Time In Tilheyra in Second Life

Tilheyra (the name being Icelandic for “belong”) is a Full region utilising the private region land capacity bonus to offer a mixed public / residential environment. Designed by T Lefevre (Teagan Lefevre) to showcase her TL Designs brand, it was brought to my attention by Shawn Shakespeare.

Whilst it may well have an Icelandic word for its name, it shouldn’t be inferred that this is in any way an Icelandic themed setting. Quite simply put, it isn’t; rather, it drawing on influences from across northern Europe to produce an engaging, picturesque environment – albeit one with the potential to give some a few viewer issues when visiting.

Given the public / private nature of the setting, effort has wisely been put into keeping the two somewhat separated: the major public elements of the region sit to the north on an island of their own, a broad channel separating them from the larger part of the region, wherein can be found the rental properties – together with some further, more rural public spaces -, with the two connected via a stone bridge.

The landing point sits at the western end of the public island, sitting alongside a small pond shaded by trees. A walled path passing under a glass roof points the way to where steps climb up to a paved terrace, the home of a garden café. Two sets of steps run down from this, one into the main street running the length of a small business district, the other down to a promenade running eastwards and directly above the channel separating the two islands.

There’s a lot to take in along this little township, with various businesses (including the local rental office) among the building façades. Most of the businesses are built around the three sides of a little square within its own pond. Meanwhile, the promenade offers a pleasant walk along the waterfront, complete with steps down to a small wharf and views across to the southern island.

The eastern end of the island is dominated by a café bar with a walled outdoor seating area sitting beyond the bar building (the café part fronts the promenade). This seating area in turn gives way to a rugged headland guarded by a pergola that makes for a cosy retreat for couples at one end, and a deck running down to the water on the other.

Across the bridge, the southern island is far more rural; grass bridleways replace paved roads. As noted, this island is home to the region’s rental homes (and what may be a couple of other private residences – these are without rental signs but sit inside their own parcels, so without actually trespassing, I was unable to tell), so exploring should be tempered by the need to avoid intruding on people’s privacy. However, there are some public spaces here as well.

Chief among the latter is a stone walk leading down to an over-the-water deck and, somewhat opposite it along one of the bridleways, the ruins of a old house, perhaps once a manor home for the local land-owner, but which now remains only as a few broken walls within which sits a gorgeous wild garden and retreat.

The problems I referred to at the top of this piece come down to the fact that this is a region that is texture heavy – and many of those textures appear to be high resolution. This can make rendering scenes somewhat painful for those on mid-to-low end systems; even with DD reduced from my usual 256 to 128m and with shadows disabled, I had both issues with slow texture loading and texture thrashing (textures swapping from sharp to blurred and back – the first time I’ve had this on a persistent basis for a while) on my 4Gb GTX 970 (hardly the most modern GPU, I know – but pretty middle-of-the road for SL). So, if you are on a less-capable system, do be prepared to make some viewer adjustments.

Nevertheless, Tilheyra offers an engaging visit, and plenty of opportunities for photography.

SLurl Details

• Tilheyra (rated Moderate)