Category: Second Life

Metaphysical Landscapes in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
ArtCare Gallery, June 2025: Kirjat Umaro – Metaphysical landscapes

I first wrote about the art of Kirjat Umarov back in April 2024, when he was exhibiting at the Annex of Nitroglobus Roof Gallery (see: Abstract Event Horizons at Nitroglobus in Second Life). At the time I was struck by the symbology and depth of themes and ideas within Kirjat’s abstract art presented within that exhibition.

A new exhibition of Kirjat’s work opened at the start of June 2025 and Carelyna’s ArtCare Gallery.  Entitled Metaphysical Landscapes, it focuses leans more towards abstract surrealism, while again mixing themes and ideas.

ArtCare Gallery, June 2025: Kirjat Umaro – Metaphysical landscapes
Ever since I first saw a painting by Giorgio de Chirico in an art school textbook, I’ve been fascinated by surrealism in the visual arts. I had come to feel and understand this form of expression more and more through the “metaphysical landscapes” of [Yves] Tanguy, [Salvador] Dali, [Rene] Magritte, and of course Max Ernst & Joan Miró as well as Russian and German protagonists of this genre.

– Kirjat Umarov

In contemplating and studying the works of these artists,  Kirjat found them both a form of escape from the everyday and also a means of understanding them as  expressing a form of truth about life: all that we experience in daily life – all that we see, the worries, the emotional ups and downs, our fears, our concerns – is merely a superficial illusion of what life is about. Underlying it, just waiting for us to open our eyes and see it, is a form of the world and existence in which everything flows together, and everything makes sense.

ArtCare Gallery, June 2025: Kirjat Umaro – Metaphysical landscapes

As a result of this realisation, and as Kirjat goes on to note:

Last year I noticed that for some time I’ve been painting non-representational, abstract pictures while also repeatedly devoting myself to classical landscape depictions … which is why I began trying to combine the two, sometimes adding geometric elements and composing everything in such a way that metaphysical landscapes and forms can be discovered in them.

– Kirjat Umarov

ArtCare Gallery, June 2025: Kirjat Umaro – Metaphysical landscapes

So it is, across four rooms, we’re presented with a rich mix of imagery encompassing the idea of what we see before us is more illusory than we might think, that there is a more substantial truth waiting for us to find. The Landing Point places you at the intersection of these four rooms, alongside a post offering an introduction to the exhibition, and a catalogue providing information on the six images presented within each room –  and I highly recommend you read both.

All of the pieces carry a richness of idea – hinted at through their names – and I found myself particularly drawn to Cloudy Mountain View, Black Hole Sun, Lover’s Pier and There’s Always a New Day Behind the Corner. All of these pieces have a beautiful sense of minimalism about them, together with an abstracted use of geometry which makes them instantly attractive and brings there messages to the fore in the most gentle of manners. Whish is not to diminish the others in the collection: all have something to say to the open eye and mind.

ArtCare Gallery, June 2025: Kirjat Umaro – Metaphysical landscapes

A fascinating and engaging exhibition.

SLurl Details

2025 week #24: SL SUG meeting

Posted on by Inara Pey
TheNest: Sunbird Featherwish, April 2025 – blog post

The following notes were taken from the Tuesday, June 10th, 2025 Simulator User Group (SUG) meeting. They form a summary of the items discussed, and are not intended to be a full transcript. The notes were taken from my chat log of the meeting. No video this week.

Meeting Overview

  • The Simulator User Group (also referred to by its older name of Server User Group) exists to provide an opportunity for discussion about simulator technology, bugs, and feature ideas.
  • These meetings are conducted (as a rule):
  • Meetings are open to anyone with a concern / interest in the above topics, and form one of a series of regular / semi-regular User Group meetings conducted by Linden Lab.
  • Dates and times of all current meetings can be found on the Second Life Public Calendar, and descriptions of meetings are defined on the SL wiki.

Simulator Deployments

  • There are no planned deployments to any channels this week, only restarts.
  • The Preflight RC will likely get a WebRTC update in the week; the simulator version won’t change but the service will be different – the release includes a fix for a file descriptor leak that lead to crashes. This does not require any viewer-side updates.

SL Viewer Updates

In Brief

  • Parcel boundaries:
    • a long standing issue is that of people (mostly on Mainland) unexpectedly hitting parcels that are closed to public access (e.g. because the parcel edges onto a public road), and the ensuing confusion of getting bounced / losing the vehicle they are on, etc.
    • Rider Linden is hoping to be able to take another look at this in the near future, in terms of making such events less chaotic.
Just to remind people … the parcel bounce is for vehicles entering a parcel. It would check the permissions of all sitters and deny entry if any one sitter couldn’t enter. Essentially it would “bounce” the whole vehicle.
    • The response from those at the meeting was generally positive to this, in that it would end the situation of avatars being unseated from a vehicle which might still be able to enter / pass through the parcel.
  • SLua event handling proposal is being worked on – but exactly what this means could not be specified at the meeting.
  • A general discussion on mesh, mesh physics, uploads and decomposition, which appeared largely driven by a user seeking clarification, which strayed over into the realm of region crashers.
  • The subject of possibly deprecating pathfinding on the simulator (and potentially removing Havok from the viewer, allowing for an alternation for mesh decomposition came up at the meeting: see the In Brief section of my TPVD Meeting Summary for week #23 2025, for more.
    • In addition, Leviathan Linden indicated that pulling “some” Havok dependencies from the viewer could make it easier for physics engine updates.
    • The led to a lengthy discussion on how pathfinding might be replaced, concerns from those who are using it, with no definitive solutions.

† The header images included in these summaries are not intended to represent anything discussed at the meetings; they are simply here to avoid a repeated image of a rooftop of people every week. They are taken from my list of region visits, with a link to the post for those interested.

Viper Isles – An Elysian Paradise in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
Viper Isles – An Elysian Paradise, June 2025 – click any image for full size

Almost two years ago, I was introduced to Viper Heaven and Viper Hell by Cube Republic. The work of Markarius Viper, I found both to be immersive and visually engaging, with Viper Heaven in particular captivating me (see: A Viper Heaven in Second Life).

Well, two years on, and Markarius extended a warm invite for me to visit Viper Isles – An Elysian Paradise, a huge expansion on the concepts and designs found within Viper Heaven, and quite possibly the most magnificent fantasy-surreal-mysterious-mystical setting within Second Life.

Viper Isles – An Elysian Paradise, June 2025

Covering a Full Region leveraging the available land capacity bonus, the depth and breadth of Viper Isles – An Elysian Paradise has to be experienced in order to be properly appreciated. After wandering through it across two days – each visit lasting hours – I am utterly in awe of the creativity displayed within the setting’s myriad locations.

PanEden is the best of both worlds. Pandora and a little Eden; you have to experience it to believe it.

– Markarius Viper

Viper Isles – An Elysian Paradise, June 2025

Explore it all, you’ll be glad you did.

In fact, “setting” and “locations” are too mild to be applied here; Viper Isles – An Elysian Paradise is a bringing together of realms in miniature; vibrant places on the ground, over the ground and under the water. Each exists on its own whilst also joining with its neighbours and a harmonious flow of themes and ideas, elements and environments.

Viper Isles – An Elysian Paradise, June 2025

The Landing Point is perhaps the best place to start your explorations – not that any teleport routing is set; but it is here that you will receive the Viper Isles teleport HUD (you may be asked to accept the local experience on first using it, for seamless teleports).

Opening the HUD immediately shows the extent of the realms on offer: sixteen destinations (Viper Club doesn’t appear to lead anywhere – or didn’t on my visits, but the region is evolving!), with exotic names like Titan’s Waterfall, Celestial Cathedral, Dragon’s Lair, Magical Waters… Also on the HUD, located on the second page, are teleports for Viper Hell and Viper Heaven.

Viper Isles – An Elysian Paradise, June 2025

The HUD offers a direct means of point-to-point transfer between realms (and might be the easiest way of reaching some). However, I strongly recommend you explore on foot – and do be sure of have your viewer set to Used Shared Environment (Menu → World → Environment), as many of the settings within the region have their own EEP settings.

Another reason for exploring on foot is that not only does this bring home the full beauty of the region, it also reveals places to sit, activities to enjoy (descending by rope, riding a zip line, taking a dragon tour, etc.).

Viper Isles – An Elysian Paradise, June 2025

Travelling on foot also allows you to come across portals to move you from realm-to-realm (acceptance of the local experience on a first use, unless already accepted). Some of these are easy to spot, once encountered; at least one is a little harder to fine and a little more mysterious!

I’m not going to describe all the realms and spaces here; as I said, the entire region should be seen first-hand – although Markarius has also produced a video, which he has allowed me to embed at the end of this article.

Viper Isles – An Elysian Paradise, June 2025

That said, what you will find here are giants holding up a part of the world; exotic flowers; a perfect fusion of Japanese and Indo-Chinese elements; gardens; places of rest; places of reverie; fountains of light; gardens of beauty; Ents; dragons; sea drakes; an underwater kingdom; giant flying Koi – and so much more besides.  Wherever you turn there is something new and enchanting to see.

This, quite genuinely, is an experience is Second Life not to be missed. And when you have seen Viper Isles – An Elysian Paradise, do not forget to return to visit Viper Heaven and Viper Hell.

Viper Isles – An Elysian Paradise, June 2025

My thanks to Markarius for the invitation, and for taking the time to walk with me during one of my visits.

SLurl Details

2025 SL viewer release summaries week #23

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, June 8th, 2025

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.
  • Outside of the Official viewer, and as a rule, alpha / beta / nightly or release candidate viewer builds are not included; although on occasions, exceptions might be made.

Official LL Viewers

  • Default viewer: 2025.04 – 7.1.14.15192634334, issued May 25, promoted May 28 – No Change.
  • Second Life Project glTF Mesh Import, version 7.1.14.15361077240 June 2 – NEW.
    • This is an early Alpha release with some of the rough edges and already resolved many bugs and crashes, although more are to be found, together with general feedback from the community. Please read the release notes if you intend to test this viewer.
  • Second Life Project Lua Editor Alpha (Aditi only), version 7.1.12.14888088240, May 13 – No Change.

LL Viewer Resources

Third-party Viewers

V7-style

  • Kokua: 7.1.14.57095 (no RLV) and 7.1.14.60779 (RLV variants)  (2025.03), June 7 – release notes.

V1-style

  • No updates.

Mobile / Other Clients

  • SL Mobile (Beta) version 2025.5.550 (A) – June 4 / 0.1.548 (iOS) – June 5 (Further avatar rendering improvements;  improvements to the v-stick controller – size, position and visibility; new water shader + a new setting “Use New Water”; setting to enable/disable automatic log-in; iOS: fix for an intermittent crash when opening Second Life Maps links).

Additional TPV Resources

Related Links

The sands of Blériot Plage in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
Blériot Plage, June 2025 – click on any image for full size

In 1909, on a broad stretch of sand just outside of Calais, a new-fangled flying machine took to the air shortly after sunrise on July 25th. Heading out over the English Channel, it followed the French naval vessel Escopette as it steamed towards the English coast. Aboard the vessel was Alice Blériot. Flying the aeroplane – one of his own designs – was her husband, Louis Blériot, on his way to becoming the first man to fly across the English Channel in an aeroplane.

Flying at 76 metres above the water and without a compass, Blériot quickly passed his naval “escort”, reaching the English coast after a little over 30 minutes. The weather and wind hadn’t been entirely helpful and he reached the coast somewhat further east of where he intended, forcing him the follow the Dover cliffs to find his landing zone.

Blériot Plage, June 2025

Fortunately, his colleague, Charles Fontaine, had travelled to England in advance to locate a suitable place for the aeroplane to land. He’d carried with him a large French Tricolour, which he waved as a signal as Blériot approached, allowing the pioneer to make a successful – if heavy – landing not far from Dover Castle after a total flight time of 36.5 minutes. Thus, Blériot became the first man to make a powered flight across the Channel, claiming a £1000 prize (over £130,000 today) in the process.

However, it might have been otherwise. Six day before Blériot, his fellow Frenchman, Hubert Latham set out from Cap Blanc-Nez not far from the sands of Sangatte. Unfortunately, just 13 km after taking off, Latham’s aeroplane suffered an engine failure, and he instead became celebrated as the first person to land an aeroplane on the sea.

Blériot Plage, June 2025

So it is that today the sands from which Blériot took-off are called Blériot Plage (Blériot Beach). They also serve as the inspiration for another superb region setting by Jade Koltai. I’ve admired Jade’s work for years, covering many of her region designs in these pages, and her Blériot Plage continues this tradition.

A part of a chain of beaches running west from Calais, the modern Blériot Plage is backed by the town’s suburbs, and presents a popular destination for holiday makers. Little chalets line the beach in almost neat rows set back from the high tide mark. Grassy dunes separate the beach from the nearby houses and roads, but there is no mistaking the beach is not far from civilisation.

Blériot Plage, June 2025

Jade’s Blériot Plage, takes the familiar elements of its namesake – notably the rows of chalets and wide sands – but presents them with a marvellous sense of the remote, a place of beauty clearly popular to those who know it, but isolated enough to feel far from anywhere – and all the more romantic for it. Neatly merging with the sandy dunes of a region surround on three sides, the north side of the region is open to the sea, the sands wide and soft, the Sun low on the horizon.

The Landing Point sits as a car park close to the mouth of a tunnel, giving the impression of having just arrived after a road trip. A short path through the nearest dunes leads to the beach proper with its rows of white-painted chalets remarkably similar to those found on the actual beach.

Blériot Plage, June 2025

Signs warn about feeding the seagulls and cleaning up behind your dog while the self-same seagulls turn overhead or stand on vantage points looking for the opportunity to swoop and grab an easy snack. Across the sands are places to sit – deck chairs, ordinary chairs, blankets, family play areas – whilst off to one side the bulk of a much darker time in the history of France – of Europe as a whole – raises itself from behind the dunes and broods silently. As one stares out towards the lowering Sun, a coaster from some nearby port chugs it way past the beach, belching smoke but otherwise leaving the scene undisturbed.

In all, another outstanding setting from Jade, not to be missed.

Blériot Plage, June 2025

SLurl Details

2025 week #23: SL TPVD meeting summary

Posted on by Inara Pey
The Quieting, April 2025 – blog post †

The following notes were taken from my chat transcript + the video recording by Pantera (embedded at the end of this summary) of the Third-Party Developer meeting (TPVD) held on Friday, June 6th, 2025. My thanks to Pantera as always for providing it.

Meeting Purpose

  • The TPV Developer meeting provides an opportunity for discussion about the development of, and features for, the Second Life viewer, and for Linden Lab viewer developers and third-party viewer (TPV) / open-source code contributors to discuss general viewer development. This meeting is held once a month on a Friday, at 13:00 SLT at the Hippotropolis Theatre.
  • Dates and times are recorded in the SL Public Calendar, and they are generally conducted in text chat.
  • The notes herein are a summary of topics discussed and are not intended to be a full transcript of the meeting.

Official Viewers

  • Official Viewer: 2025.04 – 7.1.14.15192634334, issued May 25, promoted May 28 – NEW.
    • Chat Mentions (Early Support): Type @ then pick a name. To follow: audible alerts and highlight colour pickers.  This does not support generic mentions such as @everyone or @here.
    • My Outfits subfolders: now supports the use of subfolders.
    • Build Floater improvements: increase to scale boundaries; Physics Material Type now updates when selecting linked objects; Repeats per Meter value no longer incorrect for non-uniform sized objects.
    • Hover height: the minimum/maximum is now +/- 3 meters.
    • Snapshot floater: L$ balances can be hidden independently of the rest of the UI.
    • Preference Search bar: general usability and readability improvements.
    • Refer to the release notes for full updates and fixes.
  • Second Life Project glTF Mesh Import, version 7.1.14.15361077240 June 2 – NEW.
    • This is an early Alpha release with some of the rough edges and already resolved many bugs and crashes, although more are to be found, together with general feedback from the community. Please read the release notes if you intend to test this viewer.
  • Second Life Project Lua Editor Alpha (Aditi only), version 7.1.12.14888088240, May 13 –  No Change.

glTF Mesh Uploader

  • The GLTF Mesh Uploader will be the next viewer release, although it doesn’t as yet have a new-format version number.
  • It is now available on the Alternate Viewers Page (and the version current at the time of writing is linked-to above).
  • The initial release is regarded as a “pretty rough cut”, with fixes already streaming into the code branch such that there is likely to be an update within the week.
    • Those trying the initial release should be aware that rigged mesh import in particular is in an “iffy state” for some of the more complex avatars.
  • As the next planned release, it will be merged-up to the Develop branch shortly – so if anyone would like to get some PRs in now would be a really good time to do that.

Test Items

Linden Lab is seeking content content creators who would be willing to contribute items for testing. Specifically, the Lab is seeking:

  • Rigged meshes only – unrigged content is not required at this time.
  • Everything from the most basic avatar mesh to complex bento, fitted, etc. meshes, clothing and Animesh is welcome.
    • However, avatars with onion layers should not be submitted. If possible, merge such avatars into a singular mesh with rigging in order to help simplify the Lab’s debugging work.
  • Content should be supplied in both glTF and COLLADA.DAE formats, to allow for A/B testing.
  • Content files should be sent to gltf@lindenlab.com.

glTF Uploader “Phase 2”

  • A “reunification” of the various asset import flows, focused on under-the-hood work with the import pipeline.
    • It used to be that assets like sounds, animations, images, etc., were uploaded through a single API when uploaded, but since the arrival of mesh, new asset upload types have diverged from the “common” flow to use their own.
  • The idea now is to provide a single API to get things from a creator’s computer and in-world to simplify the upload process.
  • According the CCUG meeting, this work will include an improved preview capability, providing more representative of what creators can expect to see under a set of EEP parameters, etc.
    • The ability to preview items in-world on Agni (the main grid) prior to upload will not be provided. However, there is still Aditi (the beta grid) for this.
  • It is also hoped that the import flow can be made easier to understand for existing and new content creators (e.g. providing a better preview; having things laid out in a way that makes potential problems more obvious, etc.).

In Brief

  • Switching away from OpenGL: this has not been mentioned for a while, and currently, it looks like LL is going to use an existing API abstraction, so as to allow Apple Metal to be targeted as well. The API mentioned was “something based off of NVIDIA’s Slang API” – with a note that hopes of getting “something potato friendly” is low.
    • However, there has been no firm decision, and alternatives were suggested in the meeting, so things are still up in the air.
  • Signal Linden requested feedback on the idea of deprecating and removing Navmesh characters / llCreateCharacter (i.e. Pathfinding).
I don’t state the idea lightly, and I understand its low adoption is partially due to a complex and buggy implementation. However, I pulled some data and it appears we have 1,900 navmesh characters across the entire grid. Half of those are ours (Think LL experiences.) There are 6 user-owned regions with more than 10 characters… This is very low usage. I haven’t seen any major merchants release notable content with the system due to its unreliability: but please correct me if I’m wrong.

– Signal Linden

    • Those at the meeting didn’t object to the idea.
    • An alternate approach (“more nuanced” as Signal Linden referred to it, once raised) suggested was to leave server-side the functionality in place and just drop the viewer side, until such time as new ways to handle Pathfinding could be developed.
    • Signal repeated that there are benefits (Pathfinding accounts for a lot of simulator-side code), but that not decision has been made as yet, he is seeking feedback.
    • The subject of Havok in the viewer was raised (used for both Pathfinding and mesh decomposition), with suggestions to replace Havok with the open source HACD library or VHACD (or similar newer implementation), were this to be done.
    • A suggestion was made for TPV developers to bring a HACD / VHACD to the viewer as a code contribution.
  • The above lead to a wider discussion on textures (slightly sidetracked by a complaint over the cost of 2K texture uploads for non-Premium + members), and related issues of texture loads on GPUs with limited VRAM,  texture crushing, etc., which continued through the latter part of the meeting.

Next Meeting

† The header images included in these summaries are not intended to represent anything discussed at the meetings; they are simply here to avoid a repeated image of a gathering of people every week. They are taken from my list of region visits, with a link to the post for those interested.