Month: September 2019

Bellisseria: of Trailers, Campers and trains in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
An aerial view of some of the new Trailers and Campers units, showing how residents have taken to using the outdoor spaces they provide

On Monday, September 16th, the first batch of regions containing the much anticipated Linden Homes Trailers and Campers arrived in Bellisseria. While they took a while to set up, they were made available on Tuesday, September 17th – and were all gone within 24 hours, demonstrating their popularity with Premium users.

Given I’d only taken a quick look around in my preview piece First looks: Bellisseria trailer and camper homes, I hopped back on Thursday, September 19th to take a more detailed look on horseback and, for the fun of it.

Peeking inside an unoccupied Trailer Home

Travelling the regions via the many trails – grass and track – and by following the railway lines, the first things that struck me was the care with which the regions have been laid out – particularly the blending of landscape between the Trailer and Camper regions and those for the Traditional Homes and Houseboats. There are no unnatural boundaries of “empty space” as witnessed with the “old style” Linden Homes, or abrupt switching of one style of landscape and terrain for another. Instead, and has been demonstrated throughout Bellisseria’s development, everything flows naturally from the more “suburban” areas of the Traditional Homes and coastal buffers of Houseboats into the more open countryside environment of the Trailers and Campers.

This might seem an odd thing to point out, but it’s important as it demonstrates the commitment from LL’s Land Team to make Bellisseria a genuinely contiguous, natural environment where there is a sense of place, rather than just a conglomeration of houses lumped together. This helps to make Bellisseria somewhere people can live, breathe, share and joy, and have plenty of encouragement to explore and participate.

The new regions offer even more space and opportunities for horse riding

In keeping with this is the way the parcels for the camper vans and trailers have been set out; as with the homes and houseboats, these are not simply cookie-cutter arrangements stitched together into a simple patchwork; each region has been landscaped to provide a natural environment, with balance between protected land and camper / trailer parcels and finished with a sound scape that enhances the setting, while the trailers and campers have all been more-or-less individually placed so there is no sense of simple repetition across different regions.

Within the regions, there are also plenty of public spaces. The most obvious of these at the time of writing is the Campwich Lodge. But there are also assorted lakeside piers and decks, camp sites, and cabins (the Premium gift Winter Cabin re-purposed), scattered throughout the regions.

When is a trailer not a trailer? When it’s a home. The Williamsburg

Not all the units that have been claimed have been occupied – something that is true of the Traditional Homes and Houseboats – but those that have are being enthusiastically decorated in much the same way as the homes and houseboats were, with a lot of happy chatter on the various Bellisseria related in-world groups. It’ll be interesting to see when / if pictures of people labours start turning up in the forums, such as in the Linden Homes photo thread (although at 60-ish pages, perhaps a new thread is needed!).

During my ride / walk through the regions, I tried avoid nosing inside the trailers and campers (they people’s homes / alternate homes after all!), but as expected, much use is being made of the outside space with people setting down just about everything you can imagine that’s in keeping with the theme: hot tubs and home pools, decking and seating, awnings and tents, picnic spreads and barbecues and – yes – even pick-ups and 4x4s.

A Michie Marine DB101 pootles along the Bellisseria rail lines. The cabin in the right foreground is not a Linden Home style – it is the Premium Gift Winter Cabin, a number of which the moles have re-purposed as a public spaces in the regions

For train enthusiasts, the railway lines – although incomplete pending the arrival of further public regions (some of which are currently in development) –  offer a rez zone in the (at the time of writing) yet-to-be-named SSPE260 region. It’s seen a fair amount of use already, with a variety of trains from steam locos to electric train cars to trams appearing on the tracks. In particular, a lot of people have been picking up the Michie Marine DB101 “line security loco”, which is available for no charge on the Marketplace and using that to ride the rails.

As I’m not a major train enthusiast, I initially tried the Premium Gift rail handcar (circa 2012), but found this no longer wanted to function – so I grabbed a copy of the Michie Marine myself. A nice touch with it is that the drive is automatic; set it in motion and you’re free to appreciate the scenery; no need to keep a key pressed. I assume other rez zone will be added as the railway is extended, but given the location of the one at SSPE260, it’ll be interesting to see if a boat rezzing area will be provided on the waterway close by, as the region is built-out. Doing so would certainly make sense.

A Newport camper

And talking of waterways; one of the neat things for me personally is that given the location of my houseboat, it’s possible to cruise to Campwich Lodge by boat, making it an ideal place to visit by water whenever the mood takes. I’m far from alone in this – care has been taken to ensure that the lodge is well connected to many of Bellisseria’s bodies of water and waterways.

In terms of which design seems to be the most popular among those moving in to the new regions, I would suggest that overall, it would appear to be the Williamsburg. While by no means an accurate indicator of things, overflying the new regions did seem to reveal the distinctive split-level roof of that design appearing a lot more frequently overall than the other designs. By the same “standard”, it would appear the Newport – possibly the smallest of the designs available – is the least popular at this point in time.

Following one of the trails back down to Campwich Lodge

Eyes will doubtless continue to be on the new Bellisseria regions for a while – particularly given work has already started on extending the railway lines into some of the surrounding regions. In the meantime, kudos once again to the Moles and the Land Team for their work.

Related links

Firestorm: the future of OpenSim Support

Posted on by Inara Pey

On Wednesday, September 18th, and after some lengthy deliberation, Jessica Lyon issued a Firestorm blog post outlining the future of that viewer’s future support for OpenSim environments.

The post is going to make difficult reading for OpenSim users, but the reality is that for assorted reasons, the Firestorm team have to consider priorities and how to best support their two disparate user communities.

The most important point with the blog is that Firestorm is not about to abandon OpenSim: but there are certain hard realities that need to be faced.

The first of these is that Firestorm are struggling to meet the demands of OpenSim support. While it is easy to talk about OpenSim in the singular – as if it is a single network of grids running to the same overall framework of server code – this isn’t really the case, as Jessica notes:

So many grids and no standard specification. Grid features that vary from grid to grid. We fix an issue on one grid that breaks something on another. Compatibility with OpenSim is vastly more difficult than it is with Second Life. Add to that the fact that we have to continue to merge upstream code from LL on a regular basis. We just don’t have the human resources.

Resources in this case being a developer who not only has the time to devote to OpenSim development on behalf of the Firestorm Team, but also the depth of knowledge of the various OpenSim protocols required to implement viewer-side updates while avoiding many of the problems Jessica mentions.

To try to assist in matters going forward, Jessica outlines some of the steps that the Firestorm team will be taking:

  • Firestorm will no longer accept OpenSim viewer features without direct communication via viewer patch contributions, or better yet, some kind of reference viewer. Simply put, the team cannot expected to keep up with all developments in OpenSim, which features have been introduced in some grids and how they might impact others.
  • Firestorm can only include features compatible with the current recognised OpenSim version number – features based on in-development or upcoming server code cannot be accepted, particularly those that may work on one grid one way, but differently on another or not at all.
  • Firestorm can no longer guarantee keeping old / deprecated protocols active within the viewer indefinitely. Attempting to do so  simply increases many of the complexities involved in developing and maintaining a viewer – and Firestorm is already hard-pressed in keeping pace with updates rolling out of Linden Lab for Second Life and with the major updates and improvements being made to OpenSim.

This last point has particular relevance when it comes to upcoming major releases like Linden Lab’s Environment Enhancement Project (EEP), which will entirely replace Windlight.  This is actually what prompted Firestorm to try to split viewer development between different repositories  – one for OpenSim and one for Second Life – which in turn resulted in a lot of concerns being raised by OpenSim users that have, in part, informed the thinking leading up to this blog post.

Simply put, Firestorm cannot continue to support both Windlight and EEP, and will be focusing on EEP as that reaches release for Second Life, with the hope that OpenSim will find the means to adopt the EEP protocols in the future. Similarly, it is likely that projects such LL’s on-going Love Me Render work to improve viewer rendering, the Estate Access Management project and others may well impact Firestorm’s ability to support OpenSim.

So What Does This Mean?

Simply put, it means that if Firestorm is to continue supporting OpenSim to the fullest possible extent, it is going to need the help and support of the OpenSim community.

Part of this can be due through the likes of communication and viewer patch submissions and testing, as noted above. However, the most practical way to help Firestorm is for those within the OpenSim community who are competent viewer developers and who have – or can quickly understand – the Firestorm code, to volunteer their time and expertise.

To do so, drop the Firestorm team an e-mail providing your name, contact details and a brief outline of your experience in viewer code development, and how you believe you would be able to help.

So if you are that person – please do considered applying; or if you know someone who can help – point them towards the Firestorm blog post. In the meantime, OpenSim users who may read this blog are asked to follow the link to Jessica’s blog post to read her comments first-hand.

Visiting La Maison d’Aneli’s new home in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
La Maison d’Aneli: Eylinea and Desy Magic

La Maison d’Aneli, curated by Aneli Abeyante, relocated mid-year to a new home in the skies of VeGeTal PLaNeT. In making the move, the gallery space has also been redesigned, the former two-level build giving way to a more labyrinthine space that retains the open plan nature of the former venue whilst also making one’s passage through it more interesting by splitting individual display spaces across multiple levels, both “up” and “down” relative to one another, linked by stairways and walkways, together with a number of individual display spaces – all of which work together to encourage exploration and discovery.

At the time of my visit, a new set of exhibitions was due to open on Wednesday, September 18th, featuring work by: Eylinea, Akim Alonzo, Desy Magic, Jolielle Parfort, Megan Prumier, Olympes Rhode, and Moki Yuitza, all of whom present a rich mixing of 2D and 3D art. While all are opening at the same event at 12:30 pm SLT, I have to admit that I was drawn to dropping in ahead of time after receiving personal invitations to see the exhibits by Akim and Moki.

La Maison d’Aneli: Akim Alonzo

Located in one of the individual galley halls, Akim presents The Matrix, a series of images he’s created based around his love of The Matrix movies. While some of them have previously been displayed at Akim’s own gallery (see: Water and a Matrix: reflections on life by Akim Alonzo), I was drawn back to them because of both their captivating nature and because they are so nuanced and layered. Not only do they offer an interpretation of the manifold memes on the shaping of reality as found within the films and as we can create for ourselves within SL; they also present a commentary on identification – that perennial theme common to Second Life -, as I noted back in April when writing about these images:

Within these pictures is a subtle reminder that, no matter how hard we might try to distance self from character within SL, no matter what the roles we play in-world, the backstories we build; the fact remains that facets of our own natures, our own identities, will be impinged on those characters. They are inevitably a projection of self into the virtual. What’s more, their daily encounters and experiences within the virtual realm equally reflect and inform upon our physical selves. Thus, we have a genuinely visceral intertwining between the “real” and the “virtual”.

La Maison d’Aneli: Moki Yuitza

Moki also has one of the individual gallery spaces to present a 3D installation entitled Ascension. This is a mobile piece offering an interpretation of the subject matter title – the ability for us to ascend our current state mentally, spiritually or potentially physically. Beautiful to witness, this is also an interactive piece, with poseballs available for those wishing to participate in the installation.

Within the more open areas of the gallery space, I found myself drawn to Eylinea’s 2D and 3D animated art; this being the first time – at least that I can remember – I’ve seen her work on public display. There are intricate and fascinating, drawing a number of approaches – geometric, fractal, and abstract to produce some fascinating pieces.

La Maison d’Aneli: Jolielle Parfort

When visiting the gallery, I do recommend following a certain order to progress through the exhibits. From the landing point provided, take the stairs (on the left as you look out over the gallery) down to the main hall space to visit the individual exhibition space housing Moki’s Ascension. After this, explore the open spaces on their various levels and the hall containing Akim’s The Matrix, before moving to the final individual hall, home to Jolielle Parfort’s always engaging art drawn from Second Life.

This route doesn’t give any deeper context for the exhibits – each stands on its own merits -, but it will offer a logical path through the gallery and the exit point tucked into the hall featuring Jolielle’s work. From there is is then possible to visit the other exhibition areas around la Maison d’Aneli, including region holder vroum Short’s visually captivating Mirror (which I’ve also previously written about). All of these spaces are equally worthy of a visit, but which will be subject for other articles in this blog.

SLurl and Links

A Spoonful of Sugar 2019 in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
via Spoonful of Sugar

Currently open through until the end of September 29th, is the 2019 Spoonful of Sugar festival, bringing together fashion, home and garden, breedable designers and creators, artists, DJs and live performers to help raise money for Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF).

Also known as Doctors Without Borders, MSF was founded in Paris, France in 1971 as a non-profit, self-governed medical humanitarian organisation delivering emergency aid to people affected by armed conflict, epidemics, natural disasters and exclusion from healthcare around the globe, based on need, irrespective of race, religion, gender or political affiliation.

Since that time, MSF has grown to a movement of 24 associations, bound together as MSF International, based in Switzerland. Thousands of health professionals, logistical and administrative staff – most of whom are hired locally – work on programmes in some 70 countries worldwide. See the video at the end of this article for more on MSF.

Spoonful of Sugar is now in its fifth year, and has thus far raised US $40,000 for MSF as a part of the organisation’s Vital Pact Campaign – and hopes to take that total to at least US $50,000 in 2019.

Spoonful of Sugar 2019 – market town

Every year, Spoonful of Sugar selects a theme for its core event. This year, the focus is very much middle-eastern: a desert environment with out of which have grown four small “towns”, each an oasis of human life in which the streets form a souq and home to many of the merchants participating in this year’s event. Large sponsors of the event are to be found gathered around the oasis a short walk from the landing point.

But the setting is not simply about the romance of the desert and camel trains of traders; it actually underscores the focus for Spoonful of Sugar this year: the plight of refugees, which over the last several years has been brought sharply into focus by the crises that continue to rock the middle-east. World-wide, there are now a recorded 70.8 “forcibly displaced” people (only 20 million of who are officially designated “refugees”) who – however unwillingly – have had to flee their homelands due to war, political or religious extremism, gang violence, terror, or other life-threatening circumstances.

Spoonful of Sugar 2019

These 70.8 million recognised refugees make up a significant portion of MSF’s work – as the Spoonful of Sugar landing point reveals. And in an age when those of a certain political stripe repeatedly opt to demonize people who are fleeing their homelands – and often leaving behind friends and families – to escape death and destruction as “the worst people” and / or “rapists and murderers”, focusing on the huge humanitarian efforts performed by organisations like MSF is fully warranted.

I’m here to tell you that nobody wants to leave home. They love their cities, their neighbourhoods. They love speaking their own language. The people fleeing their home countries are running because their home countries aren’t safe. They are fleeing for their lives.

– Dr. Ahmed Abdalzarag, MSF neurosurgeon

Spoonful of Sugar 2019: the work of MSF

Thus, the landing point offers visitors an opportunity to look inside a typical refugee camp and witness the work that MSF carries out, from triaging injuries and illnesses to working the logistics of food, drinking water and other essential supplies to providing shelter. Information boards throughout outline the work and offer insight into MSF’s multi-faceted work. Yes, the setting may desert, but it could also so easily be the grasslands of Africa, the forests of South America – or any of the multitude of places around the globe where refugees are attempting to seek help and support; as such I do recommend that rather than hopping straight on to the teleport boards and going shopping, people spend a few minutes within the camp.

As well as the shopping opportunities, there is also entertainment taking place over the weekends of the event – with a schedule available via the Spoonful of Sugar website. Also forming part of the event is the gacha area and the event raffle, while updates and information can also be found on the Spoonful of Sugar website.

SLurl and Links

2019 SL User Groups week #38/1: Simulator User Group

Posted on by Inara Pey
Isla de Sol, July 2019 – blog post

Server Deployments

Please refer to the server deployment thread for updates.

  • On Tuesday, September 17th, the SLS (Main) channel was updated with server release 2019-09-06T22:03:53.530715. Originally deployed to the Magnum RC on September 11th, it contains the fix  to address most cases of experience-enabled scripts losing association with their experience – see this blog post.
  • On Wednesday, September 18th, the RC channels are to be updated as follows:
    • BlueSteel and LeTigre should be updated with server release 2019-09-13T19:08:35.530941, comprising:
      • Internal Script Improvements – these should see further improvements in script processing, with the selected regions representing around 15% of the total grid.
      • Fixed “Avatar Sounds” feature fails to disable all scripted sounds.
      • [EEP] Smoothen transition time of llReplaceAgentEnvironment.
      • Updated to include current Second Life Server changes.
    • Magnum should be updated with server release 2019-09-13T20:04:44.530946, comprising minor improvements to starting and stopping regions and EEP updates and fixes.

SL Viewer

On Tuesday, September 17th, 2019 the following viewer updates were made:

  • The Vinsanto Maintenance RC viewer, version 6.3.2.530962.
  • The Legacy Profile project viewer was updated to version 6.3.2.530836.

On Monday, September 16th, the Ordered Shutdown RC viewer, version 6.3.2.530901, was released. This viewer has changes intended to make crashes on shut-down less likely, but does not have any changes to existing features.

At the time of writing, the rest of the current official viewer pipelines remain as follows:

  • Release channel cohorts:
  • Project viewers:
    • Project Muscadine (Animesh follow-on) project viewer, version 6.4.0.530100, August 19th.
    • 360 Snapshot project viewer, version 6.2.4.529111, July 16th.
  • Linux Spur viewer, version 5.0.9.329906, dated November 17, 2017 and promoted to release status 29 November 2017 – offered pending a Linux version of the Alex Ivy viewer code.
  • Obsolete platform viewer, version 3.7.28.300847, May 8, 2015 – provided for users on Windows XP and OS X versions below 10.7.

In Brief

  • The Lab is “very focused” on the problem of avatars teleporting into or out of a region overpowering local performance (scripts, etc.).
    • It’s been widely assumed that the performance is due to things like overall complexity and / or script load, etc.
    • However, while both script load and avatar complexity do have a general impact on performance, LL does not believe they are responsible for the issues seen when avatars enter / leave a region.
    • Data has been gathered on the problem, and Rider Linden indicated that LL feel they have a reasonable handle on the problem and are in a position to start experimenting to verify their findings in the near future.
  • There is period of voice maintenance due on Thursday, September 19th. This involves back-end updates to the voice system.
    • It is not clear if these updates will assist those users who, when activating voice, appear to be in their own channel with just one or two other users and must relog to join the main channel with all the others on voice.
      • This is a problem LL has noted, but Vivox have been unable to determine the cause.
      • There is a voice viewer update in the works that includes additional debugging capabilities that might help with determining the problem.

 

La Gaspesie – inspired by a corner of Canada

Posted on by Inara Pey
La Gaspesie (Canada) – click on any image for full size

We first visited La Gaspesie (Canada) some time towards the end of July or possibly early August; at that time, the region holders, Tzooki and XavierJacques were still working on the design: the board walks were – for the most part – laid out, but landscaping and the setting out of buildings was still going on. Given the state of play, we got out of the way and headed home – only to almost forget about the region in the intervening weeks. So when it did come back to mind, it seemed only right we hop back and take another look.

The region takes, as its inspiration the Gaspésie Peninsula that runs along the south shore of the Saint Lawrence River to the east of the Matapedia Valley in Quebec, Canada, and which extends into the Gulf of Saint Lawrence.

La Gaspesie (Canada)

Covering an area of some 31,075 sq km (11,998 sq mi), the peninsula’s northern shore is dominated by high sea cliffs, while at its easternmost point, there sits Percé Rock (or Rocher Percé), an island pierced by a natural rock arch. It is this landmark that serves as a focal point for the region’s inspiration, being echoed by the presence of a great rock wall also pierced by a narrow arch, sitting on the region’s eastern side.

Rather than being an island, this great wall of rock sits on a promontory of land, the rest of the region stretching westwards from it, mostly low-lying and cut by water channels that effectively split the landscape up into three large islands – although the number of bridges present can made it feel as if there are far more. Mostly rocky with a scalp of scrub grass, the low-lying lands are home to numerous buildings – huts, small houses, cottages – all of which are open to the public and within fairly easy walking distance of one another, a light scattered of trees adding to the setting.

La Gaspesie (Canada)

Off to the south-west, the height of the eastern cliffs is matched by that of a bulky lighthouse – one of two in the region – sitting atop a hump of rock. A water tower rising from the hill of the south-east headland also tries to vie with it and the cliffs in the height stakes.

Perhaps the most noticeable feature in the region is its board walks. These hug the seaward sides of the region to the west, north and east, only turning inland to the south and south-east where a channel and a bay force them to do so. Broad in width, these walkways are periodically marked by circular sections that from above resemble wooden rosettes that seem to split the board walks into sections.

La Gaspesie (Canada)

Together, these walks offer a means to pretty much circumnavigate the region – although there are plenty of ways to explore the individual major landmasses and find your way between them, as noted above. However, I have to admit I found the board walks perhaps a little too omnipresent. While they are clearly intended to offer a means of exploration (and are amenable to riding the scooters and bikes available from the rezzers near the landing point), I couldn’t help be feel they are also a little intrusive, breaking into the scene in a manner that is at odds with the otherwise very natural landscape and setting.

Now, to be honest, I have no idea if the mainland near Percé Rock is marked by board walks, and this is an attempt to emulate them (although I didn’t notice any to the same degree when looking at photos of Percé village); but it would perhaps have been nice to see come breaks in them in favour of the shingle beaches that seem to be a part of the headland facing Percé Rock. That said, there is more than enough within the region to keep eye and camera occupied without the board walks becoming too oppressive in their presence – and it cannot be denied that the region can be very eye-catching under assorted environment settings.

La Gaspesie (Canada)

Finished with an excellent ambient soundscape and with a variety of things to do from sitting and cuddling to riding bikes and scooters or messing about in bumper boats,  La Gaspesie (Canada)  does make for an engaging visit. For those in particularly need of an unwind from the day’s stresses, a link is provided in the region’s About Land description to some 26+ minutes of “unwindulaxing” music…

SLurl and Links