Cool stuff ...

I know that it may be hard to imagine, but Eschatos here isn't ALL business ... sometimes he just goes wandering around Second Life just to see what's out there. One place that's cool is the "Visit Mexico" build, by the Mexican Tourist office (LINK). They started out with a (somewhat cramped) replication of Chichen Itza (LINK) featuring the Castillo, the Temple of the Warriors and part of the "Court of 1,000 Columns", and the Sacred Cenote (and an incongruous beach area with shops and a dance club) all on one sim.

Well, they've been expanding, so far adding two more sims (which don't appear to be "officially" open yet, as your av can't "walk" into the new parts), one of which has a splendid (and much more to scale) rendition of Tulum ...



Over the years, I've been quite a fan of "archaeological tourism", and have visited both Chichen Itza and Tulum multiple times, and it's so cool to be able to poke around the ruins in-world!

One of the best features of the new build there is that they've taken detailed photographs of the various sculpted panels on the actual ruins and have applied these as textures on the buildings ... resulting in a very realistic look:



They've also been experimenting a bit with "sculpties" in an area where they've replicated some of the giant Olmec heads and thrones with 3-D prims wrapped with photos of the actual sculptures. I have a feeling that the "Visit Mexico" build is going to be getting more awesome as they feel their way through making the whole thing "photo-realistic" ... I hope they end up having the budget to add on another dozen or so sims and recreate the Puuc Cities, Coba, and the whole Teotihuacan area (which in itself would probably take a dozen sims!). This is like watching a whole new type of "living museum" come to life at my mouse-tip!

More later ...