On Saturday 8th October, OpenSim core developer Justin Clark-Casey announced the release of OpenSimulator 0.7.2. This includes – among other things – support for mesh uploads that matches Second Life’s capability and which can be utilised using the official Second Life Viewer.
OpenSim has in fact had compatible mesh capabilities – albeit with limitations – to Second Life since the day after Linden Lab launched the SL Mesh Beta a year ago, thanks to the work of Teravus Ovares, Latif Khalifa and Intel’s John Hurliman. However, until now, the capability has been limited, but 0.7.2 makes it available as a full release – although the upload capability and the release itself are both tagged as “experimental”.
Mesh uploads on OpenSim 0.7.2 (model by Timmi Allen, SL mesh beta)
Nor is it the only new feature. Commenting on the release, Clark-Casey stated on his blog, “Despite having a minor point release number, it actually contains a very large number of features and fixes, including experimental support for the mesh upload seen in the latest Linden Lab version 3 viewers, Hypergrid support for friends, lures, landmarks and instant messages, NPC functions, prim and agent limits on regions”.
NPCs: New opportunities
The NPC functionality is also something Linden Lab are moving towards. It has actually been under development for a while within OpenSim, thanks to the intervention of UK-based Daden Limited. As Maria Korolov reported at the time in Hypergrid Business, Daden offered a small bounty to fund the capability.
Interestingly, the pay-to-develop route is something that has now come to Second Life, with Maxwell Graf’s project to have a basic parametric deformer developed for mesh clothing – although this project is going the public funding route through indegogo.com (and it should also benefit OpenSim once completed).
NPCs have a wide range of applications, from training scenarios through to providing background characters for role-play environments. Daden were particularly interested in the former, hence their willingness to sponsor the development of the capability within OpenSim.
Crista Lopez
The additional Hypergrid functionality – friends, lures, landmarks and instant messages – is similarly marked as “experimental”, but adds important new functionality to the capabilities of OpenSim. These will make travelling between grids in the Hypergrid environment more personal – allowing friendships to be made, landmarks to be stored and shared, etc. People on different grids will even be able to IM one another.
This capability has been under development by Crista Lopez, who is both a Hypergrid core developer and an Associate professor of Informatics at UCI, and who first blogged about the work in May of this year.
Hypergrid instant messaging (image with thanks to Crista lopez)
The abilities to both make friends across grids – additional checks are included in the process to prevent unscrupulous spamming of offers – and to IM across grids are liable to be warmly welcomed by OpenSim / Hypergrid community around the globe.
The release also brings a range of other features, improvements and fixes to the OpenSim environment, as specified in the full release notes.
Through the Lens of Dreams is a new art presentation opening on Sunday October 9th at Art Screamer. It is a magnificent full-sim piece that springs into colourful, vibrant, aural life from the imaginations of Madcow Cosmos and Lorin Tone.
And it is quite possibly one of the most delightful art installations I’ve yet visited in Second Life – and equally, one of the hardest to describe. If you take the imaginations of Lewis Carroll and Terry Gilliam and whisk them together with a splash of Oliver Postgate and a dash of Doctor Seuss, then you might come close to understanding how surrealistically wonderful Through the Lens of Dreams is.
Through the lens of a camera: Art Screamer and “Through the Lens of Dreams”
It has simply everything: weird and wonderful creatures scurrying around on the ground, weird and wonderful birds perched on lamp posts, shrubs with appealing faces (and which may or may not be as innocent as they appear), grumpy grubs stalking away from their underground homes, gnarled trees with wizened faces, rainbow bridges and bizarre bicycles with gardens for panniers. All this and so much more: houses honking their way through powder-puff and cream pie clouds, gigantic Clanger-like creatures rising into the air to devour not soup, but multi-hued floating flowers; entire city blocks huddled together on carrot-like foundations and held aloft by umbrellas…
Down the Rabbit Hole
Using the exhibit’s teleport SLurl, you arrive floating serenely on a cloud, the sun setting as a glorious ball, the sky overhead darkening with the onset of dusk. It’s best to leave the region environment settings as they are when you arrive, as they are as much a part of the installation as anything else.
From here, the sim is spread out beneath you, surrounded by an azure sea – but how to get down? You could easily fly – flying is encouraged to see all of the exhibit in full. However, I recommend that you see the piece at ground level first – and follow Alice’s example to get there by jumping down the rabbit hole – or in this case, the hole in the cloud; the sabre-toothed bird guarding it is perfectly safe!
Once on the ground, your choice of routes is down to you – there is no set way or fixed order in which to enjoy the exhibits; like the whimsies around you, you’re free to set out as you please and let whatever takes your fancy be your guide. There are some footpaths of rounded stones set into the grass, but again, whether you follow them or not is up to you; as Madcow Cosmos states:
“Walk, fly, hop, or shimmy as to your preference. Click things, poke them, dance naked around them, or sit on them. Feel free to photograph, make machinima, exactly copy my work by painstakingly reproducing it, or loudly decry it as an assault against good taste, you have the artist’s permission!”
I look up to the bike, but down to the garden…
So many things combine in this work that it needs time to be experienced; not that giving it time is hard – anyone in touch with their childhood imagination or with a love of the light fantastic (albeit touched with an edge of darkness!) is going to be at home here. Colour, light, shape, shade, sound and scale all play a role in each of the oddities and delights you come across as you wander the glades, hills and vales of Art Screamer – like the giant wooden bikes that lead you over a rainbow bridge, each complete with a pannier bearing a tiny garden.
Oi! I got my eye on you!
Take a good look at everything you encounter; some are static, others are enhanced by sounds and music selected, composed and recorded by Lorin Tone. Thus, the installation is very much an aural as well as visual experience. In fact, discovering which elements have sound and what it might be is very much a part of the fun when exploring Through the Lens… – especially when flying among the floating houses, of which more anon.
Creatures and objects of all shapes and sizes are in abundance – some, like the wooden bikes, act a little like guides, directing you to or along a route you might opt to follow as you walk the sim. Depending on the direction you do take, others appear to be marching resolutely the other way, like the little green fellow above, and his friends, whom I encountered mid-way through my journey.
Of Gilliam, Carroll, Kubrick, Oh My!
A little Lewis Carroll…
It is hard not to draw comparisons between the installation and the works of Lewis Carroll (author Charles Lutwidge Dodgson) and Terry Gilliam; many of the pieces around the sim resonate strongly where both are concerned. But it would be a mistake to simply write this off as some form of imitation; there is so much more here – and the creators’ own passions are in subtle evidence around the sim.
Lorin Tone, for example, is a huge Stanley Kubrick fan, and there is at least one item (I may have missed others!) that reflects this, as no less a voice than that of HAL 9000 (and that of the actor Douglas Rains) whispers to you at one point in your explorations. I’ll leave it to you to discover where; all I will say is that HAL’s voice is entirely fitting, given where it is heard.
Oh – and don’t miss out on the free gifts that are scattered around – you can even make yourself a mobile part of the exhibit by donning a “ball boy” avatar!
Gilliam-esque landscapes – and skiesSlurp – I hover over a giant clanger-like creature
Menace
When you’ve wandered the island, it’s time to take to the skies – this is very much an immersive and three-dimensional that failure to take to the air is to miss a good portion of it.
Here you’ll find more to delight and tease, as you fly through flocks of butterflies and around house-laden clouds and witness giant yellow Clanger-like creatures rising into the air in pursuit of pretty flowers which in turn look so much like hot air balloons floating peacefully over the landscape.
I’m not entirely sure how friendly these Clanger-esque beings really are; there is something faintly menacing in their eyes as they form from rising blobs puffed out of the smoke stack of a factory. And there is a faint whiff of malevolence edging the way the leader is slurping-up a flower balloon…
It is here that the darker side of dreams is hinted at: the suggestion that the “Clanger” creatures may not be as cuddly as they first appear; the mysterious pipework visible around the island that leads to the red brick factory which is itself at odds with the brightly hued land in which it sits. It’s as if there is something more disturbing laying just under the surface.
Just like our own comfortable dreams can form a thin blanket over our darker nightmares, so to do elements of the installation hint at darker things lying beneath the vibrant colours and gaiety around us. It brings a certain edge to the piece that dares one to poke at it, as we all sometimes poke at our own fears, real or imagined.
Nevertheless, I couldn’t help but be drawn to the “Clangers”, the coldness of their eyes notwithstanding. They look so much like the creatures I remember from re-runs of Oliver Postgate’s masterpiece on the BBC, I even found myself hoping that if I touched one, I might hear, “Oh, sod it! The bloody thing’s stuck again!” mischievously whistled back at me!
City in the sky
Also up in the sky you’ll find the floating tower blocks, each held aloft by a striped umbrella and standing on a carrot-like base. Commuting to and from the ground isn’t easy though – the ladders are long and exposed; not that the “ball boy” locals seem to mind, judging by the giggles. Perhaps they bounce if they fall, or is the giggling more manic than playful? You will have to decide that for yourself…
Toot! toot! Awwoooga! Flying a house in busy skies, one needs a good horn – or four!
Photogenic
If there is one problem with this exhibit, it is that it is simply too photogenic: it is so easy to take & publish so many pictures, it risks spoiling the impact for others when they visit the installation. But then, pictures only tell a part of the story – whatever you choose the story to be – and relying on them to reveal the sim’s richness would be a mistake. With the depth and breath and scale of the pieces, together with the carefully concocted sounds, this is something that has to be experienced and should be experienced in all its richness; the way it touches the subconscious and memories is likely to be unique for each of us – and I wonder if any two visits will provoke the same reactions.
I think I’ll be popping back to find out!
Through the Lens of Dreams will be open to the public from 12:00 SLT on Sunday 9th October, when there will be a Grand Opening Party, and will run for approximately one month thereafter.
If you take photos of the exhibit yourself, why not join the Art Screamer Flickr Group and upload them there?
About the Artists
Madcow Cosmos describes himself as a “Complete amateur”, who came to SL from a cooking background in order to try his hand at some 3D digital art. He provides the visuals for the piece.
Lorin Tone describes himself as, “A real life noise maker and a tasty beverage”. He provided the sounds and music found through the piece, including an original composition of his own.
Madcow (left) and Lorin, each in suitable form for the exhibit
With thanks to Chestnut Rau for the opportunity to preview this event, to Madcow and Lorin for creating it, and the folks at Art Screamers for hosting / curating it.
Login2life premiers on German television at midnight CET on the 17th October, and will be streamed via the broadcaster’s – ZDF – website for one week following the premier.
Commenting on the decision to stream the film for a week, Draxtor Despres, who both wrote the music for the film and attended a talk about the film at Nonprofit Commons on Friday 7th October where he could announce the news, said, “It will premiere 10/17 midnight on ZDF & stream via their website for one week all over the planet [no geo-blocking YES YES YES].”
Login2life, directed by Daniel Moshel, follows a group of people who spend a good part of their time in virtual spaces. Notable among them are Gentle Heron, Stroker Serpentine and Jaynine Scarborough, who have all been deeply involved in Second Life. The film also profiles several World of Warcraft players.
Rather than a themed documentary with a central narrative arc, the film might best be described as a series of vignettes, moving through the lives of those involved, examining how and why they engage in virtual living, and how the virtual environment can augment and enhance their real lives in a wide variety of ways. In doing so, it steers well away from the stereotypical views on virtual worlds and particularly Second Life, and instead presents a compelling series of insights into a wide variety of subjects: dealing with disabilities, life, love and so on.
This month sees the launch of the Linden Endowment of the Arts (LEA) Full Sim Arts Series. The first exhibit in the series is by Rebeca Bashly, a stunning interpretation of Inferno, the first part of Dante’s 14th Century epic Divine Comedy which opens the Series in a truly grand style.
You arrive in darkness – the ambient lighting is intentional, so it is best to leave your settings thus. Beside you is a notecard giver; if you are not familiar with the Divinia Commedia, the card, graciously provided by Flora Nordenskiold, is a good place to start.
Allegorical Vision
The poem comprises three parts, Inferno, Purgatorio and Paradiso, and represents the medieval view of the afterlife, as developed by the Western Church of the time. As a purely linguistic note, it also helped to establish the Tuscan dialect – Dante was born in Florence, and wrote his poem in Tuscan – as the standardised Italian.
Inferno itself deals with Dante’s passage through hell guided by the Roman poet Virgil (Dante himself claims in Inferno XV, 76 that his family is of ancient Roman descent). As the poem opens, Dante is lost in a dark wood, unable to escape a lion, a leopard and a she-wolf, which prevent him finding the “right way” to salvation. Driven deeper into the woods, he is at last rescued by Virgil, and the two of them begin their journey to the underworld. And it is with Virgil, as he stands patiently just a few metres from the arrival point, that our own journey begins.
Virgil: our guide – and the path through the forest
Nine Circles
Virgil leads us first to the Gate of Hell, which bears the famous inscription, “Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch’intrate” – “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here”, and through which we must pass and enter the “vestibule”. This is where the Uncommitted, souls who did neither good nor evil in life and who are neither in hell or out of it, reside on the banks of the River Archeron. And it is here that Charon awaits aboard his ferry, waiting to carry the damned across the river and into hell itself. For those visiting the exhibit, the way is a little easier: touch Virgil as he awaits beside Charon, and be teleported to the First Circle.
Charon and Virgil await for the journey to the First Circle
Limbo
Limbo is reserved for those who, while not sinful, did not accept Christ into their lives. It is sometimes described as a “deficient form of Heaven”, because without baptism, the soul cannot hope for anything greater. It is here, wandering green fields with the seven-gated castle (representing the seven virtues) close to hand, that Dante encounters the souls of Eclid, Ovid, Aristotle, Julius Caesar, Saladin, and many others. For us, and across an lawn of silent souls, Socrates and Homer wait at the entrance to the castle keep.
Homer and Socrates – two of many souls held in limbo
Within the castle, we encounter other souls as we climb the stairs – perhaps Electra and Camilla, both referred to in Dante’s poem – before meeting Virgil once more on the roof, and our journey continues to the Second Circle.
Lust
Turning in the winds of a violent storm for all eternity, are those who gave themselves over to the sin of lust. Here Dante witnessed Dido, Cleopatra, Helen of Troy, Achilles, Paris, Tristan and many others blown about needlessly and helplessly by the winds of hell that represent the aimless power of lust.
Gluttony
The third circle, illustrated by Stradanus
Cerberus stands guard over the gluttons, who lie sightless and heedless of those around them in a vile slush produced by an unending, icy and foul rain falling from a leaden sky.
The victims’ lack of awareness symbolises the cold, selfish, and empty sensuality of their lives. The slush itself represents the true nature of sensuality: overindulgence in food and drink and other forms of addiction.
In Dante’s poem, Virgil secures their onward journey by filling Cerberus’ three mouths with mud. The visitor faces no such risk with the beast – although we must navigate through the horde of silent, grasping bodies to reach Virgil, patiently waiting for us to touch him, so he can transport us to the penultimate of the five circles of self-indulgent sin.
Greed
In the Fourth Circle we encounter those who gave their lives over to greed, either through hoarding (the avaricious) or through squander (the prodigal), locked in a never-ending battle with one another pushing great weights as weapons against one another, which Dante describes as a form of jousting.
Greed: perpetual battle
Anger
The fifth circle, illustrated by Stradanus
From Greed we fall to Anger, and a bitter, violent battle between the wrathful, fought in the swamp-like waters of the river Styx, where those so confined bite and rip the flesh from one another or withdraw beneath the brackish surface, “Into a black sulkiness which can find no joy in God or man or the universe”.
Here Dante and Virgil encounter Phlegyas, who reluctantly carries them across the Styx aboard his skiff while they observe the wailing and fighting all around them.
In crossing the Styx, Dante and Virgil journey from the first Five Circles, representing the self-indulgent sins, towards the walls of Dis, wherein lie the more active sins that are both violent (the Sixth and Seventh Circles) and malicious (the Eighth and Ninth Circles).
We have no Phlegyas, however, and so must walk among the eternally angry to reach Virgil id we are to reach Dis.
Heresy
Entering the City of Dis, one must pass the three furies, blood-covered guardians of those who eternally burn in their tombs of fire for their heresy. Here, as with Dante, we encounter Farinata degli Uberti and Cavalcante de’ Cavalcanti – although unlike Dante, we cannot converse with them.
The furies at the entrance to Dis
From here we descend to the Seventh Circle – Violence – itself divided into three rings.
Violence
The seventh circle is guarded by a mighty minotaur and contains both centaurs and harpies. It is divided into three rings, depicting different forms of violence, and different punishments for those condemned therein.
The outer ring contains those who were violent towards people and property during their lives. They are immersed in a river of boiling blood – Phlegethon – to a level according to the severity of their sins, while centaurs patrol the banks of the river, using arrows to shoot any who attempt to rise higher in the river than their sins allow
The middle ring contains those who were violent against themselves, who have been transformed into gnarled bushes and trees and who are fed upon by harpies
The inner ring is reserved for those who have acted in violence against God (blasphemers) or nature (sodomites and usurers). They reside in a desert of flaming sand, under a sky raining flakes of fire; the blasphemers condemned to lie on the sand, the usurers to sit upon it and the sodomites to wander across it.
Fraud
Fraud covers a multitude of sins – so many, in fact that Dante envisioned no fewer than ten stone ditches, or Bolgie, to represent the various forms of punishment for fraud. These ditches in turn contain: seducers, flatterers, those committing simony, false prophets, corrupt politicians, hypocrites, thieves, fraudulent advisers, sowers of discord and various kinds of falsifiers.
Wisely, Rebeca hasn’t attempted to reproduce all ten Bolgie, but has selected a number to represent our journey through hell – but I will leave it to you to visit the exhibit and discover which they are!
Both Fraud and the Ninth Circle are reached by way of a Geryon, a creature comprising human, bestial and reptilian parts, said to represent the image of fraud: the face of an honest man, the body of wyvern and a snake-like tail with a nasty sting. Sadly, we must rely on Virgil to move us through the Bolgie and onwards to the Ninth Circle.
Treachery
The final circle of hell is reserved for those guilty of treachery, each entombed in the ice of lake Cocytus according to the degree of their sin. In all there are four “rounds” of treachery in which those found guilty are entombed to ever greater degree. Some are frozen up to their faces, others completely sealed by ice, their bodies distorted by the freezing walls of the prison that holds them.
The Ninth Circle
In the very centre of hell lies a three-faced Satan, trapped from the waist down in ice. All three faces weep in anguish, while the three mouths chew on those Dante considered the most treacherous of all – Brutus, Cassius and Judas Iscariot. Forever trapped, Satan’s six wings forever beat against the grip of the ice in a vain attempt to escape its grip.
Dante and Virgil escaped the Ninth Circle by climbing Satan’s back to reach another hemisphere, which Dante described in Purgatorio. For those of us visiting Rebeca’s work, however, the teleport offers a safer means of escape.
Opinion
This is a massive installation that is a great opening to the LEA Full Sim Art run – and I recommend you take time out to visit it. It is a tremendous visual interpretation of Dante’s work, and you should allow time for your visit as there is much to see; the attention to detail is wonderful. It is worth trying to keep to the ambient lighting throughout – but there are times when you need to add a little more light to scenes in order to appreciate them fully – as I had to do, in order to capture the wonderful minotaur seen in this piece.
Should you opt to change time-of-day settings, I really recommend you only use sunrise or sunset as alternatives, and then only for the particular element of the exhibit you are in – go back to midnight before you teleport on.
It is with regard to the teleports that I have my only complaint: some were a little less than smooth – one even threw me completely out of the installation when I ended up trapped in flying mode, unable to control where I was going!
This aside, however, and as stated, this is a piece really worth visiting. Kudos to Rebeca for an amazing interpretation of Dante’s work.
Rebeca Bashly’s Infernowill be open to visitors until the end of the month, and will be replaced in November by ~(Not-A-Knot) by Tyrehl Byk and Forgiving by The Pink Tutu Ballet Group, said to be a piece inspired by Desmond Tutu!
With oodles of thanks to Spikeheel Starr for the title of this piece.
The Linden Endowment of the Arts has announced four 3-month long art shows that will see out 2011 and herald in 2012. The shows will each open in mid-October, and feature a range of themes and some of SL’s top artists.
The Survey of the Hyperformalists
Where: LEA1
Curated by: DC Spensley (aka DanCoyote)
Opening: October 15th, 2011
The Museum of Hyperformalism was founded in 2006 to “Promote the unique genre of metasculptural abstraction in simulated space”. The display at LEA1 will comprise work by Josina Burgess, Oberon Onmura, Ray FX, Sabine Stonebender, Selavy Oh, Suzanne Graves and Velasquez Bonetto.
Sneak peek: the impressive building that will house the Survey of the Hyperformalists 2011 (a work-in-progress at the time this picture was taken)
The Path
Where: LEA2
Curated by: Bryn Oh
Opening: October 14th, 2011
Based on the Surrealists’ exquisite corpse concept, each artist was randomly given a scene to compose. A narrative begins with the first scene, and then progresses scene-by-scene until the eighth scene – and the conculsion of the narative – is reached. Artists participating in this piece are (in scene order): Bryn Oh, Colin Fizgig, Marcus Inkpen, Desdemona Enfield / Douglas Story, Maya Paris, Claudia222 Jewell, Scottius Polke and Rose Borchovski.
A look across a small part of The Path
FAST ART: Competitive Build Improvisation In The Virtual World
Where LEA3
Hosted by: Solo Mornington
Opening: October 15th, 2011
A series of twice-weekly speed build competitions that will each run until the sim is full. details in full have yet to be announced, but the events will be scheduled to allow artists from all time zones to participate.
Interact!
Where: LEA4
Curated by: curated by L1Aura Loire/Lori Landay
Opening: October 15th, 2011
One of the great qualities of virtual art is that it can encourage – even demand – interaction on the part of the observer. Interact! encourages participating artists to make art out of interactions between data, objects, actions and people both within and beyond the virtual world.
Installations in this exhibit are by: AM Radio, Glyph Graves, Lorin Tone, Maya Paris, Misprint Thursday, PinkPink Sorbet and Selavy Oh.
A peek at a part of Interact!, also a work-in-progress at the time the picture was taken
There will also be an interactive environment for audience participation, and interactive mixed reality cross-cultural performances by: Butler2 Evelyn / Senses Places. The sim will also include Mesh by Sage Duncan, Machinima Mutoscope Viewers by FreeWee Ling, Twitter Garden by Frans Charming, and the Inner Tube Ride of Your Life by UzzU Artful.
I very much look forward to previewing these shows in full later in the month, and covering each in turn in these pages.
In August this year, Linden Lab announced a Request for Proposals (RFP) to run a new Adult-oriented Gateway for Zindra and Adult-related activities in Second Life.The closing date for proposals was the 12th September, with an announcement due at the Adult Content User Group meeting held on Monday 3rd October.
Only it wasn’t – the reasons given at the meeting were that Viale Linden needed some extra time to work things out and get some preparation work done.
However, some people seem unwilling to wait, as there is a note card doing the rounds that reveals that the winning proposal for the Gateway is apparently from Freedom Continent. This is a group of some 16 private island sims, all themed around adult activities and which include Thunderbird Island (Jennifer’s Jewelry), Blacksilk (The Blacksilk Academy), Damsel, Bondage Ranch, Bondage Playground and Slaver Bay among others, and which includes brand names such as Latex Station, MoDesign, and Think Kink.
The notecard itself reads in part:
“At a meeting on monday the 3rd October Linden Labs [sic] announced that a single organisation had won the contract to build, run and expand an Adult Gateway in accordance with well established principles. While it has not yet been officially announced, the organisation who obtained this contract is called ” The Freedom Continent “. This is an established complex of 16 sims, mostly adult, working together to bring a better sense of reliability to adult users in SL. They have in place a well established management system and many years of experience in dealing with adult content. The freedom team are looking for mentors who understand the problems in dealing with adult content users and work with the team to build a good sound adult mentor group who will greet and teach new users as they appear. The Mentor group, The Adult Grid Mentors, will form the backbone to the group. This mentor group will be the official mentor group for the new adult gateway and has the full support of Linden Labs [sic].”
Precisely what form the new Gateway will take remains to be seen, although four sims are on offer for actually hosting the Gateway – these being the four used to host ZExpo 2011 earlier in the year. As a part of the arrangement, the group managing the Gateway regions will also have exclusive use of the name “Zindra”. Reaction to the news of the selection – assuming it is accurate – has yet to be gauged, but is likely to be interesting.
Update: October 7th
Commenting on questions raised as a result of the note card circling in-world, Peter Gray, Linden Lab’s PR Manager stated, “There is a leading candidate, but we’ve not yet finalised any agreement or announced our selection. We hope to be able to do so soon.”
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 