Mareea and CybeleMoon at Kondor Arts Centre

Posted on by Inara Pey
Kondor Art Garden – CybeleMoon

June has brought with it two new exhibitions at the Kondor Art Centre, curated by Hermes Kondor, featuring the talents of Mareea Farrasco and CybeleMoon.

Having opened on June 10th at the Kondor Art Square, La mer, la mer, toujours recommencée, is an engaging selection of Second life art presented by the owner and curator of IMAGO Land Art Galleries, Mareea Farrasco.

Kondor Art Square – Mareea Farrasco

As the title might suggest, this is a collection that has a certain focus on the sea – although this is by no means the case for all the pieces on offer; at least, not in the sense of traditional water. Pieces such as Fabulous Goats and Silenced World give a suggestion of flowing waters through the wind-brushed sea of grass that presents a backdrop, and the shimmering of falling rain on which a rainbow is forming. Similarly, and while the sea does appear within it, Lavender perhaps embodies the ebb and flow of an ageless tide far more through the curving sweep of flowers that is its focus than by the sea that sits on the horizon.

However, all these pieces are deeply evocative and rich in narrative. Mareea has a deftness of touch coupled with a eye for style, angle, cut and framing that brings her images beautifully to life. Her use of colour to suggest emotion is sublime, while the lightness of her use of post-processing allows here pieces to retain a natural, unforced beauty about them that is simply ideal.

Kondor Art Square – Mareea Farrasco

It is absolutely no secret that I am in awe of CybeleMoon’s artistry. Her work embodies a life and spirituality that is is unmistakable both for its heartbeat and for its richness of narrative. Witnessing her pieces is genuinely like stepping into a Loreena McKinnitt song: you are lifted beyond the plain of the ordinary and carried into a mystic realm of light and shadow, life and dance, legend and fantasy and love and remembrance. Just as McKinnett’s music and lyrics weave tales in your mind, so Cybele’s images offer tales for your imagination.

Celebrating the Solstice, on display in the Kondor Art Garden embodies all of this in an exhibition of two parts. At the landing point and close to the stage, are eight images simply arranged on stone plinths. Each one evokes a sense of story both in terms of image and title (I confess that Listen to the Wind from the South utterly captured my eyes and heart, there is so much within it that sets the imagination alight).

Kondor Art Garden – CybeleMoon

Beyond this and within a wooded grove sits a mystical ring of standing stones and more of Cybele’s pieces. When crossing to them, it is best to set your time of day to Midnight to fully absorb the atmosphere of the setting and the beauty of the art. Again, while the focus is on celebrating the summer solstice, so too are wider tales embraced.

For example, Aine, the Irish goddess of summer, wealth and sovereignty, and who is particularly associated with midsummer, is pictured alongside the Celtic god Lugh, more usually associated with the time of harvest, and Ogma, the inventor of Ogham, the script in which Irish Gaelic was first written and who is often given the epithet Grianainech, or “sun-faced”. Thus through this exhibit, Cybele helps open us to the broader richness of Celtic mythology and the landscape of Ireland (The Hill of Tara, Listen to the Wind from the South) as well as to the worlds of fae and nature and childhood dreaming, all of which further engages the visitor in viewing these pieces.

Kondor Art Garden – CybeleMoon

Two superb artists and two very different but equally engaging exhibitions that can be enjoyed side-by-side when visiting the Kondor Art Centre.

SLurl Details

Waka region is rated Moderate.

SL18B Meet the Lindens: Grumpity Linden – summary with video

Posted on by Inara Pey

Wednesday, June 23rd, 2021 saw the third in a series of Meet the Lindens events take place for the SL Birthday celebrations, featuring Grumpity Linden, the Lab’s Vice President of Product and interim Vice President of Engineering.

The following is a summary of the session covering the core topics raised, with selected audio extracts. The full video is located at the end of this article.

 Table of Contents

Also, information given in braces ({ and ]), has been provided by myself and do not form a part of the conversation.

About Grumpity Linden

  • Heads up Second Life Product team, where she has overseen a shift to growth, a stronger, more balanced economy, movement towards better community cohesion, and an overall forward-looking approach.
  • Originally came to Linden Lab while working for The Product Engine, a company providing end-to-end consulting and software development services, and which supports viewer development at the Lab, and she was initially involved in the development and viewer 2 (as designed by 80/20 Studio).
  • She became a “full-time Linden” in 2014. Her current position involves coordinating the various teams involved in bringing features and updates to Second Life (e.g. Engineering and QA), liaising with legal, financial and compliance to ensure features and capabilities meet any specific requirements in those areas, etc. This work can involve looking at specifics within various elements of the overall SL product, such as UI design and layout, etc.
  • Prior to working for Linden Lab, she was involved in a number of industries, including technology, higher education, and oil & gas. She enjoys exploring worlds both virtual and physical and takes pride in building bridges – personal and professional.
  • Holds a Master’s in Computer Science and a Bachelor’s from same in Computer Science & Psychology, both from Johns Hopkins University. She finds leading the Second Life product a joy because it allows her to draw on both areas of study.

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Loss of Ebbe Altberg

Grumpity offered her own recollections on Ebbe Altberg, the Lab’s CEO, who passed away recently. As with the other summaries in this series, I’m including her comments as an audio file, rather than paraphrasing her words, which can be heard in the first 10 minutes of the video.

As a reminder, those wishing to pay their respect to Ebbe can do so at his in-world memorial (see also: Paying respects to Ebbe Altberg in Second Life).

Change of Roll and in the leadership Team with Oz’s Departure

[Video 4:38-7:10]

  • Misses working with Oz, and views their relationship at the Lab one of partners working together.
  • Has been terrifying since his departure, as her responsibilities have expanded to cover his teams, but also finds it exciting to face the new challenges until the new VP of Engineering joins LL.
    • The new VP has apparently been hired, and will be starting “soon-ish”.
  • Fortunately, the overall leadership team hasn’t seen too much upset with Oz’s departure, as they all work well together.

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Migration to AWS

[Video: 9:58-17:10]

  • LL operated the “old school” approach of running their own hardware and infrastructure in a dedicated environment [the co-location facility in Arizona], with operations very much locked-in to that environment, with periodic upgrades and purchase / replacement of existing hardware.
  • With AWS, Second Life is now hosted by Amazon Web Services (AWS).  The advantages are:
    • LL able to focus on core competency of running and enhancing SlL and not have to worry about managing the underpinning hardware and infrastructure.
    • There are no longer periodic blocks of capital expenditure that must planned and be made to replace aged / depreciated hardware, etc.
    • LL can be more nimble in responding to the needs of SL by having a large pool of server types from which to choose from, and the ability to “tier up” to new and faster hardware as the need arises.
    • This offers the potential for new and enhanced land product offerings, the potential to geolocate servers closer to their primary audience etc.
  • Most of the transition work went smoothly, although due to certain hardware assumptions, there were some issues [e.g. the Map tile update problem] that took time to correct – although many of the issues towards the end of the process  were more to do with trying to operate one or two services in the co-lo facility when everything else was running via AWS.
  • The move has not reduced operational costs: the servers are still running 24/7, and Amazon obviously charge for this, and financial savings were not the motivator for the move: it was about ensuring SL’s longevity.

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Roadmap for Next 12 months

[Video 22:37-25:57 and 53:18-54:48]

  • Performance and stability are an on-going project across multiple area – script processing, region crossings [physical and teleport], viewer performance, Search performance, etc.
  • Simulator-wise, there will be experiments in different server types and what gives better performance for different use cases.
  • Further out there will also be the potential for new land product offerings [e.g. the “event tier regions” Patch referenced in his session].
  • There may be experiments around geolocating servers and simulators based on audience location, although it will be some time before the Lab will be in a position to offer this.
  • [53:18-54:14] The New User Experience, which involves Product operations, Marketing, viewer development and simulator engineering, and extends beyond just the on-boarding process to encompass how new users get to understand the platform, get to connect with others, how the platform is marketed to both new audience and to those who were once users but have fallen away & get them re-engaged, etc.
  • [54:15-54:48] Making the process of customising the avatar easier to understand and do. [See also Patch’s comment on New Starter avatars.]

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Graphics Related Topics

  • [26:02-29:30] EEP: had a rough roll-out and slow adoption period, but is now being more widely used, although there are currently no plans to enhance it at this point in time.
  • [35:55-38:53] ARCTan: an attempt to re-evaluate avatar rendering costs and the cost of in-world scene rendering.
    • The current focus on avatar rendering cost / impact, with the in-world scene rendering / LI to be tackled at some point in the future.
    • A viewer is currently in development that pulls together all the rendering information together and better presents it to the user. The idea is to provide users with more complete data on their viewer performance such that they can make informed decisions on what to do to improve things.
    • [This work is reported on in my regular Content Creation User Group meeting summaries.]
    • Beyond ARCTan the Lab is looking at performance, scene complexity and rendering as a whole in an attempt to improve viewer-side performance for as many people as possible.
  • [38:57-39:25] Support for VR headsets is not off the table, but there are a lot of things that would need to be done in order for SL to offer meaningful support for VR.
  • 45:10-46:15] updating the viewer code to better utilised multi-core processors is something the Lab is looking to address, but no time frames as to when it might be seen.
  • [48:04-48:38] While the rendering system is to be improved, there are no plans to switch to a commercial engine such as Unreal or Unity at present, although this does not mean the idea is entirely off the table long-term.

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Open-Source Viewer Development

[Video 29:56-33:03]

  • The Lab remains committed to open-source development for the viewer, and values the input and contribution from the open-source  / third-party viewer community.
  • While it is acknowledged the open-source path can be difficult at times, it is equally acknowledged the open-source nature of the viewer is a positive force within and for Second Life.
  • The third-party viewer (TPV) development community is kept in mind at the Lab when developing new viewer features [and similarly, the TPV / open-source community offer viewer code contributions to LL for incorporation into the official viewer].

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SL Mobile

[Video: 34:05-35:48]

  • The iOS version of the SL Mobile communications app is in alpha, and should be going to beta “soon”.
  • It will not support 3D rendering from the outset, but is solely focused on communications.
  • [An Android version is in development, but is some way behind the iOS version.]
  • [For periodic SL Mobile updates in this blog, use my SL Mobile tag and my Web User Group meeting summaries.]

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General Q&A

This section covers the majority of questions that were responded to in some detail. Note that questions specific to the topics given above are included under those topic headings.

  • [17:12-19:03 ] Search and Group Chat:
    • It is recognised that Search is “wonky” at presents, and the engineers are looking into matters, although there is likely to be more than one issue that will need to be addressed.
    • Some changes will be rolling out to help with stability, but there is still more investigation to be done before fixes for specific issues with Search results, etc. can be deployed.
    • Group chat is regarded as a “labour of love”, with work routinely being carried out to try to resolve issues and improve performance.
  • [19:19-20:27] Teleport Failures: there has been an increase in reports of teleport failures / viewer disconnects during teleport
    • LL is aware of these reports, although teleport metrics gathered show a 98% success rate across the grid of teleports.
    • It is believed that the this might be because the problems being experienced are not being reported as teleport failures, or the metrics simply aren’t picking them up. Either way, the issue is subject to investigation and analysis.
  • [41:26-43:00] Mini-Map and security orbs: Could parcels using security orbs / systems be annotated on the mini-Map in the same way as parcels using ban lines?
    • Probably not. A better solution would be to improve the means by which those travelling the grid get forewarning about active security systems.
  • [49:56-51:30] “Sub groups” and Group categories: Has consideration been to given to implementing some form of sub-group system (e.g. a separate category of groups purely for land management)?
    • Might be better to re-examine how Groups work and offer alternative functionality for cases where they are used, but are not potentially the best mechanism to achieve the desired goal.
    • Categorising Groups by use type might also work.
  • [51:48-53:16] Bigger oceans: Can the grid be made more “world-like” with bigger oceans?
    • Whilst a cool idea, LL needs to focus on priority items [There is also the fact that large number of Void (water) regions require servers = increased cost to LL, as noted by Patch in his session.]
  • [57:21-59:07] Jira and issue reporting: Can there be an alternative to filing a Jira / raising a ticket for reporting / getting information on issues (e.g. a “non-technical” user group for dealing the technical issues, providing information via e-mail etc.)?
    • There are already multiple channels by which issues can be reported – Jira, user group meetings with dates and SL times via the SL public calendar as well, support channels, etc.
    • Adding more channels further dilutes how information is received and managed & also dilutes the time available to investigate an work on issues.
  • [59:19-1:01:15] Simulator release information: Where can people go to find out what has changed following server deployments and creators can actually test changes in advance, as release notes don’t always give sufficient information?
    • LL tries to be as open as possible about the issues they are working on; however, sever-side, it’s not always prudent to cover some issues in-depth [as doing so can accidentally reveal information on the inner workings of the simulators that some might try to exploit].
  • [1:01:29-1:01:57] Off-line inventory management: Would it be possible to organise inventory off-line?
    • There are actually a couple of proposals for how this might be approached, but this is not currently a project that is being actively worked on.
  • [1:03:01-1:04:22] Scripting language: Could a more conventional (JavaScript / C++, etc.), scripting language be adopted?
    • It would be a huge projects and the costs (in terms of implementation / amount of work involved,  / potential impact, etc), would have to be weighed again potential benefits.
    • It is unlikely to be a project for the short-term,  but nothing is off the table.
  • [1:04:36-1:07:07] Simplifying mesh clothing: Can there be a means to make mesh clothing be more of a “one size fits all” ability, rather than having individual fits for individual body types?
    • Trying to introduce a new “standard” is not easy, as it will simply join all the other “standards” already available. However, there are probably ways in which some of the variants could be “tightened up”, and this is what is being thought about.
    • While there will always be exceptions, due to the ability to create customised avatar  forms (e.g. stick figures), such that any solution is unlikely to work for everyone, it doesn’t mean the attempt shouldn’t be made to simplify things for the majority whilst still allowing for the wider variety for the “edge cases”.
  • [1:07:16-1:08:27] SL usage metrics: Will SL usage data, etc., be made more regularly available?
    • Metrics and infographics do tend to be given to journalists, and it is something that would benefit from being done more regularly in order to shift the narrative about Second Life and its relevance.
  • [1:08:56-1:10:56] World Map: Will there be further enhancements to the World Map (e.g. overlays with additional info – continent names, etc)?
    • It is possible. LL intends to work on the World Map in the future.
  • [1:12:16-1:13:20] SL on TV: Thoughts on the use of SL on “CSI: NY” [season 4, episode 5, Down the Rabbit Hole, 2007]
    • Before Grumpity’s time, but suspects LL were delighted with the exposure at the time.
    • She can remember SL being included (on Dr. Phil [2015 in a segment dealing with on-line gaming and addiction – see A look at Dr. Phil’s show “featuring” Second Life] and liked it.
  • [1:14:45-1:15:56] Mainland / derendering: As many on Mainland use skyboxes with surrounds to block views of surrounding skyboxes, could Mainland parcels be set to derender objects outside of them when above a certain altitude, so skybox users could make use of EEP?
    •  Technically difficult to implement. Also, mainland is about having neighbours.
  • [1:16:00-1:18:49] SL population count: What is the current Second Life population?
    • This depends on how you define “population”. Average daily concurrency [at the time of recording] averages 40,000 with peak concurrency frequently hitting 55,000. It also tends to be cyclical throughout the day.
    • However, there are other metrics: hours spent in-world; daily active users (approx. 200,000), monthly active users, users returning to the platform (are they an active community of users who just “stepped away” from SL for a time?).
    • Seasonality also plays a role in determining when and how to assess overall population, and most recently, the pandemic has altered things a lot in terms of engagement.
  • [1:19:16-1:20:40] Parcelling land vertically: Would it be possible to parcel land vertically, as a 3D space to allow for individual audio streaming, etc.,  at different heights and within different spaces?
    • It is possible, but certainly not a trivial undertaking,.
    • However, would result in more people potentially competing for the same server resources. As such, it leans toward being impractical, as it would require server resources to be artificially limited.
  • [1:20:50-1:22:12] Account limits: How many avatars can a person have, and is there any kind of limit?
    • There is no longer any form of limit, and people can create as many accounts as they need / wish. Freedom of expression and anonymity are at the core of the SL experience, and this is reflected in people’s freedom to have multiple accounts.

 

A little Zen at an Adored garden in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
Adored – For Bambi, June 2021 – click any image for full size

A perusal of the Destination Guide recently brought me to an entry for another region design by Valarie (Zalindah) and dedicated to Bambi (NorahBrent), whose hand can also be seen in a couple of places within the region, and with whom Val has worked with in the past to create virtual spaces.

Adored – For Bambi is another enchanting setting, described as a “Japanese inspired Zen garden”, but which is so much more: a landscape that mixes garden and wilder spaces, water with land, the natural and the fanciful in a marvellous mix of ideas and settings that flow together perfectly and achieve Val’s stated desire to boost spirits, inspire the mind and relax the heart.

Adored – For Bambi, June 2021

The landing point sits within a Japanese pergola located on a short finger of land that extends out into the bay that cuts into the island to form the focal point of the zen garden. A path from the pergola leads to a pair of Torii gates standing guard on either side of the garden’s path as it set out to follow the curve of the bay’s edge and to a small koi house on the shore.

This house offers a charming / romantic retreat, a place to be enjoyed at the end of a visit, especially if accompanied by a loved one. But before turning to it, there is much more to see, as a second path extends beyond the two Torii gates of the garden, pointing the way to northern grasslands.  Here the land is in sharp contrast to the woodlands around the garden and bay: the trees are few, the grass long and turned to gold under the Sun.

Adored – For Bambi, June 2021

The remains of a single, once massive and elm-like tree rises from one side of these grasslands, its few remaining branches still sprouting leaves, the top of its truncated form smoothed and levelled into an elevated platform, tree bark acting as a natural wind break on one side and a set of wooden steps spiralling around the broad trunk to reach it. The nominal shade of this tree and the sea of grass around it has been claimed as the home of a small herd of fallow deer, complete with offspring, that wanders and grazes peacefully.

Across a narrow channel of water cutting into the grasslands, stands the remnants of a stone building, now little more than a pair of incomplete walls. Paired lines of trees close by give the impression the land here may once have been an orchard. but if this were once the case, the denuded and withering state of the trees and the tumbledown nature of the building would suggest that time was long in the past, and building and trees have been left to fade; even the little greenhouse that someone had built into the ruined building has been deserted, the area now home to a frolicking Kitsune.

Adored – For Bambi, June 2021

And this is just scratching the surface of the region’s secrets. Off to the north is a little island with a shelter of its own, whilst back in the woodlands there await more discoveries along the lanterned path that sweeps around the land under the trees to return to the koi house on the shore.

Along this path lie woven arches, Torri gates, places to sit and, hovering in greeting, three little flying monkeys. Such creatures are often not found to be friendly in literature and tale, but visitors have nothing to fear from these three, as they watch the comings and goings quietly and present a small taste of the more fanciful elements of Adored – For Bambi.

Adored – For Bambi, June 2021

The latter is more keenly to be seen just beyond the landing point, where a rocky hill forms a small promontory to one side of the bay, balancing the koi house on the other side. A carpet of fluffy grass offers a way up to the crown of the hill, passing between tall growths of bamboo to reach a bridge that stretches out into the air to where clouds await those seeking a place to sit and watch the orca playing below.

With domesticated dogs, stags and wolves helping to round-out the animal population, and with lanterns floating on the water and through the air, Adored – For Bambi makes for an engaging and restorative visit for the weary of eye or soul.

Adored – For Bambi, June 2021

SLurl Details

SL18B Meet the Lindens: Patch Linden – a summary with video and audio

Posted on by Inara Pey

Tuesday, June 22nd, 2021 saw the third in a series of Meet the Lindens events take place for the SL Birthday celebrations, featuring Patch Linden, the Lab’s Vice President of Product Operations.

The following is a summary of the session covering the core topics raised, with selected audio extracts. The full video is located at the end of this article.

 Table of Contents

Note that this is a summary, not a full transcript, and items have been grouped by topic, so may not be presented chronologically when compared to the video.

The TL;DR List of Key Points

  • Linden Homes:
    • Fantasy theme will be available “soon” – there are a few things still to be finalised.
    • As with the Chalet homes, the Fantasy house styles will come in a choice of “with rooms” or “open plan”.
    • The houses will be made available on a sub-continent that will be a part of Bellisseria, but not physically joined to it.
    • This continent will have its own seasonal cycles.
    • Once it is available, there will be around 3 or 4 more themes to come.
    • Once the role-out of new themes has been completed, there will be something of a refresh of some themes.
  • New User Experience: should surface in the next few weeks. It utilises integrated elements of new on-boarding region design, new tutorials and web content access through the viewer, which also includes UI changes intended to assist new users. The approach is intended to be context-oriented rather than task oriented, as has tended to be the case.
  • New starter avatars: a new fully mesh / Bento / BoM capable starter avatar is under consideration. It  will be intended to ease the process of understanding avatar customisation, etc., whilst giving the basic SL avatar a more modern, complete refresh.  However, it is not intended to compete with existing mesh avatars.
  • Roadmap for the next 12 months: complete the Linden Homes deployment, deploy the New User Experience, develop the new start avatars + the release / testing of the “event tier region” product.

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About Patch Linden

  • Originally a Second Life resident and business owner who joined the platform in 2004, and became a Linden in 2007.
  • Initially worked as a support agent and then as a support liaison. From there he moved to the Concierge team, eventually becoming that team’s manager.
  • Shifted focus to the role of Operations Support Manager for a year, then moved to the Product group, the team responsible for defining the features, etc., found within Second Life.
  • At Product he developed the Land Operations team, which includes the Linden Department of Public Works (LDPW).
  • In 2018, he established the company’s support office in Atlanta, Georgia.
  • In 2020 he oversaw the move to larger office space in Atlanta, although the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic means the new premises have yet to be used.
  • In 2019 he was promoted to Vice President, Product Operations, and joined the Lab’s management team alongside Grumpity and Oz Linden (see: Linden Lab’s management team expands: congrats to Grumpity, Patch and Oz).
  • Together with Grumpity and Oz, he formed the leadership team overseeing Second Life’s continued development, this team now comprising Patch, Grumpity and Brett Linden.
  • In his management team role, Patch continues to oversee all of the Lab’s user support operations (some 5 teams), including the LDPW.
  • Despite his longevity at the Lab, his is not the longest-serving Linden, nor is he the “oldest” resident-turned-Linden.
  • Sees the most significant changes to SL during his time being: the arrival of voice (2007), Mesh (2010), Pathfinding (2011), Experience Keys (initially 2015, fully in 2019/2020), Bento  (2016/17), Animesh (2018/19) and EEP (2018/19), and Bakes on Mesh (2019).

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Loss of Ebbe Altberg

Patch again expressed comments on the passing of Ebbe Altberg, Linden Lab’s CEO, and again, rather than paraphrase him, is words are in the audio below, lifted from the the 9:09 point of the video through to 14:07 minutes .

As a reminder, those wishing to pay their respect to Ebbe can do so at his in-world memorial (see also: Paying respects to Ebbe Altberg in Second Life).

The Pandemic and Second Life

[Video: 19:05-23:08]

  • Given the Lab has always had a very strong working-from-home ethos and in using the the platform for company work, the transition out of office working was not a major impact.
  • Second Life has seen increases in the GDP, the LindeX and in returning users who having logged-in for some time.
  • Linden Lab recognises that while the platform has been of great help to many around the world during the pandemic, they equally understand that this has also been a period of great stress and potential loss for some.

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Linden Homes and Bellisseria

[Video: 23:52-45:15]

  • The Fantasy theme is being previewed at SL18B – see SL18B: A Look at the Linden Homes Fantasy Theme Preview.
    • Each of the four styles will be offered in both a floor plan version (as seen in the SL18B preview region) and in an “open plan concept” version.
    • The design for the Fantasy theme has been developed with the idea that it can be applied to multiple fantasy themes – elven. human, faerie, etc.
    • The new Fantasy theme will be within a sub-continent rather than an overall part of Bellisseria. It will still be classified as a part of Bellisseria, but will not have a direct connection to the existing Bellisseria regions.
      • It has yet to be determined whether there will be air and / or water connections with the rest of the continent, or whether it will only be linked by some form of portal connection.
      • This continent will have seasonal changes throughout the year. Winter will not have snow, but will see a cold, blue environment.
    • It is hoped the theme will be released Soon™, although there are still decisions to be made and work to be completed – such as the community hub for the theme.
The Fantasy theme of Linden Homes at SL18B under their natural night sky (the day cycle will naturally change on the Fantasy Home regions)
  • Once Fantasy theme has been released, there will be around three or four more themes to come.
    • [49:26-49:50] Two of these themes are being built in parallel to the Fantasy theme, and one of these is almost “content complete”.
  • The Bellisseria community has been integral to the success and growth of the continent.
  • Work has not started on retiring the “old” Linden Homes and their sub-continents, and is unlikely to commence until 2022. LL do not want to start on this until  there is sufficient variety and stock of new homes to appeal to all who still have one of the older Homes.
  • In terms of obtaining a Linden Home, the key is to be patient.
    • New themes are released on a rolling cycle, and their is no need to stand on the edge of regions awaiting their release – in fact, just because region X has been released does not mean region Y next door will be “next”. The system doesn’t work like that.
    • The best way to obtain a home of choice is to watch the Linden Homes page, and then take one as styles become available, and work within the refresh / house change caps that have been set.
  • There is a new development in the works that involves Bellisseria and the Linden Homes. It is not a major project, but will be themed around Halloween.

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New User Experience

[Video: 45:16-48:55]

  • The new New User experience will involve:
    • A completely new region design for on-boarding users, together with updated tutorials.
    • New viewer elements (currently found within the Project UI RC viewer).
    • Web-based support accessed  through the viewer.
  • “Doing things” will be a part of this experience, but will not be the focus for it.
  • Rather, it is recognised that incoming users will have a degree of computer knowledge, including knowledge gained from other games / platforms. So, part of the work has been to study other on-boarding processes and work out what really needed to be done to more easily transitions users coming from other on-line environments into used Second Life and gaining a reasonable grounding in how basic things work.
  • As such, the focus is not so much activity-driven (walk here, pick up that, jump there), but is more context driven, with virtual space, tutorial, web content and viewer all tightly interwoven to drive the process.
  • This should be coming on-stream in a  matter of weeks.

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New Starter Avatars

[Video 49:51-54:39]

  • A new all-mesh / Bento-enabled and Bakes on Mesh avatar is being considered as the default new starter avatar.
  • This will likely replace the Ruth avatar (which will not vanish entirely, due to backwards compatibility), and will be a single head-to-toe avatar design that will respond to the existing slider system & intended to make getting to grips with basic avatar customisation easier.
  • A further aspect to the avatar is to help to make the new starter avatar look a lot more modern and more in keeping with other avatar styles in SL.
  • However, it will not be designed to compete with existing mesh avatars, but will be purely to get people to a point where they understand the avatar sufficiently well enough to be able to move on to using more complex avatar options.

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Support and Governance

[Video: 55:12-1:03:11]

Support

  • Support enjoys a very healthy / respected satisfaction rate, with the general turn-around time for enquiries / issues being measured in hours, not days or weeks.
  • User surveys generally give a very high satisfaction rate from those who take them, as reflected in the rewards nominated for support staff by users (and yes, the staff really do get the rewards!).

Governance

  • In difference to Second life hearsay, Abuse Reports are reviewed and where required, actioned.
  • There can appear be a delay in responding to some reports, simply because some issues are more urgent than others (e.g. account hacking is a much more serious issue than name-calling), and the high-priority issues must be dealt with first – particularly if they are time critical (e.g. serious griefing).
  • Some abuse reports  – such as reports of harassment – do take time to  be responded to, simply because the Governance team often has to build-up a chain of evidence, and care must be taken to investigate both sides of the equation.
  • Some reports are not acted upon, simply because they come down to he said / she said situations, where no clear determination can be made, while mechanisms for others (e.g. people being “mean” or name-calling) are within the viewer to allow direct action to be taken – blocking / muting.

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Roadmap for the Nest 12 Months

[Video: 1:05:25-1:14:38]

  • Linden Homes the deployment of the remaining themes,  including a “V2” of a particular home type + implementing “open plan” expansions to the existing Traditional and Victorian Homes.
  • The new New User Experience and new starter avatars, as discussed.
  • A possible new game that may eventually dovetail into the New User Experience, possibly towards the latter part of 2022 (although it may be pushed back).
  • New land products that leverage AWS hardware capabilities.
    • Current focus is on an “events tier region” type designed to support events at peak simulator performance (time dilation at 0.999, simulator FPS at 45.0).
    • An initial version of this product is in use within the SL18B regions, supporting the auditorium and the live stage.
    • The region type has yet to be tested for managing higher avatar numbers – although a good part of this impact is more viewer side then within the client (outside of things like teleport and script handling).
    • There are still decisions to be made on how to pitch and price this product. However it is hoped more information on it will be available in the next few weeks.

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Q&A Session

[Video: 1:16:40-end]

Please refer to the video.

 

2021 SUG meeting week #25 summary – updated

Posted on by Inara Pey
IMAGOLand, April 2021 – blog post

The following notes were taken from the Tuesday, June 22nd, 2021 Simulator User Group (SUG) meeting.

Another party week, so not a lot of practical discussion.

Server Deployments

See the server deployment thread for any most recent updates / changes.

  • There was no deployment to the SLS Main channel on Tuesday, June 22nd.
  • Wednesday, June 23rd should see server update 560618 deployed to the RC channels. This includes the required server-side support to complete a fix for BUG-202864 “Change Mesh Uploader to preserve Scene File object names when a full linkset is uploaded”. This release was rolled back as a result of issues – see BUG230881 – “llHttpRequest(): HTTP_CUSTOM_HEADER flag is ignored”.

SL Viewer

The Fernet Maintenance RC updated to version 6.4.20.560398 on Tuesday, June 22nd.

The rest of the official viewer pipelines remain unchanged at the time of writing:

  • Release viewer: LMR 5 viewer, version 6.4.19.560171, dated May 27, promoted June 7 – 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):
  • Project viewers:
    • Legacy Profiles viewer, version 6.4.11.550519, dated October 26.
    • Copy / Paste viewer, version 6.3.5.533365, dated December 9, 2019.
    • Project Muscadine (Animesh follow-on) project viewer, version 6.4.0.532999, dated November 22, 2019.
    • 360 Snapshot project viewer, version 6.2.4.529111, dated July 16, 2019.

In Brief

  • BUG-230589 “Issue with region restart taking over an hour while the majority of the time showing status of “starting”” has been a sporadic issue with individual mainland regions. Initially thought to have been a hang-over due to infrastructure maintenance during an April rolling re-start, it has been acknowledged as a potential issue. Anyone coming across regions exhibiting the same behaviour are asked to comment on the Jira, providing dates of the region, time, date, etc.

SL18B Meet the Lindens: Lab Gab special 2: Leadership Team – summary

Posted on by Inara Pey
SL18B Meet the Lindens will focus on the leadership team of Brett, Grumpity and Patch
On Monday, June 21st Lab Gab and Strawberry Linden hosted a special Meet the Lindens show as a part of the SL18B celebrations.

This is the second of two summaries of the show, and focuses on the discussion with the Second Life leadership team of Grumpity Linden (VP or Product), Brett Linden (VP of Marketing) and Patch Linden (VP of Product Operations).

 Table of Contents

The first part of the show, featuring board member and Executive Chair Brad Oberwager (Oberwolf Linden) can be found here.

Note that this is a summary, not a full transcript, and items have been grouped by topic, so may not be presented chronologically when compared to the video.

The TL;DR List of Key Points

  • Decision making: The leadership team will continue to be making core product decisions for SL, as they have been doing for the last few years.
  • Immediate technical focus: the new New User Experience, covering both the viewer and the entire on-boarding process. A second focus is on overall performance improvements, and a longer-term project (yet to commence) is to overhaul the viewer’s rendering pipe.
  • SL Mobile: public beta for iOS “Soon™”.
  • Premium: no plans to change anything at this point in time or to introduce Premium Plus, although this is still on the future radar.
  • Land products + tier:
    • New region options, ways of offering regions for events, possibility for de-coupling Homestead purchase from Full region ownership, etc., all under consideration for the future. But no actual plans or options that can be discussed.
    • No immediate plans to change tier – although LL is constantly reviewing options.
    • Unlikely to see changes to region sizes beyond the current 256×256 sq m, as this is too thoroughly baked-in to the SL software architecture.
  • Marketing:
    • 2021 the “year of experimentation” examining and testing methods to acquire and retain new users, and in bringing back former users who have not logged-in to SL for some time.
    • Experimenting with the Second life video ad.
    • Developing external partnerships (e.g. NFL Alumni, Titmouse) to extend SL’s reach into new potential user acquisition spaces.
    • Looking towards acquiring users across all age ranges.

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On the Loss of Ebbe

All three spoke to the recent passing of CEO Ebbe Altberg. Rather than paraphrase their words, I’ll simply include an audio reference here, which as also at the start of the video extract at the end of this summary. The comments start with Grumpity, and then go to Patch and then Brett .

As a reminder, those wishing to pay their respect to Ebbe can do so at his in-world memorial (see also: Paying respects to Ebbe Altberg in Second Life).

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How Will Key Business Decisions Be Made Moving Forward and What’s Next for SL?

[Video: 43:32-50:36]

  • There shouldn’t be too much change in terms of platform / product, as the leadership team has been pretty much managing things for some time [Grumpity, Patch and Oz until the latter’s retirement, now Grumpity, Patch and Brett].
    • Disagreements between the team are rare, and there is a huge amount of mutual respect between the three, so things should continue pretty much as they were.
    • The hope is that the resident community can see the continuity of leadership through the team.
    • What is missing is Ebbe’s mentorship / oversight.
  • The major focus at the moment is on the new New User Experience. This involves:
    • UI changes to the viewer, some of which can be seen in the Project UI RC viewer, other of which can only be seen when visiting the new user social and learning islands.
    • A complete overhaul of the user on-boarding process and experience, which will be deployed “really soon”.
  • Other on-going work relates to performance improvements.
  • A future project the Lab is currently gearing up for is extensive work on the rendering pipeline. This will take some time to complete.
  • In general terms, a further viewer UI update that will be forthcoming to allow users to more easily adjust settings to help with their viewer performance. While this is recognised as only being a cosmetic fix when compared to the work noted above, it is hoped it will help people more easily adjust settings in keeping with the ability of their hardware.
  • [55:05-55:53] Group limits: the Lab would like to raises caps (including group limits) wherever possible, but the key factor in doing so is performance – so when it is felt there has been suitable overall performance enhancement for users, this is something that would likely be considered .
  • [1:12:48-1;13:15] Will the basic SL avatar system ever be updated? This is something that has been thought about, and it is likely that moves in that direction will be made at some point, but it is for the future, and not something being addressed right now beyond internal discussions.

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Mac OSX Support

  • LL do not plan to stop supporting Mac systems.
  • Part of the graphics work mentioned above will be to allow support for more modern APIs than just OpenGL (currently due to be completely deprecated by Apple), including Metal for OS  X (and most likely Vulkan for Windows).
    • In the case of OS X / Metal, there are questions over backward compatibility that need to be addressed.
  • Issues with the Space Navigator 3D mouse are more to do with changes within OS X more than anything the Lab has done, and it is not clear if LL can do anything to alleviate the problems Mac users are experiencing when using the device.

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SL Mobile

[Video: 50:37-51:54]

  • Currently, SL mobile development focus is iOS.
  • It is initially a communications tool.
  • It has had some problems passing Apple’s testing and requirements but the hope is to have a public beta available through Apple “really soon”.
  • It was also pointed out that the Speedlight third-party client is available for all browsers and iOS and Android (see here for Speedlight coverage in this blog).

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Premium Membership

[Video: 52:11-54:04]

  • No plans at present to increase the weekly stipend.
  • Premium Plus was put on hold in 2020  due to both the need to focus on the AWS migration and the fact that the pandemic was impacting people’s disposable income. It currently remains on hold.
  • LL aware that many users are interested in multiple levels of service / subscription, and so Premium Plus (or similar) is still in the plans.
  • One thing that is unlikely to return is resident-to-resident mainland auctions (first introduced in March 2019), but which failed to gain significant traction and proved problematic in deployment.

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Possible Future Land Products and Tier

[Video 54:05-55:02 and 55:59-1:02:29]

  • With the AWS migration complete and a broader base of hardware / infrastructure available, new land product offerings are something the Lab is starting to consider.
    • No details are available yet in terms of type of product, pricing, etc., but the Lab’s thinking is around providing better performance around hosting events, etc.,   but the hope is to have more information on this “soon”.
  • It is possible that a some point in the future, the requirement that Homestead regions can only be purchased by those already holding at least one Full region may be decoupled, so that homesteads become an independent product.
  • Tier prices are always being looked at, in conjunction with how the markets has responded to past tier reductions. It is something the Lab would like to do again in the future, but no commitments on when this may happen.
    • Care has to be particularly taken with regards to tier simply because it can easily have a negative impact. So changes, should they come, will be cautious.
  • While larger region sizes is often requested, post-AWS migration a members of the simulator engineering team looked at the issue again, and the fact is the 256×256 size is too baked-in to the SL software architecture makes larger region sizes extremely unlikely.
    • The focus instead will be to continue to try to improve and optimise region crossings .
  • Can residents use Lab spaces for events & temporarily re-decorate them? Some facilities – around 2 dozen in all, including the Bellisseria Fairgrounds and the SS Galaxy – do actually support this. If there are other locations residents would like to see added to the list, then names should be passed to the land team.
    • The point-of-contact for booking these facilities is Mischievous Mole.

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Marketing

[Video: 1:02:33-1:12:46]

  • This year is being used as the “year of experiments”. Several approaches to promoting and growing SL are being tried, and it is acknowledged some will work and some may not. This overall goal with this is to see what moves the needle in terms of new user registrations and on-going engagement.
  • The most visible of these are the on-going A/B testing with the secondlife.com splash / login-in screen [see: Secondlife.com Splash Screen Gets a Further Tweak and Lab Further Updates SL Splash Screen with Mixed Media Video], which involves swapping in and out different messaging, imagery, etc., in order to see what garners interest / engagement and what doesn’t.
  • The most commented on these tests has been the integration of the video featuring physical world actors intercut with avatar images; [as I noted in the 2nd article linked-to above] this footage comes from a larger professional video shoot the Lab refer to as Children of Creation, and which was shown at the mid-point in this Lab Gab Special.
  • The “win back initiatives” are a drive to encourage past Second Life users who have not logged-in for a time to return to the platform and give it another try. These take several forms, including offering Linden Dollar and other items as awards for logging-in.
  • Partnership drives have also been a focus of experimentation (such as the recent drive with the NFL Alumni Association and the Titmouse partnership which started in 2020, and has seen a number of in-world events).
  • A complexity with marketing Second Life is trying to present it to an audience outside of Second Life and staying clear of any subjective image / cliché it may have, whilst also staying true to the heart and soul of the platform and its users.
    • This is something LL  are acutely aware of – they want to see SL mentioned alongside all the Johnny-come-lately competitors for “the metaverse”, whilst being very aware that a major reason SL has outlasted its would-be competition in the past is down to its existing user base.
  • Overall, the past 12 months have been “good” in terms of metrics for the platform with organic growth likely related to the pandemic, and the aim is now to build on this as the world starts opening-up once more, and trying to maintain the momentum and achieve future growth.
  • Areas of consideration include the Roblox generation, and the idea that as they get older they are going to start looking for alternatives, and also to the older generation of silver surfers ad potential catchment groups for Second Life.

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The Future of SL – Thoughts and Comments

[Video: 1:14:02-1:18:19]

  • Brett: believes the users will have a role to play in the future directions of the platform, as indicated by Brad Oberwager. Would like to see the media would give greater credit to Second Life, which led the way in so many areas – micro-transactions, digital economies, user-generated content and sales, etc., and wants to work towards that. Hopes that the platform does continue to grow and become easier to use.
  • Grumpity: has never been as excited by the opportunities for SL as is the case now, with the platform genuinely poised for a new era of growth and development. Believes that the Lab has the right mix of experience and discipline coupled with free thinking and respect for their user base that many of their potential rivals have yet to attain. Is happy that the world is once again talking about “the metaverse”, and believes SL has a lot to show those who are interested in it.
  • Patch: wants to get to a reality where using Second Life is a matter of simply picking up a tablet and using it, where students on Chrome books can log-in and participate in learning experiences that are globe-spanning in their content / student mix and reach far beyond anything that can be achieved in the traditional classroom / learning space. Wants to see SL grow and expand so that it can fulfil dreams and offer wide-ranging opportunities for engagement.

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