A white knight’s garden in Second Life

The White Armory-Silvan Moon Designs, March 2023 – click any image for full size

Held by Bee Dumpling, Emerald is a Full region setting with multiple faces, all of which make for an engaging visit – particularly for those who enjoy Medieval / fantasy and combat.

The Landing Point sits on the ground level, located between The White Armory Apparel, wholly owned by Bee, and Silvan Moon Designs, a brand co-owned by Bee. The two stores sit within an open, semi-woodland setting, surrounded by mountains. A curtain wall of cliffs runs north-to-south across the region. It is cut through by an archway, separates the stores from a garden area designed by Gidgy Adagio (Gidgette Adagio).

The White Armory-Silvan Moon Designs, March 2023

As with all of Adagy’s designs, the garden is simply delightful, well-designed and very easy on the eye. Screened from the sea to the east by trees and shrubs, the garden is cut through north-to-south by a large pond and stream running southwards. A single bridge spans the water, a path of stepping stones laid out over the grass to link the bridge and the archway leading back to the stores.

Beyond the bridge, the steam opens into a small bay in which sits a stone gazebo, one of several places where visitors can sit and relax. Another might be found on the small dock extending over the water; a dock which might otherwise serve the little elven-style boat floating amidst the flowers on the water of the northern pond. Carvings and statues give the gardens an air of mystery, as do the tall mushrooms from which strings of lights are draped.

The White Armory-Silvan Moon Designs, March 2023

Colour is added to the setting by slanting rays of sunlight filtering through trees, the light playing off the waters, bursts of flowers and the surrounding mountains. These all combine to give the garden a further air of mystery and enchantment, both encouraging visitors to explore – and to sit and pass the time.

Located on a sky platform accessible via a teleport disk can be found several more locations, all of them – as with the ground-level stores – put together by Bee. They include a period village (the buildings of which are unfurnished), a Renaissance-style hall (which is set as a ballroom and sitting before formal gardens; a Tai Chi garden, a fortified hall and a walled castle – each with formal gardens, and various tournament / combat areas –  jousting, archery, training. Overlooking everything on a table of rock is an elven hall, reached via a natural path angling up the rock face, while  as with the ground level, mountains surround the setting, giving it a greater depth.

The White Armory-Silvan Moon Designs, March 2023

Region-wide the platform is well put together, the paved paths acting as boundaries to separate them one from the next, whilst still leaving room for water features streams, wild woods and  a memorial walk. These settings appear suitable for role-play – although to be honest, I didn’t pry too much in order to find out; the region is linked to The Last White Knights of SL, a private group with the description:

Charged with defending the principles of truth, honour, and kindness. To defend those who cannot defend themselves from those who would seek to cause pain.

But beyond that, I just appreciated the settings in their own right.

The White Armory-Silvan Moon Designs, March 2023

With a subtle soundscape available on both the ground levels and on up on the sky platform, and with plenty to catch the eye and the camera, Emerald makes for an interesting and photogenic visit.

SLurl Details

2023 SL SUG meetings week #10 summary

Aurelias, January 2023 – blog post

The following notes were taken from the Tuesday, March 7th, 2023 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.

Server Deployments

  • On Tuesday, March 7th, the SLS Main channel servers were restarted without any deployment, leaving them on simulator version 577734.
  • On Wednesday, March 8th:
    • The majority of RC servers will be updated to simulator release 578370, first deployed in week #9 to the BlueSteel RC.
    • In addition, there may be a deployment to the Ferrari RC comprising new LSL Functions llList2ListSlice, llSortListStrided, and llListFindListStrided (per BUG-231545). It also has a fix for DATA_SIM_STATUS from llRequestSimulatorData(), and doubles the amount of memory available for Linkset Data (LSD) to 128k.

There have been no official viewer updates to mark the start of the week, leaving the various pipelines as follows:

  • Release viewer: Maintenance Q(uality) viewer, version 6.6.9.577968 Thursday, February 2, 2023.
  • Release channel cohorts (please see my notes on manually installing RC viewer versions if you wish to install any release candidate(s) yourself).
  • Project viewers:
    • PBR Materials project viewer, version 7.0.0.578526, March 3, 2023 – This viewer will only function on the following Aditi (beta grid) regions: Materials1; Materials Adult and Rumpus Room 1 through 4.
    • Puppetry project viewer, version 6.6.8.576972, December 8, 2022.

In Brief

  • Several general discussions:
    • Camera tracking for one’s own camera.
    • Particle size limits seen as possibly more a Content Creation User Group meeting discussion.
    • An idea to allow mesh vertices to be edited in-world without generating new assets in the process.
    • Using Media on a prim with HUDs, and the limitations therein (also related to the week #9 discussion of sending the contents of notecards in response to HTTP requests.
    • Image uploads and compression.
    • Please refer to the video for more on these.

2023 RFL of SL: SL Living Expo 2023

SL Living Expo 2023

Currently open in Second life is the SL Living Expo, a mega event held on behalf of the American Cancer Society (ACS) and the Relay for Life Second Life (RFL of SL) campaign for 2023. Taking over from the Home and Garden Expo, the SL Living Expo carries forward many of the signature activities from the former event, whilst adding its own new features and opportunities, with everything running through until Sunday, March 12th, 2023, inclusive.

For 2023, the Expo is taking place across regions built around five landscape themes:

  • Seaside – with vibes of a New England seaside village, perfect for maritime, beach and water-loving folk.
  • Countryside – for laid back and easy living, is great for equestrian and farming communities.
  • Fairgrounds – for community, family and fun-loving groups, the fairgrounds feature rides and games to keep folk attendees entertained.
  • City Life – put put the pedal to the metal on the paved streets and watch the tall buildings and busy city stream by.
  • Mountainside – take to the air and fly through the mountains as they overlook rest of the region.
SL Living Expo 2023 – Artwalk

With multiple exhibitors taking part, the event offers something for anyone who is looking for a new home, ideas for furnishing and décor, wishing to improve their building (or other) skills, or who just wishes to keep abreast of the latest building / home trends in Second Life.

As always, the Expo there will be a range of entertainment and music, games and tournaments, auctions and raffles. and new to the Expo such as the Drivers of SL sponsored Vehicle Show, featuring “off-the-shelf” and custom built road vehicles. Meanwhile, the Interior Decorating Contest, and the Expo will include a number of special Linden Auctions, including:

  • Dinner with the Lindens: enjoy a relaxing dinner over the course of an hour with Patch Linden and three of his friends and three friends of your own.
  • A Premium Plus Subscription Package comprising:
    • TWO 12-month Premium Plus Subscriptions – one for you and one to gift to a friend.
    • A Homestead Region with no monthly maintenance fees for 12 months.
  • A 12-month Premium Plus Subscription.
  • A 3-month Premium Plus Subscription.
  • A 12-Month Premium Subscription.
  • One free name change.
  • A 1-hour Hangout/photo time with Patch.

Bidding on any / all of these can be made via the Auction Area at the Expo’s Welcome/Landing Hub.

Also new to the Expo is the Art Walk, providing artists across the grid the opportunity to share their talent and creative minds.

Each artist is able to display two pieces of art, for sale, one of which is available through an ACS vendor with 100% of proceeds of sales benefiting ACS / RFL of SL.

The best way to find your way around the Expo is to visit the the Events Transportation centre at the Welcome / Landing Hub. within it is a vehicle rezzer to transport you to the major regions of the Expo, and visitors can obtain a shopping HUD, Event HUD and Interactive Map, and details of the event’s Hunt.

SL Living Expo 2023

SLurl and Information Details

All SL Living regions are rated Moderate

Seanchai Library: stories in voice in Second Life, March 6th-10th, 2023

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 6th, 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 7th

12:00 Noon: Russell Eponym

Live in words and music at the Glen.

19:00: Stories from Heroic Women and Water in the Desert

With Caledonia Skytower.

Wednesday, March 8th, 19:00: Seanchai Flicks

Films, popcorn and fun at the Seanchai cinema space.

Thursday, March 9th, 19:00: Selections 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.

LL announce fee changes for Second Life land and Lindex

via Linden Lab

On Monday, March 6th, Linden Lab announced a series of fee changes / payment changes to Second Life which have sparked some debate.

The announcement leads with the reduction in “standard” Full private region (i.e. a region with the standard 20,000 Land Capacity) monthly tier being reduced by US $20 a month, from  $229 / month to US $209 / month – the reduction being to mark 2023 being SL’s 20th anniversary.

Note that the monthly Homestead tier and the US $30 / month for the Full Private region land capacity bonus remain unchanged.

It also introduces an option that has been requested numerous times over the years: the ability to pay tier on regions obtained directly from the Lab using Linden Dollars. However this option comes with some caveats:

  • It is limited to only one region per Premium Plus subscriber.
  • It is only available for Premium Plus subscribers.
  • It is currently a “beta” programme, currently set to end on September 6th, 2023 – although this date may change / be extended.
Land tier rates for regions in Linden Dollars – available for Premium Plus subscribers with land holdings, per the notes above. Table via Linden Lab.

Payments are made on the basis of a stable conversion rate of L$250 to the US dollar, and to facilitate payments, Linden Lab has created a Land Payments region, although at the time this blog post was written, it did not appear to be available. For further details on it, and the all information on using Linden Dollar to pay tier to Linden Lab, please refer to L$ Payments for Land.

Fee Changes

In what is likely to be a less popular move, the blog post notes the following Lindex fee changes, which come into immediate effect from Monday, March 6th, 2023:

  • The buy fee is increased to 10%, with the minimum and maximum fees charged remaining unchanged at US $1.49 and US $14.99 per transaction respectively.
  • The sell fee is increased to 5%, regardless of the size of the transaction.

The blog post notes that these increases are to offset the above land price reductions (and thus a continuation of LL’s policy of redistributing their means of revenue generation to be less reliant on a single product (land)), and also as a result of rising operational costs.

A brief FAQ on these changes is provided in the official blog post, and specific questions on them can be made through the forum thread associated with the blog post, or possibly submitted as a question which might be asked of the SL management team as a part of the Lab Gab session to be broadcast on Friday, March 10th (in which case the question must be submitted by 09:00 SLT on Thursday, March 9th, 2023.

Related Links

2023 SL viewer release summaries week #9

Logos representative only and should not be seen as an endorsement / preference / recommendation

Updates from the week through to Sunday, March 5th, 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:
  • Project viewers:
    • glTF / PBR Materials viewer, version 7.0.0.578526, March 3, 2023 – 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

  • No updates.

Mobile / Other Clients

  • Speedlight updated to version v28, March 1, 2023 – release notes.

Additional TPV Resources

Related Links