Category: Second Life

Daantje Bons: Art and statement in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
Nitroglobus Gallery: I Have to Show You Something

Note: The art exhibition described in this article contains images that might be considered as sexually suggestive, with some also including female nudity.

I Want to Show You Something is the title of the latest exhibition mounted by Dido Haas at her Nitroglobus Roof Gallery, and once again it presents something that is unique to Second Life, whilst also marking the second time in the gallery’s history that art from the physical world has been place on exhibition.

A collaborative installation, I Want to Show You Something features the images of Dutch photographer Daantje Bons, presented through the use of projected images created by Venus Adored to give the illusion of 3D pieces embedded in the walls of the gallery.

Nitroglobus Gallery: I Have to Show You Something

For this reason, it is essential that visitors have their viewer’s Advanced Lighting Model (ALM) option enabled (Preferences → Graphics → ensure Advanced Lighting Model is checked), otherwise the art will not be rendered (note that, in difference to the instructions provided at the landing point, you do not need to have Shadows enabled to view the installation; however, I would suggest setting your time of day to Midnight).

Based in Utrecht, The Netherlands, Daantje Bons is a highly regarded photographer whose work is prominently featured in Dutch newspapers and magazines such as De Volkskrant, NRC Handelsblad and LINDA, and internationally in the likes of VOGUE Italia, FRAME, Kurier and Huffington Post, as well as being displayed in galleries across Europe.

The playful subversiveness and pleasing aesthetics of Daantje Bons’ fine art photography draw the eye, but the inherent contradictions make these images resonate and linger in the mind.

– Meredith Greer, writer

Nitroglobus Gallery: I Have to Show You Something

Her style is perhaps best described as Contemporary Feminist, her approach that of presenting her own femininity or re-imagining femininity with a sense of provocative humour and a sexuality; their presentation and apparent contradictions intentional as a means of both capturing attention and encouraging the observer to think more deeply about the subject presented within each piece.

This is all plentifully evident with I Want to Show You Something, a selection of 14 primary images around the walls of the hall, with three “collage” style of image projections to be found in a floating ball and cube, and via a “well” projected onto the gallery’s floor. These are all pieces that may well cause some discomfiture with the more conservative mind and raise smile in the more salacious, simply because of their overt sexuality.

Bons’ images are surprising, funny and often risqué — like a guide to puberty mixed with an untrustworthy recipe book with a surrealist twist

– Priscilla Frank, Huffington Post

Nitroglobus Gallery: I Have to Show You Something

The latter takes multiple forms, some obvious (flowers over the female genitalia), a raspberry covering a nipple, a string of pearls held between lips and tongue; other are possibly more subtle: petals held between lips; a chilli sliced partially open … all resonate with the observer, even if one may feel that sense of discomfiture. But these are not just pieces to provoke; they are in many respects self-exploration – what does it mean to be a woman? How doe masculinity and femininity affect how we see / express our sense of self?

Rich in content, sometimes swaying towards double entendre I Want to show You Something is an exhibition that operates on two levels, and you can learn more about Daantje’s work through her website.

SLurl Details

2021 SUG meeting week #9 summary

Posted on by Inara Pey
Ambient Hideaway, January 2021 – blog post

The following notes were taken from the Tuesday, March 2nd, 2021 Simulator User Group (SUG) meeting.

Server Deployments

Please refer to the server deployment thread for the latest news and updates.

  • Tuesday, March 2nd saw a rolling restart of servers on the SLS Main channel as a refresh, but no deployment.
  • Wednesday, March 3rd should, if the notes are comments have been understood, see the following:
    • Server update 2021-02-17.556138 will be deployed to the Oranges RC channel (formerly part of the BlueSteel channel said).
    • “A couple more region tests” (per Rider Linden) planned for LeTigra and Magnum.
  • In addition, a fourth mini-RC channel, called Ferrari has been set-up.

Restarts are described as still having the kinks worked out within the new environment.

SL Viewer

On Tuesday, March 2nd, the Simple Cache project viewer, version 6.4.14.556088, dated February 22nd 2021, was promoted to de facto release viewer. Release viewer rolled back to version 6.4.13.555567 (Jelly Doll improvements) originally promoted February 17th.

The rest of the current pipelines remain as:

  • Release channel cohorts:
    • Love Me Render (LMR) 5 project viewer, version 6.4.14.556118, February, 23, 2021.
    • Custom Key Mappings project viewer, version 6.4.12.553437, January 7, 2021.
  • Project viewers:
    • Legacy Profiles viewer, version 6.4.11.550519, October 26.
    • Copy / Paste viewer, version 6.3.5.533365, December 9, 2019.
    • Project Muscadine (Animesh follow-on) project viewer, version 6.4.0.532999, November 22, 2019.
    • 360 Snapshot project viewer, version 6.2.4.529111, July 16, 2019.

In Brief

  • “Good progress” continues to be made on fixing the Map tile update issue, including the map stitching when zooming out (which was seen as the last problem to be resolved), but there is still no date as to when a fix may be deployed.
  • An extensive discussion took place regarding a delay in scripts starting in rezzed objects which can be variable for reasons unknown – other than the fact the delay seems to be minimal when a region has been recently restarted, but grows in time to 2-3 seconds the longer the region is up. However, the delay does not appear to relate to the usage of the region or its complexity (scripted objects within it).
    • Some appear to believe the delay is related to changes made in 2019 to try to improve script performance in general (and thus can be “easily fixed”).
    • Others have suggested the issue could be the result of some for of throttle being triggered.
    • The problem is having something of a “knock-on” effect in that some users have taken to pre-rezzing items and having them in an alpha / transparent mode around their avatar until needed – which is impacting region performance further.

The return of Elvion to Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
Elvion, March 2021

Update, September 2021: Elvion has relocated and expanded – see Elvion expanded in Second Life.

It’s hard to keep a good thing down – or so the saying goes – and such is the case of Elvion, the homestead region designed by Bo Zano (BoZanoNL). Having closed towards the end of September 2020 not long after making an initial return to Second Life (see Elvion’s return to Second Life), the region was missed by many. So the news that Bo has re-opened it at a new location and with a new layout, has been good news to many – including myself.

Admittedly, it took a few days for Caitlyn and I to get over and see it for ourselves (thanks to Miro and everyone who pointed towards it), but we started the week by wandering the region and found it to be – as ever – an engaging outdoor setting with a lot to appreciate.

Elvion, March 2021

From what was initially something of a fantasy setting in the form of an elven retreat (see: Elvion: an elven sanctuary in Second Life) sitting within a quarter region, the setting grew over the years to take up a full Homestead whilst also moving to offer more of a feel of the great outdoors rather than staying strictly wrapped in a fantasy theme.

This is very much reflected in the current iteration for the region. Bounded by high peaks along its southern side that feed a broad ribbon of water from falls that drop from their snowy uplands, the majority of the setting is given over to a low-lying landscape cut by a shallow stream.

Elvion, March 2021

The latter rises – quite literally as it rolls up-slope, suggesting there is perhaps still a hint of elven magic here – from the broader body of water to run diagonally across the grasslands before splitting to create a small island to the north and east that’s home to horses and a hammock.

There are only two structures on the island: a stone pavilion sitting among the trees and a large house with a touch of fantasy about it sitting on a rocky outcrop overlooking the grass and streams, and which is reached by stone steps. Comfortably, if lightly, furnished, it offers a quiet retreat for those wishing to relax indoors.

Elvion, March 2021

For the rest, the land sits as a haven for wildlife, some of it easy to find in the form of deer, stags and waterfowl, the rest might take a little finding – so do keep any eye out for Curly (not sure if the other Stooges are around or members of the Rat Pack, as once was the case; we didn’t come across them during our wanderings). Together with the domesticated animals, they present a rich of life across the region.

Caught under a grey sky and with mist creeping between some of the trees and over the water, this new Elvion carries with it the spirit of previous iterations whilst remaining somewhere new to explore. The latter can be done so on foot or via wearable horse – just be prepared for a lot of opportunities for photography to present themselves to you.

Elvion, March 2021

SLurl Detail

  • Elvion (Last Paradise, rated Adult)

Rapid update: Kirsten’s Viewer & Speedlight

Posted on by Inara Pey
Isla Caitinara via Kirsten’s Viewer

While viewer updates are always in process across the available TPVs and clients, I thought I’d take a brief delve into recent updates for a couple of those I tend to routinely follow – Kirsten’s Viewer and the Speedlight Browser / Android / iOS client.

Kirsten’s Viewer

Late February and early March have seen a burst of activity from KirstenLee Cinquetti, with three versions of the Kirsten’s Viewer being released in a rapid-fire succession, started with S23.6.1500 on February 23rd and running through S23.6.1525 (codenamed Valkyrie, dated February 27th) and then S23.6.1533 (also, I gather, Valkyrie, released on March 2nd).

Give it’s been getting close to a year since the last update (see Kirsten’s viewer: a return to active duty and Kirsten’s Viewer gains the client-side AO), these releases do not focus on new features so much on both catching-up with the Lab’s core code base (which appears to be currently still in progress) and a lot of under-the-hood house cleaning.

In particular, the code clean-up means that as from the S23 release, Kirsten’s Viewer discontinues support for Linux /Solaris/ OSX, and the viewer will be Windows-only. The reason for this is simple: time.

Why would I do such a thing? Its simply the realisation that keeping this thing maintained takes time, which is a rare commodity and focusing on a pure windows based solution without sifting through endless defines and endif’s not to mention the triple whammy cmake files or anything else for that matter makes life a heck of a lot simpler.

– KirstenLee on why Kirsten’s Viewer is now Windows-centric

A further benefit of this move, as Kirsten goes on to note, is that it also streamlines the Windows built process itself, through the integration of some of the build libraries into Visual Studio 2017 (now the core build tool for the Windows flavour of viewers), rather than relying on third-party libraries.

Given this focus, it appears the viewer has yet to get some of the more recent updates from the Lab, including:

  • Camera Presets (contributed to the Lab by open-source developer Jonathan Yap).
  • Mesh Uploader updates (contributed by open-source / Firestorm developer Beq Janus, with further modifications by the Lab).
  • Avatar “jelly doll” rendering improvements (via Vir Linden).

That said there are a couple of new additions to be found in preferences:

  • The return of the Midnight UI skin (Preferences → S23 Features → S23 UI Selection).
Kirsten’s S23 see the return of the purple “Midnight” UI skinning (viewer restart required)
  • The inclusion of the Controls Tab from the Lab’s Custom Key Mappings RC viewer, which allows users to assign specific key mappings to a range of viewer functions (Preferences Controls).
S23 incorporates the Lab’s custom key mapping options, which at the time of this review, were still at viewer release candidate status in the official viewer.

As  noted, these recent releases are more along the lines of maintenance work and under-the-hood changes that are vital to the viewer’s longevity and future ease-of-update, rather than intending to present significant user-facing updates.

But that said, and with this work now completed, it hopefully won’t be too long before options such as the jelly doll updates and Camera Presets appear within Kirsten’s Viewer  and it continued to recover greater parity with the Lab’s code base and releases.

Details on KirstenLee’s recent work on the viewer can be found on her blog, and the viewer can be downloaded here.

Speedlight

Speedlight, the browser / android / iOS client updated in mid-February, with updates for both Basic and Gold users.

Core updates (Basic and Gold):

  • Places search has been added.
Speedlight now includes the ability to search via region / parcel name (subject to location’s search listing)
  • SLURLs are now clickable with an ability to teleport.
  • Avatar maturity can be changed via the Settings → Maturity tab.
  • The Avatars page (dashboard) now displays the current location of your avatars.
The location of your avatar(s) is now listed on the Avatar dashboard page

3D World View Updates:

  • Walk auto-pilot: right-click or long touch on device screen at location to the walked to, then select Walk Here from the pop-up menu.
  • In-world object interaction (Touch): right-click or long touch object, and select Touch from the pop-up menu.
  • Revised interface for the world view, with improved rendering.
  • Gold 3D Word View Updates:
    • While in low-poly mode, touch any object to load a high LOD model.
    • Holding ALT+mouse will rotate camera around avatar (as with a viewer).
    • On-screen joystick can be turned on in 3D settings.
    • Stick avatars size adjusted to fit with real avatars in preparation for avatar rendering).

The core updates noted above further tune Speedlight’s ability to meet with many use-cases for those needing to access SL while away from a full viewer. As noted last time around, however, my personal view is that the 3D world view remains hit-and-miss – even on my PC using a browser, objects frequently fail to fully render and avatar movement can be unpredictable.

Whether this is just done to my being Basic / have a bad connection to the rendering pre-processing server, I’ve no idea; but if these issues are more endemic, then perhaps they might suggest that more more needs to be tweaked before full-scale avatar rendering is attempted.

In the meantime, Speedlight can be run via any browser via the Speedlight Website, or downloaded from either Google Play or the Apple Store (fee payble for the latter, with automatic Gold lifetime subscription).

2021 viewer release summaries week #8

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

Updates for the week ending Sunday, February 28th

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

  • Current release viewer: Project Jelly viewer (Jellydoll updates), version 6.4.13.555567 and dated February 5th, 2021, promoted February 17th – NEW.
  • Release channel cohorts:
    • Love Me Render (LMR) 5 viewer updated to version 6.4.14.556118 on February 23rd.
    • Simple Cache project viewer updated to version 6.4.14.556088 on February 22nd (dated February 19th).
  • Project viewers:
    • No updates.

LL Viewer Resources

Third-party Viewers

V6-style

V1-style

Mobile / Other Clients

  • Lightsight – currently unavailable on Google Play; at the time of writing, it is unclear if this is temporary or permanent.

Additional TPV Resources

Related Links

A touch of Orange at Feint and Bone in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
Feint and Bone: Livio Korobase – Orange

Feint and Bone is the name of a new centre for artistic expression within Second Life that opened on Monday, March 1st, 2021. Operated by Flower Rainforest and Tarhai Breen, the facility covers a homestead region, and is curated by Bryn Oh, with Installations within it intended to run for three months at a time. For the opening – which was deliberately without fanfare – Feint and Bone presents Livio Korobase.

Orange is another of Livio’s region-wide installations that is both visually engaging and mentally stimulating, one in which the broader environment settings and the audio stream play as important a role as what is to be found within the setting.

Orange is the sacral chakra colour … composed of red and yellow in equal parts, and it is a colour of vitality and strength. Just as the sacral chakra is located in the pelvic area, orange is the area of our gut feelings and wisdom. Buddhists call this “hara”, the centre of being through which we connect with the deepest voice of the self, the deepest stillness and wisdom; this is where we find bliss.
Orange energy is very sensual. Living a life guided by orange colour transforms even the most mundane daily experiences into pleasurable experiences … [It] stands for creativity, growth, learning, pleasure; a sense of vitality and aliveness.

– Livio describing his installation at Feint and Bone

Feint and Bone: Livio Korobase – Orange

Thus, visitors are asked to ensure they use the region’s environment setting (World → Environment → Use Shared Environment) and enable the local audio stream in order to be fully immersed in the installation.

As with many of Livio’s installations, Orange makes full use of the available space both on the ground and over it, presenting a series of vignettes and individual pieces that await discovery as you explore the region, the orange colour helping to ensure individual details only become apparent as you do so, rather than being immediately revealed through a high Draw Distance setting.

Feint and Bone: Livio Korobase – Orange

What awaits explorers is is highly individualistic, delightfully interactive and quintessentially Livio.

Each vignette has something to offer, visually and through simple touch – be it climbing a gigantic giraffe’s neck, riding a levitating acrobatic rocking horse or wandering toy train, or rocking on a a dance floor. Throughout the entire installation there is vitality and life entirely in keeping with the artist’s statement on the colour orange, encouraging us to abandon ourselves to the energy of the colour and the installation.

There is something else here as well that reflects the theme of orange. As Livio notes, the colour represents creativity, and this is very much reflected throughout the installation, be it the representation of music and dance, references to the silver screen (look for Buck Rogers’ rocket ship), children’s tales (find the teleports to the cube trees), or human ingenuity (the Wright Brothers biplane, a rocket) and more besides. And if you visit with friends, you can all even hop into bumper cars and have fun that way.

Feint and Bone: Livio Korobase – Orange

The low-key opening for both the region and Orange has been deliberate because Livio tends to let his installations evolve, making changes here and there, presenting a living experience. So why not hop over to Feint and Bone and let your inner child out for some run around fun whilst taking in Livio’s unique art? And make a note of the SLurl for future visits.

SLurl Details