Category: SLB

Second Life marks its 2st anniversary in 2024, with a month of activity kicking-off through until Sunday, July 21st. Celebrations will be taking place across the Birthday regions in Second Life, and and with previous years includes live music, DJ sets, art, shopping (via the dedicated Shop and Hop event), exhibits by Linden Lab and – particularly – exhibits by Second Life residents and communities.

The following is intended to provide a general overview of the celebrations and provide calendars, SLurls and anything else that might be useful to you when visiting the regions.

IMPORTANT NOTE: many of the builds at SL21B, particularly the stages, etc. have been built using PBR materials, and the skies are rendered as HDR. Therefore, to see the regions at their best, you should preferably be running a viewer that is “PBR enabled.”

Theme

This theme for Second Life’s 21st birthday (SL21B) has been given as Elements, which the Lab describes thus:

This theme invites us to explore the fundamental components that make up our vast virtual landscape and the diverse communities within it. From the fiery passion of creators and artists to the fluid adaptability of our social environments, from the solid bonds within our communities to the fresh breezes of innovation that propel us forward, “Elements” is a celebration of the core forces that shape our experiences in Second Life.

– From the official SL21B announcement blog post

SL Birthday Calendar

The best way the stay abreast of all that’s going on is via the official calendar of events, which I’ve embedded below.

• Use the Week / Month options, top right to change the calendar view.
• Click on any given line item on any given day of festivities to view more information, including teleport SLurls.

Key Events

Shop and Hop

The SL21B Shop And Hop event is taking place across 20 regions, and features 400+ creators and merchants. The best way to find out about this event is via the Shop and Hop Destination Guide entry and via the SL21B Shop and Hop Participating Merchants list.

Linden Lab Town Halls and Community Round Table

As per usual, SL21B will feature a series of events featuring various members of the Lab’s Board, management team and advisors. These will be a mix of live and pre-recorded sessions, per the schedule below.

Event SLurl: Aquatorium

Day (Times SLT) and Event	Featuring
Tuesday June 25th 13:30 Product and Engineering Town Hall	Senior VP of Product & Engineering Grumpity Linden; Director of Engineering Second Life Server & Viewer Signal Linden; Director of Engineering Web & Platform Kali Linden; Senior Product Manager Sntax Linden; Product Manager Kyle Linden.
Wednesday June 26th 13:30 Product Operations Town Hall	Senior VP of Product Operations & Marketing Patch Linden; Support Operations Manager Keira Linden; Product Operations Manager Derrick Linden; Creative Producer Izzy Linden.
Thursday June 27th 13:30 Town Hall	Philip Rosedale, interviewed by Brett Linden.
Friday June 28th 13:30 Town Hall	Meet the Moles of the Linden Department of Public Works.
Monday, July 1st 11:30 Community Round Table	Linden Lab Executive Chairman Oberwolf Linden and Senior VP of Product Operations & Marketing Patch Linden.

Entertainment and Performances

Over 500 live performers are lined-up to perform across  four stages at SL21B between Friday, June 21st and July 1st. The complete schedule can be seen below.

The Welcome Area

Never been to an SLB event before – try starting at the Welcome Area where you’ll find lost of help, things like the SL21B Hunt HUD, and more!

The Tapestry of Time and Gift Area.

First presented in 2018, the region-wide Tapestry of Time presents visitor with a walk-through of Second Life’s history from 2003 through to the present day using images, text and videos. True, not everything has been recorded, but there’s enough within the region to be of interest to the historically minded.

within the Tapestry of Time can be found the SL21B Gift Area, offering gifts from the Birthday exhibitors and from merchants participating in the Shop & Hop event.

Exhibitor Regions

As is common for SLB events, the mix of content is varied, and the representation of interests broad. Role-play groups, arts, communities, are represented across the nine regions open to exhibitors; some are static, others are interactive in nature.

• Direct links to the exhibitor regions can be found in the SLurls lists at the end of this piece.
• Information / SLurls for individual exhibitors can be found in the SL21B Exhibitor Showcase.

Note that teleport boards are available at the centre of all Exhibitor regions for easy of moving between them.

Adult Exhibitor Regions And Adult Shop and Hop

2024 sees the Adult content and groups exhibitor regions combined with the Adult Shop and Hop regions and the  Once again, the celebrations include Adult content and groups, with exhibits at the event, with four dedicated regions  – separate to the main exhibitor regions – open to visit. These have a dedicated Teleport Hub sitting kitty-corner admits the four regions, and I’ve also included individual region SLurls at the end of this article.

SL21B Last Names and Physical World Merchandise

To mark the event, Linden name available a special series of SL21B themed last names focused on the theme of “elements”. Also launched to mark the event is a range of SL21B merchandise for the physical world, including t-shirts, baseball caps, tote bags, laptop sleeves, pins, mug note books and more.

sL21B Elements Last Names for Avatars	SL21B Physical World Merchandise available via the SL Redbubble Store
Cirrus Blowhard Windyfloofs Cinder Hotman Pyroclaw Boulder Soil Pebblepaws Ocean Torrent Frostfangs These are, as usual available via your secondlife.com dashboard, under the Account drop-down

Advice on a Better Experience

The SL21B regions can get exceptionally busy. To help ease the pain for you:

• If you have a high draw distance, reduce it to  as low as is comfortable for your enjoyment.
• Turn off shadows in your viewer if you usually have them enabled.
• Go to Preferences → Graphics and reduce the slider Max # Non-Imposter Avatars to a minimum and dial-down your Complexity slider.
• Remove texture-heavy HUDs to free-up more texture memory.
• To assist the simulator, remove unnecessary scripted attachments.
• Dress lightly, avoid accessories of high complexity.

SLurls and Destination Guide Links

Core Event Region SLurls

• The Welcome Area – teleports to the stages, Tapestry of Time, Pod Tours, Gift Area, Community Gallery and Shop and Hop, etc.
• The Aquatorium – home to the Town Halls, Community Round Table, and more specials and more.
• Stonehold Stage
• The Nimbus Stage (TP canon on the cliffs below!).
• The Tapestry of Time and Gift Area
• SL21B Pod Station – for pod tours (or hop on a passing pod!).
• General Shop and Hop Main Landing

General Rated Exhibitor Region SLurls

SLB Beguile	SLB Blissful	SLB Breathtaking	SLB Captivate	SLB Celebrate	SLB Delightful
SLB Electrify	SLB Enchant	SLB Fabulous	SLB Glamorous	SLB Incredible	SLB Marvelous
	SLB Outgoing	SLB Sparkle	SLB Spectacular	SLB Stupendous

Adult Rated Regions

• Firestone Keep – events stage.
• Adult Exhibitors teleport Hub
• SLB Alluring – Exhibitors.
• SLB Daring – Exhibitors.
• SLB Euphoric – Exhibitors.
• SLB Irresistible – Exhibitors.
• Adult Shop & Hop Main Landing

Destination Guide and Other Links

• SL21B Destination Guide Category
• SL21B Exhibitor Showcase
• SL21B Destination Guide Shop and Hop
• SL21B Shop and Hop Participating Merchants

With the parties for SL’s 20th birthday now over and the celebration regions sitting a little quieter, those who have perhaps been put off by the idea of fighting the crowds and all they can bring with them (aka “lag”), might feel that now is the time to explore some of the exhibits presented by the residents and communities of Second Life. This being the case, I thought I’d offer a list of some of the exhibits I’ve particularly enjoyed dropping in to see.

Notes: this is not an exhaustive list of the exhibits I’ve visited or the only ones I enjoyed, and should not be taken as such – there is a lot to see and appreciated at SL20B, and time allowing I might produce a further list of those I’ve enjoyed. Also, the order in which they are given should not be seen as indicative of any kind of preference on my part; it simply reflects the alphabetical ordering of the regions in which the exhibits are located.

Erik Mondrian: Second Life Terrain Models

Region SLurl (SLB Beguile)

Occupying a 1024 sq m parcel, Erik’s exhibit is perhaps a little easy to overlook, it is so understated. However to do so would be a shame, as it features the results of a fascinating – and ongoing – experiment / project in presenting Second Life as a series of three-dimensional terrain maps which offer an entirely new perspective (no pun intended) on the regions and continents, presenting scaled models of groups of regions, giving a powerful visual representation of how the terrain has been terraformed, some of which have been overlaid with textures representing the structures and infrastructure found within the regions represented.

Producing these models is a process as fascinating as the models themselves, as Erik explains:

I gather each region’s elevation data, at half-metre XY intervals using an LSL script, feeding that data to my computer via a series of HTTP responses. [I] then  (re)constructed and textured the terrain model(s) in Blender using its incredibly powerful Python API. The World Map textures [are] downloaded individually from Second Life’s official map servers [and] the terrain layer textures are available thanks to Tyche Shepherd and her indispensable Grid Survey database. 

– Erik Mondrian

Depending on the complexity of the maps being produced in terms of elevation, and the the overall size of the map being produced, Erik’s script might take time to run; in the case of his more recent map of the entire Heterocera continent (433 regions), the scripts took some 32 hours to run.

Within his exhibit at SL20B, Erik presents pairs of models representing five areas of Second Life: Sakurasseria (the Japanese / oriental themed regions of Bellisseria), the “First 16” – the original regions of Second Life; Bay City; The Wastelands role-play estate, and the regions of the Vehicle Sandbox. Each pair presents a model of the terrain, as produced by Erik’s process, and a second overlaid with the World Map textures. For uploading to Second Life, some compromises have to be made – as Erik notes with the model of Heterocera (which is not a part of the set at SL20B, but which you can see in Erick’s video below), the original blender model initially amounted to 227 million triangles, and thus had to reduced to 2.3 million for the purposes of the video. As it is, the models at SL20B range from 31K through more than 220K triangles whilst varying between 12,ooo and almost 99,000 vertices, offering a reasonable compromise between complexity(/detail) and Land Impact.

Models like this help to further bring SL to life, literally adding a further dimension to how we can look on our digital world; and while they may provide a view of regions are they are today, they nevertheless of historical import as well. Take the models of the “First 16” for example; they give a view of those regions which perfectly complements the familiar historical 2D maps of those regions. As such, it could sit well within exhibitions such as the Maps of Second Life at New Kadath Lighthouse Art Gallery (see: The maps (and more!) of Second Life). Not that I’m suggesting anything, mark you 😀 .

Get the Freight Out!

Region SLurl (SLB Blissful)

Get the Freight Out (GTFO) is a popular in-world game among many vehicle users. HUD-based, it allows players to “haul” cargo from by land, sea or air, point-to-point across the mainland continents of Second life, and over their connected waterways and seas (e.g. Blake Sea), earning in-game (and non-redeemable) “Goal dollars” – G$ and game experience points which allow them to “level up”. Since its inception, GTFO has grown into one of the most popular activities among vehicle users in SL, and many types of land, sea, air and space craft are capable of supporting the game, or come with support built-in (when I wrote about GTFO five years ago in July 2018 – see An inside look at Get the Freight Out in Second Life – over 280 individual vehicle types were supported, and the game featured over 300 “hubs” to / from which freight is delivered / collected across the grid.

At SL20B GTFO combine with the Drivers of SL (on the neighbouring SL20B region) to allow people to learn not about both,  visit the GTFO headquarters, race a go kart around a track, visit the local GTFO space station and – if you’re new to SL or the world of physical transportation in-world – see a range of the drivable vehicles available within the platform.

The Water Slide

Region SLurl (SLB Blissful)

Second Life has a rich history and culture of art art – 2D, 3D, performance, interactive, and so on. It’s one of the aspects of the platform I find the most fascinating (hence devoting a good portion of this blog to the subject!). SLB has traditionally drawn artists to it over the years – to the extent that for some events, I’ve included an article devoted to the art exhibits awaiting discovery.

The diversity of art on offer at SL20B is as rich as previous years; however, I wanted to highlight The Water Slide here, given the way it combines art and interactive fun.

The work of the SL Random Art Crew (founded by Roxksie Logan) and the  Tigerpaw Sanctuary, this is multi-faceted installation. Built around a central tower containing the water slide of the title, the installation offers a series of rides and activities – and an underwater art exhibition. How you get to the top of the tower is up to you – will you take the easy route and use the teleport elevator, or will you trey the harder way – up the animated wooden steps (you might want to try running!). Similarly, how you get down is a matter of choice – by rope, by slide, take the ladder or … the fast way. Similarly, getting down to the underwater gallery offers a choice of routes.

The Nature Collective

Region SLurl (SLB Electrify)

Founded by Emm Evergarden (herself the creator of a number of immersive, natural environments in SL, as witnessed within my Exploring Second Life articles), the Nature Collective is a group intended to cultivate a community around regions, spaces and projects which share a common focus on nature. To assist in this, the group provides both an Explorer HUD, featuring all in-world locations linked to the Collective (and available in-world here), and a list of locations available through the Nature Collective website.

In addition, the Collective runs the Shutterbug Club, a monthly event (advertised through the in-world group and the Collective’s Discord Server), in which members visit a Nature Collective location in-world and spend and hour or so exploring it and taken photos which can be submitted – without post-processing, and created only using the tools available in the viewer – to the group’s Shutterbug Flickr photo stream.

I’ve always enjoyed and appreciated the work the Collective does – and they have led me to a number of engaging locations in SL, large and small. for SL20B they present a walk through a woodland glade coupled with an Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland & Through the Looking Glass theme while is entirely appropriate for a celebration of Second Life, given the platform is a wonderland of experiences and adventures. When visiting, people can also collect a copy of the group’s Explorer HUD and pick up a gift.

Unscripted Future – AI NPCs in Roleplay

Region SLurl (SLB Glamorous)

Generative AI systems are one of the current focuses of technology discussion and hype (notably around matters around copyright when it comes to AI tools like Midjourney), with considerable interest also being directed towards systems and their potential within games and similar environments. With this installation, Nadir Taov presents a practical demonstration on the used of Chat GPT3-powered NPCs to add depth and flow to interactions with NPCs within role-play (and other – such NPCs could have a range of uses – environments).

Presented in cyberpunk-esque urban setting, the installation allows visitors to interact with “Alexa”, a club-carrying, bemasked female, by means of emotive exchanges. Depending on induvial skills with emoting (and mixing descriptive actions with spoken words within those emotes), so interesting exchanges can be had – although those who find para-roleplay annoying are liable to find themselves getting irritated at the length of Alexa’s responses. But that said, this is an impressive demonstration of the potential in combining NPCs and AI.

Second Life:  The Past, The Present, The FUTURE

Region SLurl (SLB Triumphant)

Sniper Siemens is perhaps Second Life’s most dogged historian, over the years presenting us with a unique look into the platform’s long history using immersive installations. First seen in 2014, with the assistance of the former Linden Endowment for the Arts, they have been outstanding in their curation of information, facts, figures, images and trivia about Second Life. Over the years, these installations have grown ever more engaging, presenting a wealth of information about SL’s long history in easy-to-follow (and digest) summaries visits can walk through and appreciate at their leisure.

I’ve always enjoyed Sniper’s visual approach to presenting key and perhaps not so well-known points in the platform’s history, and have covered these installations on numerous occasions in these pages; they are the gold standard for such installations. As such, I make no apologies for including Sniper’s build at SL20B in this list.

Three To Close

Society for Preservation and Archeology of the Metaverse (SPAM) Region SLurl (SLB Electrify) – Penny Patton presents a slightly tongue-in-cheek look at defining moments of Second Life’s history. complete with an undertow of serious commentary in places.

Piano Roll Region Region SLurl (SLB Fantasy) – Bryn Oh’s reflective installation on the AI and its impact on presence and human interaction.

The Moon Teahouse Region SLurl (SLB Outgoing) – London Junkers’ little corner in which to relax.