Category: News-Opinion

Seraphim, AI Character Designer round-out “Membership Mania” Month

Posted on by Inara Pey
Character Generator (see below) – via Linden Lab

On Monday, February 24th, Linden Lab announced the final rounds of perks and enticements in their February “membership mania” promotion to encourage users to subscribe to the Second Life membership tiers (Plus, Premium and Premium Plus). This is the third such announced for the month, and comprises the following:

SeraPlus – In Association with Seraphim

via Linden Lab

SeraPlus is an all-new exclusive perk in partnership with Seraphim and available to Plus, Premium, and Premium Plus members intended to bring subscribers “all new exclusive, high-quality virtual items from some of Second Life’s top creators”.

Starting in April, Plus, Premium, and Premium Plus members will be able to claim their new perks inworld at the Seraphim region including:

  • Quarterly SeraPlus Boxes: Four times a year, members will receive a curated box filled with exclusive virtual creations from some of Second Life’s top creators.
  • Monthly Exclusive Gifts: For each of the remaining eight months of the year, members will receive one additional exclusive item created in partnership with a top creator.

Expanded Access to the Updated AI Character Generator & More Profile Picks

Expanded Access to the AI Character Designer

At the end of 2024, Linden Lab announced the Alpha release of a new AI Character Generator utilising 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. At the time, the service was only available to Premium Plus subscribers – although it was suspended shortly thereafter so it might be overhauled in response to feedback (see: Linden Lab leverage Convai for AI character generation in Second Life).

With this announcement, the Character Designer is re-launched, and is now available to all three subscription tiers: Plus, Premium and Premium Plus.

Members can now access this innovative tool to craft and customize virtual characters with intelligent responses, unique personalities, and immersive roleplay capabilities. It’s an exciting way to enhance community-building, storytelling, and social interaction in Second Life. While still in development, we’re excited to give a wider audience early access to this experimental creator tool.

– from the Lab’s official announcement

Profile Picks Increased for ALL Second Life

  • In response to multiple requests from users, Linden Lab will be increasing the number of Profile Picks users can have from 10 to 20.
  • This will require a simulator update, and so the capability will be rolling out “over the next couple of weeks”.

Membership Mania Offerings

As noted, the above is the third such multi-part promotion linked to Second Life subscription tiers, with the first two being:

In addition, at the start of the month, the Lab released the latest Premium Plus Linden Home “Thousand Islands” theme – see A look at the Thousand Islands Linden Homes theme in Second Life.

Links

Further Second Life “membership mania” from Linden Lab

Posted on by Inara Pey
via Linden Lab

On Tuesday, February 18th, Linden Lab announced a further set of rewards and perks for Second Life subscribers / members as a part of their February “membership mania” promotion. Coming on to of the announcement of expanded membership perks on February 10th (Lab announces Second Life “membership mania”), this sees the Lab announce:

  • Free Mesh Uploads for Premium Plus Members.
  • The chance to win one of three gaming PCs.

Free Mesh Uploads for Premium Plus Members

  • This has been promised since shortly after the introduction of the Premium Plus membership level in June 2022 (see: Second Life Premium Plus launches + some notes; updated).
  • This capability is added to Premium Plus members being able to upload textures, animations, and sounds without fees.
  • Mesh items can currently be uploaded for free at the  Radiantia Sandbox – however, the capability will be rolled out across all regions, so that Premium Plus members will be able to upload mesh items from anywhere on the grid.

 PC Giveaway

Important: for specifics on the giveaway, including AMOE, drawing and odds, and other rules and requirements – please refer to the Lab’s official blog post.

  • HP OMEN 45L Intel i9 RTX 4090 Gaming Desktop

    Between now and 23:59 SLT on February 28th, 2025, the Lab is holding a giveaway of three gaming specification desktop PCs comprising:

    • For Plus members: Thermaltake LCGS Quartz i460 R4 Gaming Desktop with a stated value of US $899.
    • For Premium members: Skytech Gaming PC Desktop with a stated value of US $1,999.
    • For Premium Plus: HP OMEN 45L Intel i9 RTX 4090 Gaming Desktop, with a stated value of US $4,679 USD.
  • All eligible Plus, Premium, and Premium Plus members are  automatically entered into the giveaway to win the PC in accordance with their subscription membership.
  • In addition, the Lab offers an Alternate Method of Entry (AMOE) via mail, and entries must be received by 23:59 SLT on March 9th 2025.
  • Due to local regulations and/or restrictions, this promotion is not open to residents of the following countries: Belgium, Italy, Brazil, Poland, Russia, India, China, Hong Kong, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and any country under U.S. embargoes or trade sanctions.
  • Winners will be solely responsible for any applicable taxes, duties, or import fees, and for the submission of required paperwork (US: Form W-9 – Request for Taxpayer Identification Number and Certification; Non- US: Form W8-BEN – Certificate of Foreign Status of Beneficial Owner for United States Tax Withholding and Reporting (Individuals)).
  • Again, please refer to the official blog post for full rules / requirements and notes on the giveaway.

Links

Lab announces Second Life “membership mania”

Posted on by Inara Pey
February “Membership Mania”: Linden Homes for Plus Subscribers, formal announcement of SL Mobile Streaks awards and increases to a range of limits

On Monday, February 10th, Linden Lab announced a further set of rewards and perks for Second Life subscribers / members (that is, those with a Plus, Premium or Premium Plus account).

SL Mobile Streaks Rewards

The announcement formally announced the Streaks rewards system – here defined as a “limited time” perk – which rewards subscription account holders with modest L$ payments in return for logging-in to Second Life daily.

I’ve actually covered the Streaks rewards in some detail in Looking at Streaks reward testing on the SL Mobile app during testing, but in short:

  • Opt-in and log into SL via the Mobile app when logging-in via it daily over a 7-day period and receive incremental L$ rewards (L$15 on the first day after opting-in the Streaks, L$20 on the second, L$25 on the third, working through to L$70 on the 7th day), which can be claimed daily.
  • Miss a day, and the “streak” of log-ins will reset to 0 days and the daily amount to L$15.
  • After 7 days of increments, the “streak” resets to L$15 and 0 days, allowing you to start claiming the next 7 days of incremental amounts (again, up to L$70 on the 7th day).
Streak rewards on the SL Mobile app are available to all subscription account holders (Plus, Premium and Premium Plus), for “a limited time”

Linden Homes for Plus Subscribers

Second Life Plus subscribers can now participate in the Linden Homes benefit, with the 512 sq metre options in the following themes being available to Plus members:

Newbrooke: “modern container homes” – see here for a review – with the following styles available to Plus subscribers: Denver, Ender, Faraday and Gatewood.

The 512 sq m Newbrooke Linden homes (clockwise from top left: Faraday, Gatewood, Ender, and Denver

Sakura: Japanese themed homes – see here for a review – with the following styles available to Plus subscribers: Botan (or Benibara in open-plan form), Himawari (Haibisukasu in open-plan form), Kosumosu (Kinmokusei in open-plan form) and Tenjikubotan  (Tsubaki in open plan form).

Camper: – all styles, but limited to the 512 sq m parcel size see here for a review.

Four styles of the Camper and Trailer Homes 

Remember: all Linden Home themes and styles – including those now available to Plus subscribers – can be viewed at the BelliHub Linden Homes demo area in-world. Availability of specific themes and styles can be found via the Linden Homes portal.

Linden homes Increased Land Capacity

All classes of Linden home  – Plus/Premium and Premium Plus now have increased parcel Land Capacity / available Land Impact, per the table below:

Land Capacity / Impact increases for Linden Homes. Credit: Linden Lab

Note that these Land Capacity updates may take time to be deployed across all Linden home parcels.

Increased Limits form IMs, Groups and Animesh Attachments

ALL account types – Basic through Premium Plus – see increases in some or all of the following: IM limits, Group limits, and allowed Animesh attachments, per the table below.

Increased limits as applied to account types. Credit: Linden Lab

Links

Lab officially announces 2K Bakes on Mesh is live for Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
Comparison (not overly great) between 2K BOM (l) and current maximum of 1K (r). Credit: Girl Crush (Zipper) via Linden Lab

Following Pepper Linden’s statement at the Tuesday, February  4th, 2025 Simulator User Group meeting that Second Life 2K Bakes on Mesh support is now grid-wide, Linden Lab posted an official announcement on Thursday, February 6th, 2025.

Residents, the wait is over! We’re thrilled to announce that as of February 3rd, 2025, 2K Bakes on Mesh (BOM) is now officially live!
After an exciting round of testing on Aditi, where many of you helped us refine this feature (thank you, beta testers!), we’re now rolling it out to the main grid. That means higher-resolution baked textures are here to take your avatars to the next level!

– 2K BOM Official blog post

This is the service that allows compatible wearable textures – skins, clothing layers, tattoos – to be baked at up to 2048×2048 resolution, which should lead to them appearing crisper and sharper on avatars (system or mesh with Bakes on Mesh enabled), although the following should be noted:

  • Bakes will be to the highest texture resolution in the bake composition (e.g. if the highest resolution among the layers – skin, clothing, etc – is 512x512K, then the overall bake will be 512x512K overall; if the highest resolution is 1024x1024K, then the bake will be 1024x1024K; if just one texture is 2048×2048, then the entire bake will by 2048×2048).
  • The exception to this is eye textures: these will never be bakes any anything higher than 512x512K (so there is not need for creators to start producing 2048×2048 eyes).

This blog post include sample shots- one of which is included in this post – and people should read the official post for full details.

Feedback is requested via the feedback portal, or via the weekly Simulator User Group (SUG) meetings, held Tuesdays at 12:00 noon SLT at this location.

SL Mobile gains account creation workflow (and more)

Posted on by Inara Pey
Second Life accounts can new be created directly through SL Mobile

On Tuesday, February 4th, 2025, the SL Mobile app updated to version 2025.01.542 (Android) / 0.5.533 (iOS). Chief among the enhancement included is the promised Create Account options, together with the ability to delete an account (if you really want to).

Account Creation

The Create Account workflow is similar to that found when signing-up to Second Life via the official Second Life website, but laid out in a manner suitable for smaller screens, and the key points aspects are:

  • Account creation is initiated directly from the SL Mobile log-in splash screen, which now has a Create Account option directly under the account credentials fields.
  • Tapping this option takes the user to the Account Creation screen where a user name, password, email address, date of birth, etc., can be entered.
    • As per the web sign-up process the e-mail account must be verified within 24 hours by replying to the message that has been sent to it.
  • This page also requires the acceptance of the Terms of Service and Second Life Terms of Service – again, just like the web-oriented sign-up, and which are presented to links to read both.
  • There is also an option to opt-in to the receipt of emails, etc., from the Lab, and a requirement to check a Capcha box.
Initial steps in account creation via SL Mobile: the splash screen option (l) and the sign-up page ((c) and (r)
  • Once completed, the form is processed and the user moves on to avatar selection – gender, facial appearance, hair style, outfit selection / clothing selection, etc, again much as the web sign-up process operates.
  • This section uses sliders and tap options to move between selections and to make specific choices (e.g. skin, clothing hair colours, style on clothing, footwear, etc.).
  • Once that avatar shale, gender, skin, clothing, etc., have by set to the user’s satisfaction, tapping the Continue button at the top of the screen will complete the avatar selection process and take the used back the the SL Mobile logging splash screen, complete with their user name entered in the top field.
The avatar selection process through SL Mobile flows much the same workflow as seen when signing-up via the SL website
  • The new account password can then be entered, and the account logged-in, delivering the avatar to Campwich Forest, the default arrival location for those joining via SL Mobile.

Account Deletion

It is now possible to delete an account directly from the SL Mobile app, should you wish:

  • Display the app’s menu.
  • Tap Help
  • Tap the Delete Account option and follow the required steps. Options to progress through the deletion request process will become enabled as required fields are completed.
It is now possible to delete accounts through SL Mobile, with options to progress becoming enabled as required fields are updated by the user

Additional Updates

  • The new Bone Attachment Developer Tools option (requires restart)

    A fix for the formatting issues with off-line Group notices.

  • A new setting in Developer tools – Bone Attachment Point Handling.
    • This is off by default – so no behaviour change from previous versions of the app.
    • When enabled, can improve avatar mesh appearance handling – although a restart is required after changing the setting to see the results.
    • Warning: this option might also cause new problems! If you see anything untoward as a result of enabling – please provide feedback to the Lab.
  • More debug information relating to rigged meshes is sent for developers to use.

Personal Feedback

My own experience of the sign-up process was – painful, with the first page of the sign-up process repeatedly causing SL Mobile to repeatedly freeze.

I have no idea where the problem lay (my hardware – Android 13, with Octa-core (2×1.6 GHz Cortex-A75 & 6×1.6 GHz Cortex-A55) CPU; Mali-G57 MP1; 8Gb primary RAM + 8Gb from 256Gb internal storage -; my wi-fi or something within the app and how it was processing the sign-up page (the avatar selection / customisation process was a lot smoother). Hopefully, this is not a common problem, as adding account creation to SL mobile is a good move for obvious reasons.

As a general note to the Lab, I would suggest placing an avatar mover at the default landing point at Campwich Forest. My test avatar arrived among a group of 12 so tightly packed together no-one could move without slamming into one another (and getting stuck, as push did not appear to be working).

By contrast, account deletion was straight-forward (bye-bye test account!), but I did not experiment with the new Bone Attachment option, as I’ve not noted any issues with the rigged meshes I routinely wear, so see no reason to toggle the setting.

 

 

Looking at Streaks reward testing on the SL Mobile app

Posted on by Inara Pey
Streak rewards are available to some users of the SL Mobile app as an experiment

The most recent update to SL Mobile – version 2025.01.538 Android) / 0.1.530 (iOS), dated January 14th, 2025 – introduced an experimental rewards scheme for some of those those using the app to log-in to Second Life, in order to encourage daily engagement through the app.

Encouragement of this kind is referred to as “streaks”, and can be used as a form of incentive to encourage or maintain specific routines or achieve daily goals through game mechanics, or some form of reward in return for engagement. Snapchat for example offers “collectible” emojis to users who exchange Snaps through the app with one another on a daily basis; meanwhile Roblox includes the ability for users to build their own streaks rewards systems into their games. With SL Mobile, the rewards take the form of modest (and incremental) offerings of Linden dollars.

The idea behind the experiment with SL Mobile is to see how rewards might influence people’s use of the Mobile app – particularly those referred to as “lapsed” Second Life users; those who have walked away from the platform and who have, according to Brad Oberwager, cited a lack of Mobile access as being one of the contributing factors for them doing so. This aim was also reiterated by Bridie Linden, the Project Manager for SL Mobile during the inaugural Monthly Mobile User Group meeting.

Some of you may have noticed we are doing an experiment that is trying to encourage follows to come back to Second Life and increase their engagement. So [it is] a log-in rewards offering. Not everyone will see the same thing, because we’re trying different variations in incentives.

Bridie Linden, SL Mobile Project Manager, January 30th, 2025

As it is currently an experiment and subject to A/B testing related to the general use of SL Mobile, not all users downloading the app or currently using it will be able to engage with the streaks rewards, as Grumpity Linden also explained during the same meeting:

Currently, log-in rewards are only available to subscribers, but not all who are subscribers will have the same experience; so I’m not going to say you should subscribe if you want to get log-in rewards in Linden dollars, because that’s not always going to be the case. But if you’re already a subscriber, you should check-out Mobile, and come back every day and see whether, maybe [you have the option]– because we’re going to continue tweaking this programme. Obviously, we want people to be happy, and we want this to be successful.

– Grumpity Linden, January 30th, 2025

To find out if you are eligible to join (and have not already done so – I am intentionally late in reporting on this scheme as I’ve been poking at it for the last 8 days), proceed as follows:

  • Start SL Mobile on your device and log-in.
  • Click the Menu button (top left, three horizontal bars) to open the menu.
  • If you are eligible to join the experiment, you will have a Streaks button displayed in your menu Highlighted below, left).
  • Tap the Streaks button to opt-in to the scheme and start the clock counting down to when you can claim your first rewards (which appears to be set to L$15 for everyone).
Those who are included in the initial testing can opt-in to the Streaks rewards by going to SL Mobile’s menu and tapping the Streaks icon (if available), to opt-in to the the rewards
  • Note the two sliders t the bottom of the Streaks screen allowing you toggle daily streak messages as soon as you log-in to the app off/ on, and to opt out / in to Streaks, both of which are enabled (“on” and opted-in) by default.

Once you have joined Streaks, rewards can be claimed daily, starting with the initial L$15. In addition, please note:

  • The amount of the reward offered each day increments (e.g. L$15 on “day 1”; L$20 on “day 2”).
  • The amount by which the daily rewards increments also increases the longer a streak continues (e.g. rising from a L$5  increment per day to (first) L$10 increments per day).
  • Streaks appear to last for 7 consecutive days before the reward amount automatically resets to L$15 (or you miss a daily log-in), and you start over again.

To claim a daily reward:

  • Log-in to the SL Mobile app. Your Streaks status should be automatically displayed unless you have turned off the daily login message, in which case, open the app’s menu and tap the Streaks button.
  • The display should tell you the amount available to claim, and the incremented amount that will be available for you to claim in 24-hours’ time (below left).
  • Tap the Claim button to claim the available amount and have it added to your SL amount L$ balance, and update your Streaks status (below centre).
Claiming daily Streaks is required to transfer them to your account L$ balance (left and centre). Streaks appear to rest to the baseline L$15 after around 7 days
  • Per the notes above,  Streaks rewards appear to increment of a 7-day period, and then reset to the initial L$15 (see the image above right) and build up again. However, whether this is an infinite cycle or also limited; I have no idea.

As a means of encouraging users (current and “lapsed” to use SL Mobile, this is an interesting approach; I’d been particularly interested in how much traction it gets amount its intended primary audience  – “lapsed” users – over time, and in how well it might act as incentive as new users are able to sign-up to Second Life through the app. However, we’ll hear more on both in due course.