Mindful Cove, September 2024 – click any image for full size
The Destination Guide recently led me to visit Mindful Cove, an interesting Full private region with something of a double life. On the ground, it offers a natural setting in which to relax and explore and – it you are interested – join in the local music and mediation session (subject to available guides). Up in the sky, it offers a new user orientation centre, allowing it to a part of the Second Life Community Gateway programme.
Mindful Cove is a Second Life Community Gateway with a focus on mental health resources.. We offer plenty of fun, interactive resources for New Residents, and a tranquil space for all SL Residents to come and enjoy.
– From Mindful Cove’s About Land description
Mindful Cove, September 2024The region design is largely designed by Ella Pavlona on behalf of the Mindful Cove group. The ground level are offers an open wilderness with a backdrop of off-region mountains which, together with the sequoia-like trees, give it the sense of being somewhere in North America. The Landing Point offers a fair amount of information on the local group, events in the region, and the all-important teleport board up to the orientation area.
From the Landing point, exploration of the ground level setting is simply a case of following your feet; there is a trail that loops around the setting, starting as a dirt track leading away from the Landing Point. This will take visitors around to the group’s main headquarters, with a café, meeting rooms, lounges, etc.
Mindful Cove, September 2024Beyond this, the trail continues over a stream to an outdoor events area, which I gather hosts the music events and other activities (details on the notice boards to be found there and at the landing point and elsewhere). From here the path gets a little wilder and harder to follow, but it is worth persevering as the region is photogenic and you might come across peddle boats to rez and ride, places to sit and pass the time, and so on.
Find your way across the eastern stream as it passes close the the Landing Point (there are stepping stones!), and although trail offers further opportunities for exploration and / or relaxing – although I would suggest a few more would not go amiss in helping to attract visitors. Within its screen of high hills, this eastern and southern part of the region has a very calming sense of remoteness to to and makes for an engaging space in which to wander and take photos.
Mindful Cove, September 2024
The orientation air follows the look and feel of the ground level, with a country trail circling a wooded lake. It also follows the familiar approach to teaching new users about the viewer and its controls and key aspects of Second Life: via a follow, read, and try orientation walk.
In this case, learning takes the form of following the trail as it takes the user through a series of lessons: basic avatar movement / navigation suing the keyboard and / or a mouse, progressing through camera controls, sitting, discovering how to make friends, join groups, communicate in text and / or voice, and so on and so forth. Information boards are provided in English, and despite being on transparent panels (which gives them a nice sense of floating) are very clear and easy to follow.
Mindful Cove, September 2024
The approach may seem pedestrian (no pun intended) to some; but the fact is, it works; there is nothing better than learning at your own pace, and I would suggest that by-and-large it is potentially somewhat more successful than having an orientation area loaded with “helpers” or “mentors” all with an eagerness to help – which can be a little overwhelming for some new users. Of course, a lack of mentors does mean a lack of people of whom questions can be asked; but again, I’d suggest this is not a significant loss – again, people are liable to be less nervous or embarrassed with any mistakes they make if they don’t feel they have someone watching them – possibly critically.
The orientation walk at Mindful Cove travels roughly half-way around a central lake, ending at a pair of building with an outdoor terrace area with a rezzing, new starter gifts and additional information. This also provides a teleport back down to the ground level, while beyond it is space into which the orientation walk could expand.
Mindful Cove, September 2024
To be honest, I’m not sure how much use the orientation area gets, or how active mindful Cove is as a Community Gateway (but then, LL don’t seem to be as engaged with the programme as they were when it relaunched in 2017). No-one was making use of the orientation area during my visits, which could make it an ideal place to take anyone you bring into SL yourself and want to let them try the lessons, or come across a new user struggling with the viewer. Again as already noted, the lessons are nicely laid out and easy to follow, and the location pleasant enough and quiet enough such that that might welcome the opportunity of work through ay of the lessons that are relevant to them and reach a place where they feel more at home in-world and with the viewer.
Taken as a whole, Mindful Cove is an interesting / pleasant visit with some nice opportunities for photography and for participating in any events held there (there were two music events for September, so not sure what October will bring). The region has a evening sky EEP setting across both the ground level and orientation area (although I used my own EEP when photographing the former), and the landscape on the ground is nicely laid out and accompanied by a suitable soundscape, so do have local sounds enabled.
Over a decade ago, I wrote about a stunning exhibition of fractal art entitled Cathedral Dreamer (see: Fractal dreams in Second Life). At the time, it was my first introduction to the artist’s work – although by no means his first installation within Second Life -, and the start of a wellspring of admiration I’ve had for his work ever since.
Long before AI became the “in thing” for artistic expression, the artist in question was working with software tools to produce the most amazing fractal pieces, genuine cathedrals, palaces – even cities – of the imagination modelled in 2D, together with magnificent vehicles and spacecraft. Nor did his creativity stop there; combining images with narrative and setting, his work came to weave together broad canvases of art, story and the imagination to take us both on journeys through space and time whilst giving us pause for thought.
SLEA – Everlast, by Gem Preiz, September 2024
Installations such as Heritage: Vestiges (January 2016, reviewed here), and its sequel, Heritage: Wrecks (May 2016, reviewed here), sought to allegorically and artistically ask us about how the past may have informed us in bequeathing structures and memories to us, and how we might in turn inform our descendants in far future age in what we bequeath in terms of structures and edifices. He has also used his art to encourage us to explore aspects of philosophy (The AnthropicPrinciple, April 2017, reviewed here) and also moved into 3D builds and installations such as Skyscrapers (April 2020, reviewed here) and the fabulous Sapiens (January 2018, reviewed here), an exploring the nature of humanity and human society, and of consciousness and thought.
That artist is Gem Preiz, and the above is just to touch on his work in the years since my first encounter with Cathedral Dreamer. I mention it all intentionally, not because Gem really needs any introduction, but because he has opened a new installation within Second Life, which will remain in place for (I believe) around six months. It is a piece which – whilst far from being Gem’s last in SL, I’m sure – in many respects brings things somewhat “full circle”, returning o the theme through which I first encountered his work, as he noted to me when inviting me along to view the new installation:
Hello Inara. 10 years ago, you wrote a blog post about someone dreaming of cathedrals 🙂 . I finally managed to build one in 3D! It’s now visible “for real”, built in my way [with] prims and minimal textures … I hope you will have time to visit.
SLEA – Everlast, by Gem Preiz, September 2024
And so it is that I jumped over to visit Everlast, a single installation of impressive size (28,913 Land Capacity and occupying a Full region leveraging the Lab’s Full region Land Capacity bonus) in which Gem has truly become the Cathedral Dreamer.
It’s a build that encompasses many signatures of his work, past and present: the use of prims over mesh; the minimalist use of colour which a focus on gold (which has been the colour of choice found within several of his more recent installations and exhibitions), the use of geometry and geometric forms which echo the geometry from which fractal grow, thus providing a subliminal link to his 2D fractal art (none of which is displayed here, an unusual move for Gem, but understandable given the overall LI of the installation) – and of course, his love for architectural design.
SLEA – Everlast, by Gem Preiz, September 2024
As a region-wide build, Everlast does require a fairly long draw distance to take it all in from the outside, but this can be stepped down own inside the main structure, if required. Those running on non-PBR viewers should also ensure that the Advanced Lighting Model (ALM – Preferences → Graphics) is enabled in their viewer for the best viewing experience, and if you’re able to do so, Shadows should be enabled – although these are not strictly required in terms of general viewing.
The build itself really comprises four elements – the surround, with its little pyramid structures; the covered cloister-like walks surrounding the main build, the garden between these “cloisters” and the main structure, and the soaring beauty of the cathedral-like main structure in the centre. The geometry expressed throughout all of these elements draws everything together and becomes marvellously obvious when the entire installation is seen from above. It is also something visible within the cathedral itself through inlaid floor patterns, the lines of columns and – most particularly – the floor designs themselves.
SLEA – Everlast, by Gem Preiz, September 2024
Ultra-modern in appearance, the cathedral nevertheless harkens back to the great Norman cathedrals in multiple subtle ways whilst also looking to the future. Its minimalist styling – plan white walls with gold coloured elements given both an impression of newest and, conversely, great age, marking the installation a beautifully timeless. In this, the outlying pyramids also add a sense of age, recalling as they do past civilisations. There is also a sense the building is incomplete: seating is scarce, the walls unadorned, etc. But again, as Gem notes in his introduction to the installation, this is intentional:
Some things don’t ever last long, others are everlasting. Some deserve to be forgotten, others deserve a shrine.
“Everlast” is a build which was meant to never be finished. Winter froze it in its whiteness and shades of gold.
Of of this makes for a place not only of artistic expression which has been beautifully conceived and executed, but also of personal contemplation and reflection. It’s is an installation not only to be seen, but experienced. As such, I recommend Everlast for your appreciation. Do go visit.
An artist’s impression of one of the TRAPPIST-1 planets in the star’s habitable zone. Credit: unknown
Scientists have once again been turning their attention to the TRAPPIST-1 planetary system – this time to try to find evidence of technosignatures – artificial radio transmissions if you will – emanating from the system.
TRAPPIST-1 is a red dwarf star some 40 light years from Earth which had been previously known by the less exotic designation 2MASS J23062928-0502285. The name change came about in 2017, after extensive observations led by the Transiting Planets and Planetesimals Small Telescope (TRAPPIST) system revealed the star had no fewer than seven roughly Earth-sized planets orbiting it (see: Space update special: the 7-exoplanet system). The discoveries marked the star as a prime contender for the study of exoplanet systems, not only because of its proximity to our own Sun or the number of planets orbiting the star, but also because three of the seven planets lay within the star’s “Goldilocks zone” – the region where everything is kind-of “just right” for liquid water to exist and – perhaps – life to potentially take hold.
However, there have always been caveats around any idea of any of the planets harbouring liquid water, much less life, the most obvious being whether or not they have an atmosphere. One problem is that red dwarf stars tend to be rather violent little fellows in comparison to their size, prone to extreme solar events which could, over time, simply rip away the atmospheres of any planets orbiting. Another, more intrinsic problem is that a new study suggests that it might be harder to confirm whether or not the TRAPPIST-1 planets have any atmospheres because the means by which scientists have generally used to try and identified whether or not tidally locked exoplanets might have atmospheres could well be flawed – of which more in a moment.
True-colour illustration of the Sun (left) next to TRAPPIST-1 (right), both to scale relative to one another. TRAPPIST-1 is darker, redder, and smaller than the Sun, being slightly larger than Jupiter. Via: Wikipedia
The issue of TRAPPIST-1 ripping away an atmospheres its planets may have had is a mixed one: on the one side, all of the planets orbit their parent star very closely, with orbits completed in periods measure from just 2.4 terrestrial days to 18.9 terrestrial days; this puts them well inside the “zone of violence” for any stellar outbursts from the star. On the other, TRAPPIST-1 is old: estimates put it at around 7.6 billion years old, or more that 1.5 times the age of our Sun, and it might be a much as 10 billion years old. This age means that as red stars go, it is actually quite staid, and may have passed through it more violent phase of life sufficiently long ago for the atmosphere of the more distant planets orbiting it, including those in the habitable zone where life may be able to arise, to have survived and stabilised.
One of the most interesting aspects of the TRAPPIST-1 system is that, even though they are tidally locked, two of the planets within the star’s habitable zone TRAPPIST-1e and TRAPPIST-1f – could actually have relatively benign surface temperatures on their surfaces directly under the light of their star, with TRAPPIST-1e having temperatures reasonable close to mean daytime surface temperatures here on Earth and TRAPPIST-1f matching average daytime temperatures on Mars. Thus, if they do have dense enough atmospheres, both could potentially have liquid water oceans constantly warmed by their sun, and the regions in which those oceans exist could experience relatively temperate weather and climate conditions.
An illustration of the TRAPPIST-1 system scaled to match the inner solar system. Three of the TRAPPIST-1 planets – e, f, and g, sit within the tiny star’s habitable zone, where liquid water might exist on them. Credit: NASA
Since the discovery of the seven planets, there have been numerous studies into their potential to harbour atmospheres and much speculation about whether or not they might harbour life. However, the idea that any life on them might have reached a point of technological sophistication such that we might be able to detect it is – if we’re being honest – so remote as to be unlikely simply because of the many “ifs” surrounding it. However, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to find out; for one thing, there is the intriguing fact that if any civilisation has arisen to a level of technology similar to ours on any of the planets, the relative proximity of the entire system means that it might have made the jump between them and achieved something of a multi-planet status.
Again, the chances of this being the case are really remote – but if it has happened, then there would likely be communications passing back and further the planets. Assuming that such communications are made via artificially modulated radio frequencies, we might be able to detect them from Earth. At least, this has been the thinking of a team of radio astronomers, and they’ve been putting the idea to the test using a natural phenomenon called planet-planet occultation (PPO). A PPO is when one planet comes between two others – in this case one of the TRAPPIST-1 planets and Earth.
The theory is that if the two alien words are communicating one to the other, then during a PPO, any radio signals from the planet furthest from Earth (planet “b” in the illustration below) direct at the occulting planet (planet “c”), would “spill over” their destination and eventually pass Earth, allowing us to detect them. Note this doe not mean picking up the communications themselves for any form of “translation” (not that that would be possible), but rather detecting evidence of artificially modulated radio frequencies that might indicate intelligent intent behind them.
An example of planet-planet occultation (PPO): as planets “b” and “c” pass around their star, “c” will periodically occult (pas in front of) “b” relative to Earth. When this happens, it might be possible it detect radio signals passing from “b” to “c” (if they exist. Credit: Tusay, et al
To this end, a team of radio astronomers the latter’s Allen Telescope Array (ATA), originally set-up by the SETI Institute and the University of California, Berkeley, to listen to the TRAPPIST-1 system and gathered some 28 hours of data across several potential PPO events involving different planets in the TRAPPIST-1 system. In doing so, they collected some 11,000 candidate signals coming from the general proximity of the TRAPPIST-1 system. These event were then further filtered down using computer modelling to some 2,000 potential signals that could be directly associated with 7 PPO events. These 2,000 signals were then analysed to determine if any were statistically unusual enough to suggest they might be of artificial origin – that is, potential radio transmission.
Sadly, the answer to this was “no”, which might sound like a lot of work for no result; but just imagine if the reverse had been true; further, now the concept of using PPO events in this manner has been tested, it lends itself for potential use with other multi-planet systems orbiting relatively nearby stars.
The Problem of Atmospheres
Now, to circle back to the question of atmospheres on tidally locked planets. As noted above, such planets always have one side permanently facing their parent star and the other always pointing away into space, as the rotation of the planet is precisely in sync with its orbital motion around the parent star. This means that – again as already noted – if there is any atmosphere on such a planet, it might result in some extremes of weather, particularly along the terminator between the two sides of the planet.
However, if the atmosphere is dense enough, then conditions on the planet might not only be capable of supporting liquid water, they might also result in stable atmospheric conditions, with less extreme shifts in climate between the two sides of the planet, and while the weather would still be strange, it would not necessarily be particularly violent; thus, such planets might be far more hospitable to life than might have once been thought. And herein lays a problem.
To explain: exoplanet atmospheres are next to impossible to directly observed from Earth or even from the likes of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). Instead, astronomers attempt to observe the spectra of an exoplanet, as this reveals the chemical composition of any atmosphere that might be surrounding it. But tidally-locked planets tend to be orbiting so close to their parent star that trying to obtain any atmospheric spectra is hard due to the interference of the star itself. Instead, a different technique is used.
Computer-generated rendering of how the tidally locked world TRAPPIST-1f might look when viewed from its star, assume it has an atmosphere that might support liquid water on its surface. Credit: NASA
As a tidally locked planet passes between Earth and its parent star it presents its dark side directly to us, allowing astronomers by dint of knowing the nature of the star itself, to calculate the temperature of the planet’s dark side. Then, as it moves around to the far side of the star relative to Earth, we get to measure its “light” side. Again, as the nature of the star and its light / temperature are “known”, it is possible to extrapolate out the likely temperature of the “light” side of the planet. With this done, the two temperatures can be compared, and if they are massively different, then – according to the thinking to date – viola! The planet has no atmosphere; but if the difference between the two is not drastically different, than it’s likely the planet has a nice, dense atmosphere.
Except a new study currently awaiting peer review points out a slight wrinkle in this approach. In it, researchers show that yes, while a dense atmosphere on a tidally-locked exoplanet would moderate the planet’s global temperatures and thus remove extremes, it could also result in the formation of upper atmosphere clouds across much of the dark side of the planet. Such clouds would have two outcomes: on the one hand, they would help retain heat within the atmosphere under them, keeping it much warmer than would otherwise be the case and making the entire planet potentially far more hospitable to life. On the other, they would “reflect” the coldness of the upper atmosphere such that when we attempt to measure the temperature of the planet’s dark side, we are actually measuring the temperature of the cold upper layers of the clouds, not the temperature of the atmosphere below them. This would result in the dark side temperatures appearing to be far lower than is actually the case, leading to the incorrect conclusion that the planet lack any atmosphere when this is not the case.
How clouds could make a planet appear airless. Credit: Powell, et al, Nightside Clouds on Tidally-locked Terrestrial Planets Mimic Atmosphere-Free Scenarios
What’s the impact of this? Well, allowing for the study to pass peer review – and the author’s note that more work in the area is required, it could mean that we have dismissed numerous smaller, solid exoplanets as being unsuitable for life because “they have no atmosphere” when in fact they could in fact do so. Thus, there might be more potentially life-supporting planets than previously considered.
Clef des Champs, September 2024 – click any image for full size
Update, April 2025: Chef de Champs has closed. SLurls have therefore been removed from this article.
Flicking through my notes in the week, I came across La Clef des Champs, by Rose Siabonne, a place I’ve visited a number of times, and which I’d actually convinced myself it was somewhere I’d revisited fairly recently. I was therefore utterly surprised when my notes revealed that “fairly recently” actually meant “nigh on five years ago”!
How time flies when it comes to Second Life 🙂 . Ergo, I suggested to W that we bounce our way over and have a look to see what might have changed. So off we went.
Clef des Champs, September 2024
I first visited the setting back in May 2018, when it occupied a Homestead region. However, within a month of that post the setting had relocated to a quarter parcel on a Full private region, prompting me to drop in once again. By December 2019, and after a short absence whilst Rose focused on a homestead design she called Hors du Temps (May 2019), La Clef des champs returned later that year, this time covering an entire Full region and prompting my further visit.
Now simply called Clef des Champs, the setting remains on a Full private region, with the majority of the landscaping within this iteration by BeautifulDisaster Requiem, although touches by Rose ensure all the spirit and feel of the past iterations of the setting are very much still in evidence. However, one change from my previous visit is that the setting now appears to include a number of residential rentals; these appear to be confined primarily to the east and southern sides of the region, and so don’t interfere with public explorations, whilst as long as people keep their eyes open, the risk of invading privacy is equally remote.
Clef des Champs, September 2024
The landing point now sits in the south-west corner of the region, on the edge of a little hamlet which is very mindful of parts of France (and includes a boules court!). Primarily designed by Rose, this offers a little café in which to pass the time, and one or two little touches those familiar with earlier iterations of Clef des Champs might recognise (and which help with a sense of continuity between iterations).
From here, a walk northwards winds its way over grasslands and (via boardwalks) across the local wetlands before turning eastwards. These wetlands are fed by falls dropping from the region’s central highlands and offer a home to local waterfowl whilst a houseboat permanently moored close the the foot of the falls (“permanently”, given the boardwalks now appear to block its exit to open water) and several places to sit located around the edge of the waters all provide excellent vantage points from which to observe the waterfowl – or simply has a cuddle.
Clef des Champs, September 2024
Having passed the wetland, the eastward path skirts the feet of the central rocky plateau, passing over a little stream to carry on around the landscape, presenting paths over to the rental properties to the south and east in the process. Screened by trees and shrubs from the rest of the setting, the latter are easily avoided by keeping to the flower-covered banks of the larger stream reaching outwards from the plateau’s falls.
A fallen tree trunk here provides a convenient bridge to cross the waters of the steam and reach the steps and trail leading up into the rugged hill. At the top. multiple places to pass the time might be found – including within the hilltop folly – and a rope bridge might lead you to a hot tub sitting on the south cliffs as they form a curtain between the inner lands of the region and the public beach.
Clef des Champs, September 2024
When circumnavigating the main upland plateau, do keep your eyes peeled for the romantic cavern hidden within the rocks at its base. Do also keep an eye out for the teleport pads dotted around (not that they are hard to miss!). As well as offering shortcuts to areas on the ground level of the region, they also provide access to the Autumn and Winter sky platforms, each of which offers its own little retreat.
Between the plateau and the screen of rocky cliffs to the south, the landscape is cut through by the meandering, if fast-flowing, stream as it makes its way back towards the west to eventually exit into the waters beside the little hamlet. As it does so, it passes through a verdant land of tall trees, flowers, grasses and woodland where trails equally meander, and at least one camp site awaits discovery.
Clef des Champs, September 2024
Throughout all of this, the landscaping is highly amenable to photography and lends itself nicely to a range of EEP settings – I’ve used my own for the pictures here – and the soundscape adds depth to the setting. There are also multiple places to sit and pass the time; some of which are mentioned above, but more of which await discovery.
There was some redecorating (seasonal changes) going on during the second half of my re-visit, so its is possible some details may change between this article going out and you reading it – but if so – then that’s another reason for visiting, no? 🙂 .
NovaOwl Sky Gallery, September 2024: Looker Lumet – Sea Views
Open through until late October 2024 at the sky gallery space at NovaOwl Social Corner and Gallery, is an exhibition of photographic art by Looker Lumet. Entitled Sea Views, it in part features – unsurprisingly, given the title – images of coastal settings, seascapes and bays; however, to assume such images are the sole focus of the exhibition would be a mistake; rather, Sea Views offers a glimpse of Looker’s broader photographic and artistic talents, making it a thoroughly engaging portfolio of works in which to immerse oneself.
I’ve covered exhibitions featuring Looker’s work in the past, but these have tended to be shared exhibitions, rather than solo offerings; and while I’ve always admired what I’ve seen in his work, Sea Views is the first time I’ve actually been able to visit an exhibition that offers such a complete and engaging selection of his work.
NovaOwl Sky Gallery, September 2024: Looker Lumet – Sea Views
Looker Lumet is a Belgian photographer who found the pleasure in sl of taking pictures, back in 2007, which was an extension of his hobby in real life. It is also from 2007 that he has learned to work with Photoshop, and is still evolving by learning the skills of post processing every day. Thanks to the evolution in second life, where the avatars were better looking, the landscapes were more detailed, the pictures became more and more realistic. Throughout the years in second life, Looker Lumet has been first an artist of the Avatrait Gallery, before he was giving the opportunity to manage the gallery for three years. His works has been displayed in several galleries since then.
Looker Lumet biography
The lower level of the gallery space focus on Looker’s landscape and seascape photography. In all 10 pieces are presented, and whether the locations within them are instantly recognisable or not as popular public locations past and present within Second Life doesn’t matter; each is striking in its own way, thanks to a combination of Looker’s ability to compose and / or frame a shot and / or for his skills in post-processing.
NovaOwl Sky Gallery, September 2024: Looker Lumet – Sea Views
Eight of the ten clearly feature coastal and sea views, be they sandy shores, coastal fens (Autumn Trace, if I’m not mistaken), or sailing vessels at anchor in a bay or with sails unfettered and in full career as they head to sea; and each is alive with a sense of Nature’s beauty and expanse. The remaining two pictures do not feature the sea directly, but both strongly suggest it, with Cloud Edge being captured from such an angle that even though the region itself presents a location high up upon a mountain range, the way clouds roll up against the peak directly before the camera within the image, strongly give the impression of sea-spray foaming up over rocks as waves roll against an island’s flanks following the ebb and flow of the tide.
The upper level of the gallery space offers a selection of eight pieces representing another aspect of Looker’s work: that of a portraiture artist. Seven of the pieces are rendered at black-and-white pieces, with one a self-portrait carrying with it subtle hints of chiaroscuro (in which it is joined by the two pieces immediately to its left as you look at it), whilst all capture their subjects both uniquely in terms of pose and angle, and expressively. The remaining image, offered in colour, stands as a broader portrait of a couple, offering a superbly framed and composed single-frame story ready to be told to the eyes and ears of anyone viewing it.
NovaOwl Sky Gallery, September 2024: Looker Lumet – Sea Views
The following notes were taken from my audio recording and chat log transcript of the Content Creation User Group (CCUG) meeting held on Thursday, September 5th, 2024.
Tis meeting was also livesteamed on You Tube by the Lab. The video is embedded at the end of this summary, my thanks to the Lab for providing it.
The CCUG meeting is for discussion of work related to content creation in Second Life, including current and upcoming LL projects, and encompasses requests or comments from the community, together with related viewer development work. This meeting is held on alternate Thursdays at Hippotropolis.
Meeting dates and times are recorded in the SL Public Calendar, and they re conducted in a mix of Voice and text chat.
The notes herein are a summary of topics discussed and are not intended to be a full transcript of the meeting.
Release viewer: version 7.1.10.10800445603, formerly the DeltaFPS RC (multiple performance fixes, etc), dated September 11th, promoted September 17th.
Release Candidates(s):
None at present.
Near-Term Viewer Release Roadmap
As a reminder, linden Lab is focused to bringing viewer performance back up to levels equal or close to “pre-PBR” performance,. This involves both further adjustments in the wake of the PBR releases and also fixing issues not directly related to PBR, which were coincidentally introduced with Graphics Featurette viewer release. This work is currently focused on, but not limited to, the following viewer updates from LL:
Atlasaurus, promoted to release status on August 16th, 2024.
DeltaFPS, promoted to release status (and thus superseding Atlasaurus) on September 17th, 2024.
ExtraFS, a new viewer that will be issued as a release candidate viewer in the near future.
Once ExtraFPS reaches at least RC status, work will commence on resuming the normal follow of maintenance update viewers, etc., as per the more usual flow of viewer updates.
The first maintenance RC to be issued will likely include contributions to help with Linux support in the viewer.
It will also likely also include a round of further “post-PBR” performance / aesthetic improvements.
A new project intended to move Second Life away from reliance on the Vivox voice service and plug-in, and to using the WebRTC communications protocol (RTC=”real-time communication”). Roxie Linden is leading this work.
Key benefits:
WebRTC supports a wide range of real-time communications tools in common use (e.g. Google Meet), supporting audio, video and data communications, and is thus something of a “standard” approach.
Offers a good range of features: automatic echo cancellation, better noise cancellation and automatic gain control, much improved audio sampling rates for improved audio quality.
Opens the door to features and capabilities to voice services which could not be implemented whilst using Vivox.
Status
WebRTC is now fully supported in the official viewer.
DeltaFPS has a major change to the texture streaming system utilising the GPU:
Until now, the approach has been to drop the texture resolution down to a very low resolution (often causing a texture to blur on-screen) and then use the CPU to bring it back up to the appropriate resolution for display.
With DeltaFPS and going forward, the GPU is used to generate a copy of the texture at the appropriate resolution for display, and this is then used in rendering, with the higher-resolution version then discarded.
The overall results of this is a) there should be a lot less visible blurring of textures as they are loaded; b) the CPU load should be reduced; c) texture loading should be a lot smoother and faster.
The upcoming ExtraFPS viewer includes texture rendering improvements for rigged attachments:
Currently the viewer does not have an clear idea as to the size of a rigged attachment, other than it being possibly as big as the avatar, so all attachments essentially get the same texture resolution no matter how small there actually are, which can impact performance.
With ExtraFPS the texture resolutions for attachments will be more correctly calculated by their size, reducing the texture rendering overheads (e.g. rather than the texture for buttons on a jacket being loaded at its full 2K resolution, a much lower resolution sample for the texture is used unless the camera is zoomed right in on a single button, when higher resolution are used until zoomed out again).
This should mean that general viewer performance in crowds of avatars is improved, as the viewer isn’t trying to load high-resolution textures across every attachment in its view.
Note: this change is purely with regards to attachment textures, it does not change attachment LODs.
Anti-Aliasing:
ExtraFPS will support Subpixel Morphological Anti-Aliasing (SMAA).
In addition, as as per the previous CCUG meeting, Rye Cogtail from the Alchemy team is planning (or already has) submitted contribution to improve the FXAA code for inclusion in the ExtraFPS viewer.
The viewer update after ExtraFPS should include the Khronos Neutral tone mapper (another code contribution by Rye Cogtail), which should improve overall ambient lighting in SL.
To help with this, the viewer will include additional user controls. During the previous CCUG meeting, these were described as a combo box and a slider within the Advanced Graphics settings, together with a new new control – Tone Mapping Strength – to alter the linear alpha colour.
Linear alpha blending:
Again, as per the previous CCUG meeting, in order for PBR lighting to render anywhere close to correctly, alpha blending had to be switched from SRGB to linear colour space. This can cause some older content using Blinn-Phong, to look either more opaque or more transparent than in did pre-PBR.
A fix for this giving people the ability to adjust the alpha/gamma on per texture entry for the object (including no mod items) is in development, and will likely surface in the viewer after ExtraFPS.
Linden Water reflections have been reduced in quality with PBR. Geenz linden is experimenting with using elements of the mirror reflection code to try an improve them, but was not at the meeting to provide and update.
This work is also not a current priority, as Geenz is focused on the performance improvements work.
Adjusting screen space reflections (SSR) to correct the issue is not an option as “SSR has it own bunch of problems”.
Texture transforms (as a subset of the KHR texture transform) for applying scale, offset and rotation to any one of the four PBR terrain materials, are in development for the viewer, and are currently behind a feature flag and is awaiting further work on the server-side, which is currently in a very preliminary state.
The server support is available on Aditi (the Beta grid), those wishing to test it should contact Cosmic Linden.
In addition, an LSL API for manipulating PBR terrain materials has been requested, but this is not something that is currently being worked upon.
In Brief
[Video: 14:48-17:18] Will GLTF mesh uploads address the issues of random linkset ordering (i.e. currently, when uploading a multi-object .DAE file, it is turned into a linkset with random ordering, so the root object can never be know until post-upload)?
Yes. What should happen is whatever the hierarchy is used within Blender (or similar glTF-compliant mesh modelling tool us used) should be reflected in SL after upload.
The basic interoperability between Blender and SL can be found here in the Blender documentation, although note that LL are not going to support extensions like Clearcoat, Sheen and Anisotropy with the initial release.
As a part of the upcoming glTF scene import support, the in-world build tools will be given the ability to edit such scenes (subject to permissions). These will likely take the form of a Scene Explorer and Scene Management tools.
LL has had internal discussions on a “simplified editor for decorating houses, etc.”, and feedback has been requested as to what kind of improvements to the existing in-viewer toolset / additional tools people would like to see.
This sparked a brief conversation on possible improvements to the build tools / options, together with a discussion on the growing complexity of wearable layers (due to creators effectively “splitting off” face !skins” into layers, which can cause issues with the ordering of layers, and the ability to “lock” the ordering of specific items in a layer class – e.g. the “face tattoo” should always be “below” any “make-up” tatt0o, etc.) .
Please refer to the video for more.
[Video: 30:35-36:20] A general discussion on getting started on avatar rigging and animation + suggested resources (e.g. AvaStar, AvaStar discord channel, Bento Buddy; making the avatar UV files, etc., more accessible via secondlife.com rather than being buried in the SL Wiki) – again please refer to the video.
Some basic internal experimentation has been carried out with meshy.ai. It is described as “compelling” in terms of content creation, but “definitively cost prohibitive to host such a thing”.
As such LL are brainstorming how they might interact with such a tool from SL, should they opt to go that particular route.
In addition, other AI tools are being speculatively looked at as well.
Please refer to the video for more.
[Video: 45:59-49:50] a request for additional LSL functions llGetSTPos and / or llGetUVPos get a world positioning from a texture coordinate. The short answer was no, and for a combination of reasons, but might be something for the upcoming viewer-side Luau scripting. Please refer to the video.
† The header images included in these summaries are not intended to represent anything discussed at the meetings; they are simply here to avoid a repeated image of a gathering of people every week. They are taken from my list of region visits, with a link to the post for those interested.
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 