Snapzilla is Second Life's communal photo album and is a great place to scout for locations for people like me who don't have time to wander the great space of Second Life.

Some very talented virtual photographers such as Daniel Luchador introduced me to the trippy light show at Kelham. I show some great footage of light streams up the wall. Click to experience it yourself at Kelham.

A firm favorite is the Greenies Home Rezzable Fellow Melbournian Pavig Lok is a talented part of the Rezzable team. There are lots of interactive surprises. Most fun.

This shot was taken by MissPrint Mahoney and gives some indication of the size of this place.

Chouchou is another magical space. Make sure you take the ladder to the club.

Also check out Babelswarm a really cool and totally interactive art installation built with the aid of an Australia Council grant. Freefall and there are more surprises at the bottom.

Installations, artwork and sculpture parks are a great source of interesting backdrops. They tend to change pretty frequently so it's just a matter of exploring.

Here are a few thoughts in terms of choosing a location. Obviously you need something that fits with the story you are trying to tell. Get the permission of the owner of the land (go to the World menu and about land to get the owner's name) They may also cooperate to limit the traffic to help reduce lag and give you some privacy.

Newer sims are generally less laggy than older sims. The fewer scripts, prims and particles are on a sim the less lag. Sky boxes are a great choice.

You can check how suitable a sim is by looking at the "Statistics bar" in the view menu SHIFT CTRL 1. You can see the frames per second as well as things like the number of scripts, objects and other things that can hinder performance. Clicking the Time menu at the bottom gives us a detailed look at how what the sim is doing and how fast its is doing it. See here for more information.

We will cover more about dealing with that inevitable problem of lag in a later blog.

If you are a builder or know people who can build the sets you need there are dedicated low lag filmmaking sims such as Alt-Zoom Studio or Movix. This enables you to bring in what you need as you need it to keep a clean set. Also check out the list of machinima friendly sims at wikipedia.