Month: December 2013

Snowy scenes in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
It All Starts With a Smile, December 2013
It All Starts With a Smile,click any image to enlarge

Back at the beginning of the month, I managed to drop-in to Kaelyn Alecto’s and Maxxster’s It All Starts with a Smile, which I last visited in May, when things didn’t appear to bode well for the region’s future. Fortunes rapidly improved, however, and right now It All Starts with a Smile offers a winter scene of composite parts, with a small village / town element on one side of the region, and more rural scenes across the rest of the island.

It All Starts With a Smile, December 2013
It All Starts With a Smile,

It’s an interesting mix of scenes, with the little town area offering small shops, a coffee-house and a light-hearted touch to car registration (license) plates – this place is clearly popular with those of an IT persuasion :-). If you’re tired of all the snow and cold of the northern hemisphere, you can pop into the IASWAS travel agency and book a vacation in warmer climes …

While the snow has been cleared from the town area, elsewhere in the region it lies deep and blankets the landscape, offering-up many opportunities for the SL photographer. Fortunately, the roads have been cleared, so you needn’t worry too much about deep snow – although the tree-lined paths make for a relaxing walk.

It All Starts with a Smile
It All Starts with a Smile

The landscape naturally lends itself to a lot of tweaking with windlight, as some interesting effects can be obtained. I settled for trying out some monochromatic efforts, or – as with the top image – what are more unusual colours for me to settle upon.

If you like your Second Life uncluttered, but with a rich feel of winter and plenty of snow to enjoy, you may well find it very worthwhile hopping over to It All Starts with a Smile and having a look around. And if it gets too cold outside, don’t forget there are at least a couple of places where you can get a hot drink and warm-up again!

It All Starts with a Smile
It All Starts with a Smile

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2013: a year in review (2): May – August

Posted on by Inara Pey

It’s once again that annual time of reflection. The winter is with us, the old year is slowing dying, the new year awaits, and it is time to look back across the highs and lows of the virtual year as seen through the pages of this blog.

This year has been even busier for me than previous years, so rather than give you a sea of text to wade through, I’ve opted to break things down into three more manageable offerings, starting with January through to April, and have tried to limit myself to bullet-points to the various links. I’ve not attempted to dot every “I” and cross every “T”; rather my aim is to highlight the main items of news for each month (or those which raised a smile), and those aspects of other VWs I had time to cover and well as a look back on some personal elements of my SL times over the year.

For those into art and SL exploration, I’ve also summarised installations and regions visited by month in the hope that doing so will stir your own memories of those events / places.

May

84 posts

Second Life and the Lab

Platform News

"Missing" prims - still an issue in May
“Missing” prims – still an issue in May

Art Reviews

Events

Pey’s Travelogue

FuriZona - LaPerla
FuriZona – LaPerla – click for full size

Personal Notes

Other Worlds

June

91 posts

Second Life and the Lab

I have a little fun with the Bear avatar, following Crap Mariner's lead
“Bear Hunting”: I have a little fun with the Bear avatar, following Crap Mariner’s lead

Platform News

Art Reviews

Events

Continue reading “2013: a year in review (2): May – August” →

my.secondlife.com direct messaging discontinued?

Posted on by Inara Pey

Update, January 2nd: As promised, I contacted Peter Gray (Pete Linden) at the Lab, and he confirmed profile feed direct messaging has been turned off.

Ciaran Laval brought this to my attention: it appears that direct messaging (DM) on my.secondlife.com may have been discontinued.

The capability was slipped out by the Lab back in October 2011. Like many things about the profile feeds (and elsewhere in Second Life) there was no announcement about its introduction, and people were left to trip over it for themselves. At the time I noticed it, I offered a short tutorial on using it. The removal of the feature – if that is indeed what has happened – has similarly occurred sans any announcement.

I’m using caution here, as things on the profile feeds have been a little higgledy-piggledy* of late, what with snapshot uploads having been badly broken for many for the past week or more (and still broken for some – I confess, I’ve not tried in the last few days). Therefore, the capability might have been suspended due to problems with the hamsters servers.

However, a comment on a forum thread started on the matter would appear to suggest the option has indeed been removed. Responding to the question “…No more private messages?“, Bondboy Dagger states:

I too noticed this feature being gone. I created a ticket to inquire and have been told this feature has been discontinued. :smileysad:

Certainly, the options to send private messages have now gone. There is no longer a New Message button in the Messages tab of the Inbox, and the option to privately message a friend by clicking the message button on their profile feed has also gone – the only option left is to IM them via the viewer (i.e. in-world).

The New Message button has gone from the Messages tab in profile feeds
Now you see me (top), now you don’t (bottom) the vanishing New Message button for profile feed direct messages

Similarly, sending a message in an existing DM conversation no longer works. While the text input box is still there, together with the Send button, and while you can still enter a message, clicking on the Send button does nothing; your text remains displayed in the test input box.

You can still enter text in an existing private message exchange - but it won't be sent
You can still enter text in an existing private message exchange – but it won’t be sent

I’ve dropped a line to Pete Linden to enquire on the matter – but it is Christmas Eve (actually very early Christmas morning where I am!), and I know Pete is out of the office until January 2nd – so please don’t hold your breath over the holidays waiting to find out!

If the option has been removed, it’s liable to meet with mixed reactions. Many have probably never used it, even if they use the feeds, or may have used it occasionally. On the other hand, those of us who have used it, have found it to be extremely useful. For my part, I can say it has been of major assistance in communicating rapid-fire messages as a part of various collaborative projects. Obviously, whether it will be replaced by something else (assuming it has gone the way of the Dodo), is also up in the air at this point.

More news if / when I hear anything back in the New Year!

*for an explanation of “higgledy-piggledy, a technical term, please refer to the bottom of this page (in the hope it raises a smile or two)

Roots and War: evocative power

Posted on by Inara Pey
Roots and War
Roots and War

Early in 2013 I visited Song Bird, JadeYu Fhang’s magnificent region, and home to her store, Dark Tears. During that visit, I primarily explored the ground level area, with its brilliant and evocative settings, only taking a brief aside to visit her skyborne gallery.

Now JadeYu  has a new exhibit within the region, and it is as equally striking as the ground level design, although very, very, different in message and approach.

Roots and War offers two gigantic spheres floating in the sky and connected via a bridge of tangled, desiccated roots. Within one lays a scene of desolation.  The roots connecting it with the far sphere reach inward, almost claw-like; smoke rises in plumes from the barren rock. All around a dead wind hisses and blows (you must have local sounds on to fully appreciate the piece), and a bell tolls ominously.

Roots and War
Roots and War

This is a scene of complete devastation, where the horrors of war appear to have visited, and where Death sits overhead, astride a horse, charging what might be the last of mankind while beyond, even the angels appear to have fallen.

Symbolism here is strong; atop the object containing Death is a woman, arms raised, and what could be the very Sword of Damocles hanging over her head, black butterflies dancing around it. Beyond the clouds of the sphere itself lay two gigantic hands, one of them menacingly clawed, seeking to enfold this world in their  grasp.

Roots and War
Roots and War

Looking around this scene, I could not help but recall J. Robert Oppenheimer’s paraphrasing of the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad-Gita as he remembered the Trinity bom detonation, “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds,” such is the evocative power here.

Across the bridge of roots, the second sphere is less ominous, although the desolation remains. The rocks are without fumaroles,  the desiccated roots fewer, the place entirely absent scenes of destruction. The only clue that this is perhaps intended to be the same place, seemingly removed somewhat in time to that of the first sphere, lay with a single, half-buried sculpture.

Roots and War
Roots and War

If all this sounds dark and depressing, it’s not. Roots and War is a very enigmatic and powerful piece, one which will doubtless influence others in ways far different to how it impacted me. As such, it is a must visit installation.

And should you visit, and you’ve not been to Song Bird before (or even if you have, quite frankly), a visit to the ground level is strongly recommended.

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Seasonal greetings…

Posted on by Inara Pey

Calas Galadhon Parklands, December 2013
Click for full size

From me to all of you.

And a trip back to 2012 for a little something from two of my favourite musicians (see you in 2014, Stephen, John & team 🙂 ).

Tutsy Navarathna tops machinima section of WD’s Sci-Fi Challenge

Posted on by Inara Pey

If you had the power to choose to make a film in any time or place in the Universe – when or where would you choose? Another planet or perhaps another time or reality on Earth? Filmmakers, Animators and Machinimographers’ will have 30 days in November, to write, shoot, edit, produce and upload their creative masterpieces.

So read the opening piece for the WD Project Sci-Fi challenge, which I reported upon back in October 2013. As noted, filmmakers, animators and machinima makers were invited to spend 30 days from the 1st November 2013 through until the end of the month writing, shooting, editing and producing a sci-fi short, with a total of $10,000 Aus. in prize money for the winners.

The machinima section of the challenge was held in association with the University of Western Australia, and has $1,500 Aus. (L$230,000) on offer specifically for machinima films, with $750 Aus going to the 1st prize winner, and all machinima entrants additionally in with a chance to win any of the main prizes.

The results of the challenge were announced on December 22nd, and once again, Tutsy Navarathna tops-out the machinima winners with his piece, The Residents, a remarkable tale of worlds within worlds, and a clever twist involving SL.

Following hard on Tutsy’s heels and in 2nd place is the appropriately named (given the sci-fi theme of the challenge) Erythro Asimov, with his piece Looking Around.

The remaining winders in the machinima category comprise:

Centuries Past also won the UWA Centum Special Prize along with Misgiving by Glasz DeCuir.

All six prize-winning films can be seen on the UWA’s website, and a complete list of the challenge’s winners can be found on the Screen My Shorts Facebook site.

Congratulations to Tutsy, Erythro and all the winners.

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