Month: December 2020

Previewing The Dickens Project 2020

Posted on by Inara Pey
The Dickens Project 2020

The Dickens Project, a seasonal celebration of the life, times and work of Charles Dickens with a focus on what is perhaps his most famous story, A Christmas Carol, officially opens to the public on Friday, December 4th 2020.

An annual event since 2012 (and which grew out of a special presentation made in 2008), the Dickens Project offers an annual mix of reading, storytelling, music, events and activities, each year introducing something new to the mix to add a little more magic for visitors to enjoy – and 2020 is no exception.

Organised by Seanchai Library, The Dickens Project presents visitors with an immersive environment evocative of Victorian England in Dickens’ time and which is both home to settings from A Christmas Carol and stage upon which a range of events and activities take place throughout the Project’s month-long run. This year, as one of the elements, a second region is added to be mix, offering visitors even more to explore and discover.

Every year The Dickens Project intentionally blends the familiar features of previous years with new things waiting to be discovered. It helps our loyal visitors feel like they are coming home, gets them excited about what’s new, and encourages them to share the experience with their friends. That’s our goal. Each year the Dickens Project is just a little different. This year, with a second region, there is a lot that is fresh and new.

Caledonia Skytower, Seanchai Library

The Dickens Project 2020

The project’s programme of events runs on a weekly basis, with activities for each week announced via the project’s calendar page. However, highlights include:

  • Two scenic regions to explore and enjoy.
  • Over 60 hours of live music, spoken word, dance events and performances.
  • Opportunities for both RP and Non-RP guests.
  • Dozens of performers, presenters, and special guests including Patch Linden himself.
  • Educational and interpretive content featuring different aspects of Victorian life.
  • Horse rambler tour, rideable horses and carts, and a hot air balloon ride.
  • Idle Rogue Productions with a new edition of their Midnight Dinner show.
  • Misfit Dance & Performance Arts present A Very Misfit Christmas.
The “new for 2020 elements” include:
  • Two regions.
  • The Victorian Horse Experience & The Mine Interactive.
  • Virtuoso Performing Arts presents Beatrix Potter.
  • SL Hawks Aerobatics Ghost Flights of Christmas. – an air show based A Christmas Carol, to be performed over the waters of Dickens Harbour.
  • Invitational and Open Art Shows.

The Dickens Project is also very much a community event, and in respect of this, the 2020 Edition will include Radio Riel, and Innsmouth SL, whilst The Community Virtual Library will feature aspects of Victorian life from clothing, workers conditions, Dickens in Spanish, to The London Exhibition, in a dedicated information district.

For those wishing to explore more of Victorian life, there are the interactive experiences The Horse in Victorian London and The Mine, with the latter including a ride through a mine with Sultan the pit pony and his coal carts – “Sultan” being the name of one of the last pit ponies in Wales.

“Sultan” the pit pony – The Dickens Project 2020

Of course, no edition of the The Dickens Project would be complete without Carol Week, which sees a part of A Christmas Carol read each day in a “story tour” that visits the corresponding parts of the main Project region that have been inspired by those same parts of the story. This week of readings culminates in a further Project tradition, The Big Read, a relay-style reading of all of Dickens’ novella, featuring the voices of up to 12 storytellers. This year taking place on Sunday, December 20th, at noon (SLT), The Big Read follows the equally popular Fezziwig’s Ball, which for 2020 will take place in the Opera House on Saturday, December 19th.

A further new aspect to this year’s Edition are the special art shows. the first of these, the Open Art Show is currently accepting requests to participate from Second Life artists, and you can read more about this in The Dickens Project 2020: call for artists, with applications being accepted through until December 13th.

The second art event – the Invitational Show – opens on Saturday, December 5th, at 14:00 SLT, and features the 2D and 3D art of CybeleMoon, Iris Okiddo and Silas Merlin, who present images and sculptures evocative of the Victorian era and its winters, and a small collection from yours truly that recalls past Dickens Project events.

The Dickens Project 2020 Edition: Invitational Art Show

To keep up-to-date on the Project and its daily events, be sure to keep an eye on the Seanchai Library website and the Dickens Project calendar.

About Seanchai Library

Seanchai Library (pronounced Shawn-a-kee, which means “Storyteller” in Irish Gaelic.) was founded in March of 2008 in Second Life. The program remains dedicated to promoting the power of stories to transform and inspire through live voice presentations: “We bring stories of all kinds to life, in Second Life and other virtual worlds.”

In presenting The Dickens Project 2020 Edition, Seanchai Library acknowledge the support and sponsorship of Linden Lab and the particular support of Patch Linden and the Land Team.

Links and SLurls

Note that The Dickens Project regions are rated Moderate. Note that SLurls will be available for use from 07:00 SLT on Friday, December 4th.

Selen’s Gallery in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
Selen’s Gallery, December 2020

Selen’s Gallery, owned and curated by Selen (Selen Minotaur), opened its doors to the public on Tuesday, December 1st, 2020, offering visitors the chance to appreciate her photography and art. A long-time resident of Second Life, the gallery is a further step in Selen’s evolution as a Second Life artist, coming a year after she decided to create a Flickr account, which has (rightly) been building a following among other Second Life users  on that platform.

I have always been passionate about art in general and therefore, like many of us, I appreciate the beauty and all the opportunities for creativity that this amazing virtual world allows.
I started photography years ago and did more than 500 photos before daring to open my own Flickr account in December 2019. I like to explore many different styles depending on the mood, playing with Windlights or setting my own lights (I use Lumipro), adjusting or creating some poses (with Anypose) and post-editing each image using several editing tools (Kvadphoto+ pro, Photoscape, Photoshop express and a bit of Gimp).

– Selen on her art

Selen’s Gallery, December 2020

Offering two floors in which to display her art, the gallery presents as its opening displays two selections of Selen’s work: Dreams, Moments and Desire on the lower floor, and a series of black-and-white on the upper. Unsurprisingly, given Selen’s own description above, these are predominantly avatar studies, although some feature within the lower floor display are focused on the sculptures of Mistero Hifeng.

Whether monochrome or colour these are all expressive pieces, offering individual studies  – some touching on the risqué -, some touching on fantasy, and others offering a marvellous sense of period within the black-and-white studies, with many offering a hint of narrative to them, making both collections a richly rewarding visit.

Selen’s Gallery, December 2020

As well as working with 2D images, the gallery is home to 3D art – some by Selen herself, other pieces by some of the artists she most admires, all of them further increasing the depth of art to be appreciated.

In addition, and as well as using lighting to good effect within her 2D art, Selen also uses it for further visual effect within the gallery – so when visiting, be sure to make sure you have Advanced Lighting Model (ALM → Preferences → Graphics → check Advanced Lighting Model) and, if your system will support it, shadow rendering enabled to add to the overall lighting effects.

Selen’s Gallery, December 2020

Engaging and rich in content, Selen’s Gallery is a welcome addition to the Second Life art community.

SLurl Details

2020 SUG meeting week #49

Posted on by Inara Pey
Walsh County, October 2020 – blog post

The following notes were taken from the Tuesday, December 1st Simulator User Group (SUG) meeting.

Server Updates

  • On Monday, November 30th, the simulators on the SLS Main channel were all updated to version 552571, matching the RC channels.
  • Originally, it had been planned to follow this with a tight series of rolls over the next few days, with simulators updated in batches at roughly 16-hour intervals. However, at the time of writing this is on hold, as Rider Linden explained:
That plan, like so many others, is now up in the air. There are a couple of last minute snags that we ran into and so we’re evaluating what the best way to do these deploys is going to be and we do not yet have an answer. We will keep you all informed on the blog where things settle out.

This means that – again at the time of writing – the rolls listed on the grid status pages are TBD, and subject to update from LL.

No Change Window

Normally, December sees a limited number of deployments for the simulators, with a “no change” window coming into effect over the holiday period  (usually from just before the Christmas break to just after New Year’s day).

However this year, thanks to the migration work, this are apparently more fluid, and dates – if any – have yet to be announced.

SL Viewer

The Start of the week has seen no change to the current crop of official viewers, leaving them as follows:

  • Current release viewer version 6.4.11.551711, formerly Cachaça Maintenance RC viewer promoted on November 12 – No Change.
  • Release channel cohorts:
    • Custom Key Mappings project viewer, version 6.4.12.552100, November 12.
  • Project viewers:
    • Simple Cache project viewer, version 6.4.11.551403, issued on November 12.
    • Project Jelly project viewer (Jellydoll updates), version 6.4.11.551213, November 2.
    • Legacy Profiles viewer, version 6.4.11.550519, October 26.
    • Copy / Paste viewer, version 6.3.5.533365, December 9, 2019.
    • Project Muscadine (Animesh follow-on) project viewer, version 6.4.0.532999, November 22, 2019.
    • 360 Snapshot project viewer, version 6.2.4.529111, July 16, 2019.

In Brief

We know what’s going on but unfortunately it’s going to take a bit of time before we can have a fix. Some of the other work on getting to the cloud needs to get done first. It’s complicated by how inter-dependent our systems are.

A Calas Christmas Dream in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
A Christmas Dream – Calas Christmas 2020

Officially opening to the public on Wednesday, December 2nd – although you can enjoy a sneak peek ahead of that by joining the Calas Galadhon in-world group – is A Christmas Dream, the 2020 Calas Galadhon Christmas region put together by Tymus Tenk and Truck Meredith, ably assisted by the Calas team.

The Calas Christmas events are now as traditional a part of the end-of-year festivities as turkey dinner and decorated trees, and each year Ty, Truck and team never fail to present an environment that even the most “bah, humbug!” amongst us cannot fail to appreciate and enjoy – and 2020 is no exception, although circumstance means this year things are a tiny bit different from recent Calas Christmases, at Ty noted to me ahead of the opening.

It’s been more of a challenge this year with all going on out there in the real world, but we did want to do another Christmas. Things being what they are [limited region availability and all], we were only able to rent one region this year. But we hope it will lighten the spirit and heart in our visitors.

Ty Tenk, discussing A Christmas Dream

A Christmas Dream – Calas Christmas 2020

The fact that this year’s Calas Christmas is restricted to the one region actually offers a glimpse back to Calas Christmases of times past, before Ty and Truck took to utilising two regions for their winter celebrations. This gives this year’s setting something of a nostalgic feel for those of us who have been enjoying their seasonal hospitality for the last several years.

Perhaps more importantly, whilst limited to just the one region, this year’s setting has lost none of its appeal, both in terms of things to see and things to do, and most of the expected aspects of a Calas Christmas are present: the main landing point with its sleigh tours; the walks and the skating; the Pavilion where events will be taking place through the month; the balloon tour; the places to sit and cosy-up or dance, both indoors, and more.

A Christmas Dream – Calas Christmas 2020

Also waiting to be found are the little touches that make each Calas Christmas so endearing. Wander the snow near the frozen lake, for example, and you will discover that – just for Christmas, at least – a penguin not only has Happy Feet but can fly (or at least take to the air and hover!), whilst a walk further afield might yeti allow you to discover a mythical creature (and yes, I do appreciate he’s is not actually an Abominable Snowman, but I’ll do (almost) anything for a pun, however bad!).

Meanwhile, for those who find the snow and crisp air a little too much hot chocolate can be had from the Calas refreshment stand (watched over by a reindeer) or romantic meal can be enjoyed at the Calas railway carriage. Or, for those who enjoy the winter air and you have a wearable horse, riding is welcomed – although please do keep off the ice, as the presence of a horse might cause problems for the skaters.

A Christmas Dream – Calas Christmas 2020

Entertainment will, as always, be presented presented at the Pavilion – for dates and times, refer to the Calas Galadhon blog once A Christmas Dream is fully open to the public.

The Calas Christmas regions are always a popular destination, so when visiting, please do consider the following:

  • To help lighten the load on resources, it is requested that active scripts are kept below 100Kb. So please, do remove unnecessary HUDs and accessories.
  • Often the heaviest load placed on the viewer is that of heavily-loaded avatars, so p;ease do try to dress accordingly to try to minimise not only your script load, but also your texture load (e.g. by avoiding items that contain multiple unique high-resolution textures).

Also, keep in mind that because the region might be popular, you may want to make adjustment to your viewer for your own enjoyment – reduce the maximum number of fully-rendered avatars, adjust shadows, and perhaps turn off shadow rendering, if used (other than for photography).

But above all, enjoy your visit!

A Christmas Dream – Calas Christmas 2020

SLurl Details

Note that Sincere Estates is rated Moderate.