OK…ok.. so technically it’s “I’m a Tweeter”, but you get the message :).
Yes, I finally took the plunge and entered the world of Tweeting. You can catch me at @InaraPey. Hope to say “hi” to a few of you soon!
Tag: My SL
Home improvements
Yes, I’ve been banging the prims together again.
Since setting up my new sky house and platform, I’ve felt something has been missing. There is plenty of space, and the house I’m more than satisfied with; but something has been lacking.
Daisy first partially put a finger on it, suggesting the main patio needed a few koi in a pond. She was right, but even so, things were still lacking. The pond looks a little odd, if I’m honest, and while the front lawn provided a great vantage point to watch the sun set, it lacked … something as well.
It’s not often that I start tinkering without some idea of what I want; but that’s what I did yesterday; simply trying out ideas – round gazebos, additional planters, vines, simple rugs and so on. Nothing came together.
It wasn’t until today that I figured out what was needed: plants, water, fish and a gazebo with room to sit and room to snuggle. I had no clear idea of how to put it all together, but I did know the front lawn area was the place.
As first I thought maybe a Japanese-style area, little pools of water, plants, gravelled walkways and a small Japanese-styled gazebo.
The only problem was that it really wouldn’t fit with the rest of the build’s look; I really wanted something that would continue the lines of the rest of the build, but offer rooms to sit, watch the sunset and set itself apart from the rest of the platform.
So I started with the prims and the superglue, and I’m quite pleased with the results: a clean, open-sided gazebo, draped in vines on three sides, sitting over a large pond filled with koi, with planters all around to provide a little privacy, a wooden bridge linking patio to platform.
There is enough room on the platform for half-a-dozen to sit and chat, while the rug provides a nice little place for snuggles, intimate chats – and simply watching the sun set.
The gazebo is currently unlit, but I’m considering a couple of hanging baskets with candles, or perhaps flames, suspended from a couple of the beams.
The koi, from Jamay Greene, haven’t been used in about two years, so I guess they’re pleased to be back out of the box – although I have to admit the pond probably needs some suitable greenery to help them feel totally at home!
I’ll probably tweak bits and pieces over the next day or so, but overall, I think the gazebo and bits complement the rest of the house. Now I’ll just have make sure it gets used!
Pickfords* would love me…
Because I always seem to be on the move.
Since Christmas I’ve moved no fewer than three times. Not actually to anywhere, you understand – just within my own land. Had it not been for a change of heart…it would actually have been four moves.
It started when neighbours moved into a corner parcel on the sim and threw up (an apt description, now I’ve written it) a 50 metre tall, good-awful home-built “lighthouse”, that utterly cut across Kelly’s view from her home. OK.. it is their land, and they can do as they please, but there were two other corners of the land where views from neighbouring parcels would not have been interrupted, so the arrival of the, umm, lighthouse, was a little off-putting.
Anyway, it caused Kelly much inconvenience, constantly having to derender the monstrosity, and even while I myself didn’t have a direct view of it from my house, I was constantly away of its looming presence. So to make things easier, I boosted my place into the sky, and relocated Kelly’s house (as she has the same basic style of house as me) down to the waterfront and next to the pool there – move 1.
However, being in the sky is not overly satisfying for me; so up came move 2 – logically…to a higher altitude. What would have been move 3 was a failed attempt to move back down to the ground and live atop / inside a landscaped mountain – thwarted by the fact the sim has been so pulled about that it was next to impossible to get the land looking the way I’d pictured before I got fed up of playing whack-a-mole with the land tool.
In the end, move 3 became my latest – not quite back to the ground, but close enough to it so that I can again enjoy sunsets over the sea.
The new place is on a 50×50 platform that offers the best of both worlds for me: situated a little above the minimum skybox altitude, it provides me with a home and garden in the sky, but is low enough for me to enjoy glorious over-the-water sunsets.
Now, I’ll be totally honest here. The design of the house (for once) is not my own – although the build is. Credit goes where it is due: the basic idea came from Vivienne Schell, who is perhaps one of SL’s top designers of sky homes. While looking at what is out there (having opted for a build by someone else in “move 2’s” altitude-boost mentioned above), I revisited her store and spent time looking at various options. Sadly, all her builds, as fabulous as they are, are too prim-rich for me and offer more space than I could ever hope to use.
SO… I admit, the overall look of the house is very influenced by Vivienne’s work, and as such, similar designs will not be finding their way into the IPD product line. This build is purely for my personal use.
The house itself is raised over the back of a 40×40 platform, which provides plenty of room for fun, relaxing and entertaining friends.
Directly in front of the house, the platform comprises a large patio area, sectioned by planters of trees, shrubs and flowers to provide a quiet seating area, a large poolside area and patio seating. To the side of this, at a lower level, is a lawn complete with dance floor and room for a number of recreational pursuits.
Directly behind the pool, again on a lower level, and sitting under one wing of the house is the mandatory hot tub with a further area of lawn.
The house itself, like my Water Margin design, is a single-level affair (sort-of!), with a central entrance hall linking the lounge and bedroom “wings”. The house is raised above the main platform / patios, and is reached via a broad stairway leading to a smaller patio nestled between the wings of the house.
The lounge combines my own furniture with some elements from Novocaine Islay’s “Hollywood” range of items (usually supplied with her own house builds).
My usual sofas are there, mixed with a nice fireplace and wall unit from Novocaine, and as per usual, I’ve finished the room with my own scripted “indirect” lighting to give the room a cosy feel at night. Of course, my favourite pictures by Rena Sakai take pride of place on the walls, while Himtu Twine’s amazing images allow me a little Ego Moment on one wall. The decor is a little less “earthy” compared to my previous house, with light walls and textured ceiling, although I find the darker floor attractive.
The entrance hall is heavily influenced by my own Caprican house designs, offering double doors to the front aspect of the house and platform, and large windows to the front, and a single wide window to the rear.
Given I cannot be without music in SL, my piano (beautifully updated by Persephone Milk and reviewed here) takes pride of place in the hallway, and has a little couch for friends, courtesy of Novocaine Islay (although rescripted by myself). Hanging from the ceiling in the hall is a picture of the house I hope to return to in the future – my version of Fallingwater – which will certainly benefit from the coming prim size increase!
After some debate with myself – I was tempted (still am, in fact) to create a more “crimson” room with drapes, rich reds and golds, etc. -my bedroom retains a more oriental look, with furnishing from Novocaine once more, and pictures by Rena Sakai and myself.
Like the lounge, the bedroom overlooks the front of the platform and provides me with a glorious view of trees and sea, which I simply adore.
All-in-all, I’m rather pleased with the look of the place – even tho I have a little urge to go making a few changes here and there even now. I once again feel like I have a “home” in SL, a feeling that has been lacking for the last few weeks.
Certainly I have enough room to done what I enjoy here; even my Skeet Shoot system seems to operate *fairly* adequately, which it hasn’t done in a long time. I’m also rather pleased with the dance floor area, which is a re-working of Muerte Pedro’s excellent dance floor systems.
I’ve tried to include some indirect lighting for night-time views as well. Sunset and night are very much my favourite times of day in SL. Hopefully, with deferred rendering on its way to the Main Grid in a working format, lighting is something that is itself going to get a lot more interesting in the near future. However, for now I’m satisfied with what I have.
Of course…I cannot promise I won’t be moving again…but right now, I like the new place, including the “sekrit” bits I’ve not mentioned (I don’t kiss and tell! *winks), and I hope to be here a while!
*P.S. “Pickfords” is the name of a famous removal company in the UK, if you’re wondering!
Merry Christmas
From me to you all, with a light heart and a smile.
(updated with a clearer version)
Four years older
This weekend saw me pass the four-year mark of continuous activity in SL. It didn’t actually occur to me until after the fact that it was probably because it was the anniversary of my Rezday that the Second Life asset server decided to bash me around somewhat and left me with a better understanding of why the males of our species seem to explode in fits of swearing in front of a computer: while it doesn’t actually achieve anything it is bloody therapeutic – even if I did embarrass my cat by using some most unladylike terms!
So, what has happened in these last four years that keeps me logging in? I’m going to steer away from the most obvious answer (some might say “cliché”, despite its inherent truth) for a moment and consider a few other things.
Whether we are prepared to admit it or not – and “not” does seem to be the yardstick – Second Life has come a long, long way in that time; even further if I cast my mind back to the start of 06 and my first 5-6 months here in a different incarnation to Inara Pey (one now long gone and never re-used).
When I first came back to SL:
- There was no Windlight
- Flexiprims were still so novel that when Calico or someone announced a new release, the store would be swamped with people desperate for a try
- We could only build to a maximum height of 768 metres (despite being able to fly much higher)
- Class III servers (remember those?) were the norm
- We had Black Wednesday every single week, when Second Life would be down for 6-10 hours a day: no logging in period
- The Grid would regularly go down for 2-3 hours at other times in the week as well, notably weekends, after the Great Friday Night roll-outs
- Anshe Chung was hitting the headlines after just 30 months in SL, giving rise to an influx of new hopefuls who never actually paused to consider just how Anshe achieved her success – and perhaps expected things to simply land on their plates
- SL had survived one land glut / crash and was showing signs of recovery
- SL had come through a number of Linden lab / Resident head-to-heads that have been the hallmark of the history of the platform (there’s probably a book waiting to be written on that subject alone)
- From a D/s perspective, Lulu was all the rage; Marine Kelley’s Real Restraints were just coming out; Darien Caldwell had yet to make an impact with the Haus brand, and RLV was but a twinkle in the future
- Everyone (including Linden Lab) were convinced Second Life’s Time Had Come.
Since then, we’ve had more peaks and valleys than the Himalayas. Linden Lab still persistently wrong-foot themselves; residents still get to the rending of garments all to readily when a policy change – however minor – is announced. Linden Lab still nip, tuck, tweak and outright break things simply because – it would seem – they can, and are increasingly out of step with the realities of just about everything that goes on in-world simply because they refuse to spend any time here while remaining resolute in their (misguided) belief that they still understand the platform and all its complex nuances better than those who actually use it day in, day out.
Technically, whether we can see it or not, SL has massively improved. Crash rates are down; the Viewer (even Viewer 2) is well beyond anything we had in 2006; we have Windlight; we have an entire sky to build in without having to worry too much about gravity saying, “Oi! you can’t do that!”; rendering has come on in leaps and bounds; we have a degree of photo realism in skins and the like that was unheard of four years ago; we have the ability to multi-attach prim items; wear multiple clothing items on the same layer if we wish; Black Wednesdays and frequent grid lock-outs/take-downs have ceased; server performance has massively improved; we have sculpties (warts notwithstanding), and will soon have “full” Mesh; we have much improved media capabilities…
…and the list goes on. Of course, not all of these have come about smoothly, and there are still issues that get all of us hot under the collar: we still cannot cross sim boundaries without at least rubber banding; sims; the server software is getting rather long in the tooth when it comes to handling much of the demands we place on it; the asset system is still something of an unpredictable beast.
Nor has controversy ever been far away: the gambling ban; fiddling around with Traffic; The OpenSpace debacle; Adult Policy Changes; buying-out the opposition (which is at least somewhat better than simply putting them out of business, as was the GOM case); Land price crashes; land gluts…. And over-arching it all, there is an increasing corporate indifference within Linden Lab towards users that is almost towering in it hubris – and potentially, given the current emergence of new markets for users elsewhere, suicidal. This came into sharp focus during Mitch Kapor’s SL5B address, when established users were effectively told to “get out” of SL (Kapor used the term “move aside”, but it amounts to the same thing). This view that we, the user base are something more akin to a nuisance than we are to a customer has grown alarmingly over the last three years and, it has to be said, lays at the heart of much that is unsettling within Linden Research as a company.
However, in spite of Linden Lab’s inability to grasp the fact that their most vital resource and, indeed, ally in building their brand and market position are their users – and that as such, they should be more willing to end the cycle of confrontation and start engaging with us again – many of us are still here after three or four or five years, forgiving all the angst and heartache and soldiering on in spite of, rather than because of, LL. Why?
Mostly, it has to be said (and coming around to the cliché I sidestepped earlier), it’s because of the people. While few (if any) of us like the term because of its Facebook connotations, Second Life is very much a social network. It enables us to make friends around the world, “meet” with them and share in their lives. We can celebrate and commiserate together; share hobbies and pastimes; indulge in role play scenarios together, be they “adult” or steampunk, the latest sci-fi craze, Gor, vampires, or whatever.
It is – again despite, it would at times, LL’s efforts to make it otherwise – a deeply immersive world offering massive scope for the imagination to take flight, and for the spirit and mind to simply escape.
I make no secret of my involvement as an adult in D/s. I’ve had partners and lovers in my real life who have been as involved as I; at one time, my ego found an outlet in writing about D/s elsewhere. But, at the time I re-joined SL, that was very much “on hold” in my life for a variety of reasons – and SL has, over the years, given me the opportunity to express that side of my nature once more, and to meet some extraordinary people over the years – the majority of whom have remained friends and contacts. It’s even allowed my little ego to resume writing on the subject of D/s!
I’ve also discovered a creative side to my nature. Discovering how to manipulate prims and being taught to do so by those with a unique skill in that area . Indeed, next to the friends I’ve made, it still remains one of the great pleasures I find in SL. I love building; I love the fact I can actually do something with my “hands” – lets face it, I can’t draw or paint; I’m about as green-fingered as a doorknob, letting me hold a hammer is akin to giving me a lethal weapon (for all the wrong reasons) – so being able to build houses, furniture and so on has been a revelation. And while I’d never call myself a “coder” I’ve enjoyed learning how to make arcane lines of text come together to make other things do something such as swing open or illuminate a room – giving me the feeling of being some kind of digital necromancer in a way I probably couldn’t capture were I to try entering worlds like Eve and Warcraft (had they any appeal at all).
Then there is the sheer escapism of SL. Beyond my involvement in D/s, SL has enabled me to do so much I’d never be able – or indeed, willing – to try. I’ve mentioned in the past that my father served in the RAF as a pilot; from him I have inherited the view (perhaps unfairly!) that anyone stepping out of a perfectly serviceable aeroplane while it is in flight, with nothing but a rucksack strapped to their back with an oversized handkerchief folded inside it is perhaps threepence short of the pound – but in SL I quickly fell in love with skydiving, be it from a launch tower or the back of an aeroplane. I’ve done single jumps, I’ve done target competitions, I’ve done “formation” jumps. I’ve even had my share of splats (which are the things in RL skydiving that terrify me) – and I’ve loved every minute.
And where else can an otherwise “respectable” middle-class woman in her 30s get to:
- Be an exotic dancer in two of SL’s former leading clubs
- Become a red-skinned succubus
- Transform herself into a mermaid and swim with the fishes
- Jump on the back of a high-speed “quad” that can also fly and skate over the water like a jetski and blow the living bejesus out of anything getting in the way
- Become a black-suited, knife-and-gun wielding assassin / gun-for-hire (Angelina Jolie, eat your heart out!)
I’ve been able to ride horses at will; scuba dive; I’ve wielded godlike powers to reshape the land, raise (and raze) mountains; where I have pointed, valleys and rivers have appeared; I’ve created forests, gardens, lakes and turned barren islands of sand into tropical paradises.
Of course, there have been times when I’ve asked myself if it is really all worth it & I’ve been close to simply purging my inventory and leaving. I’ve brought more than enough of my real life self into “Inara Pey” that she and I are pretty much one in the same in our views, beliefs and attitudes; she is more than just a character to me – she is very much an expression of who I am. And in this, she has been a blessing and a curse. A blessing, because she has enabled me to meet so many people I can call friends; people I can love and talk with and get upset with and forgive; people whom I can vent to, people I can (probably) drive up the wall, across the ceiling and down the other side – and who will still forgive me and accept me. A curse because at times it has led to some serious hurt, partially as a result of me being who I am and placing too much trust in those who have later revealed a willingness to engage in selfishness and deceit because, after all, it’s “just a game”.
Because Inara is such an extension of me, that when things have gone badly awry on the technical side, I’ve been close to putting her to sleep rather than deal with the frustrations of seeing her broken. This weekend, ironically, was a case in point. From Friday through Monday I had an increasing pile of issues – inventory losses, avatar corruptions, etc., that did cause the “Oh why do I even bother?” mentality to kick-in.
However, if I’m honest, “giving up” isn’t an option. Warts, niggles, annoyances, drama and Linden Lab notwithstanding, Four continuous years in Second Life as Inara Pey has added a rich dimension to my life; I’ve had fun, I’ve made – and been lucky enough to keep – friends whom I value and who value me. I’ve lived out fantasies dark and light; explored aspects of my pysche that would otherwise have remained internalised and hidden. I’m not proud of everything I’ve done in SL – but like life, it is a learning experience.
Despite all the doom and gloom we all rather too readily heap on Second Life (or Linden Lab at least), the fact is, that without it, we’d all be somewhat diminished. If asked to sum-up the last four years, I’d use three words: it’s been fun – and the fun is, I hope, far from over.
All change…yet again…
A few days ago, I posted about moving home to a new sim. At the time I mentioned that the house wasn’t *precisely* what I wanted. So guess what?
I’ve changed it. In fact, I possibly change house more times than Imelda Marcos ever changed shoes…
Anyway, the new place is much more along the lines I was trying to achieve the first time around, although it has moved very much away from the “inviting nature in” theme that Ari has managed so expertly with her home, and of which mine was but a pale imitation. Instead, I’ve gone more down the Geoffrey Bowa avenue, combining it with a bit of a Mediterranean feel.
The new house is more traditional in that it has things like “walls” and “windows”, rather than being open to nature on three sides. It also has a more traditional “upstairs” and “downstairs”. Like the first build at the new home, it is still built back into a wooded hill, but I’ve moved it further forward so that it embraces the infinity pool.
I’ve also kept to something of “earthy” tones – apart from the white exterior stucco finish – with wood panel on the back lounge wall and on the bedroom ceiling, together with a Japanese wood screen effect on the bedroom walls, carried over from the first build, and muted natural colours to interior walls, ceilings and flooring – with the exception of the Mediterranean tiling evidenced around the pool.
The lounge, slightly smaller than in the first build, does retain a frontage that is open to the world, with a tiled front patio area linking it directly with the infinity pool, which has now been extended back to almost join with the house – indeed, on climbing out of the pool you are practically *in* the lounge area – an idea I first came across in some of Geoffrey Bowa’s hotel designs in Sri Lanka.
The main reason for doing this is so that the full effect of the infinity pool can be enjoyed from the lounge itself – as I hope the picture to the right demonstrates. I hope also that, by drawing the pool “into” the house more, it will be something I can friends actually make use of, rather than it remaining purely decorative – as so many pools in SL seem to.
While the living room is slightly smaller than previously (15×15 compared to 16×16), the house is actually some 8 metres wider than the original build. This has allowed me to both move the stair case out of the lounge and provide space for a separate area where my laptop and “desk” can sit (the laptop cunningly disguising a few things).
The added width to the house means the bedroom is now much larger and lighter, and now benefits from covered balcony overlooking the front aspect of the infinity pool and the open sea beyond. Full length windows separate the bedroom from the balcony, with access between the two via a side arch. Additionally, the bedroom has a set of sliding doors leading to the “back garden” – a lawned area on top of the hill the house backs into. How much this will be used, I’ve no idea – but I think it adds a little something to the place overall, and it’ll probably end up getting a couple of trees and flowerbeds and probably a retaining wall.
The revised house has other advantages over my first attempt: for a start, it is much lower than the original, allowing it to “blend” more easily with the landscape and trees – despite the white stucco. It also means that Kelly gets a much improved outlook from her house, which is more-or-less the same in overall style, just without the infinity pool. 
Some re-working of the land was obviously necessary in order to “fit” the new design, but even this proved beneficial, as it has allowed me to better sculpt the hills and slopes and make things a lot more gentle and smooth overall. I’ve also been able to revise and improve the footpath linking the two houses. While this wasn’t vital, there were a couple of niggles I had with it which didn’t lend themselves to easy fixes given the style of the earlier houses. Away from this, one thing that hasn’t gone is the dance area … and I hope that will also be seeing a lot of use in the near future.
Overall, it is fair to say I’m finally pleased with the revised layout – the house “works”, the landscape is subdued and everything (to me at least) has come together quite neatly. I’m particularly happy that despite the drastic changes to the house build itself, I actually managed to get the new place done using just 2 prims over the first attempt; the new house design weighs-in at 84 prims, the “old” was 82.
Now, if I’ll just stop moving around long enough to actually enjoy it!
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 