Watch: Second Life Creator Transforms Empty Plot Into "Last of Us but Magical" Town -- And Shares Tips for Other SL Creators

In this seven part (!) video series, veteran cyberpunk YouTuber Ayla Pants (who's pretty damn charming and fun for a cyberpunk!) let's us watch her transform a large and empty plot of land into a seriously moody and detailed fantasy post-apocalyptic town -- "Last of Us, but with magic", as she puts it, helpfully establishing the vibe.

SL creators watching closely will probably pick up some various tips and tricks, while SL explorers will gain some appreciation for the challenges of creating a great environment. As Ayla explains to me:

"I think I dreaded the EEP settings the most, only because I wanted to do it 'right' this time and knew it would take a lot of reading on my part (see Day 6).

"I still don't think I fully understand all the different options and how they interact with each other, but you'll see I do end up happy with what I figure out.

"In this video [above], trying to edit the individual pieces of that first house I wanted to be 'home' was a grind. Then having to make the decision to let it go because it wasn't living up to my vision was really tough.

"Finally, the never-ending battle to save on prims. Deciding what I can tweak, what I can do without, what I need to splurge on for the vision, etc. The mental work felt harder than the actual execution."

Here's her tips for creators:

1. It helps to have some basic plan drawn out beforehand. It helps define the hazier parts if the vision you may have in your head. Sometimes I get so bogged down in the details of one little area and then look up to see the whole rest of the parcel, it's easy to feel overwhelmed knowing how much more work there is to do. Having at least a basic plan to cling to helps get me to push through. If I get tired of this, I know the plan for this other area and trust they'll meet eventually, so I can procrastinate on one area working in another.
2. Don't link objects until the very end. For example, it became a pain to edit the colors of the land pieces, only later to remember I'd linked them to water pieces and that's why all the water is green now. Editing a linked object is easy. It's just an extra step to do it that I kept forgetting. Also, you link objects to reduce their Land Impact footprint on the parcel. I found that making the hard decisions to keep LI low before linking kept me from cutting it too close to my actual limit. And then linking just gave me an extra buffer of LI for rezzing purchases and maybe later (re)decorating.
3. Test all objects to see if and how you can edit them. Color? Great! Texture? Fantastic! Size? Amazing! Stretching an object along an axis? Almost unheard of! Unlinking pieces of the object? I'm in love.
4.  If you ever feel like you're in a creative rut, there are a lot of great YouTubers to look to for inspiration. I'll also look outside of SL to the Sims, Fallout, Skyrim, Cyberpunk 2077, and then the sets of movies like Bladerunner, Legend, studio Ghibli movies, etc.

You can start watching Part 1 above and keep going through the whole series there -- or skip ahead to the final video below to see her culminating creation:

Love these! Surprised that we don't see more creators doing videos like this live on YouTube/Twitch, the blogger observed and obviously hinting.

Also watch Ayla exploring a tropical (!) post-apocalypse city called Drune IV - Aftermath.

Update, 2/19: Added her tips for creators!

Comments

[Tad]

I would love to see more like this! I sometimes watch Sim builds because it's so interesting to see it come to life, see the thought process and the reward of the final result. I've always wondered how some of the beautiful sims I love are built. I'd love to have my own sim someday but having to decorate it, terraform it and make it look immersive enough intimidates me. I hope more creators do this in the future ♥