It’s time to highlight another week of storytelling in Voice by the staff and volunteers at the Seanchai Library. As always, all times SLT, and this week’s events are held at The Dickens Project.
Sunday, December 10th
13:00: Tea-Time with Dickens
Join Seanchai Library at Redemption Square. for more from Oliver Twist to share, and a pivotal chapter from Great Expectations.
14:00: Dancing with Elrik Merlin
Elrik Merlin has been a Second Life resident for almost 11 years, and a presenter on Radio Riel for over ten. He programmes the station’s Main Stream two days a week, and handles technical aspects of the station along with international music licensing. He also co-hosts Designing Worlds, the popular TV series on design and designers in virtual worlds. He occasionally DJs for friends and good causes.
Join the Library staff, Elrik Merlin and friends at Redemption Square.
Tuesday, December 12th, 14:00 and 19:00: Stave Two: The First of Three Ghosts.
Wednesday, December 13th, 14:00 and 19:00: Stave Three: The Second of Three Ghosts.
Thursday, December 14th:
14:00 and 19:00: Stave Four: The Last of the Spirits.
18:45: The Raglan Shire Tiny Carollers! Wootmas!
21:00: A special Seanchai Late Night with Caledonia Skytower.
Friday, December 15th:
14:45: The Raglan Shire Tiny Carollers! Wootmas!
15:00: 90 Minute A Christmas Carol
19:00: Misfit Dance & Performance Art*
Saturday, December 16th:
12:00 Noon: Misfit Dance & Performance Art*
14:00-16:00: Fezziwig’s Ball in “Christmas Past” With DJ Dano Bookmite.
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.
The following notes are taken from the 4:00pm PST Sansar Product Meeting held on Friday, December 8th. Product Meetings are usually held every Friday at 9:30am PST and 4:00pm PST, and are open to all. There is currently no set agenda, and the meetings are a mix of voice and text. The official meeting notes are published in the week following each pair of meetings, while venues change each week, and are listed in the Meet-up Announcements. and the Sansar Atlas events section.
The afternoon Product Meeting featured a drop-in by Ebbe Altberg, the Lab’s CEO, and notes on his comments, with audio extracts are included in this update.
Fashion Release
This is still on-course for a deployment – mostly likely during week #51, commencing Monday, December 18th, 2017. For a summary of some of the items included in the release, please refer to my December 1st Product Meeting notes. The following covers only those items in addition to that breakdown, and which were noted in the December 8th meetings:
In addition to clothing, the release will allow the upload and sale of hair attachments, and hair can be removed from an avatar to make it bald. It’s not clear at present if the hair is / can be rigged or not.
Avatar attachments will no longer be limited to a 1m x 1m x 1m size, but will be limited by the avatar bounding box – precise dimensions will be in the knowledge base for attachments when the release is deployed.
There will be a snow material type for those wanting to make winter scenes.
Audio:
Materials have been made more distinct and most spatial.
Voice fall-off has been revised so it starts fading from 2 metres away from a person speaking, rather than a metre.
Some of the UI panels / floaters will be resizable and relocatable within the client, these include:
People and chat panels in the run-time mode
The inventory, scene object and properties panels can be resized and moved around in Edit mode.
The Event calendar will be available on the Client Atlas, although it will look different to the Web Atlas format.
Materials Editing
As previously noted, this release will add the ability for experience creators to edit and change the materials on in-world (not accessories / clothing) on items they have obtained via the Sansar Store. However, any such changes will only be applicable when the object in question is within the scene. As soon as it is returned to inventory, any changes made will be lost.
This change comes ahead of any permissions / licensing capability in Sansar, and has caused some upset. However, Cara indicated that when a permissions system is introduced, any items held in inventory will effectively be grandfathered – so it will still not be possible to save changes to their materials back to inventory.
Store Update
A Store Update had been planned for between the Friends release (October 2017) and the Friends release (December 2017), but this has apparently been pushed back.
Ebbe’s Thoughts
Ebbe Altberg dropped into the afternoon Product Meeting, part of his plan to spend more time at Sansar meetings and meet-ups – and took time to answer questions and offered thoughts on the platform.
An Important Note from Ebbe
You have to be careful when you listen to me, because I mix what’s actually going to happen with want we wish will happen all the time. So I can’t promise time frames for some of these things.
So when you listen to me, think about it as general ideas of where we want to go. Whether it happens or not, that’s kind-of a different story.
On Sansar’s Engine
“We made some really tough choices up front,” Ebbe said on the choice of building Sansar’s engine, rather than opting to utilise something like Unreal or Unity. “We would have gotten something much faster to market that would have been usable if we had just gone with an existing engine … But because of the problem we’re solving for, which is user-generated content in massive quantities, going with another engine really becomes problematic over time.”
Essentially, this choice came down to the issues of backwards compatibility within the platform; using a third-party engine in full or in part potentially opens the Lab to content breakage as a result of changes being made to an engine or elements of an engine that are outside their control. This is a lesson they’ve taken to heart with Blocksworld, which is based on Unity, and has had problems over the last five years as a result.
On The Risk of a Large-Scale “Reset” for Sansar
This goal with regards to continued backward compatibility with content available and used within Sansar means the Lab is hoping that they’ll never have to do a large-scale “reset” with Sansar which might result in widespread content breakage. However, this can never be guaranteed; there may be times – a significant bug, a major technical issue, an implementation (say) of new software the Lab wants to leverage for Sansar – which might result in content breakage. Should anything like this happen, the hope is there will be advanced communication with creators so they understand the issue, together with time allowed for them to swap over to any “new” way of doing things (where applicable) in order to try to minimise the overall impact.
The Supply Chain / Licensing
The supply chain / licensing (/permissions) system is one of the more complex aspects of Sansar the Lab is still working through.
For those unfamiliar with the idea, in essence, if someone creates an experience intended for re-sale which utilises content made by other creators, and then packages the experience for sale, the supply chain system will ensure the other creators will automatically get paid to some degree as well for their creations with each sale of the experience. On a smaller scale, it would mean a building designer could furnish their buildings from a range of furnishing and décor suppliers, rather than having to make everything, and again, the supply chain means those designers receive an amount from each sale of the building.
Obviously, this involves considerable added complexity in terms of permissions, licensing, tracking, payment, etc., – so until things are ready, there is not detailed talk on time frames for introduction – but it is the goal Linden Lab is hoping to achieve.
Avatar Animations for Non-VR Users
When using Sansar in Desktop Mode, the avatars are – in a word – wooden. Changing this is a “high priority” for the Lab. However, how this is to be achieved is still the subject of debate within the Lab. Some want extremely smooth, human-like avatar movement, with blended transitions between animations to give a more fluid movement (such as getting up from a chair being a fluid transition from seated to standing, or a turn to face to the left being a sequence, fluid body move). Other prefer a “snappier” transition – as is the case of turning left or right in Desktop Mode at present, or the avatar “jump” from seated to standing seen in Second Life.
Allowing user-created animations and animation systems (e.g. SL-like animation override systems) is currently much further down the road than trying to provide a more basic animations within the Sansar locomotion graph.
The focus thus far has been building-out the platform, getting the software and infrastructure needed to support it all brought together, with more recent work centred on creator tools and needs and initial avatar development and accessories support – all of which will be continuing. However, Ebbe expects some of the focus in 2018 to start shifting towards more general use of Sansar – including user engagement and user retention, hopefully growing the user base for those who find Sansar usable at this stage of its development.
This does mean that the focus will entirely shift away from creator tools and capabilities. Rather it will see more of a blending of things: some work will be focused on the user aspects of the platform – socialising, interactions, etc., other will remain focused on creator tools, and on things like adding more interactive capabilities which can be used within experiences to broaden their appeal.
And his wish for Sansar’s Creator Beats one year anniversary (July 31st, 2018)? That there are more people using Sansar, that the default experience for someone coming to the platform is that there is life within it, there are people, there’s vibrancy within experiences with events and activities to be enjoyed. It is acknowledged that currently, visits to experiences can be lonely, and the Lab will be looking at ways and means to reduce this alongside increasing new user interest / engagement.
Grumpity and Alexa Linden host the Web User Group meetings on alternate Fridays at Alexa’s barn
The majority of these notes are taken from the Web User Group meeting held on Friday, December 8th, 2017. These meetings are generally held on alternate Fridays, and chaired by Alexa and Grumpity Linden at Alexa’s barn. The focus is the Lab’s web properties, which include the Second Life website (including the blogs, Destination Guide, Maps, Search, the Knowledge base, etc.), Place Pages, Landing Pages (and join flow for sign-ups), the Marketplace, and so on and the Lab’s own website at lindenlab.com.
Not all of these topics will be discussed at every meeting, however, the intention within the group is to gain feedback on the web properties, pain points, etc., and as such is very much led by comments and input from those attending. Along with this are three points of note:
Specific bugs within any web property – be it Marketplace, forums, Place Pages or anything else), or any specific feature request for a web property should be made via the Second Life JIRA.
Alex Linden provides routine updates on the Lab’s SL-facing web properties as and when appropriate, which can be found in the Second Life Web thread.
Note that the SL forums are not covered by the Web User Group, as the management of functionality of the forums falls under the remit of the Support Team.
General
Work continues on improving Place Pages. One forthcoming update is support for 360 snapshots captured with the 360 viewer (still at project status at the time of writing), including support for 360 images as the hero (top) image on Place Pages, and gallery views support.
The 360 snapshot viewer is in the process of being updated to support higher resolution images, fix issues with level of detail loading for objects behind you, etc. It will include support for direct upload to Flickr as well as to Facebook. This update should be appearing “in the next couple of weeks”.
Web properties as a whole are also being examined as a part of the overall project to move Second Life to the cloud for delivery. Some services are already managed via the cloud (at least in part), but there is still considerable work to be done and significant infrastructure changes to be made to SL’s web properties, so this is going to be some long-term work.
Some are reporting that some Mainland Welcome Area now have Voice chat disabled – some of which might be intentional, due to people abuse Voice within these areas. However, if it is believed Voice has been disabled in error, the advice is to raise a bug report, using the LPDW (Linden Department of Public Works) reporting category, and indicate the affected region and the lack of Voice capabilities.
No Copy Exploits / Illegal Sales of No Copy Items
As I’ve previously reported, one area of concern / upset for content creators has been the use of server exploits to generate copies of No-Copy items, which are then placed for sale, generally through the Marketplace. A long-standing problem, this is now hitting some gacha creators. While the Lab is working to technically address such exploits, some of those experiencing frustration for what they perceive as a lack of action on the Lab’s part procedurally to remove content from the Marketplace / responding to reports of the illicit sale of goods.
These frustrations have most visibly been brought forward at in-world technical meetings – such as recent Simulator User Group meetings and the Web User Group meetings. While the Lindens chairing these meeting are prepared to discuss some options for dealing with such issues on a technical level (with obvious caveats around discussing the specifics of exploits, fixes, etc.), they cannot speak to issue of Governance, or on matters which may cross into legal areas. This means they cannot respond to questions about specific abuse reports, associated actions / investigations relating to them, or even how governance issues are managed.
While it does not provide an easement for the frustrations that are being felt, it does mean that such forums as the Simulator User Group, Server Beta User Group, Open-Source Dev Group, and the Web Group are not suitable venues in which to seek feedback on governance matters.
DMCA Update
Somewhat related to the above is the informal announcement that the Lab will be changing how people can file infringement notices (DMCA take-down notices) in the near future.
Currently, the Lab’s Infringement Notification Policy requires that such notices are filed with Linden Lab via mail or fax. Once this update has been implemented – possibly around January / February 2018, it will be possible to file notification with the Lab via an on-line form. I’ll hopefully have a full report on this when the forum has been deployed for general use.
Marketplace
It is believed that the underlying cause of items being de-listed from the Marketplace has been fixed, and there have been no further reports of new cases where de-listing has occurred. The Lab is continuing to work with those creators who have been affected to ensure all of their affected listing are recovered.
Blocking purchasers: some creators would like a means to block people they see as troublesome from purchasing their creations via the Marketplace (just as they can block people from their in-world stores). This is something the Lab is looking at – but again, it is difficult to implement / enforce because of the ease with which alt accounts can be created and used.
Marketplace facts: a couple of Marketplace-related facts:
There are around 40,000 unique monthly sellers using the Marketplace per month.
There are around 150,000 unique buyers using the Marketplace per month.
Seller Verification
: the idea of “verifying” or of at least having some means to control listings on the Marketplace (particularly scam listings / those trying to sell illicit items) was initiated at the inaugural WUG meeting as part of a wider discussion on Marketplace management.
The Lab is looking at various options which might be implemented to help with this, although nothing has been decided as yet. One idea put forward – and again, has not been adopted as something that will happen – is that of applying a listing fee, potentially tied to a benefit for Premium members (e.g. no fees, or X number of free listings). Given changes to fees for cashing-out will be made in January 2018, and LindeX fees were recently changed, this did not go over well with some at that meeting, although others seemed in favour, although it does potentially represent a higher barrier to entry into selling content.
A resident-voiced proposal is for those using the Marketplace to supply some aspect of their physical world information as a means of verifying who they are (already required for those cashing-out L$ balances to fiat money) – something which may discourage content copiers and MP spammers, but which might again discourage other who sell on the MP, but who don’t necessarily cash-out (they use the L$ income to support their in-world activities) from continuing to participate in the MP.
This approach might also allow those merchants who have verified their accounts with the Lab to have some form of “verified” / “trusted” icon displayed within their listings, although the legal ramifications for the Lab in doing this would likely have to be investigated (for example, how vulnerable might the Lab be to legal action should a so-called merchant “verified” as “safe” by them start selling illicit goods at another’s expense?).
In terms of stolen / copybotted goods on the Marketplace and scam accounts, Grumpity Linden stated the Lab’s broader aims:
Meeting Contents
It has been noted that Marketplace-related items are dominating the two WUG meetings held thus far, leads to some concerns that other web-related topics may get pushed out of meetings. Of all the Lab’s main user-facing web properties, the Marketplace is probably the most visible, and carries the largest potential impact with people, therefore a focus on it is to be expected (particularly given the Commernce Team abdicated their own in-world meetings around 5-6 years ago and have shown no willingness since to re-engage in them). However, Grumpity and Alexa acknowledged the wider purview of the WUG meetings, and suggested that a portion of future meetings might be set aside to discuss non-Marketplace web topics.
Monique Beebe makes a welcome return to Nitroglobus Roof Gallery, curated by Dido Haas, presenting the final exhibition for the gallery’s 2017 season, with Sensuality.
I was deeply taken by Monique’s photography when she first appeared at Nitroglobus towards the beginning of 2017, in what was the first public exhibition of her work, called Hidden Faces (see here for more). Now she returns with twelve more images for Sensuality, which are every bit as evocative and tantalising as her first exhibition, and which once again feature herself as the primary model in each of them.
These are all pieces with a depth of style and beauty which is as evocative as the images she presented in Hidden Faces, and which, in some cases, are NSFW. However, these are far more open in their approach and, to my mind at least, more powerful both in terms of their presentation and their content. As the title of the exhibition suggests, sensuality is the focus of the images – but what makes this exhibition fascinating is the breadth of sensuality displayed within the pictures.
There is, for example, the sensuality of the female form – dressed or semi-nude; the sensuality expressed through a look or pose; there’s the sensuality of power conveyed through expression and dress; the sensuality of intimacy between consenting adults, (one also laced with a little D/s), and more. Take Strong for example: there is both beauty and power evident within this striking study of a single woman in which the power expressed in her look is sensuously softened through the red Brocade Cheongsam Brocade Cheongsam brocade cheongsam style dress she is wearing.
Then there is Spanking, and while the context of the image is clear from the title, the image itself is fair more subtle in nature. Spanking – even in adult games – can have a hard edge to it; yet here, the unzipped dress, the positioning of the man’s hand, gives the entire picture a more sensual aspect: is he about to spank her – or run his hand gently up her exposed back?
And so it is that each of the pictures on display offers not just an expression of sensuality, but also an underlying story waiting for us to discover as we approach the pictures in turn. Again, the off-camera look in Strong raises the question: what is she looking at to cause such a stern expression? Is it something truly displeasing, or is it that she is playing a role – or is it merely the casting of the lighting within the image?
All of the pieces have their own attraction, but for me Steampunk, also chosen to promote the exhibition, is the most powerful and sensuous. It’s a beautiful study, with layered sensuality – the cat-like litheness of the pose, with enclosing flow of the metal-ribbed leotard, her expression; all combine to present a marvellous piece of art.
This is another stunning exhibition from an artist with considerable talent and the ability to project and evoke mood and feelings through her work. Not to be missed.
On Wednesday, December 7th, 2017, and to coincide with the bi-weekly Web User Group meetings (held every other Friday) as well as to provide an update on the Second Life web properties, Alexa Linden provided a blog post to provide an overview of the last two months of web-related updates.
In summary these updates comprise:
Second Life Place Pages have received a range of fixes, including errors being generated by some pages, images with transparent attributes overlapping, Markdown feature issues, etc.
Work is in progress to add 360-degree images from the 360 snapshot viewer (see my last review of this here) to Place Pages
The flow for adding and using existing Payment information for new users has been streamlined and made more intuitive.
Assorted updates to secondlife.com.
Introduction of the new viewer splash / log-in screen
Corrected an issue with the Terms of Service panel in the viewer.
The updated official viewer splash screen for general users (i.e. not first-time log-in), introduced in October / November, and referred to in the Lab’s blog post on web property updates
These changes are not yet live, but primarily comprise a new on-line form users and complete in order to file a notification with Linden Lab, rather than having to provide information via post or fax, as is currently the case.
When this change goes live, there will hopefully be a formal blog post on the subject, and I certainly hope to be able to blog about it in these pages.
I recently blogged about the opening of the Hollywood Art Museum (HWAM) virtual experience in Sansar, which will take place on Saturday, December 9th, 2017, between 7:00pm and 10:00pm PST.
The Hollywood Art Museum is a joint endeavour between Sansar Studios and renowned director, designer, writer, producer, and practical effects professional, Greg Aronowitz. Mr. Aronowitz – whose credits such as Jurassic Park: Lost World, X-Files, Saving Private Ryan, Contact, Terminator 2, and Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance – is an avid collector who has amassed an incredible collection of Hollywood production art, from storyboards to costume sketches, concept drawings, models, and more.
Greg Aronowitz
The aim is to provide an environment where digital reproductions of items from Mr. Aronowitz’s collection – spanning a period from Citizen Kane to Transformers: The last Knight offer visitors a unique and intimate view of the creative processes involved in some of the world’s most beloved films. Through this, HWAM hopes to encourage artists in the digital medium to find fresh inspiration in the traditional arts of Hollywood’s past, through the preservation and education of art used in entertainment.
For it’s opening – and as an unofficial means of marking the upcoming US opening of the latest film in the Star Wars franchise – Star Wars The Last Jedi – HWAM will be featuring a special exhibition of production pieces from the franchise films. Also taking place at the same time will be a physical world pop-up gallery exhibition of pieces, hosted by Mr Aronowitz at one of Los Angeles’s oldest art supply stores, ad which itself has ties to the Star Wars franchise.
During the event, attendees will be able to step into Sansar and visit the Hollywood Art Museum – and Linden Lab has now extended an invitation for Sansar users to join the launch party, whether in VR or via Sansar’s Desktop mode, with Community manage Jenn writing:
Join us in VR or on your PC for the grand opening of the Hollywood Art Museum’s first exhibition: a unique collection of Star Wars production pieces. The exhibit includes the very first drawings made for the film franchise and never-before-seen production art from the original trilogy by Lucasfilm alum Joe Johnston, Ralph McQuarrie, Phil Tippett, Drew Struzan, Colin Cantwell, and more. Museum curator Greg Aronowitz, will join the opening party to introduce the Star Wars collection, and attendees will have an opportunity to virtually meet him in the exhibition.
Sansar users wishing to join the event are asked to register their interest by reserving a free ticket via Eventbrite, which will be used to inform them of the HWAM’s Sansar Atlas URL ahead of the the event opening.
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 