Friday, July 8, 2011

Ridiculous Engineering

When my boss at the Isle of Lesbos is bored, lonely, or depressed, she remodels. For a time she was convinced that this is bad and channeled her energy into other pursuits (read: Meeroos). But I didn't finish saying "yes, that's a goo...." before she leaped at the chance to radically change the landscape as part of a scheme to make the Isle's club area a bit more efficient. After she did the heavy digging and we both tweaked the landscape, I was left with making the idea of a 60m2 platform float 49m in the air seem at least moderately plausible. Here's what I came up with in the end: Giant propellors on each side of the platform.

A large platform still wasn't enough to hold my 2nd outdoor grunge/rave club design from a couple years ago ... a good 15m of it hung off the edge of the sim. But everyone had a good time and I'm sure I can adapt it to the smaller footprint.

That's me on the propellor engine, by the way, checking the works for proper operation.
First I tried support arches. I didn't like what they did to the view. Then I considered rocket engines under the platform. No, the trees would suffer. Then I took a serious stab at having airship balloons tethered to the corners. I didn't like the sculpts I got and the final product would be nearly 50 prims. Finally, I settled on tethered circus balloons. Some 30 prims later I decided I just didn't like it ... the placement might have interfered with any clubs that were rezzed, either by blocking bits of the builds or just visually. During supper, I decided to go with giant propellors, as you see. Certainly just as ridiculous as the other ideas, but the lowest prim and the least intrusive of any option. I still might tether some balloons, but off the engines this time. Or I just might do something new every few weeks. I get bored, lonely, and depressed, too.

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