Category: News-Opinion

Reflections on a prim: a potential way to create mirrors in SL

Posted on by Inara Pey

Update: just after pushing this out (slightly prematurely, thank you, Mona, for pointing out the error), Gwenners poked me on Twitter and reminded me of the 2006 experiments with reflections and supplied some links to shots from those heady days: and

The ability to have honest-to-goodness mirror surfaces in Second Life which could reflect the world – and avatars – around them has often been asked for over the years, but has tended to be avoided by the Lab as it’s been seen as potentially resource-intensive and not the easiest thing to achieve. As a result people have in the past played around with various means to try to create in-world mirrors.

Zonja Capalini posted a article on using linden water as an avatar mirror in 2011
Zonja Capalini posted an article on using linden water as an avatar mirror as far back as 2009

Zonja Capalini, for example, was perhaps one of the first to blog about using Linden water as a mirror (or at least the first I came across, thanks to Chestnut Rau and Whiskey Monday), and she certainly came up with some interesting results, as shown on the right, and which I tried-out for myself back in 2012.

However, achieving results in this way is also time-consuming and not always practical; you either have to purpose-build a set, or try shoving a jack under a region and hope you can persuade it to tip over on its side…

But there is hope on the horizon that perhaps we may yet see mirrors in SL (and OpenSim).

While it is still very early days,  Zi Ree of the Firestorm team has been poking at things to see what might be achieved, and has had some interesting results using some additional viewer code and a suitable texture.

This has allowed Zi to define a basic way of generating real-time reflections, including those of avatars, on the surface of a prim. The work is still in its early days, and Zi points to the fact that she’s not a rendering pipe expert, so there may be under-the-hood issues which may not have come to light as yet. However, she as produced a number of videos demonstrating the work to date (see the same below), and has raised a JIRA (STORM-2055) which documents the work so far, and self-compilers can use the patch provided in the JIRA if they want to try things for themselves.

Currently, the code only works when the viewer is running in non-deferred rendering (i.e. with the Advanced Lighting Model turned off). This does tend to make the in-world view a little flat, particularly if you’re used to seeing lighting and shadows.

However, having tried a version of the SL viewer with the code applied to it, I can say that it is very easy to create a mirror – all you need is a prim and a texture, make a few tweaks to some debug settings, and a possible relog. The results are quite impressive, as I hope the picture below demonstrates (click to enlarge, if required).

I see you looking at me ...
I see you looking at me …

Performance-wise, my PC and GPU didn’t seem to take too much of a hit – no doubt helped by the fact the mirror effect only works in non-deferred mode at present. Quite what things would be like if this were to be tried with ALM active and shadows and lighting enabled and afters moving around in real time could be a very different story.

As the effect is purely viewer-side, it does run up against the Lab’s “shared experience” policy; not only do you need a viewer with the code to create mirror surfaces, you need a viewer with the code to see the results. People using viewers without the code will just see a transparent prim face (or if the mirror texture is applied to the entire prim, nothing at all while it is 100% transparent).

This means that in order for mirrors of this nature to become the norm in Second Life, then the idea, as offered through this approach, is going to have to be adopted by the Lab. Obviously, to be absolutely ideal, it would also be better if it worked with Advance Lighting Model active as well. Zi additionally notes that some server-side updates are also required in order for a simulator to be able to save things like the reflectiveness of a given mirror surface, etc.

It's all done with mirrors ...
It’s all done with mirrors, y’know … (click to enlarge, if required)

Whether this work could herald the arrival of fully reflective surfaces in-world remains to be seen. It’s not clear how much interest in the idea has been shown by the Lab, but hopefully with the JIRA filed, they’ll take a look at things. There’s little doubt that if such a capability could be made to happen, and without a massive performance or system hit, then it could prove popular with users and add further depth to the platform.

Lab delay introduction of new Skill Gaming Policy

Posted on by Inara Pey

secondlifeOn Wednesday July 9th, Linden Lab announced forthcoming changes to their Skill Gaming policy, which were due  to come into force as from Friday August 1st, 2014. They would bring with them stricter control enforced over the operation of games of skill in Second Life, and see the introduction of a new region type  – The Skill Gaming Region – which will only be accessible to those Second Life users who are of sufficient age and are located in a jurisdiction that Linden Lab permits for this kind of online gaming activity.

However, on Tuesday July 29th, 2014, the Lab issued a blog post stating that the new Skill Gaming policy will not now take effect until Monday September 1st, 2014, pointing to the number of applications received as being the reason for the delay.

The update on the introduction of the revisions to Skill Gaming in Second Life reads in full:

As we recently blogged, we have a new policy for Skill Gaming in Second Life. In short, skill games that offer Linden Dollar payouts will be allowed in Second Life, but each game, its creator, its operator, and the region on which it’s operated must be approved by Linden Lab.

Today, we are changing the date that the changes described in our previous blog post go into effect. Instead of starting on August 1, the updated Skill Gaming Policy will go into effect on September 1, 2014. The original blog post and the FAQs will also be updated to reflect this new deadline.

Since our original announcement, we’ve received many applications from Second Life users who want to become approved skill game creators and operators. By moving the date back, we’ll be able to process a larger number of applications and also offer creators more time to make necessary changes to their games.

If you would like to apply to become an approved skill games creator and/or operator, you can do so through Echosign.

Infrastructure support for the new Skill Gaming regions has already been deployed to the main grid as a part of the server deployments of weeks 28 and 29.

 Related Links

The Drax Files Radio Hour: lunch and Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey

radio-hourEpisode #28 of  The Drax Files Radio Hour was posted on Friday July 18th. After a measure of disappointment on my part that the promised interview with Jacquelyn Ford Morie didn’t appear – for fully understandable reasons – this segment makes up for it with a chat with long-term Second Life business man Lislo Mensing, or as he’s known in the physical world, Stefan Weiss.

Stefan is the driving force behind a recreation of the heart of Munich in Second Life. He’s also the owner of Teledollar, a Linden Dollar Authorised Reseller, and he has some interesting first-hand experiences of trying to marry-up the virtual and physical worlds.

This is perhaps the most informal interview Drax has conducted to date in the radio show, taking place as it does over lunch in the physical Munich, where he met Stefan while enjoying his summer vacation in Germany. As such, this is both the first in a trio of such informal “lunch with a lifer” interviews and is also something of an introduction to Bavarian cuisine!

Virtual Munich, which dates from 2007, is a recreation of the centre of Munich. It features many of the landmarks from its physical namesake, including several of the city’s churches and the old city gates. All of these, while prim builds, have been constructed using around 6,000 photos taken of the actual city of Munich, allowing as much as possible of the original’s essence to be recaptured within the virtual constraints of two regions in SL. Streets and plazas are faithfully recreated, and even a portion of the underground (subway) transit system has been reproduced (tickets L$69), which connects the heart of the city to the surrounding rural regions.

In developing the build, Stefan saw the potential for a symbiotic way of promoting the virtual in the physical and vice-versa. Approaching the Munich civic authorities, he put forward the idea that virtual Munich could be used as a means of promoting the physical Munich, offering people who might be considering a visit to the city the means to immersively learn about it and explore it prior to actually visiting. There was initially a positive response to the idea, and even talk of including the virtual version of Munich in documentation about the city’s 850th anniversary.

Unfortunately, all this came to nought when, in late 2007, German media outlets (and others around the world) followed the UK’s Sky News in running exposés on sexual ageplay rings within Second Life. Understandably, support for the project from both Munich’s civic authorities and from businesses rapidly declined in the wake of the reports; so much so that Stefan was refused permission to take photos of the non-public areas of some of the historic buildings which he had hoped to be able to share with people by recreating them in-world.

A view across the munich skyline in Second Life
A view across the Munich skyline in Second Life

While there has always been much speculation as to the impact these and other such exposés had on the wider view the public and businesses had on Second Life, Stefan’s frank description of the situation he personally faced really adds perspective to one of the factors that undoubtedly led to SL fall from grace in the media’s eyes, and which may have had a far greater impact on the media’s perception of the platform than its inability to live up to the hype created around it.

Stefan Weiss as caught at a Munich SL user’s meet-u (image by Xphile Boucher, via The Drax Files Radio Hour website)

Beyond this, the conversation touches on the relevance of virtual worlds, with Stefan pointing out that really, not much has changed over the years where the broader attitude towards VWs is concerned. This, he points out, is largely due to what I’m going to henceforth call the Pamela Effect henceforth (particularly after the re-run of Drax’s interview with her in segment #27 of the Drax Files Radio Hour): most of those in the “mainstream” market simply don’t see VWs as being in any way relevant to their physical and digital lives and activities, and so don’t see why they should bother giving VWs a go.

Not only is this attitude perhaps common among the vast majority of Internet users, but it obviously also encompasses businesses as well,  who have far more accessible means at their disposal for marketing the products and services and of reaching an audience. It is relevance – far more than issues of getting the keyboard and mouse “out of the way” – which is likely going to be the major issue for anyone trying to drive a virtual world even further into the mainstream consciousness – at least for a the foreseeable future.

I’ve mentioned three reasons why I think this is the case in a previous article (although these are the only reasons for my feeling this way).  Stefan points to a couple more; things which are regularly discussed, at least among those of us already engaged in VWs: scalability (in terms of having an environment which can actually support compelling, mass audience / mass participation activities), and accessibility. In this latter respect, Tony Parisi is more than likely correct in his view that unless a virtual world embraces the ease of access presented by the web, it’s going to have trouble making its presence felt.

Relevance is also something that came to mind when the Oculus Rift received its obligatory mention in the interview. While much has been made of the potential of VR bringing about a renaissance in interest in virtual worlds, very little has really been said about the potential for VR to do exactly the reverse, and leave virtual worlds still locked into a narrow niche within the mainstream market.

Simply put, if VR brings about the kind of situation which is discussed in the show, allowing hundreds and thousands of people world-wide to sit down and witness a World Cup final as if they were there, or a Wimbledon championship or take a ride into space or stand on the surface of Mars or explore the wreck of the Titanic or do a hundred other things that might not be otherwise possible for them, and share the experience with others –  then why should they even bother with farting around with a virtual world?

Towards the end of the piece, things get a little confusing as other virtual environments, such as Twinity and Google Lively are touched upon amidst some lunchtime chuckles. There’s also a brief overview of the Teledollar operation before times catches up with Stefan and Drax, and things are cut short by the needs of the physical world and work.

This is very much a curate’s egg of a conversation; there is a lot discussed and mentioned which offers food for thought. The over-the-lunch-table nature of the conversation lends a curious tilt to things, helping to add flavour to the proceedings, and giving it an oddly intimate feel for the listener, as if we’re sitting on a table close by and overhearing their discussion as they eat; and what interesting listening it makes!

Second Life helps cane growers learn about sustainable farming practices and more

Posted on by Inara Pey

There is no doubting that Second Life is an excellent platform for teaching and learning. That’s been demonstrated time and again, with many and varied educational and distance learning programmes being run through the platform, and with many schools, colleges, universities and other organisations making use of Second Life for a wealth of education and learning activities over the years.

One of the more intriguing means of using the platform educational purposes has been recently highlighted in an Australian Broadcasting Corporation website and video report, Queensland’s Cane Farmers Learn About Climate Change Via Virtual Reality World, which outlines a project initiated in 2012 by the University of Southern Queensland (USQ), Australia, and which is now being extended.

Sweet Success is a programme developed by the Australian Digital Futures Institute (ADFI) and the International Centre of Applied Climate Sciences (ICACS) at USQ. It uses machinima created in Second Life to encourage Queensland’s sugarcane farmers to consider sustainable farming practices (including their own environmental impact on the land), and to stimulate discussion about how to incorporate an understanding of climate risk into their decision-making.

Sweet Success sought to better inform sugar cane farmers on climate and environmental impact using digital techniques, including machinima filmed in Second Life
Sweet Success sought to better inform sugar cane farmers on climate and environmental impact using digital techniques, including machinima filmed in Second Life

The videos are set in an environment typical of that found in Queensland’s cane growing region, and feature a number of individuals typical of the character and disposition of Queensland cane farmers. Lasting some 3-5 minutes, the films serve as both a focal point for discussion and as  a means to introduce the farmers to the climate information, interactive models, etc., which might be used to better inform their farming decisions.

The initial programme involved around 20 sugar cane farmers who were able to watch the films, study the material and discuss the issues and ideas raised. While there was some initial scepticism, the farmers admitted the videos were a positive means of passing on information on things they may not have thought about.

Dr. Helen Farley, one of the researchers involved in Sweet Success, and her SL alter-ego
Dr. Helen Farley, one of the researchers involved in Sweet Success, and her SL alter-ego

Dr. Kate Farley, one of the Digital Futures faculty members involved in the project, and herself a long-term advocate for the use of virtual worlds for learning and teaching in higher education, describes the decision to use Second Life as being primarily a matter of finance and convenience: Second Life allowed the films to be put together at a far lower cost and much quicker than would have been the case with live action location shooting.

Matt Kealley, senior manager of environment and natural resources for the Canegrowers industry group sees the approach as potentially offering the means to deliver a lot of information on farming, climate, weather and so on to his members. He also believes that once the novelty of being presented with a film shot in a virtual environment had worn off, his members found the information presented to be “compelling” in content and value.

In fact, such has been the success of the pilot programme, the project has now been expanded to include some 400 Queensland sugarcane growers.

Dr. Kate Reardon-Smith of the ACSC
Dr. Kate Reardon-Smith of the ACSC

While the cost-effective nature of using Second Life as a film medium might have been the primary consideration in using it for the Sweet Success films, Dr. Farley, together with fellow researcher, Dr. Kate Reardon-Smith, believes that the approach has other benefits as well.

Leading a series of presentations on the work, both Dr. Farley and Dr. Reardon-Smith point to the use of Second Life as being ideal for addressing matters of climate risk assessment, sustainable farming methods and so on for a wide variety of farming locations and systems, simply through the use culturally appropriate clothing, language and design. In addition, the digital nature of the finished product makes it easy to package with the supporting material for dissemination anywhere in the world.

Nor is Sweet Success the only activity undertaken by USQ to use Second Life as a means of educating farmers. In 2010, ICACS, under its old title of the Australian Centre for Sustainable Catchments (ACSC), joined with the Asia-Pacific Network to use Second Life avatars as a means to present real world climate-based scenarios to farmers in the Andhra Pradesh region of India. The aim of the project was to challenge farmers about on-farm decisions that involve seasonal climate risk. As a distance learning project, it was delivered to Internet kiosks within the region where farmers could then discuss and debate the issues raised.

The ACSC-APN project in the Andhra Paresh region of India also used Second Life as a means to
The ACSC-APN project in the Andhra Pradesh region of India also used Second Life as a means to engage farmers on the subject of seasonal climate risk and farming decisions

All told, both of these projects present a unique and fascinating extension of the use of Second Life as an educational medium and for distance learning.

Related Links

All images via the University of Southern Queensland

TOSing the (word) salad (or why I think the latest Terms of Service update misses the mark)

Posted on by Inara Pey

On Wednesday July 16th the Lab issued an update to Section 2.3 of their Terms of Service. I’ve already provided some feedback on the update and how, thanks to the use of parentheses, it appears to be limited to only addressing the issue of the Lab attempting to sell user-generated content for their own profit; something which is also indicated by the official blog post on the matter being focused solely on that issue as well.

However, there was more I wanted to say on the matter, but which, as an expression of personal opinion, I didn’t want to include in what was essentially a “news” article. So please excuse me if I now take the opportunity of doing so.

I’m actually not at all surprised that the Lab has looked no further than addressing the issue of their selling, reselling or sub-licensing user content. Prior to the update being published, I spent a fair amount of time reading Ebbe Altberg’s forum comments in relation to the Terms of Service and transcribing his statements on the matter at various meetings. One thing that struck me in doing so, was that throughout all of them, he only ever referred to revised the ToS in terms of addressing this singular issue.

Unfortunately, even in dealing with this one issue, the Lab appears to have again managed to introduce ambiguity into matters. In their blog post, they state that the updated Terms now require some nebulous form of “affirmative action” on the part of users in order for the Lab to sell, resell or sublicense their content. But what form is this “affirmative action” supposed to take?

It’s fair to say that the revised Section 2.3 of the ToS doesn’t give any indication, other than perhaps via the very generic statement of, “as permitted by you through your interactions with the Service”, which could mean almost anything.  Even a check on Section 2.4 of the ToS – which the blog post points to as being the basis for the additional language in Section 2.3 – offers little enlightenment. It merely states that “interaction with the service” might be as simple as using the permissions system with any content you place on any Second Life region accessible to any other user. As such, people could be forgiven for taking the blog statement about “affirmative action” as little more than cold comfort.

... Except the ToS doesn't really indicate what such "affirmative action" might be, other than in the most generic of ways
… Except the ToS doesn’t indicate what such “affirmative action” might be, other than in the most generic of ways

Beyond this, why the Lab have persisted in ignoring concerns over the removal of all reasonable limitations on the granting of shared rights to them, remains a mystery. It’s not as if they weren’t aware of any issues on this matter, because at the end of 2013 and early 2014 efforts were being made to put such concerns directly and clearly to them. I know this to be a fact, because I was an active participant in one such group engaged in those efforts.

And if you’re not convinced that the July 2014 update leaves the matter of granting unqualified rights unchanged, then as I pointed out in my original article, you need only look as far as the statement following text which has been added to Section 2.3. It is completely unchanged from the August 2013 version of the ToS, still stating that the Lab might “otherwise exploit in any manner whatsoever, all or any portion of your User Content (and derivative works thereof), for any purpose whatsoever…“

Again, no-one is denying that the Lab requires the non-exclusive granting of certain rights in respect of users’ content. That is to be expected and should be understood. Without such rights, Second Life ceases to work. It is simply the extent to which the Lab require the granting of such rights since August 2013.

An unaddressed concen with the August 2013 Terms of Service was the removal of all limitations around the granting of rights to the Lab in respect of user-generated content. extent to which the Lab require users to grant them shared rights to their content. In October 2013, Agenda Faromet suggested how the August 2013 ToS update could be improved - through the re-establishing reasonable limits on the non-exclusive rights granted to the Lab in respect of content - just as had been the case up prior to the August 2013 update.
Agenda Faromet, speaking at the October 2013 in-world meeting about the August 2013 Terms of Service changes, was perhaps the first to clearly bullet-point why a reinstatement of reasonable limits on the granting of shared rights to the Lab in respect of users’ content might benefit the Terms of Service.

Up until the August 2013 update, the ToS had required rights to user-generated content “solely for the purposes of providing and promoting the Service” (see Section 7.2  of the May 2013 Terms of Service). Even allowing for the fact that since August 2013 the Terms of Service have been applicable to all of the Lab’s products and not just Second Life, it is hard for the untutored eye to understand why this language couldn’t have been carried forward in respect to rights granted to the Lab. After all, “the Service” could apply to Patterns, Desura and any other platform the Lab produces, just as much as it applied to Second Life.

And therein lies part of the problem; because the removal of all limitations on rights granted to the Lab appears to be entirely arbitrary, it gives rise to suspicions and mistrust over the company’s motivations. As such, it is a shame the Lab has never really made any effort to clearly express why they believe such a sweeping change assists them in their role as a service provider when compared to the previous, more qualified granting of rights. While it would still be a very poor second to actually working with concerned users to try to amend Section 2.3 to the benefit of all, providing such feedback might at least help in allaying the aforementioned suspicions and mistrust.

Unfortunately, I tend to feel that we’re unlikely to see any further movement on this matter; the Lab have revised what they felt needed to be revised, and it’s not as if they were unaware of other concerns related to recent ToS revisions. As such, and like it or not, we still have a Terms of Service which still has every appearance of being creator / collaboration unfriendly.

And in that respect, when considering the July 16th update, I’m left with a quote from William James rattling around my head:

A difference which makes no difference is no difference at all.

Related Links

The further return of the Premium Membership offer and gift

Posted on by Inara Pey

On Friday July 18th, the Lab launched the latest off of its Premium Membership discount offers, together with a new Premium Membership gift.

These seem to be run around July / August each year, and also in November. As usual, the offer is 50% off of membership for those upgrading, but only if they opt for the Quarterly billing plan, and the discount is applied only to the first quarter billing period. The offer runs from 08:00 SLT / PDT on Friday July 18th 2014 through until 08:00 SLT / PDT on Monday August 4th, 2014. The usual Premium Benefits are part-and-parcel of the offer.

The Premium Membership offer banner
The Premium Membership offer banner

I’m a Premium Member; I re-upped several years ago after having been basic, and I find it moderately useful – for I time I lived exclusively in my Linden Home and didn’t find it that bad; admittedly, I managed to land on my feet with the one I had, but I did spend a fair amount of time mulling things over and settled on the exact style I wanted ahead of time and then dallied until it came around on the booking page (not all variants of the various styles are available all of the time). I was then very lucky that the first one I saw was in a location I liked – however, moving between Linden Homes is relatively simple, providing you follow some simple rules. So if the first one you are assigned doesn’t fit the bill, location-wise, it’s easy to hop around.

Even so, I’m still (as always) irked by some of the stated benefits that come with Premium, and wish the Lab would clean-up some of the wording – “More Land and Privacy?”  – how, exactly? Basic members get to enjoy both of these as well; not as cheaply, perhaps, but they can have them. I’d also like to see more thought given to the benefits in general. some of the gifts are fun … but none of them are that inspirational.

The Premium Gift pirate airship includes a premium prim count / land impact
The Premium Gift pirate airship includes a premium prim count / land impact

Which brings me to the latest Premium gift itself. The gift on offer this time is a “new interactive pirate airship, the Linden Marauder.”

Pirate, eh? All I can say is avast … land impact goes into this vessel; 502 in fact (although the physics weight is admittedly only 18-ish), so it’s not something you’ve going to want to keep rezzed out somewhere. It’ll sit a number of people – Captain (owner) at the helm, who must board first, then the “First Mate” and then passengers (or “scurvy crew”, if you prefer and keeping to the piratical theme. Flight controls are the usual : PAGE UP and PAGE DOWN to ascend / descend, LEFT ARROW and RIGHT ARROW to turn. UP ARROW and DOWN ARROW to accelerate / slow down. A nice touch is SHIFT LEFT ARROW or SHIFT RIGHT ARROW to run-out the port or starboard cannon on the gun decks and fire a broadside.

Quite a few were trying the latest Premium Gift out for size, if only briefly
Quite a few were trying the latest Premium Gift out for size, if only briefly

Handling-wise the airship is OK, firing the guns at another passing airship can be a bit of a giggle – the first time. Other than that, I don’t have anything to say on it, other than when it comes to the idea of Premium gifts and offering something of value and which is likely to be of real benefit, this kind of offering leaves two words floating inside my head: “missed” and “opportunity”