Month: July 2020

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.

Renoir and PxL at Club LA and Gallery

Posted on by Inara Pey
Club LA and Gallery: Renoir Adder

Now open at Club LA and Gallery, curated by Fuyuko Amano (Wintergeist) are two boutique exhibitions offer small selections of art by Renoir and Adder PxL (Z3NooBhasR3turn3D), two very distinctive and very different artists who together present two very different displays of art.

Renoir Adder is an artist who straddles genres. Within his pieces can be found elements of post-impressionism, potentially influenced by the like of Van Gogh; suggestions of Picasso; and surrealist leanings.

Club LA and Gallery: Renoir Adder

Here he presents a dozen paintings, some ten of which carry a strong hint of Van Gogh. Rich in colour, they present a range of landscapes and studies that might have been lifted from a gallery in the physical world and dropped into Second Life. The last two, meanwhile, lean more towards the surreal, with one in particular offering a nod and wink to the Belgian surrealist painter René Magritte.

Prior to this exhibition, I had not come across the work of PxL. Occupying the gallery’s north side, he offers 15 Second Life photographs that offer an enticing mix, in terms of their focus and style.

Club LA and Gallery: PxL

Mixing landscape image and avatar studies, they range of the delicately post-processed to those that have been heavily treated to offer the impression of painting as what I might describe as charcoal-like drawings.

These latter images are especially evocative, with a pair of images both called c3dots particularly capturing the eye – which is not to dismiss any of the others, I also found myself drawn to the darkly atmospheric Final Breath, together with Like a stone equally attractive.

Club LA and Gallery: PxL

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2020 viewer release summaries week #29

Posted on by Inara Pey
Logos representative only and should not be seen as an endorsement / preference / recommendation

Updates for the week ending Sunday, July 19th

This summary is generally published every Monday, and is a list of SL viewer / client releases (official and TPV) made during the previous week. When reading it, please note:

  • It is based on my Current Viewer Releases Page, a list of all Second Life viewers and clients that are in popular use (and of which I am aware), and which are recognised as adhering to the TPV Policy. This page includes comprehensive links to download pages, blog notes, release notes, etc., as well as links to any / all reviews of specific viewers / clients made within this blog.
  • By its nature, this summary presented here will always be in arrears, please refer to the Current Viewer Release Page for more up-to-date information.
  • Note that for purposes of length, TPV test viewers, preview / beta viewers / nightly builds are generally not recorded in these summaries.

Official LL Viewers

  • Current Release viewer version 6.4.5.544639, formerly the Tools Update RC viewer, promoted to de facto release status, Friday, July 17th – NEW.
    • Uses new viewer build tool chain, but does not include any user-facing updates outside of bug fixes.
  • Release channel cohorts:
    • No updates.
  • Project viewers:
    • No updates.

LL Viewer Resources

Third-party Viewers

V6-style

V1-style

Mobile / Other Clients

  • No updates.

Additional TPV Resources

Related Links

A visit to a stately home in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
Bellezzamora, July 2020 – click any image for full size

I recently received a personal invitation to visit Bellezzamora, the stately home of Crito Galtier, owner of The Grove Country Club Estate residential regions and his partner, Christian Galtier (Christian Q), and which they recently opened to the public.

Sitting in a Full region leveraging the LI bonus, this is an impressive sitting put together by Cristo and The Grove’s lead landscaper / designer Natalie Rives. At its heart lies a house design inspired by and modelled on Hatfield House, located in Hertfordshire, England (and coincidentally, a place with which I have some degree of familiarity for assorted reasons), located in the grounds once occupied by the former Royal Palace of Hatfield (elements of which still exist a short walk from the main house).

Bellezzamora, July 2020 – click any image for full size

A prime example of the Jacobian era prodigy house, the actual Hatfield estate is steeped in English history. The former royal palace was the home of the then Princess Elizabeth whilst her father, Henry VIII was still on the throne, for example. It became a centre of intrigue when her half-brother was crowned king and it was alleged she had illegally agreed to marry Thomas Seymour, which Seymour’s brother Edward saw as a threat to his role as Lord protector of England and the sway he held over the young Edward. It was also the place where Elizabeth received news of the death of her half-sister Queen Mary (who seized the throne following Edward’s death), and where she held her first Council of State as England’s new monarch.

Hatfield House itself came into being at the hands Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury, who was given the royal palace and its ground by King James I of England and Ireland (James VI of Scotland) in 1607, and whose descendants have retained ownership of the property. After tearing down much of the palace, Cecil used the bricks to build the initial Hatfield House, which was extended over time. As an aside, one of those descendants, Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury, a 3-times prime minister in the later Victorian period, gave rise to the expression “Bob’s your uncle” on account of his habit of taking care of family members by appointing them to his governments, thereby ensuring everything turned out fine for them.

Bellezzamora – July 2020

The Second Life iteration of Hatfield House is a commercial build by Romin McDonnell (although I understand the version used at Bellezzamora is something of a customised version, modified with Romin’s help to specifically fit this setting). It reproduces many of the features found in the original, including its grand hall, chapel, its distinctive tiled floors, and more and exterior physical attributes such as the original’s southern aspect, although for this design it has been turned to face to the north and the courtyard within the two wings of the house have been converted into a garden with water features.

Within, the house is lavishly furnished, many of the rooms featuring suitable period designs, including pieces by Kaya Angel, himself an expert in period designs and furnishings. The grounds are more unique, offering a individual perspective in stately home landscaping and formal gardens rather than anything specific to Hatfield House. Found within them are terraces, summer houses, a pavilion, neatly laid paths, lawns and flower beds.

Bellezzamora – July 2020

A sense of history is imbued through the placement of statues through the grounds, whilst the one concession to the modern era – other that the roadway leading to the house and the cars parked before it – is a swimming pool that has been added to one terrace on the north side of the house, an orangery neatly converted to serve as a poolside lounge. To balance it, and facing it across a further, raised the terrace, is a more traditional hedge maze, which were a staple of some stately home designs.

The entire build is richly populated and detailed, making it ideal for photography. However, I would point out that such a rich environment comes at a cost, unless you are using a more high-end system. With my ageing i5 (Haswell) system and GTX 970 GPU, I had to disable shadows and drop my draw distance down to 128m or less to maintain a double-digit frame rate in the teens. So, if you are using a mid-level or below system, do be prepared to make some adjustments to your settings, particularly if you tend to prefer a higher draw distance or like to have shadows enabled when moving (rather than only enabling them for photography).

Bellezzamora – July 2020

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Space Sunday: a Martian Hope and Heavenly Questions

Posted on by Inara Pey
An artist’s impression of the UAESA Hope satellite in orbit around Mars. Credit: Mohammed bin Rashid Space Centre

late July and early August mark the period of the 2020 Mars opposition launch window, once again offering opportunities to send missions to the Red Planet. This period occurs once every 26 months, when the orbits of Earth and Mars are both on the same side of the Sun (so Mars and the Sun are on “opposite sides” of Earth, hence the name “opposition”) and positioned relative to one another (with Earth “catching up” with Mars as they both move around the Sun) such that the flight time from Earth to Mars is at its shortest – around 6-7 months.

Because of this, these periods tend to be fairly busy, and 2020 is particularly so, with three missions heading for Mars. The most prominent of this missions in terms of publicity is NASA’s Mars 2020 Perseverance rover, scheduled for a July 30th 2020 launch. The second is China’s ground-breaking orbiter / lander / rover mission (of which more below), whilst the third  – and first to launch – is possibly the most overlooked of the three: the Hope, or Al-Amal, orbiter mission developed by the United Arab Emirates.

Hope under assembly at the Mohammed bin Rashid Space Centre (MBRSC). Credit: MBRSC

Hope is a remarkable mission for the UAE; the mission was announced in 2014, literally as the country formed its fledgling space agency, employing just 75 people – a number that has since grown to 150. At that time the UAE had developed and flown – in partnership with other nations – a total of 5 communications satellites and two Earth observation platforms, so the idea for the country’s new space agency setting its sights on Mars was seen as incredibly ambitious.

However, over the course of the last six years the United Arab Emirates Space Agency (UAESA) has worked steadily on the the project, and has drawn on space development expertise in France, Japan, the UK and USA both for its own development and for the Hope spacecraft, moving the project forward and at minimum cost – just US $200 million.

The Mohammed bin Rashid Space Centre, Dubai, UAE, headquarters for the Hope mission and the UAE’s space efforts, on the night of the Hope mission launch. Credit: UAE television

Roughly cubic in shape, Hope measures 2.37m wide and 2.90m in length and has a mass of just under 1.4 tonnes (including its propellant fuel load). Solar-powered, it is billed as the “first true weather satellite for Mars” and is intended to develop a complete picture of the Martian atmosphere.

To do this, the satellite has a primary mission period of a full Martian year (approx. two terrestrial years), with the option for mission extensions through to 2025. During this time, the spacecraft will study the Martian climate and weather on a daily basis from a 55-hour equatorial orbit around the planet that will vary between 20,000 and 43,000 km from the planet’s surface. This high orbit will afford it the best view of weather patterns in both the northern and southern hemispheres, and observe how weather patterns interact along the equatorial regions of the planet. In particular, Hope will be able to study seasonal weather  / climate cycles and record weather events in the lower atmosphere such as dust storms, and the weather at different geographic areas of Mars.

To achieve this, the mission carries a relatively modest number of science packages compared to other missions, comprising:

  • The Emirates eXploration Imager (EXI): developed with assistance from two US research facilities, this is a multi-band camera capable of taking high resolution images with a spatial resolution of better than 8 km. Equipped with a set of 6 filters, it can image in both RGB colour wavelengths and in the ultraviolet bands, and measure properties such as water, ice, dust, aerosols and abundance of ozone in the Martian atmosphere.
  • Emirates Mars Infra-red Spectrometer: developed with the assistance of the Arizona State University, this is an interferometric thermal infra-red spectrometer. It is designed to examine temperature profiles in the Martian atmosphere and record ice, water vapour and dust in the lower to mid-level of the atmosphere.
  • Emirates Mars Ultraviolet Spectrometer (EMUS): is a far-ultraviolet imaging spectrograph for measuring global characteristics and variability of the Martian thermosphere.

As well as carrying out a genuine science mission that will produce data that will be of significant use for future missions up to and including eventually sending human to Mars, Hope is also seen as an inspirational programme intended to “send a message of optimism to millions of young Arabs” and encourage them to consider careers in science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM).

Nor, given the traditional conservative nature of Arab nations, is this inspirational element of the mission directed solely at young men: the deputy project manager and lead science investigator for the mission is Sarah Amiri, who is also is the Chair of the United Arab Emirates Council of Scientists. She has managed the mission’s objectives and overseen the development and integration of the mission’s science packages, and and will continue in that role throughout the mission. Her role is seen as pivotal to encouraging other Arab nations in allowing women greater access to leadership roles and in encouraging young Arab women to consider STEM-based studies and careers.

Left: the H-IIA launch vehicle on the pad at T -25 minutes before launch on Sunday, July 19th. Right Top: Hope mission managers watch the launch preparations from the main control centre at the Mohammed bin Rashid Space Centre while (right lower), engineers monitor data being received from the satellite.

Continue reading “Space Sunday: a Martian Hope and Heavenly Questions” →

Expressive art at Palazzo di Basilique in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
Palazzo di Basilique

Currently on display at the Palazzo di Basilique, the skyborne gallery space at Basilique, is a joint exhibition by April (Agleo Runningbear) and Loegan Magic, two very different but very engaging artists.

Loegan has been active in Second Life for over a decade, but has been engaged in Second Life photography for the last two years – and has made a stunning impression on the scene in that time. His work is richly evocative and wrapped in narrative – often on a personal level, featuring as it can images of himself in setting that simply speak volumes.

Loegan Magic

For this exhibit, he provides a selection of monochrome images he refers to as Vintage Virtual, which he describes as, “photo’s taken in a virtual world using today’s technology with the purpose of creating something that has a nostalgic feel.” To call these enchanting pieces would be an understatement: each more than succeeds in Loegan’s aim, offering a picture that holds that sense of nostalgia / history; these are pieces that give the strongest impression of looking back into past times, times that might have been familiar to our grandparents.

Loegan Magic

They are also pieces that are personal in nature. Each is accompanied by a text element that offers words to the story found within the image. Most have been composed by Loegan, these are revealing in their depth, reflecting as several do on his own life and his relationship with his SL partner, Rachel Magic (larisalyn). Even those with a wider context – such as the lyrics from Pink Floyd’s Bike strongly suggest a personal element.

Known as April Louise Turner in the the physical world, Agleo is a woman of many colours – artist, shaman, teacher, poetess, to name but four – who presents her work under her own name and the title ArtShifter. She is a gifted portrait artist and caricaturist, as she demonstrates here with a selection of thirteen portraits of well-known celebrities, all of whom should be instantly familiar.

April (Agleo Runningbear)

With pieces created between 2013 and 2020, this an engaging series of images that capture the very essence of their subjects. From Argentinian surrealist painter, designer and author Leonor Fini, to a blue-tinted Yves Saint Laurent (a piece I’m still a little embarrassed to say put me in mind of Isaac Asimov when I first saw it from a reasonable distance at La Maison d’Aneli earlier in the year), they really are marvellous, graceful images, the majority of which prove the old saying that the eyes are the windows of the soul, the sense of depth within the eyes Bowie, Mercury, Dali, Nicholson and Fini is quite stunning.

Presented in collaboration with Focus Magazne and gallery, these are two very different displays of art from two very different artists that also perfectly compliment one another. Loegan’s art can be found at  the front of the gallery ballroom, above the terrace, with April’s work on the terrace at the back of the gallery ballroom.

April (Agleo Runningbear)

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