Month: December 2019

Overlapping Realities in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
Itakos Project – Overlapping Realities: On Mars You Only See What You Wanna See! by Jean Toussaint Tosi

I’ve long been a supporter of the use of Second Life as a medium for artists to present their physical world art to audiences they might otherwise not be able to meet. While there are other means for 2D artists in particular to be able to present their work – their own websites and photo-sharing platforms such as Flickr / Smug Mug, for example – Second Life presents something of a unique opportunity to allow an audience to experience more of a uniquely “personal” involvement when witnessing physical world art and photography in-world.

Hence why I was drawn to Overlapping Realities, at The Itakos Project, an exhibition featuring the work of Jean Toussaint Tosi, a Corsican born, Paris residing photo artist. As well as providing the mean to witness Tosi’s work, the exhibition marks the start of a new series of exhibitions at Itakos Project, one that adds a unique flavour to physical work art being shown through Second Life, as gallery founder and creator Akim Alonzo explains:

With Overlapping Realities the Itakos Art Gallery inaugurates a new experience and exhibition concept: to show works by artists who have no presence in the Second life virtual world.

The Itakos Project – Overlapping Realities: Vision #12 by Jean Toussaint Tosi

As Akim goes on to note, while Tosi is an artist with no virtual presence in Second Life, thus very much making his work as fitting the aim of this new series of exhibitions, his photography carries with it a cinematic look as feel that is both rich in presence and style, it can also be surrealistic in look and tone. In doing so, it can be said to both reflect the richness, depth, and sometime surreal nature in having a virtual life, and so becomes a fitting bridge between SL and the aims of the exhibitions it inaugurates.

Offered in monochrome, these prints are quite marvellous in scope, forming sweeping panoramas rich in story. Some have a dark or coy sense of humour about them, while the surrealism can clearly be evidenced in pieces like On Mars You Only See What You Wanna See! (seen at the top of this article). Nor is that all; in places, Tosi’s photography offers commentary on life (She’s Waiting on the lower floor of the gallery hall and shown below) and / or issues such as the climate (Waves, aka Vision #7).

Itakos Project – Overlapping Realities: She’s Waiting by Jean Toussaint Tosi

I am above all, a serious humorist photographer.
Just a dreamer who loves all kind of pictures!
I’m never satisfied but I always try to do the best I can.
Many thanks to all the dreamers who follow me!

– Jean Toussaint Tosi, describing his work

Drawing on elements of fashion, fantasy, science fiction and Hollywood, coloured – despite their monochrome nature of the pieces in this exhibit –  with Tosi’s vision and outlook, Overlapping Realities is a marvellous exhibition in its own right and serves as an excellent introduction to his art as a whole; each of the images here link directly to his Flickr stream for those wishing to see them in full and explore the rest of his work.

Itakos Project – Overlapping Realities: Vision #6, by Jean Toussaint Tosi

An official opening for Overlapping Realities will be held on Saturday, December 14th, 2019 starting at 13:30 SLT.

SLurl Details

On the Other Side for Winter 2019 in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
On The Other Side, December 2019 – click any image for full size

We last visited On The Other Side in February 2019, when the region – designed by xxMichelle20xx and Indrielx – was all set for spring (see: Back On The Other Side in Second Life). But given it does change with the seasons, we decided to go and see what the winter months might have brought forth – and it turns out that the region has been transformed into a marvellous rural winter wonderland.

Surrounded by a range of mountains, On The Other Side forms a little coastal area or island setting, watched over by a red brick lighthouse and within which the buildings are few and far between, the majority of the landscape being a haven for assorted wildlife. Even so, there are some echoes of past designs to be found, some of which might be easy to spot by returning visitors, while others might require a little searching out.

On The Other Side, December 2019

As with past designs, the landing point is underground – in this case a wintry cavern decorated as a (perhaps chilly) reading room. From here the way out into the region gets a trifle foreboding – a drop down to a lower cave via ladder brings visitors to the remains of five unfortunates lying in the snow and a ghostly figure, palms aflame, apparently pressed against the frosted exit to the cave. Step through this into the region proper, and then next surprise awaits: a large bear, angrily rearing up on his hind legs at you.

While all this sounds menacing, once you’re past the bear (who is actually quite harmless, giving rise to the temptation to comment “Why, Paddington! What big teeth you’ve got!” when passing him), you’ll find yourself in a marvellous winter landscape where admirable restraint has been shown in putting out falling snow (often a performance killer) and which keeps itself predominantly as a landscape in winter, rather than a frame for all the usual seasonal trappings for the end of December.

On The Other Side, December 2019

Most of the region looks open to the public, although there is a high table of rock to the south-east topped by a small cabin that might well be private: there is no obvious path up to this, and we weren’t going to start forcing our way up the one obvious slope to reach it for fear of trespass were it to prove to be so.

The cabin looks out across a gently curving bay, its sand dusted in snow, to where that lighthouse rises from the north-eastern headland. Both cabin and lighthouse have a little comic reflection of Santa on roof and chimney, while the lighthouse is open to the public as the region’s Christmas hang out.

On The Other Side, December 2019

But it is the lands between and to the west of these headlands that holds the attractions of the region. Marked by rocky uplands with snowy trails winding around and between them, and in places marked by paths and steps climbing their slopes, the region here feels more expansive than its 65,536 sq metres. This is a landscape blanketed in snow and home to a mix of fir trees and naked oak, birch and maple, their trunks an boughs well whitened with hoarfrost.

Across the setting there is much to be found, with the animal life mixing domesticated cows and sheep with horses, wildfowl, deer, reindeer, wolves, seals, penguins, raccoons, otters, jaguars, pandas – even a giant turtle!. Most of these form scenes-within-scenes across the region, awaiting discovery and photographs, gathered together in a little vignette that stands both on its own and as a natural part of the whole. More are set out quite naturally – although the pandas clearly have the right idea for dealing with the cold!

On The Side Side, December 2019

Everywhere across the region, from the southern seal cove to the northern cave (home to Ganesh, who has also featured in past iterations of the region) are places to sit and spend time. These range from chairs set out on decks or along the eastern beach (which offers surfing for those feeling like they need a cold dip!), to a cosy huts and blanket-laden carts and sleighs people and huddle and cuddle within to keep warm. For those wanting to escape the snow and cold, a barn and the Christmas Hangout offer more places to sit and enjoy the warmth of a fire (we were also appreciative of the hot cider as we explored!).

Previous versions of On The Other Side have included more eclectic elements to them, aspects that offer a little twist of fantasy. This is also this case with this build: anchored to the ground by a stout rope and held aloft by magical runes circling below it, floats a tiny island. Reached by climbing the rope, it offers another place to sit – and quite the high point to view the region as a whole; however, getting back to ground level in head-first descent can be a little dizzying!

On The Other Side, December 2019

Beautifully designed, accompanied by an ideal sound scape and filled with detail, On The Other Side once again offers a delightful, highly photogenic region that should not be missed.

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2019 OpenSimulator Community Conference December 14th / 15th

Posted on by Inara Pey
Image courtesy of the OpenSimulator Community Conference

The 2019 OpenSimulator Community  Conference is in progress over the weekend of December 14th and 15th. An annual event, the conference focuses on the developer and user community creating the OpenSimulator software.  It is organised as a joint production by Core Developers of OpenSimuator and AvaCon, and this year is sponsored and supported by University of California, Irvine, Institute for Virtual Environments and Computer Games, together with members of the Opensim community.

The conference once again features business presentations, talks, panel discussions, workshops, social events and hypergrid activities, covering a wide range of subject areas, including education, social VR, using virtual worlds and environments for historical recreations – and much more besides.

You can find the full schedule of events on the OpenSimulator Community Conference website, together with instructions on how to log-in and join and of the sessions.  Those wishing to register and support the conference can do so through the registration page. This is not required, but those who are willing to do so help to cover the cost of running these conferences.

Image courtesy of the OpenSimulator Community Conference
Image courtesy of the OpenSimulator Community Conference

To encourage interest in the conference, there will be two social events held on Friday, December 13th (as well as during the conference itself). These are:

  • 14:00-16:00 PST- Tour of the International Spaceflight Museum in Kitely: ISM Exhibit Building Chair Mike Lorrey will personally lead and narrate a tour of the ISMuseum region in Kitely, with detailed explanations of the many exhibited rockets, spacecraft, and astronaut/pioneer exhibits. Come prepared to listen in voice. The first hour will be a tour with a considerable narrative explanation.Tour will be followed by a dance party in the Rocket Ring with DJ Rosa Alekseev.
    • Grid Name: Kitely – http://kitely.com.
    • Region Name: ISMuseum.
    • Parcel/Venue Name: ISMuseum Southwest,Rocket Ring.
    • HyperGrid URL: grid.kitely.com:8002.
  • 18:00-19:00 PST: Magnolia Gardens Party: explore Magnolia Gardens of Knowledge, interact with the Digital Teaching Assistants designed to guide new users learning to use the SceneGate Viewer, relax, fish, ride the jet skis, or dance the night away with music throughout.
    • Grid Name: Metaverse Depot.
    • Region Name: IMA Outpost Alpha.
    • Parcel/Venue Name: Magnolia Gardens.
    • Grid Website: http://grid.metaversedepot.com:8002/wifi/welcome.html.
    • HyperGrid URL: http://grid.metaversedepot.com:8002:ima%20outpost%20alpha.
    • Note: if you land in the default Depot region, select Magnolia Gardens on the quick teleport board; if you use the teleport system with the image, select Magnolia Gardens in the list then click the picture to teleport; if you arrive inside the lighthouse, click the yellow cylinder to teleport to the venue.

Related Links

Second Life 2019 Shop and Hop

Posted on by Inara Pey
Shop and Hop 2019

The end-of-year Shop and Hop event, organised by Linden Lab, opened it doors on Friday, December 13th, 2019 at 09:00 SLT.

This year  sees 120 content creators participating in the event, offering a minimum 20% discount on items and a free, non-group gift on offer to all shoppers (look for the Shop and Hop gift box). In addition, some merchants are offering additional gifts and freebies of their own.

Unsurprisingly, avatar fashion, accessories and wearables (hair, skins, make-up, hats, etc), dominate the event, while scattered throughout are indoor and outdoor furnishings, buildings and skyboxes,

For 2019, stores are spread across six regions – one up from 2019, comprising: Aurelian, Gilded, Gleaming, Golden, Halycon, and Tinseled. All of the shopping regions are bordered north and south by “overspill” regions. Should the region you’re attempting to reach be full, you may be redirected to one of the two landing areas for that region, where you’ll be greeted by the message:

Sorry, but you are in an overflow region. Feel free to cam around and window shop while you wait for a space to be available.

Shop and Hop will remain open through until Monday, January 6th, 2020, so shoppers will hopefully have time to explore, by their gifts (or treat themselves!).

Shop and Hop SLurls

All of the regions are rated General.

Cica’s Donkeys in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
Donkeys by Cica Ghost – The Sim Quarterly

Cica Ghost returns to The Sim Quarterly with a new installation. Donkeys opened on Thursday, December 12th, and it is once again a delightful and light-hearted installation. As the name suggests, it is a place with a certain focus on domesticated equus africanus asinus. However, within it, visitors can find nods to many of Cica’s past installations and work, all of which means that it is place that is guaranteed to raise a smile, whether as a result of discovering Cica’s work for the first time, or because of the Donkeys and their heart-warming looks or because of the flashes of recognition brought about when coming across those familiar touches.

The donkeys, with their oversized ears and curious, confused looks, sit within a grassy, hilly land from which palm trees rise. Around this landscape sit Cica’s familiar finger-like houses, some of which are closed, others of which offer little vignettes. Ladders climb up to some, while others sit close enough to the ground to be entered without assistance.

Donkeys by Cica Ghost – The Sim Quarterly

Within these houses are interactive elements – seats, dances, surprises – and reminders of works like 50 Cats (see 50 cats in Second Life) and Strings (see: Cica’s beautiful Strings and stories). When exploring, it is essential you mouse over almost everything in sight in order to find opportunities for sitting and dancing – and for hanging around! For those who prefer, three sailing boats sitting on the waters around the island each offer a little perch from which to watch the comings and goings of others.

But really, it is the donkeys that hold  the attention; there is something quite touching about their soulful and at times slightly confused or worried looks; it’s hard not to to be drawn to them. Watched over by seagulls and some of Cica’s snails, they stand on their own or in little groups as if conversing. Nor are they entirely static – mouse over some and you’ll find additional sit points and poses.

Donkeys by Cica Ghost – The Sim Quarterly

Following on from Rocks, Cica’s previous installation at The Sim Quarterly, Donkeys is another charming setting – one that offers just the right amount of lightness and cause for smiles given the time of year. When visiting, it is recommended you have local sounds enabled.

SLurl Details

2019 Content Creation User Group week #50 summary

Posted on by Inara Pey
Shadowlands Retreat, October 2019 – blog post

The following notes are taken from my audio recording of the Content Creation User Group (CCUG) meeting held on Thursday, December 12th 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.

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”).

Resources

Current Status

  • Bug fixing continues – the estimate is around 18 or so bugs the Lab would like to resolve prior to any potential release.

Project Muscadine

Project Summary

Currently: offering the means to change an Animesh size parameters via LSL.

Current Status

  • Still on hold due to the focus on ARCTan.
  • There are still requests to allow attachments on Animesh items.
    • This is something Vir hopes to look at in detail later in Muscadine.
    • It may require attachments to be handled differently to how they are managed with avatars.

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 getting things to a state where he can do so practical testing over the holiday period to ensure the relevant data is being collected. This is dependent on whether he has the time to confirm the internal version of the viewer is logging everything it needs to be logging.
  • The work is still very much focused on the data collection aspect, rather than doing anything with the data that is gathered.
  • It is not currently clear whether the ARCTan work will appear in a dedicated project viewer or will form a part of a Maintenance viewer update.

Texture Caching and Loading

  • LL is working on a viewer intended to improve texture loading and texture caching (the latter as part of a general overall of how the viewer caches data).
  • This will hopefully include a rethinking of the order in which textures are loaded (e.g. objects  / faces that all use the same texture may all have that texture loaded together/in sequence, rather than the texture having to be re-loaded each time it is encountered).
  • The improvements should see textures load faster in general. In particular, there is a re-examination of some of the “optimisation” work previously done with textures, as this might actually now be slowing things down, so the hope is the new viewer will streamline how textures are handled and loaded in general, so bringing about improvements.
    • An example of this is switching the viewer from downloading a texture (or grabbing it from cache) and rendering it incrementally to just letting it grab the entire texture, particularly now that most broadband connections will allow this without it becoming a significant bottleneck.
    • This will allow a significant reduction in the amount of checking and re-checking the viewer has to carry out when obtaining and loading textures, which can have an impact.
  • Hopefully, the viewer will also improve the texture load order (e.g. those textures nearest to you or filling your immediate field of view, such as a vendor board on a wall, will be loaded and rendered first, rather than waiting for other textures loading first).
  • There is currently no date on when this viewer might surface for public use.