A Winter Dream in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
Winter Dream Obsession, December 2021 – click any image for full size

For those seeking a winter setting suitable for photography, Winter Dream Obsession might be just the place. Designed by Chanel (MONIYA Robbiani), it occupies roughly half a full region and offers a lot of seasonal and festive cheer.

The winter sun brought out the purity of the heaven-given snow, as if were a blank page for our merriment, inviting you to live a unique experience in a freshly cut Christmas trees smelling of stars and snow and pine resin…

– Winter Dream Obsession, About Land

Winter Dream Obsession, December 2021

Teleporting to the location lands visitors on a village street; where in the world it might be is entirely up to those arriving to decide. The cobbled street is dusted with snow, the houses along it decorated for the season, At one end of the street sits a winter gazebo, a golden tree decorated at its centre, a grand piano available for music.

Winter Dream Obsession, December 2021

At the other end of the street stand tall gates, partially open. A sign beside them points towards a covered bridge, suggesting the path will lead to the North Pole. Whether or not the cottage that sits at the end of the path belongs to Santa or not is again left to visitors to decide, whatever one makes of the figure in red face-down in the snow to one side of the path; is it Santa passed out from all his hard work, or is it a reveller from a local party who has perhaps had a little too much of the mulled wine…or something…?

Winter Dream Obsession, December 2021

The houses and cottages along the street are all furnished, each offering a respite from the snow and the cold for those who need it. Mid-way down the street sits a little outdoor café, offering hot drinks for those who would like to remain outdoors but feel they’d like to warm themselves up a little. Alongside of it, a path leads to the local park, again decorated for the season, with a mini-Santa presiding over everything from his little store.

Elsewhere, Christmas trees can be obtain from a local barn, whilst those who wander for a little, there are also places to spend time cuddling or romancing.  And those who do wander should try beyond the large pavilion as well, where stone step rise to a balconied path

Winter Dream Obsession, December 2021

This is a setting rich in detail, from the little holiday scene village, to the scene set out in the park, to the little train carrying Santa and his elves to all the richness of details the the houses.

But again, rather that have me wibble on about it – why not pay a visit for yourself!

Winter Dream Obsession, December 2021

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2021 TPV Developer meeting summary, week #49

Posted on by Inara Pey
DARYA, October 2021 – blog post

The following notes are taken from the TPV Developer meeting held on Friday, December 10th, 2021.

These meetings are generally held every other week.  They are recorded by Pantera Północy, and her video of the meeting is embedded at the end of this report – my thanks to her for allowing me to do so – and it is used with the chat log from the meeting and my own audio recording to produce this summary, which focuses on the core topics discussed.

SL Viewer

  • The combined Simplified Cache and 360 Snapshot project viewer, version 6.5.1.566335, issued on December 7th.
  • The Jenever Maintenance RC viewer, version 6.5.1.566306, dated November 30th, and the Koaliang Maintenance 2 RC viewer, version 6.5.1.565905, also dated November 30th, both issued on December 6th.
  • The Performance Improvements project viewer updated to version 6.5.1.566443 on December 8th.

The remaining official viewer flavours remain as:

  • Release viewer: version version 6.5.0.565607, formerly the Maintenance RC and dated November 10, promoted November 15 – this viewer now contains a fix for the media issues caused by the Apple Notarisation viewer.
  • Release channel cohorts (please see my notes on manually installing RC viewer versions if you wish to install any release candidate(s) yourself):
    • The Tracy Integration RC viewer, version 6.4.23.563771 (dated Friday, November 5) issued Tuesday, November 9.
  • Project viewers:
    • Performance Improvements project viewer updated to version 6.5.1.566443, dated December 8.
    • Performance Floater project viewer, version 6.4.23.562625, issued September 2.
    • Mesh Optimizer project viewer, version 6.4.23.562614, issued September 1.
    • Legacy Profiles viewer, version 6.4.11.550519, dated October 26, 2020.
    • Copy / Paste viewer, version 6.3.5.533365, dated December 9, 2019.

General Viewer Notes

  • The combined Simplified Cache and 360 Snapshot project viewer is likely to be the next viewer to be promoted to de facto release status. Depending on how many use the RC cohort, this could be promoted before the code freeze period comes into effect. If not, it will be the first viewer promotion in 2022.
  • The Performance Improvements viewer has been updated, but remains at project status, but will hopefully be promoted to RC status in the New Year. With regards to this viewer:
    • It has been noted that it is still subject to some brief frame stalls “from unusual places”, which are still being investigated. There is also a report of some media-related frame stalls.
    • It has also been noted that due to the changes made, some the stats reported by the viewer (e.g. Ktris per frame / per second, some of the memory usage stats) are no longer accurate / are zeroed out because the counts associated with these stats were impacting performance, and it was deemed more preferable to have them logged by external tools from which the data could be extracted, rather than having every viewer performing its own profiling cycles.

Code Freeze

Subject to final confirmation, the end-of-year code freeze period is likely to come into effect on Monday, December 20th, and will run through Monday, January 3rd, 2022. During this time, there will be no official viewer updates and no server-side releases or simhost updates.

In Brief

  • Mojo Linden reiterated that the Lab is keen to hear back from users on the Performance Improvements viewer, and in receiving suitable performance improvements code from TPVs, and the emphasis remains on trying to improve overall performance for all users.
  • He also indicated that LL are in discussions about other improvements that can be made to the viewer and again, he is interested in hearing back from TPV developers and users on potential areas in the viewer that could benefit from improvement.
  • The log-in services update that caused issues for scripted agents (bots) at the start of the week and had to be rolled-back (see my week #49 SUG summary) was in part originally been made in order to remove outdated code from the servers. Mojo apologised for the issues it caused on deployment.
  • A request has been made for the new search front-end to return a JSON blob, so that TPVs can parse it and present search results in a manner that is more in keeping with the rest of the viewer UI.
  • Unless there is a strong case for it, the Lab is liable to drop GLOD support for mesh uploaders at some point in the future in favour of the mesh optimiser currently within the Mesh Optimiser project viewer. GLOD may therefore become a matter of legacy support among TPVs.
  • Runitai Linden noted that there is a mis-match between the benchmarks used to determine viewer default settings and the capabilities of systems the viewer is installed on. For example, a laptop running Intel HD Graphics can default to running on Ultra or High graphics due the the current benchmark threshold, whereas it might be better suited to running at Medium. He’s therefore asked TPVs for input on which viewer defaults might need adjusting going forward (And update to the maximum VRAM usage for the official viewer is apparently already in the works).
  • The last 20 minutes of the meeting is devoted to a technical discussion on what might be done to improve the appearance of SL in ways that might help lift retention by encouraging people to keep exploring (and hopefully meeting up with like minds and so generating the social links that will further encourage their continued engagement).
    • This discussion included the potential for using back-end baking for lighting, etc., to relieve the viewer load, and how it might work within a dynamic build environment like Second Life, together with updated ambient occlusion capabilities, etc.
    • The discussion also covered LODs on mesh, and the problems the current system has pushed onto performance (due to encouraging over-use of low LODs & creators then insisting users should over-tax their systems through high LOD render settings, etc.).
    • Please refer to the video for details on this discussion for the full context, including the fact that the discussion was only around ideas, and not projects LL is about to start working on.

Art in the snow in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
Templeton Farm: UNITY art exhibition

Currently open through December 2021 within a winter themed sky platform at Templeton Farm, is the UNITY art exhibition, featuring the work of 21 artists and photographers from across Second Life, each of whom presents (on average) two pieces of art for us to appreciate.

Offering a mix of art from the physical world and Second Life photography, the exhibition leans towards scenes of winter – not surprising given the overall setting – but is not exclusively so. Matt Thompson, for example, presents two of his abstract paintings, Happy Campers, which suggests much warmer times that the depths of winter, and Magical Nature, a richly evocative piece that can speak to winter in its colours, but which also has more than a hint of the sea about it.

Templeton Farm: UNITY art exhibition
Similarly, Sheba Blitz presents two of her marvellous mandala paintings, each of which, whilst capturing the essence of beauty that might be found in the crystalline form of a single snow flake, also carry us away to the warm on comfort of more spiritual realms.

Among those taking part are names that will be instantly familiar, and perhaps those who might offer a first chance encounter with their work. This was certainly the case for me with Amaya Mavinelli, whose work is tucked into the corner for the skating rink around which the first part of the exhibition is arranged. Softly and lightly post-processed, her two works, Bunny and Back Then, sit between pieces by Sisi Biedermann and Michiel Bechir, two artists whose works span the digital and the physical.

Templeton Farm: UNITY art exhibition

Dante Helios (Dantelios) is another artists with whom I’ve been unfamiliar, and his two pieces captured from within SL guard the path that links the ice rink with a snow-covered field around which the second major part of the exhibition can be found, with art also lining one side of the short walk between the two.

The complete list of artists participating in UNITY are: Carelyna, Dante Helios (Dantelios), Dragon (DragonAngelvs), Matt Thomson (MTH63), Pepper (PepperQuinn), Sparkle (SparkleSherbert), Michiel Bechir, Sisi Biedermann, Sheba (Sheba Blitz), Zia Sophia (Zia Branner), Ule (Uleria Caramel), Jaelle Faerye, Mareea Farrasco, Amaya Mavinelli, Moora (Moora McMillan), Robbyn (Robbyn Poliak), Jamee Thomson (Jamee Sandalwood), Viktor Savior (ViktorSavior), AmandaT Tamatzui, Vita Theas and Holly (Hollywood Topaz).

Templeton Farm: UNITY art exhibition

As well the art, the platform also offers walks through the snowy landscape. some lead to what appears to be a dance floor, one to a open-air store, and another to a winter garden that makes for a charming visit as well. All of which makes UNITY an engaging visit.

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It’s Snowing at an Ambience Hideaway in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
Ambience Hideaway – It’s Snowing, December 2021 – click any image for full size

One day, I’ll sort myself out and get to visit Ambience Hideaway, the Homestead region held by yoyo Collas when it is not snowing 🙂 .

I say this because at the start of the year, and on the suggestion of Shawn Shakespeare, I paid it a visit and found it deep in the throes of winter, with snow laying deep over the ground of a rugged landscape (see: An Ambient Hideaway in Second Life). And when I returned for a further visit this month, snow was once again falling to blanket the ground – thus leading to the setting’s current name – It’s Snowing.

Ambience Hideaway – It’s Snowing

However, where the setting I visited at the start of the year was suggestive of a snowbound island, possibly lying off the coast of a northern latitude continent, the one I dropped into in December 2021 offered the look and feel of an Alpine village, high in the mountains, perhaps on the edge of a ski resort, close enough to offer chalets skiers can rent for their vacations, but far enough so that the local horse farm to continue doing business.

The landing point lies towards the north-west of the region, sitting on its highest point, a broad shoulder of land that appears to thrust outwards from the surrounding (of-region) mountains. A path runs south between a field set aside for events and a drop to where the rest of the village sits as the hillside falls gently away eastwards to what might be a mountain lake. to the east.

Ambience Hideaway – It’s Snowing

Two routes are available down into the village itself, each leading the way to the little market that stands before a large chalet-style building that sits as a kind of après-ski centre, a little café sitting next door. Chalets sit clusters along the slope, with a little chapel to add further atmosphere to the setting. To the north on the lower slopes sits the house farm, the herd gathering together to eat the hay that is being deposited via tractor.

Ambience Hideaway – It’s Snowing

For me, the horses came as a reminder of the region’s look at the start of the year. They were smaller in number then, but like here, they could be found roaming the snows. A further reminder of that start-of-year setting came as I reached the shores of the lake, where I found penguins huddled in defiance of this being a purely Alpine setting. A short distance away, and extending over the water, sits a place where humans can also enjoy huddling – this time around a fire.

The chalets are all open to people popping in if they wish, and all are comfortably furnished. As well as these and the lakeside deck, there are other places to sit and pass the time – such as the converted rail car that is being guarded by a copse of trees, or the wagon on the hillside or the pavilion sitting at the end of the trail leading away from the landing point.

Ambience Hideaway – It’s Snowing

With snow falling on the high ground, and touches of humour scattered around – Santa might need some help getting his sack down the chimney of the large chalet – there is much to see here, without the region being overly taxing on a half-decent system (or at least, it wasn’t on my mid-range PC). Opportunities for photography abound, and exploring across the snow is easy, on and off the the obvious trails.

Should you pay a visit, be sure to say “hello” to the alpaca!

Ambience Hideaway – It’s Snowing

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December 2021 Web User Group summary

Posted on by Inara Pey
The Web User Group meeting venue, Denby

The following notes cover the key points from the Web User Group (WUG) meeting, held on Wednesday, December 8th, 2021.

These meetings are generally held on the first Wednesday of the month, with dates and venue details available via the SL public calendar. A video of the meeting, courtesy of Pantera, can be found embedded at the end of this article (my thanks to her as always!), and the following is a summary of key topics / discussions.

Web Properties – Past Month

  • Search: most of November was focus on the Search facelift that launched on November 22nd – those interested can see my own thoughts here.
    • LL are aware of criticism the new look has received, both performance-wise and in the design. The latter drew the comment, “we like it, so we’re keeping it.”
    • Again, as a reminder, this was a cosmetic update, the underpinning Search engine was not touched or altered as a part of the work – see below for notes on functional updates.
  • E-mail preferences changes: part of November was spent preparing for splitting the receipt of Group notices away from general IM receipt via e-mail when off-line. See the official blog post here, and my own notes.
    •  This change comes into effect from Wednesday December 15th.
    • There was a bug within the Change Email Settings page whereby re-enabling the receipt of Group notices would disable the receipt on IMs via e-mail. This is said to now be fixed.

2022 “Roadmap”

Whilst not a roadmap in the strictest sense (as no specific order was assigned to them), the Web team was looking to implement (or start) the following projects in 2022:

  • Search: an attempt to overhaul and refine the way the current web search engine works.
    • The two watch-words for this project are to make Search more useful and to return more relevant results.
    • This work is to be undertaken with a 3rd party SEO specialist company, rather than being handled by LL themselves.
  • Web Properties facelift: a facelift of all of the Lab’s public/user-facing web properties.
    • The two watch-world for this are to make all web properties more user-friendly and mobile friendly for tablets and smartphones.
    • This is seen as a major project to run through 2022.
    • This work will include the Marketplace, which is going to see “a lot of changes”.
    • Presumably  – and this is purely my personal take on this – the facelift work will see more utilisation of the Flat Design approach seen with the Search front-end and in things like the Second Life landing pages.
  • Infrastructure updates: 2022 will include various infrastructure projects aimed at better leveraging the tools and capabilities that are now available to LL via Amazon.
  • Premium Plus: the hope is that Premium Plus will be revisited and launched in 2022. Any questions on what it might look like, fees, etc., will not be answerable until the option is available for deployment.
  • Other projects: there is the potential for other work to be carried out in 2022, some of which may not be user-visible, but the details on other work for 2022 are still in a state of flux, and updates will likely be given at WUG meetings through the year.

Place Pages

Reed Linden asked the question on what would people like to see Place Pages actually do, and what would they like to get out of them.

Second Life Place Pages
  • It has been accepted by the Lab that as they stand, Place Pages are under-utilised and with a genuine raison d’etre for their existence, having been left hanging since their introduction in 2017.
  • There is functionality within Place Pages that might be better leveraged to help people find out more about specific locations within Second Life, but it is acknowledged the capability requires tuning and a more clearly defined purpose.
  • Some of the suggestions that were put forward included:
    • Allowing more than the current 3 screenshots + hero image.
    • Better integration between Place Pages and web Search.
    • Allowing Place Pages to be filtered by Maturity Rating and also selected options such as “private island”, “mainland”, etc.
    • Better promotion, so that people actually understand Place Pages exist and can be used as a promotional / informational tool about locations in Second Life independently of Search.
    • Offering the ability to provide information on events / activities, etc., allowing Place Pages to become more of a general web presence for locations in-world (which was actually part of the original promotion for Place Pages when they first launched).
      • This might be seen as something between a simple listing of events and a blotter-like feed of information and updates, possibly with ability to have it displayed as media in-world, removing some of the the need for script-intensive event boards.
    • Displaying historical  / predictive information on a location – e.g. how many have visited in the past week / month / how many are present at the moment, when the best times are to visit and find people there, etc.
    • Providing the means to include links to other social media / platforms utilised by a venue / business (e.g. Twitter, Discord, etc.).
    • Possibly de-coupling Place Pages from public search – useful for private groups who wish to have a central place for information that can be used purely by Group members, without it necessarily being surfaced through Search, etc.
  • It should be noted that currently, updating Place Pages is not a planned project from the Lab – Reed is simply seeking feedback on directions the capability might be taken should it become a focus for overhaul / update.

In Brief

  • Marketplace Q&A “forum”: Reed is still mulling the idea of where and how to place a means for the Web team to take and address Marketplace-specific questions / feedback.
  • Multi-factor Authentication: the work is focused on rolling the current capability across key web properties – including the Marketplace – and getting it into the viewer. This work will be in advance of any work to allow authentication using verified e-mails, etc.
  • Dashboard Communications option: the suggestion was made that, in addition to the planned mobile app, LL should consider adding a capability to the secondlife.com dashboard that would allow users to communicate with Friends who are currently in-world.
    • This is something LL are apparently in the process of discussing, together with providing the means for users to access things like Group functionality  / options via the web. And even – maybe – providing some level of inventory interaction via the web.

Next Meeting

  • Check the SL public calendar.
  • The core topic will likely be on the use of sub-brands within Marketplace stores vs using alt accounts to manage multiple brands / stores. That is the pros and cons, how it might work, what people expect of it, etc.

Clay and Seed in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
Clay and Seed

It has been a fair while since I’ve had the pleasure of viewing Haveit Neox’s 2D artwork in SL outside of the entertainment regions he and Lilia Artis produce annually for Fantasy Faire. So when Akiko Kinoshi (Akiko Kiyori) informed me he and Lilia would be teaming with another artist I admire – Bamboo Barnes – to present a new installation at her Akimori art centre, I knew I’d have to pay it a visit.

Located within is own skybox, Clay and Seed takes as its core theme the erosion of the environment and human relationships, with the work of all three artists interwoven, each taking inspiration from the other two. But before getting into specifics, it is worth noting some key points: you should use the local EEP settings (World → Environment → Use Shared Environment); you’ll need to have ALM enabled (Preferences → Graphics → make sure Advanced Lighting Model is checked) and you should set your draw distance to 256m so that the entire skybox remains rendered during your visit, as it is a part of the overall installation.

Clay and Seed

This skybox offers a desert scene centred around a single body of water, the dunes rolling away into the distance under a sky rich in fields of clouds, the Sun low in the west. The predominant colour caught by the clouds is red, as if the light of the lowering sun is illuminating them from below. But the more one looks at it, the more the red, the more it speaks to rusting metal, its surface bubbled and marrred.

Together, the desert and sky speak to that theme of erosion of the environment, and each supports various elements making up the core of the installation. On the desert sits a number of structures. In particular, sitting close to the lake – possibly the last body of water in this realm? – is a combined 2D and 3D mini-installation by Bamboo Barnes that utilises lighting projectors within cube-like spaces visitors can wall through to experience her 2D art.

Clay and Seed

Around this are several structures placed by Akiko. Through the largest of these – a Japanese style house that partially extends out over the water – a train of horses prance before they snake their way up into the sky to where the second element of the installation, a pair of citadels, are floating.

Linked by curling paths that wind about both buildings and around a central set of net-covered rings over which fish-ships float, the two citadels are home to more of Bamboo’s art whilst their high windows offer poems by Lilia. Their combination of words and images further convey commentaries on destructiveness, growth, abuse, hope, gratefulness and loneliness. Follow the paths that roll and wrap themselves around the two citadels, and further vignettes by Haveit, each with its own symbolism.

Clay and Seed

And symbolism is very much the key here. Whilst offering something of a fantastical scene with centaurs and merfolk, Haveit’s city in the sky offer echoes of our own religious mythology. These range from painting on the outer walls of the citadels, and are also formed by the the likes of the the procession of horses that rise from the desert to climb the steps leaving up to the fish-ships in what might be seen as an echo of the story of Noah’s ark.

Further metaphor might be seen in the manner the the citadels and their surroundings float in the sky like a kind of New Jerusalem with all its promise of salvation. But the the desert below and sky above, together with the centaur vignettes speak the the reality of the matter, as do the images and words by Bamboo and Lilia: we, and we alone, are responsible for the fate that might befall us – just as we alone might yet be able to lift ourselves into a form of salvation (or at least, one of recovery), if we are prepared to work together.

Clay and Seed

Or that is my interpretation at least. Your might well be entirely different. And that is the marvel and beauty of Clay and Seed, in presenting the interwoven work of three superb artists, it has the power to speak with many voices.

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