Category: Second Life

Ruben’s Art Gallery in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
Ruben’s Art Gallery: Mareea Farrasco – Visiting Salt Lakes of Florence

Following my review of Landscapes – My Personal View, by Alexa Wulfe (Alexa Bouras) – see Alexa’s personal view of Second Life – I was contacted by Ruben (yvan Slade), who offered my an invitation to visit the gallery he operates and curates, and which is currently host to two very different exhibitions.

Ruben’s Art Gallery is located on its own sky platform. The gallery sits within a model, clean concrete structure with two levels and a walled courtyard outside.  Both levels of the gallery offer the same amount of exhibition space and are linked via teleport disks, allowing them to exist as independent display spaces with easy access from one to the other. At the time of my visit the gallery was playing host to exhibitions by Mareea Farrasco and Zia Sophia (Zia Branner).

Ruben’s Art Gallery: Mareea Farrasco – Visiting Salt Lakes of Florence

Visiting Salt Lakes of Florence is a series of twelve images captured by Mareea of Gnaaah Xeltentat’s Florence region, which at the time Mareena capture it lay as a setting inspired by the Salin d’Aigues-Mortes (salts of Aigues-Mortes), Camargue, in the south of France, as interpreted by the talented Iska (sablina), assisted by Tippah.

As I noted in The pink salt lakes Of Florence in Second Life, the region is remarkable in the manner in which it captures the spirit and look of its namesake – and Mareea has fully captured the beauty of the region in these images that have been gently post-processed in order to give them the look and feel of watercolour paintings. Most of the images present the landscape of the region, although several offer a more personal look through the inclusion of Mareea’s avatar (and those of friends / others).

Ruben’s Art Gallery: Zia Sophia

On the upper floor, Zia also presents a total of 12 images, although these are drawn from the physical world, being copies of Zia’s fascinating paintings. Four of them are Zia’s coastal and sea views that have been features in some of her recent SL exhibitions and the remaining eight copies of her natural abstract paintings that are, as ever, rich an form and colour.

Both artists are very different in their choice of art – both are united in their eye for colour, tone, and mood, allowing these two exhibitions to stand individually whilst also richly complimenting one another. And for those who enjoy Zia’s work, a gift can be obtained via the artist’s easel within her exhibit.

Ruben’s Art Gallery: Zia Sophia

I’m not sure how long art displays run for at Ruben’s, but at Mareea’s opened in mid-March, I would recommend visiting sooner rather than later, just in case a case of artist is on the horizon.

SLurl Details 

2022 CCUG + TPVD meetings week #14 summary

Posted on by Inara Pey
Bella’s Lullaby, March 2022 – blog post

The following notes were taken from:

  • My audio recording and chat log of the Content Creation User Group (CCUG) meeting held on Thursday, April 7th 2022 at 13:00 SLT.
  • The video recording by Pantera (embedded at the end of this piece, my thanks to her as always for recording the meetings) from the Third-Party Viewer Developer (TPVD) meeting on Friday, April 8th, 2022 at 13:00  SLT.

These meetings are chaired by Vir Linden, and their respective dates and times can be obtained from the SL Public Calendar.

This is a summary of the key topics discussed in each meeting and is not intended to be a full transcript of either. However, the video does provide a complete recording of the TPVD meeting, and timestamps to the relevant points within it are included in the notes below.

Available Viewers

[Video: 0:00-1:11 and 2:05-243] + notes from CCUG]

The list below reflects the rest of the currently available official Second Life viewers:

  • Release viewer: version version 6.5.3.568554 – formerly the Maintenance J&K RC viewer, promoted Monday, February 28 – No Change
  • Release channel cohorts (please see my notes on manually installing RC viewer versions if you wish to install any release candidate(s) yourself).
    • MFA RC viewer, update to version 6.5.4.569725, on March 24.
    • Performance Improvements RC viewer version 6.6.0.569349, dated March 14.
    • Lao-Lao Maintenance RC viewer, version 6.5.4.569191, issued on March 11.
  • Project viewers:
    • Performance Floater project viewer, version 6.5.4.569531, March 18.
    • Mesh Optimizer project viewer, version 6.5.2.566858, dated January 5, issued after January 10.
    • Legacy Profiles viewer, version 6.4.11.550519, dated October 26, 2020.
    • Copy / Paste viewer, version 6.3.5.533365, dated December 9, 2019.

General Viewer Notes

  • The focus is on fixing the bugs reported on the Performance Improvements RC viewer so that it can be the next viewer promoted to de facto release status. The RC version has been updated but has yet to be issued.
  • The Performance Floater project viewer includes the auto-FPS capability that is similar in nature to Firestorm’s Auto Tune capability designed to help maintain a given viewer frame rate (see here for more), and the aim is to try to sync these two approaches up before the Lab’s viewer moves to RC status.
  • The server-side work required for the Legacy Profiles viewer had been deployed, so that viewer should be updated and appearing soon.

Additional Materials Support – CCUG Meeting

Please also refer to my notes from the previous CCUG meeting.

  • The basic idea remains:
    • Providing the ability to import a glTF file with is single material within it containing all the textures / maps and colour parameters for a given face. Exactly which maps (normal, specular, emissive, roughness, albedo, occlusion, etc.) is still being defined.
    • When uploaded, the material then becomes an inventory asset.
    • When the asset is applied to the face of an object, it overrides the texture parameters for that face (diffuse, normal spec maps, full bright, etc.), with the options to edit these parameters in the Build / Edit tool disabled until such time as the material is removed from that face.
      • However, the face-related options – rotation, repeats per metre, offsets, etc., – would remain accessible.
    • This approach would faces to be textured under the existing system and have a materials asset applied so that viewers without the new materials code would render the “legacy” texture parameters for the object face, whilst viewers with the updated code would render the settings specified by material.
  • What is the benefit of this?
    • It moves SL towards proper support for PBR and the improvements that will bring.
    • Very simply put from an end-user perspective: it will help add depth to Second Life by improving the way surfaces appear be giving them improved surface texturing, reflectivity, and so on; and it will no longer require end-users fiddling around with textures and normal / specular maps to achieve something; they’ll have a simple asset they apply to (say) a wall, and that’s it.
  • The first pass of this work will provide support for Adobe Substance 3D Painter, and as such, LL are looking for feedback from creators who use Substance Painter in terms of how they use it, what kind of materials they are creating, and how they would like those materials represented in Second Life, what maps they would ideally like to see supported.
  • A concern raised with this approach is that glTF does not natively support non-PBR workflows, which is a problem for those who use Substance Painter “non-PBR” (such as clothing creators), and this needs to be taken into consideration.
    • One route around this is the suggestion that the materials actually be built at import time, rather than just built within Substance Painter and exported to glTF for import.
  • It was requested that some form of UI element should be added to the viewer to allow material assets to at least be inspected. While this is something that will be provided, it will not be in the first phase of the work.
  • Rendering for these “new” materials will be entirely separate to the existing rendering path for SL’s existing materials system, allowing for a more “industry standard” approach to be used with the new materials.
  • Whether or not a fee is to be charged for importing these materials is still TBD (and somewhat complex, if the importer is to support using texture files previously uploaded to SL, rather than having to import them again).
  • Longer-term the idea is at when PBR support is added, it will only work with these material assets; texture entries will continue to be handed as they are now (as noted above).
    • PBR itself is a complex issue both technically and in terms of content, and it is already envisaged that it will give rise to differing environments in-world (e.g. locations that are “PBR enabled” and require people to be running viewers capable of supporting PBR).
    • This is because SL content being what it is, there is no easy way to “PBR-ify” it all, and gain a uniform (or even desirable) result – particularly where content has been designed under the existing rendering capabilities to produce a specific result.
  • Given the complexities / impact of such a project, LL recognises there is a need to provide the means for ongoing real-time exchange of ideas / gathering creator input.
    • Neither the CCUG nor the SL forums are seen as a good fit for this kind of interaction.
    • The preferred option voiced in the meeting was to use Discord as a host. Server details TBD at this time, if this is selected.

From the TPVD Meeting

  • [Video: 4:41-9:10] It has been pointed out the 30-day validity period for an MFA token seems unusually long, and a request has been made to reduce it.
    • In particular, testing the MFA code and token refresh when looking at the viewer code is more difficult when the tester has to wait a month between tests and checks / retries.
  • [Video: 11:54-20:10] Beq Janus and Vaalith Jinn are working on “temp mesh” – a means to preview mesh and rigged mesh in-world without necessarily having to log to the Beta grid and upload there. As per the video, there are some issues (such as the temporary creation of linksets), but overall it is hoped with work will result in a usable capability.
    • This conversation folds into itself a broader discussion on purely viewer-side rendering (as opposed to rendering asset data coming via the CDN)
  • [Video: 20:12-25:16] Bandwidth setting confusion:  A claim was made the turning up the official viewer’s network bandwidth setting improves texture download speeds for those on faster Internet connections, prompting a request for the default setting being turned up.
    • Given that the network bandwidth setting is supposedly only for UDP messaging, and all assets, including textures, are transmitted via HTTP via CDN(s), some understandable doubt was cast on this.
    • While not ruling out changing the bandwidth setting causing a degree of improvement, Runitai’s thoughts on the matter (through looking at the code) fall into two areas:
      • Any actual delay in texture fetching is more likely to be with some of the background thread handling which has yet to be updated.
      • It is more likely that issues in texture loading / handling may be related to a number of issues, including a) the viewer mistakenly believing it is running out of VRAM (due to some coding errors) and immediately loading / unloading textures on the background threats; b) changes in how texture are actually downloaded and passed to the decode thread as a result of the move to HTTP that may be having an impact.
    • [Video: 28:53-29:35] In respect of this last bullet point above, it was indicated that TPVs tend to handle texture decoding, etc., somewhat differently, this is not believed to be an issue. A request has been made for a TPV to consider making a code contribution on this, so that LL can investigate making similar changes.
    • [Video: 32:53-44:20] Further discussion on texture fetching and the way the viewer code is generally conservative in this area.
      • [Video: 36:41-41:28] (overlapping with the above)] there is a restatement of the concern that raising the UDP bandwidth setting “because higher is better” could trigger a microburst buffer overrun on the server-side routers were the setting to be raised across all viewers. It is believed the servers are fairly well protected, but this needs to be confirmed by the infrastructure team before any such change is made.
  • [Video: 25:55-30:48] VRAM detection / use: changes are being tested (on Windows at present) whereby rather than setting a minimum default for VRAM (512 MB, a long-time sticking point for many users), LL are shifting to having the viewer query the operating system as to how much VRAM is free.
    • As an example of the potential improvement this has given, a system with 10 GB VRAM will see the viewer use as much of that VRAM as is available, whereas previously, the viewer would get up to using around 1.5 GB and then switch to texture paging.
    • Finding a similar solution for Mac system is somewhat more difficult due to the fact the only reliable report OS X provides is on the amount of installed VRAM, not how much may actually be available for an application to use / how much a process is using.
  • [Video: 45:14-47:16] does increasing the bandwidth setting improve teleporting between region?
    • Anecdotally, this appears to be the case for some.
    • However, whether there is a direct correlation between increasing the UDP bandwidth and inter-region TPs improving is hard to prove, although it is possible a message packet related to TPs is hitting the throttle and getting dropped without any attempted re-try.
  • [Video: 49:11-54:43] custom chat ranges: server-side support for extending chat ranges within regions beyond the default 20 metres (seen as useful for venues hosting meetings, presentations, etc.), was deployed some time ago, but is currently only available on Linden-controlled regions.
    • Wider availability of the capability has hit some privacy concerns (e.g. people believing their chat is limited to 20m in a public region being overheard by someone on the other side of the region). As such, the capability is awaiting viewer-side updates that make it clear to people entering regions where the chat range has been extended that this is the case.
    • This information is actually being sent to the viewer (RegionInfo in the RegionInfo 5 block), but the IU to handle it has yet to be added (and TPVs may not have been aware of its availability so they could create their own notifications).

Lemon trees and spa times in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
Lemon Trees Mediterranean
Where the soft breeze of the sea wind touches your face, where you smell the fruits of the trees. Where in the evening the flowers spread their smell, where life is simple and slow, and your glass of wine always filled.

– From Lemon Trees Mediterranean About Land

So reads the description for Lemon Trees Mediterranean, a Homestead region design by Lian (LiandavK) that I’ve hopped into a couple of times over the course of the last month or so, and have finally managed to sit down and write about.

Lemon Trees Mediterranean

As the name suggests, this a public setting with a lean towards the Mediterranean, although it is distinctly a place of two halves. Lemon Trees Mediterranean refers to what might be regarded as the main part of the setting, offering a high landing point amidst aged ruins on a plateau top, with a pair of villas sitting below it, reached by a long stairway that descends the finger of a hill pointing south.

The first of the villas sits bounded on two sides by water, one of which is actually a bay that cuts into the landscape. The villa, with bell frame raised to one end, has the look of a converted chapel about it; a long, single-floored building with what might have once been the priest’s room alongside. Now it forms a simple house, the courtyard outside given over to a place for music and dancing, the far end of which forms an open-roofed bar.

Lemon Trees Mediterranean

The second villa sits half way up the hill, tucked into two shoulder of rock, one of which forms the base of the landing point plateau. It is more suggestive of a private home (but one open to the public rather than an actual private residence), with a light snack set out on the table on the terrace, the house simply but comfortably furnished. Modest rows of vines are growing on the slopes below it, suggesting this is a working home, whoever occupies it taking the time to produce their own wine – so perhaps the bar at the second villa is their means of selling their produce to any visitors who drop by.

Both villas have views to the south and east, the latter looking out over the waters to where the sea has carved the rocks of a ribbon islands, and the view more directly sough looking over the bay to the southern end of the region.

Lemon Trees Spa

This southern end of the region can be reached via a tree-shaded path that runs due south from the steps leading down from the landing point. It sits as a somewhat different location to the villas, being set out as a spa complete with its own landing point bounded on three sides by coastal waters. Most immediately facing the walk leading to it is the main swimming pool, its waters warm and inviting, wooden decking stretching out from one side around an aged tree to form a place set for music and barbecues.

Beyond the pool, and setting between it and the southern beach, sits the main spa building, complete with further decks on its beachward side. The building offers a mix of environments: the main section providing lounges, a bar and dance floor; the smaller section presents what appear to be private bedrooms / treatment rooms.

Lemon Trees Spa

This is an interesting setting in that the spa area is signed in different places as “PG” and “Adult”, although the region itself is Moderate. As such, the signage may appear to run counter to Second Life maturity ratings, but it is intended to give fair warning that some of the furnishings to be found within the smaller section of the spa building and out on the south deck include Adult animations and poses. The spa also has its own group (free to join), but this doesn’t appear to be a requirement for access to any of the areas within it, or to the “Group Access” elements of one of the sets of teleport discs found throughout the setting.

There are also various activities available as the spa – the smaller of the two swimming pools has poses (including dives into the water), there is a sign that can be touched for swimming in the Linden water, a jet ski rezzer. All of which add to the spa setting. For those who want a little more privacy, the north-west corner of the island offers a secluded sing sitting over a rapidly flowing stream that drops away from the local waterfalls.

Lemon Trees Mediterranean

All of which makes for an engaging visit with some excellent opportunities for fun and photography.

 SLurl Details

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Reflections on Steel and Marble in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
Artcare Gallery: Gem Preiz – Storm of Steel; On Marble Cliffs

Ernst Jünger (29th March 1895 – 17th February 1998), is a complex figure from Germany’s history in the 20th Century. Born to an affluent family, he rejected his background, serving briefly the French Foreign Legion before serving in the German army throughout the First World War, seeing action in several battles and hard-fought skirmishes on the Western front, being wounded seven times – including to both the head and to the chest (the latter piercing a lung). During the Second World War, he again served in the German Army, where he was both an inspiration for, and had some involvement with, the German anti-Nazi movement (in fact, in 1943 he penned a proposal for peace with the allies which included the removal of Hitler from power and he was involved at the fringes of the 1944 Stauffenberg bomb plot to kill Hitler.

He is perhaps most well known for penning two works: In Stahlgewittern (literally “In Steel Weather” but given the English title Storm of Steel), published in 1920 which brought together his personal experiences of the Great War as recorded in the diaries he kept from 1914-1918; and Auf den Marmorklippen (“On Marble Cliffs”), published in 1939 and most readily seen as a parable against national socialism, written at a time when Jünger had rejected overtures from the Nazi Party on numerous occasions on account of his personal rejection of the German democratic movement and spoken out against liberalism as a whole.

Artcare Gallery: Gem Preiz – Storm of Steel; On Marble Cliffs

Whilst Auf den Marmorklippen and In Stahlgewittern might be interpreted in several ways, the latter has come to be seen as an anti-war treatise and the former a warning against the rise of authoritarianism in any hue. In this, and given the way we appear to be re-treating elements of history experienced a century ago, both books perhaps have particular relevance today.

For Gem Preiz they offer metaphors for the stark choice humanity is facing: to allow ourselves to be ruined through the prettiness of nationalistic politics or to strive harder ad reach our fullest potential. He does this through a new exhibition of his fractal art in which he combines the titles of Jünger’s works, and which can be see at Carelyna’s ArtCare Gallery, itself in a new location.

Artcare Gallery: Gem Preiz – Storm of Steel; On Marble Cliffs

Storm of Steel; On Marble Cliffs offer three rooms of Gem’s art. Within a central hall that forms the landing point, are six images mounted on marble walls that show the potential: gleaming cities that stand (or float) as havens of humanity. Bracketing this on either side are two further halls. In one, this theme to a gleaming future expressed through architectural marvels is continued – although at its centre is a reminder of the dangers inherent in our make-up that may still try to tear down all that we have – and might – achieve: black arms and hands that rise from the floor or drop from the ceiling, reaching out, fingers bent as if to grasp and tear and break whatever they find.

Within the other hall, we see the outcome in allowing the pettiness to prevail is revealed in the form of broken and smashed buildings, sitting with atmospheres heavy with smoke (or pollution) and in places lit by what appears to be fire or burning fires.

Artcare Gallery: Gem Preiz – Storm of Steel; On Marble Cliffs

It might be easy to reconcile Storm of Steel; On Marble Cliffs just as a commentary on the situation in Ukraine; but as he notes – and I hope I’ve indicated here – he net is cast far wider. As such, the exhibition should be seen and appreciated free from preconceptions of our current political climate, just as Jünger’s works were both rooted in their political times but have meaning that reaches well beyond those times.

Do take note of the music suggestions included in the exhibition’s note card, available at the landing point, use the links to play the pieces via You Tube, if so minded.

SLURL DETAILS

April 2022 Web User Group summary – Premium Plus

Posted on by Inara Pey
The Web User Group meeting venue, Denby

The following notes cover the key points from the Web User Group (WUG) meeting, held on Wednesday, April 6th, 2022.

These meetings are generally held on the first Wednesday of the month, with dates and venue details available via the SL public calendar. A video of the meeting, courtesy of Pantera, can be found embedded at the end of this article (my thanks to her as always!), and subject timestamps to the relevant points in the video are provided. Again, the following is a summary of key topics / discussions, not a full transcript of everything mentioned.

March Progress Summary

[Video: 13:45-17:19]

  • The front-end work on Marketplace Styles (aka variant listings) is close to being finished.
  • [Video: 16:22-17:19] The sales tax on recurring US billing (see Linden Lab announce sales tax on recurring US billings) actually came into force on April 4th, slightly delayed from the planned introduction.
    • Note this is a state requirement, with no money going to LL, and the Lab has tried to structure things so the impact is initially felt by as few in SL as possible.
  • [Video: 53:47-55:20] Search:
    • The Search instance is being upgraded to Python 3 so that it can be hosted by an expert third-party service, who will then manage the update of the instance.
    • Once this is been done, work will commence on building a Relevance Engine to assist in managing search results.

Future Work

  • The overhaul of the Destination Guide is still being planned.
  • The “Land journey” – how to obtain Linden Homes, land via the Land Store through to obtaining an entire private region – is to be overhauled to make it easier for people to understand how to obtain land directly or rent it from others.

Premium Plus

[Video: 2:16-11:54]

  • The release of Premium Plus has been pushed back until the latter part of May. Then main reason for this is to allow additional time for all the teams involved in managing / marketing / supporting Premium Plus to be ready for the launch.
    • When released, there will be a pro-rated amount for those on annual subscriptions with 6 months or more of Premium membership left until their next renewal, and renew at their normal renewal date at the Plus rate.
    • Details to be clarified when Premium Plus is launched.
  • The overall contents of Premium Plus are locked down, but will be made public at the time of launch. However, it may include (and as noted in my January WUG summary):
    • A higher amount of free tier than Premium’s 1024 sq m.
    • A higher stipend.
    • A higher sign-up bonus.
    • More group slots.
    • Lower fees “on certain things” (unspecified).
    • Where “more” is being offered (e.g. free land tier) it is liable to be roughly double that of Premium (so the stipend will be more than double that of Premium, for example.
  • Upgrades to Premium form Grandfathered accounts:
    • Grandfather stipend accounts will receive the “standard” Premium Plus stipend, not a Stipend based on their L$500 Grandfathered status.
    • [Video: 43:59-45:10] It is not clear at present if Grandfathered accounts would recover their Gandfathered L$500 a week stipend on downgrading from Plus to Premium, or revert to the standard L$300 a week. This will be clarified for the next WUG meeting.

Questions / Poll from LL

[Video: 19:38-35:05]

The Lab is looking to gain feedback from users, with a series of questions asked at the meeting, which may well be asked again through the forums as well. These included:

  • How do you to find things to do in SL? – responses included: opening group chat with the message “I’m bored”; using the Destination Guide; asking friends; using travelogues such as in this blog; visit the What’s Hot section of the viewer splash screen; Tweeted from other SL users.
  • How did you get started in SL? – responses included: friend already active in SL; seeing one of the SL video ads; seeing people discussing SL on Twitter.
  • What makes you stay? – responses essentially revolved around creativity of others, ability to explore, opportunities to meet people, a group of close friends, art, building etc.; force of habit.
  • How familiar with the SL client and finding things you’re looking for would you say you are? – most said they felt they are all reasonably familiar.
  • What’s the hardest part about finding friends/activities in SL? – responses varied from simply finding other who are willing to engage in conversation through to the rate at which many social spots can be opened and closed (and the reasons for this, which flowed between tier costs and the sheer amount of work involved in day-to-day running of a venue); timezones.

In Brief

  • [Video 36:06-37:10] BUG-226218 “Ability refund purchases but disallow redelivery on Marketplace” – a feature request that has been accepted for consideration.

Linden Lab announces the “Second Life University”

Posted on by Inara Pey
via Linden Lab

Encouraging and supporting new users in order to grow the active Second Life user base has been specified as a key goal for the Lab for the past 15-18 months.

Some of this work has already been seen with a further iteration of the Welcome Islands (see: Poking at the new Welcome Islands), with it being indicated that more is to come, together with an overhaul of the entire new user experience and the starter avatar system.

On Wednesday, April 6th, the Lab announced a further programme to assist those who may be new to Second Life, and / or are finding it hard to get to grips with a range of aspects of using the viewer and the platform, which they are calling the Second Life University.

Welcome to Second Life University, a new project that aims to teach people all about the vast virtual world of Second Life! 
There are many videos and tutorials out there for Second Life already, including Second Life Tutorials on our YouTube channel as well as those created by our Residents, — and we’d like to consolidate information in one place as well as ensure that all content is up-to-date. We will begin with topics that are particularly relevant for newer users. This is a huge project that will take time, and we’re excited to work on and collaborate with the community to make it easily understandable and fun.

– From the official blog post

To start things off, the Lab will be hosting a livestream event, Viewer Basics, which will stream on You Tube on Thursday, April 7th, 2022 from 14:00 SLT, with the Lab further noting:

After the livestream, we’ll be  posting general notes on topics covered in the video here in text format, too. You can also get written information and assistance from our Knowledge Base and the Community Forums.

Given that trying to locate up-to-date information is often a cause for grumbling, even among established users, this sounds like a worthwhile goal, and I applaud the Lab from attempting to tackle it. However, I do so with one plea: as the idea is to gather all such information “in one place” – then please make sure it is a centralised, easy-to-find resource that is both decently indexed / categorised and properly searchable in its own right, rather than simply lumping /burying it with other options.