Category: Second Life

Paper folding and letters in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
The Sim Quarterly: Orizuru

The Sim Quarterly is a new artistic endeavour by Electric Monday. This homestead region is intended to offer artists a three month period in which to display their work.

Art and the virtual world, Second Life© are very similar —you are able to both find yourself and immerse yourself (and maybe even lose yourself) in something totally unlike what you already know. The experiences you gain help you grow and form new opinions about the world. That is what I hope this sim can provide over time. I am very excited to bring to you a quarterly art project by way of The Sim Quarterly.

– Electric Monday, describing The Sim Quarterly

The Sim Quarterly: Orizuru

For the first installation Electric presents Orizuru (“folded crane” or “paper crane”) by Kaiju Kohime with Electric Monday. With a focus on origami that plays into the use of paper as a writing surface and its use in  artistic expression, this is the story of two people who communicate entirely by letter and in the hope of meeting.

The landing point for the installation is in the sky, where an introduction can be found, together with a teleport down to the installation proper.  Here the story begins at a little pair of houses and an ice cream van, where two figures stand back-to-back, symbolising the story’s protagonists, Elise and Henri. Sheets of paper drop from the hands of the male figure, pointing the way to the water where the first two letters between the couple can be found.

The Sim Quarterly: Orizuru

Follow the stepping stones to the nearby island, and further pairs of letters between Elise and Henri can be found, their story unfolding on the written pages. Colours beneath the water tehn lead visitors onwards to more of the story as it unfolds across the installation.

Will Henri and Elise meet? That’s for those who visit to decide.  The landscape, meanwhile, with its folded cranes, origami birds and paper rocks and trees, with paper clouds floating overhead, presents a visually attractive setting in which to follow the story.

The Sim Quarterly: Orizuru

Those wishing to keep up-to-date with events at The Sim Quarterly can do so via the website and photographs can be submitted to the region’s Flickr group, which is also hosting a photo contest – details available in-world at the region’s landing zone.

SLurl Details

2019 SL User Groups week #32/1: Simulator User Group

Posted on by Inara Pey

Small Town Green; Inara Pey, June 2019, on FlickrSmall Town Green, June 2019 – blog post

Server Deployments

  • There are no planned deployments for week #32.
  • The update(simulator package 19#19.07.10.529179), intended for the Magnum RC originally deployed and then rolled back on Wednesday, July 17th (the roll-back the result of a bug being discovered during the attempt at deployment), will likely be re-deployed to at least one RC channel, during in week #33 (commencing Monday, August 12th.

SL Viewer

The Love Me Render viewer updated to version 6.2.4.529638 on Monday, August 5th.

At the time of writing the rest of the official viewers remain as follows:

  • Current Release version 6.2.3.527758, formerly the Rainbow RC viewer dated June 5, promoted June 18 – No Change.
  • Release channel cohorts:
  • Project viewers:
    • 360 Snapshot project viewer, version 6.2.4.529111, July 16.
    • Legacy Profiles viewer, version 6.2.3.527749, June 5. Covers the re-integration of Viewer Profiles.
  • 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

Lumiya / Android Client

No major change in situation: aspects of Lumiya – notably in relation to the in-world view the app has ( changing their outfits, using animations / AOs, etc.) – have not been working since the last of the UDP asset messages were removed from the simulator. Calls are still being made for the Lab to work on an Android client, given they are developing an iOS client. However, as I noted in week #30:

  • The initial versions of the iOS app will be for chatting and messaging only – which can still be done with the Lumiya app.
  • While the capabilities of the iOS app will be extended over time, the Lab has not committed to what additional functionality will be provided or a time frame of when they will be provided. Simply “diverting” development from iOS to Android (assuming LL has the in-house skills for Android development) will not really change that; ergo, it’s unlikely a change in development at this point in time will overcome the current Lumiya issues.

Other Notes

  • Simulator performance:
    • Some region holders are reporting improved performance in their regions over the last 2-3 weeks. Nothing has been altered on the back-end to account for this.
    • Some region holders are conversely reporting frequently degraded physics performance in their regions that requires frequent restarts to overcome. If this is occurring with a recently terraformed region, the suggestion is to check for any “land leveller” prims that may have been buried in the terrain.
  • Ghosted attachments: issues of attachments being “ghosted” – that is, failing to render whilst still being attached or remaining rendered (in your view) when they have been detached (“killed”) as a result of a teleport seem to be on the increase. The problem appears to be with attachment “kill” messages being incorrectly sent, or with multiple “kill” messages being incorrectly received. It’s not clear how / when this might be dealt with.

Images of Heaven is Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
Heaven

Heaven by Oema and Van Loopen is not a new exhibition, having been open since May 2019 – but it is one that will be closing at the end of August 2019, and I’ve been meaning to write about for a while. It is a multi-media installation involving hand-drawn images, mobile sculptures, music and an ethereal setting, which Oema describes as follows:

Heaven was born from the idea of bringing together some of my drawings depicting female faces. At first, Van Loopen and I had no idea how to create an original structure that could accommodate drawings … In addition to the church and the drawings, we thought of creating special media effects to be placed so that the visitor, enabling multimedia, could be fascinated by the lights, movements, shapes, colours, and sounds in sync.

Heaven

Placed against the nave walls towards one end of the ruined cathedral, Oema’s drawings are presented in monochrome, each one very much a focus on an emotion and / or a response. They sit framed within evocative titles, the words of which – assuming they are read by visitors via a right-click edit – add to their depth and potential interpretation by the observer.

The images face in towards the central isle of the nave, where sculptures by Noke Yuitza are animated to turn slowly amidst a gentle blizzard of light and shapes that dance as if given life by the music to which the installation is set – music and lyrics specifically chosen to form an active part of the installation, and which should be enabled and listened to.

Heaven

It’s an immersive, engaging installation. The visitor, after following the instructions close to the landing point, is undeniably drawn into the piece, particularly if the titles of the drawings are viewed. But at the same time, so little is actually revealed about the subjects themselves; on whom are the images based? Avatars? People from the physical world? Friends? Family? Entirely from the imagination? No clue is given, heightening our involvement with the images and the installation as whole.

SLurl Details

  • Heaven (LEA 1, rated: Moderate)

Drune IV: an Aftermath in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
Drune IV: Aftermath – August 2019 – click any image for full size

In January 2019 we visited 2019-XS by zee9. At the time, I noted:

The region has an adult edge to the role-play, and is intended as an extension to her previous (and now departed) build Drune. I’ve not seen that design, but will say that while compact, 2019-XS has a certain ambience that is hard to define, but has seen me make three visits to it in order to fully appreciate the ambience and setting.

Well, we’ve recently had the opportunity to immerse ourselves in Drune design, as zee9 2019-XS has been remodelled into the fourth chapter in the series, Drune IV: Aftermath.

Drune IV: Aftermath – August 2019

Maintaining much of the look and feel of 2019-XS (and previous Drune builds) in terms of general layout, Drune IV Aftermath presents an environment in which it is clear that, as the region name suggests, some form of cataclysm has befallen the city.

The once pristine roads, neon-lit by business signs, cleaned by robots and home to electric vehicles, now lie broken and slowly being overcome by plant life. Power cables hang and lie in disarray, and the once bright buildings are slowly being overcome by vines and creepers.

Drune IV: Aftermath – August 2019

Exactly what has come to pass is hard to say: is the disaster man-made or natural? Did the city bring it upon itself, or has some external factor played a role? These are the questions that roll through the mind in exploring the elevated walkways, the roads and the alleyways.

But it is clear that human life has not entirely abandoned the city. Some of the street lights still work, and free-standing floodlights illuminate stairways and other areas, drawing their power from generators that must have some form of fuel supply or means to be recharged, even as more light is shed from many of the windows peppering the tall towers.

Drune IV: Aftermath – August 2019

More signs of habitation can be found along the shadowed streets, where makeshift stalls have been set-up by people trying to eke out a living. Some of these are lit by neon signs, again suggesting an operating power source, while others rely on lamps suspended from the beams of the elevated road sections.

The lifestyle of those who remain has perhaps taken a turn towards post-apocalyptic hedonism, going  by some of the market stalls, while a nightclub similar to that found within 2019-XS appears to still be in use. It sits at street level almost in reflection of another dance space sitting atop the tallest of the city’s towers. Elsewhere, follow the faint sounds of a piano playing and you may eventually be led to the entrance of what might once have been a plush club, but which now sits behind broken doors, squatting in its own gathering mould.

Drune IV: Aftermath – August 2019

The region used to be open to free-form role-play, and while I’ve no idea if this is still the case but the region certainly still captures elements of a range of sci-fi / cyberpunk films, including the likes of Blade Runner, Neuromancer, and Strange Days and even, despite its presentation of nature victorious, the Fifth Element. And even without the role-play, Drune remains an engaging visit.

SLurl Details

Images and questions in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
Joanee’s Gallery

Three Questions, an exhibition by Joan Mayflower at her own new gallery space called Joanee’s Gallery, cleverly involves portraits and words in a revealing exhibition.

Set within a floating garden sitting against a backdrop of stars, Three Questions presents a series of eight avatar portraits – presumably of Joan’s friends – but that’s not all, as Joan explains.

Joanee’s Gallery: Three Questions

The exhibit consists of portraits of Second Life avatars that I have done, accompanied by a set of three questions asked of each portrait subject. The questions/answers note cards are accessible by clicking on each portrait.

– Joan Mayflower, describing Three Questions

This makes Three Questions an intriguing exhibition, bringing together as it does two elements within each picture. On the one hand, Joan’s portraits of the avatars, each one of which has been carefully framed, cropped and presented, offer us insight into the subject of each portrait as an avatar. The answers to the  questions, meanwhile – two of which are asked of all eight subjects, while the third varies from subject to subject – offer us insight into the personalities behind the avatars.

Joanee’s Gallery: Three Questions

Thus, Three Questions engages and informs. Through the images and the answers to the questions, our visual appreciation of the portraits as an expression of the artist’s vision of the avatars she has captured, we’re also given that personal connection with the subjects themselves with a depth that cannot be achieved simply through images.

A small but engaging exhibition that offers good food for thought and engaging images, Three Questions officially opens at 12:00 noon SLT on August 5th, 2019.

SLurl Details

2019 viewer release summaries week #31

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

Updates for the week ending Sunday, August 4th

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 6.2.3.527758, formerly the Rainbow RC viewer dated June 5, promoted June 18 – No change.
  • Release channel cohorts:
    • No change.
  • Project viewers:
    • No change.

LL Viewer Resources

Third-party Viewers

V5/V6-style

V1-style

  • Cool VL Viewer Stable Branch updated to version 1.26.22.55 and Experimental Branch to version 1.26.23.8, both on August 3rd (release notes).

Mobile / Other Clients

  • No updates.

Additional TPV Resources

Related Links