost certainly return here later to go through it in detail.

Art by Schimmelpilz

A small gallery of RL works by the exhibitor.

Pride at Home

A Pride exhibit for SL21B. Click the information panels for group joiner, landmark, Discord. T-shirts are also to be had, gratis.

Up Up and Away

An installation about hot air balloons (and somebody seems to have been tipping them).

SL Sammelsurium Magazine

A SL publication, apparently German language. Includes an exhibit on Guttenburg’s printing process. Touch the German information panels for English translation. There are news stands you can touch for current issues.

Unicornium Elements

An art installation where vari-coloured crystals drip essence into collectors that pipe them to a central area where the rainbow crystal is made, or fed, I’m not sure which.

WK Dragon Mountain

Pretty self explanatory, here be dragons, lots of ’em.

Museum of Telecommunications

A museum exhibition of the history of the telephone and telegraph on the way to the mobile ‘smart’ phones we all know and loath today! Points for including a red English telephone box, but without the usual collection of, um, “business” cards.

LGBTQ History Museum and Cultural Center

Inside, in addition to the expected group joiners, are exhibits on activism, influential people, HIV treatment, and LGBTQ marriage.

Ukraine Wonderland Journey – The Four Elements of Natural Beauty

Work your way around to the entrance, they make it obvious, and walk into a Through the Looking Glass like world populated by Ukrainian folk art and folk tail inspired art. Do not be intimidated by the 50 foot tall Ukrainian peasant girl. She seems nice enough.

This is reminiscent of a Ukrainian themed art exhibit at SL20B, but I don’t have my notes handy to see if this is the same artist.

The Four Elements of Successful Scripting by Peter Stindberg

A software developer offers lots of sound advice on how to script better, including use of recent features such as linkset data.

Use a professional code editor, check! Implement version control, absolutely. If you’re a beginning scripter, drop by this exhibit!

Untitled Haunted Teahouse Exhibit

Milk Motion has created a spooky little ruin with tea to be had if your comfortable with the offerings.

SLB Blissful

The second exhibit area along the north shore of the SLB lands, Blissful sits just to the west of the welcome areas. Its southern border is Ember, another ocean and shore region.

Second Life Topography

The small, figure of a woman can be seen standing in the foreground looking away from the viewer at a huge relief map of the Heterocera continent in Second Life.

The first exhibit I come to his Erik Mondrian’s enormous relief map of the Second Life continent Heterocera Atol. Click the tent card at the south-east corner for information about the artist.

The Elements of Tarot: The Fool’s Journey by Honey Heart

This looks like a very comprehensive and compact introduction to the Tarot, all in one exhibit. There’s a 22-stage quest in this exhibit. Read/click-on the panels next to the Page of Coins for instructions.

I think we may be seeing a lot of the Tarot, it’s a natural foil for the SL21B theme of the four elements as each suit in the Tarot maps to one of these elements.

Bryn Oh – The Skyfisher

Against a pale sienna sky with a low sun, a woman with a tall head dress wit two peaks and lines dangling from them stands on a sickle of suspended chairs.. She is wearing a long skirt. Birds fly by behind her.

The Skyfisher will be Bryn Oh’s next installation, opening on July 6th. This exhibit is an early peek at the work. Bryn Oh’s projects are always thought provoking and invite interpretation on more and more levels the longer you are with them. I’ll make a note on my calendar for this opening!

“Sakura Fubuki” Observation Deck – momomura zehetbauer

A woman stands on the top of a hoop with a grassy path running around it. Trees grow out from the surface, always perpendicular to it. Two other like landscaped wheels hang in the air to the upper right, partially visible. In the background, bright red circles float, some nested, some overlapping. Some smaller, some very large indeed.

Click the arrows pointing up to stand amongst the impossible in real life landscapes that make up this installation. I found this a good location to switch into mouselook, all the better to be more immersed in this surreal environment.

Pick up a couple SL21B themed gifts at ground level on your way out.

The Temple of the Elements by Tindallia Soothsayer

Inside a black pyramid – lots of pyramids this year too – with a rainbow coloured top and whose sides are decorated with symbols of the elements, is a display of the four elements and “a few ways in which avatars might simulate the elements in Second Life.”

Giant Snail Races

One of the longest running sports in Second Life, the giant snails are back for SL21B. Here are earth, air, fire, and water themed giant snails surrounding a pair of cubes from which you can get information about the giant snail races and a tiny ‘wind’ snail.

Elements by Unity at SL21B

An expansive art installation with sixteen paths marked by paintings and mandalas suspended around a circle. (Caution as you walk around, the surface is mined for some reason.) Click the central sculpture for a folder of information about the display. There’s a notecard with details about how to interact with the installation.

Arcadia Asylum Library & Freebie Center

A very steampunk, 20,000 leagues under the sea style display. Many of the items are freebies you can buy with a click. (I picked up a Nautilus minisub immediately. It looks like a classic prim build, but I’m sure I can find a use for it.)

Climb the stairs to visit a richly decorated hydrolab pod, itself and contents apparently all for sale at the low low price of L$0, and an above water furniture shop, all with the same prices. You’ll also find a guestbook here if you care to leave a note.

Team Baa

Climb into the giant yellow golf ball and click the screen to start a 10 minute plus video on the frustrations of golfing while tiny. (I think Team Baa’s sympathies might be with the Da Daists.)

Casting the Circle by Holocluck Henly

Click the welcome mat for information. This display takes the visitor on a multi-cultural spiritual journey, following a “widely observed spiritual path that spans several cultures worldwide.”

One part of the exhibit is a snowy winter scene, which feels very good today.

Bay City’s Elements!

Bay City always has a great build ready for SLB, and this year is no exception. It’s a bright, light place to gather all the information you could wish about the oldest Linden/Mole built theme based community in SL.

Atelier Vanessa @ SL21B

An art gallery presenting sixteen inworld art panels. Artist bio and landmark giver.

Caledon Oxbridge – Elements of Teaching and Learning #15

Caledon Oxbridge has been doing education in Second Life for as long as I can remember. This year, their display covers teaching and learning strategies as well as the effects of technology on education. Tea is on upstairs.

Second Life Mobile

A large display to inform residents about the developing iOS & Android mobile viewer. Links for the mobile, signing up for Premium (which you’ll need to join the beta programme), and a free mobile phone. I really should give this a try.

Museum of Contemporary Art

A couple levels of RL photography.

Virtual Ability @ SL21B

Virtual Ability: “building communities of support for people with disabilities in virtual worlds since 2007.”

Relax by the waterfalls and read through the information cards about this great group.

SLB Breathtaking

Breathtaking is just to the east of the welcome areas. It’s bordered on the south by Blaze, another ocean and shoreline region. It also, at least at the moment, appears to be a particularly rich source of elements if you are collecting them.

KittyCatS! Camp Meow!

The front part of a giant cat can be seen laying on a pier to the right. It is holding a fishing rod on which a small goldfish has been caught. Across the stream are other cats playing on a lawn, using a tire swing, or swimming using floatation rings.

Once again, KittyCatS have created a special birthday pair of cats that you can get for free by clicking on the models. There is also a megapus rezzer if you’d like to ride instead of walk for a while.

The theme of the display this year is summer camp. As usual, there are abundant cats in adorable poses as they swim, fish, roast marshmallows, and otherwise enjoy their week or two away at camp.

Bear Castle

Bear Castle is back again with a small SL21B museum with many examples of Linden & Mole bears. There’s no way the whole collection could be shown on an SLB exhibit parcel. Landmarks to the main castle available at the door.

Ayuda Virtual Communities Gateway

Providing getting started in Second Life education and basic tutorials in Spanish.

BBB – Bellisseria Bureau of Bureaucracy

A three or four story, squarish building where each story is slightly wider than the one below it stands at a street corner. The walls are windowless and vary from dark brown at the bottom, light in the middle and medium brown at the top. The Building is labeled "Waterworks" on the near side and "BBB" on the side running away from the view. A seal of some kind is shown on both sides. Behind the building is a large blue and red circular building that is even taller. A rainbow coloured hot air balloon floats just over the building's roofline. In the distance, a sunset sky fading from yellow-amber to red-orange makes up the background.

This year’s BBB build is The Waterworks. It covers several floors starting with a building sized aquarium on the ground floor, a bar and lounge at the surface side of the aquarium on the first floor, and an enclosed garden above that. A GTFO freight operation appears to be attached to the side.

If you are collecting stamps, there are two special ones associated with the building along with whatever BBB bureaucrats you can find hanging about.

Unnamed Volcanic Desolation Display

Just west of the BBB Water Works is a small parcel covered in pumice with large lumps of glowing and smoking lava in the middle. There’s no information and the parcel has its generic title. ?

Hawaiian Disasters Memorial

The Hawaiian islands have not had an easy time of things of late. This is a shallow pool with models of the islands and floating plaques describing some of the state’s recent travails. Names of those lost line the exhibit.

Tower of the Elements – Vanessajane66

This one starts with a swim. From beneath the surface, you can begin climbing the stairs. Climb past the dragon (fire) and kites (air) to the garden (earth) up top where you can find a landmark for her gallery.

Love the way the vertical columns are decorated.

Stillwater Cypress Preserve – Cube & Raven

A boardwalk runs into a dense cypress swamp with massive cypress trees rising out of the frame. The water is covered with bright green surface plants and Spanish moss hangs from the branches. In the left foreground, a sign reads "Stillwater Cypress Preserve"

A pretty convincing micro-cypress swamp, complete with interpretive panels along the path.

Venture Bellemort

This is a very, very Goth castle. No surprise, it holds information about a Bloodlines vampire role play community. Information on joining inside.

Spirit of Chiaroscuro

A wheel of fortune like plaza surrounded by ancient standing stones, but with a cozy campfire and blankets to sit on on the sides. This is a LGBT themed fantasy and pagan themed role play group, open to all. Click the crystal for information and pictures.

The Elements by iSkye Silverweb

An art installation where abstract disembodied heads appear to be communicating telepathically. Or is the big one mind-controlling the smaller ones?

The Council of the Elements

Quite a lot of brightly coloured panels describing the relationships of the elements in many languages.

Suoh Elements: Inspired by the Elements

Several colourfully framed panels cycle through inworld portraiture above elemental themed landscaping. Information and gift at a separate panel on one corner of the parcel.

SL21B Pod Station

Where the pod and balloon tours leave from and return to.

Progeny

Muir bloody vampires. (Sorry, couldn’t resist.) Another highly Goth castle containing lots of information on another vampire role playing system, distinct it is to be assumed from Bloodlines.

Eclipse Ridge

Supernatural role playing, does this mean more vampires?! I think it does, but other things as well.

SL21B – Pod Tours & The Tapestry of Time

On By altathiemenIn Second Life, SL EventsLeave a comment
A woman with glossy black hair wearing large silver heart shaped earrings and a purple blouse stands at the left of a narrow frame. Only her head and shoulders are visible as she looks toward the right at a large gathering of avatars in a fantasy, underwater themed auditorium.

Dang! I very nearly missed today’s town hall at the Aquatorium. RL did its best to wear me out before lunchtime and I very nearly napped through the event. I did manage to take in the last half hour and heard a lot of very interesting things from the Lindens and Moles. I will have to hope this will be uploaded to their YouTube channel. (So glad the Lindens hold these events!)

The Tapestry of Time

Much of yesterday was spent on one of my big SLB indulgences. I don’t spend all that much time living in the past, at least I don’t think I do… *eyes her enormous collection of 70s and 80s vinyl and rolls her eyes*. But I do have my nostalgic moments. The Tapestry of Time is the SL21B exhibit which is guaranteed to trigger one of those.

The sun sets in a purple sky with occasional orange clouds. It has a wide ring around it and is just touching the top of an inverted conical tower formed from broad twisting panels. Balconies reached by walkways are cantilevered out from the main structure at a variety of angles and heights. Nine are visible in the part of the tower that shows above the bottom of the frame. Columns descend below each balcony and show patches of cyan lighting. A redish-purple sea fills the lower background.

I started my climb up the tower starting at 2003 and working my way up. I stop at every platform, read each blurb about the year’s happenings and view every picture on the displays. It’s just as well I do most of my SLB exploration on my own because I’m sure my incredibly slow progress would drive anybody else mad!

I was going look through the whole 21 years at one go but…

Interlude at The Aquatorium


Along about 2019 I got the group notice – you have joined the Second Life Birthday group right? RIGHT?! – about the Moles setting up some aquatic and other activities around The Aquatorium.
Over I went and had a great time. There was bowling, bumper boats, jet skis, water balloons, vicious pool noodles, and some terrific water slides.
There were even a couple slip-n-slides set out and I swear I felt RL cooler after sliding down them. I’m sure there’s a psychology paper to be found in that fact somewhere.
Whoever came up with this idea, well done! Awesome idea!

After a couple hours play, and total chaos as the Moles tore down the temporary activities, it was back to complete my alpine traverse of The Tapestry of Time tower. The 2020 section used to have one of my displays built into it, but that went away with the new architecture. Pity, but the result is a much cleaner look, and the Bellisseria development slide show can be seen in a couple other places anyway.

A glossy blue pyramid sits on top of a brownish rock pedestal. The view is edge on to one corner of the pyramid and its square pedestal. The sides of both the pyramid and the pedestal are decorated with signs of earth and fire elements. Behind, a woman with black hair wearing a light purple top and dark purple slacks looks on at the pyramid. All of this is sitting on a blue floored, circular platform with low light gray walls. Behind, to the left, a path leads to other displays through a circular arched tunnel.

Pod Tours

Very soon I will begin walking the exhibit areas of SL21B. In preparation, to gather some of the highlights and figure out some landmarks, I took the YavaScript Pod tours of the main and adult themed SL21B areas.

In years past, I either complete ignored the tours or put them off until the second to last day of SLB. This year I decided to flip the script and see if it could leave me better set up to explore the exhibit regions.

The Main Pod Tour

To begin at the beginning, head to the main Pod Terminal and click on the waiting pod. (A new one rezzes every time one leaves, so there should always be one ready to go.)

A small air car with mottled blue finish and round headlamps faces toward the viewer in the middle of the image. A woman with black hair and a purple blouse can bee seen riding it. The street it's on, which recedes almost directly away from the viewer, is paved with bright tan cobblestones. To the right is a tan building with bright green trim which has a sign that can partly be read "ADIO", probably from RADIO. On the left are distant trees and tall green and purple crystals.

I grabbed a pod at the start and rode the tour all the way through at one sitting. You don’t have to do either of these things. The pods tend to run every ten minutes or so. You can pick one up whenever you see one and continue the ride from there, hopping off as you like.

The whole thing ran an hour and twenty minutes for me. The route this year is straightforward. Beginning from Breathtaking, the route winds along the major avenues of each region going around the SL21B lands in a clockwise overall path. Turn outs are made at each of the large event venues and the welcome area.

A woman with black hair tied in two ponytails sits in a small air car with a mottled blue finish. The car is moving toward the left of the image over a grassy area. Part of a rocky rise can just be seen at the left side. The background is dominated by a pale blue sky with high clouds. Some of the clouds are shaped like swimming whales.

The pods don’t move excessively fast, and in fact slow down to a craw at region crossings. I never had trouble with region content not loading before I approached it. Nor did I have any major region crossing issues. A smooth ride throughout.

The Balloon Tour

This was not my luck when I tried the balloon tour. I got dumped at the crossing back into the exhibit regions after flying by The Aquatorium. I teleported back to the start and tried again, with no issues the second time.

A large wooden ship flies above a stony peninsula suspended from four tall rotors. To its right, a rainbow patterned balloon drifts by. The sun light is low and from the right. A blue ocean and pale blue sky with high clouds form the background. Some the clouds look like a pod of whales swimming by.

The balloon tour is only twenty minutes long and follows the same basic clockwise path. It moves right along and flies a little ways up. You may want to up your draw distance accordingly and you can expect some things to rez just before you reach them.

Aside from moving at a good pace, the trip is made faster because the balloon flies right over the exhibits in a direct line. If you have shared environment set, you’ll see a lot of lighting shifts. If that bugs you, set the sun to midday and relax. There’s a similar effect with audio streams. I paused my playback as it got a bit annoying.

The Adult Pod Tour

Under a dark sky with glowing purple clouds, a castle stands in the distance with a large red planet setting behind it. A fiery glow can be seen through a couple of the castle's windows. A road paved with glossy dark rock leads from the castle toward the viewer. In the immediate foreground, a small air car with a yellow with orange spots finish is facing out of the frame. The small round headlamps are lit. A woman with black hair and a purple blouse sits in the left-hand seat and is looking off to her right-front.

Finally, I rode the pod tour though the adult regions. (And no, I didn’t see anything that shocked me out of my wits. First, I’ve been in SL a little while now and would really take something to shock me. Second, I really wasn’t looking that hard.

Like the main pod tour, you can hop off and on at any point. The start is at the adult pod terminal. From start to return was 30 minutes for me.

There was one surprising moment when east-bound, the car teleported up to the Firestone Keep stage entrance and offered me a chance to hop out there. After a couple clicks, it teleported back and continued on its way.

The adult Shop & Hop regions are joined up to the exhibit regions and the pod tour takes them in as well, making a circuit through the shopping regions to join up the roads entering them from the exhibit areas.

Folding in a couple false starts, getting dumped from my balloon and Firestorm crashing surprisingly in the adult Shop & Hop part of the tour, along with a two hour detour to the super fun aquatic activities, I’ve spent all the time on SL21B I can for today ☹. Tomorrow, it’s on to the exhibit areas!

SL21B – The Nimbus and Stonehold Stages

On By altathiemenIn Second Life, SL EventsLeave a comment
The sun sets into the sea in an amber sky to the left of image. On the right side, a portion of a large building can be seen. There is a semicircular pier jutting out toward the left. Near the center of the frame, a tiny figure of a woman can be seen standing on the pier looking to the left. Fountains spurting water surround the pier.

The Nimbus

What could be more evocative of the element of air than an event stage on a flying sailing ship. The Nimbus’s deck, which is the event area, straddles the four regions of Amaze, Imagination, Astonish, and Astound.

A grassy road winds up an island or peninsula covered in high rock pinnacles. Just behind the high rocks, a very large wooden ship can be seen flying, suspended beneath tall rotors.

Getting to The Nimbus requires a sort of leap of faith. I was not 100% convinced that using a cannon to launch oneself to the dance floor was entirely safe. But it turned out to be quite quick and painless.

A large, ornate brass cannon sits in the middle of a grassy area. Behind it, two bunches of green and red balloons, and quite big ones too, are tied to rocks on the ground. A steep bluff fills half the background to the right behind them. The cannon is angled up and to the left. A woman in black jeans and sleeveless top with glossy blond hair looks up at the cannon. A sign reading "Party Cannon Click to Teleport" has been placed with a number of crates in front of the cannon.

The texturing on the ship is lovely to see. I presume there are lots of PBR materials being employed here. Look closely at the play of light on the deck surfaces as well as the details of the carvings on the sides of the ship.

This build appears, based on the creator field of just about every element I inspected, to be a product of Ancient Mole. Also the ancient tome Easter egg which you can hunt for looks like a static copy of his sometime avatar.

Stonehold

The final stage on the list is Stonehold, which spans the regions of Wonderous, Dazzle, Exhilarate, and Fascinate.

A large circular area is surrounded by a heavy stone gallery with broad, curved stone lintels supported by columns. The gallery has four entrances, two large stone arches and two other, massive stone arches with curved capitals. Within the area enclosed is a central grassy area around which a ring of paving runs. Paved paths lead from the arches in toward the central area. Many small spheres of varying colours rise from the grassy area in the center. Outside the gallery tow the left and behind is a dense pine wood. To the right, a bright, double stone pathway leads to one of the larger entrances. Parts of hedge mazes can be seen on the near and far side of this pathway.

Last in our list of elements is earth. Stonehold, grounded firmly to the earth with its heavy stone architecture, surrounded and indeed even partly overgrown with plants represents this element well. A seemingly simple, if immense, structure, the detailing of this build is amazing. Look closely at the columns and other stonework, particularly with low angle lighting. It’s really great work!

A wide double path of stone divided by long pools of water runs between vast hedge mazes toward a very large stone arch in the distance. Colonnaded galleries run off from the left and right of this arch. Behind this edifice, a dense pine forest grows. The entire scene is surrounded by the sea.

There’s a lot more to Stonehold’s surroundings than most stages. Out front are two enormous hedge mazes that I will have to explore soon. Behind is a thick pine woods with paths and a meandering stream that empties into the ocean. Hunters may wish to give this area some attention 😉.

And now it’s time to find a place to relax after a busy day’s exploring.

Alta’s Pocket Guide to SL21B

On By altathiemenIn Second Life, SL EventsLeave a comment
A wide view of part of a huge futuristic circular room. Cyan bands around the ceiling and floor illuminate the massive space. Toward the right, part of a large circular hole in the floor can be seen through which various shaped and sized vertical elements protrude. From the left and back toward the right, groupings of cylindrical pedestals can be seen with widely varying packages sitting on top of them. In the foreground, with just her head and shoulders visible, a woman with glossy white hair tied into ponytails looks toward the right across the room.

Here’s my completely unofficial pocket/quick-start guide to this year’s SLB. For all the details, you should start browsing through the Featured News blog on the Second Life site.

A bird's eye view of the SL21B welcome area. A nighttime view of a broad plaza. A large mosaic spelling out SL21B occupies the middle of the plaza. Standing rectangular panels form a crescent around the far side of the mosaic. A lattice work pyramid surmounts the whole plaza.

If you’re arriving from a link on the community blogs or the Destination Guide, then you’re most likely going to begin at the Welcome Area shown above. Some things to take care of before you zoom off to the event spaces or exhibit areas:

Hunt HUDs

Pick up your hunt HUDs from the givers right at the Welcome Area plaza. There are two hunts this year. There’s this year’s edition of the Swaginator hunt which works much as it has for the past few years. There’s also The Elements Hunt, which has its own HUD.

For those new to the Swaginator hunt, just wear the HUD and follow the clues. You’ll know when you’ve found the prize stations. Touch them (in order!) to get your prize and the next clue. Tips: Don’t over think the clues and focus on the big public areas and event spaces. Swaginator prize givers have not, yet, been seen in the exhibitor areas.

The Elements Hunt is new. This hunt does encompass the exhibition regions. So, there’s a nice big scope for your searches. The HUD comes with a note card explaining how it all works. The important bits are:

  • Wear your SL21B – Elements Collection Hunt HUD.
  • Collect elements across the exhibitor regions.
  • When you find one, walk over it or walk within 5 meters of it and touch it.
  • The Elements Collection Hunt HUD will now increase by a point.
  • Find another element and repeat!

The prize is a decorative/huggable/animesh Cobalt Boopie. Once you’ve completed the hunt, return to the welcome area to receive the prize from the giver.

In another change, sadly, they are not giving away an EV this year.

Getting Around

Two panels stand before a low concrete wall. Blue flowers are growing/spilling from a planter behind the wall and can be seen between the two panels. In the distance, fountains can be seen against a night sky. The left hand panel is titled 'Adult Teleporter' and has four buttons labeled 'Firestone Keep', 'Exhibitors', 'Shop & Hop', and 'POD Terminal'. The right hand panel is titled 'Teleporter' and nine buttons labeled 'Welcome Area', 'Stonehold', 'The Nimbus', 'Aquatorium', 'Exhibitors', 'Shop & Hop', 'Tapestry of Time', 'Gift Area', and 'POD Terminal'.

SLB is big. To find where you need to go, the Destination Guide’s SL21B category provides a great list of locations.

If you want to get a quick(ish) overview of the whole SL21B space, there are once again Yava Pod tours running. There are POD terminals for both the main and adult regions.

Climb into a pod, and take some notes, and you’ll have a pretty good idea of what’s where as you start your serious explorations.

Finally, there are the teleporters. Somewhere in each region, usually near the center of exhibit spaces or the entrances to event venues, will be two panels (see above) with teleport locations for main and adult SLB regions. Just touch the label and go.

And if all that isn’t enough, there are usually volunteer greeters around the welcome area who can hand you a notecard of links to interesting locations.

Events

The Opening Ceremony…

…has come and gone. However, Vic Mornington live streamed the session on YouTube and has posted the video here. Note that the video starts well before Patch’s speech and includes lots of camming around the attendees and presenters. If you want to skip to the opening ceremony itself start about 23 minutes in. Vic also recorded the fireworks show after the welcome speech.

Town Halls and Community Roundtables

A series of four town halls and the second community roundtable will be held over the course of the next week. All of these events will be at the Aquatorium Water Stage.

  • Tuesday, June 25th at 1:30pm SLT – Town Hall with the Product and Engineering teams
  • Wednesday, June 26th at 1:30pm SLT – Town Hall with the Product Operations
  • Thursday, June 27th at 1:30pm SLT – Town Hall Brett Linden interviews the Founder of Second Life Philip Linden
  • Friday, June 28th at 1:30pm SLT – Town Hall with the Moles!
  • Monday, July 1st at 11:30am SLT – Second Community Roundtable with Oberwolf Linden and Patch Linden

In my experience, some of these sessions can be very popular. It wouldn’t hurt to plan on showing up at least half an hour early.

Live Music and DJs

As is traditional with SLB, live music and DJs will be playing at all the stages pretty much solidly through the first ten days of SL21B. Big thanks to all the volunteers that make this happen as well as the musicians and DJs.

For the schedule of who’s playing what where, see the Google calendar here.

There are again four main events stages where all this music will be happening.

The Gift Area

A huge futuristic circular room. Cyan bands around the ceiling and floor illuminate the massive space. A large circular hole in the floor can be seen through which various shaped and sized vertical elements protrude. All along the floor that surrounds the hole, groupings of cylindrical pedestals can be seen with widely varying packages sitting on top of them. Several people can be seen looking over the items on the pedestals.

The gift area is on a sort of mezzanine level at The Tapestry of Time. The gift area needs no explanation. Just head on in and start clicking. (Oh your poor inventory!)

The Exhibit Areas

There are sixteen main and four adult exhibit regions hosting some 310 exhibits! A full list of exhibitors can be found here in the community blogs. The full list of exhibitor regions, with SLURLs, is below.

Main Exhibit Regions

Adult Exhibit Regions

Shop & Hop

Past a planter filled with green foliage and flowers is a wide, high roofed enclosed mall. A tall column fronted with purple crystals rises to support the mostly transparent roof in the middle distance. A half a dozen store fronts can be seen along the back and right walls. Above the stores the high wall is decorated with a multicolour mural with something like an ocean wave theme. The rest of the wall is composed of heavy X shaped supports. A few tiny shoppers can just be made out in the distance.

Shopping? Of course there’s shopping. There is the traditional SLB Shop & Hop as well as a half a dozen regions of adult themed Shop & Hop. See the full vendor list here.

  • Shop & Hop (well, it’s just one region, but it’s a place to start.)
  • Adult Shop & Hop can be reached by walking or flying from the Firestone Keep stage. The adult shopping regions are directly attached to the east end of the adult exhibit/stage regions.

Did I leave out a fave part of SL21B? Let me know what I missed!

SL21B – Welcome Area, Firestone Keep, and the Aquatorium

On By altathiemenIn Second Life, SL EventsLeave a comment
A campfire burns toward the left of the picture. On the right, a woman sits in a folding chair looking at the fire.

SLB Awesome and SLB Magnificent

The main welcome area landing point is at SLB Awesome. The welcome area plaza stands under a huge lattice work pyramid. Head down the steps to the north to get to the rest of the SLB regions via the other welcome region SLB Magnificent.

A lattice work pyramid floats over a large plaza on an island rising steeply out of the water in the foreground. Another plaza can be seen through the pyramid on the far side of the island. In the far distance a tall tower composed of twisting panels rises out of the water. Many balconies jut out from it at varying heights.

But, before you head down the ramp toward SLB Magnificent, and The Tapestry of Time beyond, make sure to collect everything from the welcome area. Around the landing point, you’ll find a number of panels.

  • The SL21B gifts giver
  • A group joiner
  • HUD givers
    • For the Swaginator hunt
    • For the Elements hunt
  • Panel where you can add a texture/image to the community gallery
  • Directions for making sure you’re getting the full PBR experience
  • Teleporters to the general and adult regions
  • And a portal to the Welcome Hub (where there are portals back and to the Shop n’ Hop
A nighttime view of a broad plaza. A large mosaic spelling out SL21B occupies the middle of the plaza. Standing rectangular panels form a crescent around the far side of the mosaic. A lattice work pyramid surmounts the whole plaza.

Magnificent is mostly empty with paths bordered by fountains leading to a central pyramid. Along the paths are displays that will show the images submitted to the community gallery.

The Firestone Keep Stage

A view into a ruined cathedral. The wall and arches to the right still stand as does the far wall at the end of what must have been the nave. Bright orange light fills the remaining windows as if something is burning on the other side. There is no roof and a large red planet hangs over the far wall of the cathedral. Large braziers burn in rows on the left and right down the length of the nave. At the far end, a number of people dance before a DJ deck.

The theme for SL21B is “The Elements”, meaning Fire, Water, Air, and Earth. The Firestone Keep stage is most definitely constructed using the element of fire. The ruined cathedral where the stage itself is found is filled with large burning braziers. An orange black sky is dominated by a huge red planet hanging in the northern sky.

The Firestone Keep stage is in the adult area of SL21B. Last year was the first year SLB hosted adult exhibit regions. This year is the first where an event stage has been placed there.

Like the other three stages, Firestone Keep is composed of four regions (Steamy, Feisty, Spicy, and Smoldering), but not in the usual way. The stage is off by itself in one region and the other three are mostly for decoration.

There are back doors into the adult Shop n’ Hop from Smoldering http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/SLB%20Smoldering/239/128/23 and Feisty http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/SLB%20Feisty/248/129/23.

Watch your feet on the northern path through Steamy. The lava is running across the road. And there are even lava bombs falling in Feisty.

The Aquatorium

A bridge arches over a shallow canal in the foreground between two blue pillars. It leads to a round path that runs around another canal filled with shallow, light blue water. Lumps of sand provide a foot bridge across the second canal. Over the circular path, hanging braziers hold crystal flames in green, purple, blue, pink, and orange. In the center of everything is a circular stage backed by a disk on which an SL21B logo is painted. A wall fronted by tented arches stands behind the stage area. Tall free standing arches surmount the structure in the distance.

The Aquatorium, covering the four regions of Mesmerize, Pizzazz, Spellbound, and Stunning, is the water stage. It’s also the marquee event stage for SL21B. This is where the welcome event was held and I’m pretty sure this is where the townhalls and community round tables are to be held.

The water theme runs thoroughly through the whole stage build. Sea plants grow around the inner walls. Water spills down the sides of the stairway to the secondary stage. Canals surround the main stage. And the whole edifice sits in the middle of four regions of sea.

I’ve only seen two of the four stages, apart from quick glances, but it looks like the Moles have outdone themselves yet again. Looking forward to exploring the air and earth stages next.

Hope to see you at SL21B!

SL21B is Underway!

On By altathiemenIn Second Life, SL EventsLeave a comment
A woman in a strapless, flame coloured dress and white, glossy hair stands at the left of the frame looking toward the right. She is wearing a dark red-gold crown. A stone ramp descends toward the viewer on the right side of the image. In the background, a stone block wall is decorated with large images of the Second Life hand logo, a flame, and partly obscured by the ramp, a leafy plant. A lattice structure can just be made out above and behind the wall.

Second Life’s 21st Birthday event has kicked off! I’ve been waiting this since the end of SL20B. At noon SLT today, some 45 general and 8 adult SLB regions opened to the public. That includes four, four-region stages and a number of filler regions in the central sea that, I don’t think, contain event or exhibit spaces.

Still, I have 53 regions and 310 exhibits to explore and 10 days to do it all in. Over that same time, there will be five town halls and community round tables. Over this coming weekend, the Lindens will host DJs and live artists at all of the stages, of which there is one at the adult regions this year. Starting Monday, dedicated volunteers will host 24 hour DJs and live musicians at those same stages.

So, I will have a nice busy time!

A man stands at a lecture podium with eight people seated in chairs to either side. In the background is a large SL21B logo on a stone disk. The disk is flanked by pillars with deeply carved capitals. Undersea plants and corals surround the disk and pillars.

Patch delivered the welcome speech at 2:00 PM SLT. There were no big announcements this year, but he did make sure to thank all the people it takes to put on this huge event.

A view from behind a man presenting while standing behind a podium. Several others are seated in folding chairs to his left and right. An audience of a couple hundred people sit in curiously shaped chairs. In the background, tall arches bound carved panels that are illuminated in gold, purple, green, and blue. A large moon rises between two of the arches.

The opening was well attended, with nearly 300 avatars filling the seating areas around the main stage. A few years ago, when similar numbers were approached, the regions had to be restarted. A couple of years back, there were glitches here and there. I have to say that this whole thing ran very smoothly even with hundreds of AVs looking on.

(Note, ones frame rate could suffer badly if one accidentally cammed back into the audience. It sook some patient flycam tweaking to line up the last picture above.)

I’m off for tonight, but I’ll be found wandering SL21B over the next week plus. Hope to see you there!

SciFi Con 16 Continues

On By altathiemenIn Second Life, SL EventsLeave a comment
A panorama of a forested scene. On the left, a tall tan rock cliff stands. It has a water fall pouring down its face, vanishing into the bottom of the frame. A gray stone viaduct runs along the background from the right edge nearly to the cliff. At its left end there is a huge dragon skull. At the right, a woman with long white hair wearing a black bikini, a clear plastic raincoat with white cuffs, and heavy black knee boots looks to the left taking in the view.

I finished wandering through all nine regions of SciFi Con 16 yesterday. Usually, when I finish exploring an event, it has already gone past its scheduled end date and is living on borrowed time. For once, I’ve finished going through all the regions, shops, and exhibits, and there are still days to go! The con is scheduled to run through Tuesday the 4th of June. So, if you haven’t been yet, there is still plenty of time. Get out there!

Shockwave

A nighttime cityscape of several blocks seen from 30 meters or so above street level. The buildings have a late 20th century look to them. Some are brightly lit, others dark. The top of a tall, black building in the distant center has a large yellow orange and smaller, Mars like planet orbiting around it. The sky, fading from black above to purple at the horizon, is filled with a dense canopy of stars.

SLURL: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Shockwave/128/192/64
Sponsor: UFW
Creator: Kippy Numbers

Shops & Organizations

  • Unified Furry Wrestling
  • I.C.U. Photography
  • KC Fashion
  • Lazy Cats KittyCat Market
  • Jazabelle Boutique
  • Urban Boy
  • Red Rocket
  • Eclipse Ridge
  • Fawkes Landing
  • A Fine Grind
  • Second Life Exelsior
  • The Iceberg Lounge
  • Wrestlecorner
  • Decibel
  • Furry Wrestling Federation
  • The Astro Star
  • The Moonstone Studio
  • CODEZ
  • Supernation Comics
  • Savoy Ballroom
  • Whymsical Marketplace
  • The Library at the End of the Universe
  • Hall of Justice
  • SomeOne Stole My Sign
  • The Creatorverse
  • Wayne Enterprises
  • Pendragon Designs
  • Phoenix Ascending
  • Justice

At first glance, Shockwave is a perfectly ordinary late 20th century city getting through another night. Except, the night sky is filled with more stars than I’ve ever seen above Manhattan and some of the buildings are strangely… dynamic. They pulse and throb, swelling out laterally in sudden bursts and then contracting back to normal.

If that wasn’t odd enough, above one can see a pair of co-orbiting orange planets. But, they’re not some distant prospect up in the heavens. They are orbiting around the top of one of the buildings. Not everything is going normally here.

The theme of the region is announced at the entrances as “Heroes vs. Villains”. If that sounds superhero-ish, it is. There are quite a number of superhero themed shops and organizations to be found here. If Marvel or DC are your thing, this is the place for you.

Relicta Naufragium

A view of a futuristic city, or colony, built of numerous clashing futuristic styles. In the foreground, a three story mostly glass pyramid stands. Behind it is a domed structure with many wide windows. At the right edge of the view is a very angular construction with vertical lines of brightly lit windows. The overhead, otherwise black, is filled with what looks like streams of gas, glowing purple to white, then blue, streaming into a galactic black hole. Clumps of debris can be seen in silhouette, apparently orbiting the black hole along with whatever planet, moon, or asteroid the viewer is looking from

SLURL: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Relicta%20Naufragium/128/203/62
Sponsor: Solaris Base Station
Creators: Samuel Saito, Onyx Core

Shops & Organizations

  • New Frontiers
  • Sanna – Science and Art
  • Radio Spiral
  • TATU – New Triscalia
  • Multifarious
  • Solaris Base Station
  • Starfleet Academy Experience
  • CODEZ
  • Urantia
  • Dark Angel Rebels
  • USS Advent
  • Flashpoint
  • Task Force 6
  • Space Colonies: Utopia or Dystopia?
  • Haunt
  • Go-Sci
  • Boai Honglian Companion’s Guild
  • Scavenger Bin
  • USS Durant: New Life
  • National Space Society
  • Warehouse 13
  • Grimly Fiendish
  • Rose Your Life
  • International Spaceflight Museum

‘Relicta Naufragium’ translates to ‘abandoned shipwreck’. An appropriate name. This region is dotted with what appear to be the ruins of several colonies and many wrecked ships of a wide variety of designs. Overhead, the sky is mostly black but a large portion is filled with what look like streams of gas spiraling into a galactic black hole.

Are we in a sort of Sargasso sea of the distant future? [Apologies to Andrew North/Andre Norton] Is this the last planet or asteroid still going as the galaxy drains away into its central black hole? Either way, the region has a winding down/time is running out sort of feel to it.

The other theme here is Star Trek. There are several Trek role play groups that have exhibits in this region. Good to see these groups still going strong. The sponsor, Solaris Base Station has been at it for some six years now. Good work!

One spot I particularly liked is National Space Society’s place toward the south-west corner of the region. They put together a nice comfortable looking place to hang out.

MonsterVerse

A landscape of high rocks surrounds a grassy space with occasional trees. An earth path forms a square, one corner of which can be seen in the foreground. Buildings in many styles fill most of the bottomland. A green and white monorail snakes through the area from right to bottom-left. In the upper-center, a creature of some sort is hang gliding, moving away from the viewer. In the distant center, a rock platform appears to float in the sky, connected to the ground by a slender pinnacle on the left. There is a wrecked sailing ship on the platform. Below and to the right of this platform is a spiral of purple cloud in front of which a large creature resembling Godzilla stands clutching a wrecked helicopter.

SLURL: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/MonstereVerse/49/130/62
Sponsor: USS Nautilus
Creators: Jingie and SF Lluminos

Shops & Organizations

  • The Mustard Seed
  • Boai Honglian Companions
  • Dantooine
  • Swamp Monster DJ
  • Starbase London
  • Dragon Forge
  • USS Nautilus
  • Hivid
  • Section 31
  • Firelight
  • Coghaven
  • CODEZ
  • Belgroth Emporium
  • Atlanta Spacecraft
  • Yavin IV
  • Stone Johnson’s Abduction and Robotics Warehouse
  • Cupcake Contraband
  • Zen Meshworks
  • Starfleet Infinity
  • Sweet Hearts

The final region in my traverse of the SciFi Con 16 lands is MonsterVerse. It’s a bit of a hodgepodge, stylistically as well as in the themes of the shops and organizations.

The basic build is a grassy enclave surrounded by high rocks. Occasional waterfalls spill from the rocks into quiet bucolic corners where primitive, feline?, natives live. The main path is a deeply rutted earthen way that winds between a wide variety of styles of building.

For shops, you’ll find everything from plants at The Mustard Seed to AI bots at Stone Johnson’s or movie rentals at Hivid. Organizations run from role play groups like USS Nautilus to Boai Honglian Companions (a very non-Starfleet type of role play).

A vertical swirl of purple clouds stands some tens of meters high. At its center, a view to a different city can be seen. The swirl is bounded left and right by high rocks. In the center stands a creature resembling Godzilla. It holds a crushed helicopter in its right hand. It is looking off to the viewer's right and roaring. A second helicopter is approaching its head from behind.

But, MonsterVerse did not forget to bring the monster! Off the south there appears to be a sort of dimension gate in front of which stands a kaiju strongly resembling a popular giant lizard, famed of many films in its storied career.

Nearby, the adventurous traveler may climb an almost endless series of steps (or just fly up) to a floating stone platform that contains, incongruously, a wrecked sailing vessel.

With MonsterVerse, that’s about it for SciFi Con 16 for me. Hair Fair and Pride Month are already underway and SL21B will be here before we know it! And besides all that, I’m supposed to be working on my next product!

Exploring SciFi Con 16

On By altathiemenIn Second Life, SL EventsLeave a comment
A water filled street recedes into the distance in the center right part of the view. Over the water, there is a faint golden lattice upon which to walk. Golden streetlamps with glowing gold piping stand along the street on high marble curbs. To the left is an opening into a shop labeled "Vortech." Just inside the shop, a number of vendor boards and a blue police box can be seen. At the right edge of the frame, a heavily tattooed woman with long white hair stands looking toward the store. Her left hand is raised by her ear while her right is folded across her chest. She is wearing a black bikini top, a transparent plastic raincoat with white cuffs, and large silver heart shaped earrings. Only her upper body is in view.

SciFi Con 16 has been going for over a week now, but there remain a few days to enjoy it. If everything goes to plan, it should run through June 4th.

Over the past few days, I’ve gradually explored a few more of the shopping regions at the con. Sadly, SciFi Con comes very shortly after Fantasy Faire, and I often overspend at that event. So, I haven’t been going shopping mad here. So far I have limited my self to a couple donations and one steampunk blaster from Novatech.

The Clopping Dead

A darkened, nighttime view of a cityscape with a strange mix of classic and science fiction architecture. The view is from high above the streets. A giant mushroom with a lace like veil hanging from its cap towers over the buildings in the foreground. Above everything, a giant, purplish Jupiter like planet fills the night sky which is streaked with thin clouds.

SLURL: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/The%20Clopping%20Dead/130/76/64
Sponsor: Progeny Mall
Creator: MysticQ

Shops & Organizations

  • Second Haunts
  • VSide Radio Streams (Empty?)
  • Casterly Rock
  • Amigo U.F.O. Creations
  • The Grimm Funeral
  • Dark Love
  • Noxia
  • Croquis
  • Honor Pro Wrestling
  • Pounce Architecture & Animations
  • CODEZ
  • Cyber
  • Mojo Bone
  • Demonpaws
  • ZaikaVirus
  • Gor-Jus Animations
  • ZuE
  • Jake Only
  • Harbingers of Blood
  • Meshed Up
  • Veil of Night
  • Daggers of Twilight
  • Progeny/Insidious Tribe
  • e.y. Fashion
  • Red Rocket
  • Avali
  • WoRPG
  • Nocturne Skies

There’s a region title you don’t see every day. Apparently, part of the theme of this region is a collision between zombie/undead mythos and the my little pony universe. Interesting.

With the streets all being boardwalks just over water, and the huge gas giant hanging in the night sky, my first guess was that I had strayed onto an ocean moon of some huge planet. However, near one of the region crossings is a panel with some background from the builder.

The Clopping Dead is the island of misfit ponies vs. the undead. The isle of misfit toys comes from the 1964 movie “Rudolf the Red Nose Reindeer”.

My misfit toys are my little pony created in 1983. Their counter was the undead witch or vampires and zombies.

The concept of the clopping dead is set in the swamps outside of New Orleans Louisiana 400 years in the future. Global warming has raise the seas by 60 feet now.

The swamps have access to the underwater realm of the clopping dead. Full of undersea creatures. Look forward to pony and mermaid races on this region.

Now I’m confused by the gas giant in the sky. I’ll get over it.

A couple of areas besides the shops to look into: in the north-east corner of the region is one of the DJ/dance stages for the con. There was a good crowd there while I was looking through this area. Off in the south-east corner is a small swampy spot where one of the Tammy’s (enormous frogs) has escaped from Fantasy Faire and set up housekeeping in the SciFi Con lands.

Right next to Tammy, there is a blue spiral energy stair that will take you to the upper entrance to the next region.

Biohazard

In the center of the view, a large black with gray vertical stripes clock tower stands, it's crown just vanishing into the upper edge of the frame. Above the clock faces, the tower's sides flare out into a wide crown instead of tapering. About the tower, apparently some distance above the ground, a golden lattice walk forms a square. In the distance on either side of the tower, a pair of freestanding rounded arches are visible. The sky above the scene has a light blue, early morning aspect with just a few under-lit clouds.

SLURL: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Biohazard/128/54/61
Sponsor: WHIPpet Radio
Creator: Carl Landfall and Missa Sprout

Shops & Organizations

  • Vortech
  • We Discovered Earth
  • DUBZ Shapes
  • Goodneighbor
  • Weltenville Roleplay
  • Dark Star Radio
  • Model Desires
  • Filly
  • Vision Motors
  • Angry Store
  • Brewed Quest
  • CODEZ
  • Static
  • Cassandra City
  • PixilVerse
  • Aeropunk Sky Pirates Coalition
  • Crixus Carnival of Carnage
  • Sacrificial
  • Safe Waters Foundation
  • WHIPpet Radio
  • Artemisia (Empty)
  • Amusement Rides
  • Kranzworth Media Products
  • Red Rocket Cola
  • Neo Kitsch
  • Kick
  • Incubo Design

Biohazard is a very photogenic build. Buildings with a dieselpunk look to them surround streets not of gold, but made of a golden lattice just over the water beneath. A similar lattice walkway hangs high above the main streets.

To get to the upper walk, you can take the elevator in the clock tower, or climb the spiral stairs next to Tammy in The Clopping Dead.

Echoes of Endor

An assortment of buildings and stone enclaves is scattered along the floor of a forest of tall trees with broad trunks. In the sky, just above the horizon, a vast spherical space station is under construction. It has a menacing look to it.

SLURL: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Echos%20of%20Endor/127/41/63
Sponsor: Only Core Dragons
Creators: Brion Ravens & Rodhan Ravens (With puzzles by Sydelle Sanzibar)

Shops & Organizations

  • Starbase London
  • Raven’s Photography
  • Tython, New Je’daii Order
  • Tea Lane
  • The Ages of Uru
  • Autistic Resource Center
  • What’s Lost Spirits
  • Visualfreelancer
  • Boozed Designs
  • Dantooine – Star Wars Roleplay
  • Grumble
  • Ever Green
  • Dragoos
  • Beyond Star
  • Old World Fantasy / Kitty Creations
  • Panda Panda
  • Sounds Great
  • CODEZ
  • Peeps Dinkies
  • Lola Lane
  • Trip Gear
  • Tiny Explorers
  • Naeya Role Play
  • Dreamscaped
  • MyTree

This is very much a Star Wars themed build. The northern portion is a single extensive diorama reminiscent of the setting for the end of the third movie, episode six? or whatever. The build comes complete with pint sized furry natives in primitive garb attempting to utilize archaic weapons against futuristic armoured vehicles.

A woman and a furry, vaguely human shaped native stand having a discussion amongst tall trees with thick trunks. The forest floor is green with undergrowth.

Chatting with (clicking on) the diminutive natives of this region appears to be part of a local quest. If nothing else, they can help you find a lantern that will let you skip the stairs to the upper level. Teleport up at the Myst Library for a region quest HUD.

Aha, the con monorail appears to be running now. I saw it go by while exploring an elevated dome at the east side of the build. I made my way to the elevators up to the Echoes of Endor station on the line and caught the next coach.

It is indeed working. Hold on to your butts! This thing is fast. It zooms along at quite a clip, making a zigzag loop through all of the regions of SciFi Con.

I still have three more regions to explore but I have at least four days in which to do it. (In fact, I should be able to finish my con walk today.) All of this puts me suspiciously ahead of schedule.

Hope to see you there as I continue my wanderings!