Avatar Central returning to Aqua

Thing is... we used to be able to DIRECTLY teleport to Natoma
Of course... in reality we were cheapskates and simply flew.
But at least we had AUTOFLIGHT!!

I ran across the half built avcentral and I got the warm fuzzies after I gaped at it for a few seconds.

Back in 1.0 I started 'Fairlight Flight'. Pre vehicle scripted copters mainly. I was already selling in Av Central and I had a little Gyrocopter placed in both stores too.

Well... to make this short. 'Fairlight Flight' became the 'FairChang Engineering' we know today when I married Pituca Chang in Nov 2003.

The memories

Not asking for space as we have many stores, but it sure takes me back

Wow, nice trip down memory lane Bino! I'd kind of forgotten there was a time when Av Central was the only thing there!

Tain't nothing worse than cold fuzzies.

Thanks Launa. I'll admit that I love to just hang out there and let the memories come flooding back. It's sort of hypnotic and addictive. Maybe that's the real reason I do the building elsewhere.

Ahem.

Ahem.

I resemble that remark.

Thanks for the memories...

Sniff. <grabs tissue>

I'll sadly scratch FC from my preferred vendors list; but feel free to reconsider at any time in the future.

That screenshot is simply amazing. I've been following the Natoma design partly because I had no pics of the Aqua build. And I've been racking my brain trying to remember the differences between the two (which are considerable). It's as helpful as it is mind blowing.

I'm attaching my favorite, and last, shot of the Natoma build, taken a couple of weeks before it was dismantled. Yes, that is snow falling.

Glad y'all liked the snapshot so much.

I've got a series of them from when the land rush kicked in on the colored sims. Neat to see how empty they were, yet see the group builds that had been forming.

A great reward to a small but strong beta community at the time, especially in preparation for go-live and its influx.

I am not sure that Aqua and Natoma's AvCentrals differed so much architecturally. Might just be that my video card at the time is playing tricks on you. Only thing I really notice is the sidewalk pattern around the outside.

But you're the builder. I don't have many (if any) other or interior pictures. However I might have a copied sidewalk object from Aqua, I'll see if the texture on there is copiable or has your abovementioned bug.

Based on my current knowledge of the build, and Eric's construction technique, I"m guessing that the build in your snap is still unfinished. The front edge of the roof still shows a glass overhang, which in the finished version is sandwiched in concrete. And the back, rear corner of the roof seems to be missing.

Anyway, the Aqua build looks like it had a much flatter front than the one in Natoma. Which fits perfectly with my recollection of it. Since I'm now working on the front of the building, it helps to see the variation.

Yesterday that Concrete_pour texture was rendering correctly again. The strange thing is that it only goes white or transparent in Aqua. In the sims where I'm building it looks fine. But I'd love to have a copy of the Aqua texture.

It did bring up alot of memorial conversation, Torley stayed alive luckly.

Bino thats a great picture, do you know what that road and bridge are on the right?

I don't remember if the AC had a glass roof like that or not...

I do remember the staircase was more in the middle of the back I think. It probably did differ a bit from the Natoma one.

I'm really no help at this at all am I? lol.

The inside from the Natoma picture looks like the same setup as the Aqua one as well.

They were a Linden build. The bridge struts are still there. The road prims are long gone.

Yes, but does Torley still have ears???

Inquiring minds want to know.

Anyway, I'm going to log on right now and try to finish the curved front of the building. (Damn me to hell for being such a lousy geometry student!) If all goes well, I'll immediately add it to the build in Aqua, and start on the floor.

Hypotenuse? WTF?!?!?

There was a road that ran around Green iirc, with a bridge over the creek that formed part of the water that divided the land in Green.

At various times it has switched between Linden and private citizen ownership... I haven't been out there in a while so I don't know what it looks like now, will have to check it out when I head to see the new AvCentral.

I took the picture hovering over the border with Blue facing west, probably should have mentioned that before

I'm still eager to listen to all of these memorable tales of yore from the ancient era of SL, if that's what you're asking. And I look forward to the future too.

lol wow I'm so lame , I didn't even realize it was gone. Remember going in there a few times. Shows how much I get out shopping .. haha I've worn the same shirt and jeans for like 18-19 months now.

*edit* ah maybe the one I visited was in Aqua .. I don't remember. Its been a while.

Sounds like the new store is opening just in the nick of time.

Glad to hear it Torley. But just to set the record straight about the 'ancient era' -- dinosaurs were already extinct when I entered Beta during version 0.8. I think they were all driven to suicide by the weekly tax or something.

Sorry to say that the build is being damaged by the ongoing earthquake in Aqua, which I reported in another thread. Until the ripple effect stops it will be impossible to assess the damage.

The server outages, texture problems, and now the earthquake, have thrown a monkey wrench into my push to finish the build quickly. It's fairly far along now. The exterior building is actually finished except for the roof, and the front portion of floor (which I was working on when the quake started). There are also a few rough spots that need to be tweaked, but those are very minor.

I was actually hoping to finish building tomorrow, Saturday, since I'm going to be terribly busy in FirstLife after that. Best laid plans...

Hope things clear up soon for you (*kicks a Linden under the table*)!

hehe. Every time I file a bug report i want to say, "Cut me some slack; I'm rebuilding Avatar Central, fer cryin' out loud!"

After deleting and replacing a number of messed up prims, everything seemed fairly stable yesterday. The floor is nearly finished, and the roof is about half done. Even with all the problems, the build is moving along pretty quickly. I'm starting to invite vendors and develop a floor plan.

It's a pretty amazing experience. People will stop by, and just stand there and stare at it for twenty minutes. Hell, I do that myself. It's so weird to be in Aqua and suddenly see Avatar Central just standing there, like it's never been gone.

Building update: Having pretty much completed the freakin' finicky concrete outer part of the roof, (whew! ) construction is now focused on quickly completing the interior so that vendor space can be assigned. The second floor is done except for the staircase area and the glass safety barriers. Some of the stone tile 'path' flooring has also been laid.

Building Blog: I've developed a great deal of empathy for the construction workers who reassembled the London Bridge after it was shipped stone-by-stone from England to Arizona. Did they have any leftover pieces when they were done? I've got at least three pieces that don't actually seem to fit anywhere in the build. Pretty sneaky, Eric!

If I've figured things correctly, my design has significantly more floor space on the upper level than the original store. My current plan is to use the second floor for the Furniture and Garden departments.

I'm writing a mini-FAQ for AvC vendors, which I'll be sending to them directly within the next week or two. Mainly, I need to calculate how many prims can be allocated to each seller.

My personal goals are to have the Grand Re-Opening event roughly four weeks from now, and to stay alive until the heat-death of the Universe.

Thank you so much for taking the trouble to try and rebuild this historical monument
I will have to go in-world to check out your progress

Very cool to now that some of SL's history is coming back for those newbies who never got a chance to experience it.