My favorite shopping places on the hypergrid

I am passionate about OpenSim and making OpenSim more accessible to people unfamiliar with the OpenSim platform. New people, like myself a few years back, need places to get things for their avatar and their region and this is my contribution.

I visited a variety of places on the hypergrid and what has surprised me the most is the amount of high quality freebie shopping there is out there.

What follows is just a starting list of shopping destinations on the hypergrid where you can find not just items to improve your avatar’s appearance but also environment objects — anything that isn’t related to how your avatar looks.

Clonelife: Kang Nae [Druskus War]

• login.clonelife.eu:8002:Kang Nae

When I first arrived in OpenSim I knew of no places on the hypergrid to get clothing and basics for my avatar and Kang Nae was one of the very first places I discovered and still return to often. Many of my first outfit combos came from here, fond memories.

You will find everything from skin, to shoes, to dresses and club wear here. When I first arrived on this region I thought the inside area was all there was to see here. It wasnt until a few trips later that I final found outside and what a bananza of club gear, clubs, speakers, animations and a whole load more.

Craft World: Sensation City [Sensation Millennium group owned]

• craft-world.org:8002:sensation city

Craft World is an amazing place to find freebies and I explored some of them in a previous post (read the post here). From my exploration there are two areas for shopping (there is also a club, a harbour and a drive-in); (1) ground level (2) up the stairs passed the tipsy Santa.

Thanks for Shawnkmaloney and his Christmas 2016 list posted to the Hypergrid Destinations Google Plus group for this find. My new hair that I have at the moment is from here, high quality freebies for men and women and other virtual objects to make your virtual home more cozy.

Bubblesz and Metropolis: La Barronie and Savvy [Taarna Welles]

• hypergrid.org:8002:la baronnie
• hypergrid.org:8002:Savvy
• bubblesz.nl:8002:Savvy

We start our shopping on the Metorpolis grid and a region called La Baronnie then we will head over to the Bubblez grid. If you are looking for mesh feet, mesh feet and shoes, mesh clothing or games boards this is the place for you to head. I currently have the mesh feet as part of my avatar they are well made.

The second region by Taarna is called Savvy and is located on the Bubblesz grid. You can find lots of high quality mesh for men and women here. You can also find this region on the Metropolis Grid as well. Taarna Wells is always adding new items to the collections and the latest additions was a full mesh outfit for men.

Metropolis: Aqua Dark [Lacchi Macchi]

• hypergrid.org:8002:Aqua Dark

Aqua Dark, like Kang Nae is one of the very first avatar appearance regions that I found. There are so many things here from full avatars, to sculpt maps, dance and avatar animation overrides and landscaping content.

I always like to head up the stairs and take a look around and inevitable grab a new outfit. Then head back outside and take a look at all the landscaping goodies you can find, like grasses with multiple variations and trees.

Metropolis: FreebiesShop [Night Raven: Moonwalkers group]

• hypergrid.org:8002:FreebiesShop

At ground level there is a collection of all sorts of freebies from what you need for your avatar and some non avatar appearance items. The ground level is housed in an amazing structure. The only thing I will mention is that the landing point every time I teleport here I end up in the water needing to cam out to double click teleport to the store.

Up in the sky you will find even more goodies to make your avatar look good, my clothing folder in my own inventory is stuffed full of most of the stuff here. When you teleport up to the sky level you will land in the middle of the store with men and women’s clothing either side.

Naras Nook: Coca [Shannon Albright]

• world.narasnook.com:8900:Coca

The creators at the Nook do some amazing stuff and I wanted to include this region as there are so many high quality gowns, tuxedos and other freebies.

The Public World [Kai Baer]

A few weeks ago when the Nook I bumped in to Nara and asked if she knew of any places to get hair and to my surprise a folder of landmarks arrived in my inventory. The following four regions are where the landmarks took me. If you visit them all everything from your avatar appearance to buildings are on offer for free.

• thepublicworld.de:8002:TPW-Clubs
• thepublicworld.de:8002:Freebee-Center
• thepublicworld.de:8002:Larossa-Mall
• thepublicworld.de:8002:Home-sweet-Home

Anettes World: Atlantis and Atlantis 1 [Anette Hummel]

• anettes-welt.de:8002:Atlantis
• anettes-welt.de:8002:Atlantis1

The two Atlantis regions on Annettes World are a true one stop shop for just about anything. There must be over 35 shops here with some very unique and high quality items not seen elsewhere. Allot of the content here can be found pretty much all over my grid. Both regions share the same layout with a green space in the center with the shop units surrounding the green.

Between the two regions you can find formal wear for men and women, full avatar outfits, tattoos, piercings, indoor and outdoor furniture and many other goodies. If I want to try and find something quickly this is one of the places that I come to first.

Great Canadian Grid: Lakeview Park Mall [Bastien Falconvale: LakeviewMall group]

• login.greatcanadiangrid.ca:8002:Lakeview Park Mall

Tranquility and shopping my favourite combination, this region contains shops set in an natural open space and lives up to its name, Lakeview. You will find a range of creators and creations here to peruse at your leasure and maybe park your avatar on a bench and take in the scenary.

You can find a selection of avatar appearance content, furniture, art work and much more. You will have to walk around and take your time as you cannot fly in this region.

Great Canadian Grid: Kingfisher Bay [Anna Wright: RP group]

• login.greatcanadiangrid.ca:8002:Kingfisher Bay

Kingfisher Bay has two shops I like to visit Thrifty Chic and The Looking Glass. In the Thrifty Chic you can find AO’s, pyjamas, men and womens clothes and complete avatars. The Looking glass is a child avatar costume and toy shop, full of awesome goodies. Came in very handy for a recent project I was doing.

While there is shopping here, the central role of the region is role play. So please be aware and respectful of this whilst you are in the region. If you are interested in role play there is more information in a previous post about Cedar Point, Kingfisher Bay (Sunday brunch at Cedar Point role play).

OSgrid: Wright Plaza [Plaza Builders]

• hg.osgrid.org:80:Wright Plaza

This is one of the main plaza regions hosted by OSgrid and I always start with the shops and then head to the freebie three-story building. You can find all manner of goodies here, texture packs, sci-fi content, furniture (indoor and outdoor) and full avatar and clothing. In one of the shops you can find one of my most favorite full avatars, Robot 1 by Michael.Cerquoni.

You will be able to find indoor and outdoor furniture, a shop with Lani content, jewelry, avatar clothing and full avatars, including mesh avatars and static models. Many of the shops content creators have links in their shops to the regions on OSgrid which extends your shopping reach and range.

Also check out the travel shop as well. As some of you know I like to travel using the hypergrid and there are so many awesome places to visit via the travel shop.

OSGrid: Wickenshire [Group: Wickenshire Builders]

• hg.osgrid.org:80:Wickenshire
• hg.osgrid.org:80:Wickenshire east

Wickenshire is a fantasy medieval themed content region. You can find bright colored things for fairies and fantasy-based sims, trees for pixies and lots of furniture for your homes and regions. There is so much here to list everything would take too many words and you can always go and visit the region.

There are many other regions to shop on if you type Wickenshire into your map you will find and then visit them. There is Wickenshire East, North East, North, North West and West. If you want to take a quick break from shopping and give your inventory a rest, head over to Wickenshire East and visit the Labyrinth.

OSGrid: Steam [Vbinnia Radek]

• hg.osgrid.org:80:Steam

Hold on to your Steampunk hats this region is a treat if this is the genre, style or aesthetic you like. The red bricks and steam are a clarion call for all people Steampunk. Although I am focusing on the Emporiums on this region for shopping do take your time to explore this var region, it is huge and things are always getting added.

Between the two Emporiums you will find space themed content, steampunk flying machines, a lot of Alley content and texture packs. There is a huge collection of avatar appearance content to change your look. Most of the Steam content on my grid comes from here, air ships a plenty.

OSGrid: Lani [Lani Global]

• hg.osgrid.org:80:Lani

The Lani Mall has over 50 creator shops. Sci Fi, Fantasy, Steampunk, Avatars, Vehicles. Explore a sand dune world of mystery.

This shopping region takes us into space and the land of the space creatures. Lani Global and other creators offer a staggering amount of content here. when you arrive you will be magically propelled towards the store and you have shops to your left and right.

You will find everything you could possibly need for a scifi inspired build, full avatars, alien avatar, star fleet uniforms, structures and buildings, weapons, space craft, space steam and strange alien plants. You can also pick up a copy of the latest copy and back issues of the Visionz magazine.

Refuge Grid: Paramour Shopping [Aine Caoihme]

• refugegrid.com:8002:paramour shopping

This is one of my favorite regions for two reasons; the range of scripted objects by Aine and the environment. The buildings and the environment are built by Aine and the theme of the region is beautiful and tranquil. You land on the top of a hill in a Romanesque-inspired build and to find the shops you head down towards the metal structure pyramids.

The three pyramids all have free content. The first and third pyramid contain art and sculptures by Aine in the Neoclassical, Romantic and Orientalism art movement styles and by Valerie Llauke of Infinity, which are colorful, figurative and abstract.

In the middle pyramid you will find a range of scripted animation systems, paramour and PMAC. You will find 100’s of animations from standing to swimming, to modern dance to burlesque. The dance ball system, various dancing poles and the PMAC system, which is an alternative to MLP.

OSGrid: Ni’s VarGreenery [Ni Lemon]

• hg.osgrid.org:80:Ni’s VarGreenery

Your region is almost done and you are looking for some greenery and landscaping content then you should definitely head to OSgrid and Ni’s VarGreenery. Coming here you will find just about anything and everything that you will need. There is an amazing collection of freebies here from a variety of sources and creators on OSgrid.

I like to divide my shopping into two parts, the greenhouse and the surrounding garden. You will find trees, shrubs, plants, outdoor furniture, topiary and plant bed surrounds. While writing up I found a lovely wooden seating structure that fit perfectly on the Starforge region on my grid.

Francogrid: freebies 4 Saisons [Cherry Manga: Group]

• hg.francogrid.org:80:freebies 4 Saisons

You land in the center of the region with the region divided up into four sections with each section representing a season. Winter, autumn, summer and spring scenes contain landscaping and home content.

Each season has a fully furnished freebie house with landscaping content surrounding it. The homes which are fairly identical in content you will find a freebie sofas, chairs, dining room set, lamps, a fireplace, rugs, bedroom and kitchen furniture, wall art and knickknacks.

Metropolis: Linda Kellie [Linda Kellie]

• hypergrid.org:8002:Linda Kellie

No shopping trip would be complete without visiting at least one Linda Kellie region. This region is the most recent of her incarnations and the list of content you can get here is unrivaled. You can also download a lot of her content from the Zadaroo website.

When you land on the region you will see a walk in teleporter that will take you to the shopping place. Lets head there now and see what we can find. When you arrive a head of you is the Clutterfly Store which is full of avatar appearance content including female and male clothing, furniture, animation sets and many other original mesh items. Outside are some other freebies such as trees and a greenhouse.

One More Grid: Home of Merci [snik snoodle]

• onemoregrid.com:8002:Home of Merci

I enjoy coming here and finding new stuff. For example, a couple of months back Snik Snoodle made available a mesh house that is now on the LHP VW Basics region. My mesh feet that my avatar is wearing also came from this region.

Metropolis: Terrains [Magnuz Binder]

• hypergrid.org:8002:Terrains

If you’re like me, and you find the in-world terrain editing tools difficult to master, then heading to this region is a great way to get started. The sheer number of RAW file downloads here is staggering and cover regions in size from standard region to nine-region vars. Or, at least, these were the largest that I saw while there. All you do is click the terrain that you are interested in and a web link will open for you to download the terrain file. Then log into your region and upload the RAW file into your region.

The terrains region is only a small part of a much bigger set of regions that I highly recommend you check out while you are here. For example, there is a video hall, a giant earth simulation and a giant Rubik’s cube.

Craft World: Noah [Tosha Tyran]

• craft-world.org:8002:Noah

This region is one of the best places on the hypergrid for animal models and landscaping content, set out on a replica of Noah’s Ark. The scale of the Ark is epic and always feels so tranquil when I visit. You can find two of most kind of animal that you can take a copy of and put out on your own grid.

As you can see in the image there is a rainbow that when you walk into it you will be taken to the Botanical platform. You will find all manner of things here for all your landscaping needs.

Francogrid: Avatar [Praline B], FestAvi 2015 and Fest Avi 2016 [Cherry Manga: FrancoGrid-Projet Fest’Avi group]

• hg.francogrid.org:80:avatar
• hg.francogrid.org:80:FestAvi 2015
• hg.francogrid.org:80:FestAvi 2016

Avatar is the first region in this series and each region contains some amazing full avatar appearances. Each of the three sets of avatars were created by OpenSim community members and is part of the annual FestAvi on the Francogrid. You can find all three years’ avatars here and the following two regions are from the 2015 and 2016 event. Each year the FestAvi event puts on a immersive experience to showcase each avatar and you can see this year’s on the 2016 region.

 

 

Digiworldz: Artlandia [Group ownded: Artlandia Artists]

• login.digiworldz.com:8002:Artlandia

This is our final stop for this series and I wanted to end on a visual region with shopping. I think that the region is a var region, two standard regions by two standard regions. There are some amazing artists and content creators displaying their work here and I will be focusing on the Spiral Fractals region on the teleporter.

Heading over to the region via teleport when you arrive have a look around and then head to the exhibition space called The Spiral Art Gallery. Inside you will find a variety of Spiral art that is free to take a copy. I have several peieces here dotted around my grid and I keep coming back here as there is so much to see and take in for one visit.

The more places that people can find in OpenSim easily, the better and hopefully make an unfamiliar place like OpenSim a little more familiar and easy to use and get started. If you have suggestions for a region to include in the fourth part of the series depending on the response.

Online resources

As well as visiting in-world places you can also find some great resources for a range of things on the web, here are a few of my go to websites and resources when I am trying ot create something.

• Outworldz — a script library, textures, IAR and OAR downloads and much, much more
• Opensimworld – a resource for finding OpenSim regions, including shopping destinations
• Zadaroo – an online archive of Linda Kellie’s CC0-licensed content, including IAR and OAR files
• Kitely Market – Purchase content that you need and get it delivered to your avatar on any of over 165 different OpenSim grids
• Metropolis freebie search tool — Search for content on the Metropolis grid

This article is adapted with permission from a series of posts on the Lighthouse Point Blog.