August 2022 – Page 3 – Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld

This week at Seanchai Library: Evil Under the Sun + more in Second Life

Posted on August 21, 2022 by Inara Pey

It’s time to highlight another week of storytelling in Voice by the staff and volunteers at the Seanchai Library – and this week previews the launch of a very special event.

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.

Sunday, August 21st, 13:30: Evil Under the Sun

A Seanchai Library special event at SLEA.

The are times when even Belgian ex-pat detective Hercule Poirot needs a break from his chosen vocation; so when the opportunity arises for him to enjoy a holiday in Devon at the Jolly Roger Hotel (inspired by the Burgh Island Hotel) located on a tidal island just off the south Devonshire coast, he looks forward to the chance of a little R&R.

*Evil Under the Sun – a Seanchai Library special event*

Whilst at the hotel, he encounters the other guests, notably Arlena Marshall who, desire being at the hotel with her husband Kenneth and step-daughter Linda, spends a lot of her time flirting with Patrick Redfern – much to the anger of Redfern’s wife, Christine and the disgust of her step-daughter. Also among the guests is Rosamund Darnley, who was once sweethearts with Kenneth Marshall.

Trying to keep himself apart from the intrigue, Poirot finds himself drawn into the middle of things and in need of his most particular deductive skills when Arlena Marshall is found dead on the sand of a secluded cove across the little island far from the hotel; a place where she apparently had a secret assignation…

Join David Abbott, Corwyn Allen, Gloriana Maertens, Elrik Merlin, Kayden Oconnell, and Caledonia Skytower as they commence a reading of the 23rd adventure for Agatha’s Christie’s hero, first published in 1941, within the setting of the Jolly Roger Hotel. Should you wish, you can also enjoy the hotel’s grounds and facilities, partake of a little fun – and visit the cove which proved fatal for Arlena Marshall.

Monday, August 22nd, 19:00: More Mark Twain Shorts

Samuel Langhorne Clemens (1835 –1910) known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American writer, humourist, entrepreneur, publisher, and lecturer. He was lauded as the “greatest humourist the United States has produced”, and William Faulkner called him “the father of American literature.”

Join Caledonia Shytower as she shares more of Twain’s wit and wisdom.

Tuesday, August 23rd

12:00 Noon: Russell Eponym

With music, and poetry in Ceiluradh Glen.

19:00: The Last Cuentista

There lived a girl named Petra Peña, who wanted nothing more than to be a storyteller, like her abuelita.

But Petra’s world is ending. Earth has been destroyed by a comet, and only a few hundred scientists and their children – among them Petra and her family – have been chosen to journey to a new planet. They are the ones who must carry on the human race.

Hundreds of years later, Petra wakes to this new planet – and the discovery that she is the only person who remembers Earth. A sinister Collective has taken over the ship during its journey, bent on erasing the sins of humanity’s past. They have systematically purged the memories of all aboard – or purged them altogether.

Petra alone now carries the stories of our past, and with them, any hope for our future. Can she make them live again?

Caledonia Skytower read Donna Barba Higuera’s 2021 winner of the Newbery Medal and Pura Belpré Award.

Wednesday, August 25th, 19:00: Seanchai Flicks

A special for Star Wars month as the Seanchai cinema space plays host to videos and throw popcorn around!

Thursday, August 26th

19:00: Calydonian Boar Hunt Part 2

Shandon Loring reads one of the great heroic adventures in Greek legend, which took place a generation before the Trojan War: the hunt of a monstrous boar by a gathering of great heroes (excluding Heracles).

The boar had been sent by the Goddess Artemis to ravage the kingdom of Calydon in Aetolia, in revenge for the region’s king, Oeneus having slighted her when he forgot to name her in annual rites to the gods. The hunt is led by Meleager, and in most accounts is joined by Atalanta, the great huntress, who ultimately won the boar’s hide, leading to tragic results.

21:00 Seanchai Late Night

Contemporary Sci-Fi with Finn Zeddmore.

Hera’s Phaedra/Druune in Second Life

Posted on August 20, 2022January 1, 2023 by Inara Pey

*Phaedra / Druune, August 2022 – Click any image for full size*

Update, August 28th: well, as is so often the way with Hera’s builds, Phaedra / Drune has already gone from Second Life.

Hera (zee9) is back with a new build that brings together multiple themes and inspirations to present an little bit of everything for lovers of science-fiction, science-fantasy, major motion picture franchises, Greek mythology and Hera’s own builds.

Phaedra / Druune (yes, the extra “u” in “Druune” is intentional, possibly to set this design apart from Hera’s past Drune builds) apparently takes as it core founding the HBO Max series Raised by Wolves – at least in terms of encouraging Hera to work on a science-fantasy environment; this is a wholly unique setting, one not intended to directly reflect that series.

The About Land description states the core of the setting is the moon Phaedra, a satellite of the planet Pasiphae. In this we have the nod to Greek mythology, Phaedra being Pasiphae’s daughter. In this the naming is perfectly reflective of the relationship between planet and moon, for the latter are often “born” from the remnants of the former.

Visits to the setting start aboard the spacer Erebus orbiting the moon, its teleporters ready to transfer passengers to the moon’s principal city, The landing point aboard the ship offers enough information to get people to the teleporters, together with a a backstory to the setting that comes as recommended reading; however, it would be remiss not to point out that spending a little time exploring said vessel is also worthwhile, as it has its own detailing – and an opportunity to partake a little extravehicular activity.

On reaching the moon, those familiar with Hera’s work will recognise the core build, drawing as it does on her Shadezar builds (see: Sharing in Hera’s dreams and visions in Second Life (August 2021) and Majilis al Jinn and a return in Second Life (November 2021). However, as Hera states in her introductory notes, this is no simple revisit; she has put considerable effort into this design, including new textures and a lot of elements which both encourage exploration and also pay homage to popular science-fantasy of the last several decades.

I’m not going to go into a blow-by-blow description of all of the latter in this piece – I’ll leave it to you to read the backstory to get a general feel for things and then explore for yourself – discovery is always best when first-hand, after all! What I will say is that the story offers a great means to get the imagination rolling, and there are more that enough touches throughout – as noted above – to keep the science fantasy aficionado more than happy.

Perhaps the greatest of these are the echoes of the Star Wars universe from both large and small screen. The city is mindful of the desert cities of Tatooine, the streets ancient in form but littered with tech: structures like vaporators are to be found throughout; hover tractors are ready to manhandle freight, terminals are bolted onto ancient stone walls, droids act as servitors, and speeders mindful of those seen in the series are parked outside places of business.

Reference to a more recent chapter in the franchise can be found just outside the main city walls. Here, protected by massive rail guns sitting on high towers, a landing zone is occupied by a vessel bearing a remarkable resemblance to a ST-70 class Razor Crest M-111 Assault Ship as used by a certain Mandalorian (at least until its unfortunate destruction). A fuelling station to one side of the landing area carries a reminder of a more hard-edged sci-fi series (both books and TV), bearing as it does the name Rocinante.

Elsewhere, it is possible to find shades of Crichton’s and Spielberg’s Jurassic Park which, while not a direct homage – Hera explains her reasoning well enough in her introductory notes – is nevertheless is hard to miss (and you’ll have to find the caves under the city to discover all of the dinosaurs!).

But this is far from all; also present within the build are Hera’s own welcome touches: the familiar presence of a bar / club – one that draws on a number of influences from science-fantasy and Hera’s own builds; offices, shops, a massage parlour, subtle touches in some of the signage (Rossum’s Universal Robot Repairs, anyone?), and echoes of the more mystical, tucked into the Temple of Druuna.

Finished with a sound scape and utilising an EEP setting I strongly recommend using, and clearly a very busy place given the fighter craft patrolling and space ships passing overhead, Phaedra / Druune is packed with a lot of detail outdoors and indoors, and is altogether another excellent build from Hera – so be sure to grab a visit while it’s available!

SLurl Details

Phaedra / Druune (Cloud Lake, rated Adult)

2022 CCUG meeting week #33 summary

Posted on August 19, 2022September 27, 2024 by Inara Pey

The following notes were taken from my audio recording and chat log of the Content Creation User Group (CCUG) meeting held on Thursday, August 18th 2022 at 13:00 SLT. These meetings are chaired by Vir Linden, and their dates and times can be obtained from the SL Public Calendar.

This is a summary of the key topics discussed in the meeting and is not intended to be a full transcript.

Official Viewers Status

Release viewer: version 6.6.2.573358 – formerly the Maintenance 2 RC viewer, dated August 1, promoted August 4 – no change.
Release channel cohorts:
- Profiles RC viewer updated to version 6.6.3.574158, on August 18.
- Maintenance P (Preferences, Position and Paste) RC viewer version 6.6.3.573877 issued August 15.
- Izarra Maintenance RC, version 6.6.3.573920, August 15.
- Maintenance (N)omayo RC viewer, version 6.6.3.573882, August 5.
Project viewers:
- Love Me Render (LMR) 6 graphics improvements project viewer 6.6.2.573263, July 21.
- Performance Floater project viewer, version 6.5.4.571296, May 10.
- Mesh Optimizer project viewer, version 6.5.2.566858, dated January 5, issued after January 10.
- Copy / Paste project viewer, version 6.3.5.533365, dated December 9, 2019.

Materials and PBR Work

Please also see previous CCUG meeting summaries for further background on this project.

The back-end updates are now “all there”, and the focus is now on “tightening up” the graphics., the the image-based side of things now looking “pretty good”.
Internal testing currently involves Second Life, the new PBR / Materials viewer, the Kronos glTF 2.0 standard and Adobe Substance tools (Painter, Stager) to ensure that results displayed within Second Life are consistent with expectations when working within Substance Painter and with glTF.
Some inconsistencies with using directional lights created in Blender have been noted and subject to further testing.
Those with access to the Content Creation Discord server will be able to obtain an updated viewer soon. This will lack transparency support or LSL support; it will also have some “rough edges” around the UI and inventory support.
- This is a test viewer only, and not for general consumption.
- A more public Project viewer will be made through the Alternate Viewers channels when the work is more stable and suited for wider consumption.
Once the initial work on PBR Materials is released, the graphics team will likely work on some quality of life improvements (e.g. bug fixes) for the graphics system, rather than launching into a new project immediately.

Possible New Inventory Fields

Whilst not solely related to content creation, the Lab has been discussing the potential of adding new inventory fields. Ideas being considered or also put forward at the meeting comprise:

Providing a thumbnail image of the inventory item, rather than having to rely solely on descriptive text.
A means of “tagging” inventory items (e.g. to define what they are in terms of being an attachment or not, and whether the attachment is / is not rigged, etc.), rather than just simply leaving them as a list of orange boxes.
Providing a formal means of “archiving” items that are not regularly used but which are not yet ready to be deleted (other than boxing things up and creating more orange boxes….).
Splitting head shapes and body shapes to make it easier for people who use different heads with the same body (or vice-versa).

In Brief

Requests are again surfacing for texture animation support in particles (see feature request BUG-5307). Those interested in seeing such capabilities should consider adding feedback to this Jira.
- This led to questions on a complete overhaul of the SL particle system, which is not something currently under consideration as a possible future project at the Lab – which is not so say incremental updates are ruled out. Again, specific requests incremental updates system should be made via Jira.
- For texture animations on particles, for example, the Lab would likely consider adopting the existing texture animation system for use with particles, rather than rebuilding the particle system to handle texture and other animations.
There was a brief discussion of a viewer-side Animation Override (AO) system (e.g. similar in nature to the Firestorm approach). This has been raised in the past at TPV Developer meetings, where it appears to get more robust discussion.
The question was raised of having support for user-defined custom shaders in Second Life. The short answer is “no”, as there are too many variables (a custom shader for a single scene may work – but what happens with 30 people utilise their own shaders / shaders made by others and all congregate at a single club? The rendering will not scale (also, with people all creating their own shaders, how can a consistent result be ensured? What about the risk of malicious shaders being used with content?).

Next Meeting

Thursday September 1st, 2022.

Noir Vibrations in Second Life

Posted on August 17, 2022February 3, 2024 by Inara Pey

*Nitroglobus Roof Gallery: Noir Tater – Noir Vibrations*

Oftentimes the matter of who we are or whom we would like to be is bound into the idea that it is all matter of listening to our “inner voice” and following it direction.

But what happens when that inner voice is itself confused – or rather, unwilling to be constrained by a bilateral thinking and choosing not to be A, bit to embrace B; what if that inner voice desires to be C or D or more, even if giving expression to one, excludes us the allowance of one of more of the other ideals of who we are? Can we even make a choice, or are we forever caught in a state of flux – vibrating if you will, enduring a struggle not just with the matter of who we are or might be, but also what society expects of us.

This is the country of the mind Noir Tater explores within Noir Vibrations, which is open through the rest of August 2022 and into September at Dido’s Space – now officially called The Annex – within Nitroglobus Roof Gallery. It forms my first conscious introduction to Noir’s work, and I admit to finding myself draw into an ever-branching training of thought.

My need to be free in all aspects dominates, anguishes and suffocates me. Vibration Noir is my daily struggle to be what I am and who I am.

– Noir Tater

Across 14 pieces – marking this as one of the largest exhibitions I’ve witnessed within the Annex at Nightroglobus – Noir offers a series of striking self-portraits which are striking in their presentation. Layered to present a sense of multiple exposures, cut through with large “pixelated” blocks of colours, some edges with touches of cubism and others rendered almost as anaglyph images, they are at once highly stylised and also deeply engaging, bringing forth that idea of vibrating between states of who ae are / might be.

These are pieces which quietly speak the to struggles the artist faces in their need to find the fullest freedom of expression. A quote from Jean-Paul Satre used to further underscore the fact the struggle can be made that much harder because of the all-pervasive binary structures we have woven into society – up to and including the notion that there is only “good” and “evil” (a particularly poignant underscoring, given the way those of so-call “good” religious beliefs seek to demonise those who look beyond the binary perceptions that have been enforced on humans by humans).

Fortunately, for many of us, Second Life offers a safe haven for positive self-expression – and Linden Lab has done (and continues to do) much to foster this. However, through the use of “pixelated and “anaglyph” forms, these pieces also (perhaps) remind us that even hers, freedom to express ourselves is not easy: it requires time and effort on our part: learning to use the viewer, building visual representations by others may come to know us, etc. – just as is suggested we need anaglyph lenses to bring some of these images into “clarity”.

SLurl Details

Nitroglobus Roof Gallery (Sunshine Homestead, rated Moderate)

Seanchai Library: Evil Under the Sun + more in Second Life

Posted on August 17, 2022August 21, 2022 by Inara Pey

It’s time to highlight another week of storytelling in Voice by the staff and volunteers at the Seanchai Library – and this week previews the launch of a very special event.