New World Notes

Watch: Top Winners of 2018's UWA's Second Life Machinima Contest

The winners and finalists of University of Western Australia's annual Second Life-based machinima contest have just been announced, and here's my favorite above: "Serendipity", from machinima master Tutsy Navarantha, a frequent winner in SL machinima contests like these, a montage of gorgeous metaverse imagery and quotes from masters of the imagination. (Here's another Tutsy classic.)

Top winner is the one below - Glasz Decuir's Adaptive ResonanceTheory (ART) and Intrusion Detection System(IDS):

Google/Linden Lab Exec Who Foresaw Facebook's Rising Power Years Ago Writes Open Letter to Mark Zuckerberg

"The Morality of Ads and The End of Zuck" is an important open letter to Mark Zuckerberg, written by former Linden Lab exec Ginsu Yoon, who left Linden to head up advertising policy at Google. His experience with both companies informs the open letter, written at a time when Facebook is being accused of mishandling user data and poorly managing its advertising platform, to the point where outside forces (Cambridge Analytica, Vladimir Putin's troll farm, etc.) are now believed to have corrupted the last US election through the social network. A full eight years ago, Ginsu foresaw Facebook rapidly taking on that level of influence, writing in 2010:

At Second Life, we had a seemingly omnipotent grip on the environment our users needed. In theory, we knew our users intimately, knew who their friends were, knew where they went and what they did. We owned their means of payment and communication, we set policy for their leisure and commercial activities. This is a level of control that Facebook dreams of, not in a virtual world but for the entire Web . . . and it’s scary that they actually seem to be on the path to getting there.

Facebook, as he foresaw, has gotten there. Philip Rosedale and other Linden execs have always been adamant about keeping SL user data private, because company revenue didn't depend on advertising, and because maintaining the community's trust was (and is) the best way to keep that revenue flowing. Facebook, by contrast, has always depended on advertising revenue, but has failed (Ginsu argues) to treat it with the seriousness it deserves, even after hiring Sheryl Sandberg away from Google to become the social network's COO:

WATCH: Some of the 5000+ Amazing User-Created Islands in Worlds Adrift

I haven't written about Worlds Adrift in awhile -- that's the single-shard MMO with a heavy emphasis on dynamic user-created content, running on the new Improbable engine recently acquired by Google. (Some oldtime SLers have become fans,) This video by Adrift-er Synovus, depicting the vast and varied range of user-created islands, only some of the 5000+ that have been submitted, makes the strong case for giving it a fresh look. 

Founding Linden Lab Engineer Explains Why Last Names for Second Life Avatars Were Removed

Responding to the news that Linden Lab is returning last names to Second Life after a 7 year absence, reader Dartagan Shepherd recalls a Linden staffer telling him that they were removed because "they were losing a massive amount of signups at the point where people had to choose a last name." Founding Linden engineer James Cook also stopped by comments to confirm just that:

One of the last features I worked on before leaving Linden Lab was the removal of last names. Dartagan Shepherd is right -- whenever you have a registration flow for any service you lose signups for each additional step. Picking a last name from a list is unusual for an online service. Potential new users were pretty confused: "Why can't I just use the username I use everywhere else?" and/or "Why can't I just use my real name?". Of course, I worked at Linden when we added last names (dunno who actually wrote that code). So we've come full full full circle. 

I think the real problem is that the original naming system didn't include an option to change the last name at least once, and onscreen text explaining that during set-up: "Choose your last name to start -- you can change this later." This would have nudged new users to think about their avatar identity as something unique and special, and create the name in relation with the existing SL community. People asking, "Why can't I just use the username I use everywhere else?", is exactly why so many new users wound up typing in their AOL handle or other inappropriate username into the first name option, leading to thousands of avatars named "Bobbie_Joe_73 Midnight" and suchlike -- who were then treated as clueless noobs by the established community. 

By the way, when I say James Cook is a "founding Linden engineer",  I mean that -- he started at Linden Lab when the startup was still on Linden Street in San Francisco, and helped create (and did the voiceover) for this early, early, early demo from 2001 of what eventually became Second Life:

Top 8 New World Notes Posts from Last Week: From the Return of Second Life Surnames to a Benchmark Test for Social VR Creation

• Ever, Jane, MMO Based On Jane Austen Novels, Adds Butler NPCs With AI
• Cajsa's Choices: The Vogue-Ish, Art Deco SL Fashion Photos Of Wicca Merlin
• Now Open In Second Life: A Complex New Cyberpunk City Created On A Low Prim Homestead
• Philip Rosedale Announces Blockchain-Based Metaverse Alliance To Connect Users & Their Assets Across Multiple Online Worlds
• Last Names For Second Life Avatars, Originally Inspired By Kurt Vonnegut, Returning After 7 Year Absence
• Sansar Removes In-Game Terrain Editor To Make Experiences "Accessible To As Many Users As Possible"
• Which Social VR Platform Is Best For Content Creation? Award-Winning Developer Tries The Chair Test In Seven, Including Sansar & High Fidelity
• SL Avatar Body Survey From Top Fashion Brand Dominated By Maitreya

Sinespace Updates Avatar Graphics, Animations & Clothing/Accessory Quality

Sinespace avatar pics by Nancy Chow

Sinespace, the upcoming MMO/social VR platform (and proud NWN partner) recently pushed a major update full of new and improved features, starting with a major improvement to avatar graphic quality: 

We've dramatically increased the polycount on our avatars in this update, but not just that - we've also increased animation quality, added new sliders, better support for tattoo and makeup layers and more. Also, clothing creators can now create clothing with significantly higher poly counts thanks to the new LOD features added in this viewer.

Specifically, the Sinespace team tells me, the previous female avatar is 6855 triangles, while the new female is 43,202 triangles. Previous male avatar, 7358; new avatar: 32,020 triangles. 

Full update announcement here, some recent user-created photos showing off the updated avatar after the break. As always, if you have questions for Team Sinespace, post them in Comments!

Ever, Jane, MMO Based on Jane Austen Novels, Adds Butler NPCs with AI

Ever, Jane, the Jane Austen-themed MMO lead developed by Linden Lab alum Judy Tyer after her successful 2013 Kickstarter, has an updated website and a new gameplay feature that feels like fun: Butler AIs!

Specifically, Judy explains: "[W]hen you do your morning call, the butler answers the door and if the person is not at home, takes your card to let them know you visited. The footman is for the beginning (so far) and will announce you to Mrs. Hatch's butler. So for that I had to build an AI system which allows us a lot more flexibility in our quests (stories). I'm super excited about edge testing it (now) and then playing with it."

Ever, Jane was recently featured in the UK Guardian, and Judy tells me it's attracted a small but passionate userbase:

Cajsa's Choices: The Vogue-ish, Art Deco SL Fashion Photos of Wicca Merlin

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

Vogue was one of the magazines I continued subscribing to after most of my magazine consumption became digital. I love to page through, enjoying the highly editorial styling, poses, and photos. Wicca Merlin’s fashion photos are like that. There is an edge to her photos, with sometimes outré poses, innovative styling, and high concept fashions. Some of her images evoke Czech Art Nouveau artist Alphonse Mucha; others call to mind the angular poses employed by Vogue photographer Terry Tsiolis.

Since Wicca is also a designer and a photographer, I was curious how she managed to keep all those balls in the air, and what drove her to continue blogging and photography after she began designing. I was even more curious after finding out she does all this in Second Life while touring with a music group in real life.  

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity:

Your photos are very editorial. How do you go about putting together your shoot? Do you have a theme you want to express? Do you put together your outfit and then think about your photo or do you have an idea and go about assembling the outfit and background?

I do not have a plan or any structure when I am preparing for pictures. Sometimes I want to express something. Sometimes it is just a challenge to myself. Sometimes an outfit is how I find inspiration. Sometimes it just happens while I am cleaning my inventory and find interesting things that I forgot about. That is the reason why I sometimes post older things as well. I never had the desire to blog new releases only and sometimes it is just a song that inspires my stylings or pictures.

I am a very impulsive and emotional person, and that is usually the "engine" that makes me do what I am doing.

How do you describe your style/aesthetic?

It is hard if you follow your feelings and emotions to describe style or aesthetics. I love expressive poses, poses that show any kind of motion or activity. I love to put opposites together and make them look like they would belong together, anyways if it is clothing, background, furniture or colors. Usually I do not really think much about it and just let happen, what comes to my mind.

I know very well what I do NOT want in my pictures usually. I am not a friend of point-blank nudity without any artistic background...it is the same with dull pornographic themes or any kind of blunt violation against humans or any kind of animals and creatures with a soul...Not saying that all that should not be done, or that I dislike it if others do it, it is just not so much my cup of tea.

To me aesthetic is everything that does not hurt anyone on purpose and something that can be different for everyone.

Much more after the break!

Now Open in Second Life: A Complex New Cyberpunk City Created on a Low Prim Homestead

Drune is a new spectacular-looking cyberpunk city in Second Life that's now open on the island of Lyme: Click here to teleport. Created by veteran sim builder Hera (Zee9), it's an exercise in optimization, because it's built on an SL Homestead sim, with far less prims available than a standard sim:

"I have built many sims before over the years but always had 15000 prims to play with," Hera tells me, "Even then I though this was never enough. So with only 5000 on a homestead, which is all I can afford, I was not sure it was even possible." It took four weeks to create, with one false start: "I half built it and then realized to make it work I was going to have to plan it much better so I deleted then and re-started."

Unlike many cyberpunk sims, this one pops with quite a lot of color.  The first inspiration is one you've probably guessed already, but another is more recent:

Philip Rosedale Announces Blockchain-Based Metaverse Alliance to Connect Users & Their Assets Across Multiple Online Worlds

Philip doesn't actually say "metaverse" in the announcement, but if it walks like a metaverse, quacks like a metaverse:

Why shouldn’t your virtual identity travel with you? Instead of being splintered across multiple services, all your identifying information, all your assets could be stored on a blockchain, accessible on any platform. Today, we’ve taken a big step toward making that vision a reality. High Fidelity and JanusVR have formed the Virtual Reality Blockchain Alliance(VRBA), a group dedicated to establishing a universal digital identity built on the blockchain and outside the control of any specific corporate entity. Soon High Fidelity users can bring their virtual goods to Janus, along with ownership rights — the precursor to avatars and property moving effortlessly from world to world.

This is very similar to an effort launched by Linden Lab 10 years ago, when Rosedale was CEO of the company -- but the partner back then was IBM:

Linden Lab®, creator of the virtual world Second Life®, and IBM have successfully demonstrated virtual world interoperability by teleporting avatars between the Second Life Preview Grid and an OpenSim virtual world server. The joint development project represents an industry first of a quantifiable milestone for virtual world interconnectivity... Teleporting an avatar between platforms has the potential to have a significant impact on the future of virtual worlds. An open standard for interoperability would allow users to cross freely from one world to another in a seamless transfer, just as they can go from one Web site to another on the Internet today.

The Linden Lab/IBM partnership never went anywhere, in great part because consumer use for Second Life and OpenSim never really grew beyond its (sizable) niche, while the real world use cases for virtual worlds remained even niche-ier. That continues to be the biggest challenge for initiatives like this -- how many people actually want to move between various virtual worlds?

On paper, one big difference now is building that interoperability on top of a blockchain, so it's not dependent (or controllable) by any any one company. But whether that actually works with a mass userbase very much remains to be seen -- I'll just point to this conversation on blockchain for virtual worlds between Philip and Adam Frisby: