You are here: Home / Archives for OpenSim

Oct 25, 2014 Metaverse Tour

By

This week’s Metaverse Tour began with a tour of Dragon’s Teeth, one of the oldest regions on Kitely. This is a Devokan build by the amazing virtual world creator Paislee Myrtle.  Since the beginning of the Metaverse Tours I have been trying to set up this tour, so this was a long time wish come true.  Paislee greeted us at the welcome area campfire circle and pointed out the book lying on the ground which contains clues as to the origin of Dragon’s Teeth. (There are more books to be discovered.) She then led us across the water and through a whirlwind tour of the castle.  I would have been happy to spend two or three hours on this tour. But Paislee was having none of that.  Each time I almost had a photo set up, she dashed off to the next fabulous room.  The five of us on the tour really worked to keep up, grabbing photos where we could.  I fell behind and got lost in the castle a few times.  Then we walked the perimeter of the region and up a mountain to the dragon landing spot which has a wonderful view of the whole region. By the end of the tour I was literally sweating.  There is so much going on in this region, the rapid speed was the only way to get the full overview, and it had the result of leaving me with an urge to go back and go through at a much slower pace to appreciate the details of the story and appreciate the intricacy of the build.

After we caught our breath, we went on to the Monte Gordo region on Craft Grid for something completely different!  Virtual Christine led us on a tour of the slum areas she has been creating.  The sheer number of textures and scenes is chaotic, colorful, and somewhat overwhelming.  She took us through the twists and turns of alleys and streets. We went down into the subway tunnels complete with rats and giant spiders.  There are actually two levels of sewers with hidden meeting areas down there. She shared some serious statistics about slums around the world.  For example, did you know that by 2050 75% of the world will live in slums? Christine is expanding on the theme of hobos and slums. She sees slums as places of hope, courage, and empowerment. She has created an amazing collection of buildings, textures and objects from Arcadia builds, creative commons, and opensim.  A walk through here is exhilarating and thought provoking.

Oct 18, 2014 Metaverse Tour

By

Today we started at the “Under the Pumpkin Moon Halloween Hunt” on the 21strom region in Kitely.  Talented landscape designer Zuza Ritt greeted us and pointed us to the beautiful free trees and plant gifts around the fall-themed region.  She also has a region called 21strom Winter with winter landscapes and an ice rink. Beautiful.  grid.kitely.com:8002:21strom

Our next stop was the newly reopened Museo del Metaverso on Craft Grid.  This art museum is vast!  The many floors and buildings hold huge sculptures and installations that would overwhelm a smaller space.  There is art around every corner, outside the window, and hovering on the horizon. I’m not sure you could even see it all in one day.  This museum is a treasure and Opensim is richer now that it has returned.  craft-world.org:8002:mdm

Oct 11, 2014 Metaverse Tour

By

We started with a ride on the Hudson River Train Line a world created by Karima Hoisan with scripting by Dale Innis. I think of her worlds as “virtual world poems.” This one explores sights, sounds and sensations along the Hudson River Line as it winds it’s way into New York City. At each train station there is a little media display evoking the neighborhood. When you jump off the train at the end of the line there’s a little surprise.  (grid.kitely.com:8002:The Hudson Line)

There was talk of avatars and so we headed out to the Avatar region on Francogrid where high quality avatars can be picked up for free. The region itself is a work of art and in one corner are some exhibits about the nature of avatars.  (http://hg.francogrid.org:80:Avatar)

Talia and I needed to do a little shopping so we headed to the Craft Store on Craft Grid to swoop up some well-made freebies.  I got a new pair of boots since my feet go all wonky when I hypergrid. The Craft Store is at:  craft-world.org:8002:Craft-Store

 

July 5, 2014 Metaverse Tour

By

This Metaverse Tour started with a visit to the scene of a crime – a murder has been committed in the Kitely community at Computer Plaza. Dundridge Dreadlow has created a clever town where you can get your own badge and solve the mystery.  NPCs (non-player characters, aka bots) have clues to give, but you must ask the right questions.  The murder isn’t easy to figure out. It even involves travel to another region for more clues. But it is well done and fun to do.

We moved on to Marstols epic region called Marcat. Chaos ensued as we tried to figure out if we could all fit in one airship and ended up instead in the ocean. People grabbed their own airships and began battering each other in the skies. Crazy but fun.

Those who were left after the airship wars went on to beautiful region of Ilha Magica to try out it’s hypergates. We found the gate for Metropolis Center and went there to check out the welcome area and the train station.

 

 

June 26, 2014 Metaverse Tour

By

Today’s started on Ilha Magica on Kitely (grid.kitely.com:8002:Ilha Magica). It is a truly beautiful four-region world built by Miguel Rotunno. In addition to the lovely forests, animals, castles, and floating airships (outfitted for a party!), he has also put out a number of hypergates to the major grids and other interesting places on the hypergrid. This is definitely a world worth keeping an eye on.

Our second destination for the day was Francogrid. (hg.francogrid.org:80) Everything about this landing area says french surrealism. The destination menu consists of a blue octupus looking thing with an eyeball on the top for the menu and eyeballs on the left to navigate through the choices. The middle shows a wavy, watery picture of the destination. It’s incredibly cool.

Min and I went on to another lovely world on francogrid called Le Village (hg.francogrid.org:80:Le Village). The building is actually a giant treasure chest, which is being lounged upon by a gorgeous giant woman. Inside are beautiful (and free) avatars, accessories, skins, and more. Stunning.

June 19, 2014 Metaverse Tour

By

We went to Ilha Magica on Kitely first (grid.kitely.com:8002:Ilha Magica). It is a truly beautiful four-region world built by Miguel Rotunno. In addition to the lovely forests, animals, castles, and floating airships (outfitted for a party!), he has also put out a number of hypergates to the major grids and other interesting places on the hypergrid. This is definitely a world worth keeping an eye on.

Our second destination for the day was Francogrid. (hg.francogrid.org:80) Everything about this landing area says french surrealism. The destination menu consists of a blue octupus looking thing with an eyeball on the top for the menu and eyeballs on the left to navigate through the choices. The middle shows a wavy, watery picture of the destination. It’s incredibly cool.

Min and I went on to a lovely world where the store is inside a treasure chest, which is being lounged upon by a gorgeous giant woman. Inside are beautiful (and free) avatars, accessories, skins, and more. Stunning.


Ilha Magica:   grid.kitely.com:8002:Ilha Magica
Francogrid Home:   hg.francogrid.org:80
Le Village:   hg.francogrid.org:80:le_village
Description

 

June 12, 2014 Metaverse Tour

By

This Metaverse tour had a ship theme! First we went to the Kitely world called “Journey” built by Mat Mahogany and Paislee Myrtle.  The scope of this ship is breathtaking. There is a lounge or a bar behind every corner. The attention to detail and texturing is spectacular. There are so many levels it is easy to get lost. In fact this would make a great location for a murder mystery quest or a hunt. (hint hint) It’s really beautiful.

Next we went to the welcome area of the Craft World which has posters linking to many fascinating looking regions. (craft-world.org:8002) We went on to the “Noah” region on craft-world which is a ship full of FREE animals. That’s right, you can go there and pick up an elephant or a dog or a horse or a hippo. It is an amazing place. I encourage everyone to visit it at least once.  And whales in the bottom of the ship. And everything is free to take home.

On June 12 we visited:
Journey:   grid.kitely.com:8002:Journey
Craft world welcome area:  craft-world.org:8002
Noah:   craft-world.org:8002:noah
Photos by Daniel Hoffman

[Read more…]

The Beginning of the Metaverse Tours

By

Kitely_community_meeting_dot&me

In May of 2014 I was sitting around with my friend Dot Matrix after a Kitely community meeting when we came up with the idea of leading tours to help our neighbors get out and explore the wider world.

Dot and I have never met in the physical world.  This conversation took place in  a virtual environment on computer. My avatar was hanging out with her avatar after the other eight  avatars in the meeting had said goodbye and disappeared. We were excited because we were no longer confined to traveling between the hundreds of “worlds” on our local “grid.”   We would now be able to easily travel to any other hypergrid-enabled computer in the world running the OpenSim software.  This was the equivalent of being able to read any web page on any http server anywhere in the world in 1994.  The possibilities were limitless. [Read more…]

The Beginning of Metaverse Tours

By

In May of 2014 I was sitting around with my friend Dot Matrix after a Kitely community meeting when we came up with the idea of leading tours to help our neighbors get out and explore the wider world.

Dot and I have never met in the physical world.  This conversation took place in  a virtual environment on computer. My avatar was hanging out with her avatar after the other eight  avatars in the meeting had said goodbye and disappeared. We were excited because we were no longer confined to traveling between the hundreds of “worlds” on our local “grid.”   We would now be able to easily travel to any other hypergrid-enabled computer in the world running the OpenSim software.  This was the equivalent of being able to read any web page on any http server anywhere in the world in 1994.  The possibilities were limitless.

Kitely was not the first grid to enable hypergridding.  Crista Lopes (known as Diva Canto online) wrote the initial code enabling hypergridding in OpenSim  in late 2008. In the intervening six years, OpenSim had grown into a stable, open source platform. People were building increasingly complex virtual worlds.  Now that Kitely had just opened up to hypergridding, we thought tours would be a good way to help people get comfortable with the idea of traveling between worlds and meeting the people from other worlds.

The Metaverse Tours have been fun and continue to take place every Saturday. I started this site in part to document our ventures.  Each week it gets a little easier to travel between virtual worlds. More and more blogs, social networks, and other tours are popping up.  New people are joining OpenSim grids.  It’s an exciting time in OpenSim.

I am very thankful to the geniuses who created and improve OpenSim and to the adventurers and entrepreneurs who are building this fabulous metaverse for us to wander around in.

Metaverse Tours
Every Saturday, 1:00 pm Pacific time
Meet at the Kitely Welcome Center
Everyone is welcome

 

Links:

http://www.kitely.com
grid.kitely.com:8002:Kitely Welcome Center

The history of the Metaverse Tours.
http://www.kitely.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=1602

OpenSim
http://opensimulator.org/wiki/Main_Page

What is the hypergrid?
http://justincc.wordpress.com/2008/12/19/what-is-the-hypergrid/

Crista Lopes
http://tagide.com/about.html