Newbie Show and Tell

I attended a self-guided tutorial at the Ivory Tower Library of Primitives so I could learn how to make prims - otherwise known as spheres, cubes, cones…After the lesson I flew over to the sandbox where I could practice. Sandboxes are set up all over sl and are basically an empty landscape of field or desert where avies can built anything however large or small they want. Etiquette dictates that avies clean up after themselves but many are self-cleaning every few hours, like those automatic kitty litter boxes.

Nearby, an avie with huge shoulder pads and cape made a sports car appear, drove it up a skate ramp and flew off into the air until both disappeared into the metaverse. Off in the distance I could see someone throwing batons in the air. Another constructed an enormous structure with glass panels and tiled floors. I set myself up in the field and futzed around a bit, creating shapes that resembled sculptures I’d made in my last art class in college, only bigger. I uploaded my own textures, since the ones provided by reminded me of the tiled floors one finds in 1970s kitchens. Next to me a fellow conjured up acres of beds and coffee tables, making the sandbox resemble an old Macy’s department store. I dithered around for a few more minutes and came to like the sculpture I'd created. The shapes and colors stood out from the prims around me. I even considered carrying it over into real life. I envisioned designing cord-wrapped ceramic knick-knacks for mod apartments.




Later in the evening I attended a show and tell for newbies at the New Citizen Institute. There was a requirement that you had to be less than 90 days old in order to show your stuff. I thought I might conjur up my African textile-wrapped cylinder, feeling pretty accomplished. The NCI was packed with a whole variety of avies – fairies and Harajuku styled ladies, a man dressed as a naval captain, and the rest of us, dressed pretty much as we would in rl (which is a whole other topic – it seems really lame to dress normally in this environment when you could prance around with a tiger’s tail and wings).

The first avie brought an amazing particle simulation that looked like the big bang. The avies went wild, hooting and applauding. I nodded like I knew what a particle simulation was. The next avie tried to bring a structure onto the stage, but it was so huge it landed on some spectators. The third avie showed a lovely fish tank, complete with bubbles, drifting water plants, and little fishes, all “hand-crafted”. The final person showed a building I couldn’t see due to lag, but the more experienced avies were shouting how they’d never seen a building created with so very many prims, what skills he had, and did he want a job in-world. Suddenly my big lumpy cylinder looked totally naff. There are some sophisticated folks in-world, even the newbies. Back to the sandbox...