The following is summary of changes to SL viewers / clients (official and TPV) which have taken place in the past week. It is based on my Viewer Round-up Page, which provides a list of all Second Life viewers and clients that are in popular use (and of which I am aware) and which are recognised as being in adherence with the TPV Policy.
This summary is published every Monday, and by its nature will always be in arrears. Therefore, for the most up-to-date information on viewers and clients, please see my Viewer Round-up Page, which is updated as soon as I’m aware of any changes, and which includes comprehensive links to download pages, blog notes, release notes, etc., for Viewers and clients as well as links to any / all reviews of specific viewers / clients made within this blog.
Updates for the week ending: 26 August, 2012
SL Viewer updates:
Beta version rolled to 3.4.0.263727 on August 20 – release notes
Development: rolled to 3.4.1.263920 on August 16
Mesh Deformer updated to 3.3.1.264008 on August 24
Cool Viewer: Stable branch rolled to 1.26.4.27 and Experimental to 1.26.5.6, both on August 26 – release notes for both
Singularity release version 1.7.1.2888 on August 22 – release notes
Lumiya updated to 2.2.2 on August 20 – release notes
Chouchou is a Japanese duo formed in Second Life “to search for new possibilities of music”. In-world they are musician Arabesque Choche and vocalist Juliet Herberle, who have been together since 2007.
Together they have three regions in Second Life, centred on Chouchou itself, where one can visit and hear their music or attend their concerts. The regions contain unique and fascinating builds open to the public, and which are well worth a visit by SL explorers and photographers alike.
Before you pay a visit, however – and I hope you will after reading this article – please make sure you have your viewer set to use the region Windlight defaults and that you have media enabled in order to hear Chouchou’s evocative music.
Chouchou
Chouchou region at ground level is a minimalist build – just a series of sand bars in the water, interspersed with a few seemingly random items: a piano sitting under a lone tree, a cage of some description and a ladder leading upwards to the sky. Feel free to wander and listen to the music; Juliet Herberle has a wonderful voice when singing in both English and Japanese, and it forms a melodic accompaniment to your wanderings – which will no doubt lead you to the strange, heaven-pointing ladder.
Cage, and ladder
The ladder is actually a teleport, and will whisk you to one of three unique sky venues which are an essential part of any visit to Chouchou. Additionally, the teleport can take you to a store (on another region) where you can obtain an in-world radio which allows you to play Chouchou’s music on your own land as well as Juliet Herberle’s own radio show (presumably in Japanese – I confess to not having tuned-in).
Islamey
Islamey, one of the three skyborne venues, is a Japanese-themed garden and a venue for Chouchou’s monthly concerts. When not being used for these, it is a place of quiet contemplation where you can come when you want to give free passage to thoughts and ideas, or when you simply want to find peace and let Chouchou’s music soothe you gently. It would be nice to have a few more places to sit quietly around the garden, but this doesn’t detract too much from the serenity of the place.
Islamey
The Babel
This is a musical construct comprising boxes, elements and levels, which may at first glance appear completely random – but there is order. Each box is a sound – a note or chord – which is played when touched. Some will play once when touched, others work on a toggle – they will play until touched again.
Boxes themselves are arranged in musical elements, with the lowermost boxes in an element representing bass notes or chords, and the boxes above containing percussion or melody elements. By touching the boxes in an element you can create various harmonies – or, if you opt to stay with the lower boxes in an element, what amounts to a discordant noise.
A musical element (foreground) with others around it at The Babel
Elements come together in the levels of The Babel, with each level perhaps analogous to an album, and the elements the tracks of the album. It’s a fascinating idea and anyone with any interest in music will doubtless finding it enticing and spend time producing harmonies and melodies – I did.
Memento Mori
Literally “Remember your mortality”, this is a magnificent build styled after the great medieval cathedrals – hence, perhaps the name – sitting high in the sky. To stay this is a stunning build would be an understatement; it is magnificent. You arrive on stairs leading up to the cathedral proper – and it is worth not camming ahead to spoil the impact (Windlight allowing), as it is quite breathtaking to arrive at the top of the steps to see this magnificent build before you, arching high overhead, the wide nave drawing ones eye to the distant piano sitting on a raised dais.
Memento Mori
Here you can walk down the nave and past ornate pews awaiting an audience, or climb one of the many and spectacular stairways up into the high reaches of the cathedral and look down on those below. Several Windlight options are in use in the build, so don’t be surprised in the lighting levels charge as you explore.
Memento Mori lends itself to be photographed, whether using the default Windlight settings or those of your own. In fact, it is next to impossible not to take photos, and if I’m totally honest, there are times when the build is slightly spoiled by being too saturated by the local ambient lighting, so some experimentation on your part might be required to achieve the perfect result.
Memento Mori
Taken individually or as a while, Chouchou have provided a series of builds that represent one of the great strengths of Second Life: freedom of expression. Beautifully themed and executed, framed by Chouchou’s own fusion of traditional Japanese music with modern styles, this is a place one should visit – and savour.
Nine summers ago, I went for a visit, To see if the moon was green cheese. When we arrived, people on earth asked: “Is it?” We answered: “No cheese, no bees, no trees.” There were rocks and hills and a remarkable view Of the beautiful earth that you know, It’s a nice place to visit, and I’m certain that you will enjoy it when you go.
Neil Armstrong, 1978
Neil Armstrong, 1930-2012
First man to walk on the Moon
Missions flown: Gemini 8, Gemini 11, Apollo 11
The latest Premium gift arrived yesterday, together with yet another push for people to up to Premium. In keeping with the transportation / vehicle theme that has marked the majority of the gifts to date (the last two being a sailboat and a railcar respectively), this quarter sees a dune buggy as the offering – so no-one can accuse LL of not trying to get people out and around SL in order to use their gifts.
As with previous gifts, the buggy is mesh, with a total LI of 58. The level of detail on it is OK, if a little basic texture-wise. It seats two, and the promotional blog post makes a big point about taking friends along for the ride, although the buggy is restricted to owner-only driving.
The Premium gift dune buggy
Driving-wise, it uses the usual controls either the WASD keys or the arrow keys. It has a “turbo” feature – doubling-clicking the W/up arrow accelerates the buggy and produces a green glow under it, and you can use this to pull wheelies. Use the SHIFT key in combination with the A or D / left or right arrow keys, and you can produce tight hand-brake turns. The front wheels don’t turn when turning the buggy, but a particle dirty / dust effect is given off from the rear wheels when in motion.
Once seated in the vehicle, you can call-up a menu allowing you to change the colour for various parts of it: frame, seats, wheels, etc., allowing a degree of customisation. A help card can be accessed from the menu, although the vehicle really is simple enough to get to grips with without it.
As with the railcar gift from May, the notecard includes a number of places where people can go drive their new toy, although one of these is on a time-limited basis and “may disappear after the promotion period for the buggy”.
Personally, I’d actually suggest this 4-region, Premium-only area potentially represents more fun / value than the buggy itself. It offers plenty of space for people to race vehicles, fly aircraft and generally socialise. If you’re listening, LL, consider expanding it by a couple more regions rather than packing it up in the future, it’s a place where users can do what they do best – make their own fun.
The Premium-only (and possibly sort-term) 4-region driving area
Opinion
Of the three vehicle-related gifts supplied by LL to date, this is potentially the weakest in terms of appealing to established users. Anyone with any interest in vehicles is liable to have at least one sitting in their inventory already. However, for the curious / those new to SL who signed-up to Premium, then the buggy may well have appeal. Certainly, there were a fair few trying their gifts out in the 4-region driving zone. How long the appeal lasts, however, is questionable.
It’s a shame LL opted to restrict the buggy to owner driving only. Giving at least an option to set it to group access / driving would have offered the potential for people to have far more fun with friends, Premium and non-Premium alike, at any of the major race tracks and driving zones around SL.
For my part, and being a bit grouchy, the buggy is another “meh” gift; I have a beautiful car in the form of a Classic 43S GT which, while not as efficient as the buggy in terms of resource use, is actually a lot better looking and far more fun to drive – and I can share it with friends, as it has the option for “guests” to drive. It’s also available for free on the Marketplace).
The buggy (mesh) compared to my Classic 43S GT (prims and sculpts)
The major issue with this gift, again, is it’s hardly an incentive to take-up (or even maintain) Premium membership. And in that respect, if LL really do want to get more people to jump the fence from Basic to Premium, they would probably have more success overhauling the entire Premium package. Although quite how they do this without upsetting something, somewhere (and doubtless a lot of a people in the process), is something of a L$64,000 question…
Friday 24th August marked the start of another of the regular pushes by LL to encourage people to sign-up to Premium accounts, with the usual banner headline “Save 50% on your membership when you sign-up”. This time the offer runs through until Friday 31st August.
As per usual, the discount comes with strings: it only applies the Quarterly plan and only to the first quarter’s payment. This tends to make a bit of a mockery of the “Save 50%” headline (which should more correctly read, “Save 50% on your first payment” – but that doesn’t really have the same ring to it, does it?).
The promotional page again features the same list of benefits and the same glitzy video, and still carries the same overall question marks around it.
While I’m Premium myself, I admit that there is much about these ads I find objectionable and misleading, particularly the “more” statements, something I touched on when reporting the last Premium offer. But that’s the major problem with Premium; when all is said and done, it actually offers little in the way of tangible benefits outside of Mainland ownership and Customer Services support. Even stipend, it might be argued, is little more than a refund of money already paid to LL.
A Personal Opinion
I re-upped to Premium at the start of November 2011, and went through getting a Linden Home and trying-out the Premium Sandboxes. If you’re considering Premium, you might want to give those articles the once-over. However, before you do so, consider your options carefully.
If you need a decent amount of space in-world (anything over 2048 sq metres and allowing for the 512sq m free tier option), you’re probably not going to get much out of upping to Premium. Similarly, if you’re a builder and have your own space in which to build, you’ll need to weigh-up how often you need to use a public building space and whether or not non-Premium sandboxes are really that bad when you do.
However, if you are downsizing in SL, the Premium may well offer benefits: the Linden Home may not be a state-of-the-art build, but it comes with an available prim allocation / land capacity of 117. This is enough to provide reasonably comfortable living space, particularly if you’re not downsizing with a view to leaving, but simply don’t want the expense of land rental. Even at $22.50 a quarter ($7.50 a month before your refund … er, stipend …), Premium does offer value-for-money if you want to maintain a modest home without the hassle of weekly tier (and $7.50 is an amount you can easily pay out per week elsewhere for a small parcel of land). Just make sure that, as per my item on getting a Linden Home, you have a good look around – and don’t forget that if the first place you get doesn’t suit, it’s easy to abandon and try again.
The end of October marks my first full year since re-upping to Premium. I’ll be offering more thoughts and feedback then.
I’ve just learned, via Chestnut Rau’s blog (and curse me for not paying attention these past several weeks!), that Claudia222 Jewell’s installation at Art Screamer will be closing at the end of August.
Regular readers will know, I’m a huge fan of Claudia222’s work, and had the opportunity to interview her back in September 2011. I was also fortunate enough to receive an invitation to preview Spirit at Art Screamer prior to it opening in February of this year. Since its opening, the installation has received more than 17,500 unique visitors – many of whom have later returned again to enjoy the surreal and entrancing work.
If you’ve not done so already, or if it has been a while since your last visit, I urge you to go see Spirit before it departs Art Screamer for ever!
You can also see Claudia222’s work at Mesh Mellows – use the teleport sign and make sure you set your sun position to midnight!
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 