Category: Second Life

Seanchai Library: stories in voice in Second Life, March 13th-19th, 2023

Posted on by Inara Pey
Seanchai Library

It’s time to highlight another week of storytelling in Voice by the staff and volunteers at the Seanchai Library – and this week previews the launch of a very special event.

As always, all times SLT, and events are held at the Library’s home in Nowhereville, unless otherwise indicated. Note that the schedule below may be subject to change during the week, please refer to the Seanchai Library website for the latest information through the week.

Monday, March 13th, 19:00: The Golden Compass (aka Northern Lights)

Originally published in 1995 as Northern Lights, The Golden Compass forms the first volume in Philip Pullman’s multiverse-spanning trilogy His Dark Materials.

In a world resembling Edwardian England, where magic is commonplace, young Lyra Belqcqua slip into the Retiring Room at the collage where he uncle is about to give a lecture – only to witness the Master of the college add poison to the wine intended for her uncle, Lord Asriel, prior to his arrival in the room. Warning him, she is rewarded by being allowed to remain and witness her uncle’s presentation, in which he discusses something called “Dust”, shows images of the northern lights in which there appears to be a city, and something else called the “panserbjørne”.

At the same time, children within Oxford are vanishing, kidnapped by a sect called the Gobblers, for a nefarious purpose – and Lyra is determined to find out why. In doing so, she is brought back into contact with the Master – who surprisingly gives her an alethiometer, a truth-telling device – and is offered the opportunity to live with the glamorous Mrs. Coulter, which comes as a thrill.

But as the mystery of the missing children deepens and Lyra determines to follow their trail north, so she discovers that Mrs. Coulter is not all she appears to be – and nor is her Dust-obsessed uncle, Lord Asriel.

With Gyro Muggins.

Tuesday, March 14th

12:00 Noon: Russell Eponym

Live in words and music at the Glen.

19:00: The Quiet Man

Released in 1952, John Ford’s The Quiet Man is regarded as a classic Irish-American romantic comedy / drama. Starring John Wayne, Maureen O’Hara (and assorted members of their RL families!) and Barry Fitzgerald, it is a popular choice among critics and film-lovers.

The screenplay for the film was drawn in a large part from a short story of the same name originally published in 1933 in the Saturday Evening Post, and penned by Irish author, Maurice Welsh. Together with a number of other short stories by Walsh, The Quiet Man was gathered into a single volume of his short stories, The Quiet Man and Other Stories, which dealt with many recurring characters living in rural Ireland of the 1920s, and set against the backdrop of the civil unrest which affected the country at that time, while examining the complexities and occasional intrigues of life, love and Irish traditions.

Join Caledonia Skytower as she reads Walsh’s original tale of The Quiet Man, Paddy Bawn Enright at the Glen.

Wednesday, March 15th, 19:00: Seanchai Flicks

Films, popcorn and fun at the Seanchai cinema space.

Thursday, March 16th, 19:00: Darby O’Gill Tales

Shandon Loring brings tales from the pen of Irish author Herminie Templeton Kavanagh, featuring her hero, the Irishman Darby O’Gill.

Originally published as a series of short stories in McClure’s magazine between 1901–1902, Darby O’Gill’s adventures with the faeries of Irish mythology were brought together in book form for the first time in 1903, under the title  Darby O’Gill and the Good People. The tales proved popular in America, leading to Templeton Kavanagh writing a second volume of tales featuring O’Gill, entitled Ashes of Old Wishes and Other Darby O’Gill Tales, published in 1926. 

O’Gill become the subject of a 1959 Disney film, Darby O’Gill and the Little People, based on the first volume of tales, and somewhat notable for the tuneful appearance of a pre-Bond Sean Connery in his 6th credited film role.

Advanced Notice: Sunday, March 19th: Seanchai Library 15th Edition

Join the storytellers and friends of Seanchai Library as they celebrate 15 years of storytelling in voice in virtual worlds. Details available soon via the Seanchai Library website.

2023 SL viewer release summaries week #10

Posted on by Inara Pey
Logos representative only and should not be seen as an endorsement / preference / recommendation

Updates from the week through to Sunday, March 12th, 2023

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: Maintenance Q(uality) viewer, version 6.6.9.577968, promoted Thursday, February 2, 2023- no change.
  • Release channel cohorts:
    • No updates.
  • Project viewers:
    • glTF / PBR Materials project viewer, version 7.0.0.578613, March 10 – This viewer will only function on the following Aditi (beta grid) regions: Materials1; Materials Adult and Rumpus Room 1 through 4.

LL Viewer Resources

Third-party Viewers

V6-style

V1-style

Mobile / Other Clients

  • No updates.

Additional TPV Resources

Related Links

A Blade Runner Future Noir in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
Blade Runner Future Noir, March 2023 – click any image for full size

Hera (zee9) is back with a further take on Scott’s Blade Runner, and the director’s transplanted dystopian ideas from Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. It’s not the first time Hera has tackled the theme in a build – as I’ve covered several times in these pages – either indirectly through her Drune builds or more directly through her February 2022 Blade Runner build, which I wrote about here.

With Blade Runner Future Noir, Hera has taken the opportunity presented by a Full private region leveraging the Land Capacity bonus to greatly expand on her February 2022 vision, offering offering something which is partially familiar to visitors of that build and something which is new an unique. Combined, these elements serve to deliver one of the most immersive and integrated representations of Scott’s filmic vision to be presented in Second Life.

Blade Runner Future Noir, March 2023

I say “integrated” here, because Blade Runner Future Noir brings together Hera’s stunning visuals, an superb ambient sound scape and a curated music stream which perfectly reflects the the setting, offering as it does pieces from the soundtracks of both films, plus pieces from other suitable sources. As such, this is very much a setting which should be visited with both local sounds on and the audio stream enabled.

This is something very special for me. It is without doubt the best Cyberpunk sim I have created. It has all the elements that the others did not have or could not have due to space and prim limits. Blade Runner, for those who know and love it, needs no introduction.

– Hera (Zee9)

Blade Runner Future Noir, March 2023

From the landing point – do be sure to tat the information note card that’s available there – visitors are delivered to a subway train car, the platform beyond it offering the way up to street level and the hustle and dampness of downtown and old town Los Angeles. The street scenes here are perhaps the most familiar aspects of the design for those who have visited the February 2022 build. Familiar, but not necessarily the same; there is a wealth of details waiting to be found that was not present on that build which could not be previously included.

That detail come s both large and small: from the vehicles through to the Animesh NPCs to the posters which there familiar touches of humour – some of which are the work of AmandaBennet1967 – and signage found among the streets and buildings. The NPCs are a first for Hera’s builds, again thanks for the increased Land Capacity presented by the region. They offer a sense of life which goes beyond static NPC figures – although admittedly, seeing an LAPD officer in full amour and casually swinging what appears to be a large, automatic projectile weapon while bouncing and hopping on the balls of his feet did after me crossing the street to avoid the risk of an accidental *bang* and ricochet 🙂 .

Blade Runner Future Noir, March 2023
There is a great deal of familiar stuff here, but it has all been re arranged and expanded upon. There is also a great deal of new stuff, all of which you will have to find, it’s been such a long time since I put some of it in that I have forgotten where things are myself … The devil is in the detail and I have at last had a chance, and the prims , to just go way over the top. There are so many small things scattered about here now, and I could have continued had I not begun to get dangerously close, in a 30000 prim sim, of running out. 

– Hera (Zee9)

As with the February 2022 build, it is possible to visit The Snake Pit – although Zhora is not present, and the club is a little more up-market compared to the establishment at which she performed. Similarly, the Tyrell Tower looms over the setting, bearing the name of its founder / owner. Within it can be found Tyrell’s office and conference area where visitors might appreciate an owl and just down the hallway can be found Tyrell’s bedchamber. Also awaiting visitors is the office level where Holden met his violent end after confusing / upsetting Leon whilst administering the Voight-Kampff test. Further within the tower is more to be found – but I’ll little your discover what that might be.

Blade Runner Future Noir, March 2023

New to this build is the means by which one might choose the reach the tower. Whilst the route at street level remains, those finding their way to the roof of the LAPD headquarters can use the rezzer on one of the landing pads there to call-up a police spinner and treat themselves to a Deckard-style flight to Tyrell Tower as it faces the police building across the width of the region.

Dow at ground level are some familiar and not-so-familiar locations to be visited. The Snake Pit still awaits patrons, for example – although it is again perhaps a little more up-market in looks and tone to the club which employed Joanna Cassidy’s Zhora. For those who prefer, street level offers access to the local club (just be wary of the soda beverage available in the foyer – at least, if it’s name is to be taken literally! is numerous smaller locations I don’t recall from previous builds.

Blade Runner Future Noir, March 2023

As well as Blade Runner, the setting apparently draws on influences from the game Cyberpunk 2077, including the apartment belonging to the game’s protagonist, V. I confess it’s not a game I’m familiar with at all, so I have no idea if the apartment I found was inspired by V’s; but I will say that for some odd reason put me in mind of the Hume’s apartment from the (sadly) short-lived series Total Recall 2070 (which, despite its title owed as much to Scott’s vision of Los Angeles as it did to Dick’s novella We Can Remember It for You Wholesale), even if the similarities are at best superficial.

Another apartment available to visitors is at of J. F. Sebastian, tucked away within the Bradbury building. Fortunately, Pris does not appear to be present, so it’s unlikely you’ll be attacked; however, it’s also worth taking a look at the floor above for another reminder of the film. I’m honestly not sure if either of these were present in prior builds, but I enjoyed discovering them both.

Blade Runner Future Noir, March 2023

When visiting, do be sure to view the region under the region’s EEP settings – the add immeasurably to the experience and help give the region a greater sense of depth than the 256 metres on the side otherwise presents.  You can still also partake of a bowl of noodles at The White Dragon, which has also bee expanded upon with the inclusion of Animesh NPCs.

Should you enjoy a visit and appreciate Hera’s work, do please consider making a donation via the landing point’s bear; all L$ received go directly back into the region’s upkeep and tier – and at Hera points out, the greater the assistance, the longer Blade Runner Future Noir will remain available for everyone to enjoy.

Blade Runner Future Noir, March 2023

Absolutely not one to be missed.

SLurl Details

Lab Gab summary: Grumpity, Mojo & Patch – SL Mobile, land, bots & more

Posted on by Inara Pey
via Linden Lab
On Friday, March 10th, 2023, Linden Lab streamed a special session of Lab Gab featuring the Office of Second Life: Grumpity Linden, Mojo Linden and Patch Linden.

The session was built around announcements and updates relating to various initiatives and product developments. Note that the following is not a direct transcript of the entire session, but is intended to record the key points discussed.

For ease of reference, timestamps are provided to the relative points within the video where specific topics are discussed, allowing readers who prefer to listen to the comment directly to be able to do so.

 Table of Contents

A Little Background

Grumpity Linden: heads up Second Life Product team, where she has overseen a shift to growth, a stronger, more balanced economy, movement towards better community cohesion, and an overall forward-looking approach. She originally started at LL whilst working for The Product Engine, and was involved in the development of Viewer 2 (as designed by 80/20 Studio), prior to joining LL full-time in 2014. As the Vice President of Product, she is responsible for coordinating the various teams involved in bringing features and updates to Second Life, liaising with legal, financial and compliance to ensure features and capabilities meet any specific requirements in those areas, and so on; work which can involve looking at specifics within various elements of the overall SL product, such as UI design and layout, etc.

Mojo Linden: joined the Lab in 2021 at the Vice President of Engineering, filling the shoes worn for so long by Oz Linden. A 20-year veteran of the gaming industry, he has been responsible for launching numerous games across multiple genres and platforms, and has a strong understanding of platforms, architectures, and product development and technical capabilities. In his role at the Lab, he has shown enormous openness and candour in seeking to increase the platform’s functionality and performance, and in pushing to expand SL’s capabilities.

Patch Linden: originally a Second Life resident and business owner who joined the platform in 2004, and became a Linden in September 2007. He worked across a number of teams within the company – notably within the support and product spheres, and is responsible for developing the Land Operations team, and more recently setting-up the company’s support office in Atlanta, Georgia. Since 2019, he has been Vice President, Product Operations.

Second Life Mobile

[Video 0:00-4:42 and 6:36-7:57]

Grumpity Linden holds up a mobile ‘phone showing Second Life running on it using the upcoming SL Mobile capability
  • Built upon Unity.
  • Core development of this product began in October 2022, with the aim of gaining as high a fidelity of experience on mobile as is possible.
  • Works on all platforms – Android, iOS, tablets, ‘phones.
  • The product is still very much in development, with the focus having been on graphics fidelity, including full avatar rendering.
  • There is some way to go before the product is ready for release – work at the moment is on smoothing out some of the rendering edge cases before moving on to adding further functionality.
  • Initial release is planned for late 2023 with limited functionality, which will then be iterated upon to add more and more functionality and capabilities.

Land Pricing and Fees

[Video: 8:59-12:06]

  • See: Infrastructure Investment Update: Buy/Sell Fee Change and Land Pricing Effective Mar 6, 2023 – official blog post.
  • Grumpity re-iterated the drive (initiated by the late Ebbe Altberg, not long after he joined LL as CEO in 2014) to lower the cost of virtual land in SL – as had long been called for by SL residents – whilst also offsetting the lower land tiers through increases in fees elsewhere within the platform.
  • The fee increases  – as noted in the official blog post – also relate to increased costs LL has faced, thanks to the general economic situation.
  • The fact that the option for paying for land using L$ (restricted to Premium Plus subscribers and limited to one region only at the time of writing) is higher than the USD fee for the same is explained as being a combination of the facts that the L$ to USD exchange rate, the fact that LL have to do the lifting of conversion from L$ to LSD through the LindeX, and as such must participate in the SL economy.
  • It was also noted that paying in L$ means subscribers avoid being charged VAT / state sales tax / similar.

Bots and Policies

[Video: 12:09-13:05]

  • Most likely raised in relation to ongoing concerns about the amount of data being gathered by the BonnieBot system (which has done much to raise the visibility of bots (aka Scripted Agents) in general), and which has also seen some heavy-handed forum moderation on the part of LL. So details can be found threads  – see Has anyone else noticed the B[xxxx] accounts? Sorry. This is not OK. B bots profile scraping and Questions for the Lindens.
  • Whilst the BonnieBot website has take steps away from publishing information which might be regarded as being within Second Life under the expectation it is private (a point that Linden Lab seemingly missed in their initial responses to forum thread postings), the Lab has recognised the need for clearer / better policies and has promised to provide them.
  • These new policies have gone through the necessary compliance and legal reviews within Linden Lab, and will hopefully be published in week #11 (commencing Monday, March 13th, 2023).
  • In addition, a new set of estate / region controls are being developed to enable estate / region holders to better control the use of Scripted Agents within their land. These will be deployed “soon” – hopefully within weeks of this session being aired.

PBR – Physically Based Rendering and Graphics

[Video: 13:10-18:00]

  • (Note: this topic is also covered within my Content Creation User Group meeting summaries.)
  • In brief: PBR essentially models the flow of light within computer graphics in a manner which mimics light reflections on surfaces in the physical world.
  • It represents a significant technical step forward in graphical rendering for SL (in the order of 10 years).
  • The core of this work is to support a new approach to material maps / surfaces either directly on products development for SL by content creators or which can be used on suitable objects within Second Life, which give they sense of physical world lighting and reflection.
  • In particular, it draws on the Khronos glTF 2.0 specification, and allows creators to more readily use a range of tools supporting that standard (including Blender) and also contents libraries, etc., in support of their work.
An Intel-developed scene imported by Nagachief Darkstone and WindowsCE to demonstrate reflection probes (note the reflections on the knight’s armour – these are not generated by attached environment lights but by a reflection probe within the building structure. Image courtesy of Rye Cogtail
  • Also included in the PBR work is reflection probes – which in simple terms enable light sources to generate reflections of an in-world scene on suitable surfaces (i.e. those using the materials system).
  • None of this work does not necessarily mean users need higher specification computers in order to view it; however, reflection probes can impact system performance, so the viewer will include an option to enable / disable these if they prove to be a performance hit for people.
  • Demos of the PBR work, including an imported Sponza scene, can be found on the following regions on Aditi (the Beta grid):  Materials1; Materials Adult and Rumpus Room 1 through 4.
  • The PBR viewer itself – required to see the content on Aditi, is (at the time of writing) still in the Project Viewer stage (so not ready for use as a primary viewer!) and is available through the Alternate Viewers page.
  • The next stage of the project is to provide support on Agni (the main grid) and promote the viewer to Release Candidate status, both for more widespread testing, but there is no set time frame for this to happen.
  • This work does not mean LL are investing in a new graphics engine – this work, and the recent performance improvements work has been on updating and enhancing the existing graphics engine to better support users and what might be regarded as recognised graphics standards.

Mirrors in SL

[Video: 16:23-17:26]

  • The PBR work takes SL some way towards provisioning real-time planar (that is, flat) mirrors.
  • Once the initial PBR work has been deployed, LL plans to start work on offering planar mirrors in some capacity.
  • Further details on this can be found in my 2023 week 7: SL CCUG and TPVD meeting summaries: Mirrors! article.

Graphics API

[Video: 17:27-18:00]

  • While the graphics rendering engine is not being changed, per the above notes, the graphics API will be changing.
  • As OpenGL is going increasingly old (and has been deprecated by Apple), plans are in hand to move the Graphics API to Vulkan (and MoltenVK for Mac).
  • This switch will further enhance SL’s graphics capabilities, and work on the switch-over should commence later in 2023.

Viewer Updates

[Video: 18:00-19:50]

Inventory Updates

  • (Note: Updates on the progress of the Inventory work can generally be found in my TPV Developer meeting summaries.)
  • Work is in progress to provide updates to Inventory management, some of which are designed to help with avatar customisation.
  • The first part of this is to provide an “Inventory thumbnails” capability – offering a thumbnail image of items in Inventory.
  • Alongside of this will be a single folder Inventory view.
  • These are not seen as major gamer changers, but rather quality of life improvements for new and existing users.

Emojis

  • LL is still working on integration the Catznip Emoji code contribution to all emojis in chat and IMs.
  • A project viewer for this should be available in “weeks”.

Linux Support

[Video: 20:48-21:30]

  • The current stop-gap for Linux is running the Windows viewer through Wine or Proton.
  • The need to provide direct Linux support is recognised, but updating the tools to make this possible is not on the roadmap for 2023.

SL and VR

[Video 19:56-20:47]

  • VR still requires a consistent 60 fps left eye / right eye), and for many; the feeling at LL is that  SL is not there yet even with all the recent performance improvements.
  • Various initiatives – adoption of Vulkan, the Puppetry Project – should help improve things further,  and LL might reconsider VR headset support in 2024.

Marketplace Updates

[Video: 21:33-24:52]

  • Marketplace Search was updated with significant changes to ElasticSearch (the underpinning Second Life and Marketplace Search) – see: We’re Improving Marketplace Search. 
  • This was a large update (lifting the search engine from version 2.3 to 8.4, and did involve some issues on deployment, which are being addressed – see: Updates to Marketplace Search.
  • Further fixes and improvements to the update will be deployed in due course, the first of which will be Boolean searches.
  • A fix for Featured Lists not updating correctly is also due to be deployed “soon”.

New User Experience (NUX) Mesh Avatar

[Video: 25:49-27:46]

A preview version of the new, single mesh (head-to-toe) avatar, which will use by mesh clothing and Bakes on Mesh, and be open for creators to design clothing and accessories
  • That said, the project has taken longer to develop than had been anticipated.
  • There will be a dev kit for creators wishing to support the NUX Avatars. This will be launched ahead of the release of the new avatars.
  • The entire system is intended to be “PBR ready” in that PBR materials may not be included in the clothing and accessories released by the Lab, but the items will be capable of supporting the use of PBR materials on them.

Linden Homes Update

[Video: 27:30-28:09]

  • A full update will be coming soon.
  • The first range of Premium Plus Linden Homes is nearing completion.
  • Updates and expansions to the current Premium Linden Homes – like the Victorian – are being prepared.

Second Life User Group Meetings

[Video: 24:54-25:47]

Closing Comments

[Video 28:10-End]

Everyone is pretty much having fun with the SL Mobile project, and hopes were expressed that a “blooper” reel could be made available. It was also indicated that news on the theme for the 20th Second Life Anniversary event (SL20B) will be made available in due course.

2023 SL Puppetry project week #10 summary

Posted on by Inara Pey
Puppetry demonstration via Linden Lab – see below.  Demos video with the LL comment “We have some basic things working with a webcam and Second Life but there’s more to do before it’s as animated as we want.”

The following notes have been taken from chat logs and audio recording of the Thursday, March 9th, 2023 Puppetry Project meetings held at the Castelet Puppetry Theatre on Aditi. These meetings are generally held on alternate weeks to the Content Creation User Group (CCUG), on same day / time (Thursdays at 13:00 SLT).

Notes in these summaries are not intended to be a full transcript of every meeting, but to highlight project progress / major topics of discussion.

Project Summary

General Project Description as Originally Conceived

LL’s renewed interest in puppetry was primarily instigated by Philip joining LL as official advisor, and so it really was about streaming mocap. That is what Philip was interested in and why we started looking at it again. However since Puppetry’s announcement what I’ve been hearing from many SL Residents is: what they really want from “puppetry” is more physicality of the avatar in-world: picking up objects, holding hands, higher fidelity collisions. 
As a result, that is what I’ve been contemplating: how to improve the control and physicality of the the avatar. Can that be the new improved direction of the Puppetry project? How to do it?

Leviathan Linden

  • Previously referred to as “avatar expressiveness”, Puppetry is intended to provide a means by which avatars can mimic physical world actions by their owners (e.g. head, hand, arm movements) through tools such as a webcam and using technologies like inverse kinematics (IK) and the  LLSD Event API Plug-in (LEAP) system.
    • Note that facial expressions and finger movements are not currently enabled.
    • Most movement is in the 2D plain (e.g., hand movements from side-to-side but not forward / back), due to limitations with things like depth of field tracking through a webcam, which has yet to be addressed.
  • The back-end support for the capability is only available on Aditi (the Beta grid) and within the following regions: Bunraku, Marionette, and Castelet.
  • Puppetry requires the use of a dedicated viewer, the Project Puppetry viewer, available through the official Second Life Alternate Viewers page.
  • No other special needs beyond the project viewer are required to “see” Puppetry animations. However, to use the capability to animate your own avatar and broadcast the results, requires additional work – refer to the links below.
  • There is a Puppetry Discord channel – those wishing to join it should contact members of LL’s puppetry team, e.g. Aura Linden, Simon Linden, Rider Linden, Leviathan Linden (not a full list of names at this time – my apologies to those involved whom I have missed).

Additional Work Not Originally In-Scope

  • Direct avatar / object / avatar-avatar interactions (“picking up” an apple; high-fives. etc.
  • Animations streaming: allowing one viewer to run animations and have them sent via the simulator to all receiving viewers without any further processing of the animations by those viewers.
  • Enhanced LSL integration for animation control.
  • Adoption of better animation standards – possibly glTF.
  • Given the project is incorporating a lot of additional ideas, it is likely to evolve into a rolling development, with immediate targets for development / implementation decided as they are agreed upon, to be followed by future enhancements. As such, much of what goes into the meetings at present is general discussion and recommendations for consideration, rather than confirmed lines o development.

Bugs, Feature Requests and Code Submissions

  • For those experimenting with Puppetry, Jiras (bug reports / fixes or feature requests) should be filed with “[Puppetry]” at the start of the Jira title.
  • There is also a public facing Kanban board with public issues.
  • Those wishing to submit code (plug-ins or other) or who wish to offer a specific feature that might be used with Puppetry should:

Further Information

Meeting Notes

Viewer Progress

  • An updated version of the project viewer is due to be made available once it has cleared LL’s QA process. This includes:
    • Using the binary protocol for the LEAP module communication, with new logic which causes LEAP modules to one be loaded by the viewer when they are used.
    • The AgentIO LEAP module adds the ability to adjust the look at target, viewer camera and agent orientation.
    • Support for sending the joint position of your avatar to the server, which is then available in LSL.
      • The code reports the post animation location for attachment points, allowing the the sever to know where things like hands and wings, etc.,  are, and this in turn allows LSL to query where that attachment point is in space and how it is rotated.
  • HOWEVER, the animation streaming code (see previous Puppetry meeting notes) will not be in the next viewer update.

Server-Side Work

  • The simulator code now has llGetAttachmentPointAnim() support, which should be recognised by the upcoming viewer update.
  • The Aditi puppetry regions are to be merged with the updated code so this can be tested.
  • While there has been some work completed on animation imports since the last meeting, there was nothing significant for LL to report on progress at this meeting.

General Notes

  • There is additional work going on to try to improve the IK system, with the aim of having the basics working better than is currently the case – better stability, etc. This work may appear in the viewer update after the one currently being prepared to go public.
  • Performance:
    • To prevent puppetry generating too much messaging traffic (UDP) between the viewer and simulator, a throttle is being worked on so that when the simulator is under a heavy load from multiple viewers running puppetry code, it can tell them all to tone down the volume of messages.
    • There will also be some switches and logic put into place that can be used when needed, helping to protect regions in case the load gets overwhelming.
    • A further suggestion made is to ensure the simulator does not broadcast puppetry messages for avatars seated and not using the code (such as an audience at a performance) to further reduce to volume of messaging, this is viewed as a potentially good avenue of work to consider.
    • There is also a threshold in place – if an attachment point does not move beyond it, it is not considered as moved, which will hopefully also reduce the amount of messaging the simulator has to handle.
  • LSL Integration:
    • See: OPEN-375: “LSL Functions for reading avatar animation positions”.
    • This work is now paused. Rider Linden developed a proof of concept, but found that in order to better manipulate parameters within the constraints, a configuration file should be used. He is therefore refactoring the code to do this before proceeding further.
    • The configuration file will be called avatar_constraints.llsd and it will live alongside avatar_lad.xml in the character directory.
  • Questions were again raised on whether Puppetry is for VR / will enable the viewer to run VR.
    • It was again pointed out that while Puppetry lays more foundational work which could be leveraged for use with VR headsets, than is not the aim of the Puppetry project.
    • Providing VR headset support is a much broader issue, which would require the involvement of other teams from LL – Product, the Graphics Team, the viewer developers, etc.

Date of Next Meeting

  • Thursday, March 23rd, 2023, 13:00 SLT.

An artistic dedication in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
Onceagain Art Gallery: Celestial Demon – Les Fleurs du Mal

Les Fleurs du mal, an exhibition of images by Celestial Demon being hosted on a sky platform at Onceagain Gallery by onceagain (Manoji Yachvili), is an interesting installation in that its title appears to be juxtaposed with its intention to venerate, something which immediately piques the curiosity.

Across the platform, which is dressed as a garden – or perhaps a meadow in which is centred a small, modern building apparently built within the ruins of a slightly larger, older, house – there sits a total of six small display areas, each home two images of women presented with floral surrounds which may have been part of the original set used to create each of the images or added during post-processing – although which might be the case isn’t actually important.

Onceagain Art Gallery: Celestial Demon – Les Fleurs du Mal

Reached by selecting Les Fleurs after clicking the teleport disk at the entrance to the ground-level of the Onceagain gallery spaces, the building-within-a-building of the garden platform acts as a central introduction and hub for exploring the six pairs of images, On the wall, in both English and Italian, can be found the dedication for the installation, which reads:

This moment of my life is dedicated to the marvellous creature called woman.
To her who despite the storms and demeaning periods, she always manages to flourish.
To her who blossoms into a smile despite the incessant rain of the darkest night.
May the earth beneath her feet be always soft.
For her, Les Fleurs du mal.

It’s a charming and disarming dedication, encapsulating the central theme of reverence for women; however, it cannot be denied that the idea of presented women who have so captivated with les fleurs du mal jars a little; or perhaps the expression is used in reference to those self-same storms and rains of dark night the subjects of these images have overcome. I’ll eave that for you to juggle with when visiting.

Onceagain Art Gallery: Celestial Demon – Les Fleurs du Mal

What I will say is that is little doubting the expression of reverence and the desire to off a visual dedication to the women – to all women, perhaps – presented through these pieces, each of which is available for purchase on a limited number basis.

Through graceful posing, a degree of soft focus through depth of field, and the employ of a plain white background and in some either the softest touch of a primary tint to match the floral arrays and or a gentle suggestion of shadow, the 12 presented pieces are eloquent and captivating in their depth of beauty and narrative. Each image is attended by more words – again in Italian and English – as an expression of the character and nature of the individual featured in each piece.

Onceagain Art Gallery: Celestial Demon – Les Fleurs du Mal

Poetic, graceful and set within a location in keeping with the ideas of reverence and dedication, a garden one can wander in silence and come upon each pair of images and their words free from the distractions of surrounding pieces, complete with places where one can sit and contemplate, Les Fleurs is an idyllic exhibition of art from a gifted teller of visual tales.

SLurl Details

Remember to use the teleport disk to reach the exhibition platform.