Avaloir (which might be translated as “throat”, or more usually a device used to collect run-off water – that is a drain) is the title of what is perhaps best described as something of a retrospective installation of various works by Eupalinos Ugajin – or as Eupa describes it, when “random ideas met a playground”.
Those familiar with Eupa’s work will know that it covers a broad canvas, often containing humour, whimsy, a little self-deprecation, which can be mixed with social commentary, imaginative projection worth of the likes of Gilliam, and an artistic flair that can quite captivate the eye and mind.
It’s hard to say which of these boxes one might tick when it comes to Avaloir, but given the description and the majority of the pieces presented, I’d sway more towards the whimsy end of the scale than anywhere else.
A journey – and it is a journey – commences at a rather dark arrival point high in the sky. from here one can teleport to a number of destinations within the region, some on the ground and some in the air. For those who are familiar with Eupa’s work, some (all?) of the destinations will offer a change to renew acquaintances with various past pieces. Most notably, perhaps, are elements from Taxy! to the Zircus, which first appeared in 2014 (you can read more about it here).
Wonderfully Dada-esque in presentation, with a twist of the abstract, four elements from Zircus. Be prepared to mouse around for things to sit on, click on and generally have fun with. You might find yourself riding a spiralling mandolin, wearing cubed boxing gloves and sparring a star-like punching bag, engaging in a little artistic expression with a paint brush and a … hair dryer … and more besides.
Down on the ground can be found the very interactive The Plant and also Eupa’s giant water / strawberry powered catapult (more here), only this time without its accompanying tower target. There’s also The Concrete Kite, and a whole lot more – some interactive, some observable. Getting around is predominantly achieved using the teleport cubes located at each of the major elements of the installation, although you can also fly from point to point at ground level.
Quantifying Avaloir isn’t the point. Experiencing it is – so as noted above, make sure you do mouse around, click, try, and be prepared to walk into things. Do make sure, as well, that you have local sounds enabled, as this is very much an aural experience as well as an interactive one.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, after spending time at Moor the Wind, I’ve got an unquenchable desire to listen to Glenn Miller and his orchestra….
The following notes are taken from the Content Creation User Group (CCUG) meeting, held on Thursday, May 24th, 2018 at 13:00 SLT. These meetings are chaired by Vir Linden, and agenda notes, etc, are usually available on the Content Creation User Group wiki page.
Animesh
Project Summary
The goal of this project is to provide a means of animating rigged mesh objects using the avatar skeleton, in whole or in part, to provide things like independently moveable pets / creatures, and animated scenery features via scripted animation. It involves both viewer and server-side changes.
Current Status
Work is continuing on moving towards a main (Agni) grid deployment of the server-side code to support Animesh.
Everything has been through QA, and there is a remaining issue with validating attachments. This is liable to require an additional fix.
It is likely that the simulator code will initially be deployed grid-wide on the beta (Aditi) grid for a shakedown period, prior to starting its deployment to the main grid through the usual process of RC deployments ahead of a full deployment.
There are still a number of issues that are TBD within the viewer:
Broken Rotations Issue: two potentially related problems.
In one (BUG-139251), when some static mesh objects are converted to Animesh, the visual mesh is rotated through 90 degrees when seen in the Animesh viewer, but the physics mesh isn’t, leaving it perpendicular to the model. This is possibly an orientation issue, with the viewer expecting the mesh to be aligned to +x=forward – which not all mesh modelling tools follow.
The second problem is that when linking a series of objects into a single Animesh, then are visually located where the avatar skeleton supporting them is located, but the physics shapes remain in the original location of the objects prior to linking / converting.
What is to be done about this still hasn’t been determined, although the Lab has been playing with playing the physics shape in the root of the object.
Rigged Mesh Level of Detail / Bounding Box Issues: (BUG-214736) – Essentially, attachments on avatars swap their LOD models as if they were scaled to the overall avatar bounding box. Graham linden has been working on some fixes for this which should improve accuracy and performance, but further work may be required. Once this has happened, there will be a further update to the project viewer.
Additional Animesh Discussions
Animesh Complexity: there is a further update to come to the Animesh complexity values (Advanced menu > Performance Tools > Show Avatar Complexity – applies to both avatars and Animesh objects in the project viewer). This should fix some inconsistencies in the reported values.
Land Impact: streaming cost: some have questioned with some question with the 50% bounding on LODs could be more stringent. Vir’s view is that 50% is sufficient to allow for a broad range of capabilities among creators, and being more stringent could simply result in a greater addition to land impact, which could affect the use of Animesh. There is an argument that some models require 75% bounding between the high and medium models.
Triangle count limit: There have been requests for further changes to the triangle count limit (e.g. allowing land owners to somehow be able to change it). As the limit was raised to 100,000, it is unlikely to be changed again before Animesh is deployed, and the idea of land owners being able to adjust it is seen as potentially in inconsistencies in how Animesh works in different locations. If it is seen that there is a need to raise the tri count limit, it will be done globally.
Avatar attachments: due to performance concerns, the limit of only one Animesh attachment to an avatar at any given time is not going to be changed ahead of Animesh deployment, but might be revisited in the future.
Animesh ignores SL scale settings: this is a result of how rigged meshes are handled – scaling doesn’t matter for worn mesh items, as other mechanisms are available for avatar scaling (e.g. the shape sliders, etc.). As these mechanisms aren’t available for Animesh in the initial release (e.g. there is no actual body shape associated with Animesh objects, ergo, no sliders), scaling is dependent upon custom joint positions.
Including more capabilities, such as possibly associating a body shape with an Animesh object, is seen as being a follow-on project to come some time after the initial 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 server-side changes, including updating the baking service to support 1024×1024 textures, and may in time lead to a reduction in the complexity of mesh avatar bodies and heads.
This work does not include normal or specular map support, as these are not part of the existing baking service.
Anchor Linden is continuing to work on adding five further channels to the Bake Service (left arm, left foot + three additional “general purpose” channels to be defined and used as required by creators) and the associated tattoo layer UI support to the viewer to allow them to be used.
This is a three-way set of updates, requiring changes to the appearance service, the simulator and the viewer. This, combined with concerns over maintaining backwards compatibility in the appearance service means that getting the work to a testable state is taking a little longer to achieve.
In the meantime, the changes to the appearance service seem to have caused a glitch which can make some avatars appear to be wear “black skirts” when seen on the Animesh test regions Aditi. This will hopefully be corrected soon.
In Brief
Transparency shadow casting from rigged items: there is an issue with rigged / static meshes using transparencies (blended or masked), which causes shadows cast by them to render incorrectly (shadow rendering conforms only to the geometry silhouette).
Graham Linden is now looking at the issue, however, the release of Animesh is not contingent on the basis of any fix, which will probably be part of the ongoing rendering updates Graham is working on.
Rigged / static meshes using transparencies (blended or masked) tend to cast an incorrect shadow
Imposter Clipping: imposter avatars can appear “clipped”. This appears to be related to the problem of not having a good real-time bounding box associated with rigged meshes (which can result in some meshes appearing clipped as well). This is being looked at, and the hope is that if a better means of defining the bounding box for rigged meshes can be found, it will resolve the importer issue. However, the release of things like Animesh are again not contingent on a fix for this issue being implemented.
On May 25th, 2018 the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) comes into force. While an EU regulation, the GDPR not only applies to organisations located within the EU but it will also apply to organisations located outside of the EU if they offer goods or services to, or monitor the behaviour of, EU data subjects.
Earlier in May, the Lab issued a blog post providing an initial outline of their compliance with the GDPR, which covers both Second Life and Sansar. In that post they promised they would provide further details on how EU citizens can exercise their rights under the GDPR. On May 24th, they issued an e-mail summarising updates to their Privacy Policy. The e-mail reads in full:
We value our relationship with our community and your privacy. We have updated our Privacy Policy to increase transparency and comply with the European Union data protection law known as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which goes into effect on May 25, 2018. We encourage you to read our policies in full, but here are some highlights of what’s changed:
We provide additional details about the types of data that we collect, the ways in which we use it, and the measures we take to keep your data safe,
We added information about new choices and controls for users to manage their privacy, and
We added information about user’s rights regarding their privacy.
The updates to our policies will go into effect on May 25, 2018. If you have questions, please contact us at privacy@lindenlab.com.
Thank you for being part of the Linden Lab community!
The Linden Lab Team
The specific sections of the Privacy Policy that have been updated are:
Officially opening on Thursday, May 24th, 2018 at 12:00 noon SLT, is the latest exhibition at Nitroglobus Roof Gallery, curated by curated by Dido Haas.
One of the reasons I return to this gallery so often is Dido’s ability to inviting artists to exhibit who have a talent to provoke the mind, give rise to feelings, and give us pause for contemplation with their art. In this The Colour of Unspoken Words by Natalia Serenade is no exception.
“Looking around me I’ve been wondering why at certain moments there’s silence and no words are spoken,” Natalia says in her introductory notes. “Where do all these unspoken words go? Do they disappear in nowhere, get stuck in our throats, or are they flying away like birds? When this happens you realise how much silence there really is.”
She continues, “I want to paint the silence, the words not spoken, the freedom, thoughts swirling around me, the desire, the joy, the fear, the pain; AND there is my mind that is thinking constantly as it’s always filled with ideas and I have no choice but to create. Putting the colours together, with many cheerful tones, I will colour the day before it gets dark. So, let’s make today the most colourful of days.”
The result is 16 images of a distinctly abstract tone, utilising a measured approach to tone and colour which are both unique and also rich in emotional content. This might be hinted at when looking at a specific painting and then given form by its title, or it might be clear from the lines of an image without the need to reference its name.
In the latter category, I’d point to the likes of A Broken Heart Can’t Bare To Speak and If You Would Know… Then there ar pieces which seem to contain subtext within them: Someone hears every unspoken word and Reborn, both of which can offer up at least two potential narratives within their lines. In all of them the use of colour plays an important role if revealing their meaning and story: the colours used, their proportions relative to one another, their individual prominence in an image.
“Some people only speak when their words are more beautiful than the silence, some hide their words because of shyness,” Natalia says of the exhibition. In these paintings she brings all of those words and the silence in which they can exist, colourfully to life.
There are no server deployments planned for week #21! To quote Mazidox Linden in the server deployment thread:
Hey everyone! We’ve got a bunch of things we’re still testing this week and don’t have any rolls for any channels (Second Life Server, RC Bluesteel, RC LeTigre, RC Magnum, or RC Cruller), and we don’t anticipate any rolling restarts. We’re aiming to have at least one new server version through testing by next week, and hopefully we’ll have a better view of that by Thursday. If you’re interested please join us at the SBUG meeting on Aditi.
RC Cruller is likely one of the smaller RC selections (like Snack and Cake), and is apparently named for the small cake made of rich dough twisted or curled and fried in deep fat (I can feel my arteries hardening just typing that!).
SL Viewer
The Ouzo Maintenance viewer, version 5.1.4.515016, was promoted to the de facto release viewer in week #20. As a result:
The Love Me Render RC viewer containing rendering fixes and improvements updated to version 5.1.5.515528 on May 22nd, 2018.
A new Maintenance RC viewer, code-named Pálinka, after the traditional fruit brandy popular in Central Europe, was release on May 21st, 2018. Maintenance RC 5.1.5.515527 contains some 36 fixes and improvements, as specified in the release notes.
Outside of these updates, the viewer pipelines are as follows:
Current Release version 5.1.4.515016, dated May 7, promoted May 16 – formerly the Ouzo Release Candidate.
Bakes on Mesh project viewer, version 5.1.3.513936, March 30.
360 snapshot viewer, version 5.1.3.513006, March 6 (this version can have significant rendering issues, see my hands-on update).
Linux Spur viewer, version 5.0.9.329906, dated November 17, 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 8, 2015 – provided for users on Windows XP and OS X versions below 10.7.
Updated May 23rd: to include information on the donation box for the region.
Miro Collas dropped me a tweet suggesting Caitlyn and I take a look at Butterfly Beach, a Homestead region that recently opened to the public. The region has been designed by (the always delightfully named) Funky Banana (FunkyBananas) working with Lien Lowe. Funky was also responsible for Banana Bay, which we enjoyed visiting in the summer of 2017.
Butterfly Beach shares something of a common heritage with Banana Bay: both offer sunny, sandy beaches, a feeling of getting away from it all and an opportunity to relax and simply spend time in thought or with someone. From the air (or the Map) it’s clear how the island came by its name, and a visit starts on what might be considered the butterfly’s upper right wing (actually down towards the south-east corner of the region in terms of Map orientation).
First impressions on arriving is that this could be a small vacation island just off the coast of Italy or perhaps in the Aegean, available to those who want to escape the every day demands of life. A lone, single-story house sits towards the centre of the island, looking to the west and east. Tuscan in style, it shares the low-lying island with a scattering of outhouses: a small stone-built barn, a wooden boathouse and a small beach house, also built from wood.
A wooden deck extends eastward out over the sea a short distance from the house. The fencing around the house seems to lay claim to the deck such that it is easy to imagine wandering across the sand from the house to enjoy breakfast on the deck as the Sun eases its way higher over the eastern horizon.
As might be gathered from the name of the region, beaches are very much the feature of the island. However, rather than offering a single contiguous stretch of coastal sands running around the island, Funky and lien have carefully used small outcrops of rocks and runs of rough grass dotted with bushes to break the island’s sands into a number of discrete – and entirely natural looking – sandy headlands and small, curving coves.
Each of these little beaches has its own attraction, be it a simple blanket laid out on the sand or deck chairs under a parasol, through to a tent or makeshift shelter, all the way to the simply but cosily furnished beach house. Rowing boats and kayaks are drawn up on the sand or undergoing a repaint in the boat shed, swings hang from trees and wooden benches can be found amidst the grass. All of this gives the island an additional attraction and encourages time spent just wandering and appreciating, as well as in sitting and enjoying the setting.
Restful, set beneath an early morning’s summer sky and very photogenic, Butterfly Island is well worth a visit. If you do take photos, there is an open invitation to share them through the region’s Flickr group. A donations “box” in the form of a butterfly can be found near the landing point – so if you enjoy your visit,, do please consider making a donation towards the region’s continued upkeep.
Thanks again to Miro for the pointer, and to chericolette (see her comment below) for the pointer to the donation box, which I’d missed during my two visits to the region!
