New World Notes

Slink Mesh Bodies Are Well-Optimized for Second Life Avatars -- Here's How

Slink, a popular virtual world brand for avatar enhancements, produces what's basically the Tesla for mesh bodies in Second Life -- not just sleek and stylish, but energy efficient and good for the environment. This is because their creator, Siddean Munro, painstakingly optimizes them to have the least number of triangles without hurting visual quality.

This is an important update to a much-discussed New World Notes post from 2018, where I included Slink among the list of mesh bodies found to be poorly optimized, a key source to virtual world pollution -- i.e., lag and non-displaying avatars. Ms. Munro disputes Slink's inclusion in that post, so I will update it accordingly. And since then, in any case, she has updated her mesh bodies to be more efficient.

"I do work hard to make sure all my meshes are as optimal as they can be, use as few textures and scripts. as possible and that they are also laid out and written efficiently," she tells me. 

As evidence, she offers this image below:

Follow Isabel for Amazing Experiments in Turning SL Screenshots Into Art

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

“Taming the Wolf” from Isabel reminds me of “The Little Prince” with its simplicity. The similarity is augmented by the wolf being a silhouette and the ladder looking like an illustration rather than an actual ladder. I love the idea of it. 

Ahead, an amazing album exploring virtual skin.

In Biden vs. Trump Survey, Staff at Top Tech Companies Less Liberal Than Often Assumed

I recently received interesting new survey results from the development team of Blind, an anonymous messaging app for company staffers. When employees at top tech companies were anonymously asked whether they supported Trump or Biden in the upcoming election, the results were often more evenly split than Silicon Valley's reputation as a liberal bastion might suggest.

Here's the results from over 6000 respondents, divided according to their company affiliation:

Philip Rosedale is Taking Input for Designing a "New World"

"In a virtual world," SL/High Fidelity founder Philip Rosedale recently asked on Twitter, "is showing tenure (age of account) bad or good?"

Which is an interesting thing to ask, and becomes even more intriguing when, after one follower wonders why Philip himself isn't answering his own question, he replies apologetically, "I don't want to dominate the conversation. Yes, designing for a new world."

So that's worth noting! I asked Philip for more details and will update this post if I get a reply. As for "new world" he may just be referring to the recent 3D audio-centric relaunch of High Fidelity. Or perhaps another world entirely? In any case, the thread is worth a read, here's some answers to his question:

A Stunning SL Avatar Cosplay Tribute to the Late Great RBG & Other Images

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

Jupiter Firelyte created a stunning homage to Ruth Bader Ginsburg, recreating the famed “Notorious RBG” in Second Life. She gives great detail on all the elements that went into it and I love her for it. She includes the original screenshot in the description as well. 

This is not her only political interest...

Second Life Avatars Have More Way More Triangles Than AAA Games Like Elder Scrolls Online, But Gain Little More Detail -- And Much More Lag

Pictured: In-game shot of an Elder Scrolls Online avatar from 2013 (video below)

Adeon Writer puts it succinctly:

For what it's worth, VRChat has a rating system of "Excellent, Good, Medium, Poor, Horrible"

Any avatar above 70,000 triangles is considered Horrible.

For reference, most Second Life avatars are about 200,000 to 300,000 triangles.

Many Second Life avatars use more triangles in a single shoe that most AAA games use for an entire map.

People wonder why 20 FPS in SL is sometimes considered unusually smooth.

20 FPS is laughably bad. Compare with, say, Elder Scrolls Online, which has high quality avatars (see above and below) that are also highly optimized, so the MMO seems to be in the 40-60 FPS range. More from Adeon:

Top 6 Posts from Last Week Including a Top Gaming YouTuber Embraces SL, and a Visual Metaphor for the Metaverse

• Watch: Celebrity YouTuber Bored With The Sims Quickly Becomes Queen Of Second Life, Basically
• Shopping Tips From An SL Fashion Blog -- And Blogging Tips From Me
• Founder Hubris Led To Magic Leap's Fall -- But Valley Hubris Enabled Its Rise
• Is The Ideal Metaverse A Network Of Linked Places, Or A Seamless World?
• Epic Invests In Core To Expand Unreal's Metaverse Potential -- And Increase Its Competitive Advantage Against Apple
• Linden Lab Needs To Punish Poorly Optimized Mesh -- Or Reward Well-Made Mesh

Watch: Celebrity YouTuber Bored With The Sims Quickly Becomes Queen of Second Life, Basically

Ms. Carmen King is a gaming YouTube celebrity with nearly 1 million subscribers, and earlier this month, an amazing thing happened.

"If you've watching my channel lately," she announces, "I've been talking about how bland the Sims 4 has been getting -- that Star Wars pack did not make it any better, bitch."

But rather than switch to a recent game, she reaches all the way back 17 years to launch Second Life:

"I'm not here to troll or make enemies or anything I like that," she begins, in a nod to YouTube's many a-hole SL trolls, "I genuinely want to do stuff in SL like create myself in Second Life, go shopping, find me a man, go to a strip club, get pregnant -- and I'm not even kidding, you can literally get pregnant in Second Life and literally deliver a baby, like straight out your cootchie deliver, I'm not even joking,"

... which should give you a taste of her girl gamer-meets-Cardi B charm and NSFW Rabelaisian patois. What follows is more or less the "WAP" of game streaming, adventures in avatar enhancement, apartment hunting, and later on, road rage in a diamond pink car. Yes:

Shopping Tips from an SL Fashion Blog -- And Blogging Tips from Me

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

Live, Love, Laugh is MetteKenzo Nagy’s blog. She focuses on fashion and I was drawn to her work by her colorful, bright pictures. “Ooh Na-Na” really appealed because it was a successful example of turning a picture on its side. She didn’t do a full horizontal. Even though the diagonal is very acute, it still allows us to make sense of the picture without turning our laptop on the side. I have been baffled by these pictures for quite some time, but Gogo explained the rationale and now it makes sense. Many of today’s blogs have such big pictures they fill more than the screen, by going diagonal, they can get the whole picture in your window without scrolling. Now it seems obvious. I like the dress, though it’s only for the body made by the same creator. 

• KALHENE // Kate Dress Fatpack [Group Gift] For Kalhene Anya Mesh Body Only! Available at Mainstore

A bit of rockabilly in the next post -- along with my personal advice for fashion bloggers:

University Of Western Australia's Second Life Art Sims Closing This Year -- But Artists Can Feature Their Work There in a Grand Finale Festival

The University Of Western Australia's virtual campus in Second Life has been among the most active and longest lasting educational presences, hosting regular art festivals like this one featuring cinema great Peter Greenaway But after years of hanging on, I'm told the UWA regions are finally being closed at the end of this year.

That's disappointing news. The good news is UWA is going out with a digital bang, hosting a huge final art festival on a massive platform above the campus. Curated by longtime virtual art advocate Chuck Clip (above) and Mariposa Upshaw, with the blessing of UWA's Jay Jay Zifanwe, this is meant to be, as Clip calls it, "one last thank you to the men and women of the institution that touched all of our lives." 

If you're a 2D or 3D artist who wants to feature your work in this space, the submission details from Mr. Clip are below. And I do mean "massive", take a lot at its scale: