New World Notes

Reader Questions & Comments I Wish I Put to Linden Lab CEO Ebbe Altberg

Last Friday I had a long, fascinating, occasionally testy talk with Linden Lab CEO Ebbe Altberg, and plan on posting the video later this week. I asked variations of some questions suggested by readers, but here's some other solids queries I wasn't able to put to him that still deserve an audience:

It's very quiet about the possibility to choose a second name for the "Resident" avatars. Is that cancelled - or can we hope to see it this year?

Posted by: Yadleen (Clara Mayef)

Why can't we have a modernized prim system that allows for more constructive modelling and voxel terrain editing? IOW, make Second life on par with many of the dozens of games and systems that it is competing with for attention?

In the older days, people would stand around and watch other people build things. They would have conversations and learn to build together. With the arrival of sex toys and mesh, that is all basically gone.

It was the community that made Second Life to enthralling. Now it's just a cesspool of deviant behaviour.

Posted by: Todd Adams

Several more, about the mainland, Premium accounts, and an intriguing idea to certify content creators:

Top 4 Posts Last Week: The 3 Levels of "Being Online", an SDK for Sinespace, from Cybersex to Community, and a Physics-Powered Clock in Second Life

• Nylon Pinkney Is Online: The Three Levels Of "Being Online"
• Watch: A Second Life Clock That Runs Entirely On Virtual World Physics
• VentureBeat Features Sinespace's New All-In-One Virtual World SDK Now In Unity Asset Store
• I Came To Second Life Looking For Cybersex; I Stayed For Creating & Community (Comment Of The Week)

Open Forum: What Should I Ask Ebbe Altberg, CEO of Linden Lab

If all goes as planned, later this afternoon I'll be chatting in person with Linden Lab CEO Ebbe Altberg about Second Life, Sansar, and the company's future plans. I'll try to incorporate as many reader questions into our conversation as possible, so please post queries in Comments below.

Pro tip: Highly technical questions are probably less easy to immediately answer and better addressed by the CTO, while questions on policy and strategy are better put before the CEO.

Nylon Pinkney Is Online: The Three Levels of "Being Online"

Cajsa’s Flickr Pick: SL Screenshots Edited With an iPhone Into Visual Art

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

Mayumi Sugarplum’s recent Flickr stream is an exploration of editing and experimentation on Second Life photos she took in the past. “At the Seashore” reminds me of a Degas painting of dancers. Her photostream is also a testament to personal resilience and the creative drive. She has been ill for some time and is no longer able to work directly in SL to take her photos. She is using her iPhone and iPad to edit old photos from years ago. Each reimagined photo links to its original so you can see how she took those pictures and cast them anew in a more impressionistic and surreal framework.

Watch: A Second Life Clock That Runs Entirely On Virtual World Physics

What you're looking at above is something quite amazing: In development for over 10 years, it's a virtual world clock that operates entirely on Second Life's internal physics: "I made a functioning weight-driven pendulum-regulated escapement in 2009," creator Emilin Nakamori tells me, "which as far as I know was the first unscripted, self-regulating mechanism ever made in SL using solely physics."

So while it ia a virtual clock, it operates very much like a real one: "[T]here is a weight assembly, which powers the escapement using a rack engaging a gear. The escapement slows the fall of the weight by swinging, with a period of about 7 seconds (which is why there is no seconds dial), and it in turn powers the reduction gears for the minute and hour hands. I had to make some scientific experiments to determine such things as is there inertia in SL physics (there is) and what the acceleration due to gravity is (about the same as in RL, though things reach terminal velocity quickly)."

Creating this clock to function as well as it does in Second Life took two things -- a book from the 19th century, and, well, a more recent physics update from Linden Lab:

Cajsa’s Daily Flickr Pick: The Naturalistic Virtual Photos of Brandon Taselian

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

Brandon Taselian has one of the most lifelike and naturalistic photostreams of any Second Life enthusiast I can think of. I think he may create composites from real life street photos and his SL pictures. “Streets of California” uses the Rule of Thirds, though is a bold move, the subject is moving out of rather than into the frame.

Watch: Stadia, Google's OnLive-Type Game Streaming Service, Unveiled

As promised last year, Google is unveiling its 3D game streaming service at GDC right now -- meet Stadia:

Data centers make Stadia possible, but what sets the system apart is how it works with other Google services. In a world where there are more than 200 million people watching game-related content daily on YouTube, Stadia makes many of those games playable with the press of a button. If you watch one of your favorite creators playing Assassin's Creed Odyssey, simply click the “play now” button. Seconds later, you’ll be running around ancient Greece in your own game/on your own adventure—no downloads, no updates, no patches and no installs.

In other words, like the late-lamented OnLive, but with the world's largest global server network to back it up. And as with OnLive, we will almost certainly see virtual worlds like Second Life and future worlds using this service. Perhaps not coincidentally, Second Life co-creator Cory Ondrejka is now Tech Advisor to the CEO at Google.

Live unveil at GDC after the break:

VentureBeat Features Sinespace's New All-in-One Virtual World SDK Now in Unity Asset Store

VentureBeat's Dean Takahashi has an in-depth post on the launch of the Sinespace SDK as an official Unity Asset Store Partner, which the proud NWN sponsoring partner is announcing this week. Key grafs:

The Sinespace SDK includes key features for rapidly creating AAA-quality games, including Build Kill Repeat, an open source, fully modifiable combat system, and content from top Unity vendors and Sinespace partners Dexsoft-Games (3D Models-Textures), Gaia, and Archimatix.

The Sinespace SDK instantly optimizes 3D experiences for play on PC, Mac, Linux, Oculus, Vive, Android and WebGL. (Support for iOS and consoles coming soon.) Unlike other open game worlds, Sinespace is architected to fully update all content with every Unity update.

Developers can upload and sell assets from their existing single-player games — or use them in new multiplayer titles. For instance, when Warren Spector made a special guest appearance in Sinespace, his team uploaded 3D models from his latest Unity game into Sinespace.

“I’ve been developing virtual worlds since I was 12,” Frisby said. “Twenty years later, I believe this is finally the start of a metaverse worthy of the name.”

Read the rest here. Here's a video tutorial for customizing the Build Kill Repeat combat system:

I Came to Second Life Looking for Cybersex; I Stayed for Creating & Community (Comment of the Week)

Amid all the talk about Adult content in Second Life (helpfully illustrated by Nylon Pinkney), Cindy Bolero makes an important point:

This is the reality: Many, if not most new users heard about the sex, log in, and are looking for it. It's up to greeters at venues or attractions to understand that. You can be mean and ban them, or you can tell them to open the search window and/or suggest an ideal Adult place to go.

Why be helpful to these rude characters asking for sex? Because some will eventually get over that curiosity and become customers and contributors. The SL economy needs all the help it can get.

She speaks from, ahem, personal experience: