Meet the Cat Who Turned Four Seasons Total Landscaping into a Virtual Re

November 17, 2020 8:52 PM

Meet the Cat Who Turned Four Seasons Total Landscaping into a Virtual Reality Hangout for Furries "“When I’m hanging out with my friends we’re like, ‘we should make this into a VRChat world, all these stupid things,” says Coopertom, a New Jersey-based furry."
posted by hippybear (11 comments total)

I hope that in the future, when we just want a laugh, in the vein of Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra, we can just say, "Rudy at Four Seasons Total Landscaping, when the campaign ended, his arms wide", and just fall on the floor laughing.
posted by smcameron at 9:49 PM on November 17, 2020 [35 favorites]

Dang, that VR support has come a long way since I saw it last. Watching the video where Coopertom thanks everyone, I’m blown away by the moving mouth aligned to spoken word, the flopping ears, etc. Pretty impressive!
posted by darkstar at 12:00 AM on November 18, 2020 [3 favorites]

This is, dead-set, the first thing that has made me to give a shit about VR since Neuromancer.

Not buying the GPUs (or likely to have the network connection) to make it work at all, but still: nice.
posted by pompomtom at 3:44 AM on November 18, 2020 [4 favorites]

Love the mocking laughter!

Okay, I’m not into gaming or furries or even VR, but this really made my morning. Thanks.
posted by kinnakeet at 4:28 AM on November 18, 2020 [4 favorites]

That was... I mean... that certainly was a thing, that happened.

We were promised flying cars and robot maids, and I was a little salty about that for a while, but I'm coming to terms with the fact that the future wasn't predicted by The Jetsons-- it was written by Robert Anton Wilson.
posted by Mayor West at 6:01 AM on November 18, 2020 [9 favorites]

Direct links to the tweet with the video, and the tweet with the followup thank-you video. And, for those who don't do Twitter, the original viral video on Youtube. Coopertom also posted a video of his VR version of the porn shop to Youtube.

Honestly half of the win here comes from the triumphant brass band march playing in the background.
posted by ardgedee at 6:04 AM on November 18, 2020 [6 favorites]

Also a coworker quietly changed his Zoom backdrop to Four Seasons Total Landscaping, but a really subtle version of it with no explicit signage, so you have to stare at it for a minute with that twanging sense of familiarity before it hits you. All our big calls this week have been punctuated by someone bursting into context-free laughter a few minutes into the meeting.
posted by Mayor West at 6:04 AM on November 18, 2020 [30 favorites]

pompomtom: With the Quest 2, one can do PCVR via wifi remote game streaming if you're not one of the people highly susceptible to latency sickness. I (and a number of others) have good success with Shadow PC which is a flat monthly fee rather than hourly rates.

Heck, I'm in Canada using their Chicago Data Centre and typically get 60 ms during peak 7pm-9pm. That's just enough that if I look for it, I can see the lag, but if I'm concentrating on the game I don't notice it. There is some world wobble, but it's much less than I typically had using PSVR.

That said, while I was a bit in love with the concept of the Metaverse when I first read Snow Crash, I've had no interest in investigating VRChat, RecRoom, or any of the "social" games. I think this is mostly because I have limited time, so rather than spend the hour I might have dipping my toe into the sea of Randos that the worlds represent I'd rather jump into any game.

When I first heard about Four Seasons Landscaping VRChat room a week ago, it warmed the cockles of my heart.
posted by nobeagle at 6:29 AM on November 18, 2020

[A] few years ago, [Coopertom] became infamous for appearing in a cursed photo of two fursuiters crouched around a birthday cake in a creepy attic...

This is quite an image, actually.
posted by doctornemo at 6:41 AM on November 18, 2020 [2 favorites]

The YouTube video ardgedee links is charming - everyone is admiring the work and detail, and at the end Coopertom makes sure to credit the person he got the idea from.
posted by clew at 1:11 PM on November 18, 2020 [2 favorites]

Thanks nobeagle, I shall look into that when I get beyond ADSL. I don't think North American peak times will bother me, but I am in one of the last areas of Australia to receive our Murdoch-hobbled joke of a broadband network, even though quite central to a major city (and I'm sure* that has nothing to do with the fact that my electorate has been Labor since its inception).


*Yeah, the opposite of this.
posted by pompomtom at 3:27 AM on November 19, 2020