Premium Plus gains Speedlight benefits & some thoughts

Posted on by Inara Pey
via Linden Lab

On Tuesday, October 4th, Linden Lab announced that Premium Plus members can now leverage the Speedlight client as a part of their Plus benefits.

For those un familiar with Speedlight, it is a client specifically designed for use within browsers and on suitable Android and iOS devices, one I have covered in these pages – although admittedly, not the more recent updates.

Since its inception, SpeedLight has steadily increased the capabilities it offers such that it now includes (but is not limited to) chat, IM, Group chat, inventory management, friends list functions, search options, the ability to switch between devices (on SpeedLight) without having to re-log – and basic 3D world view rendering with avatar movement capabilities. A full list of available features and capabilities is available here.

The core product is offered free-of-charge, albeit it with some limitations (log-in time is limited & requires re-logging every 6 hours). However, there is also a dedicated subscription option called Gold (and quite distinct from the Lab’s Premium Plus), which in turn can be tiered through associated Patreon options to offer additional benefits,

The benefits offered to Premium Plus subscribers have been placed between the existing Free and Gold options offered directly by the SpeedLight team, and are summarised within the Lab’s announcement as:

  • Unlimited online time at SpeedLight.
  • Access to Speedlight’s Advanced 3D World view [the cutting-edge element of Speedlight’s 3D rendering capabilities, offering options and abilities first, some of which may (or may not) eventually filter down to Free accounts].
  • Prioritised support (tickets and live chat).
SpeedLight is now available to Second Life Premium Plus subscribers with special options. Image via Speedlight

Given the frequent calls for the Lab to supply a mobile option for accessing Second Life – particularly since the stagnation of Android-based Lumiya -, and with its multi-platform reach, list of capabilities and a basic world rendering capability, Speedlight does have a lot to offer.

However, I would be remiss if I did not mention the graphics used in the Lab’s announcement. Placing a full-feature in-world image of Second Life on both a laptop and mobile device screen might lead to misguided expectations among some (e.g. users relatively new to SL) that SpeedLight offers the same graphics fidelity as an actual viewer; something the SpeedLight team would be the first to acknowledge is not the case. So perhaps a footnote stating the images are not from SpeedLight might be in order to avoid this and accusations of misrepresentation?

That aside, this is an interesting turn in Premium Plus subscription benefits. Not so much the SpeedLight offer itself, but rather if the move might signal a start of other “partnership benefits” for Plus subscribers – such as with creators / businesses from within SL own ecosystem, or with some of the Lab’s content partners. If this is the case, it’ll be interesting as to what might come next.

Related Links

2022 SUG meetings week #40 summary

Posted on by Inara Pey
Wild Branch Brewing Co, August 2022 – blog post

The following notes were taken from the Tuesday, October 4th, 2022 Simulator User Group (SUG) meeting. They form a summary of the items discussed and is not intended to be a full transcript. A video of the entire meeting is embedded at the end of the article for those wishing to review the meeting in full – my thanks to Pantera for recording it.

Server Deployments

At  the time of writing, there was no published deployment plan for the week.

  • On Tuesday, October 4th, the Main SLS channel were restarted with no deployment, leaving them on simulator release 574921.
  • On Wednesday, October 5th, the simhosts on the RC channels should receive simulator release 575421, which did not have an release notes available at the time of writing
    • This is the release from week #39, which was ultimately postponed as a result of an 11th hour bug showing up in QA testing.
    • These release should contain two new functions llGetObjectLinkKey (specified under llGetLinkKey) and llSHA256String.

Available Official Viewers

The Performance Floater / Auto-FPS project viewer updated to version 6.6.5.575378, on October 4th.

The rest of the current crop of official viewers remains as:

  • Release viewer: version 6.6.4.575022 – hotfix for Crash at ~LLModalDialog() – promoted September 15 – 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).
    • Maintenance 3 RC viewer, version 6.6.5.575257, September 23.
    • Maintenance P (Preferences, Position and Paste) RC viewer version 6.6.5.575055 September 19.
  • Project viewers:
    • Puppetry project viewer, version 6.6.3.574545,  issued on August 30.
    • Love Me Render (LMR) 6 graphics improvements project viewer 6.6.2.573263, July 21.

Experience KVP Change

Rider Linden offered a heads-up on a forthcoming change to Experience Key Value Pairs (KVP), which can be used to store large amounts of data related to an experience in-world, and make them accessible anywhere, any time, within the experience. Rider described the changes thus:

We are doing some work on the Experience KVP. The new tech that we are using doesn’t let us easily monitor the number of bytes that have been used be any particular experience. SO the proposal that is on the table is that we change the limit to a number of keys [and]:
    • A field would be tacked on to the end of llCountKeysKeyValue() that would be the allotted number of keys.
    • llDataSizeKeyValue would be changed to return the number_of_keys*4096 (which is the maximum size of the value that a key can store.

– Rider Linden

This sparked a discussion, and those who use experiences – or use the KVP table in an experience for any form of data storage, should refer to the video [29:21-end] in order to gain the full context of the proposed change and the discussion.

In Brief

  • BUG-232037 – “Avatar Online / Offline Status Not Correctly Updating” has been a bone of contention for many for the last few months, Commenting on the issue, Rider linden there are at least a couple of points in back-end communications where the problem might occur, but it will take time to properly diagnose.
  • Viewer-side: as noted in recent TPV Developer meeting summaries, there is a lot of work going on on the viewer build side of things (move to github for repositories, tool and library updates, etc. Whilst not strictly a part of the SUG meeting, Signal Linden wanted to get a couple of points out for viewer devs to note. One of these points relates to 3rd party code contributions to LL, the other on a library location under the new github structure:
So, some minor early notes wrt to opensource development. We are reviewing our contributor license agreement (CLA) and the process for collecting signatures. Ideally, I’d like for the CLA to be able to be signed in PRs on github. This will take some work with legal, and I don’t have anything definitive yet 🙂
Also, if you are not on the opensource-dev mailing list, the llsd python serialization library has been moved to its own repository; https://github.com/secondlife/python-llsd We are also starting to finally get the PyPI packages updated for autobuild.

– Signal Linden

 

Pumpkins and things with Cica in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
Cica Ghost, October 2022 – Pumpkins and Things

So, October has rolled around for 2022 (why do the years seem to speed up the older you get?), and with it, inevitably, comes Halloween and thoughts of ghosts, monsters, hauntings, and more, together with their familiars in the form of pumpkins and black cats, bats and spiders.

It’s a time of year when it is hard to avoid such things in Second Life, where the Americanisation of Halloween has very deep roots. Call me a humbug or grumpy so-and-so, but by-and-large I tend to find all that goes on around October 31st largely a bit tiresome and repetitive – although there are exceptions that get me to park my case of grumps at the door and go with the flow – such as the Calas Halloween build (which will be popping up in these pages very soon) and, for 2022 Cica Ghost’s Pumpkins and Things.

Cica Ghost, October 2022 – Pumpkins and Things

Just as with Cica’s September installation of Pink Fairytale took a light-hearted look at fairy tales and childhood stories (see: Cica’s Pink Fairytale in Second Life), so Pumpkins and Things offers an easy-going look at the Halloween period, and the aforementioned creatures, witches and so on – albeit with a little warning from the Master of Macabre himself, Edgar Allen Poe.

Caught under a pumpkins sky (do make sure your viewer is set to Use Shared Environment, this is a setting where black flowers offer toothy, maniacal grins, and large worms slither (some with very human-like arms, hands and faces) as they tower over a landscape of twig-like trees, pumpkin flowers, large pumpkin houses, a blocky little town and the toothy flowers – some of which resemble spiders sitting on sticks, whilst Cica’s black cats are to be found throughout (together with some of Cica’s trademark sit points and dances!).

Cica Ghost, October 2022 – Pumpkins and Things

Again, like Pink Fairytale, this is an installation to be seen and enjoyed, rather than described or shown in still shots. Monsters they may be, but it’s hard to believe any of the characters sitting within Pumpkins and Things would actually do anyone any harm – hence, perhaps the little warning from Mr. Poe, as used by Cica for the installation:

Believe nothing you hear, and only one half that you see

Used in a short story by Poe in 1845, the quote became very closely associated with the California gold rush at the end of the 1840s, when it stood as a admonishment against believe everything said or written about concerning the ease with which the gold rush lead to riches. Here, as well as possibly underlining the idea that for all their looks and teeth and strangest, the characters in Pumpkins and Things really mean no harm, the words might be taken as a little poke to remind us that no-one should really take the Halloween period too seriously, and simply have fun!

Cica Ghost, October 2022 – Pumpkins and Things

SLurl Details

Serene Footman: one of the great hearts of Second life

Posted on by Inara Pey
Isle of May, October 2022

On October 2nd, 2022 Jade Koltai informed us that Serene Footman, her long-time creative partner in bringing together some of the most outstanding region builds witnessed in Second Life, passed away from cancer in August 2022.

To my regret, Serene and I were not closely acquainted in Second Life; although we did exchange IMs at times, and chatted on a few topics. However, I didn’t actually need to converse with him to hear his voice or appreciate his heart: both could be seen and felt through every single region build he and Jade presented to Second Life for the enjoyment of everyone who visited them.

I first became familiar with Serene and Jade’s work back in 2015, when they opened Furillen, a Homestead region modelled on a small isle of that name and itself laying off the coast of Gotland, Sweden’s largest island. By turn a quarry, then a military installation and more recently a conference centre, Furillen’s history was richly and evocatively caught in Serene and Jade’s build  –  and build that set the tone for almost all of their subsequent designs, as well as loaning its name to Serene’s blog.

Furillen; Inara Pey, December 2015, on FlickrFurillen, 2015 – blog post

I say “almost”, because the next design the pair produced was very different to any physical world location (although it did include a reproduction of London’s Battersea power Station), as it offered an engaging and unique homage to English rock band Pink Floyd with Pink Floyd Ate My Sim.

But it was with the representation of physical world locations that Serene and Jade’s partnership became most well-known, with designs encompassing La Digue du Braek (found in France), Khodovarikha (Russia), Isle of May (Scotland), Louisiana’s Black Bayou Lake, Rummu quarry in Estonia, Chesapeake Bay, Ukivok in Alaska, North Brother Island, New York, to name just some – with both Serene and Jade also producing individual region designs also based on physical world locations as well.

Ojuela, May 2022 – blog post

The major points of all of these designs, alongside them being modelled on places people would likely otherwise have little or not opportunity to visit in the physical world, was the fact they were richly detailed and offered superbly imaginative interpretations of the places on which they were based, given the limitations (notably physical space) found within SL Homestead (and even Full) regions.

A further aspect of these builds which helped distinguish them from other region builds lay in the amount of additional information Serene would provide on them and their physical world namesakes through his Furillen blog which remains (for the time being at least), an excellent reference work in its own right.

Serene was also a gifted photographer, and his images were subject to exhibitions in Second Life, as with 2019 Retrospective, which I reviewed here, and which demonstrated Serene’s wonderfully understated and eye-caching technique.

Black Bayou Lake; Inara Pey, October 2018, on Flickr
Black Bayou Lake, 2018 – blog post

To give people the opportunity to remember Serene, his work, and her partnership with him, Jade has returned Isle of May – one of Serene’s favourite builds – to Second Life, and visitors are encouraged to drop in and recall Serene’s presence in Second Life, the beauty of his work and the joy he brought to all of us in visiting these wonderful creations.

My condolences to Jade and to Serene’s family and friends.

Related Links

2022 viewer release summaries week #39

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

Updates from the week through to Sunday, October 2nd, 2022

This summary is generally published every Monday, and is a list of SL viewer / client releases (official and TPV) made during the previous week. When reading it, please note:

  • It is based on my Current Viewer Releases Page, a list of all Second Life viewers and clients that are in popular use (and of which I am aware), and which are recognised as adhering to the TPV Policy. This page includes comprehensive links to download pages, blog notes, release notes, etc., as well as links to any / all reviews of specific viewers / clients made within this blog.
  • By its nature, this summary presented here will always be in arrears, please refer to the Current Viewer Release Page for more up-to-date information.
  • Note that for purposes of length, TPV test viewers, preview / beta viewers / nightly builds are generally not recorded in these summaries.

Official LL Viewers

  • Release viewer: version 6.6.4.575022 – hotfix for Crash at ~LLModalDialog() – promoted September 15 – no change.
  • Release channel cohorts::
    • No updates.
  • Project viewers:
    • No updates.

LL Viewer Resources

Third-party Viewers

V6-style

V1-style

Mobile / Other Clients

  • No updates.

Additional TPV Resources

Related Links

Seanchai Library: October 3rd-7th 2022

Posted on by Inara Pey
Seanchai Library

It’s time to highlight another week of storytelling in Voice by the staff and volunteers at the Seanchai Library – and this week previews the launch of a very special event.

As always, all times SLT, and events are held at the Library’s home in Nowhereville, unless otherwise indicated. Note that the schedule below may be subject to change during the week, please refer to the Seanchai Library website for the latest information through the week.

Monday, October 3rd, 19:00: The Wolfen

Gyro Muggins reads Whitley Strieber’s 1978 debut novel.

Two New York Police Department detectives investigate a series of suspicious deaths across New York City. These are revealed to be the work of a race of intelligent beings descended from canids, called the Wolfen.

The novel is told from the point of view of the human characters as well from the Wolfen themselves. The savage killing of two New York City policemen leads two detectives, a man and a woman bound together by a strange, tough passion, to hunt down the wolfen – once called werewolves.

Tuesday, October 4th

12:00 Noon: Russell Eponym

With music, and poetry in Ceiluradh Glen.

19:00: Howl’s Moving Castle

Sophie has the great misfortune of being the eldest of three daughters, destined to fail miserably should she ever leave home to seek her fate. But when she unwittingly attracts the ire of the Witch of the Waste, Sophie finds herself under a horrid spell that transforms her into an old lady. Her only chance at breaking it lies in the ever-moving castle in the hills: the Wizard Howl’s castle.

To untangle the enchantment, Sophie must handle the heartless Howl, strike a bargain with a fire demon, and meet the Witch of the Waste head-on. Along the way, she discovers that there’s far more to Howl—and herself—than first meets the eye.

Caledonia Skytower reads Diana Wynne Jones novel.

Wednesday, October 5th, 19:00: Seanchai Flicks – Spooky Edition

The Seanchai cinema space shares Halloween-themed video adventures.

Thursday, October 6th

19:00: Writer’s Bloch

Stories by author William Bloch celebrating the work of Lovecraft & Poe with Shandon Loring.

21:00 Seanchai Late Night

late night Sci-Fi/Fantasy with Finn Zeddmore.