I'm very happy chance led me to pick Fleur as my first Trick the Eye review post. This place is expertly done, but its also fun and thematic, with a lot of personality.

 

You land just outside the impressive facade of an old world (Parisian?) train station. The architecture is subdued but note perfect. Little details, like the news stand supporting a leaning bicycle, are immediately apparent. The textures are lovely as well, a muted sandstone which even while functioning as a plain wall, has depth and visual interest. The beveled designs on the accents fit together nicely and the color scheme is just outside realistic into a more idealized, fanciful ideal that SL is wonderful for.

 

 

The theme continues as you step into the atrium and decide which wing to visit via the sign above the ticket booth. What I love about this section is that CJ isn't afraid to use bold shadows baked into his textures. A lot of people seem scared of working with such high-contrast layouts, but once I started messing with them I found they were in some ways almost easier than being too sparse with shadowing. CJ uses it to great dramatic effect here. (I love the marble floor as well, again understated but not plain)

 

The two side wings of the station house the Men's and Women's collections respectively. These wings were very impressive, high steeple ceilings, chandeliers, and some truly funky seating that I recognized immediately from the Los Angeles Union Train Station - a fantastic building that I had long thought about recreating in SL, I'm really glad CJ brought his own interpretation to life here. Again, the shadowing is excellent and really helps to create a sense of space, especially in the upper eaves.

 

Very subtle but excellent trick here on the floors: the light rays streaming from the windows.

 

Next, out onto the train platform. Dark and smoky, light beams, luggage on carts waiting for their passengers. The window patterns on the traincar catch my eye - I'm always interested in seeing how people handle windows. The design is clean, again reminiscent of a window with a shade pulled down but not immediately recognizable as such if it was taken out of the context of the rest of the build. Its those type of design choices that make a build more an artistic interpretation than a slavish recreation, and inject a good amount of the designer's soul and creativity into a build. 

 

 

 

Step inside the traincar to take a peek. I'm in love with CJ's pallette and his matte textures. Everything from the window drapes to the wood is excellent, it all fits together wonderfully. Snazzy poseballs in the seats too.

 

Walking through the train to the dining car, and CJ cranks it up to eleven. More detail, more style, and a really inventive and effective trick with a scrolling view of the dark countryside outside the windows. The sculpted drapes and tablecloths are excellent. I really like how the silverwear and plate shadow are made into one prim, its thrifty but done very well and enhances (rather than detracts) from the overall detail and craftmanship of the scene.

 

Walk through two more seating cars and we're suddenly at the other side of the sim (thanks to the impression of zipping through the countryside). Step off the train and wander into a tiny village, a great little hangout area with an ice skating pond (and Moopf skates!) and tiny thatch-covered cottages. Its generous for CJ and Roslin to set this up for people to enjoy, if it was my sim I'd be tempted to wall off this cute little fiefdom and claim it for my own playground. One of the cottages is actually a prefab, a very cute idea for display.

 

Overall, this is a great build, with a lot of attention to detail and a lot of love put into it. It has such a sense of place and a cozy but adventurous feel. I can easily see the train dining car out to the ice skating pond as a great place to take someone to spend a little quality time. CJ's texturing really brings the whole sim into a unified whole. Very impressive and a must see for anyone that enjoys quality builds.  

 

PS: CJ, if you end up selling that train car as a prefab, I'll be first in line! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'm very happy chance led me to pick Fleur as my first Trick the Eye review post. This place is expertly done (artist is CJ Carnot), but its also fun and thematic, with a lot of personality.

 

You land just outside the impressive facade of an old world (Parisian?) train station. The architecture is subdued but note perfect. Little details, like the news stand supporting a leaning bicycle, are immediately apparent. The textures are lovely as well, a muted sandstone which even while functioning as a plain wall, has depth and visual interest. The beveled designs on the accents fit together nicely and the color scheme is just outside realistic into a more idealized, fanciful ideal that SL is wonderful for.

 

 

The theme continues as you step into the atrium and decide which wing to visit via the sign above the ticket booth. What I love about this section is that CJ isn't afraid to use bold shadows baked into his textures. A lot of people seem scared of working with such high-contrast layouts, but once I started messing with them I found they were in some ways almost easier than being too sparse with shadowing. CJ uses it to great dramatic effect here. (I love the marble floor as well, again understated but not plain)

 

The two side wings of the station house the Men's and Women's collections respectively. These wings were very impressive, high steeple ceilings, chandeliers, and some truly funky seating that I recognized immediately from the Los Angeles Union Train Station - a fantastic building that I had long thought about recreating in SL, I'm really glad CJ brought his own interpretation to life here. Again, the shadowing is excellent and really helps to create a sense of space, especially in the upper eaves.

 

Very subtle but excellent trick here on the floors: the light rays streaming from the windows.

 

Next, out onto the train platform. Dark and smoky, light beams, luggage on carts waiting for their passengers. The window patterns on the traincar catch my eye - I'm always interested in seeing how people handle windows. The design is clean, again reminiscent of a window with a shade pulled down but not immediately recognizable as such if it was taken out of the context of the rest of the build. Its those type of design choices that make a build more an artistic interpretation than a slavish recreation, and inject a good amount of the designer's soul and creativity into a build. 

 

 

 

Step inside the traincar to take a peek. I'm in love with CJ's pallette and his matte textures. Everything from the window drapes to the wood is excellent, it all fits together wonderfully. Snazzy poseballs in the seats too.

 

Walking through the train to the dining car, and CJ cranks it up to eleven. More detail, more style, and a really inventive and effective trick with a scrolling view of the dark countryside outside the windows. The sculpted drapes and tablecloths are excellent. I really like how the silverwear and plate shadow are made into one prim, its thrifty but done very well and enhances (rather than detracts) from the overall detail and craftmanship of the scene.

 

Walk through two more seating cars and we're suddenly at the other side of the sim (thanks to the impression of zipping through the countryside). Step off the train and wander into a tiny village, a great little hangout area with an ice skating pond (and Moopf skates!) and tiny thatch-covered cottages. Its generous for CJ and Roslin to set this up for people to enjoy, if it was my sim I'd be tempted to wall off this cute little fiefdom and claim it for my own playground. One of the cottages is actually a prefab, a very cute idea for display.

 

Overall, this is a great build, with a lot of attention to detail and a lot of love put into it. It has such a sense of place and a cozy but adventurous feel. I can easily see the train dining car out to the ice skating pond as a great place to take someone to spend a little quality time. CJ's texturing really brings the whole sim into a unified whole. Very impressive and a must see for anyone that enjoys quality builds.  

 

PS: CJ, if you end up selling that train car as a prefab, I'll be first in line! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The name: a play on words. An arc, as in a section of a circle (the roof); and an ark, as in "good god this thing is a friggin' ark".

The origin story: I based The Arc on two very tiny photos I found online (I can't even remember where now) of a gorgeous wood and flagstone lodge. All I had were an exterior front shot and a photo of the upstairs interior, which turned into the third-story ballroom in my version. 

Let me say at this point that I have a major problem with size - I tend to make everything really big. The Arc was no exception. I laid out a 40 meter by 40 meter base and started from there. As it grew from the ground up I realized that this was actually a whole lotta space to fill up, so I started adding in walls and doorways to split up the areas. It was the first time I've really freehanded floor layouts to that complexity, and I had a great time doing it.

The Arc is the first prefab I've used a self-installer with (in this case, the wonderful Rez Foo by Crystalshard Foo), and it took probably about three hours. There's 38 individual linked sets, and I was triple checking everything as I went to make sure that I didn't have to redo the process, or worse, destroy the original build. It was completely necessary due to the size of the build, but now I'm a big convert to the Rez Foo system - its pretty cool to watch all the sections appear and place themselves automatically. It also saved my ass twice when I kept accidently deleting sections of the demo build.

The Arc is also an experiment for me in a few ways. 

•  
  •  The size, scope, and price of the build puts it in a pretty exclusive class of ownership. In order to use it comfortably, the purchaser will need a sizeable investment in land - I'd say a quarter of a sim would be a good buffer in terms of land and prim allotment. Prefab homes in general don't usually reach this size and price, so I'm exploring (relatively) uncharted territory (I know of prefabs that cost up to the $L40,000 mark, but there aren't many).
  •  I wanted to make The Arc a worthwhile investment past the initial purchase. So I'm trying out (along with the help of Subscribe-o-matic) a new purchaser's group concept - The Arc Owners Group. Its exclusively for purchasers of The Arc, and offers 50% discounts off all future Arc furniture sets (I want to eventually have a full furniture set for every room) as well as free custom wallpaper packs so owners can customize their Arc quickly and easily.  Subscribe-o-matic offers a lot of nice features that regular Second Life groups don't have, not the least of which is the fact you don't have to sacrifice a free group slot to get the benefits of membership. There's a web interface for group members as well, which I'll talk more about once I get a chance to use it.
    
    

I'm really pleased with how The Arc turned out, and I'm really looking forward to investing some time into making really nice furniture sets specifically for the lodge. At some point I'd also like to have a big ol' party in the demo complete with kegs of beer and the prerequisite John Belushi "COLLEGE" poster, but that's another story. 

Here's the standard first post welcome message, so....welcome!

 

What am I going to do on this blog....well, first and foremost I'll be blogging new releases from Trompe Loeil, my prefab and furniture sim in Second Life. Secondly, I'll spotlight designers that I come across that I want to give a little love to - there are tons of fantastically talented creators in SL, and a lot of them I look up to and take inspiration from.

 

I have another blog, I work with sheep and pixels, through my work with the Electric Sheep Company. I'll continue to do tutorials and general ponderings on the state of Second Life and working in a virtual office in that space - here, its all about the self-promotion (and the goodies from others).  

 

If you want to keep an eye on what's new from Trompe Loeil, this is the place to check. Hope you enjoy!