Tag: Misc Events

1920s Berlin celebrates four years

Posted on by Inara Pey

4th-anniversary-poster

On the 30th May 2009, Jo Yardley first opened the doors on a new immersive venture in Second Life: the 1920s Berlin Project.

Since that time, the project has become one of Second Life’s long-running successes, having grown from a parcel on a region to a full sim of its own, which is both open to the public and home to a thriving community.

To mark the anniversary, four days of entertainment and activities are being planned, commencing on Thursday 30th May and running through until Sunday 3rd June.

Events are still being worked out – and updates can be obtained directly from the 1920s Berlin Project blog and the project’s Facebook page. However, the events currently planned comprise:

Thursday 30th May

A small-scale keller party at the Keller Tanzlokal where there will be some freebies handed out, and everyone will be encouraged to the drink, chat and, if they feel like it, “get up on stage to tell about their discovery of Berlin, their life here, to perhaps sing, do a trick or show off another talent”!

Friday 31st May

The Grand Anniversary Dance at Unter den Linden.

1920s Berlin Project
Unter den Linden, location for the anniversary Grand Ball (image courtesy of Jarla Capalini, via the 1920s Berlin Project Flickr Group)

Saturday 1st June
Will see the normal rules for the region relaxed for the day and allow people time visit and mingle through a number of special events (all times SLT):

  • 11:00 – Tea Dance
  • 12:00 – Pool party
  • 14:00 – Eldorado evening – the opening of a new building

Sunday 2nd June

Kids’ day with a special class, playground games and a football game.

1920s Berlin project - 4th Anniversary
1920s Berlin project – celebrating four years at the end of May 2013

So, don’t sit alone in your room this weekend, old chum – go hear the music play and join in the cabaret and festivities marking the 1920s Berlin Project’s 4th anniversary!

Related Links

World Goth Fair underway

Posted on by Inara Pey

World-Goth-Fair

The World Goth Fair started in Second Life on Wednesday May 15th, and will run through until the end of the month.

Some 75 merchants from across Second Life are participating in the fair, which is being held across two regions: Cursed (Adult) and Port Seraphine (Moderate).

As well as showcasing some of the top designers in Second Life who supply the goth market, the primary aim of the event is to raise funds for the Sophie Lancaster Foundation, a UK-based charity that was founded in the wake of the brutal murder of Sophie Lancaster, a young woman who was killed for being a goth. The event is also officially sanctioned by the organisers of  World Goth Day.

World Goth Fair, Port Seraphine (image courtesy Broxelf / World Goth Fair)

To mark World Goth Day itself on May 22nd, 2013, and to further raise money for the Sophie Lancaster Foundation, Club Gothika on Cursed will hold a special musical event, which will run for about 14 hours and include numerous contests with hosts of prizes. All donations received at the event will go directly to the Sophie Lancaster Foundation.

Anyone wishing to contribute prize items to the event (RL or SL items) can do so via the World Goth Day at Club Gothika web page.

Related Links

 

Bobbiekins on Designing Worlds

Posted on by Inara Pey

On April 25th, I blogged about a unique collaboration called BobbiekinWorld which brings together a range of talent connected with Second Life and which includes Tony Dyson (best known for creating Star Wars’ R2D2), machinima maker Chantal Harvey, Slim Warrior and Dawny Daviau, in order to create a series of interactive children’s books which utilise Second Life as a medium for telling and filming elements of the stories.

Currently the subject of an Indiegogo funraiser, BobbiekinWorld will be the subject of a segment of Designing Worlds to be recorded on Tuesday May 14th, 2013, and Second Life users are invited to be a part of the audience.

Both Tony Dyson and Chantal Harvey will be on-hand to talk about the project, and will also be taking questions from the audience about the project.

If you’d like to attend the recording, please make sure you’re at the Designing Worlds studio no later that 13:00 SLT on Tuesday May 14th, when filming will commence.

Related links

Catch-up with Designing Worlds and the SSA / Materials special

Posted on by Inara Pey

If you missed the live premiere of the Designing Worlds special I blogged about as being shown on Monday May 13th at 14:00, you can now play catch-up here.

The show is also available on the Treet TV Designing Worlds channel.

Materials Processing and SSA – a Designing Worlds special

Posted on by Inara Pey

designing-worldsOn Monday May 13th at 14:00 SLT, Designing Worlds will be premiering a special show in their current series which explores some of the new Second Life shiny which is coming out of Linden Lab at the moment.

The show, recorded earlier in the month, features Brooke, Oz, Troy and Nyx Linden as they discuss the upcoming deployments of Server Side Baking/Appearance and Materials Processing in SL.

Nyx, Troy, Oz and Brooke Linden during the recording of the Designing Worlds show (image courtesy of Wildstar Beaumont)
From left-to-right): Nyx, Troy, Oz and Brooke Linden during the recording of the Designing Worlds show (image courtesy of Wildstar Beaumont / Designing Worlds)

As regular readers here will know, Nyx Linden has very much been the public face / lead of Server-side Baking, and he’s joined in the show by Troy Linden to explain what is going on with the project, and why people need to understand the importance of ensuring they are running a viewer which supports SSB/A.

Following this, Oz and Brooke Linden will be explaining about Materials Processing and the use of normal and specular maps in Second Life. They’ll also be demonstrating some of the capabilities of Materials Processing, using samples of various items on display at Hippotopolis. Just remember that if you want to go and see them for yourself, you’ll need to download, install and run the Materials Processing project viewer until such time as the necessary code is made more widely available in the main SL viewer and TPVs.

With and without: how materials will look when running a viewer in differed mode (top) and in non-deiffered mode (bottom). The differences are clear, but the in-world experience in non-differred mode is not in any way "broken"
How materials processing can alter the appearance of objects: the top image shows a series of objects which use material properties (normal and specular maps) as seen through a viewer which can render them. The lower image shows the same objects in a viewer which is not using the materials processing capabilities

All of the Lindens attending the show took time to answer questions put to them by the Designing Worlds team on behalf of users.

Saffia Widdershins, who co-hosts the show with Elrik Merlin, said to me in discussing the premiere, “We were really pleased to have been able to do this show and discuss the issues with people from the Lab. Changes like this can worry a lot of users, and it was good to have the issues and benefits clearly explained.”

Watch the Show Live

If you would like to watch the show, you can do so in one of two ways:

If you missed either of these, catch up with the broadcast via my blog, or via the  Designing World’s channel on Treet TV.

Related Links

Inside Firestorm at Virtual Ability Inc

Posted on by Inara Pey

Virtual AbilityOn Thursday March 28th, Virtual Ability Inc will be hosting a presentation by Ed Merryman and Lette Ponnier about the Firestorm viewer and project.

Entitled Overview of the Firestorm Viewer and Project, the presentation will take place in both voice and text, and will commence at 11:00 SLT at the Blue Orchid Cabana, Virtual Ability Island.

The promotional material for the presentation reads:

Learn about what makes the Firestorm Viewer and the project on the whole unique. We’ll discuss some of its most popular features and customizability options and cover how to find help and more information from our large and active support team and its resources.

The Presenters

Ed Merryman – Voice

Ed Merryman joined SL in September 2007. He is the Firestorm Support Team manager, and has led the team since the Firestorm Project was established in September 2010.  

Ed Merryman and Lette Ponnier - talking about Firestorm at Virtual Ability Island on Thursday March 28th, commencing at 11:00 SLT
Ed Merryman and Lette Ponnier – talking about Firestorm at Virtual Ability Island on Thursday March 28th, commencing at 11:00 SLT

Lette Ponnier – Text

Lette Ponnier has been involved in Second Life since early 2008. A keen member of SL’s small, but thriving, open chat trivia community, Lette has been an integral part of the Firestorm team since February 2011 where she head-up the English Language Support team. She also specialises in providing help to Firestorm Mac users.

As well as providing support to Firestorm users, both Lette and Ed are active teachers for the team, and present weekly classes about the viewer which are open to anyone to attend, no matter what level of experience they have with the Firestorm viewer.

So, if you’re curious as to why Firestorm is so popular among Second Life’s users, and / or about trying the viewer out for yourself, why not make a note to drop into Virtual Ability Island on Thursday March 28th?

Related Links

With thanks to Virtual Ability Inc.