Category: Second Life

2019 SL User Groups 11/3: TPV Developer Meeting

Posted on by Inara Pey

Forest of Astray; Inara Pey, February 2019, on FlickrForest of Astray – blog post

The following notes are taken from the TPV Developer meeting held on Friday, March 15, 2019. A video of the meeting is embedded below, my thanks as always to North for recording and providing it. Time stamps are provided to the major topics of discussion, which will open the video in a new tab for ease of reference.

There was a lot of general text chat during the meeting, there these notes are purely a summary of the key discussion points likely to be of interest to most users.

SL Viewer

[3:47-5:35]

There have been no SL viewer updates this week, leaving the current pipeline as:

  • Current Release version 6.1.0.524670, formerly the BugSplat RC viewer February 13th, promoted February 28th No Change.
  • Release channel cohorts (please see my notes on manually installing RC viewer versions if you wish to install any release candidate(s) yourself):
    • EEP RC viewer version 6.1.1.525044, March 7th.
    • Love Me Render RC viewer, version 6.1.1.524929, March 6th.
    • Estate Access Management (EAM) RC viewer, version 6.2.0.524909, March 5th.
  • Project viewers:
  • Linux Spur viewer, version 5.0.9.329906, dated November 17th, 2017 and promoted to release status 29 November – offered pending a Linux version of the Alex Ivy viewer code.
  • Obsolete platform viewer, version 3.7.28.300847, May 8th, 2015 – provided for users on Windows XP and OS X versions below 10.7.

Updates to the RC viewer have been delayed due to “some small problems” being revealed when the viewers were updated with a security update to  Chrome and Chromium), which affects all versions except the very latest, 72.0.3626.121. This is being addressed by Linden Lab, but it will take time for the patch to filter out to all viewers. In the meantime, the current internal SL web browser is potentially vulnerable; do not use it to browse non-LL websites on it, and avoid using media on a prim from untrusted sources.

In addition, EEP, EAM and Bakes on Mesh are all awaiting server-side updates, with EEP apparently being deployed to the rest of the grid in week #12 (Magnum and SLS).

Attachments Detaching

[9:28-20:50 (including a lot of text chat)] : Linden Lab is getting some “large-scale” testing done on attachments detaching (e.g. after a teleport or following region crossings).

  • Some of the tests have involved region crossings carrying more than the permitted number of attachments, and data from these experiments is still being gathered.
  • It has apparently proven difficult to consistently reproduce issues, which has delayed data gathering and investigation.
  • Part of the issue seems to still be wearing to many items on a single attach point (mesh items are particularly susceptible to this due to many creators simply utilising the default right hand attach point for their clothing, etc., rather than rigging to alternates).
  • Some have pointed to stressed (i.e. those bring over-used by avatars and scripted objects – such as busy shopping event regions) can exacerbate the issue, which could be the result of messages to / from the viewer being lost.
  • Others have suggested the issue is related to the complexity of attachments (visual and scripting).
  • Some testing by users has suggested that it a result of kill messages being received during multiple region crossings (e.g. an avatar crosses from region A to region B and then to region C, and gets missing attachments after crossing into C as a result of a kill message being received from region A causing the viewer to think something has been detached).

In Brief

  • [20:53-28:07 (including text chat)] Inventory Requests During Log-In: the viewer has a series of tags related to inventory requests that are used during the log-in process. LL has asked TPVs to check on to see if they have made any changes to how the tags are used, as changes may be coming as an overall part of the project to improve inventory robustness.
  • [32:16-32:40] Group  tag change/group role change throttle: the is currently a means for users to change their group tag and role rapidly using RLV/a scripting. However, this can put enormous strain on server-side services. Because of this, LL are introducing a server-side throttle on requests to change group tag information, and it appears likely that this will be deployed in week #13 (commencing Monday, March 25th, 2019).
  • [33:08-37:15] Video playback issues:
    • Autoplay of You Tube videos within the viewer appears to be broken, and a check on recent server changes will be made to see if there is anything in particular that might be responsible.
    • There are no plans for further Chrome Embedded Framework (CEF – media playback) updates until after the work on updating the viewer build process to Visual Studio 2017 has been completed.
    • It is possible that after the VS2017 upgrade, the Lab may be able to re-enable codec support for playback of MP4 format videos – although there is no time frame for this happening at present.

WuWai’s Blue Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
Club LA and Gallery: WuWai Chun

Club LA and Gallery, curated by Fuyuko ‘冬子’ Amano (Wintergeist) presents a new exhibition of art by WuWai Chun, someone I’ve long followed in the SL Profile Feeds, but I’ve rarely seen exhibited in-world, so it was a delight to receive an early invite to see her work at the gallery from Fuyuko.

Second Life Blue is located on the gallery’s mezzanine level, and is an eye-catching selection of art. Perhaps the first point to note about it is that WuWai is donating 100% of all sales during the exhibition to Feed A Smile / Live and Learn Kenya. Full details on this charity – which we support at Holly Kai – can be found at the entrance to the exhibit itself, as can instructions on how to purchase images to donate. There’s also a FAS donation kiosk available, if you prefer to make a direct donation or give a little extra.

Club LA and Gallery: WuWai Chun

Twelve images form the exhibition, and as the title suggests, they present scenes from around Second Life that have been post-processed to give each of them a blue finished tone. This allows WuWai to present a series of dramatic captures of Second Life that are deeply evocative and  equally soothing to view. Landscapes share the space with avatar studies and images of in-world art, which makes the breadth of images presented equally rich and diverse as their emotional expression.

As per the notes displayed at the entrance of the exhibit space, this is an exhibition best seen with Advanced Lighting Model (ALM) enabled in the viewer. This doesn’t change our perception of the images per se, but it does enable the local projected lights which add further depth to the night sky environment WuWai has created in which to frame her images. In addition, I suggest making sure local sounds are enabled, as WuWai has also presented a sound scape for the exhibition.

Club LA and Gallery: WuWai Chun

Another enticing exhibition from Club LA and Gallery, beautifully presented – and I further offer kudos to WuWai in her use of vendor boards as picture frames. This allows visitors to both purchase images and to touch them and use the Info button on the displayed menu to receive text information on the image: where it was taken, price, and permissions and a link to the original image on WuWai’s Flickr stream.  I may well be “borrowing” her approach for my own pictures!

The official opening for the exhibition is at 13:00 SLT on Saturday, March 16th, 2019.

SLurl Details

New Linden Homes Preview

Posted on by Inara Pey
New Linden Homes preview – available until Sunday, April 7th, 2019

Friday, March 15th marked the opening of the 2019 Home and Garden Expo in support of Relay for Life and the American Cancer Society.

I’ll have a report on this year’s event coming up soon, but for this article I’m focusing on a special element within the event: the preview region for the new Linden Homes continent that will be débuting very soon for Premium members (Patch linden indicated it is just “weeks” away now) as a long awaiting “upgrade” to (and eventual replacement of)  the old 512 sq metre parcel Linden Homes.

I hopped over to the preview region – which is presented just as one of the regions in the new continent will look – as Patch Linden and members of the Linden Department of Public Works were available and taking questions. Rather than go on at great length, I’ve attempted to summarise the key points below.

Note that the preview region will remain open until the end of the Home and Garden Expo on Sunday, April 7th, 2019.

New Linden Homes preview

Launch and Availability

  • No precise launch date has been announced, but Patch indicated it is now “weeks” away for the initial deployment.
  • When launched, the new Linden Homes will be available to all Premium members, and will not be tied to any new Premium tier option.
  • Obtaining a new Linden Home will follow similar lines to the current Linden homes – using a web page to make an initial choice of home type, before selecting the style of house when in-world.
  • Premium users will be able to swap between house types, just as they can with current Linden Homes.
  • When launched, the new Linden homes will be made available on a new continent  – apparently to be called  Bellisseria (according to the covenant).
    • This continent will form a “bridge” between two of the existing Mainland continents (which continents has yet to be announced) to form “a larger contiguous continent”.
  • In time, as take-up of the new Linden Homes increases, the existing Linden Homes mini-continents will be retired and removed from the grid, with those remaining on them rather than obtaining a new linden Home being encouraged to move.
The new Linden homes include houseboat options, couple with moorings for boats

Parcels and Houses

  • Linden Homes (and houseboats) will be provided on 1024 sq m parcels.
    • Premium members must have 1024 sq m of available tier to obtain a home.
    • Premium members are limited to one Linden Home per Premium account.
    • Parcels will have a total of 351 LI for use by those using them (houses and houseboats do not count towards the total).
  • Parcels will be made available in themed areas, and house types will be in keeping with the theme.
    • Parcel terraforming is not permitted.
  • Each parcel will be managed by a mailbox, which will offer four house styles in keeping with the overall theme / type.
    • Houses may not be removed, modified, exchanged, set or deeded to group, or transferred.
    • All of the house styles are deigned to provide garden / yard space.
    • Houseboats include moorings for boats.
  • Additional buildings or structures are allowed as long as they are in theme and meet the height restrictions.
    • Privacy walls or fences should match the theme and extend no more than 4m above ground level.
    • All other structures should not extend higher than 15m above ground level or sea level, whichever is higher.
    • Note that house styles are presented with boundary walls / hedgerows / both for privacy
  • The interiors of Linden Homes can be decorated to residents’ likings. The exteriors should always remain in theme.
  • Types and styles of houses / houseboats include interior / exterior décor options, working curtains / blinds and house control system.
  • Skyboxes are permitted, providing they are above 2000m altitude.
Individual house styles (4) for a given type can be selected from the mailbox associated with a parcel

There is also a new covenant for these linden home, that can be viewed via About Land when visiting the preview region.

General Impressions

The new houses are well presented and offer a good choice of style  – unsurprisingly a good step up from the very long-in-the-tooth current batch of Linden Homes (first introduced in 2010), and I’m personally quite enamoured of the houseboats with their moorings.

Providing infrastructure to the new regions – roads, parks, coastline, beaches, rivers, etc., will hopefully help build more of a community feel to the new Linden Homes than the approach taken with the first series, and in this, providing houses that sit within their parcels and with privacy boundaries (walls / hedgerows) to me both increases the sense of ownership and also the look and feel of these developments being a residential development. True, the privacy is only visual (you’ll need parcel privacy) and the shape of the houseboat parcels tended to make these feel a little crowded, but on the whole, the layout appears to work.

Patch’s indication that the new homes will be part of a “bridge” between two existing continents came as a surprise, and seems to suggest the SSP regions where Linden home development work is being done may be relocated prior to the new Homes starting to be offered.

The Linden Homes preview offers some hints as to the landscaping found within the new continent regions

SLurl Details

2019: sixteen years for Second Life and twenty for Linden Lab

Posted on by Inara Pey
Courtesy of Linden Lab

We’re all familiar with the Second Life Birthday (or more correctly, anniversary, given Second Life is technically older than the celebrated date), marking the month and date on which the platform opened its doors to the public – June 23rd, 2003.

In 2018, we celebrated the platform’s 15th anniversary – a remarkable milestone given the speed at which software and hardware and platforms themselves can rise to prominence before fading away, replaced by the Next Big Thing.

However, as Linden Lab noted in a March 14th blog post, this year’s anniversary marks another special year:

Sixteen years ago, on June 23rd, 2003, Second Life launched to the public. Though it feels like just yesterday and a lifetime ago at the same time, this year we couldn’t pass up the opportunity to go retro and embrace the “Sweet Sixteen” theme for our big party. Sock hops, bowling alleys, and late nights at the diner were a quintessential part of many teenagers lives back in the 1950s, but the 1950s were also a time of political and social change. The world was shocked by the iconic ‘Elvis pelvis,’ and poodle and pencil skirts changed the fashion world forever. Rebellion became the titillating pastime among all that soda shoppe sweetness. It was an era that – like Second Life – rocked and rolled! So, this summer we’re throwing a 1950s themed SL16B with a TON of fun events and happenings. Here is a brief run-down of just a few.

– Linden Lab official blog post

This year the official celebration period will run from Thursday, June 20th, 2019 through to Tuesday, July 8th, 2019, and to mark it the Lab is promising an array of activities, including:

  • The SL16B Shopping Event: scheduled to run throughout the celebration period, this multi-region shopping event is now accepting applications from merchants. Those wishing to participate should ensure they have applied by June 1st, 2019.
  • The SL16B Music Fest:  popular during recent SLB events, the Music Fest will be returning for 2019, and details on how performers can apply will be forthcoming soon.

There will also be the grand community celebration, plus from the Lab the return of the Swaginator and gifts and parties.

Linden Lab Also Turns Twenty

Courtesy of Linden Lab

2019 also marks anther significant anniversary, one that is also worth noting and I would hope (assuming plans aren’t already in-hand) it will also form a part of the SL16B celebrations: the 20th anniversary of the founding of Linden Lab itself.

Linden Research – to give the company its formal name, although it does business under the name of Linden Lab – was founded in 1999 by Philip Rosedale, the company’s first CEO and former Chief Technology Officer of  Real Networks. The company’s original focus was on the development of a immersive virtual reality system comprising both hardware and software known as “The Rig” (which, rumour would have it, still lies in boxes at the Lab’s head offices in San Francisco.

However, unable to develop a commercially viable version of The Rig, Linden Lab turned to software application, producing LindenWorld, the precursor of Second Life.

Initially developed by Andrew Linden, one of the first employees at the Lab (and who would remain with the company until opting to re-join Philip Rosedale and work on the fledgling High Fidelity). LindenWorld wasn’t open to the public, and was more a game than social environment, with a focus on guns and the avatars were made out of prims and carried the name (appropriately enough, of Primitars.

Then in 2001, during a meeting with investors, that Rosedale and his team noticed those at the meeting were particularly responsive to the collaborative, creative potential of the nascent Second Life.

Thus, the objective, game-like focus of the platform’s development shifted towards a more community-drive, social environment, focused on user-created content, and thus Second Life as we  know it today was “born”. On March 13th, 2002, Steller Sunshine became the first public resident of Second Life, and the platform’s public beta commenced in October of that year. Then in June 2003, Linden Lab released Second Life to the world at large.

The first Second Life trailer

So … here’s an early “happy Birthday” to Linden Lab itself. While we may not always agree with the company or its decisions, the fact remains that without the Lab, many of us might never have entered user-collaborative, immersive social digital environments. So I hope that SL16B will mark the company’s birthday as much as it marks SL’s anniversary.

2019 Spoonful of Sugar merchant registrations

Posted on by Inara Pey
Spoonful of Sugar 2018

The 2019 Spoonful of Sugar (SOS) festival will be opening its doors on Saturday, September 14th, 2019 and will run through until Sunday September 29th. It will bring together fashion, home and garden, breedable designers and creators, artists, DJs and live performers to help raise money for Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF).

Merchant registrations for the event are now open, with an extensive range of tiers available for those interested in supporting the event. Full details on these options can be found of the SOS Registration page – all of which should be read in full before applying – but a summary is provided here as a means of quick review.

Sponsor Tiers

Facility

  • Only 15 spots available.
  • 500 Li awarded.
  • 30 x 30 metre build size.
  • 2 x 100% donation to SOS vendors required (more if you wish up to LI limit).
  • As many 50% or 75% donation to SOS vendors as you wish, up to LI limit.
  • Up to 15 vendors allowed for your store (exceptions for hair ans skin vendors – see Registration page).
  • Individual fashion show for your brand – see Registration page).
  • fee: L$9000.

Triage

  • 300 Li awarded.
  • 20 x 25 metre build size.
  • 2 x 100% donation to SOS vendors required (more if you wish, up to LI limit).
  • As many 50% or 75% donation to SOS vendors as you wish, up to LI limit.
  • Up to 12 vendors allowed for your store (exceptions for hair ans skin vendors – see Registration page).
  • Participation in general fashion show.
  • fee: L$6000.

Surgical

  • 200 Li awarded.
  • 15 x 12 metre build size.
  • 1 x 100% donation to SOS vendors required (more if you wish, up to LI limit).
  • As many 50% or 75% donation to SOS vendors as you wish, up to LI limit.
  • Up to 8 vendors allowed for your store (exceptions for hair ans skin vendors – see Registration page).
  • Participation in general fashion show by invitation only, and if space available.
  • fee: L$3000.

Clinical

  • 100 Li awarded.
  • 10 x 8 metre build size.
  • 1 x 100% donation to SOS vendors required (more if you wish, up to LI limit).
  • As many 50% or 75% donation to SOS vendors as you wish, up to LI limit.
  • Up to 4 vendors allowed for your store (exceptions for hair ans skin vendors – see Registration page).
  • fee: L$1000.

Additional notes:

  • All fees form a 100% donation to SOS / MSF and are non-refundable.
  • Each tier has requirements and responsibilities specific to the type of merchant applying (fashion / home and garden / breedables) – again, please refer to the Registration page for details.
    • There are exceptions to these requirements at each tier level as well.
  • All SOS/MSF proceeded items must be placed within SOS vendors that will be supplied by the organisers.
  • Non-scripted vendors must be used for all non-SOS/MSF proceeded items offered for sale.
  • Again, all applicants must read the full requirements and guidelines on the Registration page prior to applying.
Spoonful of Sugar 2017

About 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.

Additional Links

Monochrome at Rainbow Painter’s Gallery

Posted on by Inara Pey
Rainbow Painter’s Gallery: Fabio Castelli

In March, a new ensemble exhibition opened at the Rainbow Painter’s Gallery, curated by Timo Dumpling and Patience Dumpling (patience Roxley), this one with a focus on monochrome images.

Once again, this is an exhibition that features a broad cross-section of artists and art, featuring works created both in-world and from the physical world. Nor is the exhibition restricted to art: Keyah Kyomoon and Mountain String include pieces formed by both images and words.

Rainbow Painter’s Gallery: Cullum-Writer

With such a cross-section of art and artists, the is much to see throughout the gallery, from Nil Urqhart’s starkly beautiful photographs of the Mount Blanc massif in Chamonix region of the French Alps, through in-world photography by Fiona Saiman, Tara Aers, Josie Anderton Ilyra Chardin, Lena Kiopak and others. These run between avatar studies and landscapes, and I confess to finding Josie Anderton’s Valentine to be quite captivating.

Vicktor Savior present three of his pencil drawings of celebrities – of which Keanu Reeves tended to hold my attention; but where drawings are concerned, it is the two pieces by Fabio Castelli I found most attractive. I was also pleased to see some of Paula Cloudpainter’s art on display – although I confess, I’m not sure monochrome fully captures the richness of her cloud images. Nor is all of the gallery given over to fully monochrome; there are touches of colour here and there, notably in the poems by Mountain String.

Rainbow Painter’s Gallery: Fiona Saiman

Such a large ensemble exhibition inevitably makes it hard to write about individual artists or pieces. As such, I can only give a hint of what is on display; but for a relatively young venue, I will say that Rainbow Painter’s is maturing into a very capable gallery that is rightly attracting the interest of artists new and old within SL. As such, I do recommend paying it a visit, and on keeping an eye on exhibitions there.

SLurl Details