The Second Links Traveler

This past Sunday morning I got a real treat – I sat down for wine with Poppy Williams, the developer of TrueGolf. TrueGolf, being the system that helped me fall in love with playing golf in Second Life, is near and dear to my heart, so I was nervous, excited, and just thrilled that I was going to get to sit down and chat with her.

After trying on three different outfits, I settled on going casual. In retrospect, I really wish I hadn’t. I looked a bit like I’d put my hair up and grabbed whatever I could reach after oversleeping; Poppy looked stylish and elegant.

This is a long interview, so I split it into two parts. The first part is all about TrueGolf. The next one, which I’ll try to post later this week, is all about B-Wind.

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I had a really great conversation with Poppy and learned a lot about TrueGolf, where it came from, and how it came to be.

Keyli Daltrey:  I wanted to ask a bit about how TrueGolf came to be. When did you release TrueGolf 1.0?

Poppy Williams: I released Truegolf version 1.0 in September 2023. We wanted to get it ready for the big event at Uber at the time. That was launch and it was a big initial success.

KD: I missed TrueGolf’s birthday! I would have sent a card! 😉 Did you all do anything to celebrate the occasion?

PW: No, we didn’t celebrate it other than with a smile. One year and still here. 🙂

KD: So take me back to the day you decided you were going to create TrueGolf. There were already a few golf systems out there – what inspired you to create a new one?

PW: Oh, it was a challenge. At the time I got to know Robert Auxifur for something completely different. Auxifur is the owner of Danaan. We got to talk about golf and soon the discussion came to the flaws of the Elite HUDs, and that it was amazing no one had ever made a new and better set.

Auxifur told me he had asked some guy to start designing a new HUD, and if I wanted to help I should contact that guy. Well, the guy never responded, so I started to do it myself.

KD: Can you tell me a little about your process?

PW: In my own time I designed a launcher system. I shot tens of thousands of balls to see their behaviour. I created a HUD and used some mesh clubs to make it look like I was playing golf.

I started in February 2023, and everybody called me nuts. They said I needed at least 5 years to complete it, if ever. In September we launched our first HUD.

I couldn’t have done it without the help of Chelsea Malibu, really. She is great in design and mesh and stuff. I did the scripting.

What I wanted was a golf system as near to life as can be possible in SL, and I believe we succeeded.

KD: So really just seven months from concept to launch. If others were saying it would take years, you two must have been working some very late nights to get it done.

PW: …from nothing to launch. I only had prim balls to shoot away! There are many hours in the creation of the HUD, and many lines of code, but we’re super proud of the result. 🙂

I really did have just a great time with this conversation, and there’s a lot more to come! Until then, fairways and greens!

Keyli