Chic at Ebbe's Place

As of December 4th, the free land on Aviworlds will be discontinued in favor of the land baron business model. This got me thinking about land in general and the prims to land connection.

Most virtual citizens live in Second Life or at least started out there. Before mesh came into the picture counting prims just wasn't a hobby, it was a necessity -- at least for folks on their "first land" 512 plots.  Land barons were firmly entrenched in the economy when I arrived seven or so years ago. Chung was a name in the real life news long before that.

Since the amount of STUFF you can have has always been directly tied to land size and seemingly what it could hold, we have always been at the mercy of the prim. People bought more land in order to have more pretty things or to expand their business. Mesh has in some ways buffered that by lowering the land impact on many good. What would have been 41 prims (my new outhouse) can be as little as 4 with half way across the sim LODs.

Even with the advent of mesh, we can run out of prims. LEA7 is close to full and I took down a build the other day in order to make way for new releases for the holidays. Now even though I am a careful land impact watcher, I am at the mercy of those darn "prims".

So what happens when you have MORE prims per parcel?  Well the need to count prims goes down. Many grids have a typical 45,000 prims per parcel ratio; some grids let you choose your prim allotment up to 100,000 prims. We used to think (in SL) that a piece of land was only ABLE to hold that many prims; we now know differently.

Indeed, even with MOSP filled with layers and layers of displays, the frames per second are still stable and good. There is little difference than when it was born a couple of years ago, possibly due to better server performance -- but still. The sim where my shop is hosted in Inworldz is using over 35,000 "prims" and has no unusual performance issues.

So while mesh is working on its kingly status in Second Life, it is not so well embraced on OpenSim and other grids based on the OpenSim platform. It has taken me almost a year to actually "get" that at a gut level. The idea was there but the ingrained prim counter in me still wasn't accepting that prims didn't count.

I have been a builder all my life -- even in real life *wink*. Currently I make mesh. Not a lot of mesh; I make things when I need them and then stick them up on the marketplace and sell some here and there. When I go to new worlds they are often begging (yes, literally) for content. A few discerning or perhaps newly transplanted consumers are happy to buy nicely made mesh items, but not because of the low prim count.

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So let's fast forward a bit and see how the shift to land baron status might play out and change the economy. It's an interesting exercise after all.

Currently in Aviworlds you can have one residential lot and one commercial lot (each a quarter sim) for free PER TYPIST (read the TOS folks). You may not combine lots with family members or build out over you neighbors land (well natch). 

Right now there are no smaller parcels that I can find. There are a few apartment looking places but they are not for rent -- really, what would the point be?

So as the year closes some entrepreneurial folks will no doubt buy up some sims and either divide them up into plots or build communities where folks can rent parcels. People will no longer have 3750 prims to play with, they will have 234 or 937 or whatever -- just like in Second Life. Prims will once again become precious for some.

You might think that mesh would become more popular at that time like it has in Second Life, but looking at Inworldz as a model, that hasn't proved true at all. People are still making and buying primmy stuff ala 2008; sculpts are actually king in all their laggy glory.

I took out one of my old installations the other day in order to port it over to a grid (more on that in another story) to find that I had made a ticket booth that consisted of an unbelievable amount of prims (like 80 maybe). This was from when I was given a 1/8 of a sim to play with and I was feeling very prim rich :D. Most of the rest of the build was good.

I imported, added some new mesh faux buildings and I was set. I could not in any way live with that 80 land impact ticket booth. I made it over in mesh -- better of course with a nicely cut out space for tickets and money to be exchanged as well as ambient shadow textures. It is one land impact. In OpenSim all single objects count as one no matter their size or complexity - and the physics work!

So I suspect that in 2015 SOME folks will take note of the possibilities that mesh adds when you are on a prim budget. Those on bigger parcels can happily build with prims.

And I have a secret -- I have been building with prims lately, giving myself a challenge to see what I can do with NO MESH.

It actually has been fun; I had forgotten.

Not as pretty, but BOY is it FAST!!!! 

In the news this month is AviWorlds, in its latest reincarnation. I first read about AviWorlds on Hypergrid Business. Aviworlds made the news again recently when it merged with Next Reality grid.

Not needing yet another avatar account, the hypergrid was my travel method of choice. Happily there were portals at the entry point and the map was working so I had the ability to hop around. There is some outstanding content! I suspect the typical freebie spots are somewhere on the grid, but along with them there are huge regions -- a racetrack, a free to use university and a soon to arrive 36 region outer space area.

There are also free quarter sim plots for commercial (put that in quotes) and residential builds. Buy them for a dollar (you get a dollar with your AviWorlds account). When I journeyed around the commercial plot sims I found less commerce and more -- public works show and tell projects, so I am not clear on what "commercial" means for that grid. Best to ask before beginning your next large project.

There are also extremely well built free shops to use. Modern and centered around a plaza they are large enough for many small businesses. You apparently don't have to prove you are a great content creator. Even fledgling folks can have shops there and that is nice to see.

Talking to a couple of English speaking folks I found, here is the scoop -- at least from there point of view.

The grid works well and seems to be most always up.

The biggest problem for English speaking folks is the apparent majority of Portuguese speakers. Hence, going with your Google Translator open is a good idea. It is managable and eventually folks understand each other.

The grid owner speaks English, so if he is around and hanging out at the entry point, you will be in luck.

** Making an account and logging in seems quite tricky as both folks mentioned this. So take a screenshot of the login page maybe?  Evidently there is something there that is confusing and figuring out what to type into the viewer to get your account going is a hit and miss type of thing. Maybe the powers that be can work on that as I suspect it is keeping folks away that would otherwise join.
 
Then general sense that I came away with is that folks feel wanted at Aviworlds and that the grid hierarchy is doing all that they can to make their stay their pleasant and worthwhile.

And MY grids:

Second Life

As I already mentioned October seemed slow for me this year. Many designers were quiet or just churning out stuff while a few produced some wondrous things. I had less to blog on Chic at Phil's Place and noted that other frequent bloggers were also on semi-hiatus.

It wasn't a big money month for me but let's call it "stable"; that works. According to the US real world reports, this could simply be a mirror of our corporeal lives.

InWorldz

Fright Fest was a big event in October. I didn't attend other than creating a half sim build, but with the amount of group announcements going out I have to assume it went well.

Numbers are down somewhat and that may be because the Inshape beta is completed?  I stay out of the fray these days, so can't speak with authority there.

Avination

Also slower than previously (a theme is forming I think) the folks are still very friendly. Numbers down a bit there also but that seems to be slowing so perhaps a new baseline has been formed.

Virtual Life

People come and people go and you notice that more on a small grid. The main (or maybe I should say "my") shopping center was taken over with some great improvements in look and style. Number seemed to have improved some for the now 45 region grid and logins seem stable.

The Great Canadian Grid

Things have not been good for Canada this month. Trying to appease those that wanted money the warm-hearted grid owner has been plagued with problems. Whether it is trying to work the money system into the grid or simply some bad code, the devs have seemingly been working hard with no permanent fix.

I get in very seldom these days and now and then the log in process changes a bunch of Firestorm settings which is disconcerting. A reboot usually fixes the issue. Still, it will be a game of catchup when things get fixed. Sometimes even seemingly good decisions turn out to have a problematic side. I wish them well.

Later note:  Money appears to be working now for those that have opted in and I also found out while chatting with the grid owner that lots of folks that had free many plots have opted to get their own sim. So evidently not everyone cares that much about the money thing. That's good to hear!

Creative woes. We all have them. Even it is as simple as what's to make for dinner. The previous post centered around creativity and consumerism (or lack thereof).

When you feel yourself in a box, the best way out is a plan. Enter the Creative Chain Project.

No I am not trying to start a movement, run for public office or even get a pat on the back. I am just here to present ONE way some folks are working their way out of a slump.

In some ways this reflects an idea from the Linden Endowment for the Arts project where one artist would make a build and then another would follow them and add to (with the ability to tear down) the previous build. While it was an interesting experiment, there weren't enough folks to keep it going -- perhaps because artists ARE very connected to their creations and rightfully so.

But this project is a house, not symbolic pieces of our souls. Here is our plan. If it sparks your interest, get your own group together. The project doesn't need to be a house. Any complex creation will do.

As instigator I started the ball rolling, sending a Firestorm oxp file (right click, save as, backup) of one of my old but popular builds. All prims, I sent without textures. So the starting point was set.

Next it has gone to a long time friend now retired from building but long ago and far away a well known creator. She is redoing the style some (enlarging I hear which will most likely elicit a round of applause for some folks) and adding all new textures. Walls are moving, windows being added -- you get the idea. And since she has just moved to a free quarter sim plot on Open Sim she is happy to be building "her house.

From there it goes to a texturing friend who will add extra depth to the chosen textures and make normal and specular maps and add them (bless her).

Then on to a mesh maker who will add a few embellishments and details and turn the build into a one piece mesh.

Then back to me who will TRY and get the physics to work in Second Life (grrrrrr).  The original build will likely never make it to the SL grid because textures being used are in part from CG Textures and that is illegal from both The Lab and CG textures point of view. If I get physics to work without too much pain, I might make all new textures OR perhaps put the old ones back on -- now that's an interesting thought.

The logistics are a little tricky as different folks are working on different grids but happily we have ways to save our builds back to our computers now and can email files or meet on grids we share and hand them over that way.

So that's our plan. Who knows how it will work out. But it is a plan and moving forward is almost always good.