Category: Reviews

It’s hard to believe it is May and that summer is supposedly just around the corner. After a burst of sudden warm weather which suggested spring had finally arrived, the weather has been a riot: rain, odd bursts of hail, thunderstorms and high winds. They’re even reporting snow in Devon!

I’m not sure if the weather in real life has affected my thinking about Second Life (some of my thoughts about the platform and my involvement in it has been a little on the grey side this last week), but while running through my list of places to blog about and rifling through the folders of snaps I have of places, I was struck by just how summery my snaps look. So I set off to try something different, although I hadn’t a clue what.

Fortunately, I didn’t have to spend too long scratching my head over what it is I was looking for. As soon as I stepped into Winter Moon, Dream Shadowcry’s evocative homestead region, I knew I’d found it.

In a world of often bright, vibrant colours, it’s not often you come across something which is almost  – and quite naturally – monochrome in Second Life, but Winter Moon is precisely that – and it is precisely that in a most magnificent way.

Rain pours from the sky when you arrive, and breakers crash against the shore. The lowering sky reduces everything to shades of grey and washed-out colour over which bright white falls tumble, while muslin-like clouds scud across the sky. “Atmospheric” doesn’t come close to describing the way in which this region has been put together – I strongly recommend that you keep to the region windlight settings when you arrive for the first time and, if you can, run with Advanced Lighting Model (“Lighting and shadows” in older viewer versions) active – you can keep shadows set to “None”.

There are paths to follow around the region, and places to discover; wandering and discovery are invited, and in places handy camera and telescopes point to vistas and images worthy of a snap or two – not that the entire region isn’t highly photogenic. Here and there are places to sit, either alone or with a loved one or friend. Some of these lend themselves to quite introspection, others provide an opportunity to dance. All add to the whole.

The attention to detail is wonderful – make sure you drop into the little orangery on the south side of the region. This is a beautifully composed piece, complete with half-eaten pizza lying in is box, together with a couple of Pepsi cans alongside the bed which clearly evoke a feeling when seen, and the movie playing on the projector at the foot of the bed further enhances the mood.

I advise keeping to the default windlight when making a first visit – particularly if you can run with Advanced Lighting Model active – because the overall monochrome effect of the region allows for a number of quite unexpected surprises, with sudden splashes of colour appearing as you pass the lamps and lights marking paths and gates.

For those not into greys and rain, the region also lends itself to a wide range of windlight settings, making it another perfect location of the SL photographer and explorer, as I hope the few scattered through my sideshow from a previous visit will demonstrate.

A highly recommended place to visit.

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(view slideshow full-screen)

Related Links

• Winter Moon SLurl (Rated Moderate)
• SL Destinations in this blog

Update: We can continue to Smile, as Kaelyn Alecto reports, “Thanks to many insanely amazing donations I have been able to keep my sim open! Come on by and pay a visit and have fun exploring :)” – so please go along and visit!

As I’ve mentioned in these pages a number of times,  I tend to use the Photogenic Spots section of the Destination Guide as a reference when looking for places to visit in SL. One of the places listed there is It All Starts with a Smile, located on Onyx Isle, the Homestead region of Kaelyn Alecto and her SL partner, Maxxster. While I’d frequently made a mental note to visit the region in the past, I’d never quite managed it.

Then I heard by way of Mona Eberhardt and Ziki’s blog that the region may be vanishing around May 15th 2013. This is not because the tier is too high per se, but apparently because the region’s tier is partially underwritten by one of the third-party exchanges (TPEs) hit by the Lab’s recent changes to the SL Terms of Service and the decision to write to all such exchanges and request they cease trading / providing Linden Dollars.

If this is indeed the case, then it is a shame, because the region is beautifully put together with a keen eye for composition and photography – Maxxster is a photographer himself, and there is a Flickr group devoted to the region.

From the seaside town frontage of the arrival point, complete with carousel and Ferris wheel, you can walk down to a sun-kissed beach, sit on a fading wooden dock or follow a path around the island (or simply climb over the hills behind the shops!) to reach beautiful and restful meadows. There are beauty spots scattered across the island where you can sit and admire the view or snap away with the camera to your heart’s content. Romantics are also catered for, with places to dance, places to sit and cuddle and corners to snuggle in and hide from the world – there is even a cute little caravan with a blanket and pillows spread on the roof, hitched to a sporty little Mini!

In short, this is a place designed to bring a smile to your face – and keep it there; which makes its potential removal from Second Life all that more poignant. I don’t – as I hope the destination reviews in this blog demonstrate – run with the “sim deathwatch” crowd; while SL undoubtedly has its problems, there are still many fabulous places left to visit. Even so, when it comes to one which is as beautifully presented as It All Starts With a Smile, then its possible passing is to be lamented.

I only wish I’d visited sooner.

P.S.  there is a donations piggy bank at the landing point, and as the saying goes, “Every little helps,” so if you do pop in to have a look around, a few L$ dropped into it would likely be appreciated and might even help keep the region going…

Related Links

• It All Starts With A Smile SLurl (Rated: General)
• It All Starts With A Smile Flickr Group
• SL Destinations in this blog

Whenever I browse the Destination Guide, my eyes are inevitably caught by the entry for SolAria, so much so that I knew it was only a matter of time before I’d have to pay the island a visit.

Built by Maveryck Breen, SolAria seeks to reproduce an oceanside Italian / Mediterranean village suitable for SL photographers and romantics. Covering slightly less than a full region (there is an area of grassland to one side which apparently belongs to another group), SolAria achieves its aims exceptionally well.

The arrival point is a raised piazza overlooking a sheltered harbour. Here you’ll find a fountain, the local trattoria and footpaths and steps leading both up and down and between and around an assortment of houses and shops.

For the romantics, there are places to dance or to sit together and watch the world go by and waterside walks which, for the inquisitive or those prepared to get their feet wet, might lead you to more than might at first meet the eye. Merfolk in particular might well feel at home in at least part of this build.

Everywhere appears open to explore, and despite the compact size of the build, there is a lot to see once you start exploring  – such as the park on the headland, the busy dockside at one end of the island, complete with ornate bathysphere, and two fortifications facing one another across the island, with a church sitting in between as if keeping two ancient families from sparring with one another.

This is a build which really is best enjoyed when running in deferred mode; great care has been taken with the lighting, and while there is no windlight pre-set I could determine (I received no pop-up asking me if I wished to accept local windlight), a late evening setting can really emphasise the beauty of the village with the street and house lights.

For the SL photographer, the island is a real delight, leading itself to a whole range of windlight settings which in turn can produce stunning images.  There is even a modest gallery in the village where pictures of the village are on display.

If I’m honest, there are perhaps one or two places – notably inside some of the buildings – where the texturing could do with a little more attention in terms of scaling / repeats, but this is a minor niggle on my part. Certainly, I recently spent a happy afternoon wandering and camming around grabbing snaps and twiddling with windlight – as I hope the slideshow below shows!

[gigya src=”http://www.flickr.com/apps/slideshow/show.swf?v=71649″ width=”625″ flashvars=”offsite=true&lang=en-us&page_show_url=/photos/inara-pey/sets/72157633465760348/show/&page_show_back_url=/photos/inara-pey/sets/72157633465760348/show/show/&set_id=72157633465760348&jump_to=” allowFullScreen=”true” ]

(view slideshow full-screen)

Related Links

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