Month: March 2023

Seanchai Library: stories in voice and a new schedule in Second Life

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 – 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.

Monday, March 27th, 19:00: The Golden Compass (aka Northern Lights)

Originally published in 1995 as Northern Lights, The Golden Compass forms the first volume in Philip Pullman’s multiverse-spanning trilogy His Dark Materials.

In a world resembling Edwardian England, where magic is commonplace, young Lyra Belqcqua slip into the Retiring Room at the collage where he uncle is about to give a lecture – only to witness the Master of the college add poison to the wine intended for her uncle, Lord Asriel, prior to his arrival in the room. Warning him, she is rewarded by being allowed to remain and witness her uncle’s presentation, in which he discusses something called “Dust”, shows images of the northern lights in which there appears to be a city, and something else called the “panserbjørne”.

At the same time, children within Oxford are vanishing, kidnapped by a sect called the Gobblers, for a nefarious purpose – and Lyra is determined to find out why. In doing so, she is brought back into contact with the Master – who surprisingly gives her an alethiometer, a truth-telling device – and is offered the opportunity to live with the glamorous Mrs. Coulter, which comes as a thrill.

But as the mystery of the missing children deepens and Lyra determines to follow their trail north, so she discovers that Mrs. Coulter is not all she appears to be – and nor is her Dust-obsessed uncle, Lord Asriel.

With Gyro Muggins.

Tuesday, March 28th

12:00 Noon: Russell Eptnym

Live in the Glen.

19:00: More from the Crystal Cave

Born into a time shortly after the Romans have departed Britain, now once again divided into a series of kingdoms, Myrddin Emrys, also known as Merlin, is the illegitimate son of a Welsh princess, who refuses to name his father. Small for his age and often abused or neglected, Merlin occasionally has clairvoyant visions which, together with his unknown parentage cause him to be referred to as “the son of a devil” and “bastard child”.

After being taught to harness his abilities by the hermit, Galapas, Merlin eventually find his way to Brittany, who teaches him to use his psychic powers as well as his earthly gifts, Merlin eventually finds his way to Brittany and the court of Ambrosius Aurelianus, where he joins the war leader’s plans to invade Britain and defeat Vortigern and his Saxon allies, and unify the nation as its High King.

Discovering he is Ambrosius’s son, Merlin returns to Britain and is captured by Vortigern, who believes the only way his new fortress can remain standing is through the sacrifice of the “child with no father” – Merlin. The latter, however, discerns the real reason the walls of Vortigern’s fortress keep collapsing and plays into the king’s superstitious nature, and commences his life as a king’s advisor, even whilst seeking to support Ambrosius in his goal. Thus begins the adventures of a young boy who will eventually become the advisor to Britain’s Once And Future King.

Wednesday, March 29th, 19:00: Seanchai Flicks

Films, popcorn and fun at the Seanchai cinema space.

Thursday, March 30th, 19:00: Poetry this Year

In the Glen with Caledonia Skytower.

New Schedule

Beginning in April, Seanchai Library will be transitioning its programming model from the multiple weekly sessions that have been presented for the past 15 years, to a model that includes quarterly stories/series & special projects such as The Dickens Project and the recent Evil Under The Sun. These will be mixed with some of the current weekly events, including Russell Eponym live at the Glen, Seanchai Flicks, and supporting Tales with Friends with space for their weekly gatherings; all current series will continue until they conclude.

2023 SL viewer release summaries week #12

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

Updates from the week through to Sunday, March 26th, 2023

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: Maintenance Q(uality) viewer, version 6.6.9.577968, promoted Thursday, February 2, 2023- no change.
  • Release channel cohorts:
    • No updates.
  • Project viewers:
    • glTF / PBR Materials project viewer, version 7.0.0.578921, March 23 – This viewer will only function on the following Aditi (beta grid) regions: Materials1; Materials Adult and Rumpus Room 1 through 4.

LL Viewer Resources

Third-party Viewers

V6-style

  • No updates.

V1-style

Mobile / Other Clients

  • No updates.

Additional TPV Resources

Related Links

An artistic Hello to Spring in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
Galerie L’autre Monde: Hello Spring – Rage Darkstone

‘Twas back to at Galerie L’autre Monde curated by Lady Anais (Anais Yuhara) and located at The Uzine, for me recently, to witness an ensemble exhibition entitled Hello Spring. Featuring the work of seven artists, the exhibition combines both real-world photography and digital artistry in a celebration of the coming burst of colour and light (for the northern hemisphere at least!) as spring brings forth new blooms and blossoms to brighten our world.

My visit marked the second time I’ve dropped into the gallery – the first having been at the start of February 2023. At that time, I pondered whether out not the design of the gallery space was specific to the exhibition being mounted at that time, or the gallery’s natural appearance. With my return to view Hello Spring I was pleased to note it appears to be the latter; there is something quite engaging about the use of partially demolished / destroyed buildings with the detritus of human habitation scattered around, all caught under a twilight / night sky (make sure you have your viewer set to World → Environment → Use Shared Environment) that makes this striking gallery space.

Galerie L’autre Monde: Hello Spring – Nils Urqhart

The artists presented within Hello Spring are TerraMerhyem, Rage Darkstone, Hermes Kondor, Tutsy Navarathna, Lalie Sorbet, Nils Urqhart, and Deyanira Yalin, Each presents at least two pieces of art representing the arrival of spring, each artist using a section of the gallery’s ruins.

For their pieces, Hermes and Nils present stunning macro-level views of flowers in bloom, Nils presenting his with a subtle vignette finish, his backdrops suggestive of a dark sky to bring the focus of his images to the fore in all there natural beauty. Hermes similarly uses a vignette effect to frame his subjects, but counters it with a more obvious use of depth of field. In both cases, the results are stunning life studies of nature’s beauty.

Galerie L’autre Monde: Hello Spring – Tutsy Navarathna

Artistic couple Rage Darkstone and TerraMerhyem present a vibrant mix of digital art and colour. Terra offers three pieces which suggest an unfolding story of sorts. To the right is a single sakura, carrying with it all the promise of spring mixed with a sense of mysticism – the latter enhanced by the soft illumination of sunlight through clouds to produce a pink sky tinged by a rainbow refraction as if from a lens to one side as the Sun edges its way around the clouds to the other. In the next two, the tree appears to have been transplanted into what might be otherworldly places, suggesting the universiality of rebirth and renewal. With his pieces, Rage uses light and geometry to present flowing, living forms rich in the colours of spring and a marvellous mix of fantasy and marine life.

With their pieces, Deyanira, Tutsy and Lalie also use digital techniques to offer us views on spring, with Deyanira presenting more macro-level views of flowers and springtime insects, with Spring – I believe – combining photography and digital rendering – offering a fabulous journey into a flower to reveal the anther and filament. Tutsy’s pieces bring together image and metaphor, and Lalie similarly using metaphor in the form of avatar-like people in a triptych of pieces visualising the richness and beauty of spring.

Galerie L’autre Monde: Hello Spring – Lalie Sorbet

Warm and vibrant, Hello Spring is a richly engaging exhibition.

SLurl Details

Bay City: Food Truck Festival 2023 in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
Bay City Food Truck Festival, 2023

Sunday, March 26th, 2023 will mark the inaugural Bay City Food Truck Festival, focusing on the growing global food truck culture. The event is taking place at the Bay City Fairgrounds.

Food trucks have a long, long history around the world. In the United Kingdom, the term started entering common use among costermongers operating in 18th Century London. In the 19th century United States, the term was popularised in reference to the carts immigrants used to sell their traditional foods around the streets of cities such as New York, and which became the forebears of the modern hotdog / pretzel, etc., street vendors seen today.

In Asia meanwhile, the “food truck” culture spans centuries of mobile food provisioning. In Japan, references to what might be regarded as “food trucks” – carts used by people from the provinces to prepare and sell their local foods and delicacies in town and cities goes back as far as the late 16th / early 17th century.

Bay City Food Truck Festival, 2023

The more modern food truck has its roots in the internal combustion engine powered vans can trucks which in turn grew from the carts and stalls of street vendor. The US saw something of an explosion of food truck in the 1960s, and other countries all have their own various flavours of them – kebab wagons, crepe trucks, the mobile hot dog, fish’n’chips, doughnut, hot snack wagons, and so on. In the US in particular, they can be a common sight, pitching up outside businesses to sell meals and snacks directly to the employees there.

By the 2000s, the food truck culture was evolving again, in some ways going back to its roots and an others, upselling itself, the focus shifting towards ethnics / cultural foods, many with an emphasis on gourmet / quality standards of presentation and taste – think Roy Choi in Los Angeles and Richard Johnson in the UK.

This modern culture of food truck is the focus of the Bay City festival, featuring a display of trucks from across Second Life, decorated and presented by the people who operate / decorate them in-world. Some two dozen food trucks are presented, offering foods ranging from the simple – sausages, burgers, etc., through to the full street-side dining experience seated at tables, and are displayed around the Fairgrounds green. All Second Life residents are invited to hop along and tour the trucks, join in with the fun and activities – all you need to do in bring along an empty stomach and enjoy!

Music for the event will be provided by DJ GoSpeed of KONA Stream, starting at 12:00 noon SLT and running until 14:00 SLT. Visitors will also be able to join in with fun activities such as horse shoe tossing, testing their strength, faces-in-hole photographs, and more.

Bay City Food Truck Festival, 2023

About Bay City

Bay City is a mainland community, developed by Linden Lab and home to the Bay City Alliance. The Bay City Alliance was founded in 2008 to promote the Bay City regions of Second Life™ and provide a venue for Bay City Residents and other interested parties to socialize and network. It is now the largest Bay city group, and home to most Residents of Bay City.

2023 SL Puppetry project week #12 summary

Posted on by Inara Pey
Puppetry demonstration via Linden Lab – see below.  Demos video with the LL comment “We have some basic things working with a webcam and Second Life but there’s more to do before it’s as animated as we want.”

The following notes have been taken from chat logs and audio recording of the Thursday, March 23rd, 2023 Puppetry Project meetings held at the Castelet Puppetry Theatre on Aditi. These meetings are generally held on alternate weeks to the Content Creation User Group (CCUG), on same day / time (Thursdays at 13:00 SLT).

Notes in these summaries are not intended to be a full transcript of every meeting, but to highlight project progress / major topics of discussion.

Project Summary

General Project Description as Originally Conceived

LL’s renewed interest in puppetry was primarily instigated by Philip joining LL as official advisor, and so it really was about streaming mocap. That is what Philip was interested in and why we started looking at it again. However since Puppetry’s announcement what I’ve been hearing from many SL Residents is: what they really want from “puppetry” is more physicality of the avatar in-world: picking up objects, holding hands, higher fidelity collisions. 
As a result, that is what I’ve been contemplating: how to improve the control and physicality of the the avatar. Can that be the new improved direction of the Puppetry project? How to do it?

Leviathan Linden

  • Previously referred to as “avatar expressiveness”, Puppetry is intended to provide a means by which avatars can mimic physical world actions by their owners (e.g. head, hand, arm movements) through tools such as a webcam and using technologies like inverse kinematics (IK) and the  LLSD Event API Plug-in (LEAP) system.
    • Note that facial expressions and finger movements are not currently enabled.
    • Most movement is in the 2D plain (e.g., hand movements from side-to-side but not forward / back), due to limitations with things like depth of field tracking through a webcam, which has yet to be addressed.
  • The back-end support for the capability is only available on Aditi (the Beta grid) and within the following regions: Bunraku, Marionette, and Castelet.
  • Puppetry requires the use of a dedicated viewer, the Project Puppetry viewer, available through the official Second Life Alternate Viewers page.
  • No other special needs beyond the project viewer are required to “see” Puppetry animations. However, to use the capability to animate your own avatar and broadcast the results, requires additional work – refer to the links below.
  • There is a Puppetry Discord channel – those wishing to join it should contact members of LL’s puppetry team, e.g. Aura Linden, Simon Linden, Rider Linden, Leviathan Linden (not a full list of names at this time – my apologies to those involved whom I have missed).

Additional Work Not Originally In-Scope

  • Direct avatar / object / avatar-avatar interactions (“picking up” an apple; high-fives. etc.
  • Animations streaming: allowing one viewer to run animations and have them sent via the simulator to all receiving viewers without any further processing of the animations by those viewers.
  • Enhanced LSL integration for animation control.
  • Adoption of better animation standards – possibly glTF.
  • Given the project is incorporating a lot of additional ideas, it is likely to evolve into a rolling development, with immediate targets for development / implementation decided as they are agreed upon, to be followed by future enhancements. As such, much of what goes into the meetings at present is general discussion and recommendations for consideration, rather than confirmed lines o development.

Bugs, Feature Requests and Code Submissions

  • For those experimenting with Puppetry, Jiras (bug reports / fixes or feature requests) should be filed with “[Puppetry]” at the start of the Jira title.
  • There is also a public facing Kanban board with public issues.
  • Those wishing to submit code (plug-ins or other) or who wish to offer a specific feature that might be used with Puppetry should:

Further Information

Meeting Notes

Viewer Progress

  • An updated version of the project viewer is still “close” – it did not make it past QA, but it is hoped it will be available soon.
  • Leviathan Linden is working on the IK system in order to try to make it more robust to handle the kind of work Rider Linden is doing, but is not at the point of having anything ready for delivery into a viewer, although the idea was to have something possibly ready by the viewer update after the one that is still waiting to be cleared for project release.

Server-Side Work

  • Following the meeting, the current Puppetry test regions on Aditi were due to be updated with a simulator version which merges the server-side Puppetry code with the latest release of the simulator code.
  • Rider Linden is continuing to work on llSetAttachmentPoint, intended to allow avatars “pick up” objects using puppetry. At the time of the meeting he was completing work on ANIM_POS/ROT_TARGET which is intended to try to keep the attachment point directed  at an object in world (as opposed to a fixed location or a location relative to the avatar.
    • This uses a command to tell the viewer to carry out the necessary IK work to move an attachment point as close to a location as it can get, using the target object’s UUID / location as reported by the simulator.
    • The idea is that this functionality will work not only with hands / arms but also with other appendages (e.g. wings).
    • In theory, this should also allow avatars to touch attachment point on other avatars (e.g. holding hands), however, exactly how this works within the framework of the Permissions system – in terms of others accepting / refusing any direct interaction through something like a dialogue request as we see today – has yet to be worked out.
  • This led to a broader discussion on attaching object to avatars, the core of which is summarised below.

 Object Parenting vs. Temp Attachments

  • The idea of being able to use Puppetry to reach out and grasp a (suitably scripted) object in-world – for example, an apple, a bottle or similar) raised questions on how the process will work.
    • Currently, “temp” attachment can be made to avatars (e.g. via an Experience), but this still actually requires the object being temporarily transfers to the avatar’s inventory (where it does not how up) and from there attached to the relevant attach point (e.g. a hand).
    • This is somewhat slow and cumbersome – particularly if you want to do something with the object (e.g. if it is a ball, throw it), as the object needs to be picked up, held, follow the throwing motion of the avatar’s arm, detach at the point of release, resume its status as a physical object in-world, have direct and velocity applied, and then move in the direction of the throw.
    • The suggestion was made that to simplify things, a concept of avatar-to-object parenting needs to be introduced to SL – so when the ball is picked up, it immediately becomes a child of that avatar – no need for the passing to inventory, attaching from there, detaching to inventory / deletion, etc., as seen with temp attachments.
  • Developing a hierarchy scheme for SL is already being mused through the Content Creation User Group, so it was suggested this could help present a road to object parenting with avatars. However, as it will take some time for any hierarchy system to be developed and implemented – and given it falls outside of the Puppetry project – , its might mean that existing mechanisms may have to be accepted, even if they do place some limitations on what might be achieved until such time as a hierarchy system can be introduced.
  • As an alternative, it was suggested that the physics engine might be used to attach a degree of object parenting to an avatar:
    • The physics engine allows actions to be created, which are updated every sub-step; so in the case of a physical object, it should be possible to write an action that says, “Follow the hand of the avatar picking you up”.
    • Then, as long as a the physics engine knows the position of the “holding” hand, the object could move with it; while there would be a small degree of physics lag, as long as the viewer knows to render the object at the avatar’s hand, rather than where the physics updates are saying he object is, this should not be visually noticeable.
    • This approach would not require an explicit hierarchy system, but it would require the viewer to send updates on the avatar’s hand position to the simulator’s physics engine – which is available.
    • The idea is modelled on the old physics action that perhaps most famously allowed a beach ball to be grabbed and pushed / lifted up onto a table as a part of the orientation process to using SL incoming new users used to go through, and can still be used today to push suitably scripted objects around.
    • If possible, this approach would also need some form of constraints and permissions (e.g. you don’t really want to make your entire building capable of being grabbed and shunted around willy-nilly).

General Notes

  • There was a general conversation on Permissions within avatar-to-avatar interactions and where they need to fall.
    • As noted above, there will need to be some form of explicit granting of permission for Puppetry-generated hugs, handshakes, high-fives, etc.
    • However, concern was raised about permissions being needed for basic one-way interactions – such as pointing at someone. The concern here being that the LookAt debug targets has become so conflated with ideas of “privacy” tools (“Stop looking at me, perv! You don’t have permission!”) TPVs have surfaced the means to disable LookAts being sent via a viewer so that people do not get shouted at if their LookAt cross-hairs happen to reside on another avatar. Thus, the worry was that if there is a similar kind of visual indicator used for Puppetry, it might result in a similar reaction.
    • The short answer to this was, no, it should not be an issue as avatar locations can already be obtained through LSL without the need for a visual indicator being generated by the viewer.

Date of Next Meeting

  • Thursday, April 13th, 2023, 13:00 SLT.

VWBPE 2023: Grumpity & Patch Linden – What’s Up at the Lab? – a summary

Posted on by Inara Pey
via VWBPE

On Thursday, March 23rd, 2023 Grumpity Linden, the Lab’s Vice President of Operations and Patch Linden, the Lab’s Vice President of Product Operations, both of them members of the company’s management team, attended the 2023 Virtual Worlds Best Practice in Education (VWBPE) conference to discuss Second Life.

The following is a summary of the session covering the core topics raised. The notes provided have been taken directly from the official video of the session, which is embedded at the end of this article. Time stamps to the video are also provided to the relevant points in the video for those who wish to listen to specific comments.

Notes:

  • This is a summary, not a full transcript, and items have been grouped by topic, so may not be presented chronologically when compared to the video.
  • Timestamps are included to allow a direct jump to a subject / comment.

A Little Background

Grumpity Linden: heads up Second Life Product team, where she has overseen a shift to growth, a stronger, more balanced economy, movement towards better community cohesion, and an overall forward-looking approach. She originally started at LL whilst working for The Product Engine, and was involved in the development of Viewer 2 (as designed by 80/20 Studio), prior to joining LL full-time in 2014. As the Vice President of Product, she is responsible for coordinating the various teams involved in bringing features and updates to Second Life, liaising with legal, financial and compliance to ensure features and capabilities meet any specific requirements in those areas, and so on; work which can involve looking at specifics within various elements of the overall SL product, such as UI design and layout, etc.

Patch Linden: originally a Second Life resident and business owner who joined the platform in 2004, and became a Linden in September 2007. He worked across a number of teams within the company – notably within the support and product spheres, and is responsible for developing the Land Operations team, and more recently setting-up the company’s support office in Atlanta, Georgia. Since 2019, he has been Vice President, Product Operations.

The Environment at the Lab and Use of SL

A general discussion on working at L:inden Lab – the environment / atmosphere -, on how often Lindens log into SL (and how some specifically do so using alts as well as their Linden accounts), etc. Please refer to the first 15  minutes of the video for details.

Product Development Path

SL Mobile

[Video: 15:42-23:40]

See also: Lab Gab summary: Grumpity, Mojo & Patch – SL Mobile, land, bots & more, March 2023.

  • A re-iteration that LL are working on a fully immersive Mobile solution for both Android and iOS.
  • Limited feature set beta in development, aimed primarily at existing users rather than trying to support the New User Experience (NUX).
  • The first release will be “broad but shallow” – rendering the world, teleporting, using chat, with the focus on getting as high a quality of rendering as possible.
    • Dealing with user-generated content (in-world and worn on avatars) which is largely unoptimised for a run-time environment like Second Life has been a challenge on the rendering side.
  • Capabilities such as complex interactions with in-world objects, the inclusion of Voice and similar will be added over time as the app is iteration on and enhanced. However, streaming audio (music) is liable to be implemented ahead of any Voice support.
  • However, while the capabilities will be iterated on over time, Mobile is not intended to offer full parity in terms of functionally as the full viewer.
  • [Video: 47:38-48:36] The initial BETA release of the Mobile app will likely not be before the last quarter of 2023.

NUX and New Starter Avatars

[Video: 23:48-28:40]

See also: Lab Gab summary: Grumpity, Mojo & Patch – SL Mobile, land, bots & more, March 2023.

  • LL is working on improving the whole user on-boarding and new user experience (NUX) path for those coming into SL for the first time.
  • This work includes new “full mesh”, one piece (head, body, hands, feet) avatars (previewed at SL19B), which will be supported by a full complement of clothing and accessory options
A preview version of the new, single mesh (head-to-toe) avatar, which will use by mesh clothing and Bakes on Mesh, and be open for creators to design clothing and accessories
  • The NUX process will involve smoother on-boarding from the web (sign-up, etc.) and include viewer-side changes to make getting started with SL easier and more intuitive, and making it easier for those coming into SL to get a good start.
  • The first part of this work to surface is likely to be the updated sign-up workflow and on-boarding from the web (including selecting one of the new avatars and carrying out some customisation at that point – thus avoiding the need to get into the complexities of using Inventory, etc., within the viewer).
  • The second part of the work “later on” will simplify the avatar customisation process within the viewer, and it is hoped the third-party viewer community will build on this work as well.
  • The new avatars, coupled with the new on-boarding path, are seen as a mean for communities leverage / user SL to develop their own on-boarding paths using the RegAPI to bring their particular audiences / users into the platform.
    • This could potentially extend down to the level of communities providing specific outfits / clothing for the users they are bringing into SL (e.g. a selection of uniforms or similar for a military role-play group; t-shirts and hoodies with a school or college logo on them for an educational group, etc.).
  • This will be leveraged by Mobile so that users coming into SL via the Mobile option will be able to customise their avatars through the on-boarding process.

PBR Materials and Puppetry

[Video: 31:41-35:40]

See also: Lab Gab summary: Grumpity, Mojo & Patch – SL Mobile, land, bots & more, March 2023, my Content Creation User Group meeting summaries and my Puppetry Project user group meeting summaries.

  • The next set of capabilities to be deployed will be the Physically Based Rendering materials capabilities and reflection probes.
    • The core of this work is to support a new approach to material maps / surfaces either directly on products developed for SL by content creators or which can be used modify personal items and creations. They are designed to give objects a sense of physical world lighting and reflection, drawing on the Khronos glTF 2.0 specification.
    • This work represents a significant technical step forward in graphical rendering for SL (in the order of 10 years), and will take a step towards facilitating things like dynamic planar mirrors which can reflect avatars in-world (with some constraints around the capability).
    • Documentation and materials in support of the PBR Materials and reflection probes is in the process of being developed.
  • Animation imports is a project that is in the pipeline, but is currently more an offshoot of the Puppetry Project.
  • The Puppetry Project is in progress, but has expanded beyond the original outline, and can be regarded as “coming soon™”. This work includes motion capture from devices as basic as a web camera, as well as potentially supporting more capable hardware, and broadcasting / streaming the results in-world in real time (so you can wave you avatar’s hand, beckon someone – even potentially reach out and pick up an object, etc.).
  • More information on the PBR work and what follows it, and the Puppetry Project will be made available as this work continues.

SL20B – The 20th Anniversary

[Video: 29:15-31:40]

See also: SL20B: theme, music festival & performer applications, March 2023.

via Linden Lab
  • SL20B is anticipated as being a “very large event”, given it is the 20th anniversary, with the event regions almost doubling in number.
  • When the exhibitor applications are opened, communities and groups from across SL are encouraged to apply and take part in the event.
  • As well as performances and entertainment, SL20B will open up for panels, talks and discussions, applications for which will also be opening soon.

Upcoming / Future Work

[Video: 36:08-42:32]

Translation tools

LL note that the current translation tools within the viewer are getting long in the tooth, so there will be a project to make sure they are properly supported. After that, it is hoped a project can be put together to move translation server-side. The specification for this work is still being developed internally at the Lab, and more details may be available for public consumption in the future.

Family Names

  • Linden Lab has long run a Custom Name Programme, allowing qualified users to pay for personalised avatar names.
  • This is being expanded to allow the introduction of a new subset of custom last names: Family Names.
  • Family Names will allow a user to purchase into a last name, and then elect / allow a certain number of accounts to use that last name.
  • This capability is something that has been requested by users, and is seen as having a number of use-cases.
  • Further information on Family Names will be made available as and when the capability is ready to be released.

Streaming Solution Option

  • Aside from the Mobile app, LL is looking at a streaming capability for Second Life (that is, running a viewer instance on a cloud server and streaming the results to a browser).
  • If developed, it would “come in at a more reasonable price-point” than past efforts (SL Go and Bright Canopy).
  • Even so, it would not be intended to be a means for day-to-day access to Second Life, but more something that could benefit specific communities / events / activities.
  • LL may well take further steps to solicit wider feedback on this idea.

General Q&A

[Video: 42:40-46:36]

  • Will there be a payable “lifetime account” option? “Maybe. Time will tell”.
  • Is the Education Discount still available – Yes.
  • Will the new features being developed prevent users on older hardware from using SL? Not necessarily – although very , very old hardware may not be able to run some of the newer features, so may have to rely on “legacy” modes (where available).