In the middle of last week Fiachra TP’d me to something that changed my whole SL . It gave me back something which I felt I had lost, and totally changed how I want people to look at how they live – in Second Life.

From early on in world, we aspire – many of us – to own our own slice of paradise. Whether it be a 512 plot – I still have mine – or a whole sim. But unfortunately, regardless of the size of your land, you end up not exactly living the way you dreamed of – of course not the case for all.

I have been lucky enough to live on full estates ever since the first few months in world. I have had whole sims at my disposal, but alas always lived in the sky because the ground was of course always a business.

A platform in the sky, or a skybox. Usually security orbed up the whazoo as with blogging I change so much and often am left standing there half dressed while in IM with either clients, or friends – actually 99.9% of the time I am in meetings I am always clothed, just to clear that up.

But for the outlay of a full sim, to end up in a box in the sky, is a real letdown. Often you hear designers/creators in group IMs discussing that they spend all day in their skyboxes or platforms, or worse that they just never get out at all. They spend the time in an enclosed space, and wonder why they get down in the dumps… because lately I have seen a lot of that.

In first life there is a condition called Cabin Fever, usually this is because of the enclosed space, but with the added torture of nothing to do…in Second Life we are usually always doing something, but the prolonged isolation has definite effects on how we respond to things, and even how we create.

Even if not on a full estate, many that live on mainland have resorted to skyboxes, mainly to get away from the uglyness that is their neighbourhood, or to give a sense of space to a small parcel.

The place that Fiachra teleported me too is called Landscapes Unlimited and it has changed my life, as well as Whimsy’s and the estate itself.

The pictures you see in the top of this post are taken at over 3000 metres in the sky, the water was a gift to me in waves format for my ground level when I got The Deck – thanks Mel again ♥ – the rocks in the water are part of some outside sim reefs that I bought, which are a wonderful thing to have.

I was able to purchase the incredible sculpted land , that spans across my whole sim, once rezzed it is phantom, so you will have to add some mega prims along where you want to walk, I actually have one as big as the build just below the water, because I kept falling through lol. The other incredible thing is that the other night Mel and I sailed around my new area, as though on the ground level, and Whimsy and Gary have already used their jetskis on their level.

You see now a few hundred metres apart, Whimsy and Gary have a sim sized area of their own too, with landscapes and trees, plants and beaches…hers is so cool she has even built houses on either side of the mountains so that it is like traveling to a holiday house.

There are desert builds and more mountainous regions than mine. But whichever one you choose it is incredible, and adds so much to how you live.

If you rent residentialy on an estate, imagine if instead of land parcels going up, your landlord allocated altitudes instead, same prim limits but you had the size of a full sim…imagine how incredible it would be.

Or for people wanting to combine residential with commercial, you can do both, because your land mass isn’t in question.

There may be other stores doing this, I am not sure. I do know also that in some cases because it is aerial mapping that is used as a texture, there is sometimes size issues, such as most of the green on mine that looks like moss is actually trees from a great height. So look at which builds you like closely and see if they work best for you…there is a display platform that you can rez them, and even cooler they have demos you can take home to try out.

Thanks Fiachra for showing me how to have cake and eat it too.

Landscapes Unlimited

Real Waves

Tobias Novi