Author: John

Pinshape competition banner via @sansarofficial

Linden Lab, by way of Sansar, is one of the sponsors of a 3D printing competition organised by Pinshape. Running through until the end of the August, 2017, inviting people to Design Your Avatar. Hosted on Pinstripe, the competition offers three prize packages, the first of which includes a 1 year Creator Level subscription to Sansar, worth US $9.99 a month.

The competition website gives the best description of the requirements:

Imagine a future in which Virtual Reality is just as commonplace as cellphones and social media are today. In this future, everyone is represented in virtual space by an avatar of their own creation. What would you look like? What would you be wearing? Would you be human? Animal? Something new altogether?

Let your imagination run free … Design an original character that represents your personality and spirit. Feel free to design an avatar…

Yamagata – click any image for full size

“I have wanted an oriental themed sim for the longest time,” Ayla Zhoy (AylaJ) says of her homestead region design Yamagata, “and here it is! I’ve spent some time slowly working on this and I hope you enjoy your visit.”

Regular readers to these pages will know that I’m immediately drawn to anything with an oriental flavour. This being the case, Caitlyn and I hopped over to take a look around as soon as the opportunity arose – and we weren’t at all disappointed.

Yamagata

As with many oriental regions in Second Life, Yamagata draws strongly on Sino-Japanese influences, blending the two together to create an environment which is eye-catching, relaxing, fun to explore (although do take note, it is a constant work-in-progess, and so is changing on a fluid basis) and with plenty of opportunities for photography.

The land is in…

I arrived at the town square as dusk was settling over the area. Not a soul in sight but that strange sound was growing louder the closer I got to the water. I decided to avoid the docks for a bit and have a look about. There had to be someone here, or did the town literally roll it’s streets up at night?

I stopped by the library and noticed the new strange decor within. But, with a shrug of my shoulders, went over to the bookshelves and perused the offerings there. My gaze settled upon a book with a worn leather cover, it appeared to be a seaman’s journal. Odd, why would it be here in a public library? I lifted it from the shelf and after signing the check out form, made my way back out into the streets.

My next stop was the souvenir shop, surely someone…

Cocoon – click any image for full size

Cocoon is the name of a cyberpunk role-play region designed by Ελλιέ (Mii1a), and it offers an atmospheric environment with a rich back-story.

It is the year 2487. The Earth surface has become virtually uninhabitable as consequence of wars and environmental neglect. Most of humanity has fled the surface in the hopes of building a new future.

Cities slowly float around three thousand meters high above the surface, to escape the corroding effects of the pollution and radiation on the city’s hull over time.

The cities are connected by dense air-traffic and there is a booming economy for all types of goods. The cities are controlled by many different rival mega-concerns in the science and weapon industry, yet most parts of the population don’t care about the large-scale politics and established connections on many levels between the cities. There exists a thriving…

The 2015 Lovefest carnival

Lovefest – the Second Life celebration of the birth of H. P. Lovecraft – will open its doors for 10 days of festivities commencing on Thursday, August 17th, 2017. The event will run through until Sunday, August 27th.

This year marks the 127th anniversary of Lovercraft’s birth on August 20th 1890, and the event’s 6th year. There will once be a wide range of celebratory activities – shopping, music and dancing, live music, film showings, open microphone events, live storytelling in voice, dance troupes and an adventure for people to enjoy!

Deep Diving in the Pacific Ocean

Voyage to the bottom of the sea at Lovefest 2017

For 2017, the adventure takes visitors deep under the sea with the Miskatonic University Oceanic Expedition Team!

Those volunteering to participate will sail into the vast Pacific Ocean aboard the research vessel S.S.Abigail. Whilst en-route team members…

Aly’s Fine Art Gallery and Jungle – click any image for full size

In May 2017, Caitlyn and I visited Aly’s Fine Art Gallery and Jungle, designed by Hepburn (Hepburn30) and Pross (Prosperine2) for region holder Aly (Alysheea). The region is a home for Aly to display her 2D and 3D art –  and also provide visitors with a place to explore. As such, it presents an interesting mix of place to visit and explore, and gallery to appreciate the art on exhibition.

The gallery space is located in the south-west corner of the region, and is formed by three tiki huts located around a small lake surrounded by sandy banks. Aly’s art, which is an intriguing mix of “traditional” photography, abstract images based on photos, and images which appear to have been captured in-world. These are displayed alongside and around 3D sculptures and mobiles.

Aly’s Fine Art Gallery…

Sansar: Secrets of the World Whale – Teager

Prior to the public Creator Beta opening, Linden Lab issued a challenge to those creators who were a part of the Creator Preview and who helped to move Sansar to a point where the Lab felt they could open the platform to a wider audience.

On offer in the competition, which closed on July 24th, were a series of cash prizes to be awarded to creators who, “create an experience with Sansar that takes the tools currently available and pushes them to their limits”, offered across a range of categories: Best Overall; Best Gaming Experience; Best Media Experience; Best use of Physics; Best use of Scripting; Best Visual Design; Best Sound Design;  and Best Narrative Design.

On Wednesday, August 16th, Linden Lab announced the winners of the challenge, together with honourable mentions, and I was pleased to see that some of the…

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Team Diabetes of Second Life to Return for a Third Season

DATE: 14, AUGUST 2017

WEBSITE: www.teamdiabetessl.org

SLURL:http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Plush%20Non%20Profit%20Commons/221/30/26

We are pleased to announce the third season of Team Diabetes of Second Life! Team Diabetes of Second Life is an official and authorized team of The American Diabetes Association. The mission of Team Diabetes of Second Life is to raise awareness, tolerance, and funds for diabetes in the virtual world of Second Life.

According to the World Health Organization (2016): 422 million adults in the world have diabetes and 1.5 million deaths are directly attributed to diabetes each year.

Team Diabetes of Second Life was founded by Jessii2009 Warrhol and Johannes1977 Resident and will continue functioning in the form of an advisory board, with a coordinator leading the Team Diabetes of Second Life effort. The 2017 Team Diabetes of Second Life Coordinator is Johannes1977 Resident and…

David Hall’s Dwarven Fortress – a sense of scale can be gained by my avatar, in white, standing on the platform towards the lower left, and visible between the columns – click for full size

The sixth Sansar Creator Profile video arrived on Wednesday, August 9th, featuring creator David Hall. A 3D creator “for the past couple of years”, David describes his work as more of a passion than a vocation – although he admits he’s always wanted to be a builder of worlds. As such, he is perhaps representative of the broader audience that Linden Lab would like to attract: those who are perhaps not so much interested in or invested with the wider aspects of virtual worlds and their multiplicity of opportunities  and interactions, but rather those who want to be able to sculpt and create the environments they wish to build, and then share them purely with…

EveryWhere and NoWhere – JadeYu Fhang

Now open for viewing at the new temporary home for Dividni Shostakovich’s Split Screen, is a pair if installations by JadeYu Fhang and Krystali Rabeni, which can each be reached from the main landing point, or via one another from their respective landing points.

EveryWhere and NoWhere, by JadeYu, forms a ground level installation, and is the more extensive of the two. It offers a complex environment of scenes and platforms, forming a unique world of geometric shapes and inhabited by strange, female forms.

In the first – which acts as the landing point – the figures are enmeshed in a delicate framework somewhat resembling a bird’s nest. Ladders rise from the platform at various angles, each offering a number of poses for visitors. Beyond this lie processions of doorway-like boxes march and undulate through the sky, or rise vertically upwards, apparently…

(courtesy of Linden Lab)

The following is a basic guide to using Sansar when visiting / exploring experiences. As the majority of Second Life users do not have VR headsets and controllers, the focus on using Sansar in Desktop mode. Those using a VR headset and controllers, or who have a game controller, should refer to the following official Sansar help pages:

• Sansar VR Controls
• Sansar Game Controller Buttons

Some of the following notes have been drawn from my earlier articles on getting start with Sansar and pick and tips, and are included her for completeness

The Atlas

Client

• Use the menu to switch Atlas view between displaying all publicly available experiences, those produced by Sansar Studios (Linden Lab and partners), and those you have created.
• Use the Create button to start creating an experience (if available), review your existing experiences or change your Sansar subscription.
• Use the scroll wheel…

Yasminia – click any image for full size

It’s been almost a year since Caitlyn and I first visited Yasminia, the homestead region designed by Busta (BadboyHi). At the time, he’d opened the region to the public for a limited time and was planning to close it once more. However, such has been the response from visitors, he decided to leave it available to public access and continue to offer people a chance to visit – and I’m happy to report it remains open to all.

Beack then Yasminia was a very pastoral setting with open fields and horses grazing, offering visitors a photogenic delight. Today’s Yasminia is very different look – albeit one no less photogenic. The largely pastoral setting has given way to one that is more mixed – still rural, but with the corner of a small town poking into it, suggesting a place where the…

LOVECRAFT FESTIVAL AUGUST 17-27, 2017
PROGRAMMING:

LIVE PERFORMERS:

CELLSHADER
“I am an industrial musician who performs live in SL. I blend influences primarily from electronic, metal, and classical music genres.”
PARIS CLOYD
“Paris Cloyd performs live Instrumental guitar music. He became seriously interested in playing the guitar after hearing Paul Gilbert in the late 2000s.”

WALD SCHRIDDE
Wald Schridde is a multi-instrumental musician who plays and sings traditional folk and early music. He performs on an assortment of acoustic instruments, including guitar, autoharp, mountain dulcimer, mandolin, recorder, and penny whistle. His live performances feature folk tunes, traditional airs and dances, seafaring songs and shanties, pieces from Medieval and Renaissance times, and original songs.
IAN SONGMAN
“I’m a singer/songwriter …all welcome…I will be performing, taking requests on occasion and sometimes you can catch me in my natural environment working on songs..”

DANCE TROUPES & VARIETY ACTS:

WHYMSEE

ELYSIUM
Disturbing Encounters
A…

Opening yesterday, Sunday, August 6th, Future by Cica Ghost is a new installation on Seth Island.

The steel, cement, gray skies and water are evocative of a stark, dramatic beauty.

The uplifting parcel music balances what some might see as bleak, hinting at magic and and ongoing narrative.

From the land description:”If you don’t imagine, nothing ever happens at all.”
John Green

Sansar: Villa Ortli – Sansar Studio

It’s been just over a week since the Sansar Creator Beta opened its doors to the public, allowing anyone who wishes to visit to do so. I’ve been jumping in and out for a while, both as a part of the Creator Preview and during the last week, and have also been following some of the feedback since the doors opened on Monday, July 31st. So, what are my thoughts (whatever worth they might be) on the new platform?

Well, first and foremost – it’s not Second Life.

I’m being neither flippant nor dismissive in saying this. Sansar is a very different beast to Second Life, and is liable to remain so for a good while to come. However, despite all the comment to this effect from the Lab, in blogs like this and elsewhere, there still seems to be a perception that Sansar…

August Art at the Park

Here’s all that is going on at Holly Kai Park between Sunday, July 16th and Sunday, July 23rd.

Sunday, August 6th 1:30pm: Tea-Time at Baker Street

Tea-time at Baker Street continues with reading from The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes, the final set of twelve Sherlock Holmes short stories first published in the Strand Magazine between October 1921 and April 1927.

This week: The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire.

Seanchai Library.

Monday, August 7th  7:00pm: More Than Human

Gyro Muggins reads Theodore Sturgeon’s 1953 novel about six extraordinary humans who might be the next step in our evolution – or our destruction.

Seanchai Library.

Tuesday, August 8th 7:00pm: Keep It Brief

With R. Crap Mariner.

Seanchai Library.

Wednesday, August 9th

4:00pm: Wednesdays with G Winz

Gerrard Winstanley is back from the world music festival and time in the physical world, bringing us…

The BEACHES Art Exhibit is proving to be one of the most intriguing ones we’ve had in some time. Interest is high and we’ve enjoyed encounters with many visitors – a few of whom have left notes in the Guest Book. We so appreciate those comments, as they can be quite important to us as owners and curators of Côte de la Mer Galerie and to the artists who exhibit with us. If you come by, consider leaving your thoughts…and we thank you!

Today, I will post the interview questions responses from two of the artists exhibiting – from both ends of the alphabet! Of course, Æon is my favourite person in all the world, but I am finding that he has a natural talent for in-world photography. It is yet new, but blossoming, and I am enjoying his photos, even those he takes casually at events or locations we…

Whimberly – click any image for full size

Caitlyn and I first visited Whimberly, the Homestead region designed by Staubi (Engelsstaub) in January of 2017. Back then, both of us were struck by the elegance and serenity of the region. So seeing it back in the Destination Guide with an updated image suggesting a make-over, had us hopping back at the start of August for another look; and it was well worth it.

The landing point to the north-east of the region places visitors outside a flat-roofed summer-house surrounded on three sides by an ornate wall while the fourth sports a wooden deck build out over the water. Cosily and elegantly furnished, the house suggests a summer getaway or a lover’s tryst.

Whimberly

An old fountain sits alongside this summer-house, birds chirping happily (or perhaps in a demand for food!) while hopping along the retaining wall, while beyond…