Very little has changed on the island on the sims Aptos and Tomales set to be the focus on further construction on the Trans-Sansara Causway since last Friday, About the only difference I saw there was a little more equipment being added, such as this surveying equipment.
But a glance of the map showed something interesting. Some distance to the southwest were four sims, named Whatever 1 to 4, that were shaped like Thetis, Aptos, Tomales, and Swanton. They showed what looked like a bridge crossing from Thetis to Aptos, and lines from the west end of the middle island the wooden color of untextured prims extending to the completed section of bridge on the eastern island. These sims could not be TPed into.
This is likely the roads being build before being moved into place into the real sims. But there was extra workings on Whatever 2, the duplicate of Aptos. Is there anything besides bridgework being planed? Time will tell.
While checking the Bellisseria map, I noticed a white rectangle on the southeast corner of the Lonely Ranger sim. Taking a look, I noticed someone had put a huge prim over his house and grounds.
Why someone would do this, I can only speculate. Maybe he or she just likes the shade.
Sadly, time is running out for the SL22B , with just a few days left to explore. If you haven't been there, you're missing out some cool and interesting exhibits. Two at SLB Captivate are a Wild West Town.
There were a number of buildings, and a medicine show wagon.
Each of them had a sign with some information. Reality was sometimes a bit different than what you see in the Westerns in these places in which the myths and legends of continue to shape America today.
On the Second Life map, I stumbled across some new SSP sims. For those who don't know, SSP is a temporary name to a sim in development by the Lindens and Moles.
They were in four groups that when the map was panned back so they could all be seen, the names were too small.
Most of the sims were moderate, listed as SSP5*** to SSP6***. But one group was rated adult, listed as SSPR*** and SPRC***.
Currently the sims are grouped at the high end up the map. What the Lab plans for these sims is currently unknown.
The Second Life Birthday celebrations are still a month away. But the Lindens and Moles have the sims for the event up. They can be seen by accessing the map and looking up "SLB." Unfortunately, nobody but the Lindens and Moles can get on the land.
There are two groups of them. One is a large one of over forty sims. The other is about twelve, with eight of them SLB (what the other four are for is unknown). On the map, these sims are *far* from the Mainland and private sims, at least for now.
On a related note, those wanting to submit applications for exhibitors, volunteer staff, and performers have only a few more days. Monday May 19 is the last one to send one in. No more are being accepted for the Birthday Shop and Hop.
The Second Life Birthday is scheduled to start on Monday June 23.
It was just last week that the sims of the Second Life Birthday were open to exhibitors. Since then, they've started to fill up as exhibts have been set up and constructed.
The Second Life Birthday starts in eight days, on Friday June 21 and goes on to July 21, a full month. The theme this year is "Elements."
It's been a few days since the Relay Weekend track sims went up. And already, the map is showing many of the campsites are already going up. Things are still in the early stages, so we're not going to show pictures of whole campsites, at least not yet.
Among the various teams taking part are the Sunbeamers, the team of the community the Newser has it's office in.
Among the newer teams is Scorn, which was formed this year and got a campsite as well.
More sneak peeks as the days go on.
The Relay Weekend is from Saturday June 8 to Sunday June 9.
The Second Life Birthday is about a month away. The sims are on the map, but scattered around. And around them are ghosts of sims, images on the map without names.
In the past few years, the sims have also appeared on the map scattered, but came back together in time for the big event.
This year, the Second Life Birthday lasts from Friday June 21 to July 21, a full month. The theme this year is "Elements." While the time period for those wanting to be exhibitors and volunteer staff has expired, there is still time for those wanting to be performers.
The Fantasy Faire is in just a couple days. And the sims are up. They're just not yet open to the public. Twenty sims, including the entry point Fairelands Junction. Each promises good scenery. Most promise good places to shop.
When the WelcomeHub area opened in June, the area was connected to Bellisseria by sims, but traversable only by water or flying. Not long after, someone messaged me there was a bridge connecting them. So I recently went back to take a look.
The bridge, put in place by a few different Moles, isn't a traffic one for cars, but a railroad bridge. It connects to WelcomeHub in the Rubber Ducky sim, passes over All Tuna, and connects to Bellisseria in the Three Sheets sim, where the tracks connect to the rail system.
No new updates on the Ranch sims, yet. But there should be more news about them or somewhere else on Bellisseria. Stay tune for more updates.
For those Premium-Plus residents who are looking forward to getting their own Ranch Linden Home, good news. The sims in which these homes are located in are growing in number, and thus the number of homes themselves. A month after we first reported that the homes were open for living in, the original 28 sim area has close to tripped in size, and now extends to the original Houseboat area, connected to it by a single ocean sim. Motown and the Welcomehub sims are a little to the south.
Checking out the channel myself, I noticed someone had left an inner tube rezzer, and for good reason. Flying over the channel was disabled. But trying to 'toob my way over, I ended up crashing.
Second Life is full of interesting and funny sim names. Bellisseria has a number such as "Doodah" and "Wackamole." Coming across this one on the map, it made me think of Abbot and Costello's "Who's On First" routine.
A few days ago, the map showing the shape of the upcoming track for the Relay Weekend from Saturday June 10 to Sunday June 11. There's a total of 38 sims, including the permanent American Cancer Society and American Cancer Society 2 sims.
The following is the planned schedule for the track
Last Friday's Lab Gab started with a video. Grumpity Linden, the head of
the Product team, talked about the upcoming SL mobile app viewer,
showing it off at the Kaleidoscope sim. "Yeah, it's true, it's so early,
but we're super excited to share a first peek at something new, Second
Life Mobile. Look it's me on my phone." She would say this wasn't the
first time they've tried to build a mobile viewer, "because of course we
want to have all the glory." But it was "the most exciting result we've
seen so far." They were starting with the more difficult details, such
as being able to view the "hardest" avatars and most detailed areas.
Plus they wanted the app to work on all platforms, "And so it is with
joy and trepidation that we share with you the early results of these
efforts." They did say things were still very much a work in progress,
so "you will see very little functionality or user interface for now."
Still, she spoke, "it is a vibrant Second Life on Android and iOS."
Mojo
Linden, the VP of Engineering who would later say he's been with Linden
Lab for about a year and a half, would say that he was working with the
development team "to make sure that the community can experience
everything they love about Second Life while on the go with our upcoming
mobile viewer," repeating they were starting with some of the more
difficult details first such as full rendering of avatars and the full
rendering of complex environments. The viewer is built on Unity and can
use multiple mobile phone and tablet platforms, including Android and
iOS. Mojo described himself as "blown away" by the ammount of detail
they can get on it, saying they haven't had to "compromise too much on
graphic fidelity." He did admit "there's much work to be done" before
the mobile viewer's ready to be launched.
Patch, the VP of
Product Operations, was next. "Imagine being able to connect to Second
Life from anywhere, chat with your friends, visit your favorite inworld
hangout spots, and later do pretty muchanything you do with the desktop
Second Life viewer without being tethered to your computer. ... We can't
wait to show you more in the coming months as our development progress
continues."
The scene then changed to the three seated with Strawberry Linden, and would introduce themselves, Grumpity musing she had no real power but was still responsible for a lot ot things. Mojo joked he felt tlike the "baby" in the group. Later on, Grumpity would say she wasn't in her usual stick figure as it wasn't rezzing properly in the mobile viewer.
Questions about the mobile started 6:45 into the video. Mojo would state development started in October 2022, saying that using the Unity engine "really helped with quick progress and portability to IOS and Android." He was condident they would be able to make a mobile viewer that could show "Second Life in all it's glory." A beta version "with some limited functuality" should be released sometime in the second half of the year, adding "our play is to layer more features over multiple releases after that." Later in the video, Mojo would call being able to work on the mobile viewer "such an honor."
At nine minutes, Strawberry brought up the price changes. The lower sim prices were talked about first. Grumpity would say since 2017, they've been working to lower the price of land and making it "more accessible for all our residents," saying it wasn't easy as Linden Lab's income had been built on land. So they had to find ways to make up for the income loss there, "We try to find the fairest way to do it ... and, um, we decided that Linden dollar fees were really the way to do it. ... We know your prices are going up, and our prices are going up, and the cost of everything up. ... We took as long as we could before raising fees. But it's happened. ... We're watching very closely to see what happens in the markets so far."
At just before 11 minutes, Strawberry would also bring up the new option to pay for a sim with Linden dollars. Patch called it an exchange being done "on the Lindex basically behind the scenes ... and so yes, the price is a little higher."
At just after 12 minutes, Strawberry brought up the concerns about bot activity. Patch stated the Lab has been working on a new policy, including some talk with lawyers, "We had to take some time and get it reviewed by our legal team ... that took several weeks to get all of the necessary reviews in place for it." Patch would say they were expecting to bring it out the following week (the week of this article). Grumpity would add they're planning on giving extra ability to estate owners to ban bots, "will be able to choose access levels for scripted agents going forward, and those should be rolling out soon." She estimate the time as "weeks."
Just after 13 minutes, the PBR (Physical Based Rendering) development was mentioned, that it will bring "more realistic lighting to Second Life," Mojo saying it brought that particular technology about ten years ahead from where it was, "It allows content creators to define materials based on how they reflect light in the real world." He added there was already a project viewer with the feature currently out and people looking at it and giving feedback, "We want to be sure we are not going to cause content headaches for people as we've been fixing bugs for quite some time." He wasn't giving a definite release date, "it might be another three months." When asked if people would beed higher-end computers to see the feature, Mojo would say no, saying they were working to better enable current computers to see the new featurejust fine. But if people had any kind of performance issues, they could simply "just turn off Reflections" to get lighting back to where it was. There will also be tutorial videos about it later. It was stated that while PBR puts Second Life on the way to having true mirrors, for the moment they're not around just yet, at least the (virtually) real deal, "You can sort of fake it now with PBR." The Lab plans on working on technology to allow mirrors next.
At just after 18 minutes, they talked about inventory updates. Grumpity would say one project they were workiing on was "Inventory Thumbnails." They would also add a single folder inventory view. Of updates to the viewer, they were working on an "emoji viewer" that Grumpity called "a third party contribution from Catnip" amd that they've been "trying to make sure everything works." A project viewer should be availablt in "weeks."
Just before twenty minutes, Strawberry asked if there were plans to make Second Life "VR ready." Mojo's response was "probably not this year" saying the render rate would have to be at least around 60 frames per second. Of the possibility of a Linux viewer, Mojo did say there were internal tools that benefit from a Linux viewer. But for now what they have can run through Wine and Proton. But an outright official Linix viewer isn't in the Lab's plans for this year.
At 21:30, Strawberry brought up Marketplace saying there's been "a lot of changes." Grumpity would say a week earlier, the Lab released an update to Marketplace search. She would go on to say they were "taking your feedback, we're making changes." The fifty-page cap on search results has been removed. Strawberry asked about inworld office hours. Grumpty's response was, "We have user groups for all sorts of topics ... choose your favorite and come talk to us."
Just before 26 minutes, Strawberry would ask about the upcoming New User Experience (or NUX) avatars, which one was shown off at last year's Second Life Birthday. Patch answered they were "quite a ways along in their development." The avatars themselves are done, he stated, and the work at the moment was getting them a line of clothing and attachments. They will also be "PBR ready." The avatars, he reminded, were to help new users have "better simpler easier fun," and there should be an update about them soon.
Around 27:30, Strawberry brought up Linden Homes. Patch stated there would be some information coming soon. They were working on the homes for Premium Plus resident accounts, which were "nearing completion." They were also working on expansions and additions to current themes, Victorian being named. Of Second Life's upcoming 20th anniversary celebration theme (which was announced Thursday March 16), Patch would only say "It's really, really, really big" and that they would have an announcement soon.
Before the Lab Gab ended, Patch would say they might make a "blooper reel" of errors made during the filming of the movile viewer video.
Maps of Second Life can be misleading, especially when trying to show the entire world at once. Because of a few outlying regions (or agglomerations thereof) that are positioned extremely far from the Grid’s geographic center, Second Life can appear mostly empty despite its enormous size.
Distance can seem less important in a world where teleportation is possible—and often the only way to travel. Still, some trivia: The western- and easternmost Second Life regions are currently about 449 km apart, with roughly 665 km between the regions in the far north and south.
In her latest game review, Nydia Tungsten looks back at an old favorite, Ark Survival Evolved, or simply "Ark" as it's often called. After some time, she lost interest in it due to changes she felt were due to the developers changing things to suit one group of players at the expense of hers. But modifications brought her attention back. Among these is a new map: Fjordur. So what did Nydia have to say about it?
Checking the map, the sims for the Second Life Birthday celebration are in two groups. Nine sims, SLB Amaze, SLB Astonish, SLB Astound, SLB Breathtaking, SLB Captivate, SLB Electrify, SLB Enchant, SLB Fantasy, and SLB Imagination are presumably the exhibition build areas. The other fifteen, SLB Awesome, SLB Beguile, SLB Dazzle, SLB Exhilarate, SLB Fascinate, SLB Impressive, SLB Incredible, SLB Magnificent, SLB Mesmirize, SLB Pizzazz, SLB Sparkle, SLB Spectacular, SLB Spellbound, SLB Stunning, and SLB Wonderous are presumably for Linden builds such as the stages and Tower of Time. Presumably a few days before the event opens, the sims will be combined again.
At this time, exhibitors are getting their plots. Some get their replies later than others. For the latter, the Moles are asking for patience, and for applicants to stay calm.
The Second Life Nineteenth Birthday celebrations take place from
Thursday June 16 to Tuesday July 5. The theme this year is Steampunk.
For those anxiously waiting for the new Sakura Linden Homes, good news. A number of sims that judging by the names are almost certainly the places for these upcoming houses appeared on the map earlier this week just north of the stilt houses area on Bellisseria.
The total number of these sims is about 68, and they have Japanese names to match the Linden Home theme. It's notable that there's what appears to be a snow-covered mountain in the middle of the area. The sim of Shobu, south of the mountain, has a large building that may be the community center. The Moles have been busy.
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