Category: Second Life

Visiting La Maison d’Aneli’s new home in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
La Maison d’Aneli: Eylinea and Desy Magic

La Maison d’Aneli, curated by Aneli Abeyante, relocated mid-year to a new home in the skies of VeGeTal PLaNeT. In making the move, the gallery space has also been redesigned, the former two-level build giving way to a more labyrinthine space that retains the open plan nature of the former venue whilst also making one’s passage through it more interesting by splitting individual display spaces across multiple levels, both “up” and “down” relative to one another, linked by stairways and walkways, together with a number of individual display spaces – all of which work together to encourage exploration and discovery.

At the time of my visit, a new set of exhibitions was due to open on Wednesday, September 18th, featuring work by: Eylinea, Akim Alonzo, Desy Magic, Jolielle Parfort, Megan Prumier, Olympes Rhode, and Moki Yuitza, all of whom present a rich mixing of 2D and 3D art. While all are opening at the same event at 12:30 pm SLT, I have to admit that I was drawn to dropping in ahead of time after receiving personal invitations to see the exhibits by Akim and Moki.

La Maison d’Aneli: Akim Alonzo

Located in one of the individual galley halls, Akim presents The Matrix, a series of images he’s created based around his love of The Matrix movies. While some of them have previously been displayed at Akim’s own gallery (see: Water and a Matrix: reflections on life by Akim Alonzo), I was drawn back to them because of both their captivating nature and because they are so nuanced and layered. Not only do they offer an interpretation of the manifold memes on the shaping of reality as found within the films and as we can create for ourselves within SL; they also present a commentary on identification – that perennial theme common to Second Life -, as I noted back in April when writing about these images:

Within these pictures is a subtle reminder that, no matter how hard we might try to distance self from character within SL, no matter what the roles we play in-world, the backstories we build; the fact remains that facets of our own natures, our own identities, will be impinged on those characters. They are inevitably a projection of self into the virtual. What’s more, their daily encounters and experiences within the virtual realm equally reflect and inform upon our physical selves. Thus, we have a genuinely visceral intertwining between the “real” and the “virtual”.

La Maison d’Aneli: Moki Yuitza

Moki also has one of the individual gallery spaces to present a 3D installation entitled Ascension. This is a mobile piece offering an interpretation of the subject matter title – the ability for us to ascend our current state mentally, spiritually or potentially physically. Beautiful to witness, this is also an interactive piece, with poseballs available for those wishing to participate in the installation.

Within the more open areas of the gallery space, I found myself drawn to Eylinea’s 2D and 3D animated art; this being the first time – at least that I can remember – I’ve seen her work on public display. There are intricate and fascinating, drawing a number of approaches – geometric, fractal, and abstract to produce some fascinating pieces.

La Maison d’Aneli: Jolielle Parfort

When visiting the gallery, I do recommend following a certain order to progress through the exhibits. From the landing point provided, take the stairs (on the left as you look out over the gallery) down to the main hall space to visit the individual exhibition space housing Moki’s Ascension. After this, explore the open spaces on their various levels and the hall containing Akim’s The Matrix, before moving to the final individual hall, home to Jolielle Parfort’s always engaging art drawn from Second Life.

This route doesn’t give any deeper context for the exhibits – each stands on its own merits -, but it will offer a logical path through the gallery and the exit point tucked into the hall featuring Jolielle’s work. From there is is then possible to visit the other exhibition areas around la Maison d’Aneli, including region holder vroum Short’s visually captivating Mirror (which I’ve also previously written about). All of these spaces are equally worthy of a visit, but which will be subject for other articles in this blog.

SLurl and Links

A Spoonful of Sugar 2019 in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
via Spoonful of Sugar

Currently open through until the end of September 29th, is the 2019 Spoonful of Sugar festival, bringing together fashion, home and garden, breedable designers and creators, artists, DJs and live performers to help raise money for Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF).

Also known as Doctors Without Borders, MSF was founded in Paris, France in 1971 as a non-profit, self-governed medical humanitarian organisation delivering emergency aid to people affected by armed conflict, epidemics, natural disasters and exclusion from healthcare around the globe, based on need, irrespective of race, religion, gender or political affiliation.

Since that time, MSF has grown to a movement of 24 associations, bound together as MSF International, based in Switzerland. Thousands of health professionals, logistical and administrative staff – most of whom are hired locally – work on programmes in some 70 countries worldwide. See the video at the end of this article for more on MSF.

Spoonful of Sugar is now in its fifth year, and has thus far raised US $40,000 for MSF as a part of the organisation’s Vital Pact Campaign – and hopes to take that total to at least US $50,000 in 2019.

Spoonful of Sugar 2019 – market town

Every year, Spoonful of Sugar selects a theme for its core event. This year, the focus is very much middle-eastern: a desert environment with out of which have grown four small “towns”, each an oasis of human life in which the streets form a souq and home to many of the merchants participating in this year’s event. Large sponsors of the event are to be found gathered around the oasis a short walk from the landing point.

But the setting is not simply about the romance of the desert and camel trains of traders; it actually underscores the focus for Spoonful of Sugar this year: the plight of refugees, which over the last several years has been brought sharply into focus by the crises that continue to rock the middle-east. World-wide, there are now a recorded 70.8 “forcibly displaced” people (only 20 million of who are officially designated “refugees”) who – however unwillingly – have had to flee their homelands due to war, political or religious extremism, gang violence, terror, or other life-threatening circumstances.

Spoonful of Sugar 2019

These 70.8 million recognised refugees make up a significant portion of MSF’s work – as the Spoonful of Sugar landing point reveals. And in an age when those of a certain political stripe repeatedly opt to demonize people who are fleeing their homelands – and often leaving behind friends and families – to escape death and destruction as “the worst people” and / or “rapists and murderers”, focusing on the huge humanitarian efforts performed by organisations like MSF is fully warranted.

I’m here to tell you that nobody wants to leave home. They love their cities, their neighbourhoods. They love speaking their own language. The people fleeing their home countries are running because their home countries aren’t safe. They are fleeing for their lives.

– Dr. Ahmed Abdalzarag, MSF neurosurgeon

Spoonful of Sugar 2019: the work of MSF

Thus, the landing point offers visitors an opportunity to look inside a typical refugee camp and witness the work that MSF carries out, from triaging injuries and illnesses to working the logistics of food, drinking water and other essential supplies to providing shelter. Information boards throughout outline the work and offer insight into MSF’s multi-faceted work. Yes, the setting may desert, but it could also so easily be the grasslands of Africa, the forests of South America – or any of the multitude of places around the globe where refugees are attempting to seek help and support; as such I do recommend that rather than hopping straight on to the teleport boards and going shopping, people spend a few minutes within the camp.

As well as the shopping opportunities, there is also entertainment taking place over the weekends of the event – with a schedule available via the Spoonful of Sugar website. Also forming part of the event is the gacha area and the event raffle, while updates and information can also be found on the Spoonful of Sugar website.

SLurl and Links

2019 SL User Groups week #38/1: Simulator User Group

Posted on by Inara Pey
Isla de Sol, July 2019 – blog post

Server Deployments

Please refer to the server deployment thread for updates.

  • On Tuesday, September 17th, the SLS (Main) channel was updated with server release 2019-09-06T22:03:53.530715. Originally deployed to the Magnum RC on September 11th, it contains the fix  to address most cases of experience-enabled scripts losing association with their experience – see this blog post.
  • On Wednesday, September 18th, the RC channels are to be updated as follows:
    • BlueSteel and LeTigre should be updated with server release 2019-09-13T19:08:35.530941, comprising:
      • Internal Script Improvements – these should see further improvements in script processing, with the selected regions representing around 15% of the total grid.
      • Fixed “Avatar Sounds” feature fails to disable all scripted sounds.
      • [EEP] Smoothen transition time of llReplaceAgentEnvironment.
      • Updated to include current Second Life Server changes.
    • Magnum should be updated with server release 2019-09-13T20:04:44.530946, comprising minor improvements to starting and stopping regions and EEP updates and fixes.

SL Viewer

On Tuesday, September 17th, 2019 the following viewer updates were made:

  • The Vinsanto Maintenance RC viewer, version 6.3.2.530962.
  • The Legacy Profile project viewer was updated to version 6.3.2.530836.

On Monday, September 16th, the Ordered Shutdown RC viewer, version 6.3.2.530901, was released. This viewer has changes intended to make crashes on shut-down less likely, but does not have any changes to existing features.

At the time of writing, the rest of the current official viewer pipelines remain as follows:

  • Release channel cohorts:
  • Project viewers:
    • Project Muscadine (Animesh follow-on) project viewer, version 6.4.0.530100, August 19th.
    • 360 Snapshot project viewer, version 6.2.4.529111, July 16th.
  • Linux Spur viewer, version 5.0.9.329906, dated November 17, 2017 and promoted to release status 29 November 2017 – offered pending a Linux version of the Alex Ivy viewer code.
  • Obsolete platform viewer, version 3.7.28.300847, May 8, 2015 – provided for users on Windows XP and OS X versions below 10.7.

In Brief

  • The Lab is “very focused” on the problem of avatars teleporting into or out of a region overpowering local performance (scripts, etc.).
    • It’s been widely assumed that the performance is due to things like overall complexity and / or script load, etc.
    • However, while both script load and avatar complexity do have a general impact on performance, LL does not believe they are responsible for the issues seen when avatars enter / leave a region.
    • Data has been gathered on the problem, and Rider Linden indicated that LL feel they have a reasonable handle on the problem and are in a position to start experimenting to verify their findings in the near future.
  • There is period of voice maintenance due on Thursday, September 19th. This involves back-end updates to the voice system.
    • It is not clear if these updates will assist those users who, when activating voice, appear to be in their own channel with just one or two other users and must relog to join the main channel with all the others on voice.
      • This is a problem LL has noted, but Vivox have been unable to determine the cause.
      • There is a voice viewer update in the works that includes additional debugging capabilities that might help with determining the problem.

 

La Gaspesie – inspired by a corner of Canada

Posted on by Inara Pey
La Gaspesie (Canada) – click on any image for full size

We first visited La Gaspesie (Canada) some time towards the end of July or possibly early August; at that time, the region holders, Tzooki and XavierJacques were still working on the design: the board walks were – for the most part – laid out, but landscaping and the setting out of buildings was still going on. Given the state of play, we got out of the way and headed home – only to almost forget about the region in the intervening weeks. So when it did come back to mind, it seemed only right we hop back and take another look.

The region takes, as its inspiration the Gaspésie Peninsula that runs along the south shore of the Saint Lawrence River to the east of the Matapedia Valley in Quebec, Canada, and which extends into the Gulf of Saint Lawrence.

La Gaspesie (Canada)

Covering an area of some 31,075 sq km (11,998 sq mi), the peninsula’s northern shore is dominated by high sea cliffs, while at its easternmost point, there sits Percé Rock (or Rocher Percé), an island pierced by a natural rock arch. It is this landmark that serves as a focal point for the region’s inspiration, being echoed by the presence of a great rock wall also pierced by a narrow arch, sitting on the region’s eastern side.

Rather than being an island, this great wall of rock sits on a promontory of land, the rest of the region stretching westwards from it, mostly low-lying and cut by water channels that effectively split the landscape up into three large islands – although the number of bridges present can made it feel as if there are far more. Mostly rocky with a scalp of scrub grass, the low-lying lands are home to numerous buildings – huts, small houses, cottages – all of which are open to the public and within fairly easy walking distance of one another, a light scattered of trees adding to the setting.

La Gaspesie (Canada)

Off to the south-west, the height of the eastern cliffs is matched by that of a bulky lighthouse – one of two in the region – sitting atop a hump of rock. A water tower rising from the hill of the south-east headland also tries to vie with it and the cliffs in the height stakes.

Perhaps the most noticeable feature in the region is its board walks. These hug the seaward sides of the region to the west, north and east, only turning inland to the south and south-east where a channel and a bay force them to do so. Broad in width, these walkways are periodically marked by circular sections that from above resemble wooden rosettes that seem to split the board walks into sections.

La Gaspesie (Canada)

Together, these walks offer a means to pretty much circumnavigate the region – although there are plenty of ways to explore the individual major landmasses and find your way between them, as noted above. However, I have to admit I found the board walks perhaps a little too omnipresent. While they are clearly intended to offer a means of exploration (and are amenable to riding the scooters and bikes available from the rezzers near the landing point), I couldn’t help be feel they are also a little intrusive, breaking into the scene in a manner that is at odds with the otherwise very natural landscape and setting.

Now, to be honest, I have no idea if the mainland near Percé Rock is marked by board walks, and this is an attempt to emulate them (although I didn’t notice any to the same degree when looking at photos of Percé village); but it would perhaps have been nice to see come breaks in them in favour of the shingle beaches that seem to be a part of the headland facing Percé Rock. That said, there is more than enough within the region to keep eye and camera occupied without the board walks becoming too oppressive in their presence – and it cannot be denied that the region can be very eye-catching under assorted environment settings.

La Gaspesie (Canada)

Finished with an excellent ambient soundscape and with a variety of things to do from sitting and cuddling to riding bikes and scooters or messing about in bumper boats,  La Gaspesie (Canada)  does make for an engaging visit. For those in particularly need of an unwind from the day’s stresses, a link is provided in the region’s About Land description to some 26+ minutes of “unwindulaxing” music…

SLurl and Links

Team Diabetes of Second Life announces 2019 season

Posted on by Inara Pey

Team Diabetes of Second Life has announced their 2019 fund-raising season. Founded in 2015 by Jessi2009 Warrhol and John Brianna (Johannes1977 Resident), Team Diabetes of Second Life is the official and authorised team of the American Diabetes Association in SL.

Their mission is to raise awareness, tolerance, and funds for diabetes in the virtual world of Second Life. According to the World Health Organisation in 2016 some 422 million adults in the world have diabetes and 1.5 million deaths are directly attributed to diabetes each year.

The 2019 Team Diabetes of Second life season will run from October through to December, with the following events scheduled to take place:

  • October 18th though 26th: Scare Me Silly (off-season event – see below).
  • November 1st through 30th: National Diabetes Month, featuring:
    • November 1st through 30th: The Red Hunt.
    • November 3rd: The Red Ball.
    • November 14th: World Diabetes Day.
  • December 5th to December 14th: Christmas Showcase & Winter Art Show.

Scare Me Silly

Scare Me Silly is an annual event taking place around Halloween. It features live performances. DJ parties, a hunt and a quest, tricks and treats, a haunted mansion, ghostly rides and – of course – shopping!

As noted above, this year the event will take place from Friday, October 18th through Saturday, October 26th inclusive. Registrations for the event from both merchants and artists are now open, and the application form, with guidelines and terms can be found here.

About the American Diabetes Association

Established in 1940, the American Diabetes Association is working to both prevent and cure diabetes in all it forms, and to help improve the lives of all those affected by diabetes. It does this by providing objective and credible information and resources about diabetes to communities, and funding research into ways and means of both managing and curing the illness. In addition, the Association gives voice to those denied their rights as a consequence of being affected by diabetes.

About Team Diabetes of Second life

Team Diabetes of Second Life is an official and authorised fund-raiser for the American Diabetes Association in Second Life. Established with the aim of raising funds in support of diabetes treatment and to raise awareness of the disease in SL, Team Diabetes of Second Life was founded by Jessi2009 Warrhol and John Brianna (Johannes1977 Resident), who serve on the Advisory Board along with Eleseren Brianna, Veruca Tammas, Rob Fenwitch, and Dawnbeam Dreamscape.

2019 viewer release summaries week #37

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

Updates for the week ending Sunday, September 15th

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 version 6.3.1.530559, formerly the Umeshu Maintenance RC viewer, dated, September 5th – NEW.
  • Release channel cohorts:
    • No updates.
  • Project viewers:
    • Project Muscadine (Animesh follow-on) project viewer, version 6.4.0.530473, September 11th.

LL Viewer Resources

Third-party Viewers

V6-style

  • Kokua 64-bit updated to  6.3.1.46169 (non-RLV)  and 6.3.1.46170 (RLV variants) on September 12th (release notes).

V1-style

  • Cool VL viewer update to version 1.26.22.59 (Stable Branch) and version 1.26.23.12 (Experimental Branch) on September 15th (release notes).

Mobile / Other Clients

  • No updates.

Additional TPV Resources

Related Links