New World Notes

Add Combat to Your Really Needy HUD Roleplay System with an Injuries Add-On & Futuristic Gun for Taking & Giving Damage (Partner Post)

Here’s two new items from proud New World Notes sponsoring partner Really Useful Scripts Corner which effectively turn its Really Needy HUD roleplay tool into a combat system:

• The Injuries add-on for the HUD
• The new release of a sci-fi themed submachine gun that’s compatible with the HUD.

Ably demonstrated by Really Useful’s lead developer Grace7 Ling above, these items aren’t technically part of a combat system, but they can certainly be used as such:

“It is a natural extension to simulating physiological needs (hunger, thirst, energy, etc.) that roleplayers would also like to simulate health damage as a result of not meeting those needs, or due to injuries,” she explains. “The Linden Lab damage system is too simplistic and inflexible, while some other systems are focusing only on combat rather than roleplay.”

“The Injuries add-on enables wounds that automatically appear on your avatar’s body if shot by a firearm, courtesy of tattoo layers made by cosmetics creator Izzie Button, who is a partner.” It even displays bloody splatter and mist when a shot hits home, and also comes with walls that display bullet holes. (More features here.) 

It was inspired by Second Life’s many roleplay communities where some users take on roles such as the police and EMT workers:

Tomorrow: Join a Truly Massive Event With 1000s of Avatars in the Same Space in ScavLab, the Sandbox Testing Platform in Scavengers

Tomorrow (May 29) at 11am PT is the first massive-scale community event in Scavengers, the survival/sandbox game with some Second Life in its DNA.

And I do mean massive, because Scavengers runs on Improbable's Spatial OS:

"We reached over 1,800 players in our closed test in April, so we're hoping to beat that," Rob Whitehead, co-founder and CPO at Improbable, tells me. "However, this first public event will allow up to 5,000 players - although the tech allows for greater player numbers, we found that 5,000 was the max level of density for an enjoyable gameplay experience. We're designing new game modes/events that will go beyond this number."

Here's how to join the event:

• Download Scavengers on Steam or on EGS
• Boot the game
• Go to the main menu (you may need to first complete/leave the opening tutorial)
• Make sure you queue up for the "ScavLab game mode" before the 11AM PT/7PM BST event

Should be a fun and interesting experience even if you're not a hardcore gamer, and are mainly interested in experiencing the latest in Improbable's technology for truly massive, single shard worlds, and the feeling of being surrounded by thousands of avatars. And yes, I do mean surrounded:

Weekend Shopping Tips from the My Second Life Style Blog

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

I love the details Kira Malien takes care of in her picture for “Lonely Night,” a recent post featuring leather, city lights, and melancholy. I love that she made the effort to 'shop in her reflection into the picture. The lighting is sumptuous. 

• Outfit: Cynful - Savi Leather Top + Savi Leather Shorts @ Equal10

Her most recent post is after this click. 

Second Life Brands: Here’s Why It’s So Hard to Give You Linden Dollars -- Plus Three Ways to Make it Much Easier (Guest Post)

Whiskey Monday is an acclaimed SL artist; follow her on Twitter @Whiskey_Day 

Dear Makers of Amazing Things in Second Life,

Let me start by saying: I LOVE YOU. I would not be in Second Life without you. I could not do what I do without your inventive, beautiful, well-crafted creations. Thank you for all that you do. I enjoy shopping for and collecting the imaginative items you sell. I want to support your work! 

When I can find you. And when I finally find your store, if I can find the item I’m searching for, even better. Because it’s not that simple, is it? Many of you make it tough to shop in your store. 

Please, please, please – I’m begging you – make it easier to give you my money. 

I keep a notebook of cool things I see, and who created them. If I’m wandering a sim and see a nice plant, I don’t want to leave right that moment to go buy it. So, I inspect it, note the creator (for our purposes here, let’s call the item maker SuperStore69), and then carry on exploring. 

Later, after I’ve been abused over the phone by yet another client who thinks the universe revolves around them (off you fuck, Chad), I want some retail therapy. I flip open my SL notebook and see my note about that plant at SuperStore69 and that’s just the ticket! What could make me feel better? Gimme plant.

Second Life Search is shitty, but it’s still where we start. I open Search in my viewer and look up SuperStore69. Nothing. Nada. Zip. But I want the plant. So I open SL Marketplace in my browser, and I type in SuperStore69. In this case, YAY, there they are! But no plant. 

So I click the link for the in-world Store...

Watch Live: IMVU's Mixed Reality Fashion Show Featured in Vogue

Starting to stream on YouTube (above) and Instagram just now, here's that mixed reality fashion show I mentioned recently, bringing together real designers with IMVU creators in an extravaganza featured by Vogue itself:

This Artist Creates & Photographs Massive Abstract Sculptures in Second Life

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

I love abstract art. Most of the art in my home is abstract or extraordinary examples of the graphic display of quantitative data. (By the way, the best work-related course I ever attended.) But yes, it is abstract art that really grabs my eye. As much as I love story-telling pictures, these explorations of shape and color always excite me the most. Suzanne Graves is not just the artist taking these pictures, she is the person who created these exciting shapes. “2017-04-14 LEA5” reminds me of those molecular model kits. I swear the one in Ninth Grade used these same colors. 

For more recent abstractions, click here:

Inside VRChat's Happy Hill Dog Park, the Virtual Dog Experience Created by Academics to Study Real Life Well-Being & Social Isolation

Since launching last week, Happy Hill Dog Park in VRChat has been swarming with avatars of all kinds, playing fetch and applying copious force-feedback enabled head pats with the AI-powered pooches. Dr. Kim, the director on the project, told me Monday that it's already attracted over 43,000 visits, and been favorited 7000 times.

And while the bucolic experience might seem like a VR version of Nintendogs, it's at heart a sophisticated project spearheaded by an academic with the modest goal of bringing more happiness to humankind.

Dr. Brenda Freshman, a professor of Health Care Administration at CalState Long Beach, conceived and self-funded the project as a proof of concept, working with Kim (a veteran VR/game developer) and Studio CyFi to deploy it in VRChat.

"What I'm doing now is gathering my academic partners," she tells me during my visit to the dog park. "and we'll be putting a variety of studies together, but I think the first ones will be dealing with well-being and social isolation."

One VRChat user told Kim that he had recently lost his dog in real life, and was now visiting Happy Hill Dog Park in VRChat as a way to heal from that grief. But as she puts it to me in VRChat (watch below) Brenda tells me they're not specifically creating this simulation for people who lost dogs in real life, or are unable to own dogs due to allergies or housing restrictions:

Today's SL Flickr Pick: Virtual Cats, Lovers & an Image Inspired by Neruda

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

“The Ship” is inspired by a Pablo Neruda poem. Well, that made me like it all on its own. My high school Spanish teacher was a Neruda lover and she passed on the fandom. But look at that picture. Her use of bright light and high contrast to blow out all but the essentials, the sea grasses and boat are nearly the only visible elements. It is a bold, confident picture by someone who knows what she wants to express. 

If you think we all need more cats, click here:

TV Producers Searching for Virtual World Performers for Masked Singer-Meets-Avatars Reality Competition

Anytime I watch clips from FOX's The Masked Singer, my first thought is, "Why are all these celebrities costumed up to look like furries from Second Life and VRChat?" So I was utterly unsurprised to read about Alter Ego, an upcoming reality competition show from the same TV network:

ALTER EGO is an all-new original singing competition where lost dreams and second chances are reignited when singers from all walks of life become the stars they’ve always wanted to be. However, these contestants won’t perform as themselves. Rather, they’ll be given the chance to show how they’ve always wanted to be seen, creating their dream avatar ALTER EGO to reinvent themselves and perform like never before.

So yes, pretty much Masked Singer meets singing avatars. The producers are directly reaching out to U.S.-based performers who sing in Second Life, and I imagine singers from other platforms are also welcome.

Go here to apply, and send to performers you know who should. To judge by the kind of questions the application asks -- "What personal struggles have you had to overcome?", "Has music/singing helped you overcome a challenge?" -- the producers are just as interested in the real life story of each applicant, as their actual voice.

Next question is, which great singers who perform in a virtual world should apply to be on this show?

Explore in SL: A Group Art Exhibit in a Life-Size Apartment Complex

Click here to teleport to what seems like a six floor apartment complex, but actually houses a pretty ambitious group art project called Ed. Colonia:

The idea behind Ed. Colonia was exploring further the format of group exhibitions, preserving each artist’s individuality as we occupy a common space. No theme has been suggested, since the limitations of the apartments were restraining enough. Each floor, inhabited by a different artist, is an exhibition on its own. The lack of front doors encourages the visitors to walk inside and explore.

It's the latest project of GBTH Project, a Second Life-based arts space, and speaking of ambition, the group's official site is so well-made, I honestly assumed it was a real life gallery's homepage. The installations in Ed. Colonia are impressively varied in their theme and their success as installations, but setting it all in a six floor apartment is a smart touch, something you only occasionally see IRL. 

Hat tip: Artist Huckleberry Hax, who has an extended write-up here. Marina Munte, the founder of GBTH (i.e. "Grab By The Horns"), by the way, was recently featured in a Strawberry Linden interview: