Logos representative only and should not be seen as an endorsement / preference / recommendation
Updates from the week through to Sunday, December 22nd, 2024
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 7.1.11.12363455226. formerly the ExtraFPS RC, dated December 17, promoted December 19 – New.
Currently open at the Michiel Bechir Gallery in Second Life over the 2024 end-of year holidays through into the New Year, is a seasonal exhibition of art and photography featuring displays by four photographers and artists, together with a small art gift market.
The four featured artists are: gallery owner Michiel Bechir, together with curator Maggie Reno, both of whom have displays on the ground floor of the gallery; with Sophie (Ishtar7Inanna) and yours truly occupying the two upper floor halls. The individual collections on display range in number from 10 to 14 images, with the majority of the picture featuring wintertime landscapes, into which indoor images celebrating the season and avatar studies have been mixed.
Michiel Bechir Gallery, December 2024 – Maggie Reno
I truly embrace the beauty and comfort of winter and December! The season seems to bring to me a sense of peace, joy, and connection. The imagery of the colours, smells, the sound of rain and the warmth of home captures a cosy, reflective atmosphere.
It’s wonderful how the contrast of snowy landscapes and seasonal colours can make even the simplest detail feel special.
– Maggie Reno, introducing her images
With her images, Maggie reflects her comments on the season by presenting a combination of outdoor and indoor images. The former, with their snowy landscapes almost monochrome in tone, thanks to the snow and skies, in which sudden bursts of rich colour – particularly a seasonal red – burst through; thus they encourage us to experience both the physical coldness of crisp winter days and the emotional warmth Maggie references. The indoor images, meanwhile, speak to winter comforts of family, celebration, love and contentment.
Michiel Bechir Gallery, December 2024 – Sophie (Ishtar7Inanna)
Each of my works captures something different, yet together they forma kaleidoscope – a reflection of how I see the world.
These pieces are stories of life told as it is: filled with joy and sorrow, love and loneliness, but always illuminated by a glimmer of hope for something better.
– Sophie, on her selection of images entitled Kaleidoscope
Sophie’s exhibit is perhaps the most broad in terms of content, featuring winter seasonal images mixed with those presenting a mix of warmer scenes and autumnal-looking settings. All are evocative and attractive, as are the avatar studies also included in this 14-piece collection.
Michiel Bechir Gallery, December 2024 – Michiel Bechir
Step into the serene beauty of winter through the lens of Michiel Bechir. This captivating collection of 12 photographs explores the quiet magic of the season, showcasing both breath-taking landscapes and intimate portraits of of people amidst the winter’s embrace.
– The introduction to Michiel Bechir’s collection Winter in Focus
Rich in tone and content, Michiel’s pieces largely focus on landscapes and settings. Each offers something of a story of the season within its frame: embarking on a winter holiday, possibly at a special retreat; the beckoning peace of the country land drifted in snow; the beauty of frosted, denuded trees seemingly on parade; the promise of a warm fire within the stout walls of comfortable cabin after a long walk through a snow-blanketed landscape, and more.
For my part, I’ve simply tried to express the sheer beauty of places I’ve visited over the winter months across the last decade. Each is a place I’ve especially appreciated and which has been lovingly created for us to enjoy. I hope they encourage you in your explorations of Second Life.
Michiel Bechir Gallery, December 2024 – Art Gift Market
Outside of the gallery and around the ice rink, is a set of 10 cabins. Nine offer a gift of an image from an artist – Raven Arcana, Tegan Tenby, TaniaAltAlbatros, Jamina Moon, Emma Jane, Sophie (Ishtar7Inanna), Hannah Starlight, Prins Evergarden and Charlotte Belladonna. The tenth offers Christmas greetings from the Gallery’s team.
Decopunk Metropolis, December 2024 – click any image for full size
Hera (zee9) opened a couple of new settings for people to enjoy in the run-up (and hopefully over) the holiday break (Hera’s builds do tend to vanish rapidly, so an early visit is always recommended!). Entitled respectively Decopunk Metropolis and Neverever Land, they offer very different settings one to the other, with a hint of each of their natures given in their names. Both can be reached from the primary Landing Point, and given the introductory notecard to Decopunk Metropolis is offered at the Landing Point, I’m going to start with that setting.
Decopunk is one of the many offshoots of the original cyberpunk genre which have sprouted down the years. As the name might suggest it is centred around the art deco and Streamline Moderne art styles, folding into itself the likes of Fritz Lang’s Metropolis (1927) and 1991’s The Rocketeer. Technically a subset of dieselpunk (interwar period through to the 1950s), Decopunk remains firmly anchored in the period running through the 1920 to early 1930s.
Decopunk Metropolis, December 2024
All of this is presented in Decopunk Metropolis, which neatly echoes Hera’s Blade Runner / Drune style of design, in that we are placed within a city-style environment. However, it is one very different in styling and presentation; not Blade runner hints here; instead the references touch on Lang’s film whilst folding into itself physical-world Deco touches (perhaps most obviously New York City’s Chrysler Building).
Within it, and in difference to builds like Brutal City (which I wrote about here), there is no clearly defined “ground level”; the buildings rise from the mist, lit windows staring out like so many eyes, their upper reaches pillared and ornate, lit by streams of yellow falling along their flanks and spotlights thrown bright pools of light into the heavens, all watched over by giant rooftop statues staring into the night.
Decopunk Metropolis, December 2024
Which is not to say the setting is without roads; they are most definitely present – they’re just as suspended as the buildings, ornate arches rising over them as if holding them aloft as they wind between (and through) the towers. Occupying two levels, they are linked via great vehicular elevators, with the lower level of roads offering three routes of exploration from the setting’s airport, the arrival zone for those coming from the main Landing Point.
Two of these roadway routes form a loop of which almost reaches completely around the setting. It is just cut short from doing so on the south-east corner of the city, where the road ends at one of the vehicular elevators mentioned above. The western around of the road, however, makes its way all the way around the city to a point directly opposite the airport. This is home to the Cortez Hotel, a place crowned by an ornate tower and also to be reached by taking the arrow-straight road also departing the airport to cut across the setting, north-to-south.
Decopunk Metropolis, December 2024
In making the crossing, the road bridge passes through the tallest building in the setting, which has a spire rising from it that looks almost as if it is expecting an airship to nuzzle up against it. This tower is also home to the Moka Efti lounge, with its very Chicago meets Cabaret vibe, and the local casino. These offer their own attractions and – should you find them (it’s not hard) each offers a light-draped footbridge spanning the gulf between it and the east and west towers. Paralleling the road bridges, these each have a elevator station at their far ends waiting to take you to their particular points of interest, be it the apartment house high up on the eastern tower (and reach by way of taking the elevator up from the walkway to the road bridge, and then again up from their to the apartment), or to either / both of the Starlight Jazz Club and the Shanghai Dragon (again passing by way of the elevated road level).
Another way of getting around is via the local The Fifth Element style taxis; only rather than flying your from point-to-point a-la Corbin Dallas, these will whisk you around via teleporting. Just touch the taxi sign on a waiting cab and then pick a destination from the list. Those finding their way to the garage at the airport might also avail themselves of the motorbike that can be rezzed there, whilst also, and for the keen-eyed, there are various metal catwalks and stairways which may additionally lead to little places of interest, if followed and climbed.
Decopunk Metropolis, December 2024
Neverever Land, by contrast, offers a somewhat tropical setting, located at the region’s ground level. It is reached by way of the main landing point, and then an intermediary point, where more about the setting can be learned.
As might be guessed from the name, Neverever Land draws inspiration from Peter Pan – more J.M. Barrie than Disney – and the various additional works to which it has given rise. Comprising a series of interlinked islands set against a tropical back-drop, each of which contains setting based on both J.M. Barrie’s work whilst perhaps casting a wider net, the easiest way to describe this setting is that of a Neverland where the inhabitants are grown-up, but who have never quite lost touch with their spark of childhood sense of adventure and imagination.
Neverever Land, December 2024
This is actually setting which Hera last revealed in 2021, and which I wrote about in Hera’s Neverever Land in Second Life. however, as with all of Hera’s builds this in not just a rolling-out of something she’s had in-world before; there are differences. Perhaps the most noticeable of these – and one which extends to Decopunk Metropolis, is the use of AI NPCs.
These come in multiple forms throughout both settings – human, automaton, animal, bird – even, should you find it, a sandwich which has having an existential crisis concerning its purpose (being eaten) and its desire to continue (clue: look towards the left-hand end of the bar in Moka Efti). Hera started experimenting with AI scripted agents with the help and support of Kacey Stratton (in fact, one of the scripted agents from Brutal City pops-up in Decopunk Metropolis, but with a different persona.
Decopunk Metropolis, December 2024 – yours truly with one of the setting’s non-AI NPCs, the dancer Elly
I enjoyed my interactions with several of the character in the Brutal City build, but confess I didn’t gain the same level of enjoyment with the majority of the characters here; whereas the AIs at Brutal City were largely conversational in nature, I found the AIs at both Decopunk and Neverever Land too expositional in their multi-paragraph replies. In mentioning this to Hera, she indicated there had been an oversight in keeping the AI responses more constrained. Whilst unfortunate in the way it – for me – killed interaction, it most certainly does not spoil a visit.
Rounded out with a nicely curated audio mix on the audio stream that fits the Decopunk Metropolis setting perfectly, I thoroughly recommend the city as a place to visit, and Neverever Land as a nice addition.
The CCUG meeting is for discussion of work related to content creation in Second Life, including current and upcoming LL projects, and encompasses requests or comments from the community, together with related viewer development work. This meeting is held on alternate Thursdays at Hippotropolis.
The TPV Developer meeting provides an opportunity for discussion about the development of, and features for, the Second Life viewer, and for Linden Lab viewer developers and third-party viewer (TPV) / open-source code contributors to discuss general viewer development. This meeting is held once a month on a Friday, at 13:00 SLT at the Hippotropolis Theatre.
Dates and times of both meetings are recorded in the SL Public Calendar, and they are conducted in a mix of Voice and text chat.
Official Viewer Status
Release viewer: version 7.1.11.12363455226, formerly the ExtraFPS RC (multiple performance fixes, aesthetic improvements and UI optimisations), dated December 17, promoted December 20 – NEW.
Release Candidate: none at present.
ExtraFPS Notes and Rendering – Both Meetings
ExtraFPS Notes
The majority of legacy (non-PBR) skies should now look “extremely close” (if not “spot on”) to how they looked prior to the initial PBR release:
This is in part due to the default for the RenderSkyAutoAdjustLegacy debug setting being changed to False, which means that legacy skies should render close to the “pre-PBR” look, whilst leaving PBR skies unchanged.
This change in the default (from True to False) has caused some confusion among those using the Firestorm ExtraFPS beta versions, as they have been mistakenly switching the default back to True. This should not be done.
Tone Mapping is no longer applied the legacy skies, which should help eliminate legacy environments looking too bright / dark.
There is a chance that some legacy skies may have been missed, so the request is for those on non-PBR viewer to give ExtraFPS a try and check their preferred legacy skies, just in case. Issues should be reported via the feedback portal – including any noted issue with transitions when moving between different EEP settings.
Ambient lighting should be generally improved and “much more consistent” with pre-PBR viewers.
Exposure has been reset to 1.0.
As a part of the performance options for lower-specification machines, there is now an options to disable HDR rendering and emissives (single check box).
This should be automatically unchecked for those running on very low-spec systems (e.g. those running with Intel HD graphics), but those on lower-spec machines might want to check.
It terms of overall performance on older hardware types, LL believe theta in the “vast majority” of cases, ExtraFPS runs on a par with FPS rates seen on pre-PBR viewers.
Absent from ExtraFPS is the updated alpha/linear/exponential (aka alpha/gamma) settings. This is awaiting decisions around matter of permissions to allow people to apply the changes to legacy content they might own but for which they may not have the required permissions. The hope is to have this in an future viewer as an update.
General Rendering Comments and Feedback
The PBR deployment has made LL particularly aware that significant changes which may impact viewer performance need to be monitored far more on a case-by-case basis in terms of older hardware types (graphics cards / types, etc.), rather than looking at across-the-board averages.
As has been previously mentioned in CCUG meetings (and elsewhere), this has led to the graphics and viewer teams spending time pulling together older hardware and cards to build what has been unofficially dubbed the Potato Farm, so that changes can be tested against specific older hardware known to be popular among SL users.
The Graphics Team acknowledge Linden Water still “doesn’t look anywhere near as good as it should”, and is part of a series of legacy consistency issues they are still addressing.
In particular, Geenz Linden noted that Screen Space Reflection (SSR) is “in need of improvement”, but LL just have not had the cycles available to work on it. He has ideas on how things can be improved without having to uproot everything, and hopes that there may be an opportunity to work on them in 2025.
One suggestion was to place a glTF transmission texture on Linden Water to help resolve problems. However, this doesn’t appear to be an option due to Linden Water rendering being “kind of incompatible” with the glTF materials specification.
Bringing back water reflections to a point where they matched pre-PBR water reflections is seen is expensive in terms of performance, ergo while improvements will be made, they are unlikely to offer the same level of real-time reflections as seen “pre-PBR”.
Firestorm ExtraFPS Beta: Firestorm have been iterating on a beta version of their viewer incorporating the ExtraFPS updates. However:
Geenz Linden noted that there are some “broken things” in the Firestorm ExtraFPS beta which are leading to some “very noticeable differences” between it and the official ExtraFPS. He is currently working with the Firestorm team to try to correct these issues.
The environment doesn’t always change over to the local shared environment on a region crossing (physical or teleport), together with ambient reflection probes getting discarded and rebuilt as a Day Cycle advances to the next preset (keyframe). This is not something the Lab’s graphic’s tam have noted on their viewer; if it can be reproduced on the official ExtraFPS release, bug reports would be appreciated.
It has been noted that cube reflection probes do not affect water (although spherical probes do appear to affect water). It’s not clear if this is an unintended breakage as a result of various testing (e.g. with water reflections) or intended (as those in a position to address this question are out of the office on holiday breaks).
Tone Mapping:
Tone mapping is a highly subjective area – what looks good to one person might not appeal to another.
Because of this, and without changing defaults beyond what have been set within the ExtraFPS viewer – the Lab is seeking to provide choice by making options available (e.g. the Khronos Neutral Tone Mapper as well as ACES), and through options to adjust tone mapping (which will eventually be including in the Sky Settings floater), enabling people to make choices for themselves.
To assist with manging environment-related settings, Geenz Linden hopes to move things to enable asset versioning for sky / water assets, thus allowing for easier maintaining of legacy code paths when required, which in turn should help with avoiding some of the issues seen with the likes of sky settings in the move to PBR / glTF.
Requests:
Allow arbitrary meshes to be used as reflection probes. Whilst this could help with fitting probes into difficult spaces (e.g. within cave tunnels), arbitrary mesh shapes as probes are not seen as particularly performant, particularly WRT lower specification systems.
Allow blending on reflection probes so that neighbouring / overlapping probes offer smoother transitioning (such as at the entrance to a cave or tunnel or an entrance into a darker interior. In theory this could be done.
Provide a new means to “hide” Linden Water from the interior of boats, etc., in a manner similar to using invisiprims under the (now defunct) Forward Renderer. Unfortunately there is no easy means of providing occlusion volumes for Linden Water to replace invisiprims in this use.
A lot of questions on PBR Materials which really boiled down to the need for more informative documentation / FAQs / tutorials.
TPVD Meeting
The Lab Using TPVs
A long standing policy at the Lab is that staff and contractors have been required to only use the official viewer, and that bugs reported to the Lab need to be reported using the official viewer.
In recognition of the widespread use of TPVs – notably, but not exclusively, Firestorm – this policy is now changing.
The Lab has already taken steps to implement the ability to build Firestorm internally and with the necessary security options in place to make it “safe” for use by Linden personnel and contractors.
We’re all using Firestorm more … so we can be helpful if need be on integration work and stuff like that with Firestorm. There were security changes in general to allow Lindens to log-in to any third-party viewer, but we’re definitely changing to respect that Firestorm in particular comprises almost all active use of Second Life today and we’ve got to do everything we can to make sure it’s working first, even before our own viewer.
– Philip Rosedale, TPVD Meeting, Friday December 20th, 2024
This does not mean that the Lab is adopting Firestorm or taking any form of control over it (or any other TPV); the Firestorm team remains in control of their viewer, and the roadmap and plans for it. Rather, the aim is to provide assistance for Firestorm and other TPVS where it is needed.
Right now for Firestorm, this assistance – as noted above – is focused on evaluating the ExtraFPS code and performance updates for inclusion in Firestorm as quickly as possible.
The Viewer Structure and Open-Source Development
The above led to Philip expanding on some of the issues which have arisen due to the way in which the viewer was coded and opened out as a open-source project.
Looking all the way back to 2005, which is when I think we open-sourced the viewer, we didn’t have the team then – nor do we have it now – to properly separate the viewer into into a bunch of modular components that could connect to each other and have plug-ins attached to them in a way that Chrome does. I think that coming back now and being the CTO and looking at what’s going on, one of the elephants in the room is that the structure of the code doesn’t support extensions and plug-ins in the way that would make sense for a properly-run open-source project. I say that without a specific solution in mind, I’m just recognising it.
– Philip Rosedale, TPVD Meeting, Friday December 20th, 2024
Because of the approach taken, the viewer code has become “a plate of spaghetti”, with third-parties developers able to open the code up and make changes then deem necessary at any point in the code.
This has been further exacerbated by the lack of overall documentation for the viewer that might be constructively used by developers internally and externally to the to the Lab to understand the viewer code – a point that is again acknowledged.
Ideas for trying to make the viewer code more modular are being looked at, but no decisions – much less a roadmap – for starting to do so have yet been reached.
As both Philip Rosedale and Vir Linden noted, the fact that there has been 15-20 years of open-source viewer development, with TPVs (and the Lab) picking their own paths does make doing so “tricky”.
One possible avenue being considered here is trying to separate the viewer UI more from the underlying rendering engine, potentially making updates to either less intrusive either way.
An additional goal of the work currently being carried out to support Firestorm with ExtraFPS is to try to ensure the code in question can be more easily pulled-in by other TPVs as well.
General Discussion Points
Web development:
The Marketplace is written on Ruby on Rails, communicating with a SQL running on Redis, an infrastructure which is making it hard to chase down query optimisation problems.
As a result, there is a likelihood that some engineering support is going to be pivoted towards SL’s web properties and infrastructure, which may result in work in the viewer / server areas slowing down.
Open positions at LL:
Time was taken in discussing current (at the time of the meeting) open positions at LL – server developer, Mobile developer and senior product manager.
Specifically, there was a request for any Second Life developers / users who have the requisite skills for the posts and who might be looking for a career change (or who know someone who does / is) to considering applying / pointing people to the Lab’s careers page.
In addition, Philip noted, in line with the above web development, the Lab is seeking expertise in Ruby on Rails development (preferably with SQL experience as well) – although this is not currently advertised on the LL careers page. Anyone who has / knows of such experience can contact him – preferably via e-mail.
† 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 gathering of people every week. They are taken from my list of region visits, with a link to the post for those interested.
During the December 6th, 2024 Blogger Town Hall, the company’s co-owner and Executive Chair Brad Oberwager, revealed some outstanding facts concerning the platform: how much, cumulatively, Linden Lab has spent on building Second Life, how much has been paid out to creators, and how much money the company’s various owners have taken out of the company over the years.
At the time he revealed these figures, he did so under and embargo preventing them from being reported until such time as the number were officially released – which occurred on December 20th, 2024, with the publication of an article by VentureBeat’s always excellent Dean Takahashi – see: Linden Lab has spent $1.3B building Second Life and paid $1.1B to creators.
In summary, the figures Mr. Oberwager revealed were that:
Linden Lab has spent in excess of $1.3 billion in building Second Life over 20 years, and
$1.1 billion over the above, paid out to creators in that time, and
$0.0 taken out of the company by shareholders / owners (presumably outside of buy-outs).
That is not a company that strips out profits. That is a company that puts its residents first. 1.3 billion dollars building Second Life. That is something I’m incredibly proud of, and I want the rest of the world to know.
– Brad Oberwager, December 6th Blogger Town Hall Zoom event
However, in talking numbers, the VentureBeat article goes much further, presenting some interesting comparisons between Second Life and Roblox (a platform which also published its own economic summary), are made. These include:
A breakdown of pay-outs the two platforms made to their respective creator communities in 2023 (shown below).
2023 pay-out comparison, Second Life and Roblox. Credit: Linden Lab via VentureBeat
Despite increasing the costs of cashing-out over the last 8 years, Second Life still only takes some 10% in fees; with Roblox taking an estimated 27%.
When taking the comparative size of the two platforms creator communities, it is estimated that a creator in Second Life is 100 times more likely to achieve $10,000 pa income (or greater) than a creator in Roblox.
Given the relative sizes of the platforms’ creator pools / active user counts, the Second Life figures on creator pay-outs are not that far removed from those for Roblox. This is something Philip Rosedale ruminated on (in a wider context) during the December 6th Zoom round table.
Second Life has generated about as much economic opportunity for its community as Roblox has. The population of Roblox, though, is about 50 to 100 times higher than Second Life; so one of the other things it suggests is the ability that a community needs to participate economically in its own activities is probably a lot higher with Roblox … People have made that much money [as those in Roblox], but they’ve done it in a much smaller community in Second Life, and that’s probably what’s necessary to get the virtual world looking more like the real world.
– Philip Rosedale, December 6th, 2024
And if the 14 people cashing out US $1 million (or more) comes as a surprise, keep in mind that the SL mesh body / fashion market is huge (and has even led to ventures involving physical world fashion designers); thus, the earning potential within this particular market segment is potentially equally high for gifted creators.
Further, the article notes that the Second Life economy continues to equate to some US $650 million a year, with $78 million paid out to creators in 2023 (up $10 million compared to 2017). And whilst the number of engaged users remains smaller than Roblox, individually, those users have on average been involved in Second Life for some 14 years. All of which offers food for thought – and I recommend reading the VentureBeat article in full.
Looking Ahead
When revealing the numbers on expenditure and total pay-outs to creators on December 6th, Mr. Oberwager noted that since starting his tenure as a co-owner of the Lab in 2020, he has placed the emphasis on spending almost entirely on investment within the platform and it services – and going into 2025, this will be changing.
I can tell you [that] over 20 years, investors have not taken money out of this company. Now the company is worth money [but] everything that we’re making, we’re putting back in.
What I am going to do, is I’m going to start changing where I’m putting that money; and I’m going to start to put that money into marketing dollars, because I want to bring folks into the world – a re-energising of that. It’s not going on be a $100 million dollar marketing campaign, but I think that [with] Second Life, there’s an imperative that it continues, and that it is extremely valuable for folks out there to learn about and come in.
– Brad Oberwager, December 6th Blogger Town Hall Zoom event
The marketing effort will primarily be focused on attracting users to Second Life through the desktop (as I’ve previously noted – see here and here – the SL Mobile app is currently seen as more as supporting existing users rather than a tool with which to engage new users). Some of this spending actually started in December 2024, but it will become more involved from January 2025.
However, it’s not going to be a case of throwing money in the hope of generating an immediate return in terms of new users (although that would obviously be nice!), but rather a case of spend, review and extend / change, depending on how initiatives work. That said, one potential interesting aspect with the upcoming marketing drive is that it will be synced to the likes of product releases and “new things” LL plan to release in 2025, thus potentially generating more of an interest in those to whom the Lab is marketing in actually signing-up and giving SL a go.
Obviously, how successful these marketing initiatives are remains to be seen. And there will doubtless be more to report on them in the future. For more however, I’ll close with a further recommendation to read Dean’s article over at VentureBeat. Meanwhile, the numbers mentioned above make for interesting reading for the curious and interested; while the VentureBeat article makes for positive reading above Second Life as a whole as Linden Lab commences a new drive towards marketing and (hopefully) growth within the platform’s user base.
Update, December 21st: this alpha experiment has been suspended for the time being – read more here.
On December 18th, 2024, Linden Lab announced the Alpha release of a new Character Designer, a toolset for the creation and management of AI-backed NPCs (non-player characters) for in-world use.
Access to the new Character Designer is, at the time of writing, limited to Premium Plus account holders only – as was originally the case with access to the Second Life Mobile app; so expect access to be expanded over time in a similar manner to that seen with the SL Mobile app.
The Character Designer provides a solid foundation for immersive roleplay, offering a range of features that let you shape and refine the personalities and behaviours of your inworld characters. Current capabilities include:
Early-Stage Roleplay Support – Characters respond intelligently through IM, adapting and evolving as you interact.
Custom Personalities and Backstories – Define unique histories, preferences, and communication styles to bring your characters to life.
Integration with Existing SL Systems – Connect through a dedicated alt account, set arrival points, and fine-tune behaviour filters for a seamless inworld experience.
– from the Second Life blog post on the Character Designer
Character Designer is being developed in collaboration with Convai, a platform for developers and creators proving an intuitive approach to designing characters with multimodal perception abilities in both virtual and real world environments.
Precisely how much of the Convai interface and workflow has been incorporated into the Second Life Character Designer flow is unclear to me (primarily because I do not have a Premium Plus account, and so am currently ineligible for the alpha trial). However, aspects of Convai’s ability to build character backstories and personalities appears to have been utilised, and will potentially be built upon, with knowledge and situational awareness capabilities recorded among a list of “planned enhancements” for the toolset.
With multiple experiments already in progress within Second Life in the use of AI alongside in-world NPCs, the development of the Character Generator and the noted work on an upcoming NPC functionality specifically to compliment its use could be of interest to many in developing NPCs for a range of NPC-related capabilites: for utilisation in actual immersive role-play environments, to shopping assistants, tour guides, to assist with simulations and training, education, and more.
Soon, you will be able to place multiple dynamic NPCs that welcome visitors, provide assistance, and enrich the overall atmosphere of your regions. By combining rule-based behaviour tools with Convai’s Narrative Design system, you can craft evolving narratives that adapt to your visitors’ actions and choices.
– from the Second Life blog post on the Character Designer
Convai promotional video. Note that not all capabilities shown may be applicable to the current SL Character Designer
Further information on the new capability can be found within the official blog post announcement, and the links below. I hope to be able to report more on the capability as I gain access to it with other Premium subscribers in due course.
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 