Monthly Archives: June 2008

Introducing OpenSim Shengri La Dream

First View of Shengri La Dream

First View of Shengri La Dream

Shengri La Dream emerged from the protosphere over the weekend and landed next to Shengri La Spirit.  I show the first views of Dream, which will be used to develop content and to push on the inventory aspects of OpenSim. 

One of the first things I’ll be doing is dumping in a lot of my textures that I’ve developed over the past three years so we can start to develop a reasonable sized avatar inventory.  Then I’ll start developing a range of mesh garments, skins and of course, prim-based content such as jewelry, shoes, and other attachments.

This will allow us to find the functional limit of OpenSim and start getting some performance benchmarks as I build out and add to my inventory.

Looking at Spirit from Dream

Looking at Shengri La Spirit from Shengri La Dream

Midsummer’s Day Ode Butterfly Hunts in Shengri La, Saturday June 21st

Please join us in the visually rich Second Life islands of the Fashion Research Institute on Saturday, June 21st to celebrate the start of summer with a pair of Ode butterfly hunts. 

Random Calliope’s Ode jewelry set is justifiably famous and has a devoted collector base.  Ode was developed in a range of colors, and you can collect the set by hunting butterflies.  Not all butterflies contain jewelry, so you have to hunt down and catch a few before you receive a piece. 

Even if you aren’t a jewelry collector, it’s fun to watch the crowd of avid hunters in pursuit of butterflies.  When conducted on the five-island Fashion Research Institute complex, it quintuples the fun, as hunters spread out over five sims in search of the little devils.  The little guys are scripted to zip-zag quickly around, not unlike real butterflies, and they can be very difficult to capture.  Shengri La’s lush landscaping adds to the fun as hunters have to beat their way throguh branches and flowers to capture butterflies.

There will be two hunts, one in the morning for the convenience of our Eastern guests, and one in the early evening for the convenience of our Western guests.  Hunt at one or both, no RSVP is required.

The sims will be locked and closed to the public one hour before the hunts begin, at 6 am SLT and at 4 pm SLT. All visitors to the sims will be asked to leave as the sims are locked and restarted and the butterflies released prior to the hunt. The islands will reopen to the public promptly at 7 am SLT and at 5 pm SLT.  Butterflies will be released on all five sims: Shengri La, Shengri La Hope, Shengri La Peace, Shengri La Joy, and Shengri La Love. 

See you there!

OpenSim Supporters from IBM and Microsoft Rave On in Shengri La

If you couldn’t make it last night, you missed a great large-scale immersive 3D event in virtual worlds in the Fashion Research Institute’s Shengri La sims in Second Life.  Over and above the fact it was another one of our typically cool, visually compelling rave parties with a fantastic music stream laid down by DJane Qee Nishi, what made last night particularly interesting was that we had OpenSim supporters and developers from both my technology partner, IBM, and from Microsoft and its partners. 

Not unlike pounding the first stake in the transnational American railroad system, this casual social gathering stands as a critical point in the evolution of the open source OpenSim development movement. 

Of course, for those of us who were there, we enjoyed the excellent tracks laid down by Qee, the fantastic outfits so many attendees put together, the witty repartee and occasional innuendo without being deeply impressed with the historical significance of the event.  The usual IBM partiers were joined last night by developers and OpenSim supporters from Microsoft and one of Microsoft’s partners, G-Squared.  G2 Proto (Kyle Gomboy – as mentioned in Tish Chute’s article on her UgoTrade blog) was kind enough to stream the event, live, from Shengri La to Snowcrash TV.  Kyle will have clips of the event available sometime later, so even if you couldn’t be there last night, you can see what you missed.  Plus, of course, snaps of some of the attendees…

DJane Qee Nishi is UP!

Garythegoat Raving in Style

Need…More….Particles

 

G2 Proto Looks Shocked
(But check out those wings!)

Chestnut & Zha Ravin’ in the Air

Calli’s New Wings

Script Wizard Dale & Harper

Blank Cleanslate, IBM OpenSim Island Manager

Various Ravers~!

A Greener Solution

Utopians Midrave: Rez, Chestnut, Calli, Zha, and Me

Go, Jess!

Awesome Rave Outfit!

Minions or Baby Junques? You Decide!

Ravers Raving on

Scientist Troy McLuhan Performs WaveLength Experiments

Michelle Has Great Wings

Frequent Raver Kate Nicholas and RobinG from G-Squared Rave on!

 A Nice Array of Wings

Rose Queen in a Prim & Proper Frock

Woo Hoo! Blue!

Ravers Eva Bellambi and Kate Nicholas

Another Fashionably Attired Raver

Raving Hip Hopper!

A Very Cool Outfit

A great time was had by all. Here’s to a bright future for OpenSim, and the day we hold our first rave in our IBM-hosted OpenSim.  Get your Avatars ready, cause it’s coming, just a matter of time.

Hope you can join us next time, when we host the SteamPunk Rave in Shengri La!