Day: July 21, 2020

Blake Sea in the cloud on ADITI

Posted on by Inara Pey
Blake Sea is now on Aditi and running in the cloud for those wishing to test vehicle region crossings

Following from the announcement concerning Ahern and Morris on Aditi (the beta grid), being in the cloud – see my Simulator User Group update of July 14th, 2020 – it has been announced that most / all of Blake Sea has also now been cloned to Aditi, and is also running on AWS cloud servers.

The came via a forum post by Mazidox Linden on Monday, July 21st, and the move has been made so that those who use boats and aircraft can carry out region crossing tests.

We’ve now expanded the number of regions we’re running in the cloud on Aditi to include the entirety of the Blake Sea mainland regions. For those of you who aren’t familiar with Blake Sea, you can use the following entry points to log in on Aditi and rez a vehicle to start exploring:
Blake Sea – Japan (secondlife://Aditi/secondlife/Blake%20Sea%20-%20Japan/207/248/22)
Blake Sea – Beagle (secondlife://Aditi/secondlife/Blake%20Sea%20-%20Beagle/207/208/13)
Blake Sea – Mainbrace (secondlife://Aditi/secondlife/Blake%20Sea%20-%20Mainbrace/211/241/16)
Blake Sea – Atlantic (secondlife://Aditi/secondlife/Blake%20Sea%20-%20Atlantic/245/219/16)
Objectives:
Test region crossing code (particularly using vehicles) between cloud simulators on the same host, and cloud simulators on different hosts.

– Mazidox Linden, July 21st

Again, just to emphasise, this is Aditi, the beta grid, only (at least one person has responded to the thread referencing Blake Sea region crossings on Agni, the main grid).

Those wishing to try boat / aircraft region crossings can do so by logging-in to Aditi and teleporting to the locations given above. you can also use Blake Sea – Half Hitch on Aditi for rezzing boats and seaplanes can be rezzed.

When testing, be aware that crossings between these regions can be unpredictable – so please do report your experiences via the forum thread, and with the following points in mind, as also indicated by Mazidox:

  • Some regions can cause you to “bounce off an invisible wall” at the region border, even though you are able to see into them.
    • Please report instances of this occurring in the forum thread, including the name of the region you were in, the region you were trying to enter, the date, and the time.
  • Some regions will not show up at the edge of your current region, even though they are adjacent.
    • Again, please report instances of this occurring in the forum thread, including the name of the region you were in, the region that failed to appear, the date, and the time.
  • HTTP-out for LSL scripts is disabled on cloud-based regions, as is sending e-mails via LSL scripts. Please do not report either, as both are currently working as intended.

to Access Aditi

If you have not logged-into Aditi before, you should file a support ticket requesting access.

Once your ticket has been responded to, you can log-in to Aditi via any Second Life viewer using to SL account name and password:

  • Launch the viewer.
  • If the grid selection option is not displayed, press CTRL-SHIFT-G.
  • Select Beta Test Grid (Aditi) from the drop-down (see below).
  • Enter you log-in credentials.
Use the Grid selection option in any viewer to access the beta grid
  • To return to the Main Grid select Second Life Main Grid (Agni) at your next login

Note: when you log-in, your inventory may not reflect your inventory on the main grid (so you may not have your desired vehicle available, for example), and you’re need to wait for your inventory to be duplicated from Agni (the main grid).

The inventory copying process is automatic, and occurs at approximately 06:00 SLT daily. Simply by logging-in to Aditi you will have flagged your inventory to be updated the next time the copy process is run, so you should not need to wait more than 24-hours for your Aditi inventory to properly reflect your Agni inventory.

Further information on Aditi can be found on the Preview Grid page of the SL wiki.

Premièring on July 24th, 2020: STÖMOL a Second Life Machinima

Posted on by Inara Pey
STÖMOL publicity image

Update: due to some last-minute changes, the public première of  STÖMOL is now slated for July 24th – details at the end of this article.

STÖMOL is an ambitious feature-length science fiction machinima filmed entirely in Second Life and due to première on You Tube on Thursday July 23rd, 2020.

Written, directed filmed and produced by Huckleberry Hax, who also takes the lead role of Epi Stömol, a private investigator. Also appearing in the film are Caitlin Tobias as Waarheid and who is also the film’s assistant director and publicist; Ylva as Verity Certain, Boudicca Amat as Istinito Tatsache, Anthony Wesburn as Adevaru) and Mich Michabo as The Quill.

Stylistically, the film is very much shot in the style of an animated graphic novel – think of the likes of Sin City and you’ll get the idea – that grew out of Hax’s writing and Second Life photography. In all it has taken some 18 months to produce, and involved filming in more than 15 regions around Second Life. These include Zee9’s evolving Drune builds, which I’ve featured in these pages on a number of occasions (see: Drune IV: an Aftermath in Second Life, and Drune: a further visit in Second Life, for example), and the (now sadly passed into history) Kun-Tei-Ner by Lotus Mastroianni and Fred Hamilton (see: Kun-Tei-Ner: a water world in Second Life) and Huntington Beach, designed by Jade Koltai, although it has also since passed into a the pages of history (see: A trip to Huntington Beach in Second Life).

Described as being about “history” in the form of climate change and “truth” – topics that should both resonate with an audience, given the current geopolitical situation in the modern world – STÖMOL  is framed around the search for a pair of missing coders, a boy and a girl called the Eye and the Quill respectively, who may hold the key to unlocking the truth about Earth’s current situation- or perhaps they represent something else.

Official history tells us the sky turned red after an asteroid hit the planet and a trillion particles of dust got blasted into the air. But some people say that’s a lie. They claim we did this to ourselves.
They can’t prove any of it. From 1990 onwards – seventy years of history – there’s official conglomerate media only. Systems today don’t recognise the file formats from back then. ‘Digital Hygeine,’ they tell us.

– From STÖMOL

Despite these focal points within its narrative, STÖMOL is a film that came together somewhat organically, rather than building from a set story. Discussing the development of the idea during a segment of Lab Gab, Hax noted the the filming of scenes would take place as locations in Second Life were identified, with the structure of the story not emerging until some 50% of the filming was completed, the actual script / dialogue then following from that.

This is, to say the least, an unusual approach to shooting a film, and appears to be borne out of Hax’s experience with the National Novel Writing Month, an event that takes place globally every year and in which writers are encouraged to write a 50,000 novel across the 30 days of novel – but not to edit or revise as they write, instead allowing the story to shape itself.

Which should not be taken to mean STÖMOL  is in any way haphazard. Quite the reverse; the film demonstrates a high production quality, with many considered creative choices. It is also a film that carries with it a certain twist at the end (although the clue is there from the beginning – will you spot it?), whilst offering a certain amount of hat-tipping to the likes of Blade Runner and Blade Runner 2049 without ever feeling at all derivative.

However, while I’ve been able to see the film in advance of its release, I’m not going to go into further details here, as I have no wish to spoil the public première, the details of which are:

I’ll also have a personal review available following this public première. In the meantime, here’s a sneak peek, and you can catch more on the STÖMOL website.