Month: March 2016

VWBPE 2016: looking towards the Horizons

Posted on by Inara Pey
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VWBPE main Auditorium

The 2016 Virtual Worlds Best Practice in Education (VWBPE) Conference launches at 11:00am SLT on Wednesday, March 9th and will be taking place in both Second Life and AvaCon Grid.

The theme for this year’s event is Horizons, and will include a presentations by keynote and featured speakers, panel discussions, workshops, social events and more, running through until the conference closes on Saturday, March 12th.

Full details on conference events can be found on the VWBPE conference calendar. However, for ease-of-reference, here’s a quick run-down of some of the key events and activities. As always, all times are SLT.

The VWBPE main plaza in SL
The VWBPE main plaza in SL

Wednesday, March 9th

  • 11:00 – 13:00: Ribbon Cutting and Grand Opening Ceremony for the Exhibits, with music from Ari (Arisia Vita) as he streams soft and soothing piano music during the event. Tour the exhibits, learn what educators are doing and accomplishing in virtual environments, network with colleagues and friends
  • 15:00 – 15:00: Pirate Parade – put on your finest pirate clothes and join the procession to the concert marina
  • 15:30 – 16:00: Jimmy Buffett Tribute Concert by Lightning Productions
  • 17:00 – 17:50: Keynote address – Signalling a New Reality with Bronwyn Stuckey – at some of the signals in the past year of a blurring of what is virtual and what is physical, and how it is increasingly making any differentiation between the two redundant, challenging many of the assumptions we hold about the place of our work in virtual worlds.
  • 18:00 – 19:00: Grid Watch with Ebbe Altberg – Linden Lab’s CEO will discuss issues of importance to the Second Life communities with a focus on listening to SL residence and responding to questions.
VWBPE South in SL
VWBPE South3 social area in SL

Thursday, March 10th

  • 07:00 – 08:50: Virtual Worlds and Transactional Distance in Higher Education Online Courses – a Student Panel – seven students share their experiences in using a Virtual World to lessen Transactional Distance for fully on-line Higher Education
  • 14:00 15:50: OpenSimulator Featured Panel – Cynthia Calongne, Selby Evans, Stephen Gasior and Maria Korolev engage in a discussion on the different perspectives of people who use OpenSimulator as an alternative, or in addition to, Second Life
    • Location:  hop://grid.avacon.org:8002/Rockcliffe Library/25/26/78 (copy and paste link in-world on AvaCon grid)
  • 16:00 – 17:00: VWBPE Machinima Showcase – view this year’s VWBPE Outstanding Machinima films and earn about the art of machinima from a panel of experts
    • Location (subject to fnal confirmation via the VWBPE calendar):  hop://grid.avacon.org:8002/Rockcliffe Library/25/26/78 (copy and paste link in-world on AvaCon grid)
  • 17:00 – 17:50: Keynote address – Virtual Worlds on the Go with Stephen Downes – an examination of the intersection of learning, performance support, and mobile virtual worlds and simulations and the real world applications for this technology
    • Location:  hop://grid.avacon.org:8002/Rockcliffe Library/25/26/78 (copy and paste link in-world on AvaCon grid).

Friday, March 11th

VWBPE Gateway in SL
VWBPE Gateway in SL

Saturday, March 12th

  • 08:00 – 09:50: Virtual Pioneers panel – members from the Virtual Pioneers will discuss some of their major projects and contributions in virtual worlds, in particular how they feel their accomplishments have taken us toward a new horizon in immersive experiences
  • 15:00 – 16:50: Virginia Society for Technology in Education panel – members from VSTE will discuss some of their major projects and contributions in virtual worlds, in particular how they feel their accomplishments have taken us toward a new horizon in immersive experiences
  • 18:00 – 19:00: Closing Ceremony and Thinkerer Award Winner Announcement: closing remarks from Phelan Corrimal and other VWBPE Committee Chairs, the opportunity to learn about VWBPE 2017 and hear the 2016 Thinkerer Award recipient announced
  • 19:00 – 20:00 Grand Finale David Bowie Tribute Concert  – celebrating the eclectic and magnificent career of David Bowie

Notes on Attending

The VWBPE conference is free to attend, although there are donation options available for those wishing to support the conference.  Those wishing to attend all of the conference activities across the four days of the conference will need accounts for both Second Life and AvaCon grid – please refer to Accessing the Conference for further details.

Additional Links

Of Heritage and Wrecks in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
Heritage: Wrecks
Heritage: Wrecks

Wrecks, which opened on Monday, March 7th, is the concluding element of a two-part immersive art installation created by Gem Preiz, the master of the high-resolution fractal landscape. It’s a piece, together with the initial part of the installation, Vestiges (which you can read about here), is presented under the over-arching title of Heritage.

“Heritage is the theme of the two exhibitions,” Gem explains of the pieces. “The heritage passed to us by our predecessors, and the one we shall bequeath to our descendants in the endless fight of life against Time.”

Vestiges, which opened in January, examined the first part of this statement: looking at the heritage passed down through the ages. We were cast into the role of archaeologists examining past (or perhaps even alien) civilisations; those which had come before us, as who influenced our existence.  With Wrecks, Gem poses a question to us: what are we going to bequeath to those generations that follow us?

Heritage: Wrecks
Heritage: Wrecks

The inspiration for Wrecks comes from the recent global summit on the threat of climate change held in Paris at the start of 2016, and what will happen if we continue to ignore the warnings nature is giving us as to the consequences of our continued abuse of the planet’s ecosystem, presenting one possible future our descendants might face.

Thus we are taken on a journey into the 22nd century, and a vision of a world which has come to ruin directly as a result of our failure to act responsibly. We become a part of the crew and passengers aboard what is perhaps the last vessel capable of leaving Earth in the hope of finding a new home far out within the Kuiper Belt.

Heritage: Wrecks
Heritage: Wrecks

This voyage takes the form of a physical journey through 15 rooms, each one with one of Gem’s magnificent fractal pieces standing together with a journal entry. Some of the latter appear to be from passengers, other are clearly from the crew. All make soulful reading: personal fears, anguish, melancholy, even despair, at  all that has come to pass, founded on a lament for an Earth thoroughly ruined by the hubris and folly of humanity.

What if, as one entry hints, as the space vessel Orpheus transit the Moon, we had heeded the gentle warnings of the first astronauts to stand on those desolate plains, only to look back at Earth and recognise it as a fragile, precious jewel of life suspended in a coal-black sky?

Meanwhile, the images serve to both underline and also counterpoint the essence of the text. While the landscapes and scenes presented may appear desolate and shattered, so to do they remind us that humanity and nature are powerfully creative forces: what might come from us combining our inane abilities with those of nature, rather than simply putting our needs before those of nature?

Heritage: Wrecks
Heritage: Wrecks

If this sounds an overly dark piece, rest assured it isn’t. Rather it is a layered, nuanced piece which aims to get us thinking about matter of ecology, climate change, and our relationship to this one cradle of life we have: Earth. Yes, there is the warning that if we don’t mend our ways, if we fail to act responsibly towards this fragile environment surrounding us, then we are ushering in the potential of ruin and heartache for future generations.

But so to is there a message of hope; a reminder that it is not yet too late. Just as the crew of the Orpheus, in the final chapter of their voyage, find the means to return to Earth, to reunite with those left behind and offer a way to recover and restore the planet, so to are we reminded that there is still time. We can still take the firm, committed step of ceasing our self-centred denials, excuses and procrastinations and decide we will act more responsibility towards this planet, and in doing so lay the foundations by which we can bequeath a rich, vibrant and healthy world to our children and those who follow them. All it takes is a little collective courage.

Heritage: Wrecks
Heritage: Wrecks

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Music with Anthony: Great American Songbook

Posted on by Inara Pey
Caitinara Bar, Holly Kai Park
Caitinara Bar, Holly Kai Park

Caitinara Bar will once more be hosting Music with Anthony on Wednesday, March 9th. To mark the return of the series after an absence of a week, Anthony will be presenting two hours of music from the Great American Songbook for your enjoyment from 16:00 through 18:00 SLT.

The Great American Songbook: classics for every generation
The Great American Songbook: classics for every generation

From the 1930s through to the present day, the Great American Songbook has enjoyed unrivalled popularity among singers the world over, and features some of the most enduring and best-loved songs ever recorded.

With songs by Gershwin, Porter, Berlin, Kern, Mercer, Rodgers, Hart, Hammerstein and others, sun by legends such as Sinatra, Bennett, Day, Horne, London, Lee, Martin and “King” Cole, these are tune which are instantly recognisable and still loved and recorded today around the world.

To mark the theme, smart casual or semi-formal dress is requested. Anthony, Boudicca, Caitlyn and I look forward to seeing you there!

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SL project updates 16 10/1: SL viewer, Aditi inventory, PaleoQuest issues

Posted on by Inara Pey

Asphyxiation Point; Inara Pey, February 2016, on Flickr Asphyxiation Point – blog post

Server Deployments

There are no planned deployments / restarts for week #10.

SL  Viewer

The HTTP  / Vivox RC viewer updated to version 4.0.2.311980 on Friday March 4th. This release sees the CURL updated to 7.47.0, together with 10 further fixes and updates over the previous release, included HTTP fixes and fixes with issues within the viewer such as avatar bake fails, viewer crashes, notifications problems, and music stream failures.

The current Maintenance RC viewer updated on Wednesday, March 2nd to version 4.0.2.311770.

As noted in my last Project Bento update, the Bento project viewer updated to version 5.0.0.311861, also on Wednesday, March 2nd, and includes a new version of the Bento skeleton with additional bone sets and other revisions.

Aditi Inventory Syncing

Coyot Linden as he once looked (I need to update my images of him!)
Coyot Linden as he once looked (I need to update my images of him!)

As reported by Coyot Linden at the Simulator User Group meeting on Tuesday, March 8th, the new process for syncing users’ Aditi (Beta grid) inventories with their Agni (main grid) inventories is in the final stages of QA testing, and should be deployed either later this week or early in week #11.

I’ve covered on this subject a number of times since it was first noted as being in the works in December 2015, but in short.

  • Once in place, the new process will not require users to change their SL passwords in order to trigger their Agni inventory being copied over to Aditi. Instead, anyone logging-in to Aditi will automatically have their inventory copied from Agni to Aditi a part of a new process (run at about 06:00 SLT each day)
  • This will happen each time a persona logs in to Aditi, unless their inventory is already flagged for copying.
  • Instead of overwriting a person’s existing Aditi inventory, the incoming Agni inventory will be merged with their existing Aditi inventory – so items unique to a user’s Aditi inventory will no longer be lost as a result of their Agni inventory overwriting the Aditi inventory

In addition:

  • The process will not duplicate items previously copied to Aditi from Agni; however, if an item is renamed or moved to another inventory folder on Agni, it will be copied to Aditi
  • If an item is deleted from inventory on Aditi, but exists in inventory on Agni, it will be copied to Aditi the next time the process runs for that user
  • Inventory and folder links will also be copied from Agni to Aditi
  • Trash and the Current Outfits folder will be excluded from the copy process (the latter to prevent avatars on Aditi ending up wearing multiple outfits).

Other Items

PaleoQuest Banning Issues

PaleoQuest, the Lab’s dino-related quest game which features Experience Keys and which opened in July 2015, has always had some fairly strict rules on what is and isn’t allowed. However, these rules appear to have been recently updated, with the result that a number of users  have found themselves banned (or in receipt of a ban warning) where no infringements have taken place (see here, here, and here for examples).

One major cause of recent bans seems to be that the game is confusing HUDs worn by a user when trying to enter the game (or even in the middle of playing the game), with an attempt to wear a “fraudulent” game HUD, resulting in the wearer gaining an immediate ban, together with the following notice:

YOU ARE WEARING AN OBJECT THAT IS TRYING, WITHOUT SUCCESS, TO PASS ITSELF OFF AS A GENUINE PALEOQUEST HUD. THIS BEHAVIOUR IS ASSOCIATED WITH FRAUDULENT ATTEMPTS TO OBTAIN REWARDS IN THE GAME AND IS NOT TOLERATED. YOU HAVE BEEN BANNED FROM PALEOQUEST.

The problem with the bans has been further exacerbated by some who have raised support tickets having their bans reversed with a note that the system will be adjusted, while others appear to have had their tickets summarily closed.

As a result of this, and other issues encountered with the ban system during what is effectively “normal” game play, a bug report as been raised (BUG-11533). Should you find yourself banned from the game or in receipt of ban warnings whilst engaged in “legal” game play, you might want to add the specifics of your situation to the JIRA, and don’t forget to append information about your viewer / system from Help > About (+ viewer logs, if you have them).

The Drax Files 36: creative immersion in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
Sominel Edelman - at work
Sominel Edelman – at work

The Drax Files World Makers show #36, released on Monday, March, 7th, is the second in the slightly shorter running time format of 3.5 minutes. And it is the first, I have to admit, that has struck me as a bit of a curate’s egg.

On the one hand the segment is about the work of landscape creator Sominel Edelman, whose skill in creating sim surrounds and landscaping elements is very much informed by his training as a geographer, and who offers keen insights into Second Life.  On the other we have a piece interspersed with shots focused on the used of VR headsets with only a very tenuous link back to the rest of the narrative within the piece.

Sominel Edelman - in-world
Sominel Edelman – in-world

Sominel’s work is, without a doubt outstanding, and the video serves as a high-level demonstration of the efforts involved in order to produce content that is both highly detailed and optimised for viewer rendering, a useful reminder when the focus on creation can all too often be on the former at the expense of the latter. For Sominel, producing content which both looks good and is optimised at much as possible requires a range of tools: PhotoShop, Blender and custom python scripts to achieve the desire results.

The beauty of Sominel’s work is that it can add to our sense of immersion in a place. Sim surrounds provide the means by which we can extend our vision of our world beyond the limitations of a 256×256 metre piece of virtual real estate bounded by water. As such, they have become an important part of the second life ecosystem, something very much reflected in their popularity among users interested in many different in-world activities, as he notes.

"Second life made it possible for me to explore my creativity. It's an amazing thing to discover that."
“Second life made it possible for me to explore my creativity. It’s an amazing thing to discover that.”

However, it is in his views on Second life and its community (in the broadest sense of that word) of users one find the heart of this piece. “Selling my landscapes is enough to sustain my family and my house and my living situation,” he notes. “But while the financial aspect is certainly not insignificant, it’s an amazing thing that [being] logged into Second Life gives me a true feeling of being a part of this environment, and I think I know why that is.

“I’ve played some other computer games, but it was all about consuming the path they had chosen for me. Second life made it possible for me to explore my creativity. It’s an amazing thing to discover that.”

This, I think, is the point Drax is trying to make through the inclusion of the Oculus Rift HMD shots: the idea that Second Life is so rich, immersive and boundless, that it doesn’t actually need headsets and hand controllers to come alive for someone – which any SL user will acknowledge as being true enough, and it is a point that’s important to remember as the tech world at large continues to focus on VR as if it is the only way of going about things.

The problem here is that by including the footage, and in particular by bookending the segment with shots of donning and doffing a HMD, the message is undermined, if not subliminally reversed in the minds of those untutored in Second Life, suggesting that a headset is integral to the experience.

True, there is the comment from Sominel, prompted by Drax,  that such devices aren’t vital. But even this begs the question, “so why include shots of headsets in the first place?” They certainly don’t add anything substantive to the rest of the narrative; the story could be told as effectively without them – which should really be the acid test on whether or not to include them.

Sominel 's store in-world
Sominel ‘s store in-world

Hence why I say I found the piece to be a curate’s egg. On the one hand, there is a clear message that Second Life is first and foremost about the people using it, and everything else is secondary. On the other, almost a third of the video footage is informed by shots involving a specific piece of technology (HMDs), which I cannot help feel erodes the more pertinent message.

 

Skip Staheli at The Living Room

Posted on by Inara Pey
Skip Staheli at The Living Room
Skip Staheli at The Living Room

Skip Staheli is a photographer who needs no introduction. His avatar studies are legendary in Second Life – and with good reason. He composes some of the best on the grid, often mixing elements of both digital and physical worlds to produce stunning images. He’s now the featured artist at The Living Room through until March 29th.

“For my  Second Life work I use PhotoShop CS6 and plug-ins like FilterForge and Alien Skin,” Skip says of his technique. “But I would be nowhere without my Bamboo drawing tablet; a lot of my work is drawn by hand. For two years I’ve taken art classes and draw with pencils and charcoal. Second Life showed me how much I could enjoy drawing,  and if not for it, I probably wouldn’t have learned about my creative side.”

Skip Staheli at The Living Room
Skip Staheli at The Living Room

From starting out taking shots of friends for fun, Skip’s reputation quickly grew to the point where he is very much in demand. So much so, that his PA, Delinda Dench, has closed his appointment book until June so that he’s not completely overloaded.

For the Living Room exhibition, he’s displaying over 20 pieces, across the three floors of the gallery space, all of which amply demonstrate the breadth and depth of his skill. From portraits to action poses to fantasy, all of the pictures present Skip’s signature attention to detail and his ability to frame a story in a single frame.

Skip Staheli at The Living Room
Skip Staheli at The Living Room

The exhibition comes at the first anniversary of The Living Room opening its doors, and as such, Skip is a superb choice of artist to be displaying there. Over the course of the past 12 months I’ve had immense pleasure in reporting on each exhibit Owl, Daallee and Nora have staged, and have witnessed some wonderful talents there (some of whom I’m hoping to “steal” and have exhibit at Holly Kai Park!). And on occasion of their anniversary, I’d like to pass on my congratulations to them, and my hope that it is the first of many.

Skip’s exhibition officially opens at 20:00 SLT on Tuesday, March 8th with music from the Vinnie Show, and will run through until 20:00 SLT on Tuesday, March 29th, when there will be  closing party with Aminius Writer.

Skip Staheli at The Living Room
Skip Staheli at The Living Room

The mid-month music party for March will take place on Thursday, March 17th, with Whirligig Rutabaga taking to The Living Room stage at 17:00 SLT, followed at 18:00 SLT by Oblee. And given this is the anniversary month, Owl, Daallee and Nora are promising more surprises as well – so make sure you get to the parties and keep an eye out for news from The Living Room!

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