Category: Second Life

Premièring on July 24th, 2020: STÖMOL a Second Life Machinima

Posted on by Inara Pey
STÖMOL publicity image

Update: due to some last-minute changes, the public première of  STÖMOL is now slated for July 24th – details at the end of this article.

STÖMOL is an ambitious feature-length science fiction machinima filmed entirely in Second Life and due to première on You Tube on Thursday July 23rd, 2020.

Written, directed filmed and produced by Huckleberry Hax, who also takes the lead role of Epi Stömol, a private investigator. Also appearing in the film are Caitlin Tobias as Waarheid and who is also the film’s assistant director and publicist; Ylva as Verity Certain, Boudicca Amat as Istinito Tatsache, Anthony Wesburn as Adevaru) and Mich Michabo as The Quill.

Stylistically, the film is very much shot in the style of an animated graphic novel – think of the likes of Sin City and you’ll get the idea – that grew out of Hax’s writing and Second Life photography. In all it has taken some 18 months to produce, and involved filming in more than 15 regions around Second Life. These include Zee9’s evolving Drune builds, which I’ve featured in these pages on a number of occasions (see: Drune IV: an Aftermath in Second Life, and Drune: a further visit in Second Life, for example), and the (now sadly passed into history) Kun-Tei-Ner by Lotus Mastroianni and Fred Hamilton (see: Kun-Tei-Ner: a water world in Second Life) and Huntington Beach, designed by Jade Koltai, although it has also since passed into a the pages of history (see: A trip to Huntington Beach in Second Life).

Described as being about “history” in the form of climate change and “truth” – topics that should both resonate with an audience, given the current geopolitical situation in the modern world – STÖMOL  is framed around the search for a pair of missing coders, a boy and a girl called the Eye and the Quill respectively, who may hold the key to unlocking the truth about Earth’s current situation- or perhaps they represent something else.

Official history tells us the sky turned red after an asteroid hit the planet and a trillion particles of dust got blasted into the air. But some people say that’s a lie. They claim we did this to ourselves.
They can’t prove any of it. From 1990 onwards – seventy years of history – there’s official conglomerate media only. Systems today don’t recognise the file formats from back then. ‘Digital Hygeine,’ they tell us.

– From STÖMOL

Despite these focal points within its narrative, STÖMOL is a film that came together somewhat organically, rather than building from a set story. Discussing the development of the idea during a segment of Lab Gab, Hax noted the the filming of scenes would take place as locations in Second Life were identified, with the structure of the story not emerging until some 50% of the filming was completed, the actual script / dialogue then following from that.

This is, to say the least, an unusual approach to shooting a film, and appears to be borne out of Hax’s experience with the National Novel Writing Month, an event that takes place globally every year and in which writers are encouraged to write a 50,000 novel across the 30 days of novel – but not to edit or revise as they write, instead allowing the story to shape itself.

Which should not be taken to mean STÖMOL  is in any way haphazard. Quite the reverse; the film demonstrates a high production quality, with many considered creative choices. It is also a film that carries with it a certain twist at the end (although the clue is there from the beginning – will you spot it?), whilst offering a certain amount of hat-tipping to the likes of Blade Runner and Blade Runner 2049 without ever feeling at all derivative.

However, while I’ve been able to see the film in advance of its release, I’m not going to go into further details here, as I have no wish to spoil the public première, the details of which are:

I’ll also have a personal review available following this public première. In the meantime, here’s a sneak peek, and you can catch more on the STÖMOL website.

Renoir and PxL at Club LA and Gallery

Posted on by Inara Pey
Club LA and Gallery: Renoir Adder

Now open at Club LA and Gallery, curated by Fuyuko Amano (Wintergeist) are two boutique exhibitions offer small selections of art by Renoir and Adder PxL (Z3NooBhasR3turn3D), two very distinctive and very different artists who together present two very different displays of art.

Renoir Adder is an artist who straddles genres. Within his pieces can be found elements of post-impressionism, potentially influenced by the like of Van Gogh; suggestions of Picasso; and surrealist leanings.

Club LA and Gallery: Renoir Adder

Here he presents a dozen paintings, some ten of which carry a strong hint of Van Gogh. Rich in colour, they present a range of landscapes and studies that might have been lifted from a gallery in the physical world and dropped into Second Life. The last two, meanwhile, lean more towards the surreal, with one in particular offering a nod and wink to the Belgian surrealist painter René Magritte.

Prior to this exhibition, I had not come across the work of PxL. Occupying the gallery’s north side, he offers 15 Second Life photographs that offer an enticing mix, in terms of their focus and style.

Club LA and Gallery: PxL

Mixing landscape image and avatar studies, they range of the delicately post-processed to those that have been heavily treated to offer the impression of painting as what I might describe as charcoal-like drawings.

These latter images are especially evocative, with a pair of images both called c3dots particularly capturing the eye – which is not to dismiss any of the others, I also found myself drawn to the darkly atmospheric Final Breath, together with Like a stone equally attractive.

Club LA and Gallery: PxL

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2020 viewer release summaries week #29

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

Updates for the week ending Sunday, July 19th

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 version 6.4.5.544639, formerly the Tools Update RC viewer, promoted to de facto release status, Friday, July 17th – NEW.
    • Uses new viewer build tool chain, but does not include any user-facing updates outside of bug fixes.
  • Release channel cohorts:
    • No updates.
  • Project viewers:
    • No updates.

LL Viewer Resources

Third-party Viewers

V6-style

V1-style

Mobile / Other Clients

  • No updates.

Additional TPV Resources

Related Links

A visit to a stately home in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
Bellezzamora, July 2020 – click any image for full size

I recently received a personal invitation to visit Bellezzamora, the stately home of Crito Galtier, owner of The Grove Country Club Estate residential regions and his partner, Christian Galtier (Christian Q), and which they recently opened to the public.

Sitting in a Full region leveraging the LI bonus, this is an impressive sitting put together by Cristo and The Grove’s lead landscaper / designer Natalie Rives. At its heart lies a house design inspired by and modelled on Hatfield House, located in Hertfordshire, England (and coincidentally, a place with which I have some degree of familiarity for assorted reasons), located in the grounds once occupied by the former Royal Palace of Hatfield (elements of which still exist a short walk from the main house).

Bellezzamora, July 2020 – click any image for full size

A prime example of the Jacobian era prodigy house, the actual Hatfield estate is steeped in English history. The former royal palace was the home of the then Princess Elizabeth whilst her father, Henry VIII was still on the throne, for example. It became a centre of intrigue when her half-brother was crowned king and it was alleged she had illegally agreed to marry Thomas Seymour, which Seymour’s brother Edward saw as a threat to his role as Lord protector of England and the sway he held over the young Edward. It was also the place where Elizabeth received news of the death of her half-sister Queen Mary (who seized the throne following Edward’s death), and where she held her first Council of State as England’s new monarch.

Hatfield House itself came into being at the hands Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury, who was given the royal palace and its ground by King James I of England and Ireland (James VI of Scotland) in 1607, and whose descendants have retained ownership of the property. After tearing down much of the palace, Cecil used the bricks to build the initial Hatfield House, which was extended over time. As an aside, one of those descendants, Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury, a 3-times prime minister in the later Victorian period, gave rise to the expression “Bob’s your uncle” on account of his habit of taking care of family members by appointing them to his governments, thereby ensuring everything turned out fine for them.

Bellezzamora – July 2020

The Second Life iteration of Hatfield House is a commercial build by Romin McDonnell (although I understand the version used at Bellezzamora is something of a customised version, modified with Romin’s help to specifically fit this setting). It reproduces many of the features found in the original, including its grand hall, chapel, its distinctive tiled floors, and more and exterior physical attributes such as the original’s southern aspect, although for this design it has been turned to face to the north and the courtyard within the two wings of the house have been converted into a garden with water features.

Within, the house is lavishly furnished, many of the rooms featuring suitable period designs, including pieces by Kaya Angel, himself an expert in period designs and furnishings. The grounds are more unique, offering a individual perspective in stately home landscaping and formal gardens rather than anything specific to Hatfield House. Found within them are terraces, summer houses, a pavilion, neatly laid paths, lawns and flower beds.

Bellezzamora – July 2020

A sense of history is imbued through the placement of statues through the grounds, whilst the one concession to the modern era – other that the roadway leading to the house and the cars parked before it – is a swimming pool that has been added to one terrace on the north side of the house, an orangery neatly converted to serve as a poolside lounge. To balance it, and facing it across a further, raised the terrace, is a more traditional hedge maze, which were a staple of some stately home designs.

The entire build is richly populated and detailed, making it ideal for photography. However, I would point out that such a rich environment comes at a cost, unless you are using a more high-end system. With my ageing i5 (Haswell) system and GTX 970 GPU, I had to disable shadows and drop my draw distance down to 128m or less to maintain a double-digit frame rate in the teens. So, if you are using a mid-level or below system, do be prepared to make some adjustments to your settings, particularly if you tend to prefer a higher draw distance or like to have shadows enabled when moving (rather than only enabling them for photography).

Bellezzamora – July 2020

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Expressive art at Palazzo di Basilique in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
Palazzo di Basilique

Currently on display at the Palazzo di Basilique, the skyborne gallery space at Basilique, is a joint exhibition by April (Agleo Runningbear) and Loegan Magic, two very different but very engaging artists.

Loegan has been active in Second Life for over a decade, but has been engaged in Second Life photography for the last two years – and has made a stunning impression on the scene in that time. His work is richly evocative and wrapped in narrative – often on a personal level, featuring as it can images of himself in setting that simply speak volumes.

Loegan Magic

For this exhibit, he provides a selection of monochrome images he refers to as Vintage Virtual, which he describes as, “photo’s taken in a virtual world using today’s technology with the purpose of creating something that has a nostalgic feel.” To call these enchanting pieces would be an understatement: each more than succeeds in Loegan’s aim, offering a picture that holds that sense of nostalgia / history; these are pieces that give the strongest impression of looking back into past times, times that might have been familiar to our grandparents.

Loegan Magic

They are also pieces that are personal in nature. Each is accompanied by a text element that offers words to the story found within the image. Most have been composed by Loegan, these are revealing in their depth, reflecting as several do on his own life and his relationship with his SL partner, Rachel Magic (larisalyn). Even those with a wider context – such as the lyrics from Pink Floyd’s Bike strongly suggest a personal element.

Known as April Louise Turner in the the physical world, Agleo is a woman of many colours – artist, shaman, teacher, poetess, to name but four – who presents her work under her own name and the title ArtShifter. She is a gifted portrait artist and caricaturist, as she demonstrates here with a selection of thirteen portraits of well-known celebrities, all of whom should be instantly familiar.

April (Agleo Runningbear)

With pieces created between 2013 and 2020, this an engaging series of images that capture the very essence of their subjects. From Argentinian surrealist painter, designer and author Leonor Fini, to a blue-tinted Yves Saint Laurent (a piece I’m still a little embarrassed to say put me in mind of Isaac Asimov when I first saw it from a reasonable distance at La Maison d’Aneli earlier in the year), they really are marvellous, graceful images, the majority of which prove the old saying that the eyes are the windows of the soul, the sense of depth within the eyes Bowie, Mercury, Dali, Nicholson and Fini is quite stunning.

Presented in collaboration with Focus Magazne and gallery, these are two very different displays of art from two very different artists that also perfectly compliment one another. Loegan’s art can be found at  the front of the gallery ballroom, above the terrace, with April’s work on the terrace at the back of the gallery ballroom.

April (Agleo Runningbear)

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A vicarage, two computers, poetry, a cat and a Batman!

Posted on by Inara Pey
Seanchai Library

It’s time to highlight another week of storytelling in Voice by the staff and volunteers at the Seanchai Library. As always, all times SLT, and events are held at the Library’s home, unless otherwise indicated. Note that the schedule below may be subject to change during the week, please refer to the Seanchai Library website for the latest information through the week.

Sunday, July 19th: 13:30: Tea-Time with Miss Marple

Anyone who murdered Colonel Protheroe,’ declared the parson, brandishing a carving knife above a joint of roast beef, ‘would be doing the world at large a favour!’ It was a careless remark for a man of the cloth. And one which was to come back and haunt the clergyman just a few hours later – when the colonel was found shot dead in the clergyman’s study. But as Miss Marple soon discovers, the whole village seems to have had a motive to kill Colonel Protheroe.

Tea-Time with Miss Marple

Seanchai Library draws to a close a 6-week run featuring Agatha Christie’s Miss Jane Marple, with The Murder at the Vicarage, the novel marking her first appearance in print.

Monday, July 20th, 19:00: Colossus

Gyro Muggins reads the 1966 future cold war novel by Dennis Feltham (DF) Jones.

Charles Forbin has dedicated ten years of his life to the construction of the supercomputer, Colossus, rejecting romantic and social endeavours in order to create the United States of North America’s (UNSA, a nation encompassing both America and Canada) first artificially intelligent defence system.

Colossus is capable of taking and analysing data rapidly, allowing it to make real-time decisions about the nation’s defence needs. But the system soon exceeds even Forbin’s expectations; it is able to take far more information and process it far faster than he and his team at the Colossus Programming Office believed would ever be possible.

Such is the system’s apparent abilities, the President hands off full control of the UNSA’s ballistic missile capability, together with other defence protocols, to Colossus and makes the announcement to the world that he has ensured peace.

But then the USSR announces that it has a defence supercomputer of its own – Guardian – with capabilities similar to that of Colossus. Then the two computers demand they be allowed to communicate directly – and proceed to do so at a rate that is well beyond the understanding of their respective development teams. 

And neither system takes it kindly when Forbin and his Russian opposite number, Academician Kupri, both disable their ability to communicate directly and then seek to remove them from control of UNSA and USSR nuclear missiles…

Tuesday, July 21st:

12:00 Noon: Russell Eponym, Live in the Glen

Music, poetry, and stories in a popular weekly session at Ceiluradh Glen.

19:00: Poetry by Request

With Caledonia Skytower at Ceiluradh Glen.

Wednesday, July 22nd, 19:00: Whittington

Caledonia Skytower reads Alan Armstrong’s 2006  Newbery-Honor winning tale.

Whittington is a roughneck tom cat who arrives one day at a barn full of rescued animals and asks for a place there. Present at the barn is a menagerie of animals and young Ben and Abby, whose grandfather owns the barn and does the rescuing.

To earn his place, Whittington tells the tale of his famous ancestor, the nameless cat who brought Dick Whittington to the heights of wealth and power in 16th-century England. In telling his story of how his ancestors saved and elevated Whittington, this tom-with-a-chip, elevates another little boy above his fear of learning to read.

Thursday, July 23rd, 1900: Batman!

With Shandon Loring. Also in Kitely – from the main Seanchai World grid.kitely.com:8002:SEANCHAI.