At the point of inspiration in Second Life

A little while ago, I dropped into Inspiration Point and started to grab some snaps. This is a beautifully crafted full region which is home to four stores of varying sizes, and which again amply demonstrates the fact that while the SL Marketplace is a great shopping convenience, it can cause us to miss out on visiting a lot of quite delightful regions.

The stores operating here are House of Fox, Laviere & Tee*fy, The Secret Store, and Kirin, all of which are spread around a cafe sitting towards the centre of the region, and which forms something of a focal / meeting point, which I’ve used here as the default SLurl. All four stores are reasonably separated from one another, and each sits within its own landscaped area, all of which flow together into a whole which in turn both invites visitors to come and spend time exploring, and is itself framed by an offshore sim surround of green hills.

From the cafe, you can follow the paths leading around the island and find your way to each of the four stores and their surroundings. There are direct teleports available to three of the stores, in the form of the store logos pinned to a noticeboard (which is the technique used at each of the stores), but I really recommend that you ignore them and simply follow your nose, or you’ll risk missing a lot of the touches which make this region a really worthwhile visit – and for which I’m not sure the images here do justice.

As regular readers know, I’ve started having some issues with my current PC. Whether the issues are GPU-related or something more serious is proving a little hard to get sorted out (I’m no expert in these things), so the result is the images here (as with the majority in my recent posts) are not actually snapshots, but screen captures. I’m hoping this will change in the future, now that one or two RL issues have been sorted out, but time will tell on that.

For the photographer and artist there are a lot of opportunities here for some creative and memorable shots. The default windlight works well, and the region lends itself perfectly to windlight tweakings. All of the stares are themselves photogenic in various ways – but best to obtain prior permission if intending to use them in any form of photo shoot, etc.

There’s a great balance here between open spaces and buildings, and land and water, which gives the region a very harmonious feel. There are also some familiar set-pieces which the keen SL explorer will immediately recognise and which provide a feeling of comfortable familiarity with the reagion: Alex Bader’s Enchanted Tree Tunnel, trees and Boardwalk; Masomaso Quan’s mesh footpaths, Lilith Heart’s flora, and so on.

With the mix of open spaces, care in the design and water features, it’s pretty obvious why I’m drawn to Inspiration Point. Whether you are window shopping or exploring SL, it is well worth adding to your list of destinations. And of you’re trying to think of a place where you can meet-up with friends, why not try the cafe there? You can meet, chat, shop and explore, all in the one region!

Related Links

• Inspiration Point SLurl (Rated: Moderate)
• SL Destinations in this blog