SkyPod 3 RIP
This entry is mostly for my own benefit. Someday, a few months or years from now, I'll be thumbing through my old weblog entries and see this one. Then, I'll get all nostalgic for about 3.2 seconds and move on. If you're not, well, me then this entry probably won't mean much to you. (As opposed to the cogent and deeply meaningful content normally posted here.) Feel free to skip this one if you're not interested in hearing me prattle on about a building that no longer exists. And, now that you've read all this, your browser has had time to download the inordinately large and numerous pictures. My nefarious plan has come to fruition.

As mentioned before, I'm in the process of primming down in the Garden of Mo. This involves, among other things, removing some of the ancient builds that I never actually used, but was maintaining out of a misplaced sense of nostalgia. This time, I'm taking down SkyPod 3, otherwise known as the Mo-Tech Industries shop. I've recently relocated the shop to the semi-new Mo-Tech Tower (formerly known as SkyLounge).


It sits about 500 meters up, threaded on the tall, skinny stack of cylinders like a bead on a wire. It has a simpler, cleaner appearance than the old massively-grained-rosewood-and-brushed-steel look of the old shop. I suppose I should install some exterior signage, in spite of the fact that it's well above the casual flight path. It looks a little bland from the outside, but it seems to work pretty well from the inside. The modern, charcoal grey interiors provide a nice backdrop for the (supposedly) high-tech products I'm hawking.


Here is the last photo ever taken of the old Mo-Tech shop, appropriately taken at sunset. I remember spending hours working out the textures for the wood grained panels on the exterior face. Since the Brazilian Rosewood freebie texture is not a seamless pattern, I ended up going with a single repeat per face. Someone with common sense might have gone with a different texture, but that just wouldn't have been me. I ended up going with flipped and mirrored textures on adjacent prims, in order to conceal the seams. The net result was a series of 20 meter long Rorschach tests, constructed from absurdly out-of-scale wood grain. Probably not the best choice, but it seemed like a good idea at the time. I never got around to upgrading it.

The middle levels were modular, allowing me to easily add more floors to the shop as required. Turns out I never needed the space (one floor had nothing but "watch this space" signs for the entire time it existed), but the idea was sound. I've adapted it for the new shop.


This was the first floor shop. Not much to say about it. Those holes in the floor ended up being a theme in all of my builds. SkyPod 1, SkyLounge, and the new shop all have/had some variant, either with glass plates or with railings. It's a cheap decorative feature.


Here's the Butterfly Kit display area. I dropped the emitters inside a large potted plant, and built a lounge area around it. Every once in a long while, I'd see small groups of people sitting there, watching the butterflies (or fireflies, at the time this photo was taken) and chatting. I'm glad somebody got some use out of it, anyway. Like most of this installation, I built it then never used it.

Behind the plant was a Nutri-Matic Machine (dispenses hot, refreshing beverages that are almost entirely unlike tea) and a couple of cans of food pills. Both are now on sale in the new shop, and are featured prominently in the SkyLounge.


Here's the conference table, located on the third floor. The translucent black circle in the center was a "holographic emitter." On touch, it displayed text showing the current time and system performance stats. At one point, it also showed a floating particle map of Louise. I eventually took that part out, because I was too lazy to create up-to-date map textures. The chairs were an early scripting project. Using the strafe keys, the user could rotate the chairs. Why? I don't know. Seemed like a good idea at the time.

This was yet another installation I never used for its intended purpose. Did I really expect to have high-powered board meetings sitting around this table? I honestly couldn't tell you, now. Mostly I used it as a work counter for building small items, like HUD attachments.

You can see the Mo-Tech Tower out the window in the back.


Here is the upper observation deck. The lights were scripted to come on at night. The silver bulkhead at the left split and slowly opened when touched, allowing aerial entry from outside. This area served quite well as a hot air balloon dock on quite a few occasions.

At top you can see the "sky hooks," anchored within the cloud layer at ~180 meters. The particle effects made it look as if the hooks were pulling on the clouds. Well, sort of. I was always quite pleased with this effect. I don't think anyone ever noticed. Ah, well.


The aquarium on the top floor. Another early project, it was populated with a dozen or so fish on llTargetOmega rotors, swimming 'round and 'round on their circular orbits. The meditation pose was built into the aquarium. Another couple of lounging poses were built into the carpet. I doubt if anyone ever discovered them. I used to build all sorts of Easter eggs into my constructs, but soon realized that nobody ever even attempted to look. Unless it has an obvious poseball, or a bright red button with a sign, few people will try to interact with their surroundings. I find that kind of sad.


Here's the lounge area on the top level. The aquarium is just off the bottom of the picture. At lower right was a single-prim twisted torus sculpture, "Nightmare in Concertina Wire," by yours truly. At left was a few books from the Librarium. I don't remember what they were, actually. I never read them. They were purely for show.


Behind the screens was the useless bed. I don't know what possessed me to build a bed. It had a couple of freebie sleep poses built into the pillows, and was equipped with the jump-on-the-bed script. Of course, the ceiling was too low to really get a good bounce going. I expect there were a few concussions. Looking back, I wish I'd enabled damage under the bed, just to see what would happen.

My old halo rested on the bedpost, while a "mysterious red high heeled shoe" (contributed by Chrestomanci Bard) hid underneath the mattress. I never used the bed. The glass had a privacy screen built into it, also never used. I don't think I'll ever bother building another bed. I don't cyber, and avatars don't need to sleep.


Here's the main entrance to the shop. An elevator took visitors up from ground level, and maneuvered them through the bulkhead (which opened on command from the elevator) to the catwalk. I expect that the narrow, corkscrew ramp cost me a few sales from impatient shoppers. Spiral staircases are usually more trouble than they're worth.

And, well, I guess that's it. I suppose I'll hit "post" and leave this potential trip down memory lane as a gift for my future self. Guess we'll see.
Posted by Moriash Moreau at 2:20 PM