Month: July 2021

Poking at the new Welcome Islands

Posted on by Inara Pey
The new Welcome Islands

Update: Keira Linden indicated as well as A/B testing against the Learning / Social Islands, the Welcome Islands are also being compared with throughput via the Firestorm Community Gateway. you can find more on Keira’s comments on the Welcome Islands and the Guidebook in my July 7th Web User Group meeting summary). 

Following my recent look through the new Guidebook that now forms a part of the official Second Life viewer (and is filtering its way into TPVs), and which is aimed at helping those get started on the platform, I’ve had the opportunity to take a poke at the new Welcome Islands that are designed as an arrival point for incoming new users, and which leverage the viewer’s Guidebook.

Before getting down to some of the details, it’s worth pointing out a couple of things:

  • The new Welcome Islands and Guidebook appear to be in A/B testing alongside the existing Learning Islands / Social Islands that are in use.
  • This means that should you opt to create a new account to try-out the new Welcome Islands, you may not actually be directed to them, but are instead directed to one of the existing Learning Islands / Social Island (reviewed here).
Arrival: the Guidebook opens at the first page, and a path directs you around the island

Given this, I opted to use the Guidebook within the viewer to get me to the new Welcome Islands rather than creating a new account and relying on pot luck to get me delivered to them via the on-boarding process (when I might easily be routed to a Learning Island).On arrival, I found the Guidebook had opened itself at the first page – much as I would expect it to do for a new user on their arrival at the Welcome Islands. As with other new user experiences, Welcome Island presents a path for  arrivals are to follow, one that meanders through a park-like setting built around a water feature. The latter offers an interesting view of the Second Life grid – as a planetary globe, canted on its axis and spinning gently, its watery surface dotted by the Mainland continents, mini-continents and private estates / islands.

The Avatar picker area displays a selection of start avatars, all of which are animated in their display area

Along this path can be found the three main stations referenced within the Guidebook for interacting with objects,, changing / customising an avatar and gaining familiarity with avatar attachments, all of which sit relatively close to the landing point. Beyond them are two more large stations – a bar and a café, each with interactive food / drink givers – and a number of open-air seating areas offering the chance for social interactions – if there are sufficient new users on an island who wish to mingle.

Also to be found on the islands is a sign directing all those who wish to move on elsewhere in Second Life to use the Destinations tool bar button. However, what the sign fails to indicate is that if it is clicked, it will (via a dialogue box) offer to open the web search at the Destination Guide, which can then also be used to locate places to visit.

Two new arrivals work on avatar looks – or try to(?)

These islands are a simple in design, easy-to-explore settings with some nice touches (e.g. seats that actually offer poses, drinks and refreshments trays that attach objects to an avatar in order to help new users gain familiarity with interacting with scripted object) and sits well with the Guidebook.  However, part of me does wonder if it is a little too minimalistic in approach in order to satisfy all incoming new users.

The grid as a globe within the new Welcome Islands

Certainly, there is a strong contrast between this somewhat contextual approach and the more tutorial-oriented Learning Island / Social Island approach. There are strengths and weaknesses to both, so continuing with them on a side-by-side basis even beyond A/B testing is likely not a bad idea, so it will be interesting to see what happens down the road.

What I will say is that, whilst loitering in the Welcome Islands I was delivered to, several people dropped in as well. Those who responded to me indicated they had just signed-up (although looked like they were coming back to the “Welcome Back” Island where I was hiding, rather than being “brand new” users”), and further indicated they were finding the Guidebook useful – although this obviously didn’t stop questions! – although one who had managed to find their way into inventory did admit to getting somewhat confused and wanting more information on have to change looks without having to pick an entire new avatar, and what was the difference between WEAR and ADD.

I’m not sure we’ll be given any clear insights into how well the new Welcome Islands perform when compared to the other routes into Second Life, but hopefully it will contribute not only to getting people into SL, but also giving them the level of information they need to keep on visiting – and exploring.

In Perpetuity in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
Perpetuity, July 2021 – click any image for full size

Designed by the in-world partnership of Tamara Sierota and Camis Sierota (Camis Lee), Perpetuity is a Full region presenting a refreshing pastoral setting that is open to visitors to enjoy and photograph. It offers much to see in as very natural setting that carries  something of an emphasis towards lovers and couples, as the About Land Description indicates:

A place for quiet moments & photography with areas to bring your date, lover, partner or to come alone & relax surrounded by nature in all its beauty. 
Perpetuity, July 2021

Group membership is open for those who wish to have rezzing rights, and motorbike and horseback riding are welcome along the dusty track that winds its way around the region, whist a bicycle rezzer is also available at the landing point for those who are sans horse or motorbike options, but who wish an alternative to wandering on foot. Poses for photography may also be rezzed via group membership, with the request that these are kept small and are discreetly used – and are cleaned-up afterwards.

The east side of the region features a ribbon of beach that runs north-to-south. Watched over by a summer house and a small café, the sands of the beach offer several places to sit and look out over the water to the far horizon, and is spanned by a long pier that forms the landing point while also providing access to the rest of the setting  as arrivals walk its length.

Perpetuity, July 2021

The majority of the region is given over to an arable / livestock farm, with corn, sunflowers and lavender in the little fields, and cattle and sheep grazing while horses wander.

How much emphasis is put on income from farming, however, is open to interpretation: one field has been given over to a music event space and the main barn appears to be more used as a front attraction for Camis’ Apple Pie & Moonshine bar than as a home for farming implements and / or horses, the old tractor parked within it notwithstanding.

Perpetuity, July 2021

Elsewhere across the region are further signs that that farm – assuming the entire setting was once all a single farm holding – has diversified its business comes in the form of the little cabins and old chapel that have been converted into retreats for artists, and what might have once been a barn that is now a motor-cycle friendly bar as it sits across the track from the farm’s produce shop.

The farmhouse itself sets to the south-west, tucked into a corner where the track loops around a small natural bay fed by fresh water that tumbles from a stubby thumb of rock poking its head above the surrounding fields. Backed by the high mountains that cup the region within their off-sim arms, it’s a cosy house perfectly set to give itself a sense of privacy without actually being divorced from the rest of the setting.

Perpetuity, July 2021

Given this is a place intended for the romantics among us, as well as explorers and photographers, there are numerous places to sit and spend time with someone close to be found throughout, indoors and out, on the land and on the water. All are gently washed over by the local ambient sound scape that adds a little more depth to the region, and all can be found as a result of gentle exploration of the island.

Rich in detail, easy on the eye, with a welcome and encourages people to explore, Perpetuity is a delight to visit. A calm haven caught in the midst of summer for both visitors and the local animals and wildlife (keep an eye out for the black bears!).

Perpetuity, July 2021

SLurl Details

2021 SUG meeting week #27 summary

Posted on by Inara Pey
Cravone City, April 2021 – blog post

The following notes were taken from the Tuesday, July 6th, 2021 Simulator User Group (SUG) meeting. The meeting was recorded by Pantera Północy, and the video is embedded at the end of this summary.

Server Deployments

See the server deployment thread for any most recent updates / changes.

  • Tuesday, July 6th saw the SL Main channel servers updated with simulator release 560819. This includes internal fixes, a fix for BUG-202864 – “Change Mesh Uploader to preserve Scene File object names when a full linkset is uploaded”. and a fix for BUG230881 – “llHttpRequest(): HTTP_CUSTOM_HEADER flag is ignored”.
  • Wednesday, July 7th will not see any planned deployment to the RC channels.

SL Viewer

There have been no official viewer updates to mark the start of the week, leaving the official pipelines as:

  • Release viewer: Project UI RC viewer, version 6.4.20.560520, dated June 14, promoted June 23 – No change.
  • Release channel cohorts:
  • Project viewers:
    • Legacy Profiles viewer, version 6.4.11.550519, dated October 26.
    • Copy / Paste viewer, version 6.3.5.533365, dated December 9, 2019.
    • Project Muscadine (Animesh follow-on) project viewer, version 6.4.0.532999, dated November 22, 2019.
    • 360 Snapshot project viewer, version 6.2.4.529111, dated July 16, 2019.

Region Crossings

During region crossings, vehicles and avatars are packaged and transferred separately to one another, before being unpacked and put back together by the receiving region. Due to the fact that vehicles are generally less complex than avatars, then tend to arrive first, and this can cause issues as the scripts on the vehicle resume and make calls (animations, etc.), on avatars that have yet to “arrive”, which can result in vehicle errors.

While there is an event flag – CHANGED_REGION – triggered when the vehicle has correctly arrived in the new region, allowing its scripts to resume, there is no equivalent flag for arriving avatars.  So user Animats has suggested the creation of such an additional event flag: CHANGED_REGION_COMPLETE.

This would be sent once the receiving simulator has unpacked and seated the avatars using the vehicle. Should this additional event flag not be received, then it is indicative that something has gone wrong, allowing vehicle scripters to use it to determine how they’d like to handle the situation.

See BUG-230934 “Add event bit flag CHANGED_REGION_COMPLETE to “changed” script event” for more.

It has also been suggested that LL give thought to a way in which vehicles can detect upcoming parcel settings. A major issue of vehicular travel is encountering parcels where object entry is disabled – resulting in the vehicle being auto-returned to the owner and all those aboard violently unseated.

A means for the viewer to be forewarned of the access settings for a parcel would potentially allow vehicles to be scripted so they can respond to “unfriendly” parcel such as stopping at the parcel border (presumably with a test notification to the driver) in a similar manner to when they encounter ban lines, thus potentially preventing vehicle return and avatar dumping.

There are again complexities to this idea (e.g. what happens when the parcel(s) being checked are in the next region, and thus on a different simulator to the one the checking script is currently running on?). However, LL have requested the idea be filed via Jira to allow proper assessment and discussion.

Mihailsk’s Baptism of Fire in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
Nitroglobus Roof Gallery: Mihailsk’s Baptism of Fire

Sometimes the best art exhibits come from a chance encounter. Dido Haas, owner and curator of Nitroglobus Roof Gallery (and a talented photographer in her own right), bumped into Mihailsk while he was visiting Nitroglobus in March. A couple of days after that first encounter, he posted an image taken at the gallery, which was then displaying Daantje Bons’ work (see here for a review of that exhibition) – and this image led to Dido looking through Mihailsk’s Flickr steam and then approaching him to exhibit at Nitroglobus.

Even so, he took a little persuading. Despite being active in SL for several years, Mihailsk has only recently entered the world of SL photography and artistic creation, as he explains:

Even though I am in SL since 2014, I feel my second life started the day I decided to dedicate a large part of my time in this virtual world to photography. It was [in] January 2020 when I started this beautiful journey in light, colours and emotions; a journey to fantastic places and loved persons, trying to capture special moments in eternity. Sometimes with a smile, sometimes with pain. 

– Mihailsk describing his journey into SL art

Nitroglobus Roof Gallery: Mihailsk’s Baptism of Fire

Given this, Dido’s invitation marked the first time he has been asked to display his art in-world – which can be a daunting prospect for an artist-photographer, even when well-established on a site like Flickr. Hence the title for this exhibition: Baptism of Fire.

Mihailsk’s work is probably best defined as avatar-focused; a term I use in preference to the more usual “avatar study”, because while a fair portion of his work does focus in on an avatar (either his or that of a friend) in order to frame a story, he also frequently sets his canvas much more broadly, framing an image that blends avatar and surroundings into a richly layered composition that is utterly captivating – as can be seen time and again throughout his Flickr stream.

Nitroglobus Roof Gallery: Mihailsk’s Baptism of Fire

He is also an artist who uses a variety of styles to express his work, from full colour, to gentle tonal work through to monochrome, with techniques that touch upon sepia colouring, chiaroscuro, post-processing and digital layering. The result of all this being pieces of great visual depth.

Given this, there might be a temptation to pull together a multiplicity  of styles and display them together; instead, Mihailsk has focused on presenting pieces that focus on black-and-white / monochrome, and which also fold into them elements of  silhouette art, chiaroscuro and minimalism that very much help to focus on his use of emotion in his art. In this he also differs from many other SL artists, who often construct their images to frame what amounts to a pre-determined emotion that they wish to convey to their audience. Instead, Mihailsk frames his pieces in a manner more designed to convey the emotion he felt within a scene or setting; thus they become windows into his feelings and outlook.

Nitroglobus Roof Gallery: Mihailsk’s Baptism of Fire

The above all said, given the sheer depth and beauty of Mihailsk’s art, I admit I would have perhaps liked to perhaps see some of his colour art included here, simply because it is equally emotive. But make no mistake, what is shown within Baptism of Fire is utterly engaging and a more than worthy display of art from an exceptionally talented individual. and as well as visiting, I encourage you to also take the time to peruse his Flickr stream; you will not be disappointed.

SLURL DETAILS

Alien cats, the natural world and wizards

Posted on by Inara Pey
Seanchai Library

It’s time to highlight another week of storytelling in Voice by the staff and volunteers at the Seanchai Library. As always, all times SLT, and events are held at the Library’s home in Nowhereville, unless otherwise indicated. Note that the schedule below may be subject to change during the week, please refer to the Seanchai Library website for the latest information through the week.

Monday, July 5th 19:00: The Weigher

A world ruled by sentiment big cats where the rule of law is enforced by the Weighers, a combination of judge, peacemaker and … accountant … through a brutal code of honour and combat. Without their violent intervention in things, all-out war and anarchy would ensue.

When two human explorers – fragile, weak and potentially easy prey – arrive on that world, Slasher, a Weigher of skill and talent in physical combat, finds herself defending them. In doing so, she finds herself a disgraced outcast.

Join Gyro Muggins as he read the story by Eric Vinicoff and Marcia Martin.

Tuesday, July 6th

12:00 Noon: Russell Eponym, Live in the Glen

Music, poetry, and stories.

19:00: The Lost Spells

Since its publication in 2017, Robert MacFarlane’s The Lost Words has enchanted readers with its poetry and illustrations of the natural world. Now, The Lost Spells, a book kindred in spirit and tone, continues to re-wild the lives of children and adults.

Now, The Lost Spells evokes the wonder of everyday nature, conjuring up red foxes, birch trees, jackdaws, and more in poems and illustrations that flow between the pages and into readers’ minds. Robert Macfarlane’s spell-poems and Jackie Morris’s watercolour illustrations are musical and magical: these are summoning spells, words of recollection, charms of protection. To read The Lost Spells is to see anew the natural world within our grasp and to be reminded of what happens when we allow it to slip away.

With Caledonia Skytower.

Wednesday, July 7th, 19:00 Hogwarts An Incomplete and Unreliable Guide

a collection of J.K. Rowling’s writing from the Pottermore archives: short reads originally featured on pottermore.com. These eBooks, with writing curated by Pottermore, will take you beyond the Harry Potter stories as J.K. Rowling reveals her inspiration, intricate details of characters’ lives and surprises from the wizarding world.

Hogwarts An Incomplete and Unreliable Guide takes you on a journey to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. You’ll venture into the Hogwarts grounds, become better acquainted with its more permanent residents, learn more about lessons and discover secrets of the castle . . . all at the turn of a page.

With Caledonia Skytower.

Thursday, July 8th, 19:00: Time Capsel

With Shandon Loring.

Friday, July  9th, 14:30: Terry Pratchett’s Unseen Academicals

Football in Ankh-Morpork is not as we might know it. Rather than being comprised of rules and played within a recognisable ground, it is far more akin to the somewhat violent mob football of medieval Europe.

Not that this is a concern for the elderly, mostly indolent and (some might be tempted to think) somewhat inept old wizards making up the faculty staff at the city’s school of wizardry, the Unseen University. Until, that is, their very handsome annual endowment becomes subject to their playing the game themselves.

Thus, Archchancellor Mustrum Ridcully sets out a two-pronged strategy: to ensure the city’s version of football is restructured with proper (and favourable?) rules, and to put team preparations at the university in the hands of the talented candle dribbler, Mr. Nutt and his assistant, Trevor Likely, the son of the city’s most famous (if deceased – did I mention the game can be violent?) player, who are in turn supported by Glenda Sugarbean, who runs the university’s night kitchen and her assistant Juliet Stollop.

Except Mr. Nutt soon discovers he has problems of his own to deal with, and Trevor has promised his Mum he’ll never get involved in the game.  Meanwhile, Glenda has the daily responsibility of baking the Discworld’s best pies, and Juliet is about to find herself whisked towards the heights of fame as a fashion model, thus potentially leaving the team a little short on practical advice…

Join Caledonia Skytower as she presents the 37th novel in the Discworld series, and possibly one of its greatest satirical undetakings encompassing football, academia, traditions, the fashion industry, politics, love, fandom, and which mixes in more serious themes of identity, crab mentality and self-worth.

2021 viewer release summaries week #26

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

Updates from the week ending Sunday, July 4th

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

  • Release viewer: Project UI RC viewer, version 6.4.20.560520, dated June 14th, promoted June 23rd – No change.
  • Release channel cohorts:
    • No updates.
  • Project viewers:
    • No updates.

LL Viewer Resources

Third-party Viewers

V6-style

  • Kokua: updated to versions 6.4.20.47617 (no RLV) 6.4.20.50805 (RLV variants) on June 29th – release notes.

V1-style

Mobile / Other Clients

Additional TPV Resources

Related Links