Category: Second Life

Art, nature, and stories in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
Ani’s Gallery: Anibrm Jung

Update, October 1st: Ani’s Gallery has relocated. SLurls in this article have been updated to reflect the gallery’s new location.

Ani (Anibrm Jung) is an award-winning photographer in the physical world who has been active in Second Life since 2006. Based in the Netherlands, Ani has specialised in photographing nature, many of her images captured from her own garden, and all of them recorded using only natural light, with everything framed directly through the viewfinder, and with no subsequent cropping or image manipulation.

I’ve written about her photography on numerous occasions in this blog (see in particular, The art of nature in Second Life (2016) and A return to the Art of Nature in Second Life (2017)), as I’ve always found her photography absorbing and engaging.

Ani’s Gallery: Anibrm Jung

More recently, Ani had turned her attention to photography within Second life, where she has brought her eye for detail and composition fully to bear to create some of the most engaging studies of Second Life art, landscapes and avatars.

A selection of Ani’s art can be seen, appreciated and purchased through her new gallery, Ani’s Gallery and Home to Sibelius, and she recently invited me to pay a visit to view the gallery, which also includes an exhibition by another of my favourite artists, Cybele Moon.

Ani’s Gallery: Anibrm Jung

The gallery – located in a skybox – offers several spaces for exhibitions, with Ani’s work occupying the lower floor, and the guest exhibition space on the upper level.  The landing point sits within the lower level, in a hall that serves both as an exhibition space and as a reception foyer. This area has a focus on Ani’s physical world photography, which is as bewitching as ever, and includes several pieces captured from within Second Life, thus presenting an eye-catching mix.

The neighbouring hall focuses almost entirely on Ani’s Second Life photography which – as noted, includes the same richness of focus and attention to composition, angle, tone and detail that marks these pieces completely captivating – and don’t miss her cat photos, either! Upstairs, Cybele presents Travels Songs and Stories, another completing enthralling exhibition of her exceptional digital art which also can so marvellously combine the realms of the physical and the virtual – and which should never be missed.

Ani’s Gallery: Cybele Moon

Two remarkable artists together in a single gallery marks Ani’s Gallery a worthy destination for any lover of the arts and artistic expression in Second life.

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The scenic glory of Athenaeum in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
Athenauem, July 2019

It’s been almost a year since we first visited Athenaeum, the full region designed by Dema Fairport. At the time I noted the Adult-rated region to be stunningly scenic and offering a lot to see. For details of that first visit, see: Athenaeum: scenic beauty with an adult twist in Second Life.

More recently, Dema passed an invite for us to make a return visit following something of a re-design, I added it to the list of our upcoming destinations, and recently had the opportunity to drop in.

Athenaeum, July 2019

I’ll be honest, given the outstanding look and feel of Athenaeum a year ago, I was a little hesitant in thinking about what might have changed. The build we witnessed back in August 2018 was so visually stunning that there was a concern that any change might come at the cost of something very special being lost.

However, all such fears proved groundless; the “new” Athenaeum offers a well-rounded mix of new locations sitting within a setting that retains all of its scenic beauty and many of its popular locations. These include the the manor house to the south and the gorge that must be spanned to reach it. Thus Athenaeum presents a setting that is both familiar and new.

Athenaeum, July 2019

Chief among the changes is the landing point. This has moved from inland to the west of the region to sit on a waterfront pier. it offers the way to a surfaced road running past the gallery and museum, each of which still offers a celebration of the physical world photography of New York’s Darque, and a history of kink respectively.

From here the road climbs upwards, becoming a familiar (for those who have visited in the past) cinder track that offers the way to (again for visitors making a return to the region) a familiar bridge spanning the gorge to reach the the big manor house. The latter further retains its marvellous member’s club look and feel from August 2018, which I described thus:

Within its rooms are leather arm chairs, great bookcases filled with tomes awaiting reading, fires in the hearths, bottles of port and cigar humidors on some tables, coffee and After Eight mints on others, and just the most subtle of hints as to some of the activities that might follow conversations in these rooms; activities which themselves might be enjoined in the rooms above, going by their décor.

Athenaeum, July 2019

The manor house retains its terrace and pool where events can be held, while to the east, a path leads the way into the deeper shade of tall fir trees, to where the summer house and its pool still reside.

The newer touches to the region are subtle. Take, for example, the barn with horses roaming before it, additional cliff-top hideaways, or the rickety bridge crossing the deep gorge to offer a path to where Buddha still sits, going by way of a shaded snuggle spot.

Athenaeum, July 2019

And While it might be a case of mis-remembering over the course of the year, there also seem to be a lot more – and individually – attractive spots around the coastline for sitting and enjoying company, whether intimate or friendly. These include waterside camps with little fires blazing, covered seats mounted on rocky outcrops or wooden decks built out over the water. Cinder paths lit by lanterns and occasionally marked by vintage cars, point the way to most of them – although some may require a little discovery.

Throughout all of this, Athenaeum remains richly photographic, and the invitation for visitors to submit their images to the region’s Flickr pool remains open. If you’ve not visited before, I cannot recommend doing to enough – and if you have visited in the past but haven’t been recently, then a re-visit is also recommended.

Athenaeum, July 2019

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2019 SL User Groups 30/2: Content Creation summary

Posted on by Inara Pey

56578 Go Wild Blvd, Watery Cove, IS 245785; Inara Pey, June 2019, on Flickr56578 Go Wild Blvd, Watery Cove, IS 245785, June 2019 – blog post

The following notes are taken from the Content Creation User Group (CCUG) meeting, held on Thursday, July 25th 2019 at 13:00 SLT. These meetings are chaired by Vir Linden, and agenda notes, meeting SLurl, etc, are usually available on the Content Creation User Group wiki page.

Environment Enhancement Project

Project Summary

A set of environmental enhancements allowing the environment (sky, sun, moon, clouds, water settings) to be set region or parcel level, with support for up to 7 days per cycle and sky environments set by altitude. It uses a new set of inventory assets (Sky, Water, Day),  and includes the ability to use custom Sun, Moon and cloud textures. The assets can be stored in inventory and traded through the Marketplace / exchanged with others, and can additionally be used in experiences.

Due to performance issues, the initial implementation of EEP will not include certain atmospherics such as crepuscular rays (“God rays”).

Resources

Current Status

  • A further version of the RC viewer is in the pipeline and will be available soon.
  • As the project is seen as a “getting closer” and that now is the time for issues to be reported.
  • EEP and Bakes on Mesh have also swapped their internal QA teams, so that each project has fresh eyes on it as it gets closer to a potential release.

Bakes On Mesh

Project Summary

Extending the current avatar baking service to allow wearable textures (skins, tattoos, clothing) to be applied directly to mesh bodies as well as system avatars. This involves viewer and server-side changes, including updating the baking service to support 1024×1024 textures, but does not include normal or specular map support, as these are not part of the existing Bake Service, nor are they recognised as system wearables. Adding materials support may be considered in the future.

Resources

Current Status

  • As noted above, the BOM and EEP QA teams have swapped responsibilities, so that there are fresh eyes on both projects.
  • With BOM in particular, this means the project is to be subject to extensive internal review by the Lab ahead of possible release dates being considered.

Animesh Follow-On – Project Muscadine

  • DRTSIM-421 on Aditi now has the server-side code to support the new visual parameters LSL code.
  • The simulator build and a build of a project viewer supporting the new LSL code are both undergoing LL QA testing.
  • Once both have passed QA, the viewer will be made available for public testing on the relevant regions on the DRTSIM-421 channel on Aditi.
    • The viewer might be available within the next 2-3 weeks.
  • It’s been suggested that imposters for Animesh and imposters for avatars should be separated.
    • This would be possible, although it would require some code re-working within the imposter system, which hasn’t been planned.
    • There’s also the question of how many people would use a separate Animesh setting, even if it were provided – or perhaps even be aware of it – or if two settings might not confuse people

General Discussion

Tutorial Videos

  • The Lab is looking to again start producing tutorial videos.
  • Some of these will focus on the basics with content (e.g. how to dress an avatar, wear jewellery, etc.), and how to recognise well-made / optimised content. These videos may start to appear later in 2019.
  • The hope is that as well as helping to educated consumers, these videos may start encouraging creators to think more about issues of optimisation.
  • The Lab will be interested in hearing ideas on this from creators.
  • It is likely this work will be linked to things like Project ARCTan, which will look at rendering costs, etc.
    • It was intimated that in the future, landowners might be able to limit access to their land by avatar complexity as well as by the more recognised script load.
    • Any such changes will be introduced gradually, with the educational programme – videos, etc., preceding it to try to help users better understand optimisation and benefits.

In Brief

  • In-World Pose System: this has grown out of a code contribution, but is current on hold pending resources.
  • Pathfinding: something the Lab would like to look at again, but unlikely to be in 2019.
  • Puppeteering: this is an old project that several have suggested re-vitalising. The view from the lab appears to be that it is now too old and SL has moved on too far for it to be practical to try to just resume work.

Meetings

Due to the Lab’s internal SL Feature Summit and the monthly All Hand meeting at the Lab, the next CCUG meeting will likely be on Thursday, August 8th, 2019 – but check the wiki page to confirm,as it might be possible there is a meeting on August 1st, depending on the start of the SL Feature Summit.

Life through Xia’s Diary in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
Diotima Art Gallery: Xia’s Diary

Xia’s Diary, currently open (for a little while longer, at least!) at Diotima Art Gallery curated by Red Bikcin, is an exhibition in images and words that offers reflections on life – both real and virtual – by Xia Chieng.

This is a thought-provoking installation in which Xia offers something of in introspection on her own life – how it has played out in Second Life, and how matters from her physical world life have informed her time in in the virtual and how the latter has caused her to more generally reflect on life as a whole.

My life has been intense, but I’ve never known where to fit. Opportunist and ambitious, my life has taken me to many places and to experience all kinds of situations, some good and some bad. Blinded by moving forward, never look around me or those left behind … When I looked at life through the camera, I felt that I could finally see it. Then he started a new path.

– Xia Chieng, defining Xia’s Diary

Diotima Art Gallery: Xia’s Diary

Twenty-one images – all of them avatar studies (although one has an aspect to it suggesting it might have originated in the physical world) – are presented in the exhibition. Most sit as individual pieces, although there are three that clearly form a single group, and three more are presented in such a way as to suggest they could form a set.

All are accompanied by Xia’s thoughts, the words provided with evocative titles such as Lost Hope, Ode to Emily, Broken Doll, and so on. They offer frames to the images over which they sit – and a windows into Xia’s thoughts and feelings.

These images are a document of my journey through life, RL and SL, I make no difference. Everything I do is part of my life. Many things are recreated in our mind with our imagination. Maybe it is a way of looking for a meaning and transcending many problems that torment us. A second life can be a second chance. 

– Xia Chieng, defining Xia’s Diary

Diotima Art Gallery: Xia’s Diary

The words, offered white-on-black are as clear-cut and unequivocal as their presentation. Evocative, provocative (as are some of the images), brutally honest, they offer the kind of introspection most of us probably prefer to carry out within our own heads (and most likely in a darkened room) well away from public display.

Thus, Xia’s Diary becomes something of a tour de force of feelings and responses in which we are cast into multiple roles. We are the voyeur and the emotional vampire, illicitly peeping in on the sometimes salacious, often poignantly deep, confessions from the heart and drawing from them. And given these are confessions – honest, down-to-Earth examinations of self, of hopes, of fears, of confusion of need – so too are we cast as the confessional-made-flesh, bearing witness to the opening of a soul. And because these are deeply personal reflections, so too are we given pause to hold up a mirror to ourselves and review who and what we are in life, both physical and virtual.

Diotima Art Gallery: Xia’s Diary

Intense, sometimes dark, expressive, and captivating, one of the more richly narrative and personal exhibitions I’ve recently seen.

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A return to Natural Falls in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
Natural Falls, July 2019

Update: It appears this iteration of Natural Falls has closed. SLurls have therefore been removed.

DannChris might be a hamster in Second Life (and love the Maverick profile photo, Dann!), but he’s a hamster with a love of water settings. we discovered this when visiting his Natural Falls V in early 2017 (see Navigating Natural Falls in Second Life) and again with a visit to A L T I T U D E earlier in 2019 (see Gaining a little A L T I T U D E in Second Life).

At the start of July 2019, Dann dropped me a note thanking me for writing about A L T I T U D E – which was nice in itself – and to inform me that a new Natural Falls would be coming along soon. More recently, friend and fellow traveller, Miro Collas poked me to let me know it had arrived. So hoping it has retained the watery themes present in the previous builds and within A L T I T U D E, we jumped over to take a look.

Natural Falls, July 2019

Natural Falls has tended to represent, in Dann’s words, a decaying city waterlogged by some disaster – whether man-made or natural or a combination of both (such as humanity’s willingness to acknowledge climate change but stubborn refusal to adequately address it), is up to the visitor to determine.

As with previous builds, the city sits at least knee-deep in water and under the cement conduits of a really elevated railway, the parallel tracks of which sit to the north and south, bracketing the larger part of the city below them.

Natural Falls, July 2019

Getting around is a matter of following the wooden board walks, some of which sit between walls cunningly designed to resemble buildings, adding to the feel that this is a sprawling, flooded metropolis when seen from lower levels.  Power lines are strung along some of this walkways, passing between tall poles that march along the board walks, giving the impression some of the buildings here are still occupied. The walkways don’t however, all interconnect – so if you’re going to explore everywhere (and you should), you’re going to have to be prepared to do a little jumping and / or get your legs wet.

This is particularly true if you want to get down to the little Japanese style market that sits just over (and on) the water, or drop in to the old amusement park the water has claimed as its own, the old roller coaster looking rather forlorn. A slightly worrying aspect of stepping down into the water is the fact that off to the north-east, a couple of massive electrical pylons drip their high-tension power lines in to the waves. Fortunately, neither one is actually connected to a electrical generation system, so there’s no risk of electrocution present with them!

Natural Falls, July 2019

Which is just as well, really, because it is only by wading through the water that you can get to visit what I personally think is one of the most gorgeous motifs Dann presents in his region designs: a fabulous walled and flooded garden. I first saw this in Natural Falls V, and it was  – for a time, and in an expanding form – a feature of A L T I T U D E, so encountering it within this iteration of Natural Falls came as an absolute delight.

“I had to recreate it,” Dann informed me when I noted its presence,  “We had a party at Altitude which needed a special place, but there wasn’t enough LI, so the garden got taken down.” He paused a moment and continued, “I will put it back at some point 🙂 .” If he does, I hope he actually reproduces the garden in some form at A L T I T U D E rather than moving it from Natural Falls, as it makes for an ideal focal point; and with a suitable teleport portal, could even make for a nice link between the two regions.

Natural Falls, July 2019

There are other reminders of past builds to be found here – the old pavilion sitting among the lilies, the great engines slung beneath the elevated railway lines and concrete channel that turn massive propellers – presumably helping to keep the structures aloft.

Also to be found are the more artistic / whimsical statements those who have visited past Natural Falls might find familiar. The figures close to the landing point, for the example, who stand beneath a pained warning: Who Watches The Watchers, even as a haphazard pile of televisions rises close by to apparently keep an eye on them – and while a flying saucer overhead appears to be spiriting some of them away! Then there are the quirky little places to sit waiting to be found, such as atop a set of diving boards, complete with a potted plant. Or, in a touch of delightful and fantastical whimsy, a blue whale slowly circling in the air and offering passers-by a ride, either hanging from the ladder that dangles from his flank or in the garden sprouting  from his back.

Natural Falls, July 2019

Imaginative, rich in detail, quirky, fun, and giving a little tap on the shoulder of ecological conscience, with this iteration, Natural Fall remains a thoroughly recommended visit. Photos can be shared via the region’s Flickr group.

The Man Who Lived in the Future, in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
The Edge Art Gallery, July / August 2019: The Man Who Lived in the Future

Currently open at The Edge Art Gallery operated and curated by Ladmilla, is an exhibition marking the 500th anniversary of the death of Leonardo da Vinci. The exhibition, entitled The Man Who Lived in the Future, features a new look for The Edge Art Gallery and displays are by sadi8 and JurisJo, jessamine2108, Larisalyn, PatrickofIreland, Kapaan and Ladmilla herself.

The new look for the gallery space is very much Tuscan in nature – as befitting da Vinci, a son of Florence (Vinci being a città of Florence). Exhibition spaces take the form of individual Tuscan-style houses all space around three sides of open lawns and a garden area, with the main reception area and a further gallery space rounding-out the building on the three sides of the lawns.

The Edge Art Gallery, July / August 2019: The Man Who Lived in the Future – Larisayln

Within this garden is a model of da Vinci’s aerial screw by Sergio Delacruz, together with an airship and Bach’s Spine (the latter by Eupalinos Ugajin) to give reminders of both de Vinci’s own vision and the ideas of motion and flight, which both fascinated him. However, this is very much an exhibition of 2D art, and the manner in which the artist have chosen to interpret the life and times of da Vinci is what makes it attractive.

For example, Larisalyn takes as her muse, Cecilia Gallerani. A mistress of Ludovico Maria Sforza, Duke of Milan, she was da Vinci’s subject for his 1489 painting The Lady with an Ermine. She was also responsible for inviting da Vinci to her chamber discussions on philosophy and other subjects with members of the local intellectual set over which she presided. With the images presented here, Larisalyn notes she has tried to represent da Vinci’s style of painting.

The Edge Art Gallery, July / August 2019: The Man Who Lived in the Future – Kapaan

Kapaan, meanwhile focuses on both da Vinci’s inventiveness and his art. His gallery space includes representations of da Vinci’s parachute,  together with monochrome images of the parachute in use. These are displayed with imaginative takes on a couple of da Vinci’s most famous works, The Vitruvian Man and Mona Lisa.

Styles reminiscent of da Vinci’s studies of people and nature, as well as representations of his flying machine can also be found within the displays by PatrickofIreland, sadi8 and JurisJo, and Ladmilla – and I admit to finding PatrickofIreland’s The Study, featuring da Vinci himself, to be particularly evocative, as is the small model of da Vinci’s flying machine.

The Edge Art Gallery, July / August 2019: The Man Who lived in the Future – PatrickofIreland

I confess to being a little confused by jessamine2108’s images, which appear to be closer to more “traditional” avatar and SL nature studies, rather than being intrinsic to a celebration of da Vinci. Which is not to say they are not in themselves attractive.

Those who venture into the gallery space enclosing two sides of the landing point terrace will find a further selection of Ladmilla’s own art, including a series of images partnered with words by Eli Medier, which make for an evocative display in their own right.

The Edge Art Gallery, July / August 2019: The Man Who Lived in the Future – Ladmilla

Two musical events are planned alongside The Man Who Lived in the Future. On Saturday, July 27th, DJ Avalon Boa will be spinning music from 12:00 noon SLT through 14:00, with DJ le Ouf doing the same at the same time, on Saturday, August 3rd.

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