Month: October 2016

Opening November’s Art at the Park in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
Art at the Park, November 2016
Art at the Park, November 2016

The November 2016 Art at the Park exhibition opens at Holly Kai Park on October 29th, 2016 and runs through until November 27th.

For this exhibition, we are both pleased and privileged to be featuring the work of five more talented artists, who between them offer a rich diversity of art and styles. They are: Sheba Blitz, Maxi Daviau, Skinnynilla, Terrygold and Sorcha Tyles.

The exhibition will formally open on Saturday, October 29th at 12:00 noon SLT, with a live performance by Winston Ackland, making his first appearance at the park, with music streamed from 1:00pm onwards. Formal attire is requested for the opening.

We look forward to welcoming you to Holly Kai Park and our November exhibition, and hope you’ll join us for the opening event on Saturday, October 29th!

About the Artists

Sheba Blitz

Sheba Blitz
Sheba Blitz

Sheba Blitz is a SL and RL artist who exclusively paints Mandalas, and her who have captivated me since I first encountered it at Kayly Iali’s Gallery 24.

Mandalas are ancient and mystical symbols of the universe. And represent the way of the “peaceful path”. Classically in the form of a circle (the Cosmos) enclosing a square (Earthbound matter).

Sheba’s Mandalas generally contain what is called a quarternity or a multiple of four. This squaring of the circle is a common archetypal image of wholeness and order. Mandalas are perceived as sacred spaces and remind the viewer of the immanence of sanctity in the universe and its potential to themselves. Used for meditation, contemplation, healing and pure visual pleasure.

Sheba was born and lives in Australia; she has studied, explored and accumulated many Art Diplomas from different art processes over the years but always returns to her love of geometrical hand painted mandala designs in mixed media. As someone who loves mandala art, I’m elated she agreed to join us at Holly Kai Park.

Maxi Daviau and Skinnynilla

Second Life Partners Maxi Daviau and Skinnynilla are both superb second Life photographers and regions designers. The Mill, their homestead region is a delight to visit, and their Flickr streams completely absorbing.

Maxi Daviau and Skinnynilla
Maxi Daviau and Skinnynilla

“I have always loved and been amazed at the creativity in this virtual world. Exploring and taking pictures has always been my main hobby in Second Life,” Maxi says of her in-world time. “I love to see what all the residents create here,” Skinnynilla – show also goes by the sobriquet Shakespeare – adds.

Between them, they produce stunning landscape images that capture the very soul of the regions they visit, as well as producing incredible and intimate avatar studies. It is an absolute delight to have them exhibiting side by side at Holly Kai park.

Terrygold

terrygold
Terrygold

“I do not like to say I am an artist,” says Terrygold of her work. “In my spare time I make photos in which at time, a quick idea – like a flash – is a starting point. I develop the idea, and the trip begins.”

It’s a disarming statement, made in all genuine modesty, by a true talent within Second Life. Terry’s work, which I’ve covered on numerous occasions in my own blog, is never anything less than utterly captivating in form, style and presentation.

Rich in narrative, unique in approach, Terry’s work is attractive, and I am genuinely thrilled to see her work on display at Holly Kai Park.

Sorcha Tyles

Sorcha Tyles
Sorcha Tyles

I confess – much to my shame – to not having encountered Sorcha’s work until Skinnynilla pointed me in the direction of her Flickr stream.

I’m glad he did.

There is a deep, personal richness to Sorcha’s work which is almost overwhelming. She regards SL photography as perhaps her biggest addiction in Second Life, and looking at her work, one can not only see why, but also catch a glimpse of Sorcha herself. Her images gracefully combine landscapes with personal studies, producing a range of art that is bewitching in its breadth and intimate in its depth.

My thanks to skinny for introducing us, and to Sorcha for being a part of Art at the Park.

Our Opening Event Musician

winston-ackland
Winston Ackland

Winston Ackland is making his first appearance at Holly Kai Park. An accomplished physical world musician, who in-world provides smiles and tapping feet with his clever original works and quirky adaptations of obscure covers. Somehow, it all makes sense as audiences relax in a comfortable atmosphere and enjoy innovative songs crafted from a blend of rock, blues, bossa nova, jazz and lounge.

In 2008, Winston’s physical and virtual lives merged when his cover of Lithium hit the big screen in 20th Century Fox Films, Marley and Me. In 2012 his cover of Psycho Killer was featured in Oliver Stone’s Savages.

Stories at the Park

In addition, this exhibition will feature a special Stories at the Park event on Saturday, November 20th from 3:00pm. Presented by Seanchai Library, Stories at the Park features readings of 100-word short stories and poems of up to 100 words, inspired by the art on display at the park, and written by some of Second Life’s top writers. The event is open for anyone who enjoys writing, and details of how to take part can be found on our Stories at the Park guidelines. Note that you do not have to read your own work if you prefer not to use Voice: Seanchai Library staff would be happy to read it for you.

SLurl Details

Project Bento User Group update 32 with audio

Posted on by Inara Pey
Project Bento – extending the SL avatar skeleton
Project Bento – extending the SL avatar skeleton

The following notes and audio were taken from the weekly Bento User Group meeting, held on Thursday, October 27th at 13:00 SLT at the the Hippotropolis Campfire Circle. and chaired by Vir Linden. For details on the meeting agenda, please refer to the Bento User Group wiki page.

Note that this update is not intended to offer a full transcript of the meeting, nor does it present the discussion points in chronological order. Rather, it represents the core points of discussion, grouped together by subject matter were relevant / possible, whilst maintaining the overall context of the meeting.

General Project Status

Work continues on Bento bug fixes. As a result of the Bento code being available in a pre-release version of Firestorm, the number of reported issues with legacy content have increased (see BUG-40672). There are two issue in particular the Lab have been looking at:

  • The previously reported issues of some mesh content having latent “bad” joint positions which were previously overlooked by the viewer, but which are now taken into account under Bento, leading to avatar deformation (see my update #30 for more on this)
  • An issue related to the eye joints now being scaled by the eye size slider, which can result in existing mesh eyes appearing to bug out of avatar’s heads when viewed in the Bento viewer. The easiest way to fix this is to reset the eye slider to the default 50 value.
Eye sizing issue: as Bento allows mesh eyes to be affected by the eye size slider, they can suddenly appear to resize when seen on the that viewer (r), compared to how they appear on a non-Bento viewer (l)
Eye sizing issue: as Bento allows mesh eyes to be affected by the eye size slider, they can suddenly appear to resize when seen on the that viewer (r), compared to how they appear on a non-Bento viewer (l)

Outside of these problems – which are still being looked at (see below), there is at least one bug (initially noted with Haste Coy products and also reported on BUG-40672), which should have a fix in the next Bento RC update, and a crash issue which also should be fixed in the next update.

If anyone is encountering issues with existing content when using the Bento viewer, they should report their problems via the JIRA (BUG-40672) so the Lab can look at things.

Benches: because even an elephant needs the occasional sit down. Medhue Simoni's stunning Bento mesh elephant
Benches: because even an elephant needs the occasional sit down. Medhue Simoni’s stunning Bento elephant avatar

Legacy Content Deformation Issue

There has still been no decision on how to handle the “werewolf deformation” issue, which now extends to about three creators, and may extend beyond werewolf models. There have been suggestions on forking rendering behaviour by something like upload date, so that if an item was uploaded prior to date X, then it is handled as “non-Bento”; if uploaded after date X, it is handled with Bento in mind.

A problem here is setting an arbitrary date may not actually solve anything. Bento has been around for over a year, with content creators working on it for the last several months at least, during which time other creators have been creating / updating and uploading non-Bento content. So, determining which is which by date likely won’t work.

That said, if there is a large amount of legacy content impacted by the viewer change, it still might be preferable to set a date and have Bento content creators re-upload their work to be on the “right side” of that date, rather than trying to get legacy content creators to re-upload. This is because some creators may not already be around and / or some may have used mesh creation kits which don’t have the necessary .DAE file for them to modify.

A further complication here is that any impact of the viewer behaviour change may simply be negated by creators of older avatar models updating to Bento models, to which their customers subsequently update.

Other Items

No Modify Shapes

The eye issue mentioned above once again raised concerns around users employing shapes that do not have modify permissions. Such shapes prevent the use of the appearance sliders, so even apparently “easy fix” issues, such as adjusting the eye size slider, may not be applicable.

This particular issue sparked a lengthy conversation about using the (currently non-obvious in the official viewer) XML shape exporter coupled with additional code to more easily export a shape’s XML file, which could then be re-imported with a check box to ensure the default 50 setting for things like the eye size sliders.

One problem here, as Vir pointed out is that users who are unaware of unfamiliar with using the shape sliders likely aren’t going to be enamoured with the idea of exporting an appearance XML file, creating a shape and then importing the appearance XML data against that shape, even though some TPVs have, with the Lab’s approval, sought to make this easier.

There is also the problem that creators may object to users being given the ability to export / import shape data, as it effectively bypasses the permissions system, allowing anyone to take shape data and use it as they please. However, given there is already a TPV methodology available, to assist with shape data import which has been given the nod by the Lab,  Vir will take the matter back to the office for further discussion.

The more direct solution might be for creators to indicate that Bento avatar meshes require the use of a modifiable shape (either supplied with the mesh or which the user can create and edit).

The Skeleton

Vir highlighted the fact that while different terms are used, there are technically three types of joints in the avatar skeleton: bones, the “standard joints” for rigging to; collision volumes, as used by things like fitted mesh; and attachment points,  which have most of the properties of joints, hence why some creators started rigging and animating to them, even though this was never an intended use.

Next Meeting

The next Bento meeting will likely be Thursday, November 10th, 2016, as November 3rd clashes with the Lab’s monthly internal meeting.

Additional Links

Giovanna’s Monochrome in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
Monochrome - Giovanna Cerise
Monochrome – Giovanna Cerise

Open now through until the end of the year is Monochrome, a full region installation on three levels, designed and built by Giovanna Cerise. It’s a hard piece to quantify – if indeed it requires quantifying. Spread over its three levels, it presents three different environments / structures, offered in black, white and red respectively.

The black element is located at ground level, facing the landing point, with a teleport door providing to the next level – white – which then connects to the upper, red level. There is no specific windlight for the installation; visitors are encouraged to experiment with different times of day / settings.

Monochrome - Giovanna Cerise
Monochrome – Giovanna Cerise

Sitting over the water, the Black level presents a series of cubic and rectangular boxes rising into the sky, some interlinked and stacked like great square hills. Their walls are phantom, allowing visitors to walk  or fly through them (watch out for transparent floors when flying up!). Slender metal spars rise up around them, while string like strands loop through the air, threaded with cubes of their own.

At the centre of all this are three tall, cube-headed female figures. One stands threading a cube onto another metal-like strand, which is being fed to her by the seated and kneeling figures. One of these holds a pair of scissors, ready to cut the strand, presumably so it can also be set floating in the air once a suitable number of cubes have been threaded.

Monochrome - Giovanna Cerise
Monochrome – Giovanna Cerise

The pattern of cube-like rooms is repeated on the White level – only this time the cubes all occupy just one level, spread like a vast building across a white plain. Phantom in nature, they can again be walked through, only this time their walls can also be seen through from both sides. Once their bounds, this gives the feeling of being in some vast maze, one where many of the rooms have large magnifying glasses standing in their centres, while others are empty. Wandering through them, it is exceptionally easy to lose one’s sense of direction.

And on the upper Red level, lies a mass of red cubes, as if caught in a swirling wind lifting them into the air. At their centre is a red mass, like a congealed lump of spilled paint, on which four red figures appear caught in the same vortex, being pulled apart from the head down, their broken bodies rising and twirling together within the vortex, becoming a single strand rising into the sky, eventually to bind the spine of a huge red notebook.

Monochrome - Giovanna Cerise
Monochrome – Giovanna Cerise

All three levels offer intriguing montages. They challenge us to quantify them according to our own perception, by challenging that very perception as we study them each in turn. Is the binding of the book on the Red level really being drawn from the figures below, for example, or is it slowly unravelling from the book to fall and become those figures? And if it is, does this not alter our thinking about what is being portrayed here?

You decide.

SLurl Details

Lab announces Second Life Halloween 2016 Creepy Crawl

Posted on by Inara Pey
Via Linden Lab
Via Linden Lab

Following their invitation for people to submit destinations for the Second Life Halloween Creepy Crawl / Linden Lab meet-up, Xiola Lab has now blogged details of the event, which is to be combined with a costume contest with a prize pool of L$50,000 on offer in prizes to be given at each stage of the Crawl around Halloween-theme locations in Second Life.

The 2016 event will take place – when else? – Monday, October 31st, from 10:00 through 15:00 SLT. Ten locations have been selected, and Second Life residents are invited to join staff from the Lab as they hop from place to place, or rendezvous with them at a given time and location, depending on personal schedules.

Commenting on the costume contest, Xiola notes:

Costumes are strongly encouraged for this event – so come out and show off your best and you could win big! This year, at EVERY stop on our crawl, we will be giving away L$5,000 to one lucky winner whose costume catches our eye. That’s 10 stops, 10 winners, and a total of L$50,000 in prizes! Just keep in mind that this event is for General and Moderate audiences when perfecting your look. For full contest rules please visit the wiki. If you still need a costume or three – check out the Shop ’til You Drop event for your one stop Halloween party shopping.

There’s also a special gift from Boudoir of a wearable pumpkin pile available (one per avatar),  which will be available via kiosks at each of the selected stops on the Crawl.

The schedule for the event is (all times SLT, all rated Moderate, unless otherwise stated) is as follows:

Inside Sansar with the Wall Street Journal

Posted on by Inara Pey
Ebbe Altberg moving virtual furniture around in Sansar, demonstrating some of the platform's capabilities at the WSJ.D Live conference, October 24th-26th
Ebbe Altberg moving virtual furniture around in Sansar, demonstrating some of the platform’s capabilities at the WSJ.D Live conference, October 24th-26th. Credit: Wall Street Journal

The Wall Street Journal WSJ.D Live conference has just wrapped up for 2016, having taken place in Laguna Beach, California.

Attending the event, Linden Lab CEO demonstrated using VR headset and controllers within a Sansar scene, showing how the controllers can be used to manipulate objects. The video is available of the WSJ YouTube channel, and I’ve embedded it at the end of this article. The Sansar scene itself is relatively simple, and the aim appears to be just to show how reasonably easy it is to move content around when defining a space, rather than any in-depth look at the fidelity of the platform’s graphics.

As we know, the actual editing environment in Sansar is quite separate from the run-time environment. While the latter doesn’t permit “in-world” building, it has been indicated that users will be able to move content around within in – thus allowing them to personalise spaces and arrange scenes; however, I have it on good authority (Ebbe himself), that the scene shown in the demo was using the edit mode.

The video includes brief shot of the in-world controller / menu, but motion is such that determining anything of import from it is difficult.

Angel investor Benjamin Rohé was at the presentation, and Tweeted a short video of Sansar avatars. As we know from Lab Chat sessions, these are liable to be going through further development as Sansar progresses, so it’s hard to judge how close these are to the looks those stepping through the doors when Sansar allows public admission from early 2017, but I’m guessing it’s not too face off base. What will be interesting is to see just how customisable they will become.

Sansar avatars at WSJ.D Live. Credit: Benjamin Rohé
Sansar avatars at WSJ.D Live.The red thing is a more other-worldly avatar form! Credit: Benjamin Rohé

Beyond the look, nothing really new is said about the platform – numbers of users engaged with it through the closed alpha and the Creator Preview have reached “few hundred”, and the public release is still looked at in terms of Q1 2017.

In addition,  presentation hosts Geoffrey Fowler and Joanna Stern Tweeted pictures of themselves as Sansar avatars.

Joanna Stern and Geoffrey Fowler (seen in the inset image) and as they appear as Sansar avatars. Credits: Geoffrey R. Fowler / WSJ Live
Joanna Stern and Geoffrey Fowler (seen in the inset image) and as they appear as Sansar avatars. Credits: Geoffrey R. Fowler / WSJ Live

The video leaves a lot of unanswered questions – how are tasks like walking and running handled, for example, when using Sansar via HMD? Will it be point-and-hop, which others will see and a fluid walking motion (remember that they’ll be seeing your avatar, whereas you won’t)? Will those entering Sansar without VR headsets, etc., be able to see their own avatar in third-person as we’re accustomed to doing in Second life (and which is actually part of the attraction of spaces like SL)? And more besides. So judging the platform on the strength of clips like this might not be entirely fair.

But it does add to the list of questions for the nest set of lab Chats!

Updated to reflect the fact the demonstration shows Sansar in Edit mode, with thanks to Ebbe Altberg for the clarification, and to add the avatar image of Joanna Stern and Geoffrey Fowler. 

2016 SL project updates 43/1: Server, viewer

Posted on by Inara Pey
A panoramic image of Holly Kai Park's pavilion, captured in the news 360-degree snapshot viewer - see below
A panoramic image of Holly Kai Park’s events pavilion, captured in the news 360-degree snapshot viewer – click on the image to view in 360 via Flickr, and see my article here

Server Deployment

The RC deployment in week #42 introduced a bug, so there was no Main (SLS) channel deployment on Tuesday, October 25th.

The three RC all received the same server maintenance package, comprising: a fix for the bug introduced in week #42 – see BUG-40735 “Paying an object with [slgaming] in the object name (most skill game machines) fails on the RC 16.10.14.320687”; two fixes for issues with the new llSit function for Experiences, and additional internal updates.

SL Viewer

360 Snapshot Viewer

The new 360-degree snapshot project viewer arrived on Wednesday, October 26th, with the release of the first iteration of the project viewer, version 4.1.2.320965. There is an accompanying wiki page for the viewer, and I have a hands-on look.

Other than this, the viewer pipeline remains as per my TPV Developer meeting summary of October 21st:

  • Current Release version: 4.1.1.320331 (dated October 4), promoted October 10 – formerly the VLC media plug-in for Windows RC
  • Release candidates:
    • Project Bento  RC (avatar skeleton extensions), version 5.0.0.320815, dated October 20th
    • Maintenance RC viewer, version 4.1.2.320804 dated October 20th
  • Project viewers:
    • None.
  • Obsolete platform viewer version 3.7.28.300847 dated May 8, 2015 – provided for users on Windows XP and OS X versions below 10.7.

Aditi Weekend Issues

Some people trying to access Aditi, the beta grid, encountered problems over the weekend of the 22nd / 23rd October after a database for that grid failed. As Aditi doesn’t have either the same level of redundancy or the same urgency of repair that Agni (the main grid) has, the database didn’t get sorted out until Monday, October 24th.