SL Exploration: An Arabian Night (Majilis Al-Jinn, Sands of Time)

SL Exploration: An Arabian Night (Majilis Al-Jinn, Sands of Time)

My inner bohemian came out today and I kid you not when I say I found the perfect dessert fantasy sim to explore. Based on Arabian night tales that anyone could find in literature and cinematic films. This area has anything from hidden tombs to a relaxing oasis. There is something for everyone, the traffic is very slow, and this is an area I’d like to promote up a little more because there are more than users are giving it credit for. Sims often go overlooked especially international areas from the destinations list. This place reminds me of Aladdin.

To be fair this Arabian oasis is both historical and romantic I’m a hopeless romantic and honestly, I’d bring someone here on a date. There is so much to do and explore and the architecture is simply gorgeous. From exploring a palace to exploring the outdoors with palm trees, crystals, vases, and more there is so much beauty to be seen. Inside when you first start on a little island surrounded by a colossal building you have two paths you can go on. One leads you to what I call the jewel and treasures room, the tombs, and the oasis. The other path leads you outside on a little path with gorgeous scenery and sitting areas. To be fair I started on the route to the tombs, there are statues everywhere that are textured so nicely that they look realistic. Crystals are lining almost every door frame which shows the fantasy aspect. The door frames remind me more of an Egyptian building kit I’ve seen but it works just as well with an Arabian theme as well.

Tomb:

The tomb is located up the stairs which feel like you’re in a tower. There is an open tomb where you’re welcomed by a statue that makes me question if there is a mummy that escaped inside of the sim. Luckily, I haven’t seen one yet, so I think we’re safe! To the right, there is a sitting area and a statue which people normally pray to. To be honest, my knowledge of Arabian culture starts and ends with Aladdin, some literature, and this sim. So, If I’m wrong about something this is a disclaimer, I don’t know a whole lot about the culture, but I started reading up on it recently to better understand some of the Arabian sims on Second Life. The architecture is Moroccan and almost culturally accurate from what I’ve seen when looking up photos on google. Yes! I google imaged everything to discover how accurate everything in this sim truly was even though it is explained as being a fantasy type of sim. Gems are lining the doors and there is writing covering the walls. The inside of this structure is very dark, but it has every right to be so if you take photos just be careful and aware that they may come out way darker than you expect it to be.

The Outdoor Part of The Oasis:

On the roof of the structure, you’ll find a gorgeous palace area with peacocks and an outside corridor with a little birdbath that had crystals at the bottom, paired with beautiful scenery. This is where I’d suggest bringing someone if you’re looking for something elegant and romantic to woo that special someone. The floors are brick and tiled to show wealth and purity the peacocks moved around the corridor. The outside reminds me of an aristocratic house’s garden. It was extravagant and beautiful I suggest checking it out if you’re looking for something new to explore in Second Life.

In The Palace:

In the palace there are more than enough sitting areas, however, keep in mind a lot of the couches, chairs, and floor seating is one-person seating with not that many poses if any aside from one when you sit on the object. But the inside of the palace is simply gorgeous and it’s huge!  There’s so much to see and take pictures of. I had to be careful with how many photos I took because I was getting picture happy inside of the palace. I’m sure there are other surprises, but I didn’t go too in-depth with the inside of the palace.

Nonetheless, I’m sure there are places little Easter eggs and hidey holes I haven’t yet explored throughout the entire island. As there are so many places in this one area to explore and so much to see. But, from what I have seen this is a beautiful Arabian adventure for any explorer who is interested in a fantasy Arabian night adventure. From an underground exploration into a tower with a tomb to a rooftop fantasy Arabian garden with a gorgeous palace there is a little something for everyone to enjoy here and if you’re a photographer and love photographing your adventures or need a place as a realistic background for a client this is the perfect place for it!

How-To Decorate a Room on IMVU

How-To Decorate a Room on IMVU

I feel like my blog has been out long enough now to go into some more advanced How-To’s. I wanted to do one specifically on room creation in IMVU since interior design is my favorite thing to do in any virtual world platform. So, as you may have guessed I drop some of my real-life money into virtual worlds to make that happen you can’t buy nice and interactive furniture without virtual currency. It’s not a super expensive hobby but it is an addiction and can get expensive if you start becoming like me and always shopping for the newest and greatest furniture you can find. Ahead of time, this is a beginner post to creating rooms in IMVU so if you’re new to IMVU this is for you. If you’re just getting into room creation in IMVU but are a user that has been around for a while this post is also for you. If you have any questions, please feel free to comment below but I did try to make this post as simplistic and as direction oriented as I possibly could. I hope this is helpful for all of you out there trying to get into room creation.

Beginning view on the IMVU client
  • From the front of your viewer press the “My Room Icon”
  • Since I don’t have the default room anymore you will get a page like the one below.
My Room View
  • At the bottom of your screen, there are different icons the ones we’re going to be looking at specifically are the chair and house icon. The chair icon is the furniture that you currently own and your house icon are the different rooms you own.
These are the icons you will see the house is the rooms you have and the chair is the furniture you own
This is what you will see when you click either button but this is what I have when I hit my furniture button. On the side you can search furniture by category by the buttons. There is a chair for seating, a table button, misc, and poses. You can also sort it all by your most recent pieces which is nice if you buy something new from the IMVU shop and are trying to find it real quickly for placing.
  • On the side are your categories for rooms and furniture which will look like the photo below.
Categories when I press the button that looks like a house for the “My Rooms.”
  • In the upper left-hand corner, you will see an icon with a hammer and a music note press the hammer.
Press the Hammer! this brings up the bottom image.
Furniture Tools you can also bring this up by pressing (Ctrl + f)
  • From there you’ll get a whole other set of icons these are going to be your room editing icons. Each one performs a different function. These functions are; explore (Ctrl + E) , move (Ctrl +M) , rotate (Ctrl + r) , scale (Ctrl + s) , copy (Ctrl + P) , reset (Ctrl + t) , lock (Ctrl + l) , delete (Ctrl + d) , undo (Ctrl + u) , redo (Ctrl + m) , and a help button. The keyboard shortcuts are as you can see in parenthesis just in case you want to learn them it makes editing and creating rooms so much easier with the keyboard shortcuts. You can also pull up the furniture tools by pressing (Ctrl + f).
Empty room to start out with I’m going for a chic city style for this example.
  • Now that we know what all the icons are, how they work, and what to do let’s make a new room. Go ahead and click a room from you’re “My rooms” list. I picked “To Trust me Danny” by the creator “Typical” since it’s my only empty room. You’ll start with an empty room like the one above.
  • Then you will click the chair icon I told you about to go to your furniture tab where all your furniture is. To add a piece into your room just click one of the furniture icons and it will show up in your room.
This is how the icons will look whether you choose a room or a furniture item.
  • Since this is just the basics were just positioning the furniture with the readily available pose balls. Depending on the room you might only get specific places to place furniture you can click the move icon or use the keyboard shortcut and move that furniture piece to where you want it within reason. You’re limited at this point until I teach you a little trick in the next post for IMVU room creation number 2.
This icon will come up with whatever you chose from the furniture tools. From here you can click and drag to move or click and rotate your mouse when on the rotate icon to rotate the piece of furniture.
  • From this point, you can use any of the functions in your room tools to make your room yours! It takes a little practice, but I was able to learn how to create rooms after I knew you could do it yourself within an hour at most. It’s a pretty simple process with the IMVU platform client.
This is my end result example of how I decorated the space.

Hopefully, this helped you get started on your room creation as I noted from before this is for beginners and this is just the main basics, I’ll post more advanced How-To’s once you get this down. There are many tricks and things you can do from this point, but this was just to give you an idea on how everything worked and how to get started especially if your new and only learned how to do avatar creation or have only been in the chatroom’s or the chat now area of IMVU. Some people don’t even know that you can create unique rooms from an empty room and furniture you can buy through IMVU’s shop. Which to give you an idea looks like the photo to your right you know just in case you’re like me and enjoy shopping and wasting your money on virtual items as I do. It’s almost like in-app purchases if you’re more of a mobile user. To be fair buying things virtually is cheaper than reality and gives you the same instant gratification, however, sometimes it can get out of hand. I’ll be creating a post soon on virtual world currency and my experiences relating around that so stay tuned. Any questions about this post please feel free to type them below in the comments and I’ll respond within 48 hours of you posting the comment.