Category: Exploring Second Life

November 2022: What the Buzz has relocated. Willow Creek appears to have closed.

The Destination Guide led me to a little corner of Heterocera called What the Buzz. Designed by Emm (HeyEmm) and located within the larger Willow Creek National Park – a place I’ll be covering in more detail in a future piece.

What the Buzz is, to quote Emm:

An interactive bee/pollinator reserve. Wander the path and stop at the yellow signs to learn about the different ways that YOU can help save and protect our precious pollinator population. Try your hand at virtual farming with the DFS Community Garden or relax at Firefly Lake and take in all of the sights and sounds.

Bees are the major type of pollinator in many ecosystems that contain flowering plants; so important that of the estimated one-third of the human food supply dependent on pollination actually receives it via bees, either wild or domesticated. They are thus a vital – if declining, due to a variety of reasons – role in the lifecycle of plants.

This and more is covered with What the Buzz, a walk through a garden-like setting, rich in plant life and areas in which visitors can learn about bees, their habitats, pollination, keeping bees, and more. Signs along the way can be touch for information, and – if they wish – also learn about the “Digital Farm System (DFS) through the What The Buzz Community Garden, where a number of vegetables, herbs and crops are being grown.

Located on the main trail that winds its way through Willow Creek National Park, What the Buzz can be explored on foot or via horseback (horse rezzer at the park’s main landing zone for those who don’t have their own to wear).

It is clear that Emm has taken considerable care in putting the setting together: areas of interest are clearly marked, and touch signs will either provide well-written information on bees and bee-keeping via note card or take you to website where further information can be obtained on helping bees in the physical world, such as creating your own pollinator garden.

At the same time, the garden spaces, located alongside an orchard, the park’s lake, offer opportunities for a careful walk within a Nature’s lap, places to sit and relax, and sits as a good place to start an exploration of the Willow Creek park as a whole

Rounded-out by a fitting soundscape, What the Buzz is a charming, informative and photogenic setting well worth visiting and wandering through – and I’ll be taking more of a look at the park as a whole in the near future, as noted!

SLurl Details

• What the Buzz @Willow Creek National Park (Muslin, rated Moderate)

 

Occupying a quarter Full region adjoining, but separate from, their private home, The Wylde is offered by Jazaar Silvermoon (Jazaar Heartsong) and Ami and Aeon Silvermoon (AmiAndAeon) as a public garden for people to visit and appreciate.

It sits under a hazy sky in which the Sun sits close to the horizon so as to suggest a late evening or early morning (as the Sun lies to the north, you can take your pick as to which it is), presenting a wooded setting rich in a sense of fantasy and fae through which visitors are free to wander, sit, and pass the time.

The landing point sits in the south-west corner of the woodland, next to a round gate leading into Jazaar and Ami and Aeon’s private gardens – so please don’t try passing through it. Instead head north, following one of the arms of the footpath as it divides a few metres from the landing point. Which you take is down to choice; both offer multiple points of interest.

As you explore, you’ll find the stream that runs from the southern highlands to the northern coast, a rocky path that winds up a portion of those southern cliffs, glades, fountains, wall-side walks, caverns that pass under hills, and multiple places to sit and pass the time. Also waiting to be found both on the ground and up on the cliff sides are pavilions, statues, drifting lights, creatures from fact and fantasy, and plant life that is an equal mix of the real and the imaginative.

This is a place that is mystical in its look and feel – although admittedly, some adjustment may have to be made to the viewer for those on low-to-mid range systems in order to appreciate it fully when exploring and taking photos – which actually speaks for itself rather than need a lot of exposition through text. Simply put, the richness of the setting lies both within the natural beauty of the design and through discovering the more mystical elements during explorations such that I really don’t want to give everything away here.

So instead, I’ll Leave you with the images here – offered with the side-not that I did tweak the environment settings a little in taking them to offer a little more light – and encourage you to go pay a visit yourself.

SLurl Details

• The Wilde (Club of Friends, rated Moderate)

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)

 Hello Inara.

We have opened our newest version of Frogmore 5.0, L’étang du Moulin. We have many new areas and we have also saved some of the most popular parts of Frogmore that people love. We have maintained the sim design and integrity with designer Terry Fotherington and we have added a new village with lots of details, as well as new trails, French salons, a tiny gallery which will have regular guest artistes, and our unique to Frogmore Mill Pond. I hope you will visit soon.

Merci! Tolla

This was the invitation I received from Tolla Crisp at the end of April to make a return to Frogmore and tour the latest update to this ever-popular setting – my apologies to her for taking a while to actually take up her offer.

As Tolla notes in her invitation, there are elements within this latest design for the region that have been carried over from Frogmore 4.0 (see: Frogmore’s fourth in Second Life) – perhaps most notably the channel of water cutting into the land from the east and the waterfront cottages on the southern bank, nestled below a hilltop villa and with little café tucked behind them

These elements and part of the sandy spread to the north side of the channel retain something of Frogmore’s Cornish influences – an aspect that has helped to maintain the setting’s sense of continuity from one iteration to the next. However, as Tolla also notes, there are some French influences mixed into Frogmore 5.0; these give a sense that perhaps it has paddled its way across the English Channel to a little nook in the French coast.

On the north side of the setting, overlooking the middle channel is a broad, roughly-cobbled terrace backed by a glass-and-metal pavilion, which I believe is to be the gallery space. It also sits as the new landing point for the region, and a couple of the easels set out on it offer direct teleports to both the village area and the new watermill.

The latter is an utterly charming element sitting in the region north-east corner as a small island of shingle surrounding an L-shaped block of hard granite that has stood against the tides and time.

Aged walls suggest that this island may once have been the site of a fortification; now, however, it is the home of not one mill, as the name might suggest, but two: one at the water’s edge, where the land appears to have been fashioned around it and which gives the area its name, and the other a windmill up on top of the rocky bluff, sitting alongside and open-sided barn now converted into a little café. It forms, for me, the most delightful part of the new setting.

This being a Dandy Warhlol (Terry Fotherington) build, I will confess that the mesh / texture load can be heavy-going for some systems; so keeping shadows disabled may help when exploring and to help with texture loading ahead of taking photos.

That said, with it soundscape, views and detailed touches, this iteration of Frogmore retains the charm of its previous versions whilst offer more than enough that is new to encourage a re-visit.

SLurl Details

• Frogmore (rated Moderate)

Stepping through the gate reveals an oasis of blue surrounded by a richness of green; the pond is large enough to fill the garden, backed on one side by the fence in which the gateway is set and on the other three by dense shrubs. To one one side, between the pond’s blue water and the fence, a blanket has been spread for a picnic while a fishing rod extends out over the water, its base resting among reeds and supporting by a fisherman’s tackle box.

Across the water, a stone Buddha sits serenely, observing the garden and its many denizens: frogs, birds, insects, rabbits, deer, turtles, and fish. Also perched at water’s edge and watching is a tall egret – although its eyes seem to be focused solely on the koi swimming just below the surface before it! The way to join Buddha is by way of a makeshift bridge of planks, either end of which is lit by a stone lantern, and one of which lies close to the picnic blanket.

Despite the fact ants seems to be enjoying the picnic more than humans, the entire setting is rich in its sense of peace and escape. It sits as a quiet corner within the grounds of a traditional Japanese home; a place where family members can rest in contemplation, and recuperate from the stresses of life.

However, it is fair to say it is actually no ordinary garden.

This is because The Pond – the work of Raven Banrion Kray (RavenStarr) – is built on a scale so large, visiting avatars are one of the smallest creates to be found. S small, in fact, we could almost saddle up and ride the picnic-raiding ants and would pass for the smallest of morsels for the egret mentioned above. Thus, The Pond is a remarkable voyage of the imagination offering an adventure for explorers that is quite unlike anything you’re likely visited in Second Life.

Within this quite gorgeous setting – my thanks to Cube Republic for passing me the landmark; I hadn’t realised Raven had replaced her Ravenport Reclaimed (about which I wrote back in February) – there is much to discover, both above and below the surface of the water. Some – such as the food fight area located on the picnic blanket and just a short walk from the landing point – are relatively easy to find. Others, such as the fairy bubbles hiding underwater might be a little harder to find. Thus, explorers are encouraged to well, explore.

Those who do will likely find the dance machines and system on the giant lilies, the (avatar-sized) tea table, the pool rings floating on the water along with a leaf boat – to name a further handful of little spots. And speaking of the water – the oversized creatures include the koi making their way beneath the ripples of the pond; so if you do venture out onto the water, don’t be surprised if you find yourself feeling a little like Jonah might have done as the whale approached or you start hearing a certain film theme dah-dahing through your head…!

Beautifully conceived and brought together by Raven such that the impression is very much that of a Lilliputian having stumbled into the Land of a the Giant, The Pond is a genuinely engaging setting well worth visiting and offers – needless to say – many opportunities for photography. As such, I’ll shut up and let you go see for yourself!

SLurl Details

• The Pond (Fairhill, rated Moderate)