Author: Inara Pey

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

May 2020 Web User Group

Posted on by Inara Pey
The Web User Group meeting venue, Denby

The following notes are taken from my recording of the Web User Group (WUG) meeting, held on Wednesday, June 3rd, 2020. These meetings are held monthly, generally on the first Wednesdays of the month, with dates and details of the meetings available via the Web User Group wiki page.

When reading these notes, please keep in mind:

  • This is not intended as a chronological transcript of the meeting. Items are drawn together by topic, although they may have been discussed at different points in the meeting.
  • Similarly, and if included, any audio extracts appearing in these summaries are presented by topic heading, rather than any chronological order in which they may have been raised during the meeting (e.g. if “topic X” is mentioned early in a meeting and then again half-way through a meeting, any audio comments related to that topic that might be included in these reports will be concatenated into a single audio extract).

Account Self-Reactivation

  • Previously, if a user left Second Life and asked for their account to be de-activated, it would require a support ticket to have the account re-activated at a future date, should the user wish to return to SL and to that account.
  • Users can now re-activate their account directly.
  • This is seen as a way to help people returning to Second Life as a result of the SARS-CoV-2 situation to be able to resume using their “old” accounts, rather than having to fully start over without having to soak up support personnel time in re-activating an account.
  • To work, a returning user must know both the account name / password and the e-mail address used to create the account.
  • This method doesn’t replace raising a support ticket for account re-activation, so people can still file a ticket if they do not have all the required information.
  • Details on account reactivation can be found here.

Mobile Client

  • The iOS version is now in a closed alpha featuring some residents.
  • In keeping with the Lab’s plans, this version offers the ability to communicate via IM, and has a basic Friends listing.
  • Further updates will follow  – the next being the addition of Abuse Reporting support and improved management for the Friends list.
  • Once the Lab believe the client has an initial set of functions to make it useful as a communications tool, it will will move to a beta phase and made available to a wider cohort of users for further testing.
  • Work is progressing on an Android client, but it will take time for it to reach a point where it is ready for testing. When it is ready, it will likely follow a similar Alpha / Beta test process to the iOS version.
  • Additional work on SL web properties is also being carried out in relation to the Mobile client.

In Brief

  • The Adult Swim event held in May heavily involved the web team, and similar events are apparently being planned for the future.
  • Name Changes:
    • In response to requests, the list of last names provided on the Name Change page can now be seen by Basic members, so they can review the currently available names without have to upgrade first.
Basic users can now see the list of available last names on the Name Change page, so they can check to see if there is a name they’d like before they upgrade to Premium to use the capability.
    • No indication of how frequently the list of last names will updated, but plans remain to change out names once they reach a certain point of use and / or fail to gain traction and use.
    • There will be a blog post ahead of any update to allow people who what to take a name before it might vanish from the list can do so.
  • Work continues on deploying the updates Second Life logo / font (see Out with the green, in with the blue) across web properties as they are naturally updated for other reasons.
  • There was a reminder that user in Norway and Australia must now pay VAT or GST is now applicable on Linden Lab products services (see VAT & GST on Lab products & services for Norway & Australia).
  • Feature request and bugs discussed:
    • To help with EEP asset merchandising, the following feature request has been filed: BUG-228856 “EEP Category in Marketplace”.
    • BUG-228845 “Marketplace Edit Item Listing loses Image Upload option” has been accepted by the Lab for cloning to their internal Jira system.

Second Life Mobile mini update, May 2020 with audio

Posted on by Inara Pey

As I’ve previously reported several times over the last year, starting with Linden Lab confirm Second Life iOS client in the making, Linden Lab is developing a companion app for Second Life.

Since that first article, I’ve provided a number of updates on the development, including that the client will be for both Android as well as iOS, and speaking at the Web User Group meeting on Wednesday, June 3rd, 2020, Keira Linden – who is the Product lead for the client – provided and update on process, the core points of which are bullet-pointed below.

  • iOS Client:
    • The iOS version is now in a closed alpha featuring some residents.
    • In keeping with the Lab’s plans, this version offers the ability to communicate via IM, and has a basic Friends listing.
    • Further updates will follow  – the next being the addition of Abuse Reporting support and improved management for the Friends list.
    • Once the Lab believe the client has an initial set of functions to make it useful as a communications tool, it will will move to a beta phase and made available to a wider cohort of users for further testing.
  • Android Client:
    • Work is progressing, but it will take time for it to reach a point where it is ready for testing.
    • When it is ready, it will likely follow a similar Alpha / Beta test process to the iOS version.

General Capabilities

Note: this is a reiteration of notes from earlier updates on the SL Mobile client.

  • It should initially be regarded as more of a communicator / companion app than a fully-rounded client.
    • The initial intention for the client is to provide users with a means of maintaining basic contact with other users whilst away from their main means of accessing Second Life.
  • As such, it will support logging-in to Second Life services to support IM and group chat support. However:
    • It  will not initially present you with an in-world location, nor will your avatar rez in-world, it will not not support local chat nor any form of world rendering.
  • Capabilities such as having an in-world rezzing location, the ability to chat locally, support for scene rendering will be added over time.
    • However, in terms of any in-world rendering, this will not be part of any initial released (in the meeting it was described as “not even Soon™”), as LL are focused in just trying to get the basic app available to users as soon as reasonably possible.

All information I’m able to provide through this blog, including future updates can be found under the SL Mobile tag, and can be accessed directly from the top menu options:

  • SL → User Group & Viewer → Viewers → Android & iOS and then selecting either:
    • Android Clients → SL Mobile or
    • iOS Clients → SL Mobile.

Art at Love and Love in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
Love and love Art Gallery

Love & Love Art Gallery is, for me, a new venue for art in Second Life. Curated by Lylaya Love (lylaya), and co-founded by her and her partner Bohemio Love (Bohemi0), the gallery occupies a pristine 3-storey building set with a 4096 sq metre parcel set out with a small, tidy garden space before it.

At the time of my visit, the ground floor space of the gallery was not in use – I’ve no idea if it will offer future exhibitions – with a teleport offering the way up to the upper two floors.

Love and Love Art Gallery: Cornelia Augusta

On the first of these, Cornelia Augusta (cornelia Longfall) presents Kaleidoscope of Souls, an exhibition of avatar studies across the floor’s two halls and set within an environment that is best appreciated with the viewer’s Advanced Lighting Model (ALM) enabled (Graphics → Preferences → check Advanced Lighting Model if required – note that you do not have to enable Shadows as well, so the rendering impact should hopefully be minimal).

The studies appear to be of Cornelia and her friends / those close to her, and are largely “traditional” in that they offer a head and shoulders view of the subject. They are refreshing in that they appear to have had little or no post-processing. On the one hand, this perhaps means these portraits are not so vibrantly life-like as avatar studies produced by others: skin toning may not appear to be flesh-like, features have not been re-touched or enhanced to add further “humanness” before the avatar’s natural look, etc.

Love and Love Art Gallery: Cornelia Augusta

However, on the other hand, they allow us to see the avatars as they are, something that imbues them with their own distinct life, rather than being seen as an image attempting to mimic life. Thus, it is possible to discern within them more of their own nature mixed with the nature of their creators, rather than seeing an interpretation of that mix of natures as perceived by the artist as a result of extensive re-editing.

On the upper floor is an exhibition of physical world paintings by Oblomov (Jos Bookmite) entitled Pesci (Fishes).

Love and Love Art Family: Oblomov

As the name implies, the paintings here are very much about fishes – although they are not all piscine in nature; there are also molluscs, sea-snails and mermaids waiting to be seen. Set within an environment suggestive of the sea floor, these are highly stylised sea creatures, some of which clearly have a life of their own waiting to be found in their expressive forms / faces suggestive of a range of emotions, with some of the fish looking very human in their expressions.

Colourful, happy, mischievous, and in places, slightly sinister, these paintings all have their own stories waiting to be discerned by visitors.

Love and Love Art Family: Oblomov

Two very different art displays within a single gallery space, joined by their own unique approaches to their subjects, Kaleidoscope of Souls and Pesci are equally enjoyable exhibitions. As they opened in mid-May, I’m not entirely sure how long they will both be around, so do make a point of visiting the gallery sooner rather than later, just in case.

SLurl Details

Frogmore’s Cornish twist in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
Frogmore, June 2020 – click any image for full size

We recently made a return trip to Frogmore on the recommendation of Shawn Shakespeare, who nudged me about it having received another seasonal update, and with it a change of influences.  Still held by Tolla Crisp and once again laid out by Terry Fotherington, the region now draws on a summery England for inspiration – specifically the county of Cornwall in the south-west of the country.

This is a multi-faceted design, surrounded on all four sides by water rather than making use of any region surround. “Multi-faceted” because it draws on multiple influences from the Cornish landscape, rather than being a representation of any specific part of that county, while the lack of any region surround allows it to be presented as an island setting in is own right and a place unique to the world of Second Life.

Frogmore, June 2020

These Cornish influences are reflected in right across the region, from the shaping of the land through to many of the buildings found within it. For example, the landing point sits to the south-east, in an upland region that might represent the more rugged aspects of the country’s moorlands, the ruins at its top perhaps suggestive of the ruins of one of the old wings of Bodmin Jail (although admittedly, in the physical world, the core of that building is in much better shape than the ruins in the region).

Similarly, across the region, in the north-west corner lies a secluded beach back by a rugged curve of hilly coastline. It is typical of many of the little coves that might be found around the Cornish coast, whilst the round rounded structure that guards one end of the beach carries echoes of Restormel Castle or Trematon Castle.

Frogmore, June 2020

Exploring the region is a case of following the path down from the landing point and around  and between the rocky shoulders of the hills to reach an inland bay. Here, tucked into the curve of the southern uplands is a small tidal harbour, clearly with the tide out, although the breakwater still has its feet in the water, rowing boats sitting high and dry on the seaweed-edged sands. West of here is a working waterfront of unusual design – I’ve no idea if it is inspired by an actual place, but the lay of the stone built wharves and water channels is intriguing, and potentially a magnet for camera lenses.

To the north, a narrow causeway links the bulk of the region with its north side element, laid out as a line of smaller islands. The first of these is home to the secluded beach mentioned above, complete with an old lighthouse (another building design that has gained a lot of popularity among region designers of late).

Frogmore, June 2020

Beyond this and daisy chained to it by bridges, the second island appears to be drawn from a number of Cornish influences, both coastal and moorland. Within this is a cosy little bar waiting to be found, whilst the third island offers another classic building oft found within region designs: the Runestone castle, here used to offer a cosy home with a slightly bohemian feel.

For those who have visited it, exactly how much the region captures the heart of Cornwall is a matter of personal familiarity with the subject. As noted at the top of this article, if you enter the region in the expectation that you’re visiting a reproduction of a part of Cornwall, you’ll likely be a little disappointed. However,. take the region as drawing on a number of Cornish influences rather than a particular place, and the echoes and motifs are hard to miss, whilst allowing Frogmore to stand as a place in its own right.

Frogmore, June 2020

What cannot be denied, is the fact that it is a very photogenic region, although some who have shadows enabled on their systems may want to disable them when moving around between shots in order to maintain frame rates.

To mark the region’s new look, Tolla is running a photography contest between now and July 15th, 2020. On offer is a total prize pool of L$17,500, to be split between three winners (L$10,000 going to the first place winner).  Submissions can be made via the Frogmore Flickr group, and must be on the subject of the region (and can include avatars / be post-processed). Group membership to the in-world Frogmore group is not required, but all submissions must be titled Frogmore 3.0 Photo Contest 2020, and include the artist’s name. Entries will be judged by a panel of three.

Frogmore, June 2020

SLurl Details

2020 Simulator User Group week #23 summary

Posted on by Inara Pey
Vintage Lace, April 2020 – blog post

The following notes were taken at the Simulator User Group meeting held on Tuesday, June 2nd.

Simulator Deployments

Please refer to the simulator deployment thread for updates.

  • On Tuesday, June 2nd, the RC channels were updated with a server update, version 543116, intended to fix an expired cert that was causing problems with HTTP calls..
  • On Wednesday, June 3rd, and providing there are no issues arising from the above deployment, the same server update will be deployed across the rest of the grid.

SL Viewer

On Tuesday, June 2nd:

  • The FMOD Studio RC viewer, version 6.4.3.542964, and dated May 29th, was promoted to de facto release status.
  • The Mesh Uploader project viewer updated to version 6.4.3.542535.

All other viewer pipelines are as follows:

  • 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:
    • Copy / Paste viewer, version 6.3.5.533365, December 9th, 2019.
    • Project Muscadine (Animesh follow-on) project viewer, version 6.4.0.532999, November 22nd, 2019.
    • Legacy Profiles viewer, version 6.3.2.530836, September 17th, 2019. Covers the re-integration of Viewer Profiles.
    • 360 Snapshot project viewer, version 6.2.4.529111, July 16th, 2019.

In Brief

  • Parcel EEP settings are still drawing complaints from some who travel over Mainland (particularly by air) who are not particularly enamoured with seeing “their” daytime settings suddenly change. However, there is a simple answer: all they need to do is apply their preferred EEP settings to their avatar before flying, and *presto* they have a constant environment in their viewer for both parcel and region crossings. Simples.
  • Apparently, a rumour has been circulating somewhere that LL are “rethinking” the cloud uplift. In response to being asked if there is any truth to it, Oz Linden replied:

[There’s] no truth to the rumour at all. The only re-thinking we’re doing is how to do it better/faster.

  • Group chat lag still continues to be a problem for some groups – notably those with a large membership. This appears to be related to the volume of message traffic a back-end group chat server is handling, rather than a specific issue within the chat service.
  • Those wishing to test the upcoming changes to nearby chat ranges (channel 0), can do so on Aditi in the following regions: Animesh1, Animesh2 and Snark

Tom Boellstorff: teaching digital culture in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
Tom Boellstorff and his digital alter ego, Tom Bukowski (image: Steve Zylius / UCI)

Professor Tom Boellstorff is someone I’ve oft written about in these pages. Known as Tom Bukowski  in Second Life, he is a professor of anthropology at the University of California, Irvine (UCI), and has a long association with the platform as he has, and continues, to engage a range of studies both on his own and in collaboration with Donna Davis (Tredi Felisimo in-world), a digital ethnographer at the University of Oregon.

Tom’s involvement with Second Life goes back to 2004, and has carried out numerous studies in-world that have resulted in a range of publications including Coming of Age in Second Life: An Anthropologist Explores the Virtually Human (Princeton University Press, 2008), the result of two years fieldwork in Second Life, living among and observing its residents in exactly the same way anthropologists traditionally have done to learn about cultures and social groups in the so-called real world. He has also co-authored Ethnography and Virtual Worlds: A Handbook of Method (Princeton University Press, 2012) a concise, comprehensive, and practical guide for students, teachers, designers, and scholars interested in using ethnographic methods to study on-line virtual worlds, including both game and non-game environments. Alongside of Donna, he co-curates and operates Ethnographia Island, about which I first wrote in 2016 (see: Exploring disability, new cultures and self in a virtual realm), and which later became the subject of a segment of The Drax Files World Makers video series.

My own contact with Tom started in 2013, as a result of my learning about and covering the story of Fran Swenson (Fran Serenade in Second Life – see: Of Parkinson’s, Second Life and a story worth reading), and with whom both Tom and Donna worked. Since then, I’ve tried to follow Tom’s work – albeit not always successfully, so I’d like to extend my thanks to Luca (lucagrabcr), co-founder of the Virtual Existence Society, for tweeting about Tom’s latest project (so to speak): bringing his classroom and students directly into Second Life as a result of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic.

Anteater Island: landing point

As reported in the UCI News by Lilibeth Garcia, because social / physical distancing prevents him from teaching in his usual environment – an auditorium located in UCI’s state-of-the-art Anteater Learning Pavilion – Tom has created Anteater Island within Second Life, a place that allows him to continue to teach his course, Digital Cultures (Anthropology 128C), directly to his students without fear or risk of possible infection.

UCI’s digital cultures class is a rare sight these days, with unmasked students sitting together, often shoulder to shoulder, in a large venue and listening attentively as anthropology professor Tom Boellstorff presents a slide show. But the pre-coronavirus-style format isn’t flouting any social distancing guidelines. The class takes place in Second Life – a 3D virtual world that allows users to create communities and interact with each other – and the instructor and students are avatars.

– from Anteater Island, UCI News, June 1st, 2020

Anteater Island: the auditorium

Tom made the move to using Second Life as UCI sought to moving its teaching activities on-line as a result of the pandemic. Thanks to his long association with the platform, and while his colleagues were doubtless looking at potential options for moving their classes entirely on-line, Tom was able to capture the essence of the collaborative working spaces offered within the physical Anteater Pavilion as used by his students and replicate their capabilities within Second Life without having to confine himself to the traditional view of learning spaces as bricks-and-mortar structures.

Within the region, learning spaces are located around the coastline, offering a primary lecture auditorium, meeting areas for each student team, a display area where students will eventually display their work, and an office where he can be reached. Towards the centre of the island lies a social space where students can relax, chat and even dance, while a primary landing point providing an introduction to the island for students, and some basic notes on viewer use.

Given the course is about digital cultures, the approach of using Second Life is not only practical in terms of overcoming the issues of social / physical distancing, it is actually a potential enhancement to the course. After all, how better to get students thinking about digital cultures and how they impact / reflect / alter people’s lives, than by actually placing them within a digital environment where they can experience things first-hand, both through their own involvement in, and reaction to, the environment and through observation of their fellow students.

Anteater Island: central social area

Hence why, perhaps, Tom has also included three fun fair rides – roller coaster, sky drop and bumper cars – for students to try, as well as offering sandbox building space in the sky above the island. All of these allow students to both relax and have fun outside class time, and also experience some of the interactive appeal of virtual environments.

In a time when, thanks to the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, our relationship with, and use of, on-line capabilities for communication, contact, learning and more, are being subject to so much re-evaluation, Tom notes that virtual spaces are especially deserving of greater understanding and study.

We need to get away from talking about the physical world as the real world. On-line sociality is a set of cultures that can be just as real as what is in the physical world … Virtual space gives you a sense of shared space that you don’t get with a phone call. Zoom fatigue is an interesting aspect, because I find engaging through an avatar less stressful than Zoom. There’s something lost with having an avatar, but there’s also something gained.

– Professor Tom Boellstorff, UCI

Hopefully, this is something we’ll be able to witness, as Tom plans to lead studies himself, with the assistance of a further grant from the National Science Foundation. Certainly, it’s something I hope to be able to report on in the future.

Links to Tom Boellstorff