Category: Exploring Second Life

In 2015 I had the pleasure of visiting the first region-wide build by Serene Footman. Entitled Furillen, it was modelled on the Swedish island of the same name that sits just off the coast of Gotland. It marked the start of string of engaging and photogenic builds by Serene modelled after the more unusual places to be found in the physical world, the majority of which I have attempted to cover in these pages.

In 2020, Serene decided to take a break from designing public regions in Second Life – which while a loss to us all, was entirely understandable given the amount of effort required to bring his designs into being, from initial idea through research, design and construction through to opening. However, he is now back, at least for a time, and has opted to return to his roots (so to speak) once more, offering a further look at Furillen through the lens of his imagination.

For those unfamiliar with it, the four square kilometre island of Furillen is connected to Gotland via a bridge and a narrow isthmus wide enough for a road, and for most of the 20th century it was home a limestone quarrying before becoming restricted to military personnel when a radar installation on the island started operations in the 1970s.

Radar stations still operate on the island, but the restrictions on public access were lifted in the 1990s, and parts of the island were declared a European Union Natura 2000 area and nature reserve, affording them protected status. Two thirds of the reserve is covered with pine forest intersected by some marshlands.

Since 2000, the island has been the location for a minimalist hotel and conference centre owned by photographer and entrepreneur Jonas Hellström. A project headed by Björn Ulvaeus of ABBA fame planned to build a recording studio close to one of the island’s beaches as the first part of a broader intent to make Furillen into a centre for art and design. However, permission for this work was ultimately denied in 2010 due to the environmental impact the project would ultimately have on the beach and the island as a whole.

In his original Furillen build (see The beauty of a bleak midwinter in Second Life), Serene celebrated much of this – the old quarry, the hotel, and so on. For this iteration, he again presents these elements, but – in taking a look at the photographs of Furillen that can be found in places like the café house and the hotel, are much more closely modelled on their physical world counterparts.  Also to be found is a nod towards the radar installation, thanks to the tall tower and squat station building sitting within the north-east corner of the setting.

However, this is no mere re-tread of the 2015 Furillen build; instead we are presented with a new take on the island, with a focus on the hotel and the quarry, the ambient sound scape offering a feel for the island’s nature reserve status. As with the previous iterations of Furillen, this is an atmospheric build with a marvellous minimalist feel to it.

This is not to say there is not a lot to see, but rather that Serene uses a measured eye for space, landscaping and placement of elements to present a place that looks and feels like a minimalist painting whilst actually offering a lot to see and photograph.

I really don’t want to say to much more – not because I don’t appreciate the region (the reverse, in fact: I’ve long admired Serene’s work and am hoping this will make the first of a new season of his region builds, as I’ve genuine missed his artistry in Second Life). Rather, I’d like people to see the build first-hand for themselves – but to keep in mind, Serene’s builds can be short-lived, so dropping in sooner rather than later might be worthwhile just in case. My thanks to Shawn (again!) for the LM and pointer!

SLurl Details

• Furillen (Overland Hills, rated Moderate)

On Sunday, March 6th, Hera (Zee9) opened a new setting for people to visit and appreciate. Called Shangdu, its name might for some call forth thoughts of the original northern capital of the Yuan dynasty, the successor to the Mongolian Empire as founded by Kublai Khan; a place we in the west perhaps more familiarly know as Xanadu.

However, this build is not in any way reflective of, or inspired by, the words penned by Samuel Taylor Coleridge in his poem Kubla Khan, itself the result of an opium-fuelled dream, or anything to do with the city. Whilst fantastical in nature, the poem is nonetheless rooted in descriptions that, passing by way of Samuel Purchas (from whom Coleridge might be said to have gained his opening line for the poem, Purchas having written In Xandu did Cublai Can build a stately Pallace) all the way to Marco Polo, who did visit the fabled city some time in the late 1270s.

Instead, Hera uses the name Shangdu to evoke a sense of the Yuan period, and to evoke a feeling of natural beauty, rather than the artificial opulence born of Coleridge’s poem or Purchas’ words.  In fact, what we have here is a painting in 3D, a watercolour we can walk through.

The difference here being the opulence is in natural beauty. I first did this about 20 years back in Unreal Tournament; I was looking for something completely different to create and I found these beautiful paintings of a Chinese water Village. [However,] this is a complete fantasy, I have not tried for any particular accuracy in the buildings, although the textures are all taken directly from photos of the village.

Hera (Zee9)

The setting presents a walled village through which narrow canals run to both feed and be fed by a moat that encompasses around two-thirds of the village as its sits beyond the high walls and which is it turn directly fed from falls dropping from the northern-western uplands that cup the remaining corner of the village.

The landing point sits as the exit of a tunnel, a rutted track running from it to curve gently to the only landward gate into the village, presided over by an imposing gatehouse ready to defend the wooden bridge below. The tunnel offers the sense that visitors are travellers – perhaps on the Silk Road and following Marco Polo, even if this is not the Shangdu – coming to this place after a long journey.

With watch towers sitting notably on the north and east walls of the settlement, it’s clear where the greatest threat to its security might originate – not that this is a particularly a place of war; far from it in fact: the overall impression is that this is a place that might be linked to fishing for sustenance, given the eastward lake sitting beyond the walls, and where at least one silk trader has established a presence, whilst in another resides an artist. However, outside of these and the local temple and a house, the majority of the building here are façades rather than furnished places.

But having so few interiors to explore in no way detracts from the setting; rather, it helps spur the imagination as to might otherwise lie behind the doors to the houses and other buildings, allowing us to add to Hera’s 3D painting with the colours of our own imaginations. As we wander along the narrow streets, cross the wooden and stone bridges, passing under blossoming trees and by stone seats and wooden benches, it is hard not to imagine the local denizens also passing along the same cobbled ways, the smells and sounds of cooking coming from within different abodes, mixed with the sounds of animals in the little yards and the shouts of merchants and other echoing down the alleyways.

For those prepared to look for them – but within the village walls and beyond – lay places to sit and / or mediate. Signalled by the presence of small pillows, some of these are relatively easy to find, but one might require some care spying to locate 🙂 .

Set within its own EEP Day Cycle, as used in the images in this article, and including both an ambient sound scape and an appropriate music streams for those who would care to listen as they explore, Shangdu is another superb design and gift to all of us from Hera. Should you drop in, do please consider making a donation to the heron at the landing point to help Hera with the costs involved in building her creations (again, note that is common for Hera, the buildings to be found within the village are all of her own creation).

SLurl Details

• Shangdu (Island of Jahesa, rated: Adult)

Bambi (NorahBrent), is known both for her Oh Deer brand, and for her Melody region designs – Missing Melody (see here and here) and Longing Melody and, most recently, a little corner of Second Life called Soft Melody.

Sitting on a sky platform over Longing Melody (which I wrote about in Visiting Longing Melody in Second Life), this is place very different to the setting on the ground, carrying as it does more of an Oriental touch and style.

An Island Hidden in the sky.

As you will walk down the alley the blossom scent will lift you. The soft warm wind will hug you so very gently. The chimes will guide you and the cats? Well the cats will ignore you because they are still cats after all…

– Soft Melody About Land

This is a small setting, perfect for photography, at first appearing to be little more that two alleys such as might be found within a corner of a town in Japan, lined by buildings so as to form a ravine-like feel. Some of the buildings are furnished, others are empty. However, first appearances can be deceptive; there’s a lot to take in, much of it watched over by the local cats.

There is for example, the little stall at the crossroads landing point, whilst down one of the alleys sits a little teahouse / restaurant. Find your way into one of the empty houses, and you may find a door to where an external stairway leads to the upper floor and a ladder from there to a little rooftop space, one offering a little escape from the world. Across the alley from it sits another rooftop spot, this one the home of an artist’s studio.

Climb the steps rising one of the one of the alleys and you’ll come to a bridge crossing a nullah and leading to a garden space where Japanese and Chinese themes meld through the presence of Torii gates and panda bears; a further retreat that also includes rabbits and little bouncing balloons.

Rich in sakara blossom and with further little secrets awaiting discovery – look out on the water for some and under the hills for others –  this is a place that is easy to visit and appreciate, all of which makes Soft Melody as an inviting a location to explore as both Missing Melody and Longing Melody.

SLurl Details

• Soft Melody (Celestine, rated Moderate)

It’s been a year since my last visit to Vivian Pearl’s (Vivian Ewing’s) Where Our Journey Begins, and following a suggestion from Cube Republic, I decided to see what has changed since that time. And the answer is, rather a lot!

Now located in a Full private region leveraging the private island LI bonus rather than a Homestead (as with my previous visit), the setting has literally bloomed in both name (at the time of my visit, the setting was called Where Our Journey Begins – The Bloom) and design with the move, presenting a richly varied location with much to see, admire and photograph as one sets out to explore.

This is a setting this is broken into three major areas by the waters that flow through it from the curtain of cliffs sitting within its north-east corner. It is here that high falls have carved a broad, shallow pool that in turns feeds into a second from the midst of which rises a small island that perhaps helps the water branch into two channels, one flowing to the west and the other to the south, so as to split the land.

None of this is readily apparent to visitors on their arrival, hidden as it is from their view. Instead, they arrive on a nub of an isle tucked away to the south-west, the broad back of the region’s major landmass blocking any view of the falls. The landing point sits within a glass house on the little isle, a covered bridge connecting it to the rest of the land to where a mix of dirt and semi-paved paths point the way forward.

Westward, the path curves gently to where a summer house sits between the coast and the uplands, its grounds shaded by weeping willows. The house is simply and comfortably furnished, the courtyard offering seating for a meal and for refreshments, together with a view out over the sea.

The path from the landing point curls around the summer house garden to split into two, with a wooden bridge spanning one of the region’s tow waterways to reach a beach sheltering in the lee of the northern uplands, whilst the main path continues onwards alongside the river, becoming a lamp-lit boardwalk that passes under a great stone bridge.

Finding your way to the latter is a case of finding the stairs that allow the flat-topped hill in the centre of the land to be ascended. These lead the way to further paths that offer the means to discover a cylindrical bathhouse and onwards up to the lush hilltop, where a garden and place for weddings awaits, together with the broad path of the bridge to where the north-western lands sit over the sheltered bridge, complete with a more formal gardens space overlooked by a large glass rotunda.

The bridge leading to these northern gardens is not the only such structure in the landscape; to the east, a second bridge spans the water that flows down from the falls. Shaded by trees intentionally deformed into an arched walkway of rich blossoms and lit by more street lamps, it provides access to the eastern arm of the land that stretches out from the waterfalls, and upon which stands a paved road fronting a parade of townhouses and places of business.

With its high buildings, cars parked at the roadside and people “walking” its footpaths, this little touch of suburbia sits in something of a stark contrast to the rest of the region’s design. But at the same time, the trees and blooms that line the street and surround the buildings soften their lines and helps them to blend with the rest of the setting such that they form a natural part of it.

And still there is more to discover. For those wishing their find their way up to the central highlands, turning right after crossing the bridge from the landing point will offer the quicker route; whilst those turning to the left may avail themselves of the horse rezzer along the path leading to the summer house; it offers a choice of mounts – but those on low-to-mid-range systems may want to disable shadows when riding in order to make things a little easier.

I’ve also not really touched upon the ways out and over the waters from the falls or to the island at the centre of the second pool or the many places which visitors can sit (and enjoy cuddles if they so wish, or many of the smaller details across the land that both await discovery and / or present opportunities for photography. All of which ensures that Where Our Journey Begins remains an inviting and eye-catching visit.

SLurl Details

• Where Our Journey Begins (Whispering Windz, rated Moderate)