Five Tips: How to visit the Garden of NPIRL Delights

The most frequent comment I hear from visitors to the Garden of NPIRL Delights is that they are "overwhelmed." I understand this. Four sims filled with the works of over 110 content creators - many of them quite complex - can have that effect. I worked alongside the artists for weeks, and I am still discovering new things. The good news is that there are several fantastic tools to make this easier for you.

If I were to take you by the hand and show you the Garden myself, here is how I would do it:

1) Arrival and Preparation: Take the HUD and Info
Teleport to the Garden from here. Beatrix Newt created a tranquil path at the entrance to the Garden with signage that invites you to "take" the HUD and info offered there. Please do!



2) Take the Tour
Just to your right as you exit the pathway, you will see the Tour area. Hop on the gorgeous Fleur de Lys-shaped vehicle, especially created for the Garden by famed vehicle maker (and founder/owner of the Ivory Tower of Prims), Lumiere Noir. The Fleur de Lys was scripted by Darek Deluca, the creator of XIDD Particles and Gadgets and the fabulous Particle Theatre, as well as a four layer installation at 3000m above the Garden that spans all four sims.



And off you go!



The ride is surprisingly smooth and pleasant, especially considering that you are crossing four sims.



You'll fly over many installations you might not have known about, otherwise.



There are many wonders in the sky. Having seen them, you will be able to plan your visits with a better idea of what is in store for you.



3) Wear the HUD
They said it couldn't be done. Really! Many expert coders warned me that we were going down the path of disaster, but Master Scripter Miki Gymnast pulled it off.

Look in your inventory for a folder called "Garden of NPIRL Delights Info" and inside it for the NPIRL Garden Tour HUD. "Wear" it. It will look like this but only fill a tiny spot on the lower left-hand corner of your screen.



"Touch" it with your mouse, and it will pull up a Second Life® teleport map. Choose "teleport," and you will find yourself at one of the installations at the Garden. And get this... the HUD will remember where you have been and take you to new places each time. Once you are wearing the HUD, you will be able to teleport to all these places directly from any spot on the grid, too.



4) Nifty Landmark-Ready Notecards
Loved the work of a particular artist and want to go back? Easy! Thanks to my SL brother, Corporate Jay, and in the same folder where you Garden HUD resides, you have four notecards, one for each sim. Open them... and voila!


Click to see large

Obviously, the notecards don't have to be stretched so large on your screen, but thought you might like to see their content.

5) Walk down the green glowy paths
That King of Glow, Spiral Walcher, spent many hours arranging his official Garden path throughout the four sims to ensure that you had ready access to every single installation on the ground.


Here we are, in the wee hours of the morning, welcoming our first guests to the Garden. That green glowy path will lead you to many adventures and surprises.

Along the paths, you will find local teleporters to the sky builds, too.

As you can see, many people contributed countless hours of their time, and industrial quantities of their knowledge and good ideas to make your visit to the Garden a happy one. I can't even begin to thank each one of them enough.

The Garden of NPIRL Delights is blossoming

There were about 40 content creators signed up nine days ago when Rezzable Productions made the four sims available for our joint effort - the Garden of NPIRL Delights - and the Not Possible IRL group's first-ever build festival.

That number has mushroomed. We had more than 40 people at a noon Town Hall meeting yesterday - our first - and today I think we stand at over 110 participating creators.


Click to see large

Not all builds are in place and there is so much work left to do, but people are collaborating with each other at a furious rate. Just today, every installation got a prim bonus to blend their work with that of their neighbors.


Click to see large

The "bonus and blend" idea came from a person who has contributed so much to this effort that even if she never does another thing, she's left a deep mark of goodness that none of us will forget: LittleToe Bartlett.


Beatrix Newt, Lauren Weyland, Pavig Lok, and the chillin' fridge is LittleToe Bartlett

It was Lag-tastic!

It stands to reason that a call for Not Possible in Real Life builds would generate a lot of scripty creations, and about four days ago, the lag got so bad, that one of the sims was disappearing off the map a few times a day. Sim crossings were laughable.

Pavig Lok studied the situation and alerted us to a few trouble spots. Miki Gymnast came in, fresh from knee surgery in Real Life, and worked with dozens of builders to optimize their scripts. I was worried that participants would throw up their hands or freak out and leave, but a funny thing happened... people started to really cooperate and collaborate, seasoned builders with newer ones, expert coders with other expert coders... and suddenly, you can breathe on all four sims. The lag is gone.


Click to see large

There have been all sorts of heroes and heroines along the way. I still don't know how Beatrix Newt can take on so many responsibilities (site allocation, terraforming, parcelling, tour supervision, and much more) and still appear calm and in control.

And Lauren Weyland... will you ever forgive me? She needed bio input from every participant, so I helpfully issued a notice providing the wrong email address and promptly logged off to a busy Real Life schedule. Ouch. Sorry folks!

Ah well... these stories and hundreds more will only matter to those who are living them, very intensely, on four very special sims these days. I've had very little sleep, and I know I'm not alone in this, but when I look at the Garden and how it is blossoming, I wouldn't have it any other way.

The Garden of NPIRL Delights will open its doors on May 16th.