Month: March 2018

BURN2: Burnal Equinox 2018

Posted on by Inara Pey
BURN2 Burnal Equinox 2018

The Burn2 Burnal Exquinox event, which will run through until Sunday, March 25th, is now open.

The theme for this year’s event is H2O = Water but H2+O -> Fire, with the press release for the event explaining the theme thus:

It is in two parts. The first we all know, that H2O represents WATER. But…the second part is not a chemical formula; rather it is an attempt to describe the process of combustion that results in FIRE. Both utilise hydrogen and oxygen, but manifest in different ways.

Just as these two gases – oxygen and hydrogen can be combined to form very different basic elements  – water and fire – so the theme hopes to promote the idea that the sum of two or more things is very often something more – and that the “more” can be very different depending on how things are combined. Thus, through the imaginative bringing together of the core elements of a BURN2 event – building, art, and music – by different eyes and hands across the Playa, the organisers hope BURN2 participants will create a celebratory weekend that both reflects and is greater than all of its parts.

BURN2 Burnal Equinox 2018

The weekend kicked-off at 10:00 SLT on Saturday, March 24th, courtesy of the Lamplighters, and the full schedule for the weekend available on the BURN2 website. Activities and performers include:

  • The BURN2 fashion show.
  • BURN of the Nebula.
  • Samm Qendra.
  • The Vinnie Show.
  • Lamplighters Fires Dances.
  • ~DRUM~.
  • And more.

The event closes at 22:00 SLT on Sunday, March 25th, 2018 with a concert by Loreen Aldrin.

About BURN2

BURN2 is an extension of the Burning Man festival and community into the world of Second Life. It is an officially sanctioned Burning Man regional event, and the only virtual world event out of more than 100 real world Regional groups and the only regional event allowed to burn the man.

The BURN2 Team operates events year around, culminating in an annual major festival of community, art and fire in the fall – a virtual echo of Burning Man itself.

Related Links

Sansar Product Meeting #12/1: publishing and access control

Posted on by Inara Pey
Radio Grind presents…The Experience: Part V The Dirty Grind IAC Live Music Venue & Listening Lounge – scene of the March 20th Product Meeting

The following notes are taken from the Sansar Product Meeting held on Tuesday, March 20th. These weekly Product Meetings are open to anyone to attend, are a mix of voice (primarily) and text chat. Dates and times are currently floating, so check the Meet-up Announcements and the Sansar Atlas events sections each week. Official notes, when published can be found here.

A portion of the meeting looked at the mid-March update, which is covered separately here. The latter half of the meeting was also  an extended  – and at times confused – general discussion on access control. Part of this did highlight the benefit of more scripted capabilities for access control and persistence of scripts, etc., (e.g. limited ban times, rather than a one-time “forever” ban until revoked; or the ability to apply the same access control list across multiple experiences). The discussion did not draw specific conclusions, but highlighted the potential for more focused discussions with specific product experts in the future.

Given the above, these notes focus on the core feedback provided by Boden and Jenn in terms of how the Lab views things.

Publishing on Sansar

There is some concern in the Lab that the current route to surfacing an experience is potentially confusing for some creators, in terms of knowing whether or not their experience is actually listed.

The current flow is to go to the publishing options, which opens on the Who Can Visit tab (below left), where the general access options can be set (Public, Only Me, by lists – Friends, Guest, banned).

The user then moves to the Atlas Listing tab (below right) – the first option of which is set to Hide This Experience From The Atlas by default, which unless unchecked, means the experience will not be surfaced in the Atlas, regardless of anything set in Who Can Visit – hence the confusion.

By being checked by default, is the Hide This Experience From The Atlas causing confusion when publishing an experience?

This led to an extended conversation about access, terminology (e.g. given a scene has a URL, isn’t that technically “published” anyway, regardless of the status of the experience?), options, etc.

Purely in terms of dealing with the confusion over whether or not an experience can be seen in the Atlas, the simplest approach would seem to be to leave the Hide This Experience option unchecked – this would also then more accurately reflect the explanatory text given with the Why? link.

Tool Tips

The suggestion was put forward that why going forward, and allowing for complexities of language localisation, etc., the Lab should look to ways to offer tool (or hover) tips within elements of the UI to help users better understand options and buttons.

Access Control Roadmap

In terms of access control to experiences / events, the current order of things at the Lab seems to be:

  • Implementing the underlying infrastructure to allow event ticketing.
  • Then build-out the tools to allow pay-to-access events (this will initially be internally / possibly with partners, prior to the tools being publicly surfaced).
  • Then, depending on how demand for events grows, go on to provide:
    • Experience / event owners to appoint moderators for their events, who can help manage the actual event (e.g. remove people causing problems).
    • Event organisers to rent experiences so they can host events without necessarily having to build a dedicated experience / contract someone to build it.

Does Access Control Mean Adult Content May Be Allowed in Sansar?

  • Currently no. Linden Lab’s Terms of Service, Sansar Terms and Conditions, etc., remain unchanged.
  • While access control may offer a step towards allowing adult content, there are other factors still to be put into place (e.g. age verification – something which could affect the experience owner as much as LL).
  • As the product is still in a “beta” status, the Lab is sensitive towards how it is perceived in the media (understandably, given the history of SL and certain elements in the media).
  • Adult content may come in the future, as Sansar grows, particularly as the environment means there is not necessarily the kind of “link” between moderate and adult content as might be seen with Second Life, simply because spaces in Sansar can be clearly separated one from another.

Other areas of consideration include the Sansar Store, and how Adult material would be handled there: would there need to be a separate Store for such content?

While no final decision on adult content has been made vis Sansar, Boden pointed out that the steps being taken now in enhancing access control, providing the means to support groups with different interests and requirements, etc., could eventually lead to adult content support as Sansar matures.

Access Control & Dress Code

In early discussions on Sansar, Ebbe Altberg raised the idea that experience creators would be able to define what outfits could be worn in their experiences, if they wished.  So for example, a steampunk themed role-play experience might require visitors to be dressed in appropriate costumes, thus avoiding the immersive nature of the experience being broken by someone waddling around as a pigeon toed under grown flying purple people eater (so to speak). This is apparently still on the roadmap for some point in the future.

Ebbe and Oz talk Second Life in the cloud

Posted on by Inara Pey
Credit: Linden Lab / Amazon Web Services Inc.

It’s a huge effort. Right now the Second Life grid is a proprietary set-up in a hosting facility that we have customised for the purposes of what we’re doing – which made sense a decade and half ago. But these days, with the services from Google and Amazon and Microsoft with cloud infrastructures, it makes a lot of sense to shift our technologies to be on top of those cloud infrastructures instead of having our own.

Ebbe Altberg, VWPBE, March 15th, 2018.

That the Lab is working on moving Second Life to the cloud is becoming more and more widely known. First mentioned by Landon Linden (aka, Landon McDowell, the Lab’s Chief Product Officer) during his SL14B Meet the Lindens session, it was “officially” announced in August 2017 via a blog post.

Landon Linden, June 2017, talking about the Lab’s hope to move Second Life services to the cloud.

It’s a long-term project, which will extend well into 2019 (at least), building on a relationship with Amazon dating back to 2008, and which today both Blocksworld and Sansar (see: “Project Sansar”: an Amazon ECS case study), from which the Lab hope to gain a range of benefits, including – in time – perhaps the opportunity to offer a broader range of products at more comfortable (for users) price points.

There are some significant technology challenges the Lab faces with the move. However, progress is being made. Some non-user visible services are already running in the cloud, and more recently, the Lab has started preliminary testing with cloud-based simulators – although they are fair from ready for users to access, as Oz Linden outlined at the March 16th TPV Developer meeting:

We have actually run experimental regions on cloud servers, and it worked. There were some functional limitations that we have to do a lot of work to solve before we could begin to do regions that ordinary users can get to … It’s something we’re pursuing as aggressively as we can [but] I’m not even sure we have a sufficiently comprehensive view of the problems … some of them will only become apparent as we actually put things into production.

Oz Linden, TPVD meeting, March 16th, 2018 – full audio below.

Oz Linden, March 16th, 2018, talking about progress to date, and how things are likely to progress.

For the Lab, the benefits of the move to the cloud include things like a reduction in their capital expenditure  – no need to maintain their own dedicated hardware (or continuously update / replace it) within a dedicated operating environment. It also means they can more dynamically scale consumption according to needs – this could be beneficial for a number of the back-end systems within Second Life.

It turns it into less capital expenditure to have to buy all the equipment and doing all the maintenance on that. You kind-of pay for what you use; with Second Life [right now], once we’ve bought a piece of hardware, we have to sit on it whether it’s being utilised or not, whereas you can kind-of dynamically scale your consumption as necessary when you use something like AWS … which we believe will reduce costs for use and then ultimately, we hope to pass that on to customers.

Ebbe Altberg, VWBPE, March 15th 2018.

Once the transition has been completed and the Lab has had time to evaluate things, the move might allow them to offer a more varied land product – something again touched upon in Ebbe Altberg’s 2018 VWBPE address, and allow them to more extensively “re-balance” the revenue model – something that is also an ongoing project at the Lab.

We’re really thinking hard about the economic model of Second Life. We share a belief inside the Lab that land is quite expensive. so we’re constantly looking at ways to lower land prices and find other ways to find revenues. So I think you will see us try to shift from what I would say [are] high real estate taxes to more consumption taxes or fees to create an environment where it’s easy for people to create and own experiences, and we [the Lab] participate more in all the transactions that take place.

Ebbe Altberg, VWBPE, March 15th, 2018.

Given that land tier provides the lion’s share of the Lab’s revenue, this re-balancing is far from easy to say nothing of the potential for user outcry at any fee increases). Ergo, having better means to lower fees such as through reduced operating costs and a broader spread of more “affordable” products could – depending on the time frames involved – go a long way towards helping the Lab achieving that re-balancing goal.

So what might the move to the cloud mean for users? That’s hard to quantify at the moment, simply because the project has so far to go.However, some hints at what might happen have been offered.

For one thing – and on the subject of different land products – it might allow the Lab to offer two broad categories of region / server type; I’ll call them “always on” and “on demand”.

  • “Always on” would be simulators running 24/7 as with SL at present. These would be ideal for handling Mainland, large open spaces like Blake Sea and the larger, contiguous private estates. Such regions might have a similar type of fixed-fee tier cost associated with them as we have today (although not necessarily the same price points).
  • “On demand” would be simulators that are only active (and charged for) when in active use. When devoid of avatars, they are saved to disk and spun down. These types of region could be ideal for special events, or for private business / residential regions which don’t have any surrounding regions, and would only be charged for when avatars are present; once the last avatar leaves, following an appropriate pause, the region is saved, and the instance spun-down.

Such an approach has been alluded to by Ebbe Altberg:

Some experiences might want to have continuous persistence over time, and maybe that’s one type of pricing model, for an “always on” type of scenario. Maybe other will be fine with, “hey, I’m only using this for a few hours in a class a few times a week” or something. and if that can spin-up in a few seconds, and then I just need to basically pay for the time that I’m utilising it. Those could be potential options for us to explore.

Ebbe Altberg, VWBPE, March 15th, 2018.

Land offerings could be broadened in other ways. Again, as Ebbe Altberg indicated at VWBPE 2018, there might be high-performance, high-capacity, “upper tier” servers available for those needing them for specific uses (e.g. events need high concurrency levels or similar), sitting alongside more moderate, lower-cost servers for things like residential use.

More intriguingly, cloud hosting might even allow the Lab to more readily geo-locate simulators / regions with their physical world audience. Such regions wouldn’t necessarily have to be grouped together in-world, they are simply located a lot close to the user base that most frequently uses them, potentially improving performance for that audience.

Today we are located in the US, which means that people from Australia or Asia or Europe have to travel quite a ways, which is hundreds of extra milliseconds of latency. So if you want to have a very dedicated community in Australia or somewhere, we could maybe start to distribute our server infrastructure to be closer to where the actual customers of those regions are, which would make things more performant.

Ebbe Altberg, VWBPE, 15th, March 2018.

There will be more to come on SL and the cloud and the Lab provide further updates as the work progresses, and I’ll hopefully report on them as they are made public. In the meantime, and for those who haven’t waded all the way through the VWBPE 2018 video with Ebbe Altberg (and Brett Linden), or who don’t want to read either my transcript of that event or the bullet-point summary, here’s the audio of Ebbe’s comments on SL and the cloud:

This Weekend in Second Life Dance

Posted on by R.

Dance?

Hi there. R. Crap Mariner, your Dance Correspondent.

Bookings are available for Idle Rogue’s Cirque de Nuit (pardon my French, but did I use incorrectly correct grammar this time?), but while you’re waiting for seat confirmations you can always take in a few dance shows.

I’ll be posting dance performance schedules, similar to Inara’s posts about Seanchai Library readings. We’ll start with the weekend events for now.

Let’s get started, here’s the events that I had on the calendar as of press time…

(All times SLT, although Daylight Savings Time screws everything up!)

FRIDAY MARCH 23 2018

6:00PM ELYSIUM CABARET

Elysium Cabaret – Welcome to the Weekend!

If it’s Friday, it’s Elysium Cabaret! Fancy some imagination? In The Empire Room at Copperhead Road, every Friday at 6pm SLT the dynamic performers of Elysium Cabaret take the stage to bring you a solid hour of entertainment! Featuring elaborate sets and choreography sequenced to an eclectic genre of music, Elysium Cabaret offers something for everyone. Grab your friends and get their early because the sim fills. Come celebrate Friday! Welcome to the weekend!

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Copperhead%20Road/74/64/2754

10:00PM GUERILLA BURLESQUE

We sparkle; we shine with all the glitz and glamour of extraordinary concepts! Hot music and gorgeous dancers all packed into one exciting hour! Directed by Chrissy Rhiano , and presented on her beautiful pit theatre build, this dance entertainment show will feature intricate acts performed “in the round”. We are excited to bring you more of these wonderful performances this week! Doors open March 23rd at 9 pm for the 10 pm show!

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Idle%20Rogue/96/195/33

Guerilla Burlesque - March 9 2018

SATURDAY MARCH 24 2018

1:00PM OASIS DANCERS

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Olni/84/99/1197

3:00PM FUSION DANCE CREW

Fusion Dance Crew returns to the The Fusion Performing Arts Centre with its latest show: FUSION MAGIC on Saturday, March 24 @ 3PM SLT. The Crew created six dance routines to music by: Club Des Belugas, Sidesteppers, Loreena McfKennitt, Noxeverto, Laura Tesora and OneRepublic all with magical stage sets, colourful costumes, dancing and of course the music! Come and enjoy the magic as Fusion Dance Crew with our unique eclectic style strives to entertain you!

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/WideWorld%20Amethysta/24/178/22

5:00PM PHOENIX DANCE TEAM

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/SkyBeam%20Stowaway/27/152/1303

Phoenix Dance Team - February 24 2018

6:00PM WHYMSEE NOIR

For the Let’s Dance show, we trade in our sets for MORE dancing and LESS wait time between songs! There will be lots of wiggling, dancing, physics, and a little dazzle thrown in for good measure! Dance along with us or have a seat in our comfy chairs, we like it when you watch! No naked avatars, just dancing. Come to the show and see what all the fuss is about!

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Whymsee/96/192/3286

7:00PM MOULIN ROUGE

From Christina, Britney, Madonna, Beyoncé, Lady Gaga among others, the Moulin Rouge Dancers brighten the stage with their presence on this night of nights! So take a walk down the runway of the Music Awards with us as the Moulin Rouge Presents — Divas & Dolls Dance Show — only at Moulin Rouge!

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Moulin%20Rouge/172/131/31

7:00PM DESIRE ARTS

Desire Arts Dancers do an “after hours” show. Starting at 7pm SLT on March 24th, we bring you the performance quality at our Saturday shows, with more skin… little less costume. Some acts do contain adult content.

As an “Arts” theatre (and gallery) Desire Arts will be a venue perfectly suited for SL Performers wishing to express themselves through live performances, through Dance, Art Exhibits, Performance Art as well as Dramatic Presentations.

Also, Presentations of a controversial nature (including those involving sex, politics and/or religion) will be presented separately from the Dance Program.

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Hell%20Lust/174/78/21

7:00PM DANCE XCETERA

Director’s choice performances.

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Burning%20Embers/112/97/3602

Dance XCetera - February 25 2018

SUNDAY MARCH 25 2018

7:00AM CLUB IMAGE

IMAGE open this Sunday

…… ♥ * Line up for this Sunday*♥…….
1. HANKU Babii”MJ2014″
2. Yougao Destiny “Hello”
3. misse Tigerpaw “Shine”
4. Diawa Bellic”Venus”
5. Sakura”A Butterfly’s Dream”
6. fairytale Stoop”青年14歳”☆special guest
■ ☆Team Dance☆ Diawa Bellic “Feeling it Still”
DJ: HANKU Babii☆.。.:*・゜

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Laem%20Singh/193/28/2021

Club Image - March 18 2018

12:00PM INANNA BURLESQUE

Inanna Burlesque provides a monthly show of sexy ladies that have intoxicating dance moves that will ensure an hour of entertainment. We show a variety of well choreographed dance movements that will keep you enthralled and wanting more.

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Somerton%20Greenwich/100/193/1502

12:00PM CABARET PROVOCATEUR

The Cabaret Provocateur will present its encore performances of the program “Fab 4 You” n Sunday March 25, 2018 at noon SLT at Surrender Cove.

Fab 4 You is a programme in 6 acts feature music performed by Elton John, Robin Williams and Bobby McFerrin, Lisa Lauren, Eddie Izzard, Goldie Hawn, and Phil Collins all originally written and performed by the Fab Four, (The Beatles). The dances will take you on a journey from Manhattan rooftops through Arabian Nights, to Broadway, backstage and in front.

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/RockIsland/151/67/24

12:00PM LUXE GIRLS

(See Elysion group for information.)

https://www.flickr.com/photos/isfullofcrap/39939366221/in/album-72157686567442226/

12:00PM VIRTUOSO

Seating is limited, please attend at least 30 minutes before show time.

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Reed%20Valley/145/84/1501

1:00PM DEBAUCHE

HOMECOMING

Join Debauche as they perform in their wonderful home theatre, Such a lovely place for all of us and for all of you.

We always have a great show there with the best atmosphere! Fun, friendly and lively. Love you all to come and be part of it with us.

Debauche – a little naughty, a little risque, a LOT sexy and of course, ALWAYS classy.

Hope to see you spending time with us on Sunday 25th March at 1pm SLT. Dress smart casual. Leave your scripts at home 🙂

Love

Debauche

xxx
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Champion%20Isle/71/126/2001

1:00PM XA DANCERS

The X-A Dancers are dancers, choreographers and designers from the Xaara Community in collaboration with The Xaara Gallery of Sensual Art and The Atlantis Grand Theatre. We perform about four shows per year at The Atlantis Grand Theatre.

Shows by the X-A Dancers reflect a variety of creative talent in Second Life. Originality, sensuality, intelligence and humour are showcased in every show. We are not your typical burlesque troupe. We are members of a special artistic community with both vanilla and D/s influences.

Visit Xaara Community to find the best sensual art, literature, poetry, photography and dance in Second Life.

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Xaara/159/109/22

5:00PM WINDS OF THE SAHARA: Winds Theme Show

Are you a vagabond at heart? Have you dreamed of seeing the world and all of the wonderful things there are to see? Our theme show this month is to take our guests on a journey around the world with our dancers picking countries and doing sets celebrating the wide variety that our planet has to offer. Come and join us as we explore this amazing planet we call home!

Please try to leave as many scripts at home as you can to help with lag!!

https://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Aladona/124/193/2001

5:00PM MISFITS

LIVE dancing on the big stage with full costumes, fun sets, and awesome music ~ Think BROADWAY in SL! Come join the fun!

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Metanomics/53/173/3073

7:00PM DANCE XCETERA

Director’s choice performances.

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Burning%20Embers/112/97/3602

I assume there will be a few more shows this week… folks are just taking their time getting the notices in, finishing up their routines… that sort of thing.

Check with the Dance Queens event calendar for updates and additions to the weekend’s schedule, as well as the many events that happen during the week. The new Appollo Dancers are on Wednesday and Noir Neverland always has fun going on Thursday evenings.

So, folks, is this useful? Let me know. Drop me an IM when you get to a show and that you enjoyed it.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/isfullofcrap/40054739825/in/dateposted/

2018 SL UG updates #12/2: CCUG summary

Posted on by Inara Pey
A rally of (Animesh) raptors on Aditi

The following notes are primarily taken from the Content Creation User Group (CCUG) meeting, held on  Thursday, March 22nd, 2018 at 13:00 SLT. For the purposes of Animesh testing, the meetings have relocated to the Animesh4 region on Aditi, the beta grid – look for the seating area towards the middle of the region. The meeting is chaired by Vir Linden, and agenda notes, etc, are usually available on the Content Creation User Group wiki page.

There is no video to accompany this update, notes are taken from my own audio recording of the meeting.

Bakes on Mesh

Project Summary

Extending the current avatar baking service to allow wearable textures (skins, tattoos, clothing) to be applied directly to mesh bodies as well as system avatars. This involves server-side changes, including updating the baking service to support 1024×1024 textures, and may in time lead to a reduction in the complexity of mesh avatar bodies and heads. The project is in two phases:

  • The current work to update the baking service to support 1024×1024 textures on avatar meshes.
  • An intended follow-on project to actually support baking textures onto avatar mesh surfaces (and potentially other mesh objects as well). This has yet to fully defined in terms of implementation and when it might be slotted into SL development time frames.

This work does not include normal or specular map support, as these are not part of the existing baking service.

It is important to note that this project is still in its preliminary stages. Any release of a project viewer (see below) doesn’t mark the end of the project, but rather the start of initial testing and an opportunity for creators to have input into the project.

Project Viewer

  • QA testing revealed a number of bugs which need to be addressed before the project viewer reaches public consumption.

EEP and Atmospheric Shaders Work

Environment Enhancement Project (EEP) Summary

A set of environmental enhancements, including:

  • The ability to define the environment (sky, sun, moon, clouds, water settings) at the parcel level.
  • New environment asset types (Sky, Water, Days – the latter comprising multiple Sky and Water) that can be stored in inventory and traded through the Marketplace / exchanged with others.
  • Experience-based environment functions
  • An extended day cycle (e.g a 24/7 cycle) and extended environmental parameters.

This work involves simulator and viewer changes, and includes some infrastructure updates.

Current status: Rider Linden is working on some internal fixes for EEP which should hopefully move it closer to public visibility, and there is some more infrastructure work to be done.

Atmospheric Shaders Work

A project to revamp the viewer’s atmospheric shaders and rendering.

Current status: Graham Linden indicated “good stuff” is in the works, but nothing he can publicly report on as yet.

Animesh Project

Project Summary

The goal of this project is to provide a means of animating rigged mesh objects using the avatar skeleton, in whole or in part, to provide things like independently moveable pets / creatures, and animated scenery features via scripted animation. It involves both viewer and server-side changes.

In short, an Animesh object:

  • Can be any object (generally rigged / skinned mesh) which and contains the necessary animations and controlling scripts in its own inventory  (Contents tab of the Build floater) required for it to animate itself.
  • Can be a single mesh object or a linkset of objects (link them first, then set them to Animated Mesh via the Build floater > Features).
  • Has been flagged as and Animesh object in the project viewer, and so has an avatar skeleton associated with it.
  • Can use many existing animations.
  • Will not support its own attachments in the initial release.
  • Will not initially include the notion of a body shape (see below).

Resources

Current Progress

Vir continues to work on performance profiles, and is “pretty close” to having something for Land Impact, with a formula under evacuation. Among the changes, this formula calculates scaling differently, and Vir notes there are a number of corner cases which need to be dealt with. The tri count cap will also be finalised alongside the updated LI formula.

Rigged Mesh Level of Detail / Bounding Box Issues

Beq Janus has reported on issues with rigged mesh LOD issues related to the avatar bounding box. Essentially, attachments on avatars swap their LOD models as if they were scaled to the overall avatar Bounding Box. Some creators, deliberately or otherwise, force the bounding box to be far larger than is required, which then creates problems

For example, if an avatar bounding box is forced to 15 metres on a side, any rigged object worn by that avatar will swap LODs as if it were 15 metres in size, no matter how small, forcing viewers around it to use its highest LOD model unnecessarily (see BUG-214736 for more).

Vir Linden agreed that this is a problem, and that forcing abnormally large avatar bounding boxes is undesirable. In some places, the Lab tries to use the rigged mesh wireframe as the basis for the bounding box, which is seen as a little more robust as it is looking directly at the triangle data, rather than working off of the avatar itself – and this is the approach being considered with Animesh to avoid similar issues with Animesh rigged mesh failing to correctly LOD in the viewer – however, so believe the use of such static data is “meaningless”.

JIRA “Accepted” Status

The “Accepted” status on the JIRA still causes some confusion. In brief:

  • For BUG reports, Accepted tends to mean the Lab have imported the report for evaluation / agree to there being a bug and will look to fix the issue. When it is addressed is dependent on a number of factors (e.g. severity of the issue).
  • For feature requests, Accepted means the Lab is sufficiently interested in the idea to want to track it. It does not mean the idea will be implemented, either in whole or in part. Whether it is implemented in whole or in part again depends on a number of factors (how it sits within the current workflow, whether or not it is related to work being carried out and can be added to it; whether it is something which might be implemented alongside of upcoming work; whether it is better to hold off until it and other ideas like it can be implemented together as a project, etc.).

Return of Last Names

The last portion of the meeting focused on the recent blog post from Linden Lab indicating Last Names would be returning to Second Life. Given the level of interest in this project, I’ve written a separate update on this section of the discussion. See:  The return of Second Life Last Names – update with audio.

In Brief

  • Rigged / static meshes using transparencies (blended or masked) tend to cast an incorrect shadow

    Transparency shadow casting from rigged items: there is an issue with rigged / static meshes using transparencies (blended or masked), which causes shadows cast by them to render incorrectly (shadow rendering conforms only to the geometry silhouette). Graham Linden indicated that this is something the Lab plans to fix, but the work has yet to be scheduled.

  • Switching mesh asset on the same prim root: this used to be supported via script, but was removed due to people using it to create flipbook style animations which could adversely affect performance. It’s been suggested that it could offer an alternative to performance-impacting alpha swapping on meshes; however, the Lab’s view is that while alpha swapping is performance impacting, switching entire mesh assets would still be more of a performance hit, as the latter requires all of the geometry data associated with the mesh to be rebuilt every time.

Drew Struzan Gallery and Studio to open in Sansar

Posted on by Inara Pey
Opening on Friday. March 23rd, 16:00: Drew Struzan Gallery and Studio at the Hollywood Art Museum

Drew Struzan is a giant in the fields of art and film. Over his 40-year career, his talent has graced more than 150 movie posters for some of cinema’s most memorable films – including Indiana Jones, Back to the Future, and Star Wars – and extends to book covers, album covers, and other fine art. And on Friday, March 23rd, his art will be available within Sansar as a part of the The Hollywood Art Museum (HWAM) project, established by Greg Aronowitz.

HWAM’s mission is 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. Its first major exhibition, featuring reproductions of pieces – models, production drawings, props, merchandise from the Star Wars franchise films – which came ahead of the US opening of the latest film in the series Star Wars: The Last Jedi (read more about the Star Wars exhibition here).

Drew Struzan

The Drew Struzan Gallery and Studio marks HWAM’s second gallery space in Sansar, and presents visitors with a unique opportunity to view the work of one of the greatest illustrators of modern times, and to also get a peek inside his private studio.

Born in Oregon City, Oregon in 1947, Drew Struzan fell in love with art and drawing while a boy. “I didn’t go to movies, I didn’t watch TV,” he once recalled. “I didn’t have comic books. The closest I would ever come, is I would go to the library and get out art books and draw from the old masters. So I had an education and background in the masters of the art I liked to paint.”

A school Counsellor asked him about his interest in art and told him he had a choice between fine art or illustration, saying that as a fine artist he could paint what he wanted, but as an illustrator he could paint for money.

Struzan opted for the latter, later saying, “I was poor and hungry, and illustration was the shortest path to a slice of bread, as compared to a gallery showing.”

The 1977 Star Wars “Circus” poster, featuring Drew Struzan’s oil painting portraits of the film’s characters (1977)

From college, Struzan started his career not in film, but in music, creating the album covers art for artists like  Tony Orlando and Dawn, The Beach Boys, Bee Gees, Roy Orbison, Black Sabbath, Earth, Wind and Fire, Liberace and Alice Cooper.

In 1977 he was contacted by fellow artist Charles White III, who had been hired to produce a poster for the upcoming 1978 re-release of the original Star Wars film. Uncomfortable with portraiture, White asked Struzan for help, and between them they came up with a distinctive poster design, which became known as the “Circus” poster, depicting what appears to be a torn posted bill on a plywood construction site wall.

It was the start of an enduring relationship with top-flight movies. For the next 30+ years, Struzan would create some of the most iconic and memorable one-sheets for some of Hollywood’s biggest and highest grossing films and film franchises, including the Indiana Jones franchise, the Star Wars franchise, Blade Runner, the Police Academy series, Back to the Future, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Hellboy, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, and many, many more.

For the Sansar exhibition, Greg Aronowitz work closely with Struzan and members of Linden Lab’s Sansar Studios team led by Jason Gholston, to carefully and painstakingly reproduce Struzan’s art – including the “Circus” poster – within an immersive virtual setting. Many of the pieces have interactive elements associated with them: wall-mounted buttons can be pressed to hear audio relating to the pieces.

Also involved in the work is Kevin Cain, CEO of Insight Digital. This is the company that, working with the Lab’s Sansar Studios team, brought three real-world sites of antiquity in Egypt into Sansar, allowing people to visit and appreciate them in ways which cannot be shared in the physical world because the sites in question are not open to the public (read more about this project here).

A poster celebrating George Lucas and his filmmatic legacy, by Drew Struzan

For this project, Kevin Cain brought the same techniques used by Insight Digital to map ancient Egyptian tombs and monuments – laser scanning and photogrammetry to accurately reproduce Struzan’s own private studio and then upload it into Sansar as a place for people to visit.

The result is a stunning environment – gallery and Studio together – in which Struzan’s art and artistry can be fully appreciated, as a sneak previewed via livestream video by Deviant Art on Thursday, March 22nd revealed.

From left to right: Jason Gholston, Drew Struzan, Greg Aronowitz discuss the Drew Struzan Gallery in Sansar during a Deviant Art livestream event with host Matthew Holt. Credit: Deviant Art

The grand opening of the Drew Struzan Art Gallery and Studio in Sansar will take place between 16:00 and 20:00 PDT on Friday, March 23rd, and will comprise the following events:

  • 16:00-17:00: Greg Aronowitz and Drew Struzan reflect on their careers in film and Hollywood, and on Drew’s artistic legacy.
  • 17:00-18:00: an exclusive walk-through of Drew’s never-before-seen private studio, 3D-scanned into Sansar, and find out how the space came together from Insight Digital’s Kevin Cain and Jason Gholston, Head of Sansar Studios.
  • 18:00-20:00 the grand opening party and a chance to tour the entire experience on your own or with friends.

To attend the gallery opening, go to the Drew Struzan Gallery & Studio – Grand Opening in the Events section of the Sansar client or on the web 15 minutes before the event is due to start and click the Join option.

And for those who want to know a little more about Drew Struzan, here’s the trailer for the 2013 documentary, Drew: The Man Behind The Poster.