Inworldz virtual Elven Temple ICE Nov 2015

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This shows a virtual temple, as visible in the virtual world Inworldz http://inworldz.com. • It was made for the Inworldz Cultural Endowment (ICE) • You can do a virtual visit of it, into this place. • This is a large and complicated build, that you need to take time to visit, inside and outside, from top to basement, more the sky level. • It is intended to be a important Elven Temple, the focus point of a whole land. Actually it is part of my project of an Elf Dream land: http://www.elfdream.org • Due to this theme, the build features nice colors, elegant curved shapes and no modern stuff. • The general plan of the building is seven main levels, inspirited by the seven Chakras of the Hatha Yoga. The meanings somewhat differs, thought, since they are more intended for the activities of a large community than for individual practice. The levels are, from bottom to top: • Earth (Dark Temple) (Note: there is no connotation of evil here. Rather think underground life forces) • Energy (Red Temple) (Desire to live and to do things) • Action (Orange Temple) (Doing the right things in society, economy, etc.) • Love (Golden Temple) • Communication (Green Temple) (Opennes to others, meeting people, greeting strangers) • Spirit (Blue Temple, the top sphere) • Universe (Purple Temple, the top spire) • In addition there is an unofficial Bad Elf temple, because we must not take ourselves too seriously. • The surroundings are landscaped using a ground mesh, an interesting but work-intensive technique allowing for irregular rocks, tunnels and caves. • Actually the overall layout is after the Feng Shui rules, save that the temple is on the top of the hill instead of the south slope (Yang side). • The landing point is meant to be a full circle, straddling two sims (land rental unit) for allowing more people. So that the entire build takes two sims, the second being a welcome point with a harbour and other common buildings. Since the ICE is only one sim, only the temple sim is present. This explains the neat cut on the south side. • Creating and visualizing beauty is an important practice for preparing the future of mankind, or for preparing our own afterlife when it will happen. • • THE TECHNIQUE.......................................................................... • This build is a work in progress since years. I started it in 2013, using only prims (basic building blocs). Building with prims is easy, and you can do it too. But this one was challenging, since most forms are curved, and lot of compromises are to be found. In more the main defect of prims, of being in facts polygonal, appears sharply in places like the stairs. • But when I wanted to do the ground, I stepped on impassable issues: the landscaping tools were doing much too gross work, and in more there was no way to cleanly do the tunnel roofs. So I abandoned at this point. • However the Inworldz Cultural Endowment was an opportunity to advance the work, since I enjoy a full sim all along November 2015 (and October to build). However the temple was not presentable without a proper ground. This is why I did it in a mesh, which are now available into Inworldz. Meshes are harder to do, but they allow for a nearby infinite freedom of shapes, that you see in the rocks, grass and stairs. This was the work-intensive part, and even it was an ordeal, since the mesh software Blender destroyed important parts of my work with one of its bugs (UV mapping lost when joining objects). • What I wanted to do is progressive transition for the path sides, a thing which often lacks of realism in virtual worlds. I think I succeeded, save in some places. • On an inspiration, I also redid the top spire in mesh, making it nicer and much less a burden for the server. But I had not enough time to remake the main temple body. • Note that it is still a work in progress, just as a cathedral: most took centuries to be created and take their today aspect. And many are still undergoing heavy maintenance and even modifications. • So that I am aware that the top sphere and petals are too big, and next time I shall make this part more slender.

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