Jupiter Rowland @JupiterRowland

Germany (Real Reality™), Dorenas World (virtual reality), OSgrid (secondary virtual reality) Online

Far-travelled on the Hypergrid and convinced of Roth2 v2.


Joined 4 years ago

About Myself

Dorenas World dweller, Hypergrid traveller, synth geek.
Spreading the word of Ruth2 and Roth2.

Rezday of my first avatar is April 30th. I've recreated the avatar on another grid, the new one became my main, but I still count the same rezday.

I'm in Germany which means I'm 9 hours ahead of grid time. 3 PM PST/SLT/grid time is midnight here.

Speaks English.
Spricht deutsch.

If you should ever encounter a Juno Rowland, that's my little in-world sister.

I'm not only in the Metaverse, but also in the Fediverse.
My main presence: https://hub.netzgemeinde.eu/channel/jupiter_rowland
Juno has her own channel: https://hub.netzgemeinde.eu/channel/juno_rowland
You can follow us with any account on Diaspora*, GNU social, Mastodon, Pleroma, Akkoma, MissKey, Firefish, Sharkey, Iceshrimp, Friendica, Hubzilla or something based on Streams etc. or subscribe to my RSS feed.

My German blog in the Fediverse about virtual worlds, especially OpenSim: https://publish.ministryofinternet.eu/jupiter-rowland/
You can follow it with any account on any Fediverse service; see above.

OpenSimulator Version

I don't have a grid of my own.

Viewer Version

Firestorm 6.6.17 most of the time.
A recent Cool VL Viewer in a very few rare cases, e.g. to make new outfit subfolders.

My Regions

This member has no regions yet

Activity

Happy International Synthesizer Day (or what's left of it)!

Let's talk beaches, part 2: Non-tropical beaches
(German beaches in a nutshell)

Since Nico has already mentioned it in her comment on part 1 (https://opensimworld.com/post/85841), and since this has been my plan from the very beginning, here's the other part of my "beach talk". What about beaches that aren't in the tropics?

Way too many beaches are a) tropical with lots of naturally-grown palm trees and b) flat. It's a trope that's commonly known in Second Life as Tropical Beach Paradise (http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Tropical_Beach_Paradise). The reason for the abundance of these may be that most beaches are built by people who only know beaches from TV and have never seen one in real life.

But there are so many other ways to build a beach, at least in theory, sometimes actually carried out. Beaches that may be more relatable to especially those of us who know beaches.

Something that has been done, for example, is the kind of beach you often find in Mediterranean coastal towns in southern France. A seawall with a more or less wide beach in front of it and something that could qualify as a promenade on top of it. Destination Fécamp (https://opensimworld.com/hop/86967) has quite a good one, realistic to the point of only one lounger on the entire beach being free and so much surf that you start asking yourself if you should actually go into the water (which you can because Fecamp does that right). Les pieds de sable (https://opensimworld.com/hop/79417) used to have a somewhat different one with less sand and more seawall.

The North American boardwalk beach has been done more often than you may think. For one, there are the many iterations of Linda Kellie's Boardwalk Amusement Park; Lucia Island (https://opensimworld.com/hop/83640) and AMSmediterrania (https://opensimworld.com/hop/87777) both make use of it. One of the best examples, however, has to be scratch-made Coney Island (https://opensimworld.com/hop/87886) where the rides alone can keep you busy for quite a while.

Most of TexLand (https://opensimworld.com/dir/?grid=texland.no-ip.biz:8002) is somewhere in-between because it mimicks islands on the South Texan Gulf coast. There are palms, yes, but there are also seawalls, there are no traces of Tiki style, and it still feels very close to the U.S. mainland.

What I'd like to see done on a somewhat larger scale than at Gridtalk (https://opensimworld.com/hop/78056) are the various styles of northern German beaches. Gridtalk mimicks what formerly West German Baltic Sea beaches often look like, and that's an interesting style, but it could be taken further. In this style, the dunes behind the beach are a given, but they need grass on top and maybe the occasional seagull nest. Speaking of fauna: seagulls, seagulls, jellyfish (which fortunately aren't available on the Hypergrid; I hope it stays that way) and more seagulls (notice how I didn't mention mosquitos).

Unless it's a natural beach, have a promenade behind the dunes with fences between the promenade and the dunes and all kinds of amenities from small shops to hotels (I recommend at least one big hotel tower, even if it's just a few textured prims) on the land side of the promenade. If you're daring enough, build an indoor pool right behind the promenade as well. Just because it's a beach, doesn't mean it's perpetual summer. Instead of lifeguard chairs, install one DLRG station for the entire beach. Also, LOTS of beach baskets. If you want to take the German-ness to the logical extreme, make tiny parcels for the beach baskets which can be rented.

The formerly East German variant would combine this with a long wooden structure between a pier and a boardwalk that extends from the raised promenade across the beach into the water. We call it a "sea bridge". These things were built in times when the wealthy tourists who came there didn't dare to step into the water yet. Somewhere on top of it should be a white-walled wooden building with at least a café/restaurant and an event location in it.

The North Sea variant usually doesn't have beach baskets and a promenade because it isn't part of a town (unless you want to mimic places like St. Peter-Ording or Westerland which would be beach themes of their own). No trees because the area has probably been treeless for centuries (chances are, part of it was sea until a few decades ago). Replace the dunes with a dyke. Optionally, fence the dyke in and add sheep on the dyke to the fauna. (Only sheep because cattle would ruin the dyke.) Add vast mudflats on the seaside which may or may not be under water (set the mud to phantom for extra fun so your feet sink in up to your ankles). Any and all architecture on the sim must be Frisian. Dress code: barefoot (or Wellingtons), rolled-up jeans, windbreaker.

You could make it eerier by building it as a varsim with even vaster mudflats from which sometimes a church bell rings even though there isn't a single church on the sim, much less out on the mudflats.

Also, the North Sea allows for small islands, only that they're called "holms" instead of "islands". Surround the whole thing with mudflats. Don't skimp on sheep. And instead of having dykes, every last building has to be built on a mound no less than four or five metres high.

But let's go back to the Baltic Sea. Natural beach variants should have cliffs. Not rocks, clay. Or white chalk (works both in former East Germany and Denmark). But preferably clay. If it's clay, boulders on the beach are a given. This is the kind of beach where campfires are the most likely.

Something in-between (not quite natural, no beach baskets, no promenade, but the occasional shop and the DLRG station) exists, too. It often comes with a camping site behind it which is a requirement for surf spots. This kind of beach is also the typical German nudist beach. Don't forget "FKK" signs. However, keep the rating Moderate and sex furniture inside the campers or tents. If you really want to go full cliché, fill the camping site behind your FKK beach with Trabants, Wartburgs and QEK campers.

Danish beaches would be similar to German ones, but even less urban, more likely with wooden summer cottages behind the dykes/dunes (per-week rent boxes, anyone?) and always clothing-optional. Oh, and think twice before you put up Linda Kellie's hot dog cart: In Denmark, hot dogs are sold at least from a trailer, if not a snack bar. But one of these is pretty much mandatory. Also, røde pølser (red sausages).
Let's talk beaches, part 1: What makes a good beach?
(Picture with my sister on it because I didn't have anything else at hand...)

Yes, I know it isn't really beach season (unless you're on the Southern hemisphere or in some subtropic or tropic area). But on the other hand, if it's too cold to go to a real beach, there are plenty of virtual beaches where it isn't too cold.

Now, what I'd like to talk with you, the community, about is: What makes a good beach? What does a good beach need in your opinion?

Generally, from my point of view, a beach should be more than just eyecandy on a sim that serves another purpose (freebie shops, event location, welcome landing, whatever). A beach should serve its own purpose, namely the same purpose real-life beaches serve. And that purpose shouldn't only be sex either.

So there are certain things I expect from a beach. Fair warning ahead: I'm biased because I grew up between a whole lot of nice beaches, and I've been to quite a number.


First of all: It should be possible to go into the water. Possible, credibly so and not hazardous. The sand should slope into the water gently so you can actually walk out into the sea (or lake or whatever) just like you usually can in real life. This is such a basic demand that you may wonder why I mention it.

Well, in many cases, this isn't possible at all. Either you have textured ground which drops off steeply from one metre above the water surface to way below. Sand can't do that, and it renders the number one key element of a beach useless.

Or you have a beach made of mesh sections. But these pieces of mesh either only barely lead into the water, or the water-side edge lies on top of the water surface, and all that washes over them are the waves. You can't even walk into ankle-deep water without falling off the edge and seeing the large hollow underneath the mesh beach pieces. I guess this is often a case of a beach built by someone who spends so much time flying above their own sim that they've literally never set a single foot on their own beach.

So, either way, whether or not you build your beach out of mesh: Please let the sea ground slope away from the beach gently.

This, by the way, is also why springboards on beaches are non-sense. Unless you place them on piers where the water is deep enough.


Speaking of swimming: Swim rezzers.

They come either as a single white-and-blue life-saver (where you have to explain how a life-saver floating in the surf stays in place) or as two life-savers on a wooden pole (the more elegant solution). In case you don't know them: What they do when you click on them is rez another life-saver. You sit on it, it disappears, and you assume a swimming position, complete with swimming animations. You can steer yourself while swimming. You can swim like you walk, only that you swim. If you stand back up, the life-saver reappears. If you wait for long enough, it deletes itself. One swim rezzer can rez multiple of these life-savers.

Why do I deem them important? Because you may want to actually swim. And not stand in the water. Because that's what you do on beaches (in case you don't know because you've never been to one).

Some of you may confuse them with those old-style swim balls. They're basically poseballs for swimming: You sit on them, and you swim back and forth, back and forth, and you can't control where you swim. But seriously, 2011 called, it wants its OpenSim 0.7.3 tech level back. Poseballs may still have their places, but this isn't one anymore.


Now comes something that may not be interesting unless you "play it real" like me: What do you do after you've been in the water? Lay down on a lounger or a towel?

Nope.

When I was a kid, we were taught by the adults to take off our wet swimwear and slip into something dry ASAP. Real life isn't Hollywood where your swim trunks or your swimsuit is dry the instance you come out of the water (or after the next cut). Nope, it's wet and clingy and getting cold, no matter how hot the weather is. So I'd like to have a chance to do that on a virtual beach as well.

Now, either the sim is Adult-rated which usually (but sadly not all of the time) means that nudity is allowed. Or it's Moderate-rated, and nudity is allowed (but sex isn't), whether or not it's mentioned. Or you don't really "play it real" (layer clothes: replace your swimwear directly with something new; mesh: put on your new swimwear, wear two sets clipping through each other for a few seconds, then take off your old swimwear, or replace one full swimwear outfit with another one in one go).

Or you do "play it real", but you can't be naked in public, so you have to hide. The same goes for when you arrive on a beach in street clothes with no swimwear underneath, by the way.

Ideally, the beach provides changing cabins (with scripted doors, not just static decorational dummies!). If not, there should be something that you can go behind to change. This something should be a) placed in such a way and large enough that it's hard to look behind it (camming or intentionally walking in notwithstanding), b) large and opaque enough that it actually covers you up (knee-high shrubbery isn't) and c) arranged in such a way that you can easily walk behind it and back out (a 100-metre-long hedge isn't; a long dune is if it's tall enough because you can walk over it).


As for other things, there should be a difference between "natural" beaches and other beaches.

If a beach is "natural", there shouldn't be any more facilities. Maybe a few beach towels for convenience (and plants to change behind unless you're allowed to be naked), or rezzing should be allowed so that people can place their own towels.

Everything else should be left to beaches which are officially run by someone, but then it should be there. Loungers. Beach showers or even full facilities. Changing cabins if necessary (see above). A bar or two (a halfway credible beach would have more swim rezzers than beach bars, though). Ideally a place to get something to eat. Lifeguard chairs. (The latter three work even better with appropriately-dressed NPCs giving life to them.) Shops and a party area with a dance floor and a permanently installed DJ set don't belong on "natural" beaches either.

On the one hand, a fully stocked beach bar one some remote secluded beach island that doesn't even have a landing pier doesn't make any sense. On the other hand, a beach that's otherwise so fully equipped as though it's right in front of a resort hotel is kind of incomplete if you can't get anything to drink.


A few more things concerning the above: Please, dear beach builders, if you place down furniture such as loungers or towels, sit on them. Can you sit on them properly? If you can't, do away with them because they're just a waste of space and prim capacity. It doesn't matter if you have never sat down on furniture, and you never will. Other people do, believe it or not, they do.

As an extra precaution: If the sim isn't Adult-rated, and the furniture has a menu, look at it. If there's anything sex-related, either replace the furniture with something without sex animations or edit them out.

Also, inflatable, floating items only make sense in pools. If you place a pool floater or a bouncy island in the surf in real life, it will be carried away unless you anchor it very thoroughly. And none of the floating items on the Hypergrid looks like it's anchored at all. So no floaties in the ocean surf.


Last but not least: The "dress code" on the beach (and in the surrounding areas) should be clear, and visitors should be informed about it both in-world and on OSW if the sim is entered there. Textile? Clothing optional? Nude? It's nigh-impossible to safely assume from the rating (or from the culture wherever the builder lives). Adult may mean a full-blown nudist "piggy beach" of which there are dozens just as well as a textile beach on a sim that allows nudity only in one small and well-concealed nook with one piece of sex furniture. And even Moderate may or may not allow for nudity.

Pagane: One of my beaches is with free access. May come to explore sand and terrain. Not ask for waves - i hate them. hop://forgotenworld.freeddns.org:9000:Sin bay 2 years ago
I don't usually support mesh bodies that have got nothing to do with Ruth2 or Roth2. But I've come across an improvement trick for Athena 6 with BoM that nobody seems to know.

The major problem is that the skin on Athena 6's limbs may look weird under certain viewer settings, much like a lighting bug. Some skin areas look brighter or darker than they should.

A minor problem is that alpha masks don't work on Athena 6 although they technically should with BoM.

The reason is because Athena 6 has a chaotic hodge-podge of alpha settings all over it. Parts are set to alpha masking, more parts are set to alpha blending (it's them which may look weird to you or to others), most have alpha off (this is why alpha masks don't work on Athena 6 out of the box).

The solution:

Step 1: Edit your Athena 6 body. All of it, not just any piece. Select it in your inventory while wearing it.

Step 2: Go to the Texture tab.

Step 3: Set the alpha mode to alpha masking.

Now the different shades of skin colour are gone, but your hands and feet may turn partially white. Don't panic, this is supposed to happen and will be fixed in the next steps.

Step 4: Set the mask cutoff to 128. If it is already 128, set it to 127 and back to 128.

The white should disappear, and your body should look normal again. Or better than what you saw previously.

Step 5: Take the body off and put it back on to save the new settings.

Also, you can now wear alpha masks like you can on the system body which might save you from the hassles that come with the alpha cuts on the HUD, and which you can save with outfits. The only limitation is that the alpha masks still don't work on fingernails and toenails.

Should alpha masks stop wearing, just edit the body and set the mask cutoff to 127 and back to 128.

The same method should work on Adonis 4 if you want to use alpha masks with BoM.

Oh, and before anyone tries this on Ruth2 v4 or Roth2 v2: You don't have to, at least not with the "BoM" bodies and Ruth2 v4 "Business". They've got alpha mode controls on the HUD. The "0.8.2.1" versions, on the other hand, are de-scripted and have no HUD, so they require this trick, too, if alpha masks don't work.

Seasonal greetings from my sister and me!

If the instructions for the OSW beacons tell you to make the beacon uncopyable, then PLEASE DO SO!
Yes, it's an inconvenient extra step.

Yes, it's more convenient to leave it as-is.

Yes, you may pride yourself in enabling your visitors to copy every last thing from your sim.

Yes, it does work as desired even if it can be copied...

...until someone actually copies the beacon and then puts it on their own sim, not even knowing what it is. And as they don't know what it is, and as the beacon did not come with instructions (they copied the bare beacon and not the box with the beacon and the instructions), they leave it as-is. They do NOT change or remove the beacon key. Why should they? Nothing tells them to do that.

All of a sudden, the entry for your own precious sim here on OSW will switch between your actual sim and that other sim run by the person who took your beacon with your beacon key and dropped it on their own sim. And half the time, the people who want to visit your sim will instead land on that other sim.

Now you may wonder if there are OpenSim users who don't know that the website OpenSimWorld exists. Yes, there are such people. It's mostly newbies, but there seem to be enough people who start building sims of their own while still counting as newbies. And I dare say there are enough seasoned OpenSim users who still don't know that OpenSimWorld exists.

And those who don't know that OpenSimWorld exists don't know either what this beacon is and what it's good for. Actually, just a few weeks ago, I had to explain to someone who has been in OpenSim for much much longer than myself what the beacon is and what it does.

I myself didn't know right away what the OSW beacon is and does when I started last year. For me, the OSW beacon was nothing more than a nifty Hypergrid teleporter that some sim owners were kind enough to install on their sims. In fact, apart from catching the occasional landmark, the OSW beacon was the only way for me to travel the Hypergrid.

I did NOT know about the website behind the beacon. Nor did I know that the primary task for the beacon is to connect in-world locations to the website.

Had I started to build my own sim about a month into my OpenSim usership, and had I found an OSW beacon that I could (and still shouldn't be able to) copy, I would have taken it and put it on my own sim as it was, someone else's beacon key in it and all. I wouldn't even have known that beacon keys exist.

To cut a long story short: If you let people copy your beacon, people WILL copy your beacon. With no instructions. They WILL NOT know what it really is. They WILL NOT know there's also a box with it inside plus instructions, much less where to get it. And they WILL misuse the beacon. And the entry for your sim here on OpenSimWorld WILL malfunction.

And if you ABSOLUTELY HAVE TO make the beacon available to everyone, then at least put the original box next to it. Not somewhere else on the sim, but right next to the actual beacon so that every last dummy will find it. And if you think the box looks terrible where the beacon is, then put the beacon itself somewhere where the box would look better.

Found this button in Singularity.

Now I'm wondering if it'll have a positive effect on my avatar.

If you're after Selea Core stuff, and you think your collection is complete: It most likely isn't.

I've just been to Free Life Nostalgia Neighborhood (https://opensimworld.com/hop/83497), and I've checked out Core's Department Store, a Selea Core tribute shop. You can find it at 359/812/29, right next to the main street that leads from the landing into the town.

My collection had already been large, but even I have picked up 54 boxes that I hadn't had yet.
In case you're wondering, OSgrid has been down for 8 hours now. There's no information currently about what's going on or when it'll be back up, at least not to my knowledge.

https://nitter.snopyta.org/osgrid/status/14290075692684001...

The other day, at Zuzions...

Does anyone know what happened to the con.tin.u.um grid?

It has been down for a week now. Okay, you may say, grids shut down, this just happens. But they usually announce their shutdown. Grids that shut down without an announcement are usually shoddy grids run by amateur hacks on old Windows laptops. con.tin.u.um was a fantastic grid run by people who knew what they were doing, not to mention with help by none less than Fred Beckhusen. Besides, they had just published a new issue of the Virtual-HG magazine, they had just upgraded Bastion (https://opensimworld.com/hop/82479), and they still had plans for the future.

Not only that, but I haven't seen a single sign of life from anyone behind it, much less an explanation as to why con.tin.u.um is down and whether it'll return. Marianna (https://opensimworld.com/user/Marianna) used to be here daily, but her last post was eight days ago.

Their website (https://www.virtual-hg.com/) is still up, but the last post is from August 28th.
Yours truly pretending it's ten years ago, and I'm a brand-new avatar that needs to be decked out.

Yes, I have a Roth cosplay outfit. Down to being barefoot.

Since I'm wearing a BoM-enabled Roth2 v2 body, I could also have put on the standard Ruth/Roth clothes, but I'm not too fond of trousers stuck up my buttcrack.

And they say you can't hear pictures.

And in latest news, Ruth2 v4 is out including a build for older OpenSim versions.

Get it at RuthAndRoth!
hop://hg.osgrid.org:80/RuthAndRoth/142/104/22

Also, expect it to hit Arkham soon.

Isn't that what we want to be?

So if there are any men's fashion tailors left out there, I have a request. Or a challenge. Or call it whatever you want.

And that's clothes rigged and fitted for Roth2 v2.
In case you haven't noticed yet because this has barely been advertised: Roth2v2 has been available for almost two months now.

The only place to get it is currently RuthAndRoth which doesn't have an OpenSimWorld beacon:
hg.osgrid.org:80/RuthAndRoth/142/104/22

Those of you who run freebie shopping sims and already have Roth 2.0 RC#1 (now renamed Roth2v1) may want to place Roth2v2 next to it so that people can find it.

Those of you who love low-poly male bodies can get it from RuthAndRoth until it appears elsewhere. Just beware: Since the content creators seem to be largely unaware of Roth2v2, there are absolutely no clothes rigged for it. So you'll have to experiment for now although some Adonis-rigged clothes work pretty well, just don't count on it.

And those of you who make male fashion may look into rigging it for Roth2v2.

Last but not least: Looks like Ruth2v4 is finally under way, too.

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My Reviews

ShoppingCity

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Tropicana Kokomo

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Little Haven 1

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NOVALE

This is easily one of the most impressive builds on the Hypergrid, a gorgeous and detailed landscape to spend hours exploring. And as if that wasn't enough, Novale changes with the seasons, i.e. four times a year, and each season is upgraded from year to year. Regardless of season, there's always something to do other than wander around. For example, you could rent a kayak and explore the water...

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Yes, you can actually get lost here, so big is this sim. And it has a lot to offer. What Chris wrote is not an understatement as Juno found out during her recent visit, and she hasn't even seen half of Illusions. There are beaches aplenty, even beaches that can be used as such; some actually have swim rezzers. The spa shouldn't leave much to be desired; it even offers things you wouldn't expect...

Last time I was on a sim with this name, it was announced as an all-round freebie sim, and I found myself in a huge building with nothing but sci-fi props. Now it's advertised as a freebie sim with avatar accessories. What I saw instead was a landscape with mostly water and not a single building in sight. I landed on a small grassy island which covered the standard landing point 127,127,x. The ...

Aquadark

The legend from 2010 is back. They say that when Aquadark shut down in 2019, Metropolis lost its best mall by far. But now, Aquadark has been revived on Lacchi Macchi's own grid. If you expect the newest, hottest SL stuff, you'll be disappointed. If you expect the SL "classics" from 2015 to 2019, you'll be disappointed, too. This is not your typical "freebie mall" churning out stolen content. N...

Nothing

Juno just went here. She said there's nothing to see here. I asked her if there's something to complain about. She was about to say, "Nothing," but then she noticed the mistake she was about to make.

Savvy

Mesh clothes scratch-made in and for OpenSim exist. Even for Ruth 2.0. Taarna made them, you can find them here. Granted, not everything can be worn by Ruth2 v4, but Ruth2 v4 came after these clothes, so you can't blame Taarna. There's also not exactly little menswear, made by Taarna as well. And don't forget the shoes and boots; Taarna is one of three creators of medium-heeled Ruth2 shoes I kn...

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Thank you for the kind words. Hats off to you. :)
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