Kerry Harbour Pop Up Gallery is currently hosting an exhibition of art arranged by Michel Bechir of the Lyric Gallery. It features art by ViktorSavior, Xia Firethorn and Carey Chenault, and forms a small, cosy exhibition, with Xia and Carey noted as winners of the Lyric Gallery’s Visual Feast Music Competition.
Located in a small town house, the exhibition sits on two floors. On the ground floor and occupying the front room is a selection of ViktorSavior’s paints of cloud formations. Half a dozen of these charming and rich cloudscapes, and the opportunity to take your own picture against a backdrop of clouds over a coastal sea-scape by Viktor.
Kerry Harbour Pop Up Gallery – Xia Firethorn
In the back room of the house is a set of four images by Xia Firethorn and focused of Second Life landscapes that are captivating in scope and presentation, and one avatar study, The Kimono, which is quite bewitching in its form and narrative.
The single upper floor of the gallery is devoted to Carey Chenault’s art. Again focusing on Second Life landscapes, Carey’s work is smaller in scale than Xia’s and Viktor’s allowing for a larger display of pieces – 11 in total – featuring some of SL’s popular destinations.
Kerry Harbour Pop Up Gallery – Carey Chenault
Cosy, easy-on-the-eye and with some captivating images, this is a charming exhibition worth taking the time to visit.
:oxygen:, October 2019 – click any image for full size
:Oxygen: is the name of a new Full region that has opened its doors to the public and makes for a superb visit for Second Life explorers, with plenty of opportunity for fun and photography.
Designed by Justice Vought and SixDigital, the region offers an engaging mix of beaches, rugged hills and a small town awaiting exploration, while those looking for a little romance or quite times will also find things to do, be it sitting quietly or catching a film at the beach-side drive-in. Those who enjoy thrills might also find things to do as well.
:oxygen:, October 2019
We’ve been working on this sim for the last couple of months and it’s finally finished and open to the public.
You will find lots of spots for your photography, a train station and quaint street, a lodge with board games as well as pool and shuffle board, surfing, bumper boats, a harbour, a watermill and small gallery, and a drive-in movie theatre as well as tons of places to chill and hang out. There are also some hidden surprises so be sure to explore.
– SixDigital, introducing Oxygen
:oxygen:, October 2019
There is no set landing point for the region, so I’ve simply followed the suggestion offered by Shawn Shakespeare and selected the little town’s railway station platform (given a familiar number of 9 3/4!) as a starting point for explorations. From here, it is possible to walk west along the single street of the little town, passing cosy little houses and boutique shops while the grassy hills fall away northwards to a surf-fronted beach.
The beach runs south-to-north along one side of the region, offering numerous places to sit and the chance to go surfing. However, do keep in mind the houses that book-end it to the north and south are private – so please avoid trespassing into them. A path from the beach runs past he drive-in and behind the gardens behind the northern house to where a busy little waterfront wharf and piers are laid out.
:oxygen:, October 2019
Above this, and reached via sets of wooden stairs and platforms is The Mystic, the region’s public mountain lodge. This offers cosy places to sit and relax, play board games, enjoy views out over the region, or explore onwards and downwards into the rugged gorge separates the lodge from the little town.
This is where the gallery referred to in SixDigital’s description of the region can be found, nestled in a slightly careworn watermill and displaying some of SixDigital’s photography. Outside of the lodge are bull riding, bungee jumping and a zip-line for thrill seekers, while an open-air deck provides a home for live music events, the grass before it a nature dance floor.
:oxygen:, October 2019
Finished a full sound scape and surrounded by high peaks, :oxygen: is a picturesque setting deserving of photography. It is easy on the eye and on the viewer. The official opening for the region will take place on Sunday, October 27th, when DJ Apple Xevion will be spinning the records between 12:00 noon and 14:00 SLT, and a prize pool of L$10,000 is on offer in a Halloween costume contest – just go along dressed in your favourite Halloween outfit for a chance to win a prize!
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde – Sunday, October 27th, 2019
Following the rebroadcast of a live radio adaptation of Mary Shelley’s classic Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus on Sunday, October 20th, Seanchai Library, in association with The Ravenheart Museum of Art, Culture, and Curious Things and Fantasy Faire Radio, will be presenting a special live performance of Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde on Sunday, October 27th, 2019.
Published in 1886, the novella is perhaps most famously known by the shorter title Jekyll and Hyde, although it has also been called The Strange Case of Jekyll Hyde, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. It came three years after his first major commercial success, Treasure Island, and was followed shortly afterwards by Kidnapped (also first published in 1886), which between them form the triumvirate of Stevenson’s most famous works, although in his career he wrote 13 novels (two in progress at the time of his premature death at the age of 44), and also published six major collections of short stories.
Robert Louis Stevenson in 1885, shortly before he wrote The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
Jekyll and Hyde was a product of Stevenson’s long-standing fascination with the manner in which the human personality involves the interplay of “right” and “wrong” (or “good” and “evil”, and what happens when this interplay becomes fractured within and individual. Whilst a work of fiction, the novella has nevertheless had a significant impact in defining personality traits, particularly with “Jekyll and Hyde” entering the vernacular in describing those who can exhibit extremes of personality – and may not even be cognisant of the abrupt swing from one to the other and back.
The novella itself had something of an extended gestation period.
In the 1870s, Stevenson became friends with French teacher Eugene Chantrelle, a seemingly pleasant member of the same Edinburgh circles in which Stevenson moved. Following Chantrelle’s arrest on suspicion of murdering his wife in 1878 (for which he was eventually hanged), Stevenson was present throughout the trial, during it which it was revealed the “upstanding” Chantrelle was, behind closed doors, a violent man – and was likely responsible for a series of murders in France and England – and possibly as many as six others in Edinburgh.
At the same time, Stevenson had written a play about another man with a double life in Edinburgh 100 years previously. William “Deacon” Brodie was, on the one hand, a respected Edinburgh craftsman well-regarded by the wealthy of the city- whom he would burgle by night in order to feed his secret gambling habit. That play, aided by a short story entitled Markheim, published in 1884, helped pave the way for the Jekyll and Hyde novella, with Chantrelle’s case acting as the core inspiration.
The story itself is said to come together very quickly, as related by both Stevenson’s wife, Fanny, and his step-son, Lloyd, and may have been spurred by a series of lucid dreams Stevenson suffered due to the drugs he was taking at the time to combat illness.
I don’t believe that there was ever such a literary feat before as the writing of Dr Jekyll. I remember the first reading as though it were yesterday. Louis came downstairs in a fever; read nearly half the book aloud; and then, while we were still gasping, he was away again, and busy writing. I doubt if the first draft took so long as three days.
– Samuel Lloyd Osbourne, Stevenson’s step-son
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde set
The 90-minute performance by Seanchai Library features a script adapted from the Stevenson’s work by Dav5id Abbot and Caledonia Skytower. It will take place at Wandervale, home of the creators of the Octoberville and Wicked Winter interactive experiences, and feature the voice talents of Abbot and Skytower, together with Corwyn Allen, Shandon Loring, Elrik Merlin, Kayden Oconnell, and Votarn “VT” Torvalar.
Residents are warmly invited to attend the performance in-world which will commence at 14:00 SLT on Sunday, October 27th, 2019. It will be broadcast on the region’s stream and also by Fantasy Faire radio at fantasy.radioriel.org, or http://streams.radioriel.org:8070/stream, and so can be listened to in-world from your own home or on the web.
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde on Fantasy Faire Radio is sponsored by The Ravenheart Museum of Art, Culture, and Curious Things, featuring one of the largest public collections of Alia’s Baroque’s Libertine Eggs by Alia Baroque, and hosting the exhibition A Conspiracy of Ravens (read here for more about both exhibitions).
The following notes are taken from my audio recording of the Content Creation User Group (CCUG) meeting held on Thursday, October 24th 2019 at 13:00 SLT. These meetings are chaired by Vir Linden, and agenda notes, meeting SLurl, etc, are available on the Content Creation User Group wiki page.
SL Viewers
Pipeline Updates
The Copy / Paste project viewer adds buttons for copying the X, Y, Z co-ordinates for the Position, Size and Rotation of an object to the official viewer’s Build / Edit floater, offering a similar capability to that provided by TPVs
The Love Me Render RC viewer updated to version 6.3.3.532031 on Wednesday, October 23rd, bringing it to parity with the current release viewer. The rest of the viewer pipelines remain as follows:
Current Release version 6.3.2.530962, formerly the Vinsanto Maintenance RC viewer, dated September 17th, promoted October 15th – NEW.
Release channel cohorts:
Love Me Render RC viewer, version 6.3.3.532031, October 23rd.
Ordered Shutdown RC viewer, version 6.3.3.531767, October 21st.
Maintenance RC viewer, version 6.3.3.531784, October 18th.
Voice RC viewer, version 6.3.3.531811, October 18th.
Copy / Paste viewer, version 6.3.3.531844, released on Monday, October 21st.
Legacy Profiles viewer, version 6.3.2.530836, September 17th. Covers the re-integration of Viewer Profiles.
Project Muscadine (Animesh follow-on) project viewer, version 6.4.0.530473, September 11th.
360 Snapshot project viewer, version 6.2.4.529111, July 16th.
ARCTan
Project Summary
An attempt to re-evaluate object and avatar rendering costs to make them more reflective of the actual impact of rendering both. The overall aim is to try to correct some inherent negative incentives for creating optimised content (e.g. with regards to generating LOD models with mesh), and to update the calculations to reflect current resource constraints, rather than basing them on outdated constraints (e.g. graphics systems, network capabilities, etc).
Current Status
Vir is working on trying to gather data on the impact of textures in rendering avatars and objects.
Project Muscadine
Project Summary
Currently: offering the means to change an Animesh size parameters via LSL.
Current Status
The server-side support or Muscadine is awaiting an update.
The viewer has been merged up to the latest release viewer (no actual updates to the Muscadine code), and is awaiting QA testing.
Environment Enhancement Project
Project Summary
A set of environmental enhancements (e.g. the sky, sun, moon, clouds, and water settings) to be set region or parcel level, with support for up to 7 days per cycle and sky environments set by altitude. It uses a new set of inventory assets (Sky, Water, Day), and includes the ability to use custom Sun, Moon and cloud textures. The assets can be stored in inventory and traded through the Marketplace / exchanged with others, and can additionally be used in experiences.
Due to performance issues, the initial implementation of EEP will now likely not include certain atmospherics such as crepuscular rays (“God rays”).
The anticipated viewer update has been delayed as a result of a couple of the changes made resulting in unintended outcomes whilst in testing. Plus the viewer now needs to be merged up to the current release viewer.
Still no back-end updates while Ptolemy and Euclid continue to get up-to-speed with the SL rendering engine and pipelines.
Other Items in Brief
BUG-227585 “[BOM] Display the new Universal wearables between the Skin and the Tattoos ones” is a feature request suggesting the new Universal Wearables for Bakes on Mesh be moved from sitting above the skin and tattoo layers, to being between them.
With a noted reservation that doing so will change behaviour so are already using, the Lab has accepted the idea as something they might consider.
The Jira includes additional discussion points / ideas.
The meeting included a discussion (voice and text) on alpha sorting and the issues that can occur within it when using alpha blending. Some of these issues are SL specific, others are more generic in nature and found within OpenGL in general. The suggestion was made to allow a certain amount of creator-defined ordering with objects, but there were several concerns raised around this by creators and the Lab, including the potential for performance impacts.
The above discussion spiked into one about avatar meshes, the potential for a new “standardised” (or “Lab-driven) “mesh avatar 2.0”, that could be far more rendering efficient than all existing models, th pro (better efficiency of design and rendering) and cons (whole new system incompatible with existing heads / bodies & getting people to use it).
Also folded into this was a conversation on how to encourage creators to make more efficient content.
One suggestions is to have some form of “scoring” system taking into consideration item complexity, use of textures, etc., that determines how high up on Marketplace searches goods appear & thus are likely to be seen and purchased – the idea being that by trying to “game” the scoring system, creators produce better content.
This skips the case of items sold in-world (how are scores enforced on vendors?). And also has a problem of how does an automated system “score” pre-packaged items uploaded to the MP (since it would only be able to assess the packaging, not the content)?
Alternatively, Vir pointed out that there is a lot more that the Bake Service could do in assessing the complexity of avatars in-world, and this could be potentially more meaningful in the future as ARCTan progresses beyond the current scope of the project.
Overall, and given the amount of legacy content in SL, one of the core ways of encouraging better content is seen as not only making improvements to the mesh uploader and trying to push creators into making more efficient content – but to give users the tools and reporting that help educate them about what is going on around them, what is causing potential performance issues and then allowing them to start making more informed decisions on how they set their viewer and the kind of content they purchase.
Date of next meeting: Thursday, November 14th, 2019.
In September 2019, I toured the Museum of Fine Arts with curator Tonem (see: The Museum of Fine Arts in Second Life), and was impressed with the care and attention that has been put into the gallery’s operation in making it as much akin to the experience of visiting a physical world art museum / gallery as possible.
Since that original article was posted, the team behind the Museum of Fine Arts have been continuing to develop the museum’s grounds, and also recently opened the second part of their exhibition of art by les trois grandes dames of French Impressionism, so this gave me a reason to pop back and spend time once more at the museum.
The Museum of Fine Arts: Berthe Morisot, self-portrait, 1882
Having featured the art of Marie Bracquemond in the first part of the grades dames exhibit, this second part features the work of Berthe Marie Pauline Morisot (1841- 1895), and it can be found in the Lindal Kidd terrace gallery space, which had now been increased to two side-by-side pavilions behind the main museum building (just enter the main building and past through the ground-floor exhibition spaces and exit through the rear doors to find the terrace).
Morisot was born into a family enmeshed in the arts: her father, while local administrator, was trained in architecture, while her mother was the great-niece of Jean-Honoré Fragonard, one of the most prolific Rococo painters of the ancien régime. So, even allowing for art being a natural part of her education, she and her sisters perhaps received additional encouragement in pursuing it. This encouragement continued through her early career, which brought her into contact with artists such as Édouard Manet and Oscar-Claude Monet and Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot.
Her own work was not publicly exhibited for the first time until 1864 – largely because she was a hard self-critic, destroying a lot of her early pieces because she regarded them as not being good enough – particularly her early work in oil paints, a medium she particularly struggled with initially. However, from the early 1870s Morisot began to be exhibited more regularly, gained a patron – private art dealer Paul Durand-Ruel. By the late 1870s, she was regarded as the “one real Impressionist in this group”, and judged Morisot among the best of the impressionists by many art critics.
What is particularly engaging about the exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts is that it amounts to perhaps the large single gathering of Morisot’s work to be seen in the world today outside of the Louvre in Paris. As such, it is a must-see for anyone with a love of classical art, whilst again demonstrating the uniqueness of SL itself as a means to present such a collection to what amounts to a global audience.
The Museum of Fine Arts: Berthe Morisot
In keeping with the Museum’s approach, individual pieces are offered to scale to one another and of a size equating to how they would appear in the physical world when standing before them. This can make individual paintings a little small when viewing them and call into use some steady Alt-camming, but the effort is worth it. In addition, each is displayed with an information card giving the title, date, medium and provenance of the piece – all of which can be viewed in local chat by clicking on a painting.
This is another engaging, engrossing exhibition of physical world art, offering a unique opportunity to appreciate the work of one of the great names of the French Impressionist movement.
Nostalgia Falls, October 2019 – click any image for full size
For those who enjoy a touch of Halloween without things going overboard in terms of pumpkins, witches, ghosts and so on, then the Homestead region of Nostalgia Falls designed by Noisette Haller could be just the ticket for a visit in the next couple of weeks.
Caught under an orange sky that is suitably atmospheric for the time of year, the region offers some touches of Halloween throughout, but also offers other opportunities for enjoyment and photography.
Nostalgia Falls, October 2019
Forming a rough L-shape, the lower arm running east-west and the vertical south-north and with a gentle westward curve, Nostalgia Falls is a region of roughly two parts. The southern arm of the island is defined by a railway line and little end-of-the-line country station, the tracks occupied by the familiar form of the DRD Arctic Express, this one pulling just the one carriage – which also forms the landing point.
To the east of the little station sit the ruins of houses, one of which appears to have suffered a gas explosion – a large propane tank is ablaze, as is the house. North of the station is a large plaza overlooking open water and a small wharf, a little coffee shop and a carousel offering distractions for visitors – or the opportunity to appreciate all the little touches within the space and along the waterfront.
Nostalgia Falls, October 2019
The Halloween influences are subtle but apparent – cobwebs a-plenty can be found, while a ghostly mist swirls around the locomotive while pumpkins are a little in evidence. There is also a nice touch of humour here as well, in the form of an old lady selling cats in an echo of the “mad cat” old ladies of legend (do catch the Schrödinger’s Cat poster on the stall!).
Beyond the plaza, the north-south arm of the island is home to a little group of houses, all of which appear to be open to the public and are also lightly decorated for Halloween, but again without anything being too excessive. This is another place where there are a lot of little touches to be found, while the track passing before the houses offers the way to a little headland and a pumpkin patch where things do get a little more fanciful, with some of the pumpkins having reached quite extraordinary sizes!
Nostalgia Falls, October 2019
The southern end of this track rises to the top of a little promontory that is home to a stables sitting with its back to the horseshoe of waterfalls that likely give the region its name. A paths and steps from here offer a way down to a meadow where the horses can roam – and which under a brighter sky offers a wonderful taste of autumn splendour.
For those who like more of a touch of Halloween, this can be found in the haunted house located in the south-east corner of the region, together with a little haunted ruin alongside. Here, and across the region can be found places for dancing for those so inclined while overhead – for those who look up, more of an air of mystery is await discovery as an off-shore Moon is at times given to impersonating some of the planets.
Nostalgia Falls, October 2019
Given the mist, particles and other items around the landing point, some might find their viewer / systems struggling with the load – something that can be exacerbated if there are several visitors to the region. However, the north end of the region and the middle-area meadow did, on our visits, tend to be kinder to our systems. Other than this, Nostalgia falls makes for a photogenic visit and is happy to be seen under a variety of windlight settings.
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 