New World Notes

Watch & Share: How to Optimize Mesh Content Through Retopology

Here's a handy tutorial for Blender users who want to optimize their mesh content via retopology, i.e. remaking an existing mesh surface with more optimized geometry. Even if you're not a Blender user, it's definitely something you might want to share with your favorite mesh content creators who likely might (actually almost certainly) need some tutorial resources on making their mesh less lag-inducing.

This video via Black Dragon creator Niran, whose latest update to his SL viewer has a new feature for checking how well-optimized or not a mesh avatar accessory is:

Gillian Waldman's SL Fashion Tips -- Including a Look Inspired by The Undoing!

Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

I love the post Bluebells from Gillian Waldman’s DeuxLooks. This is something I would wear in real life. I have many colorful skirts I pair with tops and sweaters all the time. I like them to be knee-length or slightly below the knee. They simply look better when your sitting down. I also love that she doesn’t care about seasonality. 

• Hair: tram J1114 hair *@Uber* ends 12/22
• Flowers: LODE Hair Accessory – Symphony
• Sweater: RKKN. Elle Knitted Sweater Cream /MPetite *@Kustom9* ends 12/10
• Skirt: RKKN. Elle Pleated Skirt Pattern6 /Maitreya Petite *@Kustom9* ends 12/10

HBO’s “The Undoing” inspired this next look....

Katharine Comes Back: Elite Silicon Valley Engineer Who Got Her Start as a Teen in Second Life Says What She Saw When She Revisited the Virtual World

Last week a veteran Second Life user was summoned back to the virtual world after an absence of many years, because the Stargate teleport system she had created for it no longer worked. This was not a surprise, seeing as the teleporters have been sitting there in SL for roughly 12 years, and that they still depend on a Google-based runtime she had created in 2011 -- when she was a teenage hacker still living with her parents, in England.  

What is perhaps surprising, is this: Katharine Berry now works at Google.

If you are yourself a veteran SLer, you almost surely know her name: Back in 2007, when she was only 15, Katharine created an acclaimed web-to-SL chat and map interface, then a couple years later, an IRC-to-SL interface. This despite the fact that teenage SL users were segregated from the main world back then. And when she finally joined Second Life proper in 2010, she promptly created a giant prim search engine.

I lost track of her in recent years, and sometimes wondered where she had gone. I knew that Linden Lab had attempted to hire her at one point -- “She is scarily smart,” a Linden engineer once confided to me -- and I had wondered why that hadn’t happened. 

But as it turned out, her journey since her days in SL have been amazing, in part because Second Life likely helped her get to where she is now, a well paid engineer living in the San Francisco Bay Area, enjoying the California sun after years growing up beneath cloudy British skies. 

Her brief return to SL is also important, because she now sees the world with far more experienced eyes.  

This is the story of Katharine Berry since Second Life, and what she saw when she came back:

Virtual World Christmas Photos Warm Enough to Evoke Real World Nostalgia

Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

Since mid-October, folks have asked whether it was too soon to decorate for Christmas. If you’re a traditionalist, any day before Christmas Eve is too early. People would decorate on Christmas Eve and then to take it down on January 6th, after the Twelve Days of Christmas. My family would decorate on St. Lucia’s Day, on December 13th. Much safer than a crown of lit candles in my hair. I thought it would be fun to check in on the Ghosts of Christmas Decorations Past. I love this one from Alicia Chenaux and how beautifully lit the tree is in the shadows of the room. 

More Christmas Past decorations coming up...

Travis Scott Likely Sold Some $10 Million in Virtual Content from Fortnite

Fascinating tidbit from this Forbes profile of hiphop start Travis Scott, on his groundbreaking Fortnite shows earlier this year:

The implications of his Fortnite concert quickly became evident. For Epic, it proved that the company was well on track to becoming more than just a maker of video games. For Scott and, really, the entire music industry, it laid a path to a new revenue stream. Scott grossed roughly $20 million for it including merchandise sales, according to a source, much more than what his concerts typically gross. It showed that a virtual performance, once dismissed as a gimmick, could be as much an act of artistry as an old-fashioned live show.

Emphasis mine, because wow. At first I assumed Epic developer Fortnite paid Scott most of that $20 million, but running some industry standard estimates on the Fortnite content the Travis Scott show was selling, it's likely half or more of that was virtual goods sales. Here's the back-of-envelope math:

Add Intrigue to Virtual World Screenshots By Making Them Slightly Off-Kilter

Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

As much as I dislike the fully horizontal pictures posted to take full advantage of blog white space, I am drawn to the slightly off-kilter pictures from Eloen. They brought to mind the phrase “cockeyed optimist” which reminded me of the song from South Pacific. These pictures are not cockeyed in order to maximize use of space or fit a group header, they are cockeyed to create visual interest, to draw our eyes, because that’s the way she wants to see them. Add the bright, rich colors and what better expression is there than “cockeyed optimist.” 

More clever use of angles coming up...

Virtual World Simulation of COVID Infection Significantly Improves Student Awareness of Social Distancing

Among the many problems the COVID pandemic has created is the challenge of opening up elementary schools while also teaching kids the importance of maintaining social distance.  But how do you teach social distancing to kids who are learning remotely? 

Enter the SORBET project (for Socially Responsible Behaviours through Embodied Thinking), created in OpenSim, the open source virtual world platform, launched while Singapore was under quarantine. Lead developed by Kenneth YT Lim, a researcher with Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, the SORBET simulation gives kids treasure hunts and other mini-games to play -- with the likelihood of infection, if students allow their avatars to stray too close to each other. (See above.)

Watch: Book of Travels, Serene & Painterly Online World, Flips MMO Expectations

Here's a first look at Book of Travels, a Kickstarter-powered project that's an MMO but flips our expectations of an MMO on its head. Where we've come to expect a massively multiplayer online world, with Book of Travels it's the world that's massive, but the number of actual players are, by design, going to be tiny:

Wander deep into the layers of this hand-drawn world, stumble upon its hidden places or unravel one of its many mysteries. There is no overarching goal, no real beginning or end, but for mortal characters the stakes can be high.

Braided Shore is a vast and intricate world, but meetings with other players are few and far between so your chance encounters will be something special.

So maybe a bit in the vein of Journey, if Journey had become an MMO as planned. It's always been a hidden assumption that MMOs are better when they have a massive playerbase, but that usually means the users overwhelm the world, to the point where there are literal lines of users waiting their turn to talk with an NPC quest-giver. The painterly look of the world and the narrative depth suggested by its character creation system, where personality traits replace standard Strength/Dexterity/etc. MMO tropes, enforce that sense of an alternate existence to be shared and be part of, not a game to win.

Three Beautifully Icy Landscape Photos of a Virtual World Winter Wonderland

Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

“Smooth Tides” is the first picture by this Second Life landscape photographer that I saw and I was entranced. It really is Second Life. She provides a SLURL. The detail is so fine you can see each rock. Often you will see a road leading your eyes, but in this case the water leads your eyes. 

MacKenna has a love of winter and it shows...

SL Mesh Demos Demonstrating More Triangles Doesn't Mean More Detail

Quick: Before pressing Play on the video above, which set of SL mesh shoes and shirts are more detailed, and which have more triangles? The answer, as they say, May Just Surprise You. 

This video demo via reader Nadeja, who posted them as a response to last week's post, "Does The SL Community Care Enough To Clamor For Well-Optimized Mesh?" It's a perfect way of refuting the commonly held assumption that with mesh, more triangles means more detail. Not at all, not at all.

"Adding triangles helps only to some extent, but then it becomes wasted resources," as Nadeja writes in Comments. "Optimization means to find the right trade between visual and resources, to get the best look at the smallest cost."

Look closer at this comparison of tops:

The top on the left, she notes, has "[l]ess than half of the triangles and it even has wrinkles. You optimize for the platform you have. You did that in the 90s and early '00s as well. Better shaders would allow more for sure, but that doesn't mean that you can't do a better job... The evidence with similar models shows otherwise."

But surely this doesn't apply to full mesh avatars, some skeptics may say.  Nadeja has you covered there too - watch below:

Top 3 Posts Last Week Including High Interest in VRChat's New Subscription Offer & One Last Tribute to Legendary Prim Creators in SL

• Last Chance To See A Collection Of Prim Sculptures Of Great SL Artists Of The Last 15 Years
• VRChat Survey: Over 1 In 3 Say They'll Pay For A Premium Subscription
• Does The SL Community Care Enough To Clamor For Well-Optimized Mesh?

 

Black Friday Sales in Second Life: All Dutchie Adult Items 20% Off!

Update, 11/30: Black Friday offer now over!

If you're planning your virtual world shopping trips for this Friday, famed SL housewares brand Dutchie (who we're honored to call a sponsoring partner here at New World Notes) will have a Black Friday sale -- 20% off all Adult-rated items. 

 This is actually Dutchie's very first Black Friday sale in SL. "I know a lot of people have less money to spend this year," Dutchie tells me, "so this might give people a chance to buy that adult toy they have had their eye on for a long time. Starting Friday the 27th everything in my adult department inworld is 20% off, even the newest designs, and the sale will last until Sunday."

All sales at her in-world store -- click here to start browsing, and to be first in line with the Friday sales start!

SL Black Friday & Holiday Shopping Ideas from Style Blogger Kurimu Kima

Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

“Christmas Is Seeping In” seems like the perfect “Black Friday” post. Kurimu Kima does a great job of kicking off the Christmas season in a fun decor post. Her post is detailed, listing every item. I was drawn to the critters on the table. She explained in her post that she resized the deer to make it a better fit. This kind of care in blogging makes readers trust the blogger. 

Items on center table…

• Table: [KraftWork] Provence . Coffee Table 4Li {@Mainstore}
• Table cover (resized carpet): [KraftWork] Runner Rugs . Boho Set . Red Geometric 1Li {@Mainstore}
• Cupcake on spatula: [Andika] Friandises de Noel Dispenser-B 1Li {@Tannenbaum}
• Yule Log: [RH] Xmas Cake -Deer- 3Li {@Tannenbaum}
• Candy cane and cake: [Disorderly] Bundt Xmas / Candycane 1Li {@Tannenbaum}
• Hot chocolate and cake: [Disorderly] Bundt Xmas / Hot Chocolate 1Li {@Tannenbaum}
• Red bulb on table: [+Half-Deer+] Giant Christmas Bulbs – Single – Red 1Li {@Tannenbaum}
• Mousie holding bauble: [Sorumin] Christmas cuties SET -Baby with bauble- 6Li *resized down* {@Tannenbaum}
• Mousie holding gingerbread man: [Sorumin] Christmas cuties SET -Baby with cookie- 7Li *resized down* {@Tannenbaum}
• Mousie holding a fern: [Sorumin] Christmas cuties SET -Baby with pine branch- 5Li *resized down* {@Tannenbaum}
• Reindeer on table: [+Half-Deer+] Vintage Deer Figurine – Brown – Forward 1Li *resized down* {@Tannenbaum}
• Berry cake on stand: [Andika] Friandises de Noel – Pavlova/decor 1Li {@Tannenbaum

Up next, a kitchen to bake those cakes in...

Virtual World Tributes to Thanksgiving in a Year When Most Are Celebrating Apart

Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

Geena Carminucci reminds us with "Friendsgiving 2020" that there is no need to isolate ourselves in our virtual world. There is no virtual COVID to ruin the day, so invite everyone you know over for a big Thanksgiving dinner. Besides, virtual turkey is never dry, virtual mashed potatoes are never lumpy, and virtual pie is never burned. 

More Thanksgiving pics ahead...

Last Chance to See a Collection of Prim Sculptures of Great SL Artists of the Last 15 Years

Above: Mr. Clip posing by a sculpture from the legendary prim artist Starax Statosky

Give thanks to great Second Life prim-based sculpture artists from over the last 17 years by visiting the Gratitude Art show between now and the end of 2020: Click here to teleport.

As I wrote in September, it was curated by longtime virtual art advocate Chuck Clip (above) and Mariposa Upshaw, and hosted in the University Of Western Australia's virtual campus in Second Life, which is finally being removed from the world for the New Year. After putting out an open call for submissions, they were deluged by entries from renowned artists like Chic Aeon, Glyph Graves, and Alpha Auer. Chuck even contributed a sculpture from his personal collection, from the beloved Starax Statosky, who started impressing the SL community as far back as 2005 or so. (Full list of contributors on Clip's blog.)

"I mean," as Clip tells me now. "It's a veritable who's-who of SL art and art history."

It was a labor of love for the curators:

Unready Player 2? Reviews to Influential Metaverse Novel Decidedly Mixed

There's an official ROBLOX experience promoting Ready Player 2, the new sequel to the metaverse novel partly inspired by Second Life and became so influential, it was required reading for employees at Oculus.  (Because why not make a dystopian novel about a future so horrible everyone wants to live in VR a company's frame of reference.)

But is the sequel any good, and worth a read over the holidays? A advance couple reviews below with mild spoilers,  so caveat geeker:

This Flickr Photographer's Dramatic Landscapes Are Actually SL Screenshots

Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

Powder focuses primarily on beautifully composed landscapes. It is a remarkable skill to come upon a sim created by someone else and frame a picture as though you could place every item yourself. I loved this picture and the beautiful sky showing through the windows and the lights shining on it from the front as well. She provided a SLURL and I went to check it out, but unfortunately it is now a homestead for sale.  

I love her framing...the next is a great example:

VRChat Survey: Over 1 in 3 Say They'll Pay for a Premium Subscription

Results from last week's not-super-scientific-but-still interesting survey on VRChat's new monthly/yearly paid subscription option. With 175 responses (a solid sample for this site), well over one-third say they will pay to subscribe. That is a minority response, but for a free-to-play virtual world, it's a relatively impressive response.  As a point of comparison, Second Life only has about 60,000 Premium subscribers, which is roughly just 1 in 10 of the active userbase.

And looking at VRChat user concurrency, this suggests a strong potential for good revenue. With 24,000 peak concurrent users, VRChat probably has monthly active users in the low to mid six figures. (A good rule of thumb is to multiply peak concurrency by 10x.)  So if this survey scales with actual subscriptions, that would translate to about $1 million a month in subscription revenue for the company, more or less. (A big "if", to be sure.)

This would be tiny in comparison with, say, what Roblox is reportedly making, but for a virtual world where a third to half of the users are actually using  a VR headset, that's a decent niche.

This Artist Uses Light, Framing & Casual Poses to Make SL Avatar Photos Come Alive

Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

Jena Lynn is a slice-of-life photographer, a Second Life Vivian Maier except of course she is shooting herself in the process of living, not other people. I love the appearance of spontaneity, the idea the camera was just raised at that very moment. There is no sense at all that the picture was planned and staged, but of course it was. And that is genius! 

The next picture shows how powerful framing can be.

Does the SL Community Care Enough to Clamor for Well-Optimized Mesh?

Pictured: Slink Redux body bundle, a rare example of popular SL mesh avatar content that's also well-optimized

Last Friday I wrote about the new Black Dragon viewer update which checks whether a mesh avatar is well-optimized or not. Reader "Down With Underboob" (LOL) tried it out in SL over the weekend, to see how much mesh content was poorly optimized, and came away shocked:

So I took Black Dragon out for a spin at a fairly busy club. There's only one avatar in the place who is "decently optimized" per the report. This guy is wearing a system avi and system clothes... I like what BD offers, but please get real. Nobody wants to go back to looking like an avatar from 2008. Photographers like to use BD's capabilities, but again, they're not going to use system avatars to pass these complexity tests.

Show me some mesh bodies, heads, and clothes that pass these tests and don't look like they're from 2008, and I'll consider trying them. Does he think we're all going to run around bald? I don't want Warcraft hair in SL. Until then, I'll stick with what I have. I'm satisfied with the 15-20 fps I get at this club and I can get upwards of 100 FPS when I'm hanging out on my platform at home in Bellisseria.

I'd also point out that he's tilting at windmills if he thinks designers are going to start posting complexity/triangle counts in their vendor ads.

I'd say it's the responsibility of the many SL bloggers and YouTubers to report on the complexity/triangle counts of the content they feature, warning them that high poly items will likely cause lag. Failing to do so would be like a real life fashion reporter failing to mention the clothing items they're recommending are made of toxic materials.

As to her request for optimized mesh to try out, Slink is among the few mesh body creators well-known for optimization.

But is there a market for good optimization in general? Reader "Seph" thinks not so:

Top 5 Posts Last Week Including an NSF-Funded Study of SL During the Pandemic, and How Oculus' Facebook ID Requirement Harms VR Developers

• New Black Dragon Feature Shows Your Much Lag Your Second Life Mesh Avatar Is Causing (Likely A Lot)
• VRChat User Survey: Will You Buy The New Plus Subscription?
• Roblox's Jaw-Dropping IPO Filing: 31 Million+ Daily Users, $589M+ In 2020 Revenue, Most From Mobile; User Creators Earned $209M+, Up 3X From 2019
• Acclaimed VR Game Developer Locked Out Of Oculus Platform Due To Facebook's Mandatory ID Policy -- Warns Of Its Dangers To Developers In LGBT & Other Vulnerable Communities
• SL Users: Please Take This Survey From UC Irvine's Tom Boellstorff On Your Virtual World Usage During The Pandemic

New Black Dragon Feature Shows Your Much Lag Your Second Life Mesh Avatar Is Causing (Likely a Lot)

Pictured: Niran in a Belleza 5.2 Bento mesh body -- which has over 1.5 MILLION triangles

There's a new update to The Black Dragon viewer for Second Life, and it comes with a great new feature: An option to check how well-optimized your mesh avatar is -- and shows you via a color code whether it is (green) or poorly optimized (yellow/orange/red):

So rather than confusing the user with an artificial "maximum" it now clearly states that it is simply recommended to stay below a certain point. Reaching this point also no longer immediately results in the "super bad" red rating but rather gives you the "eh" yellow/orange rating, see it as warning. As before you get a summary of all ratings together, right now its still very simple but i might actually add a 3-point answer that takes the 3 worst offenders and gives you hints and possibly even guides (or links to those) how to solve these.

As previously reported, most of the top-selling mesh bodies in SL are very poorly optimized, and a key culprit for Second Life's poor performance in general. Linden Lab refuses to do anything about this -- the CEO basically told me "So what?" when I asked him face to face -- but Black Dragon creator NiranV is a passionate advocate of optimization, and wants to improve SL's environment:

Carmen King Explores Sansar as Only Carmen Can -- And Has Tips for Making It Better

After basically becoming the queen of Second Life YouTubers, Ms. Carmen King reluctantly donned her dusty Vive headset --"I get insane motion sickness... [and] "normally can't last 10 minutes in VR", she says -- to re-visit the social VR world of Sansar.

"First time I tried,"  she casually notes, while getting strapped in, "I saw people trying to fuck in the middle of the ocean."

No such luck this time, but she does narrowly avoid an alien probing and inevitably wields some dildo-shaped hand controls. Further Carmen-esque NSFW hilarity ensues, so just watch.

"Sansar seems really fun and I love how smooth the game runs," she tells me now.  "Virtual Reality makes it a lot more exciting as you feel like you’re actually in the game!"

Sansar was originally developed by Linden Lab before its acquisition by Wookey; but does she prefer it to Linden's original world, Second Life?

VRChat User Survey: Will You Buy the New Plus Subscription?

NOTE: If you're viewing this on a mobile device you might need to tap-slide-scroll on the survey below to view and take it:

After many years in free-to-play Beta and seeing impressive growth, VRChat is finally offering a paid subscription option (details here and summarized below). But are VRChat players actually interested in paying? Please take this survey, even if you're a very casual VRChatter -results shared next week!

Friday Fashion Tips for Tween Avatars from SL Style Blogger Arti Love

Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

I love Arti Love’s self-named blog. I also love the pun, “Art I Love” whether intentional or not. He has a young teen/tween blog that is great fun. I mean, I didn’t know I needed “The Little Prince” in Second Life, but now I see Arti’s Little Prince, I sure do. Mostly I need the asteroid and the stars. 

• ::C&P:: Asteroid B-612
• REALISTIC ROSE DECOR – RED by Mad Match
• {anc} nebra beads [Heavenlyblue]
• {anc} nebra beads [sungold]

More for boys who never grow up ahead.