Rezzable: Tunnel of Light

Silly me, I didn't grab any shots of the actual entrance for Tunnel of Light, another great Rezzable sim in the Second Life™ world. When you first arrive you are in a pleasant, park-like setting where signs direct you to click a paper boat floating on a small pond. Suddenly you find yourself plummeting down a shaft of lights (a vertical tunnel ... get it?) and you land at this amusement park-style dark ride staging queue. From here you summon a teacup in which you (alone, with friends, or in a special cup with a sweetie) ride through various marvelously lighted tunnels. As you are told in several places, the viewer feature glow (sometimes called renderglow) is the highlight (pun intended) in all it's neon-y glory for the next six or so minutes.

The teacup floats on a ribbon of shifting light from the departure area to a fantasy pond of Lilly pads and dragonflies. Use this interstitial time to try the big red button in the teacup. It lets you pause the ride so you can take a look around. You can cam as you normally do but mostly you'll find yourself enjoying the default view, occasionally using the left and right arrow keys. If you are like me, you'll take several rides to look around in different ways. Next time I visit I plan on using Mouselook for the whole trip.

The pond is very pretty and quite relaxing especially after the anticipation in the first tunnel. You'll find yourself wondering which elements are particles and which are prims with glow. This area is rather tame but it is a nice introduction to the attraction. Unlike the initial fall when you touch the paper boat surface-side, this is not "in your face" spectacular, rather merely spectacular in scope and design. Like all Rezzable sims, art is the clear focus at the Tunnel of Light.

After another tunnel the stream of light takes you into a forest where you will again wonder where glow ends and particles begin. Don't worry about it. Enjoy the view and look for the little froggies on the tree's trunks. If you don't see them, try the teacup's pause button and look around. If you would rather just enjoy the ride there are several ways to come back to this area (or other areas) for longer explorations. I haven't tried leaving the teacup, but I imagine the vehicle would disappear if I did and I'd have to use the room's teleporters to get out.

Each part of the attraction has a set of teleporters (just touch to go) that will take you to the room of your choice or to the ride entrance. As you see in this picture it is easy to tell which room is which, the glowing mini-worlds cleverly representing a location. It is hard to see here, but that is a paper boat on the far right pillar. Second from the left takes you back to the dragonfly pond. Wandering around on foot while others float by in teacups is strange and I worried that I was marring their experience, but no one complained. Actually, most everyone was friendly and at least said "hello." But who doesn't like an adorable lioness?

The stream of light takes a spectacular ride to the stars and if you ever get vertigo in-world, this is a place where you might want to be careful how and where you look. I rather enjoyed it, though, and often paused the ride at this point just to "float" about. When I come across virtual engineering like this I tend to toss my head into my hands crying why can't I be this clever? This is a ton of scripting and planning and my hat is off to the builders.

As you might guess from the motion of the teacup and the background becoming a starry sky, you are headed into space. This is my favorite part of the whole ride. I pause and cam about eagerly and then I use the teleporters to come back and hang out for long periods, usually flying around. The teacup seems to spend more time here than in the other parts of the ride, either in my imagination or by design, but either way I'm very pleased. I liked this room so much I used it for the backdrop of my Iron Man Fan Art Contest entry (seen here).

The next destination, the last part of the ride, is also fun to fly around in but it can be very, very disorienting. A friend went with me on one trip and she couldn't spend much time in this room. The glowing lines spin and sway and seem to pulse all around you. I can see why this was not the the introduction to the ride. The far less intense dragonfly pond is a better start, but this is far more spectacular. Not immediately apparent ... perhaps because of the visual overload ... is that one can pass through the arch marked Haze (shown here).

It takes you through a somewhat disappointing hallway with some neon-like art and eventually into a dance club filled with glow - Club Haze. Look around carefully for a box of free dance attachments. Some are the usual particle sticks that you can get most anywhere, but some are (at least to me) new items and use glow. You will find a paper boat here that takes you to a nice little store and from there you can go back out to the first paper boat and take the ride again.

The store features artwork created to emphasize the glow feature and some really great wings that also use glow. I'm eyeing up a great pair in this picture and looking through my inventory all while asking myself do I need another pair of wings? I still haven't bought them as L$500 seems like a lot of money to me. And with all the face lights, body lights, and poor lighting designs in Second Life it would be hard to enjoy these as much as I think I could. But, you never know. I might get them on my next visit.

From what I found "outside" the planned visitor area, I will need to stop back again and again. The builder area has some really spectacular in-progress items and I hope that they find their way to the store as well as the ride. Explore Explore Explore! You might be surprised (and quite pleased) with what you will find.

Grendel's Children

There is no way on Earth or anywhere that I can cover Grendel's Children in a single post. Like the Isle of Lesbos, you will probably see me writing often about this amazing place. Despite covering four sims, Grendel's can be though of as three places: The airborne store, with it's amazing array of affordably-priced, high-quality avatars; the community structure, not to be confused with the loyal following called "Grendel's Wanderers," I refer to the wonderful places to explore around the store, such as the library, the greenhouse, and the art gallery; and the desert eco-system at ground level and below.

When I was dashing around looking for Shansu (more later) I ran across this, er, wall, for lack of a better term. Flea Bussy and crew have created an amazing space to hold the store and then gone beyond that in several ways. First of which is the highly-detailed and unique style. To me it is tribal, tech, and inspiring. You will find examples of these -- I guess they are horns -- everywhere, but this is the largest collection. These folks build for effect, not just utility. The rock walls you see extend down and are the base for the hovering collection of buildings that make up the store and community environment. And all around you will find places to sit but likely you will want to keep moving to see it all. Don't. Take it slow and see everything. You can -- and will -- come back.

In the center of what I call the greenhouse is this great statue. Seeing it I know in my heart that someone sat down and wrote a mythology to explain everything. This is no rez-and-texture build. Inside the greenhouse is a nice pond you should explore. Just remember to bring a dive buddy. Safety first and sharing the fun is always good. You may also find a hatching spot for the fabled Drakelet Hatching activity that crosses all four sims and leads you to great places like this.

While I was outside, setting up my next picture, I crashed, but I took a screenshot to preserve at least a little of the view. I was setting my draw distance to show all the "boats" when I went boom, but as you can see here some wonderful builds are outside the buildings, too. If you go in only to buy avatars or accessories and don't explore you will miss many great things. Click the picture for a larger view and you will see me floating some 250 meters above the ground. That means these sailing ships ride the air! Well, I'm guessing they never leave port, but it is almost as much fun to climb around them as real life boats. When you first enter Grendel's you will receive a rules card and inside it is a "flight feather" to help you fly at this altitude.

But I went to see Shansu the dragon. I think that is her name. It is a complete guess based on a bottle of barbecue sauce I bought in the store there. This is a picture of me with her from last year. It was pure luck that led me to her then and I was awestruck. Sadly I didn't find her today, but I'll keep looking. The Second Life™ environment means that change can come swiftly and drastically so she might be gone. That would be a shame, really, and if so I certainly hope she is locked safely in someones inventory.

Future posts will have more pictures from inside and around the store, but I will also post some of ground level. The desert and caverns below are magnificent, so whenever you are inside Grendel's, look for a window or a ledge and jump.

My Home

"Silly Poultry," a friend often says to me. That certainly applies here as I should have started my posts with my own home! I live on a fairly large plot of land in my sister Threshin's sim (SLurl to her shop). It has been expanded since I first started renting and has been remodeled several times, but here is what it looked like when I first built. I love my treehouse home. The brownish "deck" you see near mid-picture makes it's appearance in my current home as an ocean dock (see below). Shortly after this I made a waterfall and sloped stream to the bay. No pictures of that, darn it. With as much and as often as I change things I really need to better document my builds.

Here is the same view (more or less) but shot today. The beach encroached upon the land so I could add an oceanscape (shown in my first post here) and extended inland as a pretty little stream but not at a loss for land. I rented the "back 40" since I first established a home so I still have quite a bit of ground space.

Since I love water, though, I flooded the place for a peaceful forest pond. Look out for hungry fishies, though, if you fall off the raft! I have piranha! At night mystical lights come out and my butterflies glow. The tire swing is from PillowTalk as are some of the cushions in the gazebo so this is a very relaxing setting. I put some snuggles in the gazebo and on the raft. Well, some of the raft ones are a bit "intimate."

Zooming in some you'll see another great place to relax ... my tiny waterfall cave and mini-pond. I love the Wynx (SLurl) frog and unicorn. Along with the kitty head boulder they help the setting take on a whimsical feel. Often I'll lay on the back of the unicorn to just watch the stars and the forest lights. I also like to fish here using my 7Seas rod or sitting in my fishing chair from Splash Aquatics (SLurl). There are cuddles and snuggles in the cave and floating in the mini-pond is a joy.

The sunset from my dock is gorgeous. Thanks to recent viewer updates the sky and the water are perfect and I'll often hang out just watching the sky. This is an example of how I continually change things. This dock started as a sky platform when I rented elsewhere. And it was the basis for a tiered platform I used as a deck to showcase a beautiful piano I have from Sue Stonebender and Serendipity Studios (SLurl). From here or the shoreline anyone with a 7Seas rod can fish and a vendor is nearby for bait or other goodies.

A recent addition is a skybox. Well, a steampunk airship that is also a skybox. I often wonder why people have homes in Second Life™ but I suppose that building a mansion when your real life home is just a flat somewhere is just as much fantasy as living in an airship. Eventually I'd like to have a home under the sea, too. I might have to rent the empty parcel next to mine and expand the oceanscape.

Who knows what changes will come next to my home. I certainly don't. Like me, it is a work in progress, but for now I'm very happy with it and I hope you enjoyed your tour.