Category: Exploring Second Life

At the end of August 2019, we dropped into Breath of Nature on the suggestion of Shawn Shakespeare. A homestead region designed by JurisJo, it is a curious region that comes pretty much in two parts.

The western two-thirds of the land present a low-lying pastoral setting, partially split into two smaller islands alongside of the “mainland” area. To the north of the region stands a curtain wall of rock from which waterfalls drop, one set into a pool that feed outwards to the west and south, giving rise to the first of the two smaller islands.

Home to horses and sheep and offering one of several places to dance, this island is otherwise devoid of major signs of human habitation. However, it sits close to the second small island although the two are not directly connected. Instead, moving between them is by way of two bridges and one of a number of tracks the cross the bulk of the land.

Walking this path presents a picturesque view of the thatched cottage and windmill occupying the second island. Flat except for a single hill on which sits a lone tree, the island presents the cottage and windmill in a picturesque setting as they reside in the long grass. Together, cottage and mill look north over the rest of the land and offer a farm-like feel, and across the water, the open fields and tracks add to this, as do the cattle, sheep, pick-up truck and wagon that can be found there.

The eastern, and smaller side of the region is far more tropical in looks. Sitting a short distance from the main landing point, it presents a beach setting, complete with tiki huts, a freshwater swimming pool and more places to sit or dance. It is also split into two by a sandy-bottomed stream that flows outwards from the second set of waterfalls that drop from the high curtain wall of cliffs. Crossed by a single wooden bridge, the stream allows the north side of the beach forms a sandy headland running out from the lee of the cliffs and capped by one of the region’s two lighthouses.

This tropical setting is very different to the rest of the region; it is as if by merely stepping through the gap in the cliffs that separate the two, one is striding across the world, for temperate to tropical, the archway standing over the path connecting them being a portal of transfer.

I admit that the tropical element of the region, with its golden sands, tiki huts and palm trees sat a little oddly to me during our visits. Not that there are any significant issues with the landscaping or design; just that of the two sides of the region, I instinctively felt more at home in the more temperate side, amidst the grasses and tracks, whilst wandering between the stone-built watermill – long since converted into a luxury home –  and the cottage and windmills, and following the tracks to see where they might lead.

But whether your presence is for idyllic countryside scenes that might have slipped out of a Constable painting or for the sandy delights of a tropical haven, Breath of Nature offers the chance to enjoy both. And with plenty of places available through to either to sit and relax or enjoy a dance, it has plenty to offer visitors who drop in.

SLurl and Links

• Breath of Nature (Serena Falls, rated Moderate)
• Exploring Second Life 2019 in this blog

We were drawn to The Island That Is Not There simply because of the region’s name. A Homestead designed by Franz Markstein, it presents a rugged island setting with a mix of influences that give the region a strangely eclectic, but flowing look and feel.

Second star to the right and straight on till morning, this is the way to the island that is not there.

– Franz Markstein, describing The Island That Is Not There

It is a place without obvious paths and no roads, but with a definite east-west orientation, the eastern side a high table of rock, backed in part by a natural curtain wall. The ruins of a once great chapel sit here, and before them, a mix of shop, houses and cabins sitting on the first rocky steps that descend down to the western beaches.

More houses are scattered around, most with a Mediterranean slant, although the setting doesn’t have the usual trappings of a Mediterranean location, but projects something of a feel for a rugged Scottish isle. A bubbling brook splashes down from the eastern uplands to the western coast. It rises without warning at the head of a gully – presumably there is a underground wellspring – and bounces and splashes its way between rocks and over rapids, gurgling as it goes, until it passes under a hump-backed bridge to drop to the sea alongside a small beach.

Boats sit offshore, mainly of the sailing or rowing varieties. Some of the latter offer places to sit and pose, while the former – surprisingly – are also open for people to sit and stand aboard, offering unusual (for a public setting) opportunities for photographs – as does the biplane passing overhead.

One of the rowing boats is not merely for posing in, however. It forms a rezzer and a way to reach the outlying islands. One of these offering a little summerhouse / getaway, with seating, art and a distressed piano that can also be found within the walls of the ruined chapel (amidst other bric-a-brac). The second island is set aside of events, with a DJ station and grassy dance area which, during my return visit for photos, was hosting a set. Sadly, there are no rezzrs for a return row to the main island, so flying is the order of the day.

Building on so rugged a setting can cause one or two issues. While mesh can easily be moulded into uneven rocky forms, it’s not so easy to shape when it comes to grasses and flowers. This can result in expanses of grass appearing to float in the air when the rock in which it was placed drops away. It also means that buildings without deep footings can end up with gaps between them and the ground beneath them. Some of this is evident here; one or two of the buildings and walls could perhaps do with settling a little more, or have “foundations” set beneath them.

There are also one or two elements of the landscape – notably along the western beach and the waterfalls of the brook – that perhaps need tidying up and gaps eliminated, but really none of these issues spoil exploration or photography. For the latter, adjusting the sun position or changing your local windlight can overcome the odd awkward gap or strangely-placed shadow. This is fortunate, because there really is much to appreciate about the overall design.

Finished with a rich sound scape, and with plenty to see, The Island That Is Not There makes for a pleasing visit. Should people wish to tarry, there are enough places to sit without feeling crowded. Ideal under a range of windlight settings, it also offers plenty of opportunities for landscape and avatar photography.

SLurl and Links

• The Island That Is Not There (Serena Wonderland)
• Exploring Second Life
• Exploring Second Life (2019)

I make no apologies for returning to Hotel California, the homestead region held by Schmexysbuddy just a month after my last visit (see: A touch of HollyWeird in Second Life); the designs he creates each month are amongst the most imaginative and eye-catching within Second Life, consistently offering environments that straddle the line between landscape and art.

For September, Schmexysbuddy present Dancing in the Moonlight, which is – for me – captivating in the rich juxtaposition of ideas and content, bringing together as it does art, sci-fi, a sense of dark humour, fantasy, dream and nightmare, all with what might be a very subtle underscore of an ecological warning. It is born out of suggestions from his partner, Racey, that served as the fertile ground on which the design grew. It’s also a place in which you can actually become a part of the setting and art.

This is a place that is genuinely hard to describe and which my images fail to do justice. Caught under a sky heavy with cloud that appears to form a roiling inverted sea-scape as it rolls overhead, the land is a uniform grey and pockmarked with impact craters, many of which are scudded and partially filled with wind-blown dust. Together they present the first enigma of the setting: are we on a Earth or on the Moon?

This quandry is added to by the bay that cuts into the land, the foamed see passing under a great wrought iron bridge under which a submarine is passing, its twin grounded on the shores of the bay close by. This suggests a place on Earth – or at least a world with air and water. Yet, space suited figures can be seen near the shoreline of the bay. A further enigma comes in the form of a metal galleon drifting overhead, sails unfurled and stubby wings extended from its hull…

And that’s just the start of things. To the east of the region sits the brooding bulk of some form of structure that looks like it would be perfectly at home on the Moon or crouched on an asteroid (even with the advertising boards rising from its roof). It sets something of a tone in keeping with the space-suited figures and more such figures, these in red suits – albeit  without their support back packs gathered close by.

Also close by is a network of pipe-like corridors snake over the ground and into the air, some fully enclosing the walkways within, others are open to the environment. All can be explored as they twist and turn, while further elements hang suspended in the sky or partially buried below. In this, the network offers something of a faint and static echo of A Petrovsky Flux (long since sadly gone of SL, but which you can read about here and here (2014) and here (2016)).  However, it is not the most obvious nod towards artistic expression in the region.

This comes in the form of the many sculptures by Mistero Hifeng that are scattered across and over the landscape. These are hard to miss, a fair number of them having been greatly scaled up. The manner in which these sculptures are mixed with the rest of the setting gives Dancing in the Moonlight something of a dream-like feeling. By this, I mean not so much that it is a dream (although it might well be), but rather it is a tapestry of imagines that are left at the edges of consciousness upon waking from a sleep marked by dreams; the kind of mental flashes we get when trying to recall the dreams. And if you are seeking the dreamer of these dreams, perhaps a look up at the flying galleon might yield a clue…

But the dreams are perhaps not all pleasant; there is a hint of nightmare here as well. When examined, the NASA astronauts are revealed to be dead; their helmet visors smashed and their skulls devoid of flesh, tissue or muscle. Their cosmonaut colleagues across the bay are no better off, and the nightmare’s edge is increased with them by the presence something loosely resembling the space jockey from the Alien franchise – except where its chest should lie burst open, it instead offers a bed…

It is with the astronaut figures that the ecological message might creep into the setting. This is a place with an atmosphere, with all the familiarities of Earth So why would the people here be confined to space suits? Could it be the dream formed a warning of what could come of humanity’s excesses, with the statues standing as monuments to humanity’s lost creativity? I leave that to visitors to ruminate.

What is without doubt is the sheer striking uniqueness of Dancing in the Moonlight, a place that is gloriously imagined, marvellously photogenic and quit mystifying in its presentation. It is absolutely not something to be missed. Oh, and that being a part of the scene I mentioned? Just accept the request to animate your avatar on arrival – and make sure your AO is turned off (you can move around while the animations play).

SLurl Details

• Dancing in the Moonlight (Hotel California, rated Adult)

Late in August we visited – on the recommendation of Miro Collas – Iniquity Constantine’s Homestead region of Summerland. At the time of our visit, Ini described the region as “an idyllic garden where the spirit may rest and rejuvenate,” offering a mix of “pagan, ritual, mythology, mythic … magic, runes, druid, nature, elemental, [and] familiars” in its elements.

These elements are apparent as soon as visitors arrive in the region: the landing point sits within a barn converted into a Wiccan / pagan centre where psychic readings are on offer, and the trappings of Wiccan and magical supplies and symbols are much in evidence.

Outside, a deck extends over coastal waters under a late summer sky as seagulls wheel around in search of a fishy meal. The deck offers place to sit and appreciate the view across the rest of the region and the surrounding (off-sim) hills. This view reveals that the region forms a semi-circle of small islands that form a horseshoe around what is – given the foaming waters – a shallow bay sitting over a broad shelf of rock.

One its western end, this horseshoe bay is watched over by the tall red finger of a lighthouse; at its eastern extent, it is mirrored by a set of horseshoe waterfalls that tumble from the cliffs of the highest island in the curved chain. It is these falls, visible through the haze that draw visitors around the side of the landing point barn to where a wooden bridge offers the way to the next island in the series.

Here lie the first ruins with pagan / druid elements: ancient statues, a broken henge of shaped stones around a hewn alter and reach via a stone arch. Beyond it, a second bridge connects to the tall island, the exploration of which can be split into two parts. Just across the bridge, a set of stone steps climb up the grassy shoulder of the island, while just to the left, through a gap in a broken wooden fence, a ladder offers the first part of a way down to where a shingle beach sits at the base of the island, presenting a path to a little beach house sitting on another deck built out over the waters.

At the top of the stone steps, the upper plateau of the island presents a hazy mix of the pastoral and the pagan / ancient. Horses graze on the long grass, shaded by the island’s woodlands, trees that help hide and disguise the ruins scattered beneath their boughs. These take several forms, including those of a chapel and a much more recent glass-and-metal pavilion that has been turned into a place of meditation.

A path winds across the grassy table of the island, offering a means to see most of the sights whilst pointing the way to where a rocky route drops down to another bridge and also an almost-cave or cavern. As well as providing a means to reach the last two islands in the chain, the low-lying grassy headland provides the means to reach a modern and comfortable orangery – a further place for visitors to sit and rest during a visit to the region.

The two remaining islands offer a further mix of trees, ruins and places to sit and rest or in meditation, all within the region’s sound scape that is, perhaps a little too dominated by the thunder of waterfalls. There is also a little roughness to some of the landscaping with floating bushes and candles here and there, together with some slight alpha issues (sadly common and often unavoidable when combining foliage and off-sim elements), but nothing that excessively gets in the way of appreciating the beauty of the setting, and which certainly don’t interfere with opportunities for photography. Images captured may be shared through the region’s Flickr group.

SLurl Details

• Summerland (Margarita Island, rated: Adult)

Shawn Shakespeare suggested we make a further return visit to Lam Erin’s Cherishville over the weekend, noting it had been redesigned in readiness for autumn’s arrival in the northern hemisphere. So we hopped on the Second Life express and alighted at St. Bronxton Railway Station, a quaint little end-of-the-line station that is one of Cherishville’s many new features to capture the eye and the lens.

The region is now centred on a channel that cuts it neatly in two from east to north-west. With the stone-built banks topped by paved footpaths and spanned by a single bridge, the channel is bordered on either side by an assortment of buildings; so much so, that despite facing open water at either end, it has the look and feel of being the mouth of a small but navigable river, and the buildings on either side are the result of a estuary township, the people drawn here for the open seas and the opportunities for fishing and coastal commerce.

This little township is distinctly of two halves. The west bank of the river, which includes the landing point and the aforementioned railway station (set back from the river’s edge) has – to me at least – a very English feel to it. With the buildings crowding the waterfront, I was immediately put in mind of a small river estuary in Cornwall or Devon; the stone-built houses and shops speaking of a place that had in the past grown up as a result of commerce along the coast. In fact, such is the look to that side of the river, I wouldn’t have been surprised if during our visits, Aram Khachaturian’s Adagio from Spartacus welled up in the background as the Charlotte Rhodes hove into view, James Onedin at the helm (Yes, a (possibly obscure) British TV series reference thrown in as well!).

Across the stone bridge, the east side of the river has a more American look and feel to it: posters advertise Connecticut and New England lobster, Martha’s Vineyard gets a mention and the fuel prices are in USD. Even the wooden buildings have the look and feel of rural Americana.

But no matter what influences have been drawn into the design, both sides of the river have one thing in common – something also common to both sides of the Atlantic in the autumn: rain. To say this is coming down in buckets would be an understatement; for those so inclined, brollies, coats and wellies are the order of the day for a visit! Although truth be told, the rain (mesh elements places along the line of the river) add considerable atmosphere to the setting. It pounds the footpaths and board walks, given both a sheen that reflects lights (if you have ALM enabled!), while puddles set golden, red, orange and yellow leaves drifting under the influence of a gentle, rainy breeze.

Beyond the river and town, the land undulates in low, wooded hills or spread in flower-rich ground before dropping away to the water once more. A lighthouse raises a finger into the sky to the north-east, adding to the feel of this side of the river being  more American in setting, whilst on the west side, the land is cut in part by the tracks curving out from Bronxton Railway Station, whilst also easing its way to a shingle ribbon of coast looking south and out towards two smaller islands, each topped  by  a cabin.

These cabins appear to be open to the public – at the time of our visit, the larger was unfurnished as well. However, as there are no obvious means to reach either of them save by swimming / flying, we didn’t venture any closer than the beach to find out, as we didn’t want to invade any privacy should either be for private use.

Not that any visit really is necessary: there is more than enough to see and photograph around the river front town and immediately behind its rows of buildings without every need to cross the water to the smaller islands. There are also plenty of spots scattered around when sitting and passing the time can be enjoyed – particularly along that southern ribbon of beach.

There are admittedly one or two rough elements in the design. Some of these are somewhat down to the nature of the mesh beast – it’s possible in places to find yourself walking in raindrop splashes hovering at waist level. Others may well be because Lam is still tweaking the design – on my return run for photographs, he was shuffling buildings, sorting out hovering trees and carrying out some general furnishing.  Certainly, none of the is enough to completely spoil the setting or the autumnal feeling it imbues whilst wandering and exploring.

All told, another classic design from Lam, very different from its summer iteration (read here for more), but well in keeping with the upcoming seasonal change in the northern hemisphere (climate change allowing!), and very much worth the time to visit – as always, and photos welcome at the region’s Flickr group.

SLurl Details

• Cherishville (Villa Baldeney, rated: Moderate)