Forum Europe
Now that I’ve finished being sidetracked, I can continue this post. I clicked another spot on the map and found myself on what looks to be a partly residential and part light commercial sim. Its done fairly well, the buildings sort of reminded me of Bay City, in a way. There wasn’t a lot to see there, though. I explored further into the sim and noticed this sculpture fountain in the back of what might be a gallery. The sim is called Goldbach, and this sculpture is by Damanios Thetan. It uses the same spiral design and rainbox textures that I see in most other SL sculpture art. But I do like the sprinkling water, it reminds me of rain.
There didn’t seem to be much more to see there, so I’m continuing on. This time I picked a spot far to the west, and ended up on Heatherwood. This one is a bit of a disappointment so far. The first thing I saw were some ban lines, and the next thing I saw was a lot of badly done terrain stretching in all directions. Very Mainland-esque, although the land info says its Protected Land, which I thought is usually nicer. Someone here has made the best of things, however. Not far from where I landed, I noticed the entrance to a pretty garden. The parcel is called The Green, and they’ve made it a wonderful refuge from the rest of the sim.
And check out that cool curved buildng in the background. I only noticed it when I took this picure. The garden is surrounded with privacy screens, so I wasn’t sure if the building was real or part of a screen. I went back out to see, and I’m happy to find that it IS a real place, called Champagne Lounge.
Just by looking at it, you would think its a reception hall or something. Its very pretty! I guess its a classy strip club or escort lounge though, because all I found inside were stripper poles, tip jars and private rooms. I love the design of the building though, so I clicked into edit mode to see who the creator was. And got a little bit of a surprise. Remember that fountain sculpture back on the last sim? And again, I scrolled way across the map and clicked on this sim completely at random. Yet by some huge coincidence, this Champagne Lounge building was built by Damanios Thetan. I thought maybe this was some sort of bug that was showing me the profile of the last object I clicked on, so I tried a few other objects to make sure. Yep, its made by the same guy. This made me curious to check his profile and see what else he’s done. He’s been around since 2004! And according to his profile, he’s got a line of pre-fabs. So guess what? Lets take yet another detour, and go see. After all, the point of this was to find interesting things. And I find a synchronicity like this very interesting!
His profile led me to Damania, where he keeps his furniture and prefabs. I usually save posts like this for Second Homes, so I’m not going to do a complete review. But I do want to look around, and take a few pictures.
Hey look, apartments! 
I don’t see very many of these in SL. I wonder how it works out for people to live in apartment buildings? Talk about no privacy.. I remember I won a weekend on the SS Galaxy cruise ship a few months ago. While the rooms were really beautiful, it was weird having the text conversations from people in the next room or out in the hallway showing up on your screen constantly.
I like the glass elevator, though. I took a picture of the view from the top floor.
I think the pre-fabs here are really interesting. Damanios does something different with his textures than anyone else, and I’m not sure quite what it is, but its an interesting effect. His designs also fall outside the norm, and I like it. I only wish there were more interior rooms and walls. A lot of his builds are the studio style that I don’t care for as much, but they are still nicely done. A lot of these would make neat stores.
Ok, its getting late and I’m getting tired. Time for one more place before I turn in for the night.
This time I headed south, and clicked on an island where the land was just about to run out. I rezzed way up in the sky and fell for a couple hundred meters, which made me think I was going to end up on some mainland or another empty sim. Instead, I found myself at a place called Forum Europe. Nothing was rezzed yet but I started hearing an electronic noise that sounded a little too much like robots.. and I was afraid I wound up in one of those robot sims. (I really hate robots, I’m not kidding.) I started turning around trying to find the source of the noise, and got startled when I saw two HUGE skeleton feet near me. So I panned up.. WOW!
After I got over being startled, I started to marvel over the incredible detail that was put into this sculpture. I can’t imagine how long it must have taken. But it looks like every bone, every vertebrae is an individual prim or sculptie. Amazing. Even the texture looks like real bone. I took a couple of close ups to show the detail.
It looks like the skeleton was done in three sections of roughly 52-56 prims each. The artist is Goldfish Korobase.
If you think the Trex is impressive, you should go inside the museum! I thought I’d just peek in for a second, because I was afraid the building was just a prop.. that it would be mostly empty, or something. Boy, was I wrong. This place is amazing! First of all, when you walk into the lobby, its very disorienting because Marso Mayo has used textures in.. a way I can’t quite understand.. It was done with photos of the inside of a real museum, but its set up kind of like a panoramic.. so it goes all the way around you. But its not just that.. it somehow looks oddly 3-D.. like you should be falling or running into a wall, only you don’t. When I go into edit on the floor, I don’t see a flat surface. I see a whole bunch of intersecting prims, like walls.. but they all must be phantom. Its really hard to explain. Just go inside and right click on the floor to see what I mean. Also, the photograph shows stairways going up into other rooms.. only you really can walk up them, and the doorways lead into other parts of the museum, but without the photo textures. So the contrast is really strange and interesting. I know this isn’t making a lot of sense, its difficult to explain what I’m seeing. I’ll try to take a couple of pictures, but you might have to physically be here to really be able to see what I mean.
These photo realism rooms make it look like you’re avatar is painted into a picture or movie. And as you walk, things slowly seem to pull away from you. Its a trippy effect.
More incredible dinosaurs, by Goldfish Korobase, RedRaptor Tank, and Nargus Asturias.
I finally found the source of the robot sounds.. and they weren’t scary at all! I was fasincated by this amazing Steampunk exhibit by Bryn Oh.
Again, incredible detail all around. These artists are extremely talented. We are lucky to have people like this in Second Life.
SLurl to Forum Europe: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Forum%20Europe/78/75/31
Through my eyes.. 