Tag: Calas Galadhon

Every year, Tymus Tenk, Truck Meredith and the Calas team bring us worlds of wonder to explore in the form of their Halloween and Christmas wonderland builds as an adjunct to Calas Galadahon Park, and each year we are gifted with regions of mystical / seasonal delight. Mixing an atmospheric setting rich in places to explore, scenes to uncover, rides to enjoy and events to attend, all knitted together by the weave of environment settings, soundscape and supporting music, these builds are always and genuinely a highlight of Second Life.

For October / Halloween 2024, the Calas team once again present Shadowfell, a three region journey journey through a realm which although probably not modelled specifically after any element of Tolkien’s mythology, carries with it something of a sense of Middle Earth during the Second and Third Ages, mixed with hints of other franchises to offer an engaging potpourri of elements deserving of careful exploration. First presented in 2022 as The Gardens of Shadowfell, the setting was updated and expanded in 2023 (see: A journey through Shadowfell in Second Life), and it is this iteration – with some little tweaks and updates (including the use of PBR materials) – which opened at the start of October 2024 for people to enjoy.

As with all of the Calas themed builds, this is one in which it is very important visitors note at least some of the guidelines regarding a visit, all of which can be found at the landing point – with the most important perhaps being:

• Make sure you Used Shared Environment (via World → Environment).
• If you are not a PBR viewer, make sure Advanced Lighting Model is active via Preferences → Graphics).
• Enable local sounds.
• Make sure you have particles visible.

It also is suggested that those who can, should also enable Shadows via Preferences → Graphics. This is worthwhile if you can – and with the roll-out of the performance improvements within the viewer, this should be easier than it might have once been for a fair number of Second Life users – and I’d at least recommend it for photography.

This year, rather than blathering on and talking the four legs off a donkey describing the setting, I thought I’d offer a video instead – hope you enjoy it (best viewed in You Tube!)!

SLurl Details

• Shadowfell (Mist, rated Moderate)

When the world is ever changing
Like a candle in the dark
There’s a source of inspiration in the air
It’s time to let a Calas Christmas onto your heart.

A wonderful place of love and peace for everyone
With magical sleighs and horses to ride
A wonderful dream of joy and fun for everyone
Sharing a place where imagination is set free.

OK, so Melanie Thornton didn’t quite write the lyrics to Wonderful Dream (Holidays Are Coming) quite like that, but I figure if a certain brand of carbonated soft drink can turn the lyrics from the song into a seasonal promotional jingle, then why can’t I a tweak a line or two? After all, it is the season of goodwill and all that goes with it, and in Second Life, there is perhaps no better place in which to share the love and happiness the season tends to bring than at the annual Calas Galadhon Christmas regions.

For 2023, Tymus Tenk and Truck Meredith, together with the rest of the Calas Galadhon estate team, bring us no fewer than three regions in which to enjoy the snowy beauty of winter, partake of many activities that come with it, mark the closing of the year – and of course, engaging in all the broader celebrations and joy which Christmas itself invokes.

The team have been bringing us their visions of the Christmas season for the past 15 years – a fact which genuinely marks the Calas Christmas regions as both a feature of and tradition within Second Life. As such, I’m always delighted to receive an invitation to visit in advance, although I do intentionally tend to leave any blog post written until after the regions are fully open to the public so no-one is disappointed by the fact the first few days the regions are open are (rightly) reserved for the Calas Galadhon group who support the estate throughout the year.

For this year, A Calas Christmas builds upon the setting established in 2022, extending it across the third region. This allows visitors to enjoy many of the locations and sights from 2022 (as well as the staples in the form of the Pavilion, sleigh rides, and so on), as well as presenting opportunities for broader explorations and wandering and – of course – photography.

The main landing point 0nce again sits on an (Ant)Arctic sky platform (you can take your pick as to whether it might be the north or south polar region, given SL is the magical place where polar bears and penguins can share the same environment 🙂 ) where the Moon hangs low in the sky and an aurora swirls around. Here new arrivals are asked to find their way to the portal and from there (by way of accepting the Calas Experience if that have not previously done so), down to the ground level arrival point.

The use of the sky platform helps prevent too much congestion piling up down on the ground, the walk to the portal allowing earlier arrival to settle on a course of action at ground-level, be it simply setting out and wandering or taking one of the sleighs to tour the regions. Of the two options, I’d suggest that those new to the Calas Christmas experience should consider the latter first; the sleighs offer a cosy means of seeing the major sights and points of interest, which can always be returned to on foot.

Those familiar with the Calas Christmas settings may feel bolder and opt to take to their pedal extremities – even if only to the bottom of the slope leading away from the sleighs, to where a horse rezzer awaits those who might like to region through the setting.

The sleigh tour lasts close to 50 minutes (although you can hop out at any time), but will comprehensively cover all three regions, providing a degree of commentary along the way. Towards the end, it will also take to the air to offer a bird’s eye view of the skating lake and the pavilion. Whilst taking it, visitors might like to enable the streaming audio; as always the tracks featured on it have been carefully selected by Ty and Truck to reflect the theme for the regions with music, hymns and songs from a broad range of genres.

The new region within the setting is a place of trails, wildlife, cabins and places to sit or take photos – the cabins perhaps being particularly welcome for those feeling a sense of the setting’s wintry cold! In terms of opportunities for photography, the Calas team have once again been accommodating; through the setting are numerous places where poses might be found for those wishing to capture special moments  – with Tinies and Dinkies catered for as a well as Big People. Not all of these might be obvious, so I do recommend making sure the information folder available at the Pavilion is obtained, as it includes a note card listing all the points where posed photos might be taken.

And speaking of the pavilion, this is where the Calas Christmas events will be taking place throughout the season, with the schedule of performances  available via the information folder mentioned above, and which can be obtained via the sign board just inside the pavilion’s entrance. As well as the horses and sleigh tour, Calas Christmas once again offers balloon flights over the regions (another opportunity for photography and  seeing the sights from a different perspective; and of course, the Calas Christmas express is marking its presence with a degree of hissing steam and its customary cosy interiors.

Once again, Calas Christmas brings everyone in Second Life the opportunity of season fun and celebration in a classic setting. Not to be missed!

SLurl Details

Note that the Midwinter estate is rated Moderate.

• A Calas Christmas main landing point
• A Calas Christmas sleigh tour (ground level landing point)
• A Calas Christmas balloon ride
• A Calas Christmas horse rezzer
• A Calas Christmas ice skating
• A Calas Christmas pavilion
• A Calas Christmas small pavilion
• Calas Galadhon website

Every year, Tymus Tenk, Truck Meredith and the Calas team bring us worlds of wonder to explore in the form of their Halloween and Christmas wonderland builds as an adjunct to Calas Galadahon Park, and each year we are gifted with regions of mystical / seasonal delight. Mixing an atmospheric setting rich in places to explore, scenes to uncover, rides to enjoy and events to attend, all knitted together by the weave of environment settings, soundscape and supporting music, these builds are always and genuinely a highlight of Second Life.

For October / Halloween 2023, the Calas team once again present Shadowfell II, a journey to a realms which although probably not modelled specifically after any element of Tolkien’s mythology, carries with it something of a sense of Middle Earth during the Second and Third Ages, mixed with hints of other franchises to offer an engaging potpourri of elements deserving of careful exploration. First presented in 2022 as The Gardens of Shadowfell, things have this year been expanded into a third region for visitors explore.

As with all of the Calas themed builds, this is one in which it is very important visitors note at least some of the guidelines regarding a visit, all of which can be found at the landing point – with the most important perhaps being:

• Make sure you Used Shared Environment (via World → Environment).
• Make sure Advanced Lighting Model is active via Preferences → Graphics).
• Enable local sounds.
• Make sure you have particles visible.

It also is suggested that those who can, should also enable Shadows via Preferences → Graphics. This is worthwhile if you can – and with the roll-out of the performance improvements within the viewer, this should be easier than it might have once been for a fair number of Second Life users – and I’d at least recommend it for photography.

Those familiar with the Calas Halloween builds will know that there are two primary means of exploration – on foot, following the paths winding through the regions; and via tour boat (available a short walk from the landing point). I strongly recommend you take the time to use both; the paths and trails offer the most comprehensive way through Shadowfell – including to the teleport portals which are a vital part of the complete experience, but which are beyond the reach of the boats (for obvious reasons); just be sure to allow around 50 minutes for the boat ride.

I would also suggest, perhaps, that when exploring on foot, the accompanying music track is turned off during a first visit so that the ambient sounds can be fully appreciated. Instead, turn the music on for the boat tour (and for subsequent visits). Finally, and as per the guidelines at the landing point, keep an eye out for the eye-in-hand tapestries along the routes – they offer teleport opportunities to additional sit points and locations that you might otherwise miss.

Shadowfell really isn’t so much a single place, but more a realm of multiples environments, all interlinked by the paths and trails as they wend their way through it. There is the forest, with its twists of Tolkien’s Mirkwood, and the caverns dark and old (and on the ground and in the air); places where spiders wait to trap the unwary and even more unearthly creatures have come to call “home” (and where I again found myself wishing that music streams could be defined by altitude as Jerry Goldsmith’s theme for a 1979 Ridley Scott film remains highly suitable for the caverns in the sky!

Then there are the ruins where the cold eyes of battle-ready orcs keep watch, or which mark the place where a kingdom of men (or elves) has fallen. There’s also the caves cut by the aeons-long passages of water, lit by the glimmerings of crystals and otherworldly plants as the water leads inexorably to swamps as beautiful as they are mysterious.

Throughout it all creatures of many places and world watch or roam. Some are clearly hostile; others perhaps content more with the watching. Some might even look friendly and welcoming (although with one, I’m always reminded of a comment by the legendary Robin Williams: “Mickey Mouse to a three-year-old is a six foot RAT!” – so perhaps some of the funnier-looking characters here aren’t as innocent as they might appear!).

Given this is an expansion of 2022’s Shadowfell, there is much which is likely to look and feel too familiar to those who visited in 202. However, looks really can be deceptive, and there are many new and subtle touches which bring a fresh sense of discovery and exploration. This is obviously very much true of the additional region, a place which extends the swamplands into something darker and more chilling and in which ruins mindful of both adventures in the depths of the forests of the Far East and also of places like Moria, hewn from living rock and long deserted by those who created it.

Here fires burn from high stone ledges, perhaps awaiting visitors such as yourself – or perhaps indicating those who lit them heard your approach and even now lie in wait should you stray from the path. Then there are the statues and figures: a hint of Sauron (or perhaps the Witch-King of Angmar) here, a hint of Herne the Hunter there; whilst all across the regions are hints of and suggestions of all walks of fantasy and horror.

As always with Shadowfell and Calas special events, entertainment is also provided throughout the time the realm is available to visit; check out the schedule below for dates and times of performances at The Pavilion.  But above all else – do visit and enjoy; Calas events like this are not to be missed.

SLurl Details

• Shadowfell II (Mist, rated Moderate)

In the bleak mid-winter
Frosty wind made moan
Earth stood hard as iron,
Water like a stone;
Snow had fallen, snow on snow,
Snow on snow,
In the bleak mid-winter
Long ago.

So goes the first stanza of the 1972 poem, A Christmas Carol, by Christina Rossetti, and which is perhaps known since 1906 – when it was set to music by Gustav Holst – as the seasonal hymn, In the Bleak Midwinter. It’s an odd poem in many ways, confusing the hard, cold winters of the Victorian era with the warmer climes of the Middle East and the birthplace of Christ.

But putting the religious cast of the poem to one side, that first stanza does capture the essential point that winter can be an especially hard time for all; the weather can be bitter; snow, whilst fun for some, can also be isolating in many ways; the days are short and can often be leaden with heavy cloud or dulled by freezing fog which refuses the Sun’s urges to burn itself away, and so on.

That said, even in the depths of Midwinter do come times to celebrate, to revel – if just for a moment or two – in that the same snow on water gives the latter the strength of stone as it lay sheathed in ice; that we might look to the end of the year in joy, and perhaps think of the coming year and the opportunities it may hold and the joy it may bring. In short and despite the cold, the end of year and its association with winter within the northern hemisphere can be a special, precious time, with traditions aplenty.

Within Second Life, one of the greatest of those traditions is the Calas Galadhon Christmas / Winter setting with its two regions of snow, entertainment, ice skating, dancing, sledding, balloon tours, sleigh rides, and lots of opportunities for photograph and exploration.

The theme for this year is once again A Christmas Wish, which this year is located on the regions of Midwinter and Midwinter 2 (the region names giving me the excuse to quote Rossetti’s A Christmas Carol!). This is perhaps actually a more relaxed setting than previous years with a greater sense of an open wilderness marked by snow and bounded by woodland and off-region surround elements which add to its since of remoteness and romance; all of which all come together under the guiding hands of Ty Tenk and Truck Meredith to offer a setting with a familiar mix of time-honoured elements and new trails to wander.

Visits begin at the skybox landing point for those visiting for the first time. On arrival, new visitors are offered a copy of the music events schedule in texture form and a notecard of landmarks for direct teleporting to various locations within the regions, together with the option of visiting the Calas Galadhon website. From here, follow the candy stripe arrows across an icy landscape to where the portal to the regions awaits (if you’ve never done so before, you’ll be asked to join the local Calas Galadhon Experience in order to complete the teleport down to the ground level), where your explorations proper may begin.

Of course, the centrepiece for the setting remains the Pavilion, rich in its holiday / Christmas looks and home to the music and entertainment – check just inside the main entrance for dates and times of events, or join the Calas Galadhon in-world group for notices if you did not collect a copy of the schedule from the landing point. This sits above the giant skating rink at the northern end of the trails winding up from the ground-level landing point, allowing people to wander through the landscape, explore, take photos and find the little cosy spots indoors and out along the way by which to rest and maybe enjoy a cuddle or two.

Around the frozen waters of the ice skating lake can be found other familiar touches – the Calas Polar Express, the balloon tour, the winter lodge and the fine dining pavilion with their own opportunities for dancing. For those who prefer, there are the sleigh tours alongside the landing point to carry you around the setting. Capable of carrying up to four, depending on which you select, they give the excuse of keeping a sense of warmth and you huddle under blankets and watch the sights of the region sliding by. Not far from the sleigh rides, and at the start of the Pavilion trail, is a horse rezzer for those who fancy time exploring on horseback.

The Calas Christmas regions are always a popular destination, and avatars can place the heaviest load on the viewer, consider keeping your avatar dressed accordingly, use Bakes on Mesh, and avoid outfits that utilise multiple high-res unique textures. Also, to assist the simulators, do lighten your script load.

Also, keep in mind that because the regions are popular, you may want to make adjustment to your viewer to help with processing: reduce the maximum number of fully-rendered avatars, perhaps turn off shadow rendering, if used (other than for photography), drop your draw distance, etc.

But above all, enjoy your visit!

SLurl Details

Note that the Midwinter estate is rated Moderate.

• A Christmas Wish main landing point
• A Christmas Wish sleigh tours (ground level landing point)
• A Christmas Wish pavilion
• A Christmas Wish horse rezzer
• Calas Galadhon website