Deeblue! Someone else took some pics of your place. :)

nice place you got there

lol Deeblue, everyone just loves your place

That someone would be me.

I hope it's not a problem (being that the game is in beta and all). If so, I'd take them off my server ASAP.

I love Deeblue's gallery. I'm one of the WW2OLers, but I happen to be an art student as well (and freelancer, though I couldn't quite consider myself a "professional", and I've always loved good architecture and environmental/graphic design.

Deeblue's place is definitely the best-designed place I've found yet, and it's pretty clear to me that he's probably a professional designer as well.

[shameless plug]
I'm planning on opening a shop soon, which will probably have lots of custom-designed contemporary furniture unless I can think of anything better..
[/shamless plug]

I dont think it will be a problem since it is open beta

Wow! I'm really glad you guys are enjoying my place. I have to say I feel a little guilty now because I haven't had a chance to spend any time out there since I've been working on the cyber city project in Bonifacio.

Come check out my building there, it contrasts fairly well with the gallery in terms of architectural design. Right now it's kind of a general purpose multi-storey highrise-ish building, hehe. It's definitely looking like it could be a nice apartment building though, and I'll definitely be setting up some kind of extension of my gallery in the penthouse suite of the new building.

You were right about the designer thing. I've been a professional graphic designer + code monkey for over 5 years now. I really don't do much actual design anymore though, I mainly build websites and database applications these days. SL is definitely a nice release since I've always sort of toyed with the idea of being an architect. I'm not sure if I could handle going back to school again for such a long time to get the qualifications, haha, but it's a nice passion to entertain in something like Second Life. Maybe in the future there'll be a giant robot builder mech that can read my SL files and translate them into real buildings, haha.

Believe it or not I was going to tear down the gallery to get the money back and work on something else, perhaps an entirely new project, perhaps a better gallery, etc. But the response so far has been a fairly overwhelming "NO!", so I guess I'll be leave it up, haha. I don't really want to add anything else to the building though since Hawthorne is already really lagged and I don't want to contribute to that lag anymore than I have to, y'know? Hopefully I can at least switch out the artwork now and then to keep it fresh.

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Lemme know when your shop is ready! I definitely want to check out any furniture you make. I've been basing most of my stuff on the Eames brothers. They're such pimps, heh.

here's a nutty idea: sell it?

maybe have an auction or something (under the terms of course, that the winning bidder will not delete the gallery), and sell it all... you'd get more money that way than just deleting it, and the gallery would still be around for all to enjoy

Phil, you're a genius.

If I wasn't such a n00b, and I happened to have some extra money to spend, I would definitely want to put a bid on that fine piece of property.

I imagine you can get quite a bit more from an auction than you would if you just deleted it to get the funds back. AND it would stay!


As for the "virtual architect" thing... I think that's one of the reasons I'm so drawn to this game. I've experimented with some architectural and environmental design ideas in 3ds MAX, but I always felt it was so EMPTY because they serve little function inside the program or as a simple rendering. I always wished for a way I could "walk around" inside one of the creations, and share it with others, and SL seems to be the best way to do something like that.

The interest has always been there, but I still have lots to learn when it comes to executing my ideas. I expect to make plenty of mistakes, but this should be a fun way to dabble in architecture for me as well.

two people have told me i'm smart within like a 10 minute period...

*waits for the laughter to ensue, and someone to tell him it was all a big joke*

Selling it is a nice idea, and when I first signed up for SL I had this nice thought that I could build and sell houses in-world to make up part of my income. Honestly I'm just not sure if there's a market for it though, and I have no idea what sort of initial price I would put on the thing.

I guess I'd just like to hear if anyone reading this is actually seriously thinking they might like to take ownership of the building? What would you do with it? Leave it as-is, or move into it as your new home and expand on it? Add new sections to display more artwork? Turn it into some kind of store? Or... ?

When all is said and done, I'll probably end up keeping the place. I do really like the building, I've just gotten caught up with 2 other projects, one of which is literally on the other side of the world.