Best build I've seen yet.

I happened to discover there's an SL replica of the real Mont Saint Michel in France. I spent an hour or so wandering round it. This really gave me a sense of virtual tourism, and I was just overwhelmed by the amount of work that must have gone into it.

For those that don't know, Mont Saint Michel is a small, steep island off the coast of France, reached by a causeway at low tide, which has an ancient abbey at the summit, surrounded by tightly packed houses and shops. I haven't been to the real one but I have been to the British equivalent, St. Michael's Mount in Cornwall, which is very similar, although a bit smaller.

Although I love SL for its imaginitve creations and the fantasy aspect - like Burning Life, for instance, these RL replicas can be breathtaking.

Yes, Mont Saint Michel is an amazing build.

I am also blown away by Al Andalus. One of the highlights for me is the replica of Santa Maria Blanca, http://slurl.com/secondlife/Al%20Andalus%20Generalife/150/64/54, a medieval synagogue in Toledo (later, as its name indicates, a church). This, and many other builds in the sims are by the gifted Marino Nuvolari.

Same here.

I often think that the Lindens would do well to actively attract the tourist bureaus of major towns and cites around the world. The big metropolitan councils could certainly manage the budget to sustain several professionally designed sims with local institutions subscribing as tenants to promote their facilities. I think it would also be a good way to attract new residents who might discover SL while considering a holiday or simply researching the real places.

Think how wonderful it would be if you could saunter around a detailed virtual Paris or Venice or take in the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam or the National Gallery in London of an afternoon?

Unfortunately, the Dublin and Amsterdam sims are the closest I have seen to reasonably accurate if only partial representations of RL cities. As far as I recall, the Dublin sim in particular has a business model in place to attract RL institutions.

SL has a long way to go on this front. I wish they would pull their collective finger out and make a start.

I have been to the rl Mont St Michel (taken there by someone who I met in SL actually ) and the SL sim is very evocative . . .

Pep (although I couldn't find the sex dungeon in the real thing. )

I was there for an hour last night too!

It came up as one of those login pictures, so I clicked to go there.

I'm going to be there for a while, because I want to see the whole thing.

There is so much DETAIL there, so much to look at. I kept wanting to bookmark or landmark different nooks and stores.

Beautiful. Unfortunately it is one of those sims where I inexplicably but consistently crash.

Bugger!

I long time ago, I posted something about how I envisioned the future of the SL-type system. I didn't consider tourist bureaus as such, but I did suggest things like holiday parks and things like that - and not necessarily in SL itself, but maybe stand-alone sims (like OpenSim) completely seperate from any other grid. The opportunity to wander around a virtual place, before deciding whether to go to the real one or not, has to come - it just has to.

Chuh, cos that's in the Cornish one.

By the way, that's my view when I drive over to Penzance to go shopping, as you come down the A30 past the Treneere roundabout, the whole of Mount's Bay is spread out before you. It isn't a sight you can easily tire of.

I'm still there, sitting opposite the church on the wall of the courtyard. Been there all day and didn't get a tap of work done. It turns out I only crash in the shopping lane. Maybe it's something to do with all them light sources vying for the attention of my graphics card.

Bumped into Drongle McMahon. Anybody else at Mon St Michel at the moment?

It's a gorgeous build.

Sometimes I log in with Emerald just for the sheer delightful crapshoot of their login screens, which is how I found Sant Michel.

Predictability be damned! Last night Emerald showed us a lovely monastery build that turned out to be a 'naturist resort'. Now THAT'S what I'm talkin' bout!

Suggest you keep an eye on Koinup Blog's "Meet Me in the Metaverse" entries by Fiona Haworth:

http://blog.koinup.com/search/label/meet%20me%20in%20the%20metaverse

She covered the Mont Saint Michel sim some time ago:

http://blog.koinup.com/2009/08/meet-me-in-metaverse-mont-saint-michel.html

And has led me to other equally amazing SL gems such as:

http://blog.koinup.com/2009/10/meet-me-in-metaverse-black-taj-white.html
http://blog.koinup.com/2009/07/meet-me-in-metaverse-pathfinder.html
http://blog.koinup.com/2009/09/meet-me-in-metaverse-macbeth.html

Enjoy

I thought Old York sim was nicely done - I liked the underground maze.

I'm having problem figuring out how to see a list of great places on Koinup?

Was there a few weeks ago - in amongst the shops, I found a small cafe with three or four japanese teen-looking AVs sat about. They all started bouncing up and down when I went in which unerved me a bit so I left without trying to speak to them.

This sounds like the same sim I ran into in 2006, if so... yes, it's really amazing.

I think this could be the killer app for driving new users to SL.

Caveat the usual hurdles: time to download the viewer; machine specs; UI learning curve. So with that much up-front time investment required, it would pretty much be for people who wanted to spend at least several hours investigating, so maybe a whole virtual travel bureau of multiple destination sims. Maybe it would only take a few seed destinations to scare others into participating, lest they lose the business to competitors

I really want to visit a region hosting the Newfoundland and Labrador of their gorgeous TV ads. Hell, I'd never want to leave.

It's a gorgeous build, isn't it . I really love to sit in the cloisters by the abbey up there.

A friend who is a rl local of it took me to the earlier version a long time ago now, perhaps that's the one Argent remembers, as I think there are two? This latest version is much more realistic, and has very superb texturing.

I think Mont Saint Michel has taken top place on my list of best RL replica from Dresden Gallery, my previous choice.

So is anyone game for bulding a replica of St. Michael's Mount in Cornwall? Should be a bit easier as it's got fewer buildings, but otherwise very similar to the French one.

I agree. I also suspect that it's very much the reason why the idea hasn't taken off because it's otherwise pretty obvious. Phil mentioned a similar notion above but I don't doubt that it already has occurred to the greater number of regular SL residents at some point.

Nevertheless, there has got to be an 'in' on this somehow. I'm an old hand at SL by many standards and I'm pretty much jaded by a good deal that I've seen to the point where I spend most of my time working at home or on the Beta Grid. Yet I lost most of yesterday wandering around that sim. That alone should count for something.


Which is another reason why I was glad Conifer drew my attention to Mont St Michel. Apart from some very successful shopping malls, I have yet to find a sim with so many avatars coming and going. The Lindens would do well to showcase it and hopefully get other similar projects up and running. That is if they haven't already begun to do that.

Not knowing a great deal about building and stuff, how come a picture of the causeway continues on past the Edelweiss sim, when there's no other sim shown on the map? Shouldn't there just be water? It's a neat trick; just wondered how it's done.

If you have the time, as you seem to have, why don't you get into it? Everything already exists to produce it, and it's free. OpenSim is the system to use for the grid. All you need to do is build a representation of some place - a holiday park, maybe - put it online, and sell the concept to prospective clients. I still believe that it will happen and, if I'm right, we are in the 'ground floor' time for getting started.

I'll repeat the 'vision' I have for the future (repeated from ages ago in this forum). I see a 3D internet where the equivalent of web hosts host grids of various sizes, according to each customer's requirements. Multi-sim grids and single sims. They don't need to be connected in any way - just hosted, like websites are hosted. Everything is already there for it to be done now, and I believe that it is already being done in a very small way. It's 'ground floor' time if you fancy getting in on the ground floor.

Oh my god, the old one was already one of the coolest builds I'd ever seen, but now I've been to this one... wow.

Texture applied to a megaprim.

PS: I don't think the real Mont Saint Michel looks like this underneath.



(ferrets get everywhere)

As a matter of fact I don't have the time. I'm at the point where I can apply my building/texturing/animation skills to making a product line for sale and that's what I'm doing - making the kind of things I would like to buy myself if I could find them in SL. So that takes a most of my time these days.

Also, I'm still building my home after two years. At this point I'm fitting a mansard roof with dormer windows. Somehow it involves completely altering the layout of the ground and first floors also.

I could give Petrocelli a run for his money when it comes to slack DIY, I tell you.

The matter of time and availability aside, a particular issue with the the kind of sim I am thinking of, say Venice for example, is that it would involve working locally to acquire textures 'live' with a camera, accurately studying the layout of the place and generally taking pains. I'm not thinking of a perfectly detailed replica but the work would certainly take time to even get close to the look and feel of the place and I think it would have to be managed in some department of a local council or some such authority since that body would ultimately control ownership and have a commitment to maintaining the sim if the completed project were to have any chance of lasting.

I don't know the background to Mont St Michel but wouldn't it be a tragedy if the builder got fed up with SL and took a hike tomorrow and the place got deleted? That could happen.


Ephraim Kappler roars laughing: I fell in there yesterday. I think there's a phantom wall or something that I accidentally walked through at the wrong moment.

It's a beautiful, beautiful piece of work, in every sense of the word.

I explored the place one afternoon.
A few days later, I had an informal vow renewal with my SL partner in the chapel there.
This past weekend, I flew Anabelle's hang glider from the bell tower.

It's an amazing build!!! It's what SL is about to me.