Crazy Dragona in Second Life pays homage to a historic nightclub in Krakow, Poland that was known for its unhinged debauchery and infamous clientele during the days of Soviet rule. It opened in 1989 just as the Berlin Wall came down, and the club features a unique and unusual interior filled with wall-wall-red carpets and sickly green lighting. 

The nightclub itself truly was underground in more ways than one, as it was located under a car park of the Forum hotel, built in the so-called “brutalist” style of architecture. In Second Life, the masterminds behind this recreation are Frenchbloke Vanmoer, Beev Fallen, and Martin Ren.

Here’s a description of the technical accomplishments in their own words:

“The build at present has four cube-mapped environmental projection spaces, Beev's incredibly clever lighting system and Beev's amazing refractive vodka bottle.  It also has more lights than most sims and breaks the six (eight if you count sun and moon) light limit before everything goes a bit odd so if you wonder why your alphas are glowing and your hair looks a bit weird then don't blame us. 

We were lucky to find the blueprints (after Yandex searching in poorly-translated Polish) which prompted a complete almost 1:1 scale build which is proving annoying to some avatar giants who can't get past some doors.

The build itself uses a mix of prim and mesh, textures range in size from some 128x128 normals going all the way up to texture layers imported at 4096 x 4096 which was the only way you could see the hairs on the carpet and read the text clearly on the beermats (16 of them on one texture). The magic of SL compresses them to 1024 x 1024 so fear not texture lag police. The texturing is optimized by recycling of materials whenever possible and getting rid of any that had no real purpose and could be replaced by some already used. It was built in a no-light Windlight (it has no windows and is underneath a hotel so sun and moon don't really come into it )  and needs advanced lighting on and preferably shadows off.” 

You can learn more about Crazy Dragona on its official Facebook and Flickr pages, but we encourage you to also check it out for yourself inworld in Second Life.

CREDITS:
Video production by Draxtor Despres

Crazy Dragona

Crazy Dragona is a re-creation of a nightclub under the carpark of a Brutalist Hotel in Poland. The club uses environmental cube-map projections, so with advanced lighting turned on, it is a feast for the eyes! The masterminds behind this place are Frenchbloke Vanmoer, Beev Fallen, and Martin Ren. Check Flickr group for more images and videos: flickr.com/groups/crazydragona

Visit in Second Life