March Mesh Madness kicked off on March 1st, and has caused some upset / confusion. The event “brings together unique mesh designs from 20 established Second Life”, and is open until March 15th, and has been organised by Damien Fate, himself a mesh designer, and is hosted on Fate Island.
Part of the confusion seems to be that people mistakenly took this to be an LL-sponsored event as it is currently appearing on the splash screens for those Viewers using the official splash / MotD notifications. As has been pointed out in the thread linked-to above, such MotD links aren’t that uncommon – they are pulled from the Destination Guide (wherein Mesh Madness is listed), and so seeing it linked their isn’t necessarily a sign of any LL collusion.
Anyway, I decided to jump over and take a look. The sim itself is nicely designed in a modern, minimalistic look, comprising a central arrival plaza with a display kiosk in each corner, surrounded by 16 more kiosks, four to a side to form a square, all linked by walkways over water. The majority of the build appears to be mesh (or at least partial mesh) and as such, one would expect it to be relatively low-lag.
Sadly, this is far from the case. With just 12 avatars in the region, Fate Island exhibited more-or-less the same amount of lag experienced elsewhere with a similar number of avatars combined with the likes of multiple textures, vendors, etc. Rubber-banding was the order of the day.
In terms of the content on display, I’d have to say that things are – disappointing in some respects. Around twelve of the kiosks are devoted to clothing / footwear / accessories, with another three devoted to mesh hair and the remaining five offering up such items as furnishings, trees, and so on. There is little imagination shown with the various kiosks; most of which resemble mall-like slots, rather than attempts to showcase mesh. The one real exception to this is the Rustica kiosk, where Max Graf has (as ever) demonstrated his talent by producing a first-rate display of his mesh creations.
Of course, one might argue that it’s easier perhaps for Max to produce such a display than others – his items are very much touch / feel, whereas clothing is more look / try. Even so, his kiosk and that of Organica, situated almost exactly opposite in the region, are the eye-catching units that tend to draw one to them.
As mentioned, the majority of the creations being displayed here are of the looks / try variety – clothing, accessories, hair, etc., and most of the vendor boards offer demo versions of items so you can try before you buy – and this is strongly recommended.
It would have been nice to see a more varied selection of mesh on offer here – whether the final selection was down to a matter of whosoever applied for a slot, or whether the event was specifically more geared towards the fashion / accessory side of things, I’ve no idea. Until Pamela Galli made mention of the event, I wasn’t even aware it existed, and only saw the MotD as I happened to fire-up Dolphin this morning while running my weekly Viewer version checks (I use Firestorm as a rule, so don’t get the MotD otherwise).
Obviously, a single-region exhibition doesn’t allow for large-scale displays such as buildings, but it would have been nice to see more in the way of furniture and perhaps vehicles, etc.
That said, if you’ve not tried mesh clothing / footwear / hair, this is a place to visit if you want to grab a handful of demos and give things a try before you plunge deeper into the world of mesh.
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 