Last Year in Versailles

Well, things have settled down enough for me to spend a few minutes prattling at the darkness, as it were. I'm not sure if any of you out there still actually read this foolish blog, but in a way, that knowledge makes it a little easier for me when I begin to scratch upon the paper. Said pen has been in a rather resting posture recently, what with RL work and all (see last, self pitying post), so the prospect of flexing it in apparent (albeit not actual) privacy is somewhat attractive. Anything to kick that lazy muse out of her post-Raphaelite reclining posture. Silly muses...

So, spinning about and taking a random subject off the shelf, I shall speak of Versailles!



There we are, a RL photo taken with my own little Brownie. It is nigh unto a year now since I left France and my favorite petit chateau. It was hardly a coincidence that I found SL shortly afterwards--on one hand, I missed the easy community I found in the streets of Paris (um, perhaps I ought rephrase that, especially as I was living near le Moulin Rouge) And in another sense, I missed the Grand Scale of architecture. I live on the West Coast of the United States, which has great natural beauty but at least where I am, little architectural beauty, and certainly no history. But architectural creation is omnipresent in SL.

In no sense am I saying that a virtual build is equivalent to buildings that took many years to complete and represent the work of some of the greatest artisens who've walked the face of the Earth. And yet--the tools here are comparatively easy to master. In a world where one can wave a hand and move a 10 meter solid "stone" cube, many things can suddenly become possible.

And, perhaps unsurprisingly, many RL works are being reproduced as well. So, it was with incredible delight that I received a call from the Duc de Choiseul, asking for my help in creating a carriage for the new Virtual Versailles.

Good lord, how many ways could I have said oui? The Duke was a complete gentleman, who flattered my poor work (which I do not regard as in any way complete), and provided a number of lovely links to the original carriages that they had in mind.



Second Life does not always permit precise replicas (drat that prim count!), but I think I have a good start on it. Right now, I need fight some nasty haloing (white edging on transparencies), but the carriage proper is behaving itself now, and has seen opening night in Virtual Versailles again.

*sigh* I was going to talk more about the Versailles sim, but I see that I completely forgot to upload the pictures I've taken :/ Well, it just shall have to be a "stay tuned" moment then, and when I waddle my way onto the grid, I shall have to upload those textures.

A Bientot!