Whimsy Delivered

Written 21 March, 2008

Whimsy Delivered!

I sent a message to the Lindens requesting delivery of Whimsy no earlier than 1 April (I thought it would be nice to have a week with nothing to do), but Monday evening, there Whimsy was!

While I was reading the Lindens' e-mail to me, Sweetie relogged with Whimsy typed into the rez-here field, and beat me there!

I had ordered default island design No. 4. It was a beautiful series of ridges sloping down to gentle bays, so nice I was temped to stay with it.

We spent the evening and the next racing about, flying over the land in blimps and airplanes, racing motorcycles, and rezzing every silly high-prim object in our respective inventories. Then, Wednesday night, we got down to business.

We rezzed a box with a 16x16 grid on it and pushed prims around on it as we worked up a landscape.

After Sweetie went to bed I sunk the land, smoothed it, and pulled up rough islands in the requisite places. As I have more than a little experience in making volcanoes, I made the new Pele.

The next day friends were on the land, putting down prims at places they fancied. "Wait!" I cried. "We haven't finished the terraform!"

That night Sweetie downloaded Backhoe, a Mac-only program that can be used to create terrain maps. It took her only about an hour and a half to take my rough layout and turn it into something spectacular.

Her first file turned Whimsy into a 100-meter tall granite plain with 90-meter tall spikes; our friends' claim-staking prims and some of our own got returned. Oops! Her second attempt was better, but there were tears in the fabric of the land; you could see blank spaces through them.

Sweetie went back to the drawing board, and an hour later, Whimsy was truly born. I spent about two hours that night and the next morning smoothing the rough spots and making sure the underwater spots were low enough to float boats, but changed little of her design.

I had had in mind a sim that looked a bit like Hawaii, and had chosen terrain textures to that end. But I had no idea we would wind up with something so stunning! I loved it immediately!

Whimsy is an archipelago, a collection of large and small islands. The largest is Pele, in the southwest quadrant, and the volcano goddess has already established residence. The tell-tale sign of this are the plums of sulphurous smoke drifting upwards from the caldera.

The northeast quadrant is beach, with tropical sand and the usual surf and swim amenities. A sunken pirate ship graces the sim corner, and there's a chest that gives the brave souls who are willing to face off Inky the squid a pair of Chey's custom armbands. The southeast quadrant is properties for sale-- and every lot I made has been spoken for. The northeast quadrant houses a large island on which the house Sweetie made for me will be featured.
There's a lot to do yet, of course, but the basics are there, including a great hand glider rezzer on Pele's flanks and Gypsy Design's canoe rezzer and swim ball (which lets you paddle all over the simulator). The covenant is in place, I have laid out parcels for sale and determined the price, and I will set them for sale to individuals tonight before I go to bed.

Photos: Here are two snapshots taken by Sweetie. One shows us cuddled on a beach in the original island; the other shows me standing on a pile of crashed airplanes.