New World Notes

Watch: A Halloween Visit to Cetatea Poenari, Home to an SL Vampire Family

Dark, foreboding, and full of shredding metal, here's Erik Mondrian making a fly through visit of  Cetatea Poenari, a devilishly detailed Second Life sim owned by a "family" of roleplaying vampires. From Erik's description/dedication:

Built by Vlad Drakul-Dragonash & Nazaire Dragonash and named after a ruined Romanian castle that was once occupied by the real-life Vlad III Dracula (also known as Vlad the Impaler), Cetatea Poenari defies description and seems to stretch far beyond the limits imposed by its virtual borders. From the Valley of Horses and Arefu Prison to The Slaughtered Lamb pub and Snagov Monastery—and with the magnificent castle itself keeping watch over all from above—this is a region with many different paths and hidden places for the curious traveler to find. Thanks again to Vlad, Nazaire, Rain, and the entire Drakul family for asking me to film here!

More on it here, and click here to visit in SL. A recent arts school graduate whose thesis was created in Second Life, Mondrian had some incisive thoughts on the social group based within this sim:

VRChat Reporter Syrmor, Who Has More YouTube Subscribers Than VRChat Has Users, Steps In Front of the Camera

Here's the latest VRChat interview from Syrmor, the platform's best embedded reporter, another poignant slice of virtual life, this one of a woman whose real life relationship fell apart because of the virtual world, where she found someone new. It also comes with a surprise: The Canadian dude behind Syrmor's avatar cat avatar appears on camera to read fan mail -- yes, he gets actual fan mail on paper from the post office, that's how beloved he's become -- and introduce the VRChat segment:

"I wanted to test it out with this recent video and see how it went but I think it's something I'll do more consistently from now on," he tells me. "It just gives me an easy way to talk to the audience since I never really communicate with them I'm gonna try it with the next video too and see how it goes."

Makes sense. Now with nearly 700,000 subscribers on YouTube, Syrmor almost certainly has more followers than VRChat itself has actual users:

Cajsa's SL Flickr Pick: Macabre Halloween Challenge Highlights

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

Happy Halloween! Second Life art fiends have a very special Halloween treat, another Macabre Challenge from Lawrence D. Pryce. Above, Mila Maesar’s entry “Mad World” is almost too creepy. Sure, it’s Halloween and it’s supposed to be macabre, but do we really want to be that scary and macabre? Talk about Tears for Fears!

Watch: Trans People Explore Alternate Identities Through Virtual World Avatars

This is a fascinating new video by virtual world videographer Luca, on an endlessly important topic: How trans people use virtual worlds and avatar customization to explore alternate identities. (In this case Second Life, though as Luca notes, it's a phenomenon common to many other virtual worlds.) Luca interviews several trans SLers, who discuss their avatar form and how it relates to who they are in real life.

"[I]t's my experiences with the trans communities and my trans friends that inspired me to make the video," tells me. "The subjects are all my trans friends who I befriended throughout my years on SL."

Notably, others that Luca approached refused to do the interview or even appear "on camera" -- even though their real life identity is protected by their anonymous avatar identity:

Watch: A Scary Walkthrough Sim in Sansar -- And a Comparison of Creating in Second Life vs. Sansar

Just in time for Halloween, virtual world YouTuber Ayla Pants (last seen here with a great Firestorm tutorial) tried her hand at creating a spooky ass scene in Sansar, and gives you a walkthrough above. Don't watch all the way through if you want some first-person surprises -- you can visit it here on the Atlas.

Since Ayla's a longtime SL content creator, I wanted her take on creating in Second Life, versus Sansar. Here it is:

Cajsa's SL Flickr Pick: Nekotto’s Lushly Detailed Slice of Virtual Life Images

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

I love the fulsome background settings in Nekotto’s pictures. This is a consistent feature in her pictures as you can see by comparing this 2017 favorite #762 to more recent photos. I love this one because it appeals to me on a personal level. I am that person who bends down and pets the cat even when it’s raining. I did that very thing last night, rushing to catch my ride, even using a cane, when a neighborhood cat rushed in front of me to flop over for pets, I had to stop and scratch his ears. I love how complete this set is, the bike, the motorcycle, the signs, and the rain all come together to tell us a story. 

Second Life Really Needs to Switch to a New 3D Engine (Rant of the Week)

Left and right: From August, bakes on mesh when using the updated SL viewer... and a 3rd party viewer at the time (as featured here, photos by Rhonda Huntress via this thread) 

Great discussion last week verging on a rant in this post about the gradual, imperfect efforts by Linden Lab and the community to adapt Bakes on Mesh to Second Life content. An anonymous reader suggests the fundamental problem is far larger that that patch:

This really always comes down to Linden not doing its job, just trying to push its work on others.

New engine
New engine
New engine

If their current employees can't do it, then... get people who can or lease an engine that works the best with your files. It's 2019 and you're trying to constantly stitch together a 2003 engine time and time again. I'm pretty sure when the engine was made in '03 they couldn't even think of ray tracing,GPU Power, virtual reality, peer to peer, or even blockchain. All we can keep doing is fighting 'cause the company is lazy, and keeps saying downgrade downgrade back to '03.

There is no incentive for mesh body creators and clothes makers to update in Second Life. They don't get monthly payments from their customers , so it's really just you don't like it, "thanks for the fish" mentality. It's said in the Slink group chat everyday.

BOM won't be truly a WTF moment till the next Bento update comes up and they have to update their bodies to "BOM versions that are downgrades" and they say, oh yeah we stopped supporting your body that you paid for and liked for system avatar 2.0.

There's definitely a sense where upgrades like Bakes on Mesh and Bento feel like welding Ferrari chassis parts on a car with a Model T motor. In any case, another reader argues that Anonymous' points "don't appreciate the difficulty of upgrading a system that has been in almost non-stop operation for sixteen years and where upgrades need to get it right on first or second bounce as rollbacks may cause bigger problems than they solve." Which is also true, but here's Anon's reply:

Casja's SL Flickr Pick: The Eerily Beautiful Imagery of Diehi "Ralphie" Lykin

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

Oof! This picture by Diehi Lykin, aka Ralphie, is called “Raven” and makes me want to invent a word. There is something unearthly about it despite the very corporeal body. The raven mask with the black background creates an absence, but one with features that we can barely perceive. I love how the red dot tattoo is echoed by the collar and the crown. In design, they often suggest that if you introduce a color, you should use it three times. Ralphie seems to be thinking about this when using color, particularly as, depending on how you define color, red is the only color in the picture.  

Linden Lab Hiring Compliance Analyst to Monitor Sansar Virtual World Economy for Real World Money Laundering, Terrorist Financing

Linden Lab is hiring a Senior Compliance Analyst for Sansar, and the job description vividly illustrates just how deadly serious a job like that has become. Used to be that a role like this might focus mainly on everyday consumer issues like credit card fraud/misuse (i.e. kids secretly using their parents' cards to buy virtual gold). Nowadays, however, it reads like a job description for someone in the FBI:

The ideal candidate for this position will be responsible for supporting and maintaining various compliance activities and programs, including the Customer Identification program and associated vendor management processes. Responsible for monitoring and assessing compliance issues concerning the patterns and trends associated with money laundering and other potential compliance-related risks. Assist with mitigating money laundering, terrorist financing, fraud related risks, and gathering data and documents for state exams.

Yes -- actual terrorism in the virtual world:

Jeri Ellsworth's Tilt 5 Kickstarter Sells Over 6000 Augmented Reality HMD Units, Raising Nearly 4X Target Goal

With 8 hours left to go, Jeri Ellsworth's Tilt 5 Kickstarter for a new augmented reality system is already a runaway success, raising at least $1,660,865 -- nearly 4X its original $450,000 goal target goal. Even more impressive, she just announced the Kickstarter has sold over 6,000 HMD units.

To put that 6,000+ in perspective, that's nearly as many units sold in Oculus Rift's original Kickstarter (about 6,900), which launched this new generation of VR. And by some industry insider estimates, the extremely well-funded Magic Leap has only sold about 6000-7000 of its own first edition HMD. To be sure, Magic Leap's "Creator Edition" sells for $2,295 and up, as opposed to Tilt 5's $299 entry level price. However, if that estimate is fairly accurate, that still means Tilt 5's install base is competitive with Magic Leap's.

For Jeri, in any case, it's a validation of Tilt 5's vision for augmented reality.

"We're thrilled that the market is hungry for a social AR experiences," as she puts it to me.

To judge the Kickstarter, the social aspect seems important to Tilt 5's success: