New World Notes

Open Forum Question: Could Second Life Work on a Touch Screen / Tablet Optimized for Seniors?

We know that many seniors like the late Fran Serenade (above) have found great value in using Second Life, both as a social/creative platform and (as in Fran's case) even finding therapeutic value in them. However, many seniors have difficulty learning or using the SL viewer for Mac/PC.

But what if the virtual world was accessible via a touchscreen? 

Caltech astronomy professor George Djorgovski, director of the university's Virtech campus in Second Life, recently put it to me this way:

Many seniors who would benefit from the social opportunities in SL are not very computer-savvy.

They may be comfortable with an iPad, but not a standard laptop/desktop. iPads and similar devices simply do not have the hardware power to deal with something like SL, and whatever apps do exist (and are still available or maintained) are little more than messaging apps.

There are, however, notebook/laptop machines that have a touch screen, which someone who is used to a tablet may find easier to use than a laptop proper. Also, I know that it is possible to boot Linux on at least some Chromebooks, and use a Linux SL client, but I don’t know about the performance thereof. Any experiences or recommendations along these lines would be greatly appreciated.

Yes, George and I discussed the late-lamented Lumia app for Android devices, but that's no longer officially supported (far as I can tell), and as great as it is for established SLers, wouldn't work well for the target audience he's talking about:

Farewell to Oz: Linden Lab's Open Source Director Retires, Leaving Position's Fate Unknown -- And Hole in Second Life Community's Heart

Emphasizing that his upcoming departure from Linden Lab "has nothing at all to do with the change in ownership of the Lab" (the long-running startup was recently sold to the Waterford Group holding company), the veteran technologist Scott Lawrence, known by tens of thousands of SL users by his avatar name, "Oz Linden", just posted a retirement notice to the Second Life user community:

The Black Dragon SL Viewer Has a New Update So Watch This Photography & In-Game Poser Tutorial For Adjusting Your Avatar's 130+ Bones

There's a new update to Black Dragon, the SL viewer with a cult following for making Second Life look like a AAA game and for giving users great features for virtual photography and machinima.

Speaking of which, here's a new Black Dragon photography tutorial from SL YouTuber and apparent Fleabag cast member Boston Blaisdale. It comes to me via NiranV, the tireless sole creator of Black Dragon who has a Patreon for developing the viewer that could seriously use more patronage for all the work he does on it. Niran recently added a $10/month Patreon level for store owners who want a link to their shop -- an extremely good deal, seeing as Black Dragon has roughly 5000 active users.

Niran gives this tutorial a thumbs-up, especially the part around 4:00 minutes in, when Blaisdale gets into using Black Dragon's highly valuable in-game poser:

Looking for Alina Lyvette, Creator of Lumiya, the Android App for Second Life

Update, September 21: Added some explanation for why Lumiya was removed from Google Play and is only available for authorized purchase on the SlideME app store (bottom of this post).

I'm trying to reconnect with Alina Lyvette, the Russia-based developer who created Lumiya, the wildly popular Second Life app for Android which is officially available only on the SlideME app store. (Well over 100,000 people already own a copy.)

I haven't been able to communicate with Alina for years, and she has not updated Lumiya since 2017. I recently asked the Lumiya group in SL if anyone had seen her lately, and someone immediately replied:

"Every single day someone asks that question and gets the same answer."

Important point: Her absence does not mean anything is wrong, necessarily. In fact, last May, her lead technical support person in SL suggested she's in contact with Alina:

How to Run the VR Version Of Second Life For Firestorm With a Pretty Great Frame Rate (If You Got a Great PC)

Just got a cool little update to Tuesday's post about installing and running Peter Kappler's VR version of the Firestorm viewer for Second Life from Austin Tate: In response to my suggestion that the frame rate might be too low for this to be usable, Austin did some test runs and some tweaks.

"I tried the Drune IV area on the Second Life Ravine region you mentioned. One other user there (or maybe it was an NPC).

"On Ultra quality and 256m view distance it was a bit too low frame rate and was a bit choppy, but it worked fine at 'High' quality settings and 128m draw distance. On my rig I was getting 40 frames per second in VR mode.  Images attached for 
you." (See above.) 

So those look like the settings for optimal results. To be sure, he got them thanks in great part to very good hardware (see his specs below), but the bottom line is this VR viewer is more or less WYSIWYG compared to the PC-based Firestorm:

How to Use the VR Version Of Second Life For Firestorm & Steam VR

Austin Tate has a very useful, in-depth tutorial for installing and running Peter Kappler's VR version of the Firestorm viewer for Second Life (which I blogged earlier this year), with bonus points for a how-to on installing an XBox One/360 controller to run with the Oculus Rift installation.

While Second Life isn't social VR per se, it remains the largest, content rich social virtual world space with (relatively) high end graphics that can be explored in a VR rig.

As you might expect, Austin tells me/warns me that graphics performance does take a hit in virtual reality:

Lumiya, Popular SL Viewer Recently Removed from Google Play, Still Available on SlideME Android Marketplace

While Lumiya, the popular SL viewer for Android devices, was recently removed for unknown reasons from Google Play, it's still currently available on SlideME, a curated market for Android apps. I'm not too familiar with SlideME but it's recommended by some Android news outlets as a popular alternative to Google Play. More key, Lumiya creator Alina Lyvette herself recommends SlideME as a Google Play alternative, especially for people who to want to purchase a copy from her using PayPal. Some SLers have pointed to alternate sources for Lumiya which might be unauthorized/ripped copies, and of course, it's far better that Alina get the sales: Go here to buy it on SlideME.

Lumiya, Popular Android Viewer for Second Life, Gone from Google Play -- But Still Works (For Now)

Update, May 6: Lumiya still seems to be available on SlideME Android Marketplace

Frustrating and possibly bad news: Lumiya, the popular SL viewer for Android devices -- over 100,000 copies have been bought at $2.99 each -- is no longer in Google Play. This about a year after word that Lumiya, created by SLer Alina Lyvette, was removed from the official Third Party Viewer Directory.

The good news is it still works: I just logged into Second Life with my Samsung tablet, and the SL replica of Notre Dame Cathedral faithfully started to display. (And impressively well, for an Android client!)

I've reached out to both Linden Lab and Alina for clarity, and hope to update this story soon. I haven't received any message from Alina since 2014, when we talked about her real life as an LGBTQ person in Putin's oppressive Russia. But no reason as yet to assume anything -- it may just be a simple technical issue.

Does This Open Source VR Viewer for Second Life Make the Virtual World Look Better Than VRChat?

There's a new update to Firestorm VR, a Second Life viewer for virtual reality headsets, from developer Peter Kappler (links available here on his YouTube page). It includes some fixes and improvements to the open source project from since I first blogged about it last month; specifically new mouse and keyboard controls (as you'll see in the video above) plus better performance: "Stereo should look smoother now", Peter tells me.

And while Second Life is over 15 years old, he believes the VR experience his viewer offers is better than what you'd get in leading social VR platforms:

"Honestly if you go to other VR worlds you will find out that the worlds and avatars are not so complicated," as he puts it to me. "I bet if you build a sim properly and use proper avatars you can make SL look like VRChat -- even better. I saw some avatars that were looking pretty realistic in Second Life which I've never seen in VRChat."

How accurate that is, I leave up to brave early adopters who want to give Firestorm VR a try -- here's some instruction tips and advice from Peter:

Firestorm QA: Yes, It's Possible to Use Debug Settings to Get Super-High Quality Second Life Images -- Here's How

Last week's post on improving SL image quality via a workaround from SLer Frenchbloke Vanmoer caused a lot of skepticism, mostly due to some poor technical wording on my part. (My bad and mea culpa!) However, Firestorm support and QA volunteer Whirly Fizzle came by Comments, and confirmed that this does, indeed, apparently work:

When I first read this blog post I thought it was a load of cobblers. But Frenchbloke is actually correct! The blog post just explains it badly. [Sorry! - ed]

This will also work just as well on the Linden Lab viewer & probably every other viewer. Those debug settings are from the Linden Lab viewer, they are not Firestorm specific.

It's easy enough to test for yourself. Get hold of a super high quality 8192 image with lots of fine detail & make sure it's saved in a lossless format - I used PNG in my test.

Set the debugs max_texture_dimension_X and max_texture_dimension_Y to 8192.
Upload your 8192x8192 image.
This image will upload and the uploader will resize the image to the maximum allowed size of 1024x1024 - this limit is enforced server side, there is no way around it.

Now open your 8192 PNG in Photoshop & reduce the image size to 12.5% using the Bicubic Sharpen (best for reduction) & save this image.
Set the debugs max_texture_dimension_X and max_texture_dimension_Y back to default & upload your image.

More from Mr. Fizzle, including a sample comparison images they took: