Bay City 13th Anniversary – Sunday, May 16th, 2021
Bay City, the first major project undertaken by the Moles of the Linden Department of Public Works (LDPW), will be marking its thirteenth anniversary on Sunday, May 16th, 2021. Citizens of Bay City and residents of Second Life are invited to join in with the celebrations, which will include the traditional parade down “Route 66,” followed by a live music event in the Bay City fairgrounds.
First opened for initial viewing in May of 2008 and with parcels throughout the city being auctioned soon after, Bay City has shown itself to be one of the highlights of Second Life: a blending of Linden infrastructure and a strong, friendly community of involved residents who give the area its unique charm.
Celebratory activities will kick-off at noon SLT with a parade line-up at the band shell in Bay City – Harwich. At 12:30 SLT, the parade will make its way down Route 66, and proceed to the Bay City Fairgrounds in the North Channel region. DJ GoSpeed Racer will be providing the music throughout the parade, which will be followed by at live concert from 13:30 SLT onwards at the fairgrounds.
The line-up for the concert this year comprises (all times SLT):
13:30-14:30: Mimi Carpenter – active in Second life since 2006, and active throughout all her in-world time as a live singer, Mimi hails from France although she now resides in Canada. She performs a broad rang of songs and is noted for her multi-lingual abilities, singing in English, French and German and accompanying herself on the guitar and occasionally on the piano.
14:30- 15:30: Parker Static – Parker started singing at a very early age; being in a musical family her passion for singing was inevitable. Her repertoire ranges from pop through ballads, jazz, R and B to soft rock and more. She has received numerous awards including Showtime Magazine’s TOP 10 performers in SL and the Soul Train’s Best Female entertainer of the year.
15:30-16:30: Noma Falta – a noted blues rock / soul singer and guitarist, Noma has been performing in Second Life for 12 years and has also dipped her toes into other virtual domains. When not singing, she spends some of her time producing mixed media art pieces focusing on portraiture.
As usual, celebration goods, including parade float bases and ideas, are available at the Bay City Community Centre, in the Daley Bay region for those who wish to be a part of the parade. Ample viewing areas are provided. The music event is also open to all who desire to attend — not only Residents of Bay City
About Bay City and the Bay City Alliance
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.
Each year, in honour of Bay City’s founding, Bay City residents come together with this special celebration.
As a part of his work to make the Kondor Art Centre a hub for artistic expression and community sharing, Hermes Kondor opened the Kondor Art Square on Thursday, May 13th, 2021.
Comprising three parts, the square is designed to resemble a fashionable square in a European city (the surrounding façade to me suggests somewhere in Paris or Madrid. Its open space is intended to host open-air exhibitions by guest artists, with the area further graced by sculptures by ArtemisGreece.
The Kondor Art Museum, May 2021
At the north end of the square is the Kondor Art Museum, a space devoted to rotating exhibitions of art by Second Life artists that Hermes has purchased over the years. Facing this from the south is a book shop where visitors can buy books celebrating past art exhibitions by Hermes himself.
The 2D art currently on display within the museum comprises individual pieces by Adam Cayden, Awesome Fallen, Bamboo Barnes, Caly Applewhyte, Bebop Xue, CybeleMoon Carelyna, Diconay Boa, Dido Haas, Etamae, Flamered, Hermano, Ladmilla Medier, Marie de la Torre, Milena Carbone, Milly Sharple, Monique Beebe, Mony Pedroya, Moora Mcmillan, Mystic Audion, Patrick Ireland, Rosehanry, Sina Souza, Traci Ultsch, Vanessa Jane and Zia Branner. All of whom make for an engaging collection – although the display could perhaps do with a little more space to allow for the volume of art to be properly appreciated – rounded out by further sculptures by ArtemisGreece.
Kondor Art Square, May 2021: Sugah Pancake
Sugah Pancake is an artist I’ve not previously encountered who describes herself as a fantasy fanatic – and this is certainly reflected in the art displayed within the Kondor Art Art Square as the inaugural guest art exhibition. The pieces presented are amongst the most vibrant, energetic and story-rich pieces I’ve had the pleasure of viewing in Second Life.
Featuring mermaids, creatures of mythology, suggestions of inspiration gained from comic characters and fantasy / sci-fi / horror literature, these are pieces with an evocative vitality that is evident through their colour, posing, framing and focus. Within each we have an entire story waiting for our imaginations to unfold.
Kondor Art Square, May 2021: Sugah Pancake
What I particularly like about the Kondor Art Centre is that the square offers a focused presentation of work by a specific artist while the museum presents the opportunity to become familiar with works by a range of Second Life artists. It makes a worthy addition to the Kondor facilities.
The following notes are taken from the TPV Developer meeting held on Friday, May 14th, 2021.
These meetings are generally held every other week. They are recorded by Pantera Północy, and her video of the meeting is embedded at the end of this report – my thanks to her for allowing me to do so – and it is used with a transcript of the chat log from the meeting and my own audio recording to produce these notes.
This was perhaps the shortest TPVD meeting on record.
SL Viewer
The Project UI RC viewer updated to version 6.4.19.559612 on Friday, May 14th. The remaining viewers in the pipelines remained unchanged through the week:
Release viewer: Eau de Vie Maintenance viewer, version 6.4.18.558266, dated April 23rd, promoted April 29th.
Release channel cohorts:
Love Me Render (LMR) 5 viewer, version 6.4.18.558365, dated April 22nd.
Maintenance 2 RC viewer – Fernet, version 6.4.18.558441, dated April 21rd.
Project viewers:
Legacy Profiles viewer, version 6.4.11.550519, dated October 26th.
Copy / Paste viewer, version 6.3.5.533365, dated December 9th, 2019.
Project Muscadine (Animesh follow-on) project viewer, version 6.4.0.532999, dated November 22nd, 2019.
360 Snapshot project viewer, version 6.2.4.529111, dated July 16th, 2019.
General Viewer Notes
All three RC viewers are pretty much ready to be considered for promotion to de facto release status. Of these, Maintenance Fernet now includes the fixes for helping with Voice updates, and is with the Lab’s QA team, so it could be the next in line to be promoted.
The Legacy Profiles viewer is finally receiving attention, with some cosmetic UI changes being made, after which it should be appearing as an RC viewer, rather than a project viewer.
LMR 6 is still gathering graphics bug fixes.
The Simplified Cache viewer is still awaiting its turn to re-enter the the pipelines.
The Mac notarisation fixes viewer is also awaiting a time to enter the available viewer pipelines.
The small but noticeable update to the secondlife.com splash screen menu that appears to have been recently rolled out
Update May 17th: It appears LL may either have released a change to the splash screen and have rolled it back, or are experimenting with ideas. On Monday, May 17th, the splash screen had reverted back to the April update.
Back in April Linden Lab slipped out a revamp to the secondlife.com home page.
At the time, it came in for a very mixed response, featuring as it does an actress in elven-like make-up rather than the more usual avatar.
The image used was actually a still from the broadcast quality advert Levitate Media produced on behalf of Linden Lab in August 2020, and which was previewed in December 2020, a point that seemed lost on at least some of those who responded negatively to splash screen re-vamp.
The re-vamp also brought the secondlife.com property more into line with other Second Life properties such as the enterprise micro-site, in that scrolling down the page reveals further information on Second Life under a trio of headings.
The secondlife.com splash screen image as seen with the April re-vamp, inset, the scene of the Second Life advert from which the image was taken, being filmed by Levitate Media in August 2020.
The latest update – seen at the top of this article – was quietly rolled-out during the week. It now features an enlarged version of the still from the Levitate Media video and a re-worked menu. Gone are the options found in the top right corner of the screen, to be replaced by the more “modern” three-bar menu icon favoured by website designers and which offers a mobile device friendly solution to accessing menus. The rest of the page remains unchanged from the April 2021 update.
To be honest, I liked the April update, and the upset over the use of a live model seemed a little overblown to me; as I’ve said elsewhere, Second Life is supposedly “your world, your imagination”, so why not someone dreaming about being Galadriel or somesuch? That said, the image in this latest version is – to me – a little too large and in-you-face and as a result looses a lot of the mystery / enticement it presented in the April version of the page; better, perhaps to have left it untouched and simply re-work the menu access.
As it is, the latest update is a small tweak, and presumably part of the Lab’s preparations for the deployment of revamped new user on-boarding process and new user experience. It also makes the secondlife.com splash screen a little more mobile device friendly (although the rest of the web pages have a long way to in that respect).
Note:you need need to be logged-out of secondlife.com in order to see these changes.
Soul Deep, May 2021 – click any image for full size
Kaelyn Alecto (TheNewKae) opened her latest Homestead region design in April 2021. Called Soul Deep, it is once again a richly detailed setting that is both fun to explore and also forms a restful retreat for those so minded to take advantage of its offerings.
Set within a ring of mountains that sit off the region and lie separated from it by a ring of blue water, Soul Deep comprises a main low-lying island around which are a number of small islets and raised promontory. These huddle around it like hatchlings making their first swim upon the calm waters under the watchful eye of their mother.
Soul Deep, May 2021
The landing point sits to the west of the main island, set upon one of Cory Edo’s converted shipping crate. Raised on shout wood and steel legs, this commands a view out over the island’s impressive lake, a body that looks as if it might once have been largely open to the surrounding waters, but time – or the hands and machines of humans – has surrounded it with slim arms of earth, grass and reeds that gently embrace it so that waterfowl now treat it as a quiet sanctuary.
Running around the inner shore of the banks of this lake is a wooden board walk that offers a gentle walk around the water and leads visitors past various landward points of interest – places to sit out in the Sun or under the shade of trees, decks facing the waters surrounding the island, a little music venue – and the one centre of commerce to be found within the setting.
Soul Deep, May 2021
Clustered to the east, this takes the form of a group of wharves and decks on which sit assorted building that look to be related to the fishing trade – although whether fishing boats still put in alongside is perhaps questionable; the wharves appear to be devoted to rowing boats, and the boatyard seems to now be more the home for a very large shark, rather than a place for building boats…
South of this is one of the regions two uplands, a rocky table with a rather eclectic top – Doors that stand sans any surrounding building or ruins. Falls drop to the water below to one side of this strange monument to bookend one side of the arc of sand that forms a little beach – one of two gracing the island’s shores. The second beach lies just to the south, facing a curving bay that links the rocky table with the west side of the island, where another upland sits amidst oak and fir.
Soul Deep, May 2021
This looks to have once been a part of the main island, so close are the two, but whether by accident or design, a narrow channel of water now separates them, necessitating the use of bridges to cross from one to the other.
Heavy in foliage thanks to the oak and fir covering it, this is home to an old ruin, whilst the crown of the hill features a place where visitors can literally hang out: a platform extends outward from the crown of the hill. Down below, a kayak is drawn up on the shore close to a little camp site in the lee of the hill. Thanks to the screening of the trees, this entire area feels as if it is deep in the wilderness, despite the proximity of the landing point just across the little channel.
Soul Deep, May 2021
And that’s the charm of Soul Deep: the feeling of openness and the mix of locations and open water that gives it a sense of being much larger than the region in which it sits.
Whether you want to explore the main island or hop over to the outriggers – one with a cosy house upon it, another with the remnants of an old church, a third with a simple deck of which to sit – there really is much to discover and appreciate here, while the boats liberally scattered over the waters (some of which can be driven), offer still more opportunities for discover and / or relaxation.
My winLab/Dogma Moon Shadow, in my own hull / superstructure finish, moored at Isla Caitinara
Oh, I’ve been ridin’ on a Moon Shadow, moon shadow, moon shadow – Cuttin’ the waves on a Moon Shadow, moon shadow, moon shadow.
OK, so the words aren’t quite how Yusuf Islam (or Cat Stevens, as he was at the time) wrote them in 1970, but they have been bouncing through my head the last few days.
The reason for this is that I was recently contacted by Spartaco Zemenis who, among his many talents, is a creator, a scripter and a member of the Firestorm Italian support group. Following our conversation, he kindly sent me – in no expectations of any review, but as a simple “thank you” – a couple of items he has put together with Dogma9.
One of these is the Moon Shadow motor cruiser, a vessel somewhat larger than I’ve used – at least, up until now. Curious about it,I decided to give it a go, and in the process it joined the ranks of my regularly-used vehicles, which in turn qualified it for a review.
Heading out to Blake Sea Channel from Second Norway
Comprehensively packaged and packed with features, the Moon Shadow can be purchased in two variants: one with a default black hull and superstructure, and one with a default white finish – which is the versions Spataco sent me. Included in the package – which comes in the form of a boxed model – is the boat, a pair of HUDs (one for driving the boat, and and optional one that works with camera positioning), and a detailed user manual.
Priced at L$7,000, Moon Shadow is a 25m class cruiser with a beam of 7.2 metres and a keel-to flying bridge height of 8.5 metres. It is an exceptionally attractive vessel, nicely proportioned, with a hull clearly designed to cut through the water rather than riding over them.
The main cabin, showing the table set with the breakfast meal option and the open fridge
The main cabin takes up the majority of the interior space, offering comfortable facilities complete with galley, a dining area, forward seating and a cockpit area for piloting the boat. Forward of this is a single sleeping cabin that has a fair amount of space, and includes a working bathroom, closets, and a double bed. Over the top of this cabin is the traditional forward solarium common to cruisers of this type. Aft of the main cabin, and separated from it by a glass screen and sliding door, is a small swim platform area with seating and access to the large fantail swim platform itself, as well as steps up to the flying bridge / lounge. A working panel in the floor well of the swim platform seating area provides access to the engine bay. The flying bridge itself is roomy and helps classify the Moon Shadow as a sport-fly, with both curved bench seating and a solarium alongside the upper cockpit area.
Moondancer: my version of the Moon Shadow
The boat’s features are impressive, comprising:
The ability to carry up to 10 avatars (region crossings allowing!), although I’ve thus far not gone beyond two.
30 multi-purpose seating positions, and an animation system providing 120 couple and 80 single animations, the majority managed by a on-board servers (rather than multiple animations per seating area). In particular, this allows for:
Avatar movement between seats without the need to stand up.
Use of a manageable suite of animations across all suitable seating areas – lounge seats, top and forward solariums, etc.
The ability to add your own animations.
(Note that the above excludes the galley, which utilises its own animation.)
75 interactive objects, including:
A selection of meals that can be rezzed on the main deck table and drinks and snacks that can be rezzed from the fridge.
Items that can be rezzed when working at the galley.
Rezzable mooring piles and lines.
An extensive audio video system, including a large deployable screen at the rear of the main cabin, a small deployable screen in the lower cockpit, a flat screen TV in the sleeping cabin.
The starlight spotlight, controlled by the boat’s main HUD.
A projected light system (requires Advanced Lighting Model to be running on the viewer) for internal illumination.
Scripted dynamic control system that can be used to adjust boat handling (stability / performance balance) to suit your driving needs.
Automated resource management with manual override: when the engine is running, all scripts deemed unnecessary to motion / navigation are turned off to reduce the vessel’s simulator resource use.
The last two point are particularly useful when driving the Moon Shadow. At 150 LI (248 prim), and a 146 server load (29.6 physics), this is a “heavy” vessel when it comes to region crossings, so minimising resource use and managing performance are important aspect in ensuring crossings are as smooth as possible. Maintaining a reasonable throttle speed also helps – I’d personally recommend not going above 60% of throttle when carrying multiple avatars.
Main HUD
A key aspect on managing the Moon Shadow is the main HUD. This provides access to the majority of the boat’s controls, as shown in the image below right.
The Moon Shadow primary HUD. Courtesy of Dogma Creations / winLAB
In order to work, the HUD needs to be synced to a copy of the boat. This is achieved by wearing / adding the HUD and then sitting on the boat as the driver.
The HUD is pretty self-explanatory, but some of the options are worth going into further here:
Show / Hide Sit Panel: displays a panel denoting the core deck / cabin sit points (shown in the lower right of the HUD). When displayed, sit points can be enabled / disabled by clicking on their icons.
Camera mode: clicking this displays the Camera Mode dialogue, allowing your camera position to be slaved to the boat and then positioned via the camera mode options. A separate (and relatively compact) camera HUD reproduces the options on the dialogue box to provide an alternative to managing camera positions. Note that once engaged, the Camera Mode needs to be turned OFF to release your camera.
Set and Go: these allow you to set a mooring point, with GO jumping the boat to it when in range.
Transmitter: if you are unseated from the boat, clicking this will send a request to the boat for its location, which is returned in local chat as a TP link, allowing you to teleport to the boat and rejoin it. This works with the currently synced version of the boat, or the last rezzed version. I can say from experience, this works.
Show / Hide Moor Structure: this rezzes a couple of mooring posts off the stern quarters of the boat with lines connecting them to the stern cleats.
The line-up for the concert this year comprises (all times SLT):
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 