Witches Hud update to VERSION 5
What do the magic huds look like?
NOTE: you MUST have OSSL enabled in your sim.

Well depending on which magic hud you got they can be very different.

The witches hud has purple buttons that turn blue when you click them to cast a magic spell.

The vampires hud has red glassy buttons.

The fae hud has light green buttons.

Remember, to end all spells simply close the HUD menu button. This retracts all the buttons and ends all the spells. :)

Each hud has a part you have to wear as an attachment. The vampire hud requires the vampires magic ring to be on your finger to work, the witches hud requires you to wear the witches heart, and the fairy hud requires you to wear the fairies necklace.

Of course you may GOD MODE these and take the guts out and put the magic into any ring, necklace, or object you prefer.

These huds tend to work best for people that own a dream grid, or own their own region setup with npc support. I did go back as a special favor and make the vampire hud runnable on osgrid. Changing some of the original spells so they would work there.

Please note: If you go to my region, go with no scripts, and as plain an avatar as possible. This is because there is a device there now that will kick you if you are wearing too much stuff, if your avatar is too new, or too small. This device has become a necessary evil, due to a few talentless people who insist on editing the things I've made and destroying them so no one can get a copy. Currently they have found a way to delete textures inside my unlocked objects, and they can kill scripts. So if you get something that is not working, just ask me, and I'll give you a full working version. This also helps to let me know when the talentless jealous b/c they can't make anything, people, have been back to my sim damaging my creations.

! looking for a free Parcel to call home and new place to live Join us at Gentle fire Grid
River of soul region /please read the rules before for Renting a Parcel .
hop://gentlefire.opensim.fun:8002/River%20of%20Soul/128/12...
Join the group is at the landing , to Join the Grid is there as well thank you ♥
come to the event 3 days out the week . event are at welcome and other's region On the Grid stay In touch .
at face Book and Opensim Dir.

Valentine's Day Belly Dance Party with DJ Rosa at 6:00 tonite!
Where: Hot Daddy's Dance Dock on Wyldwood Bayou Grid!
When: Valentine's Day! 6:00PM [14 Feb 2022 18:00 SLT]
What are you doing on Valentine's Day? Close your eyes and imagine soft flowing silk, romantic middle eastern music and warm breezes..then add sultry dances and the camaraderie of friends in a beautiful Middle Eastern palatial venue under the evening sky, and you have DJ Rosa's Belly Dance party!! All of that is here and more! This is one of our most popular events! Belly dancing is for men and women, all of them love it and you will too! Bring your sweetheart (or maybe meet one there!) for a very special and romantic Valentine's Day! Wear your finest silks and togas or come as you are! Everyone is welcome at Hot Daddy's! You will just love this amazing evening!! Can't wait to see you!!
wyldwoodbayou.com:8002:Hot Daddys

I also have some new mesh I have purchased that will soon be released there is a total of about 16 all rigged for Athena and 2 that are fitmesh but work with Athena and will include notecards for their use. The Ankle Boots are the first of the releases.

I realize I'm a bit late in these releases but real life just gets in the way of things sometimes. Here are 4 Valentines Day outfits assembled from different mesh I have in my mesh collection Now available in the Valentines Fashion Shop at RRD. . Also a new Shoe Store release the RRD Ankle Boots in 4 colors..

Happy Valentine's Day to all our family and friends... We're in AMV at the Daydream sim for Zoree and Remy's show at noon, then at 2pm the band takes the stage for CLAN LIVE.. don't want to miss the fun.. come now! alternatemetaverse.com:8002:Daydream -- See you here!

Remy Farman - 30 Minute Solo 12 noon
Zoree & Remy - 60 Minute Duet - Streams joined from many miles away Valentines
Zoree Jupiter- 30 Minute Solo 1:30mp
Don't miss the party! Dress is Semi Formal to Formal
AMV!
alternatemetaverse.com:8002:Daydream

Wishing all you sexy ladies, a very Happy Valentine's Day and a big welcome to Amoa Nude Beach for all of you Valentine's couples to enjoy a romantic setting upon.

Whether a stroll through the woods, stroll along the beach, hit the waves, catch a sun tan or getting it on, there is something for everyone ))

It is a hot and erotic or romantic setting either way.

(German beaches in a nutshell)

Since Nico has already mentioned it in her comment on part 1 (https://opensimworld.com/post/85841), and since this has been my plan from the very beginning, here's the other part of my "beach talk". What about beaches that aren't in the tropics?

Way too many beaches are a) tropical with lots of naturally-grown palm trees and b) flat. It's a trope that's commonly known in Second Life as Tropical Beach Paradise (http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Tropical_Beach_Paradise). The reason for the abundance of these may be that most beaches are built by people who only know beaches from TV and have never seen one in real life.

But there are so many other ways to build a beach, at least in theory, sometimes actually carried out. Beaches that may be more relatable to especially those of us who know beaches.

Something that has been done, for example, is the kind of beach you often find in Mediterranean coastal towns in southern France. A seawall with a more or less wide beach in front of it and something that could qualify as a promenade on top of it. Destination Fécamp (https://opensimworld.com/hop/86967) has quite a good one, realistic to the point of only one lounger on the entire beach being free and so much surf that you start asking yourself if you should actually go into the water (which you can because Fecamp does that right). Les pieds de sable (https://opensimworld.com/hop/79417) used to have a somewhat different one with less sand and more seawall.

The North American boardwalk beach has been done more often than you may think. For one, there are the many iterations of Linda Kellie's Boardwalk Amusement Park; Lucia Island (https://opensimworld.com/hop/83640) and AMSmediterrania (https://opensimworld.com/hop/87777) both make use of it. One of the best examples, however, has to be scratch-made Coney Island (https://opensimworld.com/hop/87886) where the rides alone can keep you busy for quite a while.

Most of TexLand (https://opensimworld.com/dir/?grid=texland.no-ip.biz:8002) is somewhere in-between because it mimicks islands on the South Texan Gulf coast. There are palms, yes, but there are also seawalls, there are no traces of Tiki style, and it still feels very close to the U.S. mainland.

What I'd like to see done on a somewhat larger scale than at Gridtalk (https://opensimworld.com/hop/78056) are the various styles of northern German beaches. Gridtalk mimicks what formerly West German Baltic Sea beaches often look like, and that's an interesting style, but it could be taken further. In this style, the dunes behind the beach are a given, but they need grass on top and maybe the occasional seagull nest. Speaking of fauna: seagulls, seagulls, jellyfish (which fortunately aren't available on the Hypergrid; I hope it stays that way) and more seagulls (notice how I didn't mention mosquitos).

Unless it's a natural beach, have a promenade behind the dunes with fences between the promenade and the dunes and all kinds of amenities from small shops to hotels (I recommend at least one big hotel tower, even if it's just a few textured prims) on the land side of the promenade. If you're daring enough, build an indoor pool right behind the promenade as well. Just because it's a beach, doesn't mean it's perpetual summer. Instead of lifeguard chairs, install one DLRG station for the entire beach. Also, LOTS of beach baskets. If you want to take the German-ness to the logical extreme, make tiny parcels for the beach baskets which can be rented.

The formerly East German variant would combine this with a long wooden structure between a pier and a boardwalk that extends from the raised promenade across the beach into the water. We call it a "sea bridge". These things were built in times when the wealthy tourists who came there didn't dare to step into the water yet. Somewhere on top of it should be a white-walled wooden building with at least a café/restaurant and an event location in it.

The North Sea variant usually doesn't have beach baskets and a promenade because it isn't part of a town (unless you want to mimic places like St. Peter-Ording or Westerland which would be beach themes of their own). No trees because the area has probably been treeless for centuries (chances are, part of it was sea until a few decades ago). Replace the dunes with a dyke. Optionally, fence the dyke in and add sheep on the dyke to the fauna. (Only sheep because cattle would ruin the dyke.) Add vast mudflats on the seaside which may or may not be under water (set the mud to phantom for extra fun so your feet sink in up to your ankles). Any and all architecture on the sim must be Frisian. Dress code: barefoot (or Wellingtons), rolled-up jeans, windbreaker.

You could make it eerier by building it as a varsim with even vaster mudflats from which sometimes a church bell rings even though there isn't a single church on the sim, much less out on the mudflats.

Also, the North Sea allows for small islands, only that they're called "holms" instead of "islands". Surround the whole thing with mudflats. Don't skimp on sheep. And instead of having dykes, every last building has to be built on a mound no less than four or five metres high.

But let's go back to the Baltic Sea. Natural beach variants should have cliffs. Not rocks, clay. Or white chalk (works both in former East Germany and Denmark). But preferably clay. If it's clay, boulders on the beach are a given. This is the kind of beach where campfires are the most likely.

Something in-between (not quite natural, no beach baskets, no promenade, but the occasional shop and the DLRG station) exists, too. It often comes with a camping site behind it which is a requirement for surf spots. This kind of beach is also the typical German nudist beach. Don't forget "FKK" signs. However, keep the rating Moderate and sex furniture inside the campers or tents. If you really want to go full cliché, fill the camping site behind your FKK beach with Trabants, Wartburgs and QEK campers.

Danish beaches would be similar to German ones, but even less urban, more likely with wooden summer cottages behind the dykes/dunes (per-week rent boxes, anyone?) and always clothing-optional. Oh, and think twice before you put up Linda Kellie's hot dog cart: In Denmark, hot dogs are sold at least from a trailer, if not a snack bar. But one of these is pretty much mandatory. Also, røde pølser (red sausages).

(Picture with my sister on it because I didn't have anything else at hand...)

Yes, I know it isn't really beach season (unless you're on the Southern hemisphere or in some subtropic or tropic area). But on the other hand, if it's too cold to go to a real beach, there are plenty of virtual beaches where it isn't too cold.

Now, what I'd like to talk with you, the community, about is: What makes a good beach? What does a good beach need in your opinion?

Generally, from my point of view, a beach should be more than just eyecandy on a sim that serves another purpose (freebie shops, event location, welcome landing, whatever). A beach should serve its own purpose, namely the same purpose real-life beaches serve. And that purpose shouldn't only be sex either.

So there are certain things I expect from a beach. Fair warning ahead: I'm biased because I grew up between a whole lot of nice beaches, and I've been to quite a number.


First of all: It should be possible to go into the water. Possible, credibly so and not hazardous. The sand should slope into the water gently so you can actually walk out into the sea (or lake or whatever) just like you usually can in real life. This is such a basic demand that you may wonder why I mention it.

Well, in many cases, this isn't possible at all. Either you have textured ground which drops off steeply from one metre above the water surface to way below. Sand can't do that, and it renders the number one key element of a beach useless.

Or you have a beach made of mesh sections. But these pieces of mesh either only barely lead into the water, or the water-side edge lies on top of the water surface, and all that washes over them are the waves. You can't even walk into ankle-deep water without falling off the edge and seeing the large hollow underneath the mesh beach pieces. I guess this is often a case of a beach built by someone who spends so much time flying above their own sim that they've literally never set a single foot on their own beach.

So, either way, whether or not you build your beach out of mesh: Please let the sea ground slope away from the beach gently.

This, by the way, is also why springboards on beaches are non-sense. Unless you place them on piers where the water is deep enough.


Speaking of swimming: Swim rezzers.

They come either as a single white-and-blue life-saver (where you have to explain how a life-saver floating in the surf stays in place) or as two life-savers on a wooden pole (the more elegant solution). In case you don't know them: What they do when you click on them is rez another life-saver. You sit on it, it disappears, and you assume a swimming position, complete with swimming animations. You can steer yourself while swimming. You can swim like you walk, only that you swim. If you stand back up, the life-saver reappears. If you wait for long enough, it deletes itself. One swim rezzer can rez multiple of these life-savers.

Why do I deem them important? Because you may want to actually swim. And not stand in the water. Because that's what you do on beaches (in case you don't know because you've never been to one).

Some of you may confuse them with those old-style swim balls. They're basically poseballs for swimming: You sit on them, and you swim back and forth, back and forth, and you can't control where you swim. But seriously, 2011 called, it wants its OpenSim 0.7.3 tech level back. Poseballs may still have their places, but this isn't one anymore.


Now comes something that may not be interesting unless you "play it real" like me: What do you do after you've been in the water? Lay down on a lounger or a towel?

Nope.

When I was a kid, we were taught by the adults to take off our wet swimwear and slip into something dry ASAP. Real life isn't Hollywood where your swim trunks or your swimsuit is dry the instance you come out of the water (or after the next cut). Nope, it's wet and clingy and getting cold, no matter how hot the weather is. So I'd like to have a chance to do that on a virtual beach as well.

Now, either the sim is Adult-rated which usually (but sadly not all of the time) means that nudity is allowed. Or it's Moderate-rated, and nudity is allowed (but sex isn't), whether or not it's mentioned. Or you don't really "play it real" (layer clothes: replace your swimwear directly with something new; mesh: put on your new swimwear, wear two sets clipping through each other for a few seconds, then take off your old swimwear, or replace one full swimwear outfit with another one in one go).

Or you do "play it real", but you can't be naked in public, so you have to hide. The same goes for when you arrive on a beach in street clothes with no swimwear underneath, by the way.

Ideally, the beach provides changing cabins (with scripted doors, not just static decorational dummies!). If not, there should be something that you can go behind to change. This something should be a) placed in such a way and large enough that it's hard to look behind it (camming or intentionally walking in notwithstanding), b) large and opaque enough that it actually covers you up (knee-high shrubbery isn't) and c) arranged in such a way that you can easily walk behind it and back out (a 100-metre-long hedge isn't; a long dune is if it's tall enough because you can walk over it).


As for other things, there should be a difference between "natural" beaches and other beaches.

If a beach is "natural", there shouldn't be any more facilities. Maybe a few beach towels for convenience (and plants to change behind unless you're allowed to be naked), or rezzing should be allowed so that people can place their own towels.

Everything else should be left to beaches which are officially run by someone, but then it should be there. Loungers. Beach showers or even full facilities. Changing cabins if necessary (see above). A bar or two (a halfway credible beach would have more swim rezzers than beach bars, though). Ideally a place to get something to eat. Lifeguard chairs. (The latter three work even better with appropriately-dressed NPCs giving life to them.) Shops and a party area with a dance floor and a permanently installed DJ set don't belong on "natural" beaches either.

On the one hand, a fully stocked beach bar one some remote secluded beach island that doesn't even have a landing pier doesn't make any sense. On the other hand, a beach that's otherwise so fully equipped as though it's right in front of a resort hotel is kind of incomplete if you can't get anything to drink.


A few more things concerning the above: Please, dear beach builders, if you place down furniture such as loungers or towels, sit on them. Can you sit on them properly? If you can't, do away with them because they're just a waste of space and prim capacity. It doesn't matter if you have never sat down on furniture, and you never will. Other people do, believe it or not, they do.

As an extra precaution: If the sim isn't Adult-rated, and the furniture has a menu, look at it. If there's anything sex-related, either replace the furniture with something without sex animations or edit them out.

Also, inflatable, floating items only make sense in pools. If you place a pool floater or a bouncy island in the surf in real life, it will be carried away unless you anchor it very thoroughly. And none of the floating items on the Hypergrid looks like it's anchored at all. So no floaties in the ocean surf.


Last but not least: The "dress code" on the beach (and in the surrounding areas) should be clear, and visitors should be informed about it both in-world and on OSW if the sim is entered there. Textile? Clothing optional? Nude? It's nigh-impossible to safely assume from the rating (or from the culture wherever the builder lives). Adult may mean a full-blown nudist "piggy beach" of which there are dozens just as well as a textile beach on a sim that allows nudity only in one small and well-concealed nook with one piece of sex furniture. And even Moderate may or may not allow for nudity.