Category: Second Life

2020 CCUG meeting week #40 summary: UI proposal; Agni Uplift news

Posted on by Inara Pey
Chapel Imagination, August 2020 – 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, October 1st 2020 at 13:00 SLT. These meetings are chaired by Vir Linden, and agenda notes, meeting SLurl, etc, are are available on the Content Creation User Group wiki page.

Content Creation Related SL Viewers

EEP Fixes

As noted in my viewer release summary for the week and my SUG meeting summary, the EEP fixes have been promoted to de facto release status with the issuing and promotion of the Love Me Render (LMR) #4 viewer (version 6.4.9.549455, at the time of writing).

Mesh Uploader

  • As a result of the EEP fixes release, the Mesh Uploader was merged to the release code, with version 6.4.10.549686,  issued on Thursday, October 1st.
  • If there are no significant problems with this version of the viewer, it is likely to be the next  viewer to be promoted to de facto release status. There is some debate as to whether this will occur in week #41, or if LL will hold off for a week in order to not make three back-to-back promotions in as many weeks.

Jelly Dolls Project Viewer

  • The Jellydoll Project viewer also merged up to the current release code, with version 6.4.10.549690 issued on October 1st.

New Maintenance RC Viewer

  • A new Maintenance RC viewer, coded named Cachaça, was issued on October 1st. Among other things, version 6.4.10.549752 includes several more EEP fixes and also some fixes for CEF.

Viewer UI Improvements

Steeltoe Linden, who handles most (/all) for the work around the viewer UI attended the meeting in what was billed as potentially the start of a semi-regular appearance in order to discuss viewer UI updates that the Lab is considering.

  • For the first session, he raised what was referred to as a “trivial” change: offering a new inventory icon for HUDs.
  • Instead of showing HUDs as an object cube, the idea is to show it as a distinct icon type – the example being a cog-like icon, in order to make HUDs more easily recognisable when scanning Inventory folders.
  • This icon would also be visible in the Outfit and Received Items panels.
The proposal UI change to distinguish HUD items from other objects in inventory.Left: how things are now, with HUDs using the same cube icon as other objects. Right: the proposed new HUD cog icon.
  • The viewer would use the HUD attach point (stored with the object data)  to identify HUDs as such, and so display the icon.
  • It was noted that this could (allowing for trying to remember all of the icon types) pave the way for items that attach directly to the avatar have a unique icon type.
  • One suggestion at the meeting was to also add HUDs as a distinct option when filtering inventory, and Steeltoe indicated he has already ask one of the viewer engineers to look into this.
    • However, he noted that filtering works on object type, rather than attachment location, so it would require an additional layer of code for filters to distinguish attachments like HUDs from other objects.  This might make filtering for things like HUDs too computationally expensive.
  • Overall, the response from those at the meeting was positive.

Proposed Bakes on Mesh Improvement: llWearFromInventoryTemp

  • This is a proposal by Rider Linden that has been filed as a feature request – BUG-229423 to allow public comment / feedback.
  • It is aimed primarily for Bakes on Mesh (BOM), but may have wider applications.
  • The basic idea is defined within the feature request:
Mesh bodies used a system of alpha cuts to hide parts of the body that should be obscured by clothing. Alpha cuts were originally controlled through a HUD associated with the body. Clothing creators and body vendors then developed a system to automatically turn some of these alpha cuts on and off through a script in the clothing item.
BOM provides no similar mechanism. In order to hide parts of the body, the users must search through their inventory for an appropriate alpha layer and attach it or add it to the outfit manually.
This function will allow clothing creators to create BoM enabled clothing without forcing their consumers to search for the appropriate alpha layer.
  • So essentially, it would be a scripted function clothing makers could use to ensures that when a clothing layer is utilised in BOM, the appropriate alpha is also applied, and similarly, when the item is no longer being worn, the alpha is automatically detached.
  • Due to the way SL is configured, this would only apply to the Clothing object type (skin, hair, eyes, and shape would be excluded, as only one of each of these can be worn at any time, so trying to deal with what happens to these wearing / removing, if they were included in the system becomes complicated and potentially conflicting.
    • If you wear clothing that have a shape associated with it, the function could end up removing the clothing *and* the shape, leaving your avatar a cloud, for example.
  • Currently, the idea is only under consideration – and if feasible, any work on it would not occur until after the cloud uplift work has been completed.
  • This approach would also offer an alternative approach to part of the idea put forward by Cathy Foil at the last CCUG meeting, which would require LL to adopt elements of the RLV / RLVa code base.
  • Precisely how the capability would be implemented is still to be determined; there is some antithesis to having a script directly access an agent’s inventory (as RLV / RLVa can do, using the #RLV folder), so the precise functionality might focus more on being driven by script within an attachment (such as a HUD)  or even added to the clothing layer itself (if I am understanding Rider correctly – although I don’t know how this would work in practice).
    • A  negative seen with the RLV / RLVa approach is that it dictates how items that it is to access are organised (through the #RLV folder tree), which in turn places constraints on the freedom users have to organise their inventory as they would prefer.
    • Further, given that people do organise their inventories differently to one another, having a  script that accesses inventory directly means that it must somehow be able to determine where and how within their individual inventories users have organised and placed  clothing layers and alphas.

Main Grid Regions in the Cloud

Publicly-accessible regions on the main grid (Agni) have been quietly appearing. As far as I know, these are predominantly Linden-owned regions – such as Hippotropolis, used for various in-work user group meetings (although I would suspect any private region holders who may have their regions running on AWS to be potentially subject to an NDA  or similar, in order to avoid LL being inundated with requests for regions to be uplifted).

Spotting a region hosted in the cloud via Help About. Left: a region hosted at the Lab’s co-location facility (note the agni.lindenlab.com in the address). Right: and a region running on a simulator in the cloud,  using an AWS address.

Patch Linden also posted a forum update on a number of topics (the availability of Linden Stilt homes, the work in partnering with various organisations with in-world events, for example), which included a reiteration of the Lab’s view that the Uplift project is proceeding well, and the work should hopefully be completed by the end of the year.

Date of Next Meeting

  • Thursday, October 15th, 2020.

 

Dya’s Southern Twilight in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
Dya’s Southern Twilight, October 2020

We received an invitation from Dya OHare to visit the latest iteration of her region builds, “We’re not so far from the Caribbean,” she said, referencing her last design I covered in these pages (see Dya’s Scent of the Caribbean in Second Life). “I’ve tried to show a bit of the Southern Life and I hope you like it.”

So off we hopped to see Dya’s Southern Twilight, a place that presents a rich mix of southern American life in the form of aspects of New Orleans together with sights that might be found in Mississippi and Louisiana. This sounds a lot to cover in a single region, but Dya does a good job of mixing multiple aspects of these states and the Crescent City, with touches that suggest the era of the 1930s-1940s – although it could just as easily be a modern setting.

Dya’s Southern Twilight, October 2020

The region is diagonally split by a river running from the north-east to the south-west, representative of the Mississippi itself. The landing point sides on the north bank of the river, on a road that serves a built-up area suggesting the older parts of New Orleans. Here can be found multiple places of business, side streets with cobbled surfaces and tram tracks, a place where street urchins play (or perhaps whisper plans to hop a tram whilst avoiding the fare), and an open air café awaits patrons.

Also to be found on this side of the river is a touch of the city’s French Quarter. This takes the form of a street overlooked by wrought iron guarded balconies draped with flags, with more fluttering from short poles leaning out from the railing tops. Lights strung across the street help illuminate it, together with the signs for the local bar and the hotel, whilst the end of the street is awash in colours that splashes over aged whitewashed walls from two tall street lamps.

Dya’s Southern Twilight, October 2020

This built-up area is bracketed by sights often associated with New Orleans in film and television: a paddle steamer moored on the river, and a cemetery complete with family mausoleums. For the romantics, one of the Crescent City’s white horse-drawn carriages sits at the roadside as well.

The south side of the river has a small harbour area that connects it to the north side with the assistance of a girder bridge of the kind seen along to Mississippi, but also opens out to contain a suggestion of the bayou, complete with trees rising from misty waters, with cabins potted in the open spaces.

Dya’s Southern Twilight, October 2020

Separated from the bayou by shrubs and dense foliage sits one of the grand old plantation houses associated with the southern states. Set back from the riverside road, it rises from the end of a long footpath, the front door open to invite visitors into the partially furnished interior. Horses graze in the field alongside the the house, whilst a tall hedge guards a small, neat garden to the rear, which also has access to a local beach.

Rich in detail with plenty to discover, appreciate and photograph, Dya’s Southern Twilight continues Dya’s tradition in creating engaging locations for people to visit.

Dya’s Southern Twilight, October 2020

Our thanks also to Shawn Shakespeare for the LM.

SLurl Details

 

October’s Haunted Hollow in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
via Elite Equestrian and Seanchai library

The season of Haunts and Things That Go Bump In The Night is once again upon us, bring with it plenty to do across the grid. Two groups that are offering a themed quarter-region and events throughout the month are friends of this blog, Elite Equestrian and Seanchai Library, who are jointly presenting Haunted Hollow to one and all.

Once Upon a Time there was an Enchanted Hollow somewhere between the Hudson River Valley and the land of the Brothers Grimm. It was here, under the glow of the Hunter’s Moon, that the tales gathered. They settled in as cooling breezes whirled the falling leaves, nestling between the autumnal heights and that place where the brook waters blend with the salty sea. Mind your step! In the centuries between this moment and when these stories were born, some few of them may have begun to twist, just a very little.

The introduction to Haunted Hollow

Highlights of the event include:

  • A treasure hunt.
  • Skeleton pony companion give-aways.
  • Free Bird’s annual live trick or treat event.
  • Sotrytelling and tales with Seanchai Library.
  • Music events, and more!

Seanchai Library bring tales for the season throughout the month with a programme featuring (all times SLT):

  • 13:30, October 4th, 11th, 18th (Sundays) – Tea Time with The Shadow: tales from the classic radio series, originally featuring the voice of Orson Welles (1937-1938).
  • 19:00, October 7th and 28th (Wednesdays – The Halloween Tree: episodes 1 and 4 respectively of Ray Bradbury’s fantasy novel tracing the history of Samhain and Halloween through the tale of a group of trick or treating boys.
  • 13:00, Saturday, October 17th – Baba Yaga: Caledonia Skytower reads tales of the supernatural being (or a trio of sisters of the same name) of Slavic folklore, who may help or hinder those that encounter her or seek her out, as she appears in assorted roles.
  • 13:00, Saturday, October 24th – The Witch’s Headstone: Caledonia Skytower reads Neil Gaiman’s short story that originally formed the 3rd Chapter of The Graveyard Book, the story of Bod (short for Nobody), the boy raised by the ghosts of a graveyard, and which has also been published as a short story in its own right.
  • 13:30, Sunday, October 25th: Tales of Washington Irving: Seanchai present tales penned by the essayist, biographer, historian, and diplomat who is best known for his short stories, including The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.
Haunted Hollow 2020

The treasure hunt runs through the entire month and starts at the landing point – just click the cauldron or the board behind it for hint, and start seeking out the places within the hollow that are hinted at. There are thirteen locations to find, with prizes awaiting those who take the hunt.

Visitors are also invited to ride the Hollow’s skeleton horses and ponies – simply click on the rezzer boards and make your choice of horse or pony and ride the trails. Rides are available throughout the event, and random (and changing) gifts are offer throughout. In addition, the rides will be opened on three days of the month when registered riders can participate and have the chance to receive a special Animesh, rideable pony-sized skeleton. These special rides will take place as follows (all times SLT):

  • 08:00-09:30, Saturday, October 10th.
  • 17:00-18:30, Friday October 16th.
  • 18:00-19:30, Saturday October 24th.

The Live Trick or Treat events will include a tour of the homes in the hollow – participants are asked to wear suitable costumes! – and will also feature tarot card readings, music and fun. Details will be made available through the information boards at the landing point, so be sure to keep an eye on it throughout the month!

Haunted Hollow – the Headless Horseman!

As you ride through the Hollow, look out for the shoe-like Witch’s House, where spells and potions might be found; and there’s the hut of the Baba Yaga – what might she offer to you? But use caution, as you might note from the surroundings, not all who arrive actually leave…  And while your name may not include “Ickabod” or “Crane”, you will nevertheless come across the Headless Horseman!

Climb the trails and you’ll find the Story Teller’s Ledge, where tales might be heard and music and dancing enjoyed. Further up, and the Fairy Tale Tower awaits. Run by a skeleton crew, its rooms have nevertheless been rented out by the characters of assorted tales.  Could that be Cinderella’s glass slippers left in the tower’s hall, her pumpkin coach carelessly parked alongside? And just who might that mirror, mirror on the wall belong to – take  care after looking into it that you don’t prick you finger on the needle of the spinning wheel left in the middle of the room, or you might be staying at the tower longer than intended!

Whatever your Halloween treats might be, Haunted Hollow may well offer them to enjoy together with its own tricks. So why not pull out your favourite ghostly look or horrorly costume and drop in throughout October to join the fun?

SLurl Details

Second place for STÖMOL at digital film festival

Posted on by Inara Pey
From STÖMOL

STÖMOL, the feature-length science-fiction move produced entire in Second Life, has been awarded second place in the 2020 SUPERNOVA Digital Film Festival.

The film, written, directed, produced and starring Huckleberry Hax, together with Caitlin Tobias, Ylva, Boudicca Amat, Anthony Wesburn and Mich Michabo in leading roles, was one of a number of entries to the festival that were wholly filmed in Second Life and which were open to viewing on-line throughout the festival’s almost month-long run.

The film gained numerous plaudits from those at the festival for its style, content, story arc and composition, including founder and Creative Director Ivar Zeile. It was runner-up to #21XOXO, “a stylized window into the zeitgeist of youth and pop culture,” by Sine Ozblige, and earned a prize of US $750 for Huckleberry and his team.

I was stunned when I watched STÖMOL for the first time. I’ve seen some Second Life animations – we’ve really supported artists that are working in that platform over the years – and I didn’t believe I was going to be taken by a feature length film made in Second Life, but Huckleberry absolutely delivered the goods.

Ivar Zeile, Supernova founder and Creative Director

Very special and deserved congratulations to Huckleberry and his team for STÖMOL’s runner-up status at the festival, it was well deserved. I hope that – as nerve racking as entering this festival was to him – this award will spur Huckleberry to continue filming, and we will get to see the sequel and the answers to the question posed by the film’s end credits (nope, not going  to spoil it for those who haven’t seen it! – but if you are interested, my own review of the film can be found in Second Life’s STÖMOL: a review).

Other pieces filmed in Second Life and featured in the festival were machinima by Erik Mondrian, and a piece by Tizzy Canncci.

Erik had a total of three pieces accepted by the festival, comprising his CalArts Master of  Fine Arts thesis For the Light of Other Shores, a marvellous 10-part series, selected for the Director’s Choice programme of the festival; together with Tripping through Skyscrapers, his video journey through Gem Preiz’s Skycrapers installation ,and Cetatea Poenari, recording a visit to the region of the same name, and both of which featured in the festival’s Everything Abstract-Sonic programme.

For her entry, Tizzy submitted Out of Isolation Came Forth Light, a recording of a performance by artist SaveMe Oh that took place in CapCat Ragu’s installation entitled Isolation, displayed at Ribong Gallery’s Artspace 1789.

I’d also like to offer my congratulations to Tizzy and Erik for entering their work for the festival. I know that Erik had a certain amount of trepidation in making his submissions, but his work  – which I have the privilege to be able to discuss with him and write about (see Erik Mondrian: master of fine arts in and beyond Second Life) as well as follow via You Tube – full deserves recognition through a wider audience.

Film Links

Milly Sharple’s Meanderings in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
Meanderings: Milly Sharple at The Janus Gallery

Milly Sharple is a remarkable artist, creator and patron of the arts in Second Life. An artist and photographer in the physical world, she has always enjoyed art and artistic expression, particularly that of fractal art, a technique she started using in 2005.  It’s a medium in which she has gained deserved recognition: she has sold pieces around the globe, had them used as book and CD cover art and as promotional material, and has had her work used on the face of the bank cards issued by an Indonesian bank. Her work has even brought her to the attention of Salvador Dali’s protégé, Louis Markoya, who asked her to collaborate with him.

Milly was perhaps one of the first artists to bring fractal art to Second Life after she joined in 2008. Gaining familiarity with the platform, it became a place where she understandably wanted to exhibit her work, and following her initial exhibitions, she started receiving multiple invitations to display her work. She thus became immersed in the Second Life arts community, establishing her own gallery and also the Timamoon Arts Community, a place where artists could find a gallery home and like minds, and over the course of four years, she grew Timamoon into one of the most successful arts communities in Second Life.

Meanderings: Milly Sharple at The Janus Gallery

For her incredible and expressive fractal art, Milly uses the Apophysis software package, which allows her to create soft, flowing, liquid effects that sets her work apart from other, more rigidly geometric fractal art with which we might be familiar as it is displayed in Second Life. This approach gives her work a stunningly organic look and feel, rich in life and often encompassing the intricate beauty of the Mandelbrot set.

However, Milly is not constrained to only producing fractal art; as a mixed media artist her expressive range is broad and deep – and I have long been an admirer of this aspect of her work as much as I am her fractal art. Indeed, I’m honoured to be able to have a copy of what I regard as one of the most engaging pieces of art in my modest personal collection -her  Woman with Cat – hanging on the wall at our SL home. As  with her fractal work, Milly’s mixed media art couples a rich use of colour with an etching-like finish to bring individual pieces to life in the most incredible manner.

Meanderings: Milly Sharple at The Janus Gallery

I mention all of this because Milly has a new exhibition of work currently being hosted at Chuck Clip’s Janus Gallery, which opened on September 27th.

Meanderings brings together all of the above elements of Milly’s art and adds to it with a selection of her black-and-white portrait studies in a captivating microcosm of her talent. On display are seven large-format fractal pieces (with the patterns of two repeated on benches in the gallery’s two halls, and a third mirrored and inverted in the foyer that so blends with the décor, it might easily be overlooked), eight monochrome portraits and eight mixed-media pieces that are – without being in any way superlative – utterly stunning.

These latter pieces bring together all aspects of Milly’s art: her fractal work, her skills as a portrait artist and her  expressiveness as a mixed media creator; there is a richness of life about them that is utterly absorbing, Similarly, the depth of life in the black-and-white portraits cannot fail to hold the eye; these are pieces that, whether inspired by real people or their images, or have been drawn entirely from Milly’s imagination, not only capture the likeness of the subject, but offer a very real sense of their life essence. Further, these monochrome pieces share a strong sense of narrative flow that can also be found within each of the mixed media pieces, thus presenting a thematic thread to connect them, whilst their arrangement around two of the much larger (and richly organic) fractal pieces offers a natural visual connection to them.

Meanderings: The Mystic and The Flirt (with its hint of Kate Bush) two of the entrancing mixed media pieces presented by Milly at The Janus Gallery
Taken together the three styles of art present within Meanderings offer a rewarding introduction to Milly’s art for those unfamiliar with it whilst also offering a unique thematic and narrative flow through the differing mediums, making this both an engaging and outstanding exhibition.

SLurl Details

2020 Simulator User Group week #40 summary

Posted on by Inara Pey
Swan, July 2020 – blog post

The following notes were taken from the September 29th Simulator User Group meeting – although there is not a lot in practical terms to report, the meeting largely given over to another music event.

Simulator Deployments

Please refer to the server deployment thread for news and updates. However, there are currently no planned deployments for week #40.

SL Viewer

The Love Me Render #4 RC  viewer, version 6.4.9.549455, containing only fixes for EEP issues was issues on September 24th, and promoted to release status on Monday, September 28th.

In addition, the previous iteration of the Lover Me Render viewer, version 6.4.8.547427, was withdrawn. This leaves the remaining official viewer pipelines as:

  • Release channel cohorts:
    • Mesh uploader RC viewer, version 6.4.8.548061, September 8.
  • Project viewers:
    • Project Jelly project viewer (Jellydoll updates), version 6.4.8.547487, issued August 26.
    • Custom Key Mappings project viewer, version 6.4.5.544079, June 30.
    • 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.
    • Legacy Profiles viewer, version 6.3.2.530836, September 17, 2019. Covers the re-integration of Viewer Profiles.
    • 360 Snapshot project viewer, version 6.2.4.529111, July 16, 2019.

Region Performance

There have been a number of reports of region performance issues that appear to be coupled to simulator version 548903. These reportedly manifest as rubber banding when users walk around, viewer-based profiles being very slow to load, estate bans taking about 30 to 45 seconds to take effect, and experiences  not functioning correctly – such as repeatedly asking people who have already joined it to do so. Some have also reported HTTP communications issues. Restarting region apparently resolves these issues initially, but simulator performance starts to degrade once more.

It’s not clear if Jiras have been filed with specifics of the issue, but those Lindens at the meeting were interested in learning more. For my part, I had noticed an increase in the time taken to load viewer-based profiles of late, but as this has generally happened in “busy” regions, I’ve assumed it is the general load on resources, rather than indicative of a potential broader issue.