Prim Perfect Jigsaw: Home and Garden Expo: the view from our taverna

The view from the taverna

Yes, the Home and Garden Expo opens today, and I’ve been spending some time over there – at our beautiful Greek build.

Aisling Sinclair has created a beautiful Greek village on our plot on Home Expo 6, with a temple, a windmill, a church, village houses, a beach … and a taverna.

You can rezz a boat and sail down to the Prime Cantina (Hello, Winona and Reven!) on the next region. Or you can pause to wander around – many of the people on our region have been inspired to enter the spirit, and you’ll find elements of Greek buildings, temples and statues.  I’ll be writing more about this over the coming week but for now, enjoy the view from the taverna – and do the jigsaw!

The View from the Prim Perfect taverna at the Home and Garden Expo

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Catch up with your Prim Perfect jigsaws (showing images of Second Life and other virtual worlds).

If you’d like to submit a photo of your own to feature as a jigsaw, send it to the Prim Perfect Flickr Group. It should be sized 800w x 600h, or else it will need to be re-sized.

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Keep Calm – and wait for the mail where SL10B Community Celebration is concerned!

SL10B Community Celebration logo

Applications for SL10B are now CLOSED.

And there’s been a large number received: over 500 exhibitor applications, over 470 Performer applications and more than 350 volunteers!

Now they have to be sorted and approved, and that will take some time – but the team are on to it.  Acceptances for the exhibitors will start coming in the next few days and will continue all week. Please be patient as – as you can see – they have a lot to work through!

The dates that performers can expect to hear will be posted in a while, but that will be closer to the opening date of June 16 – at the moment, the priority is getting word out to the exhibitors.

Of course, if you contact all the people you know connected with the event to ask them when you will hear, things will slow down. So – please give them some space to get on with it, and you’ll hear all the sooner!

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Designing Worlds Celebrates Bay City – a community collaboration that has turned five!

Bay City, photograph by Wildstar Beaumont

Join us at 2pm SLT today, Monday 20th May, for the new episode of Designing Worlds at our studio in Garden of Dreams, as we set off to explore the retro world of Bay City, a mainland community in Second Life just celebrating its fifth birthday – and which is the result of an ongoing and unusual collaboration between residents and Linden Lab.

Although on the map Bay City may look like an island, it is actually a very special area of themed mainland, and we’ll be learning all about this from long-time (and very active) residents, Marianne McCann and Ever Dreamscape (who is editor of the Bay City’s own newspaper, the Bay City Post).

Bay City Funfair, photograph by Wildstar Beaumont

We’ll also be visiting some fascinating builds – including the spooky Falmouth Hotel, the wonderfully retro funfair, the Aquarium and, of course, the offices of the Bay City Post – as well as stopping off at the Community Center and a great themed diner!

Bay City Community Center, photograph by Wildstar Beaumont

So if you’re in to Bay City, retro or Art Deco style and strong communities … this is definitely the show for you! So come and watch the show at 2pm!

Or – if you can’t attend in person – tune in at 2pm SLT on Monday for the live show on http://treet.tv/live – or catch it later in the week on our shows page on the Treet.tv web site at http://treet.tv/shows/designingworlds – our very own version of the iPlayer!

Bay City, photograph by Wildstar Beaumont

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Last Day to apply to be a Part of the SL10B Community Celebration!

SL10B Community Celebration logo

Just a quick reminder … today – Monday 20th May – is the LAST day to apply to be an exhibitor, a performer or a volunteer at the Community Celebration for Second Life’s 10th Birthday.

It’s going to be amazing – fill in the application form and join in!

More details here. Hurry – time is almost up!

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It’s a Big Day (Hunt) and the Home and Garden Expo too for Happy Hunting – now on the web!

Happy Hunting has another great show – with a review of some of the amazing gifts available on Hunts all around the grid – and talks to two people who are organising some very exciting hunts!

There’s news from Rosamoo of all the amazing hunts and hunt items out there for you to find – and you can find the details of all the hunts discussed right here.

Cinders and Rosamoo discuss some great Hunt prizes!

Big Day Hunt logo

Then Cinders talks to Nomiki Tremmor of The Big Day Hunt who tells us all about her her special wedding day themed hunt – and it’s not just for brides and grooms either, but offers a selection of things for participants and guests too!

Home and Garden Expo logo

Then Heavenly Villa tells Cinders all about plans for the Home and Garden Expo which will be featuring a Hunt created by those wonderful people at Whiz. Our next show will be coming from the event, but here’s a taster here now!

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Prim Perfect Jigsaw: Bay City Funfair

Bay City Funfair

As you’ll know (specially if you read this blog regularly!), Bay City turned five yesterday, and today’s Designing Worlds show will be visiting Bay City to explore something of its community, its history, its builds … and its continuing partnership with Linden Lab and its moles – as can be seen here in the beautiful retro funfair.

There is – for Europeans – something interesting about the design imperative of Bay City – a reflection that there was a time, relatively recently, when culture was not global, or homogeneous, and a suignificant art movement could take a decade to achieve prominence (and popularity) on different sides of the Atlantic.  We’ll be talking about that on today’s show.

But, for the moment, let’s do a jigsaw!

Bay City Funfair, photograph by Wildstar Beaumont

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Catch up with your Prim Perfect jigsaws (showing images of Second Life and other virtual worlds).

If you’d like to submit a photo of your own to feature as a jigsaw, send it to the Prim Perfect Flickr Group. It should be sized 800w x 600h, or else it will need to be re-sized.

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Bay City turns five today!

Bay City turns Five!

Bay City is turning five years old today, with a special celebration (and we’ll be joining in with a special Designing Worlds all about Bay City tomorrow!).

In May of 2008 the Linden Department of Public Works unveiled its first project, the themed city area on the Second Life™ Mainland known as Bay City. As we’ll be showing, that collaboration still continues to play an important role in the development of the region, with its fascinating 1950s retro appearance.

But today, as Bay City turns five, its community invites everyone to join them in celebrating this milestone.

The anniversary celebrations will kick off around noon SLT/PDT on Sunday, the 19th of May, with a parade lineup at the bandshell in Bay City – Harwich. The parade will make its way down Route 66 beginning at 12:30 p.m. SLT/PDT, concluding at the Bay City Fairgrounds in the North Channel region.

A live concert will kick off at 1:30 p.m. SLT/PDT at the Fairgrounds, featuring Christov Kohnke, CelticMaidenWarrior Lancaster, and RoseDrop Rust, and including GoSpeed Racer of KONA Stream providing music leading into the event.

We suspect that there will also be fireworks … it is, after all, Bay City.

Bay City Fairgrounds

All Residents of the Second Life grid are encouraged to participate. Celebration goods are available at the Bay City Community Center, in the Daley Bay region, for those who wish to be a part of the parade, and able viewing area is provided. The music event is also open to all who desire to attend.

A little background from the organisers – Bay City is a mainland community, developed by Linden Lab™ and home to the Bay City Alliance. The Bay City Alliance was founded in 2008 to promote the Bay City regions of Second Life™ and provide a venue for Bay City Residents and other interested parties to socialize and network. It is now the largest Bay city group, and home to most Residents of Bay City.

As I said, there’s some interesting stories to be told in – and about – Bay City, and Designing Worlds will be taking a look on Monday 20th. But for today … enjoy the party!

 

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Two Art Projects to take an interest in: ArtWalk in Raglanshire and Art Contest in Cloud Party

Well, there’s always plenty of art projects going on in Second Life, but two have come to my attention recently.

Raglanshire ArtWalk

The Raglan Shire ArtWalk 2013 opened Sunday May 5th, and displays the works of over 130 artists over four sims in an outdoor setting.  The show runs from May 5th through May 26th. Artists gridwide converge to exhibit their RL photography and art and SL photography and sculpture in this annual arts festival, hosted by the tiny community of the Raglan Shire sim cluster.

2D art of all kinds is exhibited along the hedgerows in the central area of Raglan Shire sim. Second Life sculptural works are exhibited among the trees and along the shores of the western half of Heron Forest in Heron Shire sim, in the parks on Morning Shire and Raglan Commons sim.  TP kiosks to the display locations are throughout the grounds of the festival. It’s a little like the displays we get in my hometown or in London, where artists exhibit on park railings every Sunday (and sell their paintings too).

You don’t have to be a tiny to visit and enjoy Raglan Shire. Avatars of all shapes and sizes are welcome to visit the show during May and enjoy wandering these fun sims dedicated to tiny avatars. Be wary of riding the transport if you’re a biggie, though. It might (heh heh) bring you down to size.

For more information, contact Teal Freenote or Liandras Jameson, or visit the Raglan Shire website at http://raglanshire.com/

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Looking for Art in Cloud Party …

Meanwhile, Cloud Partty are celebrating their first Anniverary with an Art Contest, and a handsome $1,000.00 (USD) prize.

In collaboration with art critic Ben Davis, executive editor of Artinfo.com, Cloud Party are sponsoring an Art in Cloud Party contest with a first prize of $1,000.00(USD)! The Community Favorite prize, as voted by the community, takes home 2000CC(Cloud Coins virtual currency). And to make it easier for artists, entrants in the competitionwill be given free virtual studio space for a month to create their entry. The deadline for entries in June 12th.

The theme is “Monumental Work of Public Art” – so one suspects we’re not looking for small, intimate pictures of family life here.

The Cloud Party team say, “We’re looking for people who make truly use of Cloud Party’s tools to create the kinds of visionary artworks that have never been seen before.”

There’s already a taste of the possible in Cloud Party with Claudia222 Jewell’s work.  The clarity of textures she achieves and the level of involvement suggests that Cloud Party has great potential for installation art – as you can see on the Designing Worlds show where we featured Cloud Party. It will be fascinating to see what is offered.

Art work by Claudia222 Jewell in Cloud Party – photograph by Wildstar Beaumont

Entries will be judged on the following criteria:

• Originality of concept
• Personal voice
• How well it takes advantage of the virtual environment
• Overall coherence of vision

The rules for what you create are pretty wide open. It can be visual, interactive, collaborative – whatever you come up with that meets your definition of art and reflects our theme. Since this is a subjective topic the organisers say that they intend to be pretty open-minded, but do keep their Terms of Service in mind and that this is a 13+ website. More details (including entry forms) can be found here.

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Linden Lab discuss server side baking and the materials project on Designing Worlds

Now available on the web – our latest episode, as we are joined by Oz, Brooke, Troy and Nyx Linden to discuss the issues of Server Side Baking and materials.

This was a really fascinating show as not only did our guests from Linden Lab explain what these major changes to Second Life would entail, but we also went to Hippotopolis for a fascinating demonstration.

Join us as we explore the effects of specular mapping

You can go there and check this out for yourselves but if you want to see the items properly displayed, you’ll need to download the special Materials Viewer (it doesn’t overwrite the main Linden Lab viewer).

Nyx, Troy, Oz and Brooke Linden explain the changes coming

If you’re wondering what server side baking and specular materials are and how they might affect your Second Life, this show should explain it.

In addition, Inara Pey has published a transcript of the first half of the discussion on her blog, which you may find useful too!

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Prim Perfect Jigsaw: Once more in Lula

In Lula Once More

Inspired by the image in the jigsaw from yesterday, which I took from Honour MacMillan’s wonderful photoblog: Honour’s Post Menopausal (View of Second Life), I popped across to Lula to see if it was really as pretty as it seemed in her blog.

And you know what?

It really was.

As I hope my own picture today proves!

I’ve been popping around other places too … the Home and Garden Expo and the SL10B Community Celebrations regions.  Both are not ready to be photographed yet – but starting to look very exciting!  More on that soon.

In the mean-time, let’s do a jigsaw!

Once More in Lula

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Catch up with your Prim Perfect jigsaws (showing images of Second Life and other virtual worlds).

If you’d like to submit a photo of your own to feature as a jigsaw, send it to the Prim Perfect Flickr Group. It should be sized 800w x 600h, or else it will need to be re-sized.

Read Full Post »