Raglan Shire, Second Life’s Tiny community, has once again opened its doors to people from across the grid as participating artists and visitors are invited to the Raglan Shire Artwalk 2023.
This year, the the event runs from Sunday, May 14th, through until Sunday, June 18th, 2023, inclusive. It offers an opportunity not just to appreciate a huge range of art from both the physical and digital worlds, but to also tour the Shire regions and enjoy the hospitality of the Raglan Shire community.
A non-juried exhibition, the Artwalk is open to any artist wishing to enter, and has minimal restrictions on the type of art displayed (one of the most important being all art is in keeping with the Shire’s maturity rating). All of this means that it offers one of the richest mixes of SL art displayed within a single location in Second Life, with 2D art is displayed along the hedgerows of the Shire’s pathways and tree platforms overhead and 3D art among the community’s parks.
Raglan Shire Artwalk, 2023
2022 attracted 150 artists, and 2023 is set to match that number, with many artists participating for the first time. As such, the depth and range of art on display is guaranteed to keep visitors exploring the paths and walks around and through the hedgerows – and if walking proves a little much, there are always the Shire’s tours to ease the load on the feet, together with the teleport boards to help move visitors swiftly around and through the different display areas. But that said, I do recommend exercising your pedal extremities and doing at least some of your exploration on foot – just keep in mind people do have their homes in the regions as well.
Given the number of artists involved, there isn’t a published list of participants, but anyone interested in the world of SL art is bound to recognise many of the names of the artists here. The Artwalk is also a marvellous way to see art from both our physical and digital worlds and for catch artists both familiar and new to your eye. Just don’t try to see it all at once; the Artwalk is open for a month, which gives plenty of time for browsing and appreciating the art without feeling overloaded.
Dragonfly, March 2023 – blog post
The following notes were taken from my audio recording and chat log transcript of the TPV Developer (TPVD) meeting held on Friday, May 12th 2023 at 13:00 SLT.Meeting Overview
The TPV Developer meeting provides an opportunity for discussion about the development of, and features for, the Second Life viewer, and for Linden Lab viewer developers and third-party viewer (TPV) / open-source code contributors to discuss general viewer development.
Maintenance S RC viewer, version 6.6.12.579987, May 11.
Maintenance T RC viewer, version 6.6.12.579927, May 11.
PBR Materials project viewer, version 7.0.0.579766, April 25.
Project viewers:
Puppetry project viewer, version 6.6.12.579958, May 11.
General Viewer Notes
Inventory thumbnails viewer: work is progressing and a public-facing viewer should be available in the “not too distant future”.
The viewer-side work to support emojis is now more-or-less complete, and release of any project viewer is pending some additional back-end work.
There will be changes coming to the Second Life System Requirements, minimum specifications:
Mac OSX will be set at version 11.
Window 32-bit is liable to be dropped.
LL is close to completing the move of viewer builds to Github Actions. This has involved getting many of the 3rd party libraries for the viewer updated and refreshing all build dependencies.
There is a project underway to provide PDR support for terrain.
The overall scope is not clear, but it apparently exploits an asset-checking weakness in the simulator code related to terrain, allowing the use of Materials asset IDs in place of the usual texture IDs, allowing them to be applied to the ground.
This is seen as a means of leveraging PBR Materials to offer some quality improvements to terrain ahead of any longer-term terrain project which might yet be considered / actioned.
It is hoped that this work will be available in a project viewer Soon™.
In Brief
PBR Materials mini-update:
Overall visual quality is pretty much where it will be when the viewer reaches formal release status.
There are still issues with rendering the sky – such as alpha glitching on the Sun. This is being worked on, but it is unlikely to see an imminent solution / viewer update.
Other known issues are also being worked on and progress is being made in clearing them.
A general discussion of the on-line / off-line friends issues (frequently raised t the Server User Group meetings) – see BUG-232037 “Avatar Online Offline Status Not Correctly Updating”. As per notes from that meeting, the UDP fix does not appear to have had the desired impact in helping to reduce the issue, and LL are looking at the matter again.
A lot of general chat on WIP regarding PBR Materials and reflection probes, most of it relating to issues likely to be addressed – please refer to the video.
A general discussion on possible standards for avatar “metaverse interoperability” which runs through the latter half of the meeting. As a theoretical discussion rather than something LL is working on, please refer to the video.
There is also some further discussion on the Puppetry project, however, this will form an addendum to my recent Puppetry Project meeting summary, as it is more relevant there.
Xanadu Forest, May 2023 – click any image for full size
Fantasy Faire may have passed into memory for 2023, but those who appreciate the splendour and beauty of the Fairelands can recapture the spirit of it, and past Fantasy Faire events through the largesse of Evangeline Ling. She is the creator of the simply stunning Xanadu Forest, a place of mystical magic ringing with the echoes of Fantasy Faire hidden – like Tolkien’s Rivendell, within a deep cleft within the Mainland continent of Sansara.
WELCOME to Xanadu Forest, a place of magic and mystery … Here you are welcome to role-play, explore, relax with your friends or take beautiful photographs for your special memories, or just play a game or two of greedy. We invite you to use the shared environments as our lighting here is part of the attraction and don’t forget to take a visit to our fantasy bowling alley (Even elves enjoy a little bowling too). You will find dryads and elves, Dragons, pirates, scattered evidence of a demonic presence.
– from the introductory note card for Xanadu Forest
Xanadu Forest, May 2023
Comprising multiple levels from the waters at the bottom of its deep gorge to platforms and plateaus amidst its peaks, this is a place of vivid colours, otherworldly plants, winding trails and climbing stairs, all of which fully captures the romance and magic of multiple Fairelands without ever feeling as though it is merely trying to copy them. Thus, it stands as a rich and vibrant land in its own right, as much as standing in homage to Fantasy Faire.The landing point sits high up on one of these platforms, sitting within a build from The Looking Glass and harking back to Fantasy Faire 2022. Here, under the shadow of Ketsui Naidoo’s The Majestic Revived – better known to Fairelanders as The Fairechylde – walkways extend out and across the valley, held aloft by the trunks of giant mushrooms and the faces of cliffs rising and falling to reach other levels, houses and the gardens below.
Xanadu Forest, May 2023
Along the way, there is much to find, again as the introductory note card for the setting describes:
You will find dryads and elves, Dragons, pirates, scattered evidence of a demonic presence. With enough searching you may even find the home of a certain Slenderman (we advise extreme caution entering his home). There are no strict role-play rules in Xanadu, you bring your own RP here or perhaps use Xanadu as a foreign land for your own RP group. Please join our Group, Xanadu Forest, and we will keep you up to date on any fun activities or events. Stop by anytime the forest welcomes you.
– from the introductory note card for Xanadu Forest
Xanadu Forest, May 2023
Also awaiting discovery are teleport points, both light and dark, offering trips to destinations which may appear in opposition to their outward appearance; a hidden gallery of art, a high (literally) elven home and many, many, elements from the Fairelands, from the giraffes of Haveit Neox and the bears of Loki Eliot – even the suspended walkways are liable to bring forth recollections of Fairelands past. There are also one or two unexpected characters to be found along the way!
This is a place so cleverly put together that just when you think you have found everything, you turn around and discover something new and / or unexpected. It might be a throne sat back and above the garden trail or a hollow within the rock where a board game might be enjoyed or an unexpected cliffside path rises, offering an alternate route to where the elven house sits.
Xanadu Forest, May 2023
As with the Fairchylde, the Majestic Revived offers the opportunity for dancing – at least for couples, I didn’t notice any solo dances – and more places to dance are also await discovery as people explore. There are also multiples to sit and / or cuddle and – obviously – endless opportunities for photography.
With regards to the latter, the setting comes with its own EEP settings, and I recommend using them when visiting – just go to World → Environment and make sure Use Shared Environment is checked. Also, and for the fullest experience, make sure local sounds are enabled. Should you appreciate Evangeline’s work in creating Xanadu Forest, or if you are a Fairelander yourself, do please consider a donation towards the future upkeep of the setting.
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.”
Note: this has been updated to include comments made at the TPV Developer meeting on Friday, May 12th.
The following notes have been taken from chat logs and audio recording of the Thursday, May 11th, 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 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.
An updated version of the viewer – version 6.6.12.579958 – was release on Thursday, May 11th.
This update includes access to Rider Linden’s experimental attachment point tracking & forwarding to the server feature.
It also includes various incremental improvements to handling puppetry, such as support for parsing binary LEAP data from the LEAP script.
Avatar attachment point tracking (per the TPVD meeting discussion on May 12th):
This allows the tracking of joints (using attachment points) using a script.
Using visible attachment points (i.e. those on the avatar , NOT any of the screen-based HUD attachment points) cuts down on the the amount of data having to be be handled at both ends.
The speed at which the attachment point movement is read back is such that it could not be exploited to create a copy of an animation with any real fidelity.
This is a deliberate move to ensure that animation creators are not left feeling uncomfortable about LSL animation tracking.
There is a combined throttle / sleep time elements to tracking attachment points: the throttle limits the number of attachment points that can be tracked over a certain period of time; he script sleep time is designed to allow an animation to move those attachment points forward sufficiently before a further taking record is made. Thus, it is next to impossible to track and record a coherent animation frame.
It was noted that previously, joint constraints had been hard coded in C++, but their configuration has been moved into a human-readable LLSD file which can be modified without rebuilding the viewer.
Two areas of focus going forward are:
Improving the Inverse Kinematic (IK) system within the viewer – something Leviathan Linden is already working on. This will include overall improvements to IK constraints as well as to positioning, with the existing source-code constraints moved replaced by a further config file – “constraints” here being in terms of joint rotation / movement.
Providing .FBX animation file import and Mixamo skeleton re-targeting.
The IK work is still being thrashed out (and subject to much more discussion at meetings, but is seen as a priority over other elements of work, such as the animations streaming idea Leviathan Linden had been working on. The hope is that by improving IK, it will play into streaming and “live” animations a lot more robustly and smoothly. It is also seen as a foundational piece of work for further opening up puppetry and animation work.
General Notes
It was noted that for animation import, LL is looking towards using / supporting Assimp (github: https://github.com/assimp/assimp), which supports some 30-40 animation formats, converting them to it ownformat for ease of import to multiple platforms. Notably, it supports .FBX and glTF, so it fits with the Lab’s goal of utilising glTF for materials, mesh imports, etc.
[TPVD meeting, May 12th] This will not alter the existing internal format for animation. It is just to allow the import of other formats.
It is acknowledged that alongside o that, the Labe will require a retargeting system for animations; although what form this will take is still TBD.
The core of the meeting was a general discussion of things that might / could e done in the future, and what technologies LL might look towards.
Nitroglobus Roof Gallery: Nowhere B. – Intimistic Journey
May has brought with it not one but two exhibitions at Nitroglobus Roof Gallery, curated by Dido Haas. Whilst both very different in tone and content, they are nevertheless connected in that each has a particular source of inspiration / interpretation.
Occupying the Annex section of the Gallery, and having opened on May 2nd, is a compact exhibition which should be noted as potentially Not Suitable For Work (NSFW), given the subject is nude studies. Entitled Zorian Women, it presents a total of 15 studies of the female form, as imaged by Kian (random26356). Fourteen of these (the 15th is rather more novel in approach!), have been inspired by the nude studies of “the Swedish Impressionist”, Anders Leonard Zorn (18 February 1860 – 22 August 1920).
Nitroglobus Roof Gallery: Kian – Zorian Women
Zorn was an incredibly gifted artist, a veritable virtuoso working in multiple formats and styles – watercolours, oils, pencil, etching, sculpture – to produce an incredible range of art during his lifetime. A graduate of the Royal Swedish Academy of Arts, at the age of 29 he was made a Chevalier de la Légion d’honneur at the 1889 World Fair in Paris, and he would gain international recognition for his portraiture, with subjects including three US Presidents and King Oscar II of Sweden, whilst he and his wife Emma would go on to established The Bellman Prize for Swedish poetry, which is still awarded annually by Swedish Academy.
Zorn’s repertoire included a series of female nude studies which became particularly noted for their unique style. Initially produced in watercolours, these depicted his models fully unclothed and painted against the backdrop of the open countryside of Dalarna, the district where he and Emma lived in Sweden. Such was the form and impact of the pieces in this collection, they became known under the collective name of Zornkulla.
Nitroglobus Roof Gallery: Kian – Zorian Women
It is these works Kian celebrates within his exhibition. This is no easy task, because despite their apparent casualness of presentation, employing a loose brushwork, soft tones and gently blurred edges, the Zornkulla paintings are all incredibly well composed through use of colour, pose, placement of elements such as water and the horizon and features within the landscape beyond the nude subject, all of which results in a visual play: focus on the subject, and she immediately comes into sharp focus, the background dissolving so as not to be noticed. But then focus on the backdrop, and the subject herself appears to dissolve into it, becomes an almost natural part of the landscape, rather than appearing as a something standing within it.
Emulating this technique, Kian offers that same sense of loose brushwork and familiar soft tones whilst adding his own interpretation on Zorn’s Zornkulla, thus offering something fresh and new.
Within the main halls of Nitroglobus is the first solo exhibition by Nowhere B. A relative newcomer to SL photography and to the art exhibition scene here – his first time exhibition was at an ensemble event in 2021 – there could not be a better, more nurturing environment than Nitroglobus under Dido’s stewardship, by which he could spread his wings into the world of solo exhibitions.
Nitroglobus Roof Gallery: Nowhere B. – Intimistic Journey
Entitled Intimistic Journey, this is an engaging and somewhat personal selection of pieces by Nowhere B., representing as it does a record of his journeys through Second Life’s richly varied landscapes and settings, whilst also offering hints of his inner responses and experiences during those visits (hence the intimist sub-text to the title).
Given this, these are not you usual captures of places seen in Second Life. Instead they offer a highly personalised perspective (in places quite literally!) and narrative to present not just reflections on the places Nowhere visited, but his potential mood and thoughts on seeing them. This is helped in part by the artist including himself – and his John Steed-like bowler and brolly – in many of the images in a manner that draws us into his thinking without bashing u over the held with obviously posed context and narrative.
Nitroglobus Roof Gallery: Nowhere B. – Intimistic Journey
Taken individually or together, Zorian Women and Intimistic Journey present engaging, highly visual and expressive exhibitions which can be enjoyed both independently to one another, or as a joint visit to Nitroglobus, with Zorian Women set to remain in place through into the better part of June.
Sojourner Auditorium, Virtual Ability Island, Second Life
The 2023 Virtual Ability Inc., (VAI) Mental Health Symposium on Friday, May 12th, 2023, a little ahead of the internationally supported Mental Health Awareness Week (May 15th through 21st, inclusive). As such, it forms a part of a wide range of physical world and virtual world events framed around Mental Health Awareness Month, which has been throughout May observed in the United States since 1949.
2023 marks the 12th such symposium hosted by Virtual Ability Inc., and has the theme Self-Identity and Mental Health. As with previous years, the symposium will feature a broad cross-section of speakers, who this year will be talking on a range of identities, from “mad” to autistic, from military to caregiver.
The Symposium will take place in the virtual world of Second Life, at the Sojourner Auditorium on Virtual Ability Island. Those from outside of Second Life wishing to attend can do so by creating a free Second Life account through Virtual Ability’s Sign-Up Portal, and then entering Second Life via Virtual Ability’s New Resident Orientation Course.
The Symposium schedule – click to view
The schedule of speakers for the event can be found on the Virtual Ability Inc., website, and presentations commence at 07:00 SLT (US PDT) on the morning of Friday, May 12th, and run through to the concluding presentation, which starts at 12:00 noon, with each session lasting approximately one hour. For ease of reference, a brief summary of the presentations is provided below – but do please check the complete schedule via the link above for the fullest information on speakers and talks.
07:00 SLT: Dr. Joanna Fox, Associate Professor in Mental Health Recovery at Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge, England – “Mental Ill-health and the Recovery Process”.
08:00 SLT: Dr. Yasuhiro Kotera, Associate Professor in Mental Health at the University of Nottingham, England – “Cultures and how we feel well: Making a global map of mental health personal recovery”.
09:00 SLT: Dr. Kate Cooper, clinical psychologist and researcher, University of Bath, England – “Autism social identity and well-being”.
10:00 SLT: Dr. Fred Berlin, Associate Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioural Sciences, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, USA – “Transgender Persons (Gender Dysphoria)”.
11:00 SLT: Dr. Bonnie Vest, Research Associate Professor in the Primary Care Research Institute, Department of Family Medicine, University at Buffalo, USA and Dr. Rachel Hoopsick, Assistant Professor in the Department of Kinesiology and Community Health at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, USA – “Military Identity and Service Expectations among Reservists: Associations with Mental Health and Substance Use”.
12:00 SLT: Wonkyung Jung, PhD, RN, Postdoctoral Fellow in the RESILIENCE Centre, Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing, Baltimore, USA – “Social Integration and Resilience”.
Sojourner Auditorium, Virtual Ability Island, Second Life
About Virtual Ability
Virtual Ability, Inc. is a non-profit corporation, chartered in the state of Colorado, USA. It is a non-profit tax exempt organization under section 501(c)(3) of the United States Internal Revenue Code. This means that for US citizens, contributions made are deductible as a charitable donation for federal income tax purposes.
Virtual Ability hosts this annual Symposium to share information about mental health and mental disabilities with the general population. Within its cross-disability community, VAI has members who deal with a variety of mental health issues. So, not only is this an opportunity for VAI community members to learn more about topics related to mental health from experts they probably would not have a chance to meet otherwise, it allows the general public to attend a professional conference at no cost.
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 