New World Notes

The New Second Life Shoes of Hanna Lindberg Tell Two Amazing Stories

When I first saw these new shoes by Second Life creator Hanna Lindberg, I had to lightly gasp. After she had told me how she made them, I had gasped several times more.

The first story of these shoes, you can discern by looking close. Among her first creations using PBR lighting, the detail in the shadowing and reflection, evident down to the fine texture of the leather, is amazing. Since Linden Lab launched physically based rendering to Second Life last Summer, content creators have been frantically working to update their product line with PBR to stay ahead of the competition. The market for avatar fashion is massive across numerous platforms, and dominates the Second Life economy in particular. (And not just clothing items like shoes: A creator of customized virtual feet, for instance, earns six figures a year.)

To modernize her mesh-making skills to create in PBR, Hanna watched tutorials like these. It took her 1-2 days to understand the basics.

"Starting to learn something new and unusual is always difficult and scary," as she puts it to me.

So that's one story about the Second Life shoes of Hanna Lindberg.

The second story is possibly more scary:

Visit Samurai City in Second Life, Funded by the Japanese Government's Tourism Agency -- Just in Time for Shogun!

Click here to teleport to an impressively lush and detailed new Second Life sim based on Tsurugajo Castle in Japan, often called "Samurai City." While there are many similar locations in SL (there's even an entire samurai-themed RPG!), this one has a special hook -- it's funded by the Japanese government, via its tourist agency:

This is the first time that a Metaverse project is being carried out in a specific location under the direct control of the Japan Tourism Agency. The idea is to spread it across the country as an advanced tourism model that utilizes digital technology.

The project is also launching a Tsurugajo Castle in Fortnite. I'm curious how the project will drive real world tourism to Japan -- and if the agency wants to fly me there to investigate, I'm totally down! -- but I appreciate the forward-thinking here. Not sure if it's intentional, but this is launching right when a new Shogun mini-series is premiering in the US. 

More from the project's website:

We Love These Gorgeous & Charming Second Life Tributes to Lunar New Year & The Year of the Rabbit

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

I saw this gorgeous pic from Fiona Fei marking the Lunar New Year on Facebook and it inspired me to look around and see what else people were doing to note the holiday. If her name sounds familiar, it’s probably due to visiting one of her art installations on Flickr where you can step into a Chinese Ink Brush painting. To see more about her work, check out her portfolio.  

For more Lunar New Year celebration, click here:

OSMIA Update: Ukraine-Based Second Life Creator Escapes to (Relative) Safety

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Above: Hanna's view of Ukraine last March; Hanna's view of Ukraine this month

Last March, Hanna, Ukraine-based creator of the beloved SL fashion brand OSMIA, over 6 months pregnant, was hiding out in a city under active Russian occupation.

"I'm having a hard time mentally," she messaged me from a basement at the time. "The streets are really dangerous."

This week -- when she also happens to be celebrating her birthday -- she messaged me a much more optimistic update, and the photo above right: Her baby was safely born, she's escaped with her family to a relatively safe part of Ukraine, and lives in a well-kept home by the forest. In a free part of Ukraine.  

But that safety is still relative:

Second Life Creator in Occupied Ukraine City Keeps Selling Her Virtual Fashion to Help Support Her Family. A Russian Friend is Assisting Her.

Among the many strange moments amid an utterly horrible war, this one must be the most surreal:

Hanna of OSMIA, a leading Second Life brand, is a Ukraine citizen in real life, and since Russia's invasion, has been hiding out in her now-occupied city. She is now nearly 7 months pregnant. But because OSMIA is a key income source for her and her now-growing family, she must still maintain her virtual world brand.

And so after many weeks of sporadic Internet service -- what with the sounds of gunfire, tanks, and explosions of a genocidal war happening all around her -- she was finally able to upload a new avatar fashion release, pretty clothes for glamorous, carefree avatars:

"Creepy Mark" Bot Becomes Top Seller in Original Metaverse of Second Life

After so many stories about Meta in the Metaverse, the inevitable finally occurred: Meet "Creepy Mark", a chatty bot with a suspiciously familiar appearance which you can buy to silently stalk you in the OG metaverse of Second Life.

I just got my own personal Creepy Mark, and now he won't leave my side, following my every move while promising not to abuse my personal data and so on.  (Watch above. He does seem to get confused with climbing hills!)

The smartass brainchild of Moon Bunny Inc & Subculture X, Creepy Mark was the brand's #1 top seller in animated objects in the first days it went on sale, and became a mini-viral hit, ironically enough, on Facebook.

"My business partner created him," Moon explains. "I have been known to complain about Facebook censorship and such, so am guessing that had a hand in inspiring it!"

I'll be impressed with Meta's Horizon Worlds when it has a Creepy Mark bot of its own. (And all the technical and community prerequisites needed to make that possible). But until then, he's available to creep on you in the metaverse before the metaverse was cool.

As for how Creepy Mark works, here's a brief summary from Scribzy, who scripted it:

OSMIA Under Occupation: Update From A Ukrainian Second Life Creator Hiding In a City That Russian Soldiers Now Control

The amazing thing about virtual worlds is that you make tangible connections with people from all over the real world. That also means, tragically, that the real world's troubles often fast follow behind.

Which brings us back to Hanna, creator of the beloved Second Life brand OSMIA, who also happens to be a Ukrainian. When I wrote about her a couple weeks ago, she was sheltering in place with her family in one of the major cities -- while over six months pregnant.

Hanna just sent me this photo of where she spends most of her time -- on a reinforced cot, as Russian soldiers patrol the streets outside. Her city is now under occupation by Putin's forces.

Russian Content Creators in Second Life, Now Sanctioned & Unable to Cash Out, Contemplate Bad Options in Both Realities

Though Linden Lab has not yet announced any plans to ban payments from Russian users on its virtual world platform of Second Life, the US and EU banking sanctions have already taken their toll on SL content creators in Russia -- especially those who depend on Second Life for their livelihood:

“After the blocking of PayPal,” as reader “Alex” explains in a recent comment, “all Russian creators were deprived of the opportunity to receive money from sales in SL. For many of them, working in SL is their main and only job.”

All this happens as Second Life users around the world create pro-Ukraine/anti-Russian images and the Second Life island of Moscow has been inundated by so many anti-invasion protesters, the owners resorted to posting a massive billboard in virtual Red Square, imploring visitors to refrain from activism (above). 

In group chats, Second Life content creators based in Russia are now privately discussing their options, but are reluctant to air them with the Second Life community at large: 

“[O]ut of sympathy and compassion for what is happening in Ukraine,” as Alex puts it, “Russian creators do not bring their problems into public discussion… Many [Russian SL] creators and their families are already left without a livelihood.”

Alex believes that some creators in the short term will continue creating in Second Life, even without a cash-out option, but “we will not be able to do this for a long time and will not be able to support our customers in the game as we have always done.”

Russian creator Akirakiyoi Resident (pictured) tells me a similar story. In a painful irony, he was among the many Russian Second Life users who rallied to support their brethren creators in Ukraine. 

Putin’s base of supporters in Russia, he tells me, are “elderly people who don’t know what Netflix for example or Second Life is. Younger generations playing games and drinking Starbucks are not the people who vote for him, or who support him.” 

Many of them not only play Second Life but in recent years, as Russia’s economy continued to falter, have turned to virtual world content creation into a career.

“Most of these creators don’t have a real job since SL was their full time and we expect a major crisis in the country with high unemployment rates,” says Akirakiyoi, who then adds: “But of course the first thing that needs to happen is this invasion to finally stop.”

Will Linden Lab Block Payments by Second Life Users in Russia, Like Epic & Other Game Companies Are Now Doing? UPDATE: Russian SLer Who Helped Lead Ukraine Community Support Replies

Image credit: Meriluu Lumoss' "Peace is the only battle worth waging" from the SL Stand with Ukraine Flickr group

Last Friday, Linden Lab announced temporary payment amnesty for the thousands of Second Life users based in Ukraine:

Effective Monday, we will be further supporting our eligible Ukrainian-based community members by granting them a temporary 30-day moratorium on recurring account fees such as Premium Membership and Land Maintenance fees.  We will review this again after 30 days and assess what we can do as next steps where necessary. We invite any of our Ukraine-based community members to contact support with any specific questions they may have.

It's a good starting point, though I suspect more might be done around this situation. Epic Games and Blizzard Activision, publishers of the metaverse platform Fortnite and the MMO World of Warcraft, respectively, are now blocking sales from Russian users:

There's Likely Thousands of Ukraine Citizens Who Use Second Life -- This Weekend, Consider Reaching Out To Them

I'd estimate there's roughly 3000 active Second Life users from Ukraine. According to data from SimilarWeb, .5% of visitors to SecondLife.com are from Ukraine.  And based on public data from Linden Lab and from what insiders tell me, there's roughly 600,000 active SL users. So simple math gets us to 3,000 Ukrainians, more or less -- not a huge part of the international Second Life community, but quite a decent number. Many of them are content creators on the platform -- here's a list of just some of them -- and many are active in the virtual world in other ways.

At the moment, however, most or nearly all of them are not looking at any digital depiction of a better world on their screen, But more likely, at a bare basement like this. That was a temporary shelter for Hanna, creator of the beloved SL fashion brand Osmia, when she fled her home with her husband earlier this week, even though she is over 6 months pregnant.

I've been trying to keep in touch with Hanna on social media as much as possible. Since writing about her on Wednesday, the updates have gone from grim to worse. She is now hiding out in a city under active Russian occupation: