Author: Inara Pey

Eclectic virtual world blogger with a focus on Second Life, VR, virtual environments and technology.

2023 SL Puppetry project week #28 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, July 13th, 2023 Puppetry Project meetings. 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 Overview

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

  • The project is rooted in the in idea of “avatar expressiveness”, referenced in a February 2022 Lab Gab session with Philip Rosedale and Brad Oberwager and officially introduced as Puppetry in August 2022 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.
  • Since that time the project has expanded in size, attempting to encompass improving SL’s (somewhat primitive) IK system; investigating and developing ideas for direct avatar-to-avatar, avatar-to-object interactions (“picking up” an apple; high-fives. etc.); providing enhanced LSL integration for animation control; broader hardware support; adoption of better animation standards, etc.
  • This has led to a change in approach for the project – see below for more.

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:

Resources

Change In Approach

  • The Puppetry User Group meetings have, until now, been held on Aditi (the Beta grid) at the Castelet Puppetry Theatre, commencing at 13:00 SLT, and generally on alternate Thursdays to the Content Creation meetings, and as per the Second Life Public Calendar.
  • As of the July 13th, 2023 these meetings have now been suspended until further notice.
  • This does not mean the project is being abandoned; it was noted during the meeting that as several of those involved in the project attend other User Group (SUG) meetings – notably, but not exclusively, the Tuesday Simulator User Group meeting -, discussions on Puppetry can continue within hose meetings.
  • Explaining the decision, Simon Linden Noted:
There’s definitely a lot of interested tech and possible features with [Puppetry]. [However] the original idea of doing real-time mocap on webcams was like opening Pandora’s box in terms of features and ideas, and also was a lot harder than we expected … in the end I think it’s better to work on some fundamental tech that can be used in a lot of other ways – like IK, streaming, figuring out how animation data can work with scripts, solving some challenges like just doing a decent hand-shake.

– Simon Linden, July 13th, 2023

  • Elements of Puppetry which have thus far been confirmed as continuing as WIP projects comprised (but are not necessarily limited to):
    • The real time animation streaming component of Puppetry (forming something of a hybrid between the LEAP <-> viewer work already undertaken, and Leviathan Linden’s work in streaming animation playback from one viewer, through the simulator and to other viewers without any direct interaction with the animations by the simulator).
    • IK Improvements and updates (see below).
    • Improved animation import support (see below).
  • There are also broader discussions going on in the Lab regarding possible further overhaul of the animation system.
  • The above decision re: Puppetry meetings being the case, this will be the last of these my dedicated Puppetry Puppetry summaries for the time being, but I will continue to report on Puppetry / related work as and when it is discussed at other meetings such as SUG meetings and Content Creation User Group meetings.

Meeting Notes

Animation Import

  • One of the Puppetry expansions, improving / broadening animation import into Second Life was spun-off into its own project and June.
  • Notably with this work, LL is using Assimp (github: https://github.com/assimp/assimp), which supports some 30-40 animation formats (including the likes of .FBX and glTF), converting them to its own format for ease of import to multiple platforms.
  • The work is now in its own branch of the official viewer (DRTVWR-584, not currently ready for public consumption in any way).
  • This viewer uses the Assimp engine to read animation files, and the viewer extracts data from there for preview and then uploading as a SL animation. Animation imports it supports include:
    • BVH files, as per the current animation import within the viewer.
    • FBX format files.
    • Animations saved with the Mixamo skeleton, as supported by other tools.
  • The Mixamo element of the viewer is currently incomplete, but there is a focus on getting it wrapped up so the viewer can enter the project viewer pipeline at some point for public testing. However, when complete, it is hoped that importing an animation with a Mixamo skeleton from the likes of  Blender or a tool like Rokoko Studio should work fairly seamlessly.
  • To help with imports, Aura Linden has included an option on import to scale motion, which might be further automated slightly, for improved ease-of-use among less experienced content creators.
    • If this process is automated, it will include an capability for manual override of course for those who are more experienced with animation creation and import.

Inverse Kinetics  (IK) Updates

  • Leviathan Linden’s IK work has pretty much become a mini-project in its own right.
  • Most recently, he has been focused on implementing Forward And Backward Reaching Inverse Kinematics (FABRIK) – which is the fundamental algorithm for suggesting new joint positions in a range of applications, including 3D modelling.
  • This work has been in part a matter of trial-and-error, and most recently, Leviathan has been fixing issues of where constraints are enforced in FABRIK which impact the SL avatar, although he still has some more constraints to fix.
  • Fixing these issues has required additional visualisation / debugging tools, which he’s having to code for himself.

Additional Notes

  • A further request was made for updating the bento reference skeletons on the wiki, which are reported as being “broken”, per BUG-10981 “Test content for public Project Bento Testing wiki page” and this Content Creation Discord channel discussion. This will be chased internally at LL to see if action is being taken.

Asian Cinema in Second Life Art

Posted on by Inara Pey
Kiku Art Gallery: Daikota Wind – 18 Images Inspired by Asian Films

I was drawn to the boutique-style Kiku Art Gallery, operated and curated by Rafael Nightshade and Suzanne Logan – who also operates the Amatsu Shima estate within which the gallery is located – for an engaging and fun exhibition with combines Second Life photography with another visual medium: Asian Cinema.

Occupying the South room of the gallery, is 18 Images Inspired by Asian Films by Daikota Wind, which also carries this shorter title Asian Cinema. As both titles suggest, the focus of the exhibition is on cinematic productions of the Far East, which film-making is (as if it needs saying) as rich and genre-spanning as cinema in the west (or anywhere else in the world).

Kiku Art Gallery: Daikota Wind – 18 Images Inspired by Asian Films

When considering Asian cinema, thoughts are likely to focus on the likes of Chinese (/Hong Kong) and Japanese productions which have a long history of western exposure (and inevitable re-makes / re-interpretations), together with – more recently – that of South Korea. Due to the prolific output of these three powerhouses, they do dominate this exhibition, although Indonesia and Thailand also get very honourable mentions. However, rather than focusing on national output, this exhibition seeks to offer insight into the aforementioned genre-spanning nature of Asian film-making.

To achieve this, Daikota presents 18 images of films ranging from action to thriller, passing by way of comedy, drama, fantasy, post-apocalyptic, romance and more, each image inspired either by a scene from the film it represents or from the posters used to advertise it. Each image shares its space with a brief synopsis of the film’s storyline.

Kiku Art Gallery: Daikota Wind – 18 Images Inspired by Asian Films

The images themselves appear to have been subjected to minimal post-processing, adding to their connection with the film they represent, rather than suggesting how the artists interprets the film. The accompanying text offers a fair description of each film’s plot, together with some insights by Daikota giving each one more of a personal feel.

Some of the films – Infernal Affairs, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Ju-On, to name three, but Daikota’s images and synopses give them a freshness and vitality which certainly increases the desire to go and watch them. Light and engaging, 18 Images Inspired by Asian Films offers a worthwhile exploration of Daikota’s photography and the films of the far east.

Kiku Art Gallery: Daikota Wind – 18 Images Inspired by Asian Films

SLurl Details

A summer in The Shambles in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
The Shambles, July 2023 – click any image for full size

I last visited The Shambles when it occupied a Homestead region and presented a steampunk-come-sci-fi theme (see: In The Shambles in Second Life). But that was a year ago (or, when put in purely Second Life terms – a decade ago!). A lot has happened in that time. For one thing, Tolia Crisp has relocated The Shambles to a Full private region; for another she has once again teamed with Dandy Warhlol (Terry Fotherington) to offer another engaging and photogenic region under the Frogmore banner.

At the time of my visit, The Shambles was open to members of the Frogmore group, who are also invited to participate in a landscape photo competition with a L$8,500 prize pool, including L$5,000 to the outright winner (+a 4-week free stay at Frogmore Cottage). Details on this competition are available through the Frogmore group, and it will remain available for entry by group members until August 4th, 2023. However, The Shambles itself will open to full public access on Saturday, July 15th, 2023, and will remain so through until Tolia closes it for a Halloween redressing – so this might be considered a little advanced promotion for the region.

The Shambles, July 2023

Those who have visited the core Frogmore regions will find much that is familiar within this iteration of The Shambles. It offers something of a continuation of the rugged coastal environment that mixes touches of England’s Cornwall and Devon with a stirring of European coastal areas, bound together with a touch of summer days perhaps made more bearable by the cooling influence of an light breeze drifting in from over the sea.

This is not to say that The Shambles doesn’t have its own personality or independent looks – it most certainly does. In fact, the overall styling contains more of a lean towards parts of Europe’s multi-faceted coastlines than it does the UK’s, and there is, as ever, plenty to see and discover whilst exploring.

To the west, the land is low-lying and formed by a deep inlet / bay complete with a broad sandy beach to one side, facing an headland which rises as a broad shoulder of rock protecting the inlet from the wilder elements, capped by a small fishing wharf suitable for trawlers at the head of the bay. This sits as one of two guardians watching over the entrance to the bay, the other being the (inevitable? – We SLers do so love them…) lighthouse.

A broad cobbled street parallels the beach, offering multiple points of interest whilst aged steps climb the eastern uplands as they rise to a roughly flat top before falling away sharply to the seas below again.

This highland area is home of a variety of locations, each one with its own charm and beauty. There’s the dirt track running past stables, the horses from which graze both in the field alongside it and the meadow above from which rises the head of a tumbling stream which steps its way down along the east side of the setting before using a waterfall to jump down to the sea on the north side.

The Shambles, July 2023

Or – and keeping to the north side of the region – there’s the campsite with its mix of caravans and tents. It’s a cramped but clearly popular location, although how the caravans got up there is a nice little enigma. Certainly, the same track as runs past the stables was used for the final leg of their journey, but its southern end ends in a rocky drop descended only by more aged stone steps and by more water tumbling from a small pair of pools.

Watched over by a tall bell tower, the southern end of the island seems to exude a sense of age, a careworn spit of land splitting the waters between open sea and narrow channel. Another fishing wharf sits on the narrow spit, itself crossed at several points by a variety of bridges, whilst its eastern end is guarded by two lighthouses, one of considerable age, the other perhaps one of the more recent structures on the island.

The Shambles, July 2023

All of which is just the start of a description for what is a genuinely captivating setting, rich in content, with many places to sit and pass the time or enjoy a drink or two. There’s also a bungee jump for the more adventurous, although this may be absent whilst the photo competition is running. As one would expect from the pairing or Tolia and Terry, there is a deep since of natural beauty throughout; a feeling that – as is the case in the physical world – the land was present long before people arrived, the wind, fresh water, sea and rain forming it into folds and turns, high points and lowlands, slopes and drops, humans have in turn used to their advanced in establishing a lasting presence here.

Needless to say, the entire setting is highly photogenic and those of the Frogmore group wishing to enter the competition should find lots here by which to create an entry, whilst those wishing to take avatar-centric photos which are not for the competition but purely for pleasure, can also join the Frogmore group for rezzing rights with props.

The Shambles, July 2023

Again, the region will be open to the general public from Saturday, July 15th, 2023, but those wishing earlier access can – again – join the Frogmore group. Enjoy.

SLurl Details

2023 SL SUG meetings week #28 summary

Posted on by Inara Pey
Xanadu Forest, May 2023 – blog post †

The following notes were taken from the Tuesday,  July 11th Simulator User Group (SUG) meeting. They form a summary of the items discussed and is not intended to be a full transcript. A video of the entire meeting is embedded at the end of the article for those wishing to review the meeting in full – my thanks to Pantera for recording 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):
  • They 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.

Server Deployments

  • No deployments are planned for the week, but all simhost channels will be restated on the Tuesday and Wednesday slots.

Upcoming Updates

One (or more) upcoming simulator code updates will include:

  • A fix for the bug on the simulators running the recent LSD additions (llLinksetDataCountFound() & llLinksetDataDeleteFound()) being unable to save scripts.
  • The changes to UUID generation on certain items (e.g. textures, notecards, materials (particularly the upcoming PBR Materials)) to reduce the amount of duplication. These changes will not impact  UUIDs for objects rezzed in-world or made by the viewer. for further background, see my week 26 SUG meeting summary.

Viewer Updates

  • On Monday, July 10th, the Maintenance T RC viewer updated to version 6.6.13.580918.

The rest of the official viewer currently in the pipeline remains as:

  • Release viewer version 6.6.13.580794, formerly the Windows 32 + macOS pre-10.13 RC and dated June 30th and promoted on July 5.
  • Release channel cohorts (please see my notes on manually installing RC viewer versions if you wish to install any release candidate(s) yourself).
    • glTF / PBR Materials viewer, version 7.0.0.580782, June 30.
  • Project viewers:

PBR Materials

There continue to be a lot of questions as to when PBR will be deployed across the entire grid. In response to such questions at the SUG meeting, the following observations were made:

The server has to go through the full RC process still, once it is deemed ready for that. the messaging formats and api interfaces are expected to be stable, but if a showstopper bug is found that can change if needed to fix it.

– Brad Linden

I am about 80% confident the interface is complete and also about 80% confident that we have some server side changes to behaviour within the confines of the existing spec (things like: what can you do with reflection probes). Internally we’re answering questions like “can you kick a reflection probe like a soccer ball? Can you put a reflection probe as the root of your physical vehicle?”

– Maxidox Linden

It almost goes without saying that there are a lot of significant changes in the glTF server & viewer. It’s a case where it is much better to be safe than sorry.

– Rider Linden

In Brief

  • The Asset store is now standing at 2 petabytes.
  • BUG-233853 “Scripts failing to receive rapid touch_start events under LL viewer” had had been seen as fixed in The Maintenance T RC viewer. however, it has been reported the issue has still present, so the bug report has been re-opened.
  • Refer to the latter part of the video for:
    • A general discussion on bots.
    • A discussion on using estate_environment command to update EEP settings across an entire estate / the issues around updating Mainland on a continent-wide basis to overcome the current somewhat darker (than private regions) default environment (short form: it is hoped PBR with its updated environment settings will help matters).

† 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.

Do You Believe? An artist’s question in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
NovaOwl, July 2023: Ninae Trallis – Do You Believe?

Recently opened within the main gallery at NovaOwl Community Centre & Gallery operated by ULi Jansma, Ceakay Ballyhoo & Owl Dragonash,  is what might be called a 3-part exhibition of avatar studies by photographer-artist Ninae Trallis. I say three parts, because there are three elements of equal import within Do You Believe? – the images themselves (together with their supporting 3D elements), the selection of music offered with each picture, and how both resonate individually and jointly with our emotions / imaginations.

Unlike most exhibitions I’ve visited within the main gallery at NovaOwl, Do You Believe occupies both the 3-room gallery space and the adjoining space which had, during part visits, been generally given over to a café / lounge space – and rightly so, as these are genuinely captivating images. Ninae is one of the few artists in SL who focuses on avatar studies whilst largely eschewing the use of post-processing to enhance her images. Instead, she uses framing, composition, environment and the viewer – Black Dragon in this case – for her work, relegating tools such as Photoshop to the role of small-scale touching-up.

NovaOwl, July 2023: Ninae Trallis – Do You Believe?

This gives her images a crisp richness and depth which is immediately engaging. Her use of lighting ensures most colours are softened to natural pastels, while her use of black and white gives a further sense of authenticity of live and vitality. Each image sits as a single-frame story, expanded upon through the use of the 3D elements placed before and around the images. What that story might be folds another of the three elements into the exhibition: our imagination.

Through the title we are offered a challenge – to believe in … something. Through the images we are offered hints of ideas, some obvious, some more subtle: to believe in love, fantasy, the existence of fae and / or faerie tales, our own ability to create, to trust in another – be it with secrets, or hearts or even our submission to them – and not to fear rejection; to believe in the power of nature and in things unseen.

NovaOwl, July 2023: Ninae Trallis – Do You Believe?

How we might opt to interpret individual images is given a further little tilt in that each image is accompanied by a piece of music (click the music notes found to the lower left or right of each picture – under under the middle of a couple! – to be offered a You Tube URL to the music in question. As Ninae notes, these pieces, which range from classical pieces through soundtracks through to rock and pop ballads, might be completely unrelated to the image in question – like many of us (myself included), Ninae listens to music whilst the creative juices flow – but then again, they might not (as hinted by her use of “sometimes” in the notes accompanying the exhibition).

Which of these might be the case is left open to personal interpretation – and while some might appear “obvious” in their influence on the production of the image they accompany, the lyrics, when listened to in full, might actually suggest otherwise. But discerning whether or not the choice of music for any given piece is intentional or simply the result of it being a piece Ninae likes independently of the image is actually irrelevant here. Each piece, whether Chopin, Lewis Capaldi, Hans Zimmer, original composition or cover version, echoes that challenge of the exhibit’s title, the music mixing with the images to set our imagination free to reflect, to travel where emotions might lead, to conjure feelings and ideas in which might believe, however transitory their existence in our minds and imaginings.

NovaOwl, July 2023: Ninae Trallis – Do You Believe?

Rich and eye-catching – and potentially containing a little in the way of personal revelation through the selection of music as much as the images themselves (which adds to its beauty and mystique, Do You Believe? is an engaging, gently layered exhibition.

SLurl Details

  • NovaOwl (Novatron, rated General)

2023 SL viewer release summaries week #27

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, July 9th, 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,  version 6.6.13.580794, formerly the Windows 32 + macOS pre-10.13 RC, issued June 30, promoted July 5th.
  • Release channel cohorts (please see my notes on manually installing RC viewer versions if you wish to install any release candidate(s) yourself).
    • No updates.
  • Project viewers:
    • Second Life Project Inventory Extensions viewer, version 6.6.13.580808, July 6.

LL Viewer Resources

Third-party Viewers

V6-style

  • No updates.

V1-style

  • No updates.

Mobile / Other Clients

  • No updates.

Additional TPV Resources

Related Links