Month: August 2017

A cyberpunk Cocoon in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey

Cocoon, Japan Rose; Inara Pey, August 2017, on Flickr Cocoon – click any image for full size

Note: Cocoon has relocated and updated. The SLurls in this post have therefore been updated to reflect the new region. Please also refer to for a review of the new Cocoon.

Cocoon is the name of a cyberpunk role-play region designed by Ellie (Mii1a), and it offers an atmospheric environment with a rich back-story.

It is the year 2487. The Earth surface has become virtually uninhabitable as consequence of wars and environmental neglect. Most of humanity has fled the surface in the hopes of building a new future.

Cities slowly float around three thousand meters high above the surface, to escape the corroding effects of the pollution and radiation on the city’s hull over time.

The cities are connected by dense air-traffic and there is a booming economy for all types of goods. The cities are controlled by many different rival mega-concerns in the science and weapon industry, yet most parts of the population don’t care about the large-scale politics and established connections on many levels between the cities. There exists a thriving black market for weapons, drugs, software, food, cybernetics and other technology which remains nearly uncontrollable by the big businesses.

Cocoon, Japan Rose; Inara Pey, August 2017, on Flickr Cocoon

The name Cocoon is that of a “an unimportant artificial asteroid” first developed by the Cocoon Corporation some 40 years prior to the current period. Over the years it has grown to a centre of commerce sitting between floating cities of Earth and the colonies on the Moon and Mars – and a convenient place where those wishing to avoid being noticed could also find a place to hide – providing they don’t do anything to bring themselves to the attention of the security services.

The city is divided into four sectors – an automatic industrial area with docking facilities for shuttles operating between Earth, the Moon and Mars; a residential sector located along a narrow street with a mall and a black market location; the entertainment sector (also the oldest area of the facility) and sector four – the secretive area run by Cocooncorp itself and which “very few people have been able to enter that building or tell what is inside.” Finding your way around can be a tad confusing, as it’s not entirely clear whether the sectors are all on the same level or defined by height – so keep an eye on the signage.

Cocoon, Japan Rose; Inara Pey, August 2017, on Flickr Cocoon

The confusion induced by the design actually adds to the build, rather than detracting from it; after all, who immediately knows their way around a city on a first visit? As it is, the design encourages exploration and increases the chances of bumping into / jumping in-progress role-play. The latter appears to be entirely free-form, and includes combat via the Sosumi combat System, which can be obtained by group members via kiosks located throughout the build.

The overall design carries a look that is – as with most cyberpunk / sci-fi dystopian build – a hint of Blade Runner about it. This is not to say it is in any way derivative; rather it offers setting which may be comfortably familiar enough to encourage role-players to get involved. There are a number of ways to get around as well: on foot, via the numerous elevators and – for those who join the RP group – bikes can also be obtained for use on the multi-level roads. RP locations can be found outdoors and in. Role-play can additionally be enhanced by the media boards scattered through the city. Operated by ONN – Orbital New Network – these offer “news updates” on events which could act as springboards for further role-play.

Cocoon, Japan Rose; Inara Pey, August 2017, on Flickr Cocoon

Unlike many RP environments in Second Life, Cocoon appears to be a vibrant community; during our visit there were over half-a-dozen players actively participating in role-play. A comprehensive website provides those wishing to get involved all they need to know in order to join in: back story, allowed factions, rules and guidelines and an application form – group membership is via application / invitation. What is particularly interesting with the website, is the fact that is active among members: character biographies have been written, the forums look to be active, as does the photo gallery. Members are even encouraged – and do – write their own blogs.

For those looking for cyberpunk / dystopian role-play (complete with the ruins of Earth at ground level), Cocoon could be just the ticket. Those looking for futuristic setting for photography may also find the region an interesting visit (just be aware it is a role-play environment and try to dress appropriately).

Cocoon, Japan Rose; Inara Pey, August 2017, on Flickr Cocoon

With thanks to Shakespeare and Max for the tip.

SLurl Details

  • Cocoon (Japan Rose, rated: Moderate)

Space Sunday: Voyager at 40

Posted on by Inara Pey
Voyager: 40 years on. Credit: NASA

August 20th 2017 marks the 40th anniversary of the launch of Voyager 2, which with its sister craft Voyager 1 (launched on September 5th, 1977) are humanity’s furthest-flown operational space vehicles, with Voyager 1 being the most distant human made object from Earth, at some 140 AU (AU= astronomical unit, the average distance between the Earth and the Sun; 140 AU equates to about 20.9 billion kilometres / 13 billion miles).

Despite being so far away from Earth, both craft are still sending data back to Earth as they fly through the interstellar medium in the far reaches of the solar system (the Pioneer 10 and Pioneer 11 craft which pre-date the Voyager programme by some 5 years, ceased transmissions to Earth in January 2003 and September 1995 respectively, although Pioneer 10 is the second most distant human made object from Earth after Voyager 1).

The Voyager programme stands as one of the most remarkable missions of early space exploration. Originally, the two vehicles were to be part of NASA’s Mariner programme, and were at first designated Mariner 11 and Mariner 12 respectively. The initial Mariner missions – 1 through 10 – were focused on studying the interplanetary medium and  Mars, Venus and Mercury (Mariner 10 being the first space vehicle to fly by two planets beyond Earth – Venus and Mercury – in 1974). Mariner 11 and Mariner 12 would have been an expansion of the programme, intended to perform flybys of Jupiter and Saturn.

A drawing of the Voyager vehicles. Credit: NASA/JPL (click for full size)

However, in the late 1960s Gary Flandro, an aerospace engineer at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in California noted that in the late 1970s, the outer planets would be entering a period of orbital alignment which occurs once every 175 years and which could be used to throw a series of probes out from Earth, which could then use the gravities of the worlds they encountered to “slingshot” them on to other targets. This led to the idea of a “Grand Tour” mission: sending pairs of probes which could use these gravity assists to fly by Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto in various combinations.

Funding limitations eventually brought an end to the “Grand Tour” idea, but the planetary alignment was too good an opportunity to miss, and so elements of the idea were folded into the Voyager Programme, which would utilise Mariner 11 and Mariner 12. However, as the mission scope required some significant changes to the vehicles from the basic Mariner design, they were re-designated as Voyager class craft.

(As an aside, the Mariner class is the longest-lived of NASA’s space probe designs; as well as the ten missions of the 1960s and 1970s which carried the design’s name,  the Mariner baseline vehicle – somewhat enlarged – was used for the Viking 1 and Viking 2 orbiter missions to Mars, and formed the basis of the Magellan probe (1989-1994)  to Venus and the Galileo vehicle (1989-2003) which explored Jupiter. And uprated and updated baseline Mariner vehicle, designated “Mariner Mark II”, formed the basis of the Cassini vehicle, now in the terminal phase of its 13-year study of Saturn and its moons.)

Each of the Voyager mission vehicles is powered by  three plutonium-238 MHW-RTG radioisotope thermoelectric generators (RTGs), which provided approximately 470 W at 30 volts DC when the spacecraft was launched. By 2011, both the decay of the plutonium and associated degradation of the thermocouples that convert heat into electricity has reduced this power output by some 57%, and is continuing at a rate of about 4 watts per year.

To compensate for the loss, various instruments on each of the vehicles have had to be turned off over the years. Voyager 2’s scan platform and the six instruments it supports, including the vehicle’s two camera systems, was powered-down in 1998. While the platform on Voyager 1 remains operational, all but one of the instruments it supports – the ultraviolet spectrometer (UVS) – have also been powered down. In addition, gyro operations ended in 2016 for Voyager 2 and will end in 2017 for Voyager 1. These allow(ed) the craft to rotate through 360 degrees six times per year to measure their own magnetic field, which could then be subtracted from the magnetometer science data to gain  accurate data on the magnetic fields of the space each vehicle is passing through.

However, despite the loss of capabilities, both Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 retain enough power to operate the instruments required for the current phase of their mission – measuring the interstellar medium and reporting findings back to Earth. This phase of the mission, officially called the Voyager Interstellar Mission, essentially commenced in 1989 as Voyager 2 completed its flyby of Neptune, when the missions as a whole was already into their 12th year.

A plume rises 160 km (100 mi) above Loki Patera, the largest volcanic depression on Io, captured in March 1979 by Voyager 1. Credit: NASA/JPL

Voyager 2 was launched on August 20th, 1977. Of the two vehicles, it was tasked with the longer of the planned interplanetary missions, with the aim of flying by Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. However, the latter two were seen as “optional”, and dependent upon the success of Voyager 1.

This was because scientists wanted the opportunity to look at Saturn’s moon Titan. But doing so would mean the Voyager craft doing so would have to fly a trajectory which would leave it unable to use Saturn’s gravity to swing it on towards an encounter with Uranus. Instead, it would head directly towards interstellar space.

So it was decided that Voyager 1, which although launched after Voyager 2 would be able to travel faster, would attempt the Titan flyby. If it failed for any reason, Voyager 2 could be re-tasked to perform the fly-past, although that would also mean no encounters with Uranus or Neptune. In the end, Voyager 1 was successful, and Voyager 2 was free to complete its surveys of all four gas giants.

Along the way, both missions revolutionised our understanding of the gas giant planets and revealed much that hadn’t been expected, such as discovering the first active volcanoes beyond Earth, with nine eruptions imaged on Io as the vehicles swept past Jupiter. The Voyager missions were also the first to find evidence that Jupiter’s moon Europa might harbour a subsurface liquid water ocean and to return the first images of Jupiter’s tenuous and almost invisible ring system. Voyager 1 was responsible for the first detailed examination of Titan’s dense, nitrogen-rich atmosphere, and Voyager 2 for the discovery of giant ice geysers erupting on Neptune’s largest moon, Triton. In addition, both of the Voyager vehicles added to our catalogues of moons in orbit around Jupiter and Saturn, and probed the mysteries of both planet’s atmospheres, whilst Voyager 2 presented us with our first images of mysterious Uranus and Neptune – and thus far remains the only vehicle from Earth to have visited these two worlds.

This is the last full planet image captured of Neptune. Taken by Voyager 2 on August 21st, 1989, from a distance of 7 million km (4.4. million mi). A true colour image white balanced to reveal the planet under typical Earth lighting conditions, it shows Neptune’s “Great Dark Spot” and surrounding streaks of lighter coloured clouds, all of which persisted through the period of Voyager 2’s flyby. More recent Hubble Space Telescope images suggest the “Great Dark Spot”, initially thought to be a possible cloud / storm formation, similar to Jupiter’s Great Red Spot, has vanished, leading to speculation that it may have actually been a “hole” in a  layer of Neptune’s layered clouds. Credit: NASA/JPL

The flyby of Neptune also sealed Voyager 2’s future. Scientists were keen to use the flyby of the planet to take a look at Triton, Neptune’s largest moon. However, because Triton’s orbit around Neptune is tilted significantly with respect to the plane of the ecliptic, Voyager 2’s course to Neptune  had to be adjusted by way of a gravitational assist from Uranus and a number of mid-course corrections both before and after that encounter, so that on Reaching Neptune, it would pass over the north pole, allowing it to bent “bent” down onto an intercept with Triton while the Moon was at  apoapsis – the point furthest from Neptune in its orbit – and well below the plane of the ecliptic. As a result, Voyager 2 passed over Triton’s north pole 24 hours after its closest approach to Neptune, its course now pointing it towards “southern” edge of the solar system.

Continue reading “Space Sunday: Voyager at 40” →

Garridebs, beyond human, summer recalled and sisterhood

Posted on by Inara Pey
Seanchai Library, Holly Kai Park

It’s time to kick-off another week of storytelling in Voice by the staff and volunteers at the Seanchai Library. As always, all times SLT, and events are held at the Library’s home at Holly Kai Park, unless otherwise indicated.

Sunday, August 13th

13:30: Tea-Time at Baker Street

Tea-time at Baker Street continues with readings from The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes, the final set of twelve Sherlock Holmes short stories first published in the Strand Magazine between October 1921 and April 1927.

This week: The Adventure of the Three Garridebs.

When is a Garrideb not a Garrideb? That’s the question that vexes Sherlock Holmes. or more correctly, Why is a Garrideb not, in fact, a Garrideb; it’s not a particularly common name.

So when he hears from one and is confronted by another, his suspicions are aroused even before the Garrideb – or the man claiming to be Mr. John Garrideb, formerly of Kansas, in the United States – who visits him starts spouting an unlikely tale of inheritances and land tycoons full of its own inconsistencies.

The key to the mystery appears to reside in, or with the personage of Mr. Nathan Garrideb, an elderly eccentric who has every appearance of being a genuine Garrideb. So what is going on? An attempt to defraud the old man? An attempt to steal something of value from him? Yet “John Garrideb”, having already been in contact with Nathan Garrideb, has never requested money from the older man; and while the elder Garrideb is a collector of just about anything he can keep in his rooms, none of it would appear to be of any intrinsic value.

Yet something is clearly going on, particularly when “John Garrideb” arrives at Nathan’s Garrideb’s rooms announcing he has found a third Garrideb – this one in Birmingham. A visit with Inspector Lestrade helps to confirm Holmes’ suspicions…

18:00: Magicland Storytime: The Black Cauldron

Join Caledonia Skytower at Magicland Park.

Monday, August 14th 19:00: More Than Human

Gyro Muggins reads Theodore Sturgeon’s genre-bending 1953 novel which brings together three of her earlier works   to weave a story about people with extraordinary abilities which can be combined – “bleshed” (itself a blending of “blend” and “mesh”) to make them even more extraordinary.

Take, for example, Lone, the simpleton who can hear other people’s thoughts and make a man blow his brains out just by looking at him; or Janie, who moves things without touching them. Then there are the teleporting twins, who can travel ten feet or ten miles, and Baby, who invented an anti-gravity engine while still in the cradle, and Gerry, who has everything it takes to run the world except for a conscience.

Six people struggling to find who they are and whether they are meant to help humanity, destroy it, or represent the next step in evolution, the final chapter in the history of the human race. Through them, Theodore Sturgeon explores questions of power and morality, individuality and belonging, with suspense, pathos, and a lyricism rarely seen in science fiction.

Tuesday, August 15th 19:00: One Summer, America 1927

The summer of 1927 was, for the United States, a signature period of the 20th Century. On May 21st, Charles Lindbergh became the first man to make a non-stop crossing of the Atlantic in an aeroplane when The Spirit of St Louis arrived at Le Bourget airfield, near Paris.

Through that summer, Babe Ruth was setting his record for the number of home runs in baseball, while one of the most infamous murder trials in New York’s history took place: that of  Ruth Snyder and her married lover, Henry Judd Gray. They stood accused – and were eventually found guilty of – garrotting of Snyder’s husband in what was a tabloid sensation case.

Meanwhile, in the south the Mississippi burst its banks, leading to widespread flooding and a huge human disaster. Far to the north, Al Capone continued his reign of criminal terror in Chicago, while on the west coast, history was being made with the filming of the world’s first “talking picture” in the form of Al Jolson’s The Jazz Singer, released in October 1927.

All of this  and more is charted by Bill Bryson, in a book written with his characteristic eye for telling detail, and delicious humour. 1927 was the year America stepped out onto the world stage as the main event, and One Summer transforms it all into narrative non-fiction of the highest order. Join Kayden Oconnell for a trip through history as seen by Bryson.

Wednesday, August 16th 19:00: Secrets of the Divine Ya-Ya Sisterhood

Caledonia Skytower reads Rebecca Wells’ 2014 tale.

When Siddalee Walker, oldest daughter of Vivi Abbott Walker, Ya-Ya extraordinaire, is interviewed in the New York Times about a hit play she’s directed, her mother gets described as a “tap-dancing child abuser.”

Enraged, Vivi disowns Sidda. Devastated, Sidda begs forgiveness, and postpones her upcoming wedding. All looks bleak until the Ya-Yas step in and convince Vivi to send Sidda a scrapbook of their girlhood mementos, called “Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood.”

As Sidda struggles to analyze her mother, she comes face to face with the tangled beauty of imperfect love, and the fact that forgiveness, more than understanding, is often what the heart longs for.

Also presented in Kitely (hop://grid.kitely.com:8002/Seanchai/108/609/1528).

Thursday, August 17th 19:00: A book of Days

Caledonia previews her newest WIP – a collection of art inspired micro-fiction and poetry written for both physical and virtual art exhibitions. Also presented in Kitely (hop://grid.kitely.com:8002/Seanchai/108/609/1528).

 

Please check with the Seanchai Library’s blog for updates and for additions or changes to the week’s schedule.

The featured charity for August and September is Little Kids Rock, transforming lives by restoring, expanding, and innovating music education in schools.

A Split Screen double in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
EveryWhere and NoWhere – JadeYu Fhang

Now open for viewing at the new temporary home for Dividni Shostakovich’s Split Screen, is a pair if installations by JadeYu Fhang and Krystali Rabeni, which can each be reached from the main landing point, or via one another from their respective landing points.

EveryWhere and NoWhere, by JadeYu, forms a ground level installation, and is the more extensive of the two. It offers a complex environment of scenes and platforms, forming a unique world of geometric shapes and inhabited by strange, female forms.

In the first – which acts as the landing point – the figures are enmeshed in a delicate framework somewhat resembling a bird’s nest. Ladders rise from the platform at various angles, each offering a number of poses for visitors. Beyond this lie processions of doorway-like boxes march and undulate through the sky, or rise vertically upwards, apparently tended by beings with dragonfly like wings as streams of light pulse and roll around them. Two structures sit within the rising tower of squares, each a miniature tableau in its own right.

EveryWhere and NoWhere – JadeYu Fhang

Other platforms float close by, occupied by more beings, while the ground below flows in curlicues, some of which rise to surround two central figures. Further away, on two sides of the region, the land rises, patterned geometry tattooing its surface. More shapes, almost origami-like in form, hover delicate in the sky over the slopes of the landscape.

An intricate landscape, the setting is a reflection of its title. Fascinating, complex, with a range of facets and potential interpretations,  EveryWhere and NoWhere should be visited with local sounds enabled in order to hear the accompanying sound scape. This, with its metronomic chimes and plaintive voice, gives the entire space added depth.

Games We Play – Krystali Rabeni

The Games We Play offers visitors a games of chess of a most unusual kind. Far from being the traditional chequered board, this playing surface is uneven, individual squares set at different levels relative to their neighbours – and then extend up the walls surround the space before closing overhead. Pieces in gold and silver are ranged across the horizontal area of play, and occupy the some of the wall spaces as well.

The pieces themselves further reveal the unusual nature of this game – or games: the gold pieces comprise more than the normal single queen or pair of knights, for example. Meanwhile, winged pawns fly overhead, imbued with a power not to be found in a normal game of chess. It’s a complex setting the nature of the game suggesting that – like life – there is more to this game than meets the eye.

Games We Play – Krystali Rabeni

Neither artist offers an explanation for their respective works, preferring to leave interpretations to visitors. However, each piece offers enough clues – including their titles, for opinions, ideas and narratives to be formed. As such, both offer an intriguing and interesting visit, and will remain in place until the end of September 2017.

SLurl Details

SL project updates week 32/3: TPV Developer Meeting

Posted on by Inara Pey

Whimberly, Whimberly; Inara Pey, August 2017, on Flickr Whimberly – blog post

The majority of the notes in this update are taken from the TPV Developer meeting held on Friday, August  11th 2017. The video of that meeting is embedded at the end of this update, my thanks as always to North for recording and providing it. Timestamps in the text below will open the video in a separate window at the relevant point for those wishing to listen to the discussions.

Server Deployments Week #32 – Recap

Please refer to the deployment notice for the week for latest updates and news.

  • On Tuesday, August 8th, the Main (SLS) channel was updated with a new server maintenance package (#17.07.27.327933), comprising “additional internal fixes”,
  • The scheduled deployment to the RC channels for Wednesday, August 9th has been cancelled due to a back-end data issue which meant the region channel names weren’t being set correctly, so they didn’t start.

SL Viewer

[00:54] The Maintenance RC viewer was updated on Wednesday, August 9th to version 5.0.7.328060. This is currently the most likely candidate for promotion to de facto release status. The rest of the LL viewer pipeline remains as at the start of the week:

  • Current Release version 5.0.6.326593, released on May 26, promoted June 20 – formerly the AssetHTTP RC viewer – overview – download and release notes
  • Release channel cohorts:
  • Project viewers:
  • Obsolete platform viewer version 3.7.28.300847, dated May 8th, 2015 – provided for users on Windows XP and OS X versions below 10.7.

[01:15-01:40 and 4:51-5:33] It is hoped the Alex Ivy 64-bit viewer will be updated in the early part on week #33 (commencing Monday, August 14th). Currently, the viewer is still showing an elevated crash rate for some, for reasons yet to be determined. In the meantime, the Lab is adding further code that will hopefully capture more crash information.

[01:56 and 06:49] The 360-degree snapshot viewer is currently on hold due to people being on vacation at the Lab. This may be a slightly extended delay while resources are diverted to the 64-bit viewer and CEF work.

[14:22-14:34] The Voice viewer is also suffering a high crash rate, also for unknown reasons.

[14:35-14:46] One of the next viewer projects for the Lab is a major re-vamping of the crash reporting and analysis system, which will hopefully make it easier to trace down probable causes for viewer crashes.

llHttpRequest Issues

[02:15-04:21] The least couple of weeks have seen server-side issues with llHttpRequest. Some of this has been due to low-level library changes that were inherited in updating the simulator code to some of the new components, including the OS itself. Other issues were the result of changes the Lab made at around the same time.

Most of these issues have now been rectified, although there is still some incompatibility issues still to be sorted. There is one further significant update related to this which will be going out on Aditi (the Beta grid), which will be put to the test with the intention of seeing if anything else breaks. A blog post / forum notice will precede this.

Simulator Infrastructure Updates

[08:52-09:28] The Lab is going to be carrying out a lot of simulator infrastructure work over the next two quarters. Efforts will be made to make user-visible updates during this work, but most of the work will be transparent to users, and may result in some performance improvements.

Other Items

[08:18-08:46] Group notice failures: No work has been put into looking at why some group notices are being dropped. This is currently seen as a lower priority than dealing with issues which can crash simulators.

[10:29-11:37] Dynamic mirrors (again): (see STORM-2055). The Lab has no plans to work on this at all, but Oz offered a *possible* compromise:

If an open-source developer implements mirrors that work, and are acceptable from a performance point of view, without unreasonable restrictions on where you can put them and what you can put them on, I at least will be happy to consider the contribution. But I don’t believe that’s possible, and I am assured by graphics developers who know a great deal more about rendering than I do, that it isn’t possible; and that’s why we’re not doing in. So, if you have a miracle worker out there who wants to do a contribution to the viewer – go for it! But since I’d like to get other work done, I’m not going to devote our developers to doing it.

[13:37-14:01] EEP – Environment Enhancement Project: a re-iteration of this project see the outline Google doc or my overview for more) will allow for things like phases of the Moon.

[18:20-18:32] Viewer UI Region / Estate ban list improvements: this work is still pending a developer resource.

[19:10-24:12] Abuse of Setting Home:  it has been reported that griefers are able to circumvent being kicked out of a region (TP Home) by moderators if they have home set to that region. The alternative to this is to ban them from the land – but this requires the rights to do so. There are also alleged means to bypass estate bans if the home position is set to the banned region – which should not be possible. If there is a bug allowing this to happen, it needs to be reported with repro steps.

PacMan Stars and Black Stars: the issue of “Pacman stars” (irregularly shaped stars) has been fixed via a contribution by Drake Aconis (Sovereign Engineer). However, the issue of stars appearing as black dots in some daylight windlight settings has yet to be fixed. This may be looked at as a part of the EEP.

 

Sansar Profile 6: In the halls of the dwarven king

Posted on by Inara Pey
David Hall’s Dwarven Fortress – a sense of scale can be gained by my avatar, in white, standing on the platform towards the lower left, and visible between the columns – click for full size

The sixth Sansar Creator Profile video arrived on Wednesday, August 9th, featuring creator David Hall. A 3D creator “for the past couple of years”, David describes his work as more of a passion than a vocation – although he admits he’s always wanted to be a builder of worlds. As such, he is perhaps representative of the broader audience that Linden Lab would like to attract: those who are perhaps not so much interested in or invested with the wider aspects of virtual worlds and their multiplicity of opportunities  and interactions, but rather those who want to be able to sculpt and create the environments they wish to build, and then share them purely with the people the know or believe will share their passion.

David’s featured experience in the video is very much a reflection of this: a vast Dwarven Fortress; which could feature as an artistic statement, an immersive meeting place, or eventually a role-play environment or similar. However it is not his only Sansar experience; David has also created Sunrise, which as the name suggests, captures that first early morning period when birds have started their songs and the sun has just risen above distance hills to cast a soft yellow glow over the world. It’s perhaps not as involved as the Dwarven Fortress, but it is no less immersive, and the sensation of walking through the trees to the look-out point, surround by birdsong is delicious.

Hot air balloons over water – Sunrise by David Hall

The Dwarven Fortress itself is impressive, but again – from an experience consumer perspective – illustrates the issue in opening Sansar’s doors to the general public: there is actually very little to do other than wander around / take photos. While some interaction within experiences is  possible (to a greater degree when using VR systems than when operating in Desktop mode), this lack of interactions – whether intentional on the part of the experience creator or as a result of the platform awaiting capabilities – will continue to be a source of negative feedback towards Sansar.

For those curious about content creation with Sansar, and the tools available within the platform for object placement, lighting, atmospherics, etc., the video offers some insights, along with the use of external tools for the physical creation of models – in David’s case, Maya and Substance Painter. He provides a concise thumbnail description of the steps involved in creating a scene, whilst the video footage allows those who have not tried the editing tools within Sansar with a feel for what is currently available.

Working in Sansar’s Edit mode

What I found interesting in this video is David’s sheer passion for his creativity coupled with his ability to turn that passion into almost lyrical comments. In doing so, through this video he both touches on Sansar’s potential as a platform for personal creativity and sharing and on the potential to really spark the imagination in a manner that could become very compelling for many seeking a new creative outlet. The platform is – more so than Second Life and virtual worlds like it – a truly blank 3D canvas without and fixed context of “land”, “water” or “air”, upon which people are almost entirely free to paint their deepest imaginings.

Freed from these larger “world” context, Sansar spaces are, for their creators, potentially far more liberating than any default feeling of a geographical rooting – unless that is what is desired. There is simply no need to consider the context of a wider pre-defined “world environment”. Sansar spaces are simply that – spaces to be filled and utilised howsoever the creator wishes and in any many which bes serves their ultimate intended use.

In the halls of the Dawrven king – David Hall’s Dwarven Fortress in Sansar

Of course, it would be easy to point to the reliance on external tools with which to create; but let’s be honest here. Learning to build well within Second Life, even with prims, is not any easy task – nor is it entirely divorced from requiring tools and skills from outside of the platform (think custom textures here, or materials creation). The skills used in building within SL are acquired and refined over time – which really, other than the broader complexity involved in tools like Maya or Blender, etc., –  is no different to sitting down and acquiring the skills to use those tools.  So the need to harness something like Blender if you wish to make truly unique content for Sansar isn’t necessarily a huge hurdle for those with the desire and passion to be immersively creative.

At just over two minutes in length, this is one of the slightly longer pieces on Sansar, and it packs a lot into it. We’ve still a long way to go before Sansar is offering the kind of environments, capabilities and activities users are accustomed to in SL and elsewhere. But if David is typical of the creators sinking their teeth into the platform, and providing things are built out at a steady rate going forwards and without devastatingly long lead times, it will be interesting to see where Sansar’s growing capabilities might lead people in the coming months.