France3D Futuna: Perfect textures and an amazing techno-industrial environment

Since I’ve become a world explorer, I make it a point to constantly solicit my friends for LM’s to amazing places and builds found during their adventures in Second Life. Zachh Cale is one such friend who sent me a ticket to France3D Futuna a month or so ago. Upon my initial visit, I was in total awe. This has to be one of the most beautiful and well constructed sims I’ve been to. Okay, so some of that opinion could be due to the apparent steampunk influence found here. From past posts, many of you know I enjoy steampunk….but regardless this place is amazing.

So, I returned home, briefed Devin on the find and we began our preparations. After doing a little shopping for new shmexy steampunk duds…primarily for Devin ; ) we were ready for the full explore. The SLurl we’re providing will place you on the lower level of the sim, just below a tower wrapped in a winding staircase – http://slurl.com/secondlife/FRANCE3D%20Futuna/120/181/110.

After the slow rez completes, I recommend climbing the staircase. Once at the top, you’ll have a full view of what’s before you and can choose your path accordingly. France3D Futuna seems to be a three-tiered city. The ground level contains shops, towers, museums, carnival rides and a full-scale Leviathan-style ship that you must see to believe. The industrial part of the city floats above the rest with steam hissing and gears churning. A long skywalk connects this area as well as connecting to small grassy rest areas along the walk (an odd sight for this all-metal environment). The lower tier (for which the entrance is a small island) is submerged…and comprised of workshops and interesting rooms …perfect for taking pics. If you have the Bristol Windlight setting, which many of us lost with Emerald, then I suggest using it here.

This is one of those places that is almost too amazing to properly describe in a short blog post. So, take a few minutes and go see it yourself. You can view the photostream of our adventure at http://www.flickr.com/photos/gavingarfield/sets/72157624788543811/.

Also, be sure not to miss the Aeronautical Museum while at France3D Futuna…. you’ll find some amazing prim engineering there. Post comments about your explore for us to review and be sure to check back soon for the next adventure of SL World Explorers.

-Gavs

Steelhead Shanghai: Asian-themed steampunk and awesome architecture

Ah it’s good to be back! With the holidays and yeah a little procrastination on my part, it’s been a while since my last post to the SL World Explorers blog. Alas, I’m still alive and exploring the far reaches of SL for awesome builds and fun things to do.

For this explore Devin and I reverted back to blogging another steampunk sim. Why you ask? Because we like steampunk it seems : ) Steelhead Shanghai is part of a much larger group of steampunk themed sims collectively called Stealhead. For this post, we’re only concentrating on the asian themed area. As usual, we started by getting into character. I dropped by the Black Opal store located at Steelhead Shanghai and picked up a cool airship pilot outfit and a pair of black lace up boots. Devin decided to wear a little more clothing than usual…chuckling…and went with a full kimono. Her outfit consisted of the Kimono and Hakama Gakudan from Nonko as well as the Hermia Scarlet Red hair from ETD.

We initially rezzed into the sim at http://slurl.com/secondlife/Steelhead%20Shanghai/86/155/24. This is a great central starting point for your explore. As the city begins to rez, you’ll immediately notice the asian-style architecture and the fact that a lot of care went into the building of this town. The waterways are aligned with intricate little flatboats as we’ll as fantastically-shaped steam-powered vessels. If you’re using the Emerald Viewer, you should test some of the new lighting settings while at Steelhead. They make for awesome pics. Go to WORLD > ENVIRONMENTAL SETTINGS > ENVIRONMENTAL EDITOR. Then click on the ADVANCED SKY EDITOR button and choose from the Sky presets.

Be sure to explore each building to get the full feel for the city. Click on the gongs placed throughout the city to hear them thunder, take a load off in one of the small bath houses, or stop by the sake bar if you need a little something to wet your whistle. There are also a number of stores scattered throughout the sim to purchase steampunk and asian-themed items. 

While exploring we ran into Caliburn Susanto who was taking photos for his flicker photo set, “365 days”. Check it out at http://www.flickr.com/caliburnsusanto/sets. His photo shoots are pretty amazing.

As we were finishing up our explore near the large asian tower, I ran into a local named Krystine Qinan who shared her thoughts on Steelhead and also gave some additional reference information.

Krystine says “Steelhead is a place of warmth, friendship, and above all else….fun! We are truly a community, in every sense of the word. Our weekly town hall meetings keep us laughing, and we always have a Friday night event planned. Anyone interested in joining the merry madness can check out our Ning at http://steelheadsl.ning.com or our newspaper/blog (of which I, Krystine, am the Editor) at http://steelheadsentinel.blogspot.com. Did I mention I love Steelhead? :-)”

As I close out this post I’d just like to add that I very much enjoyed the detailed architecture at Steelhead…maybe more than any sim I’ve explored up to this point. I definitely recommend checking it out, and who knows maybe you were even meant to become part of the community.

Check out the full photostream for this explore at http://www.flickr.com/photos/gavingarfield/sets/72157622771285429/.

Happy exploring and watch for our next post very soon. You can join the World Explorers group in Second Life to receive new blog post notices and occasional notes about cool places to explore.
-Gavs

Babbage Square: A day in the life of steampunk

Babbage Square: Master explorer and schmexy
sidekick about to be attacked by a giant robot

Originally uploaded by gavingarfield

 

First off, I do need to admit that no, I’m not at all a steampunk, though the style does very much intrigue me. For those unaware of what steampunk is, it’s a sub-genre of fantasy that pretty much came about in the 80’s and 90’s. It could be described as a cool mixture of 19th century Victorian mechanics mashed up with analog technology and sprinkled with a killer wardrobe. A diverse community of role players has surfaced around this phenomenon and in this blog post we’ll stop by a 7 sim Second Life build that is total steampunk…and the perfect place to go and satisfy your explorer cravings.

To get us in the mood, we went shopping for some steampunk clothing and accessories. Devin and I like to fully immerse ourselves in the explore…you’ll notice that in most posts we dress the part 🙂 So, we headed to the ultimate steampunk shopping mall, Industrial Steampunk Megaplex at  http://slurl.com/secondlife/FairChang%20Ampere%20Main/124/121/24. If this place doesn’t have what you need, then it probably doesn’t exist, and the vehicles they carry are pretty damn awesome…affordable too. One thing I didn’t realize until I visited this store was that there are various flavors of steampunk: badlands, classic, rogue, nocturnal, Victorian, etc. This shop has everything neatly arranged by category so you get easily find your exact style.

After we were spiffied up in our rogue-style steampunk garb (yeah I probably most relate to a rogue…chuckling), we headed for Babbage Square. We landed directly in front of Blak Opal Clothing which carries some very well designed Victorian style suits and accessories. The SLurl I’m providing, however, will put you in front of The Amazing Steam Powered Tree House, directly behind that shop. This is the one place on the build that I felt a little let down by…a name like that should be reserved for the “tree house of all tree houses”, not this small little build. It was a good  starting point for your exploring though – http://slurl.com/secondlife/Babbage%20Square/147/232/106. From here, you can go anywhere. This place is huge, so you may want to take to the air until you see something that catches your eye. Be sure to explore the insides of all buildings. I noticed that most private residences provide you with a notecard at the door welcoming you to explore if no one is at home. So the sim is very explorer friendly.

The most amazing thing is how the builders were able to maintain a common feel across 7 sims, but still offer enough diversity to really keep you interested. You’ll discover parks, waterways, churches, ice cream shops, venues, tea rooms, museums, factories, shops galore, a working railcar and so so much more here. The detailed 19th century architecture mixed with lasers, electricity, steam and amazing lighting is so well thought out and amazingly implemented. You’ll find Babbage Square is a great place for pics. Devin gave me the perfect environmental settings for photography in SL, which I’ve been using for several posts now. Maybe she’ll post and share with everyone 😉

As I flew over the sim, I came across a re-creation of Piermont Landing. I’m including a slight paraphrase from the notecard I received. This was a very cool little treasure to find:

“Welcome to Piermont Landing…located on the Hudson River in New York just across the river from Lyndhurst Castle, http://www.lyndhurst.org/…before being incorporated as a village in 1850, it was called “Tappan Landing”, “Tappan Slote”, and “Taulman Landing”. The pier at the landing was a major demarcation point for World War II troops. Today, it is a mecca of shops, galleries, restaurants and more.”

In the meantime, Devin was exploring on her own and came across the Phun Phactory…a park full of whimsicle little jumping contraptions and a giant lightning generator that she got caught in…lol…she had a bit of a static problem for the rest of the night. The direct SLurl to the Phun Phactory area is http://slurl.com/secondlife/Babbage%20Square/128/128/109.

So if you think you’d like to try out a little steampunk, then check this place out. It’s huge and will take you several hours to completely explore. We were there for at least 2 hours and barely skimmed the surface. For those of you who really feel up to the task, the sim is hosting a Steamfitters Industrial Gold Themed Ball on March 28th from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. SLT. I’m thinking about stopping by and truly hope to see some of you there.

To view the full set of photos from this explore, go to http://www.flickr.com/photos/gavingarfield/sets/72157615818797228/. Also, be sure to drop us a comment and let us know what you think about our posts, or what you’d like to see in the future. We’d love to hear from you 😉

Later! -G