Day: November 13, 2024

A shameless self-promotion in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
My exhibition at Maison de la Chouette, November  / December 2024

Yes, a little self-promotion, I’m afraid, wrapped in the guise of two exhibitions in which I’m featured as both the solo exhibitor and as a part of an ensemble exhibition in which I’m delighted to play a small part, sitting amidst some extremely talented artists and photographers.

The solo exhibition is taking place at Maison de la Chouette, curated and operated by the lovely Owl Dragonash, who asked if I would put on a 2-month display there starting with a soft opening early in November. Whilst already available to view, the exhibition will have a more formal opening on November 13th, 2024 at 12:00 noon SLT – which I very much hope those of you who can, will attend.

My exhibition at Maison de la Chouette, November  / December 2024

A further gallery nestled within the Corsica South Coasters area, joining with the likes of NovaOwl and the galleries at Port Emyniad (and locations in between),  Maison de la Chouette is a boutique-style gallery utilising a Tuscan style house, allowing art to be displayed on two floors. This makes for cosy little exhibitions, which is probably for the best where my work is concerned.

And that’s not false modesty kicking-in; I genuinely don’t see my  SL photography as “artistic” or “art”; rather it is primarily intended to be illustrative, and a means of breaking some of the meandering jumbles of thought which appear in this blog. As such, I’m sincerely flattered (and genuinely surprised) when I an asked to display them in-world in either a dedicated exhibition or as part of a larger exhibit.

Cloud Galleries Winter Art Market, 2024

And a larger exhibit is what you’ll find at the Cloud Galleries Winter Art Market, again curated by Owl. Whilst this has its official opening party on November 19th, 2024 at 12:00 noon SLT, it has already enjoyed a soft opening as it brings together multiple artists from across SL, all of whom are displaying 2 pieces each on a winter / seasonal theme. Those participating include:

Alex Riverstone, AmandaT Tamatzui, BijouxBarr, Carelyna, Ceakay Ballyhoo, Dido Haas, Sina Hastings (Fasina Firehawk, Frank Atisso, Giselle Seeker, Hermes Kondor, Jaminda Galênê Moon (Jaminda Lygon), Jerzzie Reece-Redstar (jerzzie Reece), Jilla Lamar, JueL Resistance, Lizbeth Morningstar, Maggie Runo, Tom Willis (MajorTom Willis), Marnie Morningstar (Marnie Ansar), Owl Dragonash, Pagan Lane, Pieni, Rosie Riverstone (YsabellaRose), TaccaExotic, Tess (Therese Carfagno), Uli Jansma, Wren Parker (Wren Carling), Christian Carter (XJustFriendX), Zia Branner and Yours Truly.

Cloud Galleries Winter Art Market, 2024 – Rosie Riverstone (YsabellaRose) and Maggie Runo

With such a diverse mix of artists and photographers, the Winter Art Market offers an engaging mix of images captured in-world together with original art and photography taken in the physical world and uploaded to Second Life. The setting is suitably wintery, being a snowbound outdoor venue adjoining the Cloud Galleries in Novatron. Also, as might be expected by the title, the art on display is offered for sale by the participating artists and photographers.

So, that’s potentially two exhibitions to visit, both within easy reach of one another (bot that anything in Second Life is ever *that* far out of reach!). I certainly hope you’ll support those participating at the Winter Art Market, and if you can make it to my little exhibition and shindig – then thank you! My thanks to Owl in particular for inviting me – and to the DJ LiTo Team for providing the music for both openings!

Cloud Galleries Winter Art Market, 2024 – Jilla Lamar and JueL Resistance

SLurl Details

Novatron is rated General.

2024 SL SUG meetings week #46 summary

Posted on by Inara Pey
Clef des Champs, September 2024 – blog post

The following notes were taken from the Tuesday, November 12th, 2024 Simulator User Group (SUG) meeting. They form a summary of the items discussed, and are not intended to be a full transcript, and were taken from the chat log and Pantera’s video of the meeting, which is embedded at the end – my thanks to her for providing it.

Meeting Overview

  • The Simulator User Group (also referred to by its older name of Server User Group) exists to provide an opportunity for discussion about simulator technology, bugs, and feature ideas.
  • These meetings are conducted (as a rule):
  • Meetings are open to anyone with a concern / interest in the above topics, and form one of a series of regular / semi-regular User Group meetings conducted by Linden Lab.
  • Dates and times of all current meetings can be found on the Second Life Public Calendar, and descriptions of meetings are defined on the SL wiki.

Simulator Deployments

  • On Tuesday, November 12th, 2024, the simulators on the Main SLS channel were restarted without no updates.
  • On Wednesday, November 13th::
    • The Barbecue simulator update will hopefully be deployed to all simulators on the BlueSteel RC channel; however, a late-breaking bug in the code may prevent this. Among other things, this update includes:
      • Support for “alpha-gamma” which will allow an object owner to adjust some of the PBR alpha values that were impacting legacy things like hair.
      • llSetAgentRot.
      • A new warning on receiving direct IMs from Scripted Agents (“registered” bots). Rider describes this as “Bot confessions”: with IM sessions with bots there will be a warning sent to the receiver that they are having a conversation with a bot. Also, for viewer developers, there will be a bit of metadata attached to the IM_NOTHING_SPECIAL that indicates the sender is a bot.
    • The remaining RC channel will be restarted.

Apple Cobbler Update

  • This will follow the Barbecue deployment in the coming week, and should include:
    • llTransferOwnership which enables a prim give itself to a new user (subject to owner permissions already set).
    • An extended llGiveInventory to allow for a destination folder (system folders + RLV/a) to be specified as well (+ the use of a parameter list, so further options can be added in the future).
    • llMapBeacon – like llMapDestination, but a) does not necessarily open the map window; b) can optionally open the map, with or without focus. This will also require a viewer update.
    • A new function for detecting attachments. If it is running with an experience it will be able to detect HUDs that also have scripts with the same experience (e.g. to ensure the correct HUDs are being used – this will not allow anyone to script to find out all the HUDs someone is using).
  • A preview of Apple Cobbler is available on the Aditi (Beta Grid) regions of Mauve and Jigglypuff for those wishing to test.

SL Viewer Updates

The ExtraFPS RC updates to version 7.1.11.11750364439 on Tuesday, November 12th.

  • Release viewer: version 7.1.10.10800445603, formerly the DeltaFPS RC (multiple performance fixes, etc), dated September 11, promoted September 17 – No change.
  • Release Candidate: ExtraFPS RC, version 7.1.11.11565212741, October 30.
    • Performance improvements: enhanced texture memory tracking, broader hardware compatibility and higher FPS gain;  additional code to improve texture streaming on rigged attachments (e.g. if an earring is made with 2K textures, the viewer will correctly calculate the required resolution for the textures and download them, rather than downloading the full 2K textures), etc.
    • Aesthetics improvements: new Antialiasing setting – SMAA; Contrast Adaptive Sharpening; Khronos Neutral Tone Mapping (can be changed to ACES via the RenderTonemapType Debug setting).
    • UI Optimisations.

In Brief

Please refer to the video below for the following:

  • Further discussion on llGiveAgentInventory, including but not limited to:
    • A reminder that the  function will not require a viewer-side update.
    • Requests that it should include the option for the receiving user to select the destination folder.
    • Whether or not all items given using llGiveAgentInventory should be forced to default to creating folders only with a defined system folder within inventory (e.g. “Given Items”).
    • Discussion and disagreements over which folders should be available for nomination by a script / which should not.
    • A general discussion on system folder naming (e.g. the misnomer of “Received Items”, suggesting everything goes there, when it is in fact for items received from the MP) which in turn wandered into areas of tagging and hierarchies.
  • Comments on attachment issues (failing to show on others after TP, etc.), Monty Linden reminded people that the recent fix targeted a specific issue (relating to attachments ghosting and similar on region crossings), not “all” attachment related  bugs. He also notes that there is some asset re-prioritization work going on in the viewer which is improving avatar render after arrival.

† The header images included in these summaries are not intended to represent anything discussed at the meetings; they are simply here to avoid a repeated image of a rooftop of people every week. They are taken from my list of region visits, with a link to the post for those interested.