Category: Second Life

Previewing the VWBPE 2022 conference in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
via VWBPE

The 2022 Virtual Worlds Best Practice in Education (VWBPE) conference takes place between Thursday, March 31st and Saturday April 2nd, 2022 inclusive. A grass-roots community event focusing on education in immersive virtual environments, VWBPE attracts 2200-3500 educational professionals from around the world each year. Its primary goals are to foster discussion on, and learning about educational opportunities presented through the use of such virtual spaces, a defining core values and best practices in doing so, including:

  • Helping to build community through extension of learning best practices to practical application of those ideas and techniques;
  • Providing networking opportunities for educators and the communities that help support education; and
  • Offering access to current innovations, trends, ideas, case studies, and other best practices for educators and the communities that help support education.

In the context of the conference, a “virtual environment” is an on-line community through which users can interact with one another and use and create ideas irrespective of time and space. As such, typical examples include Second Life, OpenSimulator, Unity, World of Warcraft, Eve Online, and so on, as well as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest or any virtual environments characterised by an open social presence and in which the direction of the platform’s evolution is manifest in the community.

Each year, the event has a central theme, which for 2022 the organisers describe thus:

Our theme for this year is Phoenix Rising and the exploration of areas outside of our expertise that may be potentially opposed to our current outlook or world view. As educators, we are having to adjust to more than just a transition from in-person to online methodologies. We are facing urgent challenges in the areas of remote classroom management, outdated policies or policies not designed to be applied to online environments, child psychology and welfare in online environments, health and safety considerations, and personal privacy, among others. This means embracing the ability to quickly adapt to changing circumstances and innovative technologies to their best effect.

– From the introduction to VWBPE 2022

VWBPE 2022 Gateway

Programme

As with previous VWBPE conferences, this year’s event includes speakers, workshops, presentations, social activities and more.

The best way to find out what is going on over the three days of the conference is through the VWBPE programme page,  However, here are some of the highlights (note: all times SLT, and all events at the VWBPE auditorium  – landing points: Auditorium, Area 52; Auditorium, Norganon; Auditorium Skywall – unless otherwise stated):

  • March 31st:
    • 08:00-08:50: Kick-off event at the VWBPE Gateway.
    • 11:00-11:50 SLT: What’s up at the Lab? with Patch Linden and hosted by Kevin Feenan (Phelan Corrimal), VWBPE Director; Rockcliffe University Consortium.
  • April 1st:
    • 08:30-08:50 SLT: Keynote address – Randall Sadler, Professor of Computer-Assisted Language Learning Telecollaboration (incl. Virtual Worlds and Virtual Reality
  • April 2nd:
    • 18:00-19050 SLT: Closing ceremony.

If you cannot get in-world to attend any of these or the other major talks and presentations at the conference, note that you can watch them via You Tube – check the VWBPE website for the full schedule of live streams (also available on YouTube).

The VWBPE Spaceport and (foreground) the Rings of Saturn, start of the Phoenix Egg Hunt

Conference Facilities

For 2022, the conference uses the same as the past two years, with some additional twists. The following is a quick run-down of some of core facilities.

  • The VWBPE Gateway: located on the ground level, the Gateway offers a main landing point for in-coming visitors, complete with a swag bag for arrivals available through several givers.
  • The VWBPE Auditorium: with three access points (Auditorium, Area 52; Auditorium, Norganon; Auditorium Skywall), the auditorium is an asteroid that has a cloud of debris floating before it – just click one of the little rocks and take a seat!
  • The VWBPE Social Spaceport: the spaceport is the main entertainment centre for the conference, and offers rides and freebies and opportunities to relax.
  • Social events at this year’s conference features a number of special activities, including:
    • The Gallery 360 Photo Event.
    • Moonwalk on Koray – defy gravity with this walk around a moon.
    • Phoenix Exhibit Hunt – find the phoenix eggs among the exhibits.
    • Rocket Ride – fly a rocket through asteroid fields, past the moons of Lyra Prime, through a worm hole, and landing at the docks of the Lyra Prime spaceport.
    • And more – details in the information packs available at the Gateway!

The conference also includes lecture and workshop spaces and locations for presentations, all of which can be accessed via the teleport HUD and the gateway teleport kiosks.

The Teleport HUD

As noted above, the VWBPE teleport HUD is the best way of getting around the facilities. It can be obtained via the swag bag givers at the VWBPE Gateway and is delivered to inventory in a folder. Open the folder and right-click → ADD the HUD. Note that you will need to grant teleport permissions for it to work.

VWBPE 2022 Teleport HUD

By default, the teleport HUD attaches to the bottom of the viewer window, with three buttons available (Help and Detach are self-explanatory).

Click the Main button to display the full HUD (which can be minimised again by clicking the Hide button, displayed when the HUD is fully in view). This comprises two sections:

  • On the left, a display of primary options (shown above). Clicking on any of the buttons in this section will  following: display a further list of options (teleport or web page links). Use the Main button to return to the primary set of options again, when required.
  • One the right, a changing display of event sponsors – clicking on a name displayed in this section will display a link in the viewer’s top right corner to an associated web browser page about the sponsor.

The primary set of options comprise the following (note: at the time of testing, Special and Administration were both blank, and so are ignored below):

  • Teleport to Gateway: go directly to the VWBPE gateway station, where you can grab freebies (if you’ve not already done so) and use the teleport kiosks inside the main building, meet with friends, etc.
  • Stations: displays buttons for all of the conference facilities except the main auditorium. Click one of the buttons to be teleported to the named location.
  • Auditorium: displays the three teleports to the main auditorium.
  • Social: displays the teleport to the space station and other social elements.
  • Exhibits: teleports to the conference exhibition spaces.
  • Sponsors: displays a set of teleports to the exhibition spaces of the conference’s major sponsors.
  • Post-Conference Survey: offers a link in the viewer’s top right corner to an associated web browser page, where attendees can offer feedback on the conference.
VWBPE 2022 Main Auditorium – pull up an asteroid as take the weight off of your space suit boots!

To keep up-to-date with the conference, be sure to check the VWBPE website daily.

Additional Links

The art of loving coffee in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
Art Korner Gallery III: Mara Telling – Coffee

Update, June 27th, 2022: Art Korner has Closed.

Coffee is a beverage that has been around a long time, and one that takes many forms. Making a really good cup of coffee is both a skill and an art form; in fact the way in which some types – such as the latte – are made and presented has been directly elevated to an art form complete with world championships (thanks largely to the work of David Schomer and the baristas at Espresso Vivace in Seattle, Washington State in the case of the latte).

As a coffee lover, I genuinely appreciate the skill and care that goes into making a really good cup of coffee; as someone who appreciates artistic expression, I also admire the beauty and expression that goes into creating the perfect piece of latte art – so much so that since purchasing a fabulous Sage duel boiler expresso maker, I’ve been attempting to learn latte art for myself!

Art Korner Gallery III: Mara Telling – Coffee

Someone else who has opted to use her love of coffee as a means for artistic expression is Mara Telling, and we can witness this at Frank Atisso’s Art Korner Gallery III, where she presents a collection of specially-produced images under the title Coffee. In all, thirteen images are offered – three of them forming a trilogy – which all present a fun examination of the coffee lover’s relationship with their beverage of choice.

Each of the ten individual pieces might be seen as something of a eye-wink metaphor: the velveteen touch of a really well made mocha in which the wine-like accent of the bean has been retained without any over-egging of its natural acidity such that its taste is like that of a lover’s kiss; the idea that we can feel safe and at home as much with a cup of good coffee as we can in the room stuffed with furnishings; that the comfort of a perfect latte can be as relaxing (or invigorating, depending on one’s mood!) as a visit to the spa, and so on.

Art Korner Gallery III: Mara Telling – Coffee

Nor are they overly reverential; Coffee Ride joyously celebrates the wild kick of caffeine that can mean so much, while Coffee Break reflects of the coffee drinker’s almost voyeuristic indulgence of people watching while sipping an innocent cup or mug; whilst Haute Coffture pokes fun at the serious coffee drinkers almost snobbish approach to appreciating the beverage. Thus, within all ten pieces lies something anyone who enjoys coffee will both recognise and have cause to smile about.

And nor is the art of making coffee forgotten, celebrated as it is through Coffee Trilogy, focused on a marvellous gacha set previously offered by Andraus Thor. With a hand bean grinder, moka pots and a traditional Turkish coffee maker (among other items), the set brings the full richness and delight of “traditional” coffee brewing (and skill) to Second Life.

Art Korner Gallery III: Mara Telling – Coffee

Rounded-out by an interactive coffee bar – grab yourself a cup of coffee and sit and people-watch others as they come and go within the gallery or take a ride on the giant cup of coffee as it turns slowly (and perhaps capture yourself on camera) – Coffee is a display of art than is both fun to witness, and which also speaks to Mara’s talent as a self-taught photographic artist; one who fully understands the use of colour, light, framing and cropping, and the need for subtlety in their use to produce pictures that are instantly pleasing to the eye.

SLurl Details

2022 SUG meetings week #13: summary

Posted on by Inara Pey
The Endless Graveyard, February 2022 – blog post

The following summary notes were taken from the Tuesday, March 29th, 2022 Simulator User Group (SUG) meeting. It forms a summary of the items discussed, and a video of the entire meeting is embedded at the end of the article – my thanks to Pantera for recording it.

Server Deployments

Please refer to the deployment thread for any recent updates.

  • Tuesday, March 29th: the Main SLS channel simulators were restarted, but without any update deployment.
  • Wednesday March 30th: all RC channel will be updated with simulator release 569934, which primarily contains a update to support the move of profile information back to the viewer, hopefully allowing the Legacy Profiles viewer (see below) to move forward.

Available Official Viewers

All official viewer pipelines remain as follows:

  • 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.

In Brief

  • Note: this meeting was another live music event, so discussions were limited. So very little to report.
  • BUG-231876 “llRequestSimulatorData() frequently and silently fails” – a fix has been developed for this issue and is currently with QA for testing. It had been hoped this would be ready for a deployment this week, but unfortunately this is not the case.
  • Some have been reporting an issue whereby their Friends list reports all (or most) contacts as off-line when logging into a region the first time after a restart, requiring them to TP to another region entire for a Friends list update, or (if they are the region holder) restarting / requesting a s restart for the culprit region. LL have no information as yet on why this is occurring.

A return of a Lost Unicorn in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
Lost Unicorn, March 2022 – click any image for full size

I recently received word from Natalie Starlight that she and Nessa Nova have been re-working their Lost Unicorn estate, together with an invite to drop in for a visit.

I just wanted to let you know that we have brought back an all new Lost Unicorn (forest)! Nessa and I both missed the magic of the old sim with the elves, unicorns, mermaids, etc. We’ve added much of that back and are also currently working on a new Storybook area behind the gallery on the other region!
Just thought you might want to stop by when you can and see the changes.

– Natalie Starlight

Lost Unicorn, March 2022

Given how much I’ve enjoyed previous iterations of the Lost Unicorn builds, I made sure to hop over and take a look.

Lost Unicorn has always offered a special delight for me ever since my first visit to it, the gallery and the delightful and the soon to return (as Natalie indicates above) Storybook, some four years ago. A dreamy and mystical elven realm shrouded in mist, the home of fairies, centaurs, unicorns and more, Lost Unicorn has always been a rewarding visit, with much to see, photograph and simply enjoy whilst following the paths and trails that wander through it.

Lost Unicorn, March 2022

With this returning, Natalie and Nessa have fully recaptured all of this richness and beauty found in earlier iterations of the region, and wrapped it all in something new but just as engaging.

From the landing point towards the east of the region, visitors can wander as their moods dictate. Take the path down from it and across the bridge and make your way up to the high castle as it commands a view across the region towards the (under reconstruction at the time of my visit) Lost Unicorn Gallery.

Lost Unicorn, March 2022

Or you can go by way gazebo and path around the base of the peak on which the castle is built with where another bridge spans a gorge to reach a fair elven home and stairs spiral up around the trunks of giant trees and span the air by means of further bridges to again offer a means to reach the high castle, passing by way seats and games a free houses along the way.

Those who find there way down to the valleys and lowlands shaded as they are by the richness of boughs from the forest will find more paths and trails, some in shadow others lit by streamers of sunlight falling through those same boughs, all leading to points of interest and beauty. Some of these – such as the gardens with the piano, ancient walls and sakura blossoms – may be easy to find; other might be more hidden, requiring a trip away from sunlight altogether and into caverns old; still others might be said to hide in plain sight – should you have the eyes to see them.

Lost Unicorn, March 2022

For those who don’t there are experience-based teleport portals waiting to carry visitors directly to points of interest – but again, finding these is all part of the broader experience of discovery. All I will say is that at the feet of bridges, secrets may be found. Nor, in fact does everything necessarily lie either above or below ground.

But the truth is, wherever your feet take you within Lost Unicorn, you will find something to captivate, be in elves, fairies, art, mermaids, centaurs, animals – or simply a place to sit and past the time, listing to the ambient soundscape and perhaps the notes of the piano drifting through the trees.

Lost Unicorn, March 2022

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2022 viewer release summaries week #12

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

Updates from the week ending Sunday, March 27th, 2022

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: version version 6.5.3.568554 – formerly the Maintenance J&K RC viewer, promoted Monday, February 28 – no change.
  • Release channel cohorts:
    • MFA RC viewer updated to version 6.5.4.569725 on March 24.
  • Project viewers:
    • No updates.

LL Viewer Resources

Third-party Viewers

V6-style

V1-style

Mobile / Other Clients

  • No updates.

Additional TPV Resources

Related Links

Elfi’s Status Menti at Nitroglobus in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
Nitroglobus Roof Gallery: Elfi Siemens – Status Menti

The April 2022 exhibition hosted in the main hall of the Nitroglobus Roof Gallery, operated by Dido Haas, features the work of Elfi Siemens within a collection she has called Status Menti. It is a richly metaphorical examination of self, as the artist notes:

We all have those dark, sinister places inside our minds: Areas where the sun does NOT shine all the time. And oh, how hard we try to hide them from the world around us!
Status Menti / State Of Mind is an emotional trip through my personal darkness – and who knows, maybe you will find parts of your own inner twilight zone in those images painted with shadows.

– Elfi Siemens

Nitroglobus Roof Gallery: Elfi Siemens – Status Menti

Thus, through the fourteen images presented at Nitroglobus, we are invited to tour elements of Elfi’s Country of the Mind, to use a term coined in fiction by Greg Bear to describe a means of visually exploring a person’s psychology. True, Greg – notably through his novel Queen of Angels (1990) – used a form of virtual reality to allow a character to directly interact with another’s psychology / subconscious, but the fact that we are viewing Elfi’s work through a virtual medium – Second Life – does allow for a foundational link between Bear’s fiction technique and our explorations of the art present here.

More particularly, the subject matter projected through the fourteen images allows us the ability – as Elfi notes – to witness and explore the more shadowed aspects of her psyche, to join her on a journey through her thoughts and fears, reflection and projections.

What is particularly engaging about the fourteen pieces Elfi has presented is the sheer diversity of presentation and symbolism. From monochrome to colour through varying degrees of hue and tone, from the direct portrait through to framed story, in the use of surrealist through to the abstracted, each piece is unique to itself, yet retains strands of identity, self-doubt / self awareness that binds it to the rest, and the idea of exploring one’s subconscious.

Nitroglobus Roof Gallery: Elfi Siemens – Status Menti

Some of the imagery is both powerfully clear and also marvellously layered – just take Madness, Cornered, Who Am I Today? and Decisions as examples; elsewhere it is more nuanced – as with Time (complete with a subtle borrowing from Dali), for example. Then there is the use of motif, notably that of the heart (which also appears within the one 3D piece Elfi has included in the exhibition), and the layering of its use.

Of course, one might question as to had genuine a story of self we are on, by virtue of these fact that, like it or not, these are images that have been consciously constructed and thus subject to the influence of the artist’s mind rather then being pure observations of what lies beneath. However, whether this matters or not is down to the individual witnessing the pieces offered; at the end of the day, the artist set out to offer an insight into her thoughts and moods – so even if the results are influenced by conscious thought, they nevertheless still sit as windows to what lies within.

Nitroglobus Roof Gallery: Elfi Siemens – Status Menti

Thus, Status Menti sits as a valid exploration of self / self-doubt and the darker thoughts that are a necessary part of out psyche. While, for those who wish to appreciate art for its own sake, they also sit as a set of rich images to enjoy, each on its own merit.

SLURL DETAILS