New World Notes

Community Members of Defunct Inworldz Rally to Crowdfund New World

Islandzvw.com is the new online home for "Islandz", the successor to InWorldz, a commercial spinoff of OpenSim which was recently beset by financial troubles, and was taken offline. Islandz is its successor.

"It technically is not a 'new' InWorldz," InWorldz founder Beth Reischl tells me. "It is a new business entity [and] new grid using Halcyon code base. It does have the data from InWorldz, which will need to be purged accordingly; however, it is an all new grid."

Nothing is on that website just yet, not even a logo, but soon will be. Reischl is currently leading the drive to restore assets from the old world into the new one: "We're more focused on getting the OAR files properly filtered for residents," she says. A new logo will come after that, so until then, here's a dummy placeholder made by me. "We're hoping to have something for testing as far as the grid goes at the end of next week, the website will follow after we iron out the wrinkles in the grid," she adds.

Islandz is completely funded by InWorldz community members who contributed to a Go Fund Me -- and the collective decision to take those funds and create a whole new world was one that emerged through that process.

"When they suggested the Go Fund Me, [it] was originally to save InWorldz, obviously," says Reischl. "I suddenly injected some reality into the conversation by pointing out to them [that] we'd still be in same straits the following month and suggesting they request refunds (GFM doesn't allow me to initiate refunds, oddly). They then had a very long conversation, lots of yelling, emotions were fairly high, and in a couple of hours the majority had decided to use those funds to start a new grid."

She has already has plans in place to avoid the financial challenges that led to InWorldz:

Will nVidia's New RTX / Turing Chip Put 3D Texture Artists Out of Work?

"If you've been watching the launch of the nVidia RTX / Turing," longtime 3D graphics artist Rodion Herrera recently told me, "one thing is going to be clear. There will be a lot of texture artists in the industry who need to shift their focus, or they will lose their jobs."

He's talking about the technology nVidia announced late last week (demo video from it above). And because there's many 3D graphics artists who regularly read New World Notes, I wanted to put his analysis out there for further conversation:

"Real time ray tracing means most scenes will be lighted naturally. Currently, some games hire texture artists to 'fake' shadowing and lighting (i.e. baked shadows), and there are specialists who are really good at this. In the future, a 3D game developer wouldn't really need a texture artist anymore--well, they would probably still need textures, but they don't need an artist to 'bake' lighting effects on them (or use normal/bump maps, which is also a form of fakery)... lighting is now 'natural' because of ray tracing that's available on the Turing chip. This is actually why it will change how games will be made."

And he believes it will change who is hired to make games: "If a company is flexible, of course those texture artists can be reassigned for other tasks, but if they were hired purely to do textured lighting and shadows, then in the future, they won't be needed anymore."

He believes nVidia's CEO more or less acknowledged this during the announcement:

Linden Lab Creating iOS & Android Versions of SL, Job Listing Suggests

Second Life community members have been clamoring for it for years, and now, according to a job listing posted on Linden Lab's website, the company is creating a version of Second Life for iPhones and Android phones:

Linden Lab is looking for an innovative mobile app engineer to deliver a compelling, responsive mobile interface into Second Life. If you’re passionate about the latest cross platform mobile technologies and would be psyched to wake up every morning knowing that your efforts will enhance the largest, most successful virtual world on the Internet then we want to hear from you!

Job requirements include "Experience developing consumer-oriented mobile applications for Android and IOS." Also notable: Based on this job requirement, it looks like the company is planning to create a cloud-streaming version of SL for mobile: 

Experience with AWS or other cloud-based deployment models, especially streaming cloud-based rendering.

Back in 2014, Linden Lab partnered with the now-defunct OnLive to do just that, so it's good to know they're going in that direction again.

Job is remote and "deep familiarity with and enthusiasm for Second Life is a HUGE plus", so this could be a dream gig for SL's many talented community developers. My recommendation, of course, is to hire Alina Lyvette, whose Lumiya viewer for Android (pictured above) has already sold well over 100,000 copies.

If You're Having Trouble Launching the Black Dragon SL Viewer on Your PC, The Creator Has Some Tips

From ellapinellapin's Flickr

Last week's posts about Black Dragon, the third party Second Life viewer that makes SL look like a AAA videogame and is a dream for taking great screenshots, were the most popular by far -- which means many readers are trying out Dragon right now. Which also mean some of them are sometimes having trouble even launching it on their PC. Fortunately, Black Dragon creator NiranV is in NWN comments to help out:

This could be due to 2 reasons:

1. Your CPU does not support AVX (Advanced Vector Extension) thus cannot run the latest version. Choose the version without "AVX" in its name.
2. Your Windows is not 64bit and thus cannot run neither of the latest two 64bit versions. Choose the version without "64x" in its name.

Hopefully that helps! The image above, by the way, was shot using Black Dragon's keyboard controlled camera roll. I.E., Dutch angles, i.e. not only does Black Dragon make SL look like a AAA game, it also helps you make Second Life images and video look like they were shot by a fancy ass film director.

Top 5 New World Notes Posts Last Week: A VR Game About Virtual Experiences of Childhood & a Viewer That Makes SL Look Like a AAA Game

• Cassie's Clips: Exploring The SL Shopping Extravaganza Of Equal 10
• Ana Ribeiro On Creating Pixel Ripped 1989, Her Acclaimed VR Game That Virtually Recreates The Retro Games Of Childhood
• What SL Screenshots Look Like When Taken In The Black Dragon Viewer
• Google Employees Strongly Support Building Censored Search Engine For China, According To Anonymous Blind Survey
• If You Want To Sandbox Build On Harvard's Second Life Sim, You Still Can

Now in Sinespace: Take a Tour of Home Templates for Your Free Region During Creator Weekend

NWN partner Sinespace is devoting this weekend to its many creator, including store and region tours, micro-games, quests, club shows, and contests. The blog has a summary of events happening today and Saturday/Sunday; for new users, a good place to start is the Self-Guided Tour of Home Template Regions, which can be used in your free home region:

There are room templates in the Sinespace Shop that can be purchased to use for your free home space. Most are well under the 128MB limit - this leaves you lots of room for furniture and decorations. Many of these templates are also regions you can visit before you buy them. 

For instance, above is Wondermere, a user-created region in the store. To visit all the regions, look for this sign (at right) in the Welcome Center, and enter the name of the region in the Explore. (Follow the arrows in the image.)

Much more events here and in the Sinespace forum. As always, if you have questions for the team, post in Comments and I'll nudge them to respond when they can!

Thanks to Sinespace's Dolome Demonia for creating the region tour tutorial!

Cassie's Clips: Exploring the SL Shopping Extravaganza of Equal 10

This week exclusive to New World Notes, beloved SL YouTuber Cassie Middles visits Equal 10, the shopping extravaganza event happening now, a showcase featuring dozens of well-known Second Life style brands, including clothing, hair styles, skins, and make-up for male and female avatars, plus lifestyle accessories for both. (Direct teleport here.)

"It's a great shopping event for both genders, making sure not to exclude anyone and make it female dominated, while still featuring amazing designers," Cassie tells me. "They're also a monthly event and update their website every month with designer ads, so you can easily teleport to the ones on your shopping list at the landing point instead of struggling through any lag (though I had none)." 

 

One tip Cassie has for future Eleven event participants:

Ana Ribeiro on Creating Pixel Ripped 1989, Her Acclaimed VR Game that Virtually Recreates the Retro Games of Childhood

Pixel Ripped 1989, a new VR game for PSVR, Oculus, and Vive, is among the cleverest virtual reality titles I've ever come across. Rather than simulate a fantastic new virtual world, the game simulates the experience of being in virtual worlds you've experienced as a child. Specifically, Pixel Ripped simulates playing classic videogames from the 80s -- a virtual reality game, in other worlds, about experiencing games. Lead designed by Ana Ribeiro, the idea for Pixel Ripped sprung out of her own  childhood back then, when she fought with her three brothers for playtime on the family console:

"Marketing for video games was very much focused on boys and I was the only girl fighting amongst them to have some playing time when they weren’t using it," she remembers. "Afterwards we got a Nintendo 64 and played together a lot; as always I enjoyed those precious moments so much, so I’ve always kept a very vivid memory of how gaming was back then." Also the just as vivid memory of not being able to play, when you wanted to play much, but couldn't: "During my childhood it was hard to get time to play and only play. Always had to do something else or had a limited time before my brothers came back from school, or my parents called me to help with some errands!"

Recreating that experience -- that moment when we first encounter virtual worlds we can be immersed inside, and change the experience through our play choices -- has had a profound experience on early players and playtesters.

"Once, a guy took off the Rift and started crying his eyes out, telling me that he had been ready to give up on games entirely," Ana recalls. Playing her game, however, "had rekindled what he liked and remembered about games from his youth." Reactions like that helped her and the team keep going through long sessions of coding and debugging.

As you might have guessed (and as the trailer above suggests), the games played within the game will infect the "real world":

What SL Screenshots Look Like When Taken in the Black Dragon Viewer

Via ellapinellapin's Flickr

There's been lots of interest in my post about how Black Dragon, the third party Second Life viewer, can make SL look like a AAA videogame in terms of graphics detail and framerate. Reader Ella points out it's also great for screenshots, and comes with a Poser tool that helps with selfie pics. By way of evidence, here's her Flickr page with pics all taken with Black Dragon, without any post-processing, as she explains on her About page:

The photos I take within Second Life are taken at up to 6K resolution within the Black Dragon viewer. Photos are resized to 50% to reduce resolution and size of file for upload to Flickr. Downscaling these photos from such a large resolution adds a sense of clarity (but not excessively) to the picture. I consider this an exception and it helps the appearance of SL in general. Third-party tools/addons such as ReShade are not used and photos are not manipulated unless noted in the description.

Still skeptical? Here's some more pics by Ella that seriously rock:

Still more below!

Google Employees Strongly Support Building Censored Search Engine for China, According to Anonymous Blind Survey

Some Google employees are outraged over "Project Dragonfly", a secret plan by company executives to create a censored search tool for the Chinese market. However, a new survey just conducted on Blind, an anonymous online community for tech workers, suggests a strong majority of employees support the project.

"The survey ran from 8/7-8/15 and was answered by a total of 7,369 users of Blind. 35.73% answered Yes and 64.27% answered No," Blind's Kyle McCarthy tells me. "A total of 472 Google employees responded, with 65.25% answering Yes and 34.75% answering with No." (See data above.)

In other words, 2 in 3 employees across the many tech companies on Blind oppose a censored Google for China -- but 2 in 3 Google employees support one. To be sure, Google has 85,000+ employees, so 472 is a relatively small data sample, but the strong support is still pretty striking.

And for me, fairly surprising and disappointing. There was once a case to be made that it would be better overall for the Chinese populace to have improved access to most information, even if that meant accepting censorship over some information. But given the country's growing authoritarianism (good briefer below), that argument gets harder and harder to make -- especially coming from employees of a company with an unofficial motto of "Don't be evil." Oh wait never mind.