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Nara’s Nook Launches Greyville in your Browser

First Writer Meeting in Original Greyville

Being creative is a team effort wrapped in an illusion of solitude. The Nara’s Nook grid was born to bring together artists of all kinds to explore the future of storytelling. Projects like Immersive Edge demonstrate the magic that happens when talents are pooled to create art.

 

Hanging Out in Writer Clubhouse in Greyville Opensim

The Nook’s Monday meetup has always encouraged storytellers in all media. Musicians, visual artists, and coders have always been essential to our growth as a storytelling community. Our Greyville-In-Your-Browser project is a work in progress that demonstrates the diversity of Nook talent. We are a long way from finished but we want to reboot our Monday meetups at a new time and new place, with a renewed focus on the community that nurtures creativity.

Greyville on WebGL

So this coming Monday, March 11, 2019, we’ll be meeting in the web browser version of Greyville at 2 pm SLT.  We’ll be discussing Austin Kleon’s book: Show Your Work, as showing and promoting our creations is something we all struggle with. Please come and show us your work. Share your favorite ways you show your work. Learn a few new tricks and discover a community that will support your creative growth. You don’t have to have or read the book ahead of time.

Please log in and familiarize yourself with the interface ahead of Monday. I think it easy to use and intuitive, but here is a tips page explaining current features and including links to your own personal desktop version of Greyville if you want something more high-powered than our browser version. For learning purposes you can log into bot versions at the same time (use different avatar names) and keep yourself company while you explore features.

Testing Web and Browser versions together

We have text chat in the library but will use Discord to provide voice, so if you want to talk rather than type, join this group ahead of time.

We don’t have diversity in avatars yet, but now that basic communication functions are in place, avatars will be the next area of focus.

Current Library in Nara’s Nook Opensim

After that we can look at decorating the library. Mattie McBride generously donated her lovely creations which make up most of the furnishings for the Nook library in Opensim. While some items might be usable for our web project, simplicity is key if we want to keep performance high.

Like the original Greyville, we want the web version to be a place creators can hang out and chat. So some sort of gathering place under the palms or out on the water will be part of a future design. I’m sure a cuddle-up-with-a-book-or-friend window seat will make its way into a future version as well as the beginnings of one is already in place. It’s all very much a work in progress, but this is a community of creators who have always been willing to try something different and make it into something beautiful. Special thanks to Neo Cortex who has shouldered the brunt of getting the browser version of Nook up and working.  Making a multi-user environment is an enormous undertaking and we appreciate all the time he has put into making it happen.