Wishing you a happy and prosperous New Year! May this be a year of joy, success, and good health for you and your loved ones. Remember a New Year is a new 365 page Novel, the first day is the first page. So this year, write a good one! 2023!!

Ellen and Ernest would like to thank all the HG Safari members for coming over to the grid last night, it was an absolute pleasure to see you all! and thank you Thiriza for a wonderful write-up of the evening which you can view here

https://hgsafari.blogspot.com/2022/09/the-art-factory.html...

We were only able to show you a small fraction of what the Art Factory has to offer so do visit again soon or even better join our group of talented artists!

GACHA Shop

Because of this always annoying I can't fill the stores on Needful Things permanently with new items. Even creating (reasonably) appealing images takes some time. For this reason I created the < GACHA ROOM > on Needful Things, where you can pull a random item out of the vending machine. A few machines only give you one item every 24 hours, but most of them you can click as many times as you want - until they finally give you the item you want :) .
The gachas work without (game) money or anything like that; just click on them and see what they give out....
Enjoy!

***
GACHA Shop

Aufgrund dieses immer wieder lästigen kann ich die Läden auf Needful Things leider nicht permanent mit neuen Items befüllen. Schon das Erstellen (einigermaßen) ansprechender Bilder nimmt einige Zeit in Anspruch. Aus diesem Grund habe ich den < GACHA ROOM > auf Needful Things eingerichtet, wo ihr euch ein zufälliges Objekt aus dem Automaten ziehen könnt. Ein paar Maschinen geben nur ein Objekt alle 24 Stuunden aus, aber die meisten kann man beliebig oft hintereinander anklicken- bis sie endlich das ersehnte Item ausspucken :) .
Die Gachas funktionieren ohne (Spiel-)Geld oder dergleichen; einfach anklicken und abwarten, was sie ausgeben....
Viel Spaß!

Last week saw the passing of one of the greatest artists of the last century. Portuguese born Paula Rego, who has died aged 87, once said that she liked “to work on the edge”, and her many series of paintings and drawings, about the subjugation of women, abortion and the marriage market, cut across social perceptions of the role of women, and disrupted the male view of women and their sexuality.

The Art Factory has lovingly recreated a replica of the Cascais museum that houses much of her work. The Architect Eduardo Souto de Moura was from Oporto, Portugal. https://www.designboom.com/architecture/eduardo-souto-de-m...

Cascais is located near Estoril where Paula grew up and Ericeira where she lived and worked with her husband Victor Willing. Paula studied at the Slade school of art and died peacefully on the 8th of June in North London.

https://opensimworld.com/post/88948

Hey everyone, we are at last on the final details of the sims, but on Saturday 21st May 2022 Stark is back, we back!!!!!

There is a Grand Opening Party starting at 11am SLT through to whenever, and sometime prior to 11am Stark will be opened to the masses!!! ;-) There will be another announcement on Saturday when the veils are finally lifted.

As always Stark will roll out the rainbow, Love, Pride and Respect to all and Mattie will be playing the tunes, a great mix of favourites to get Stark back up and grooving!!!

Join us if you can and let's have a great time!

Das Soul Grid bedankt sich herzlich für alle Glückwünsche .
Es war ein wundervolles Wochenende mit viel Spass, guter Laune und ganz vielen lieben Freunden
Wir freuen uns auf das nächste Jahr mit euch .

Soul-Grid living with friends ja das ist das was wir am Wochenende erlebt haben . Vielen Dank euch allen

10:00 PDT Warm-up with Bella Diesel
11:00 PDT Janice Mills, a smooth voice with heart and soul. Live at Tosca.
Afterwards we party until the lights go out.

Celebrate with us, celebrate with friends!

2 years Soul Grid

I was told SUNFLOWERS are the national flowers of Ukraine hence FLORA offfers u a mesh pack (up til 90 of them for 1 single prim) for FREE and FULL PERM! Available at GARDEN AREA at BOX 02. Enjoy :)

Ps. And before someone starts complaining about pic sent, I`m not against Russian people but against this sh*t war....

Ein neues Jahr heißt neue Hoffnung, neues Licht, neue Gedanken und neue Wege zum Ziel. Einen guten Start ins Jahr 2022 das wünsch ich Euch!
A new year means new hope, new light, new thoughts and new ways to the goal. I wish you a good start into the year 2022!

The Snowfall Expanse
https://youtu.be/44iGtczRJjQ
Go in skates and a scarf, you can have fun in the snow, it is very big you need time to visit it, there are ski slopes in the mountains, then you can go to the Christmas market, visit the castle and the house of Santa Claus. Don't be in a hurry or don't enjoy this region, have fun, thanks to everyone it was a great job.

Pink Floyd - In the Flesh! Or is it In the Mesh? Ernest and I spent all day bringing album cover art to life today. A different spin on art, but the installations are pretty amazing to see! Come by Battersea and see for yourself!

The Art Factory is about art and artists. At The Art Factory, we display art; we appreciate art; we learn about art; and, we promote art. We have over a dozen galleries dedicated to in-world artists, where they show their innovative creations. As such, we are beginning a feature called Meet the Artist.

This week we want to introduce to you, the very talented Nice Minik.

Ms. Minik, can you tell us a bit about yourself and your art?
My interest for VL-Photography started back in InworldZ with some photos of dancing Avis.
In 2017 the "Nice Minik" on OSG was created to try out "hypergriding" and to build a photo-studio with backdrops and "flat" lighting for Avi photo sessions.A visit of Ellen and Ernest in my first little gallery changed my virtual life.
Since that day I explored the photo-features of Firestrom and tried a lot of light-effects to make my inworld-photos more interesting. It comes in handy to be a prim builder (for certain backgrounds) and I also learned to create poses in the meantime.

And what are you doing artistically now?
Nowadays I can display model-sessions and themed series at "the Art Factory". And I was able to create some issues of the Stark Magazine.

So, what's the motivation behind your work?
Some of my work just tries to show beauty. Some may be a bit provocative. But I always try to find the mood, lighting and angle to take photos, that "tell a story". And sometimes I can even achieve that goal.
One thing stayed consistently through my development as an inworld-photographer: what you see is what I saw. That means, that I never do after-works on my photos.

What do you enjoy most about creating art in virtual worlds?
Besides that, I very much like to show virtual life in a way, that makes viewers enjoy what I enjoyed or maybe get an impulse to think about certain aspects.

Thank you for the interview, Ms. Minik!

Please stop by The Art Factory Reloaded and check out Nice Minik's art! It won't disappoint!

Living with friends ...
Amazing community
wir sind mal wieder mächtig stolz auf unsere Leute. Einfach weil sie sind wie sie sind,
weil sie " living with friends" nicht nur als geklauten Slogan nehmen,
sondern dieses feeling jeden Tag leben. Dafür sind wir sehr dankbar .

Ein aufregendes Jahr liegt hinter uns.
Wir hatten Verluste.
Manche taten weh, manche weniger.
Wir hatten aber auch Gewinne
Der größte Gewinn war
Teil einer funktionierenden, lebensfrohen, lebendigen Gemeinschaft geworden zu sein.
Teil eines Grids zu sein,in dem Freundschaft nicht nur ein geklauter Werbeslogan ist.
Teil eines Grids zu sein, dass eigenständig zurecht kommt.

Dafür sind wir sehr dankbar. Unseren Bewohnern und allen, die uns dies ermöglicht haben, wie auch unseren zahlreichen Besuchern.
Möge die Zeit der bollernden Heizungen und prasselnden Kamine die Herzen der Menschen erwärmen und der Duft der Tannenbäume
all den Menschen die schlechten Gedanken vertreiben

Wir wünschen Euch allen ein besinnliches Weihnachtsfest, einen sensationell schönen Start ins neue Jahr und bleibt gesund.

Euch allen ein besinnliches und herzerwärmendes Weihnachtsfest

wünschen Euch Nasti und Rudi vom Soul Grid

*** LARCH TREE V- Larix sibirica V3 (version 3). Thx my friend Alfred (from sim WELCOME (https://opensimworld.com/hop/85057/) she gave a better model for these trees as seen at RL, so I could work on blender - once more released at FLORA, BOX 04, FOREST AREA (ground area). All FREE and FULL PERM. Seasonal textures included and leaves has a soft animation. Enjoy :)

CHERRY TREES PACK * FREE and FULL PERM available at FOREST AREA (ground) at BOX02. Animated particles are in mesh and separated prim so u can remove it when playing seasonal (textures inside). Enjoy :)

Thousands of Free Resources for OpenSim at Outworldz

Building an OpenSim world often starts with an idea — and then comes the hunt for everything needed to bring that idea to life.

Outworldz has maintained a huge collection of free creator resources for years, growing into an extraordinary archive for the OpenSim community.

The Outworldz Free Sculpts and Mesh Library contains more than 1,800 downloadable resources, ranging from complete environments to small building components.

More Than Just Mesh

Despite the original name of the collection, this isn't simply an archive of sculpt maps.

You'll find Collada DAE meshes, OBJ files, sculpt maps, textures, BVH animations, sounds, XML files, IAR inventories and complete OAR regions. Many ZIP archives also contain textures and supporting files for the included objects.

That makes the collection useful for region designers, builders, mesh creators and anyone interested in learning more about creating content for OpenSim.

A Huge Archive to Explore

The variety is enormous.

The collection includes houses, furniture, plants, rocks, terrain resources, medieval props, roads, animations, avatars, trees, environmental packs, building textures and creator resources.

You'll also find resources for creators working outside the viewer, including Blender materials, seamless textures, mesh resources and templates.

Some of these resources have been downloaded thousands of times, making this archive part of a long history of creators sharing their work with the OpenSim community.

OARs and IARs

OpenSim users should take particular notice of the OAR and IAR resources.

OAR files can contain complete archived regions, while IAR files can contain inventory content ready for use with OpenSimulator. Outworldz provides search options that make it easier to locate these resources within the collection.

For DreamGrid users, this opens up another world of possibilities. Resources can be useful for experimenting, learning, creating new regions or simply discovering what other OpenSim creators have shared over the years.

Free Still Means Respect the Creator

There is one important thing to remember:

Free does not mean license-free.

These resources have been contributed by many different creators over many years. Always check the credits and licensing information included with an individual download before modifying, sharing or redistributing it.

Outworldz has received free content from more than 600 contributors, and respecting those creators and their individual licenses is part of keeping a free-resource community healthy.

Some resources may have extremely permissive licenses. Others may require attribution or carry additional restrictions.

Always check the individual resource rather than assuming everything in the archive has identical permissions.

Creators Can Contribute Too

Outworldz isn't simply a place to download resources.

Creators can also contribute their own projects to the collection. Submissions can include appropriate creator credits and licensing information so future users know exactly how the resource may be used.

That's one of the things that has kept OpenSim interesting for so many years: people building, experimenting, learning and choosing to share some of what they create with others.

Start Exploring

With more than 1,800 resources, you probably won't make it through the entire archive over morning coffee.

Fortunately, it's searchable.

Whether you're hunting for an OAR, animations, terrain textures, mesh resources, building components or simply some inspiration for your next region, take a look through the Outworldz archive.

You might find exactly what your next world needs.

Explore the Outworldz Free Resources Library:
https://outworldz.com/cgi/freesculpts.plx

Outworldz — DreamGrid • OpenSim • Free Resources • Community

After Dark is getting darker

As the seasons change and Halloween draws nearer, subtle changes are happening all around After Dark. Come experience it.. if you dare.

No AI was used in the creation of this image - I don't think it serves any purpose to promote a region using an AI generated image. Not bashing AI in any way - just advocating for the idea that if you want people to come see your work in-world then that is what the image should show.

Hot Damn BBQ!! Summer will behind us but your BBQ doesn't have to leave, hell no! Gracie and Dexter's dump is where to find Marianna's Hot Damn BBQ kit, everything you need to get that smokey goodness right down to the flaming charcoal briquette~ At the dump near the flaming dumpster! three.hills.grid.outworldz.net:8002:Gracie and Dexter's Community Dump AI critics yes I did exaggerate the ad flames but this baby has flames and hot coals!