"This is one of the biggest events in the Japanese SL community," she tells me. "The market finishes soon, but their interactive horror story events will start from August. It is usually like a haunted mansion with a story."
Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting
This recent post titled 木{Wood) from Ren Matsura’s blog LETCIRREN made me think of “North By Northwest” for obvious reasons. I love the storytelling element. I don’t know if a crop duster is chasing them. I hope they get away.
Ren’s photos are editorial. They are creating a mood or essence to make you want to wear the clothing. They are not catalog shots that carefully illustrate the design and details. I think smart creators choose bloggers of both types. They will catch those of us who browse to shop from two angles.
While the SL community's opinion over the world's new corporate owners is decidedly mixed, I put a lot of stock in the analysis of Gizem McDuff, owner and founder of Blueberry — which has been, since its founding in 2012, one of the most successful and popular virtual style brands in SL. As such, Mishi has some of the best insights on SL's economic operations and Linden Lab's relationship to it:
I see a lot of speculation and fear over Linden Lab's acquisition.
First, Lindens want you to know that nobody is even considering touching the adult content on SL. The new future board members are very aware that SL comes with adult content and they are just fine with it. They do not want to mess with anything that's working. That includes adult content. It would be cool to give them a warm welcome when they are officially on the board.
Let me explore two chief concerns with y'all.
1: SL will be dismantled and shut down.
2: SL will be milked for what it's worth and shut down.
Mishi goes on to break down these scenarios in-depth:
Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting
Nayra Collas’ photostream is alive with wonder and fantasy. In “Some people love power, others have the power to love,” she situates her avatar in a fantastical setting where even the flowers seem to be paying attention while a bird rests between her hands. The lighting is beautiful as well.
Here's the results of our not-super-scientific survey asking SLers how they feel about the future of Second Life under its new corporate ownership. With 212 respondents (a quite large sample size), the plurality chose "Pessimistic" as their attitude, while 1 in 3 chose "Optimistic". Meanwhile, 1 in 4 say it doesn't change their opinion either way.
As with surveys like this, there's alternate ways to read these results:
Since High Fidelity launched its 3D audio-powered virtual world in May, it has seen a steady increase of groups using it to host various events and conferences, especially those that can no longer be held in the real world due to the ongoing pandemic.
The most prominent so far is probably this one: The Mandela Mile, an annual event honoring the birthday of both former United Nations head of Kofi Annon and the legendary activist/politician Nelson Mandela, whose birthday is July 18. Featuring appearances by a number of top international pop stars like Yemi Alade and Teniola Apata, the event's Step Up! Afterparty 24 runs from 3pm-5pm Pacific on July 17 — click here for more info and RSVP for a free ticket.
Mandela Mile's event producer for the Step Up After Party in High Fidelity is a firm called Analytic Events, which happened to discover Philip Rosedale's new world in a uniquely cool way:
You've heard about Stömol, the much-anticipated, upcoming feature-length machinima shot entirely in Second Life starring a cast of avatar all-stars fronted by Huckleberry Hax, the writer, director, producer, and leading man. (Making Hax, I guess, the Orson Welles of Second Life?) Now special to New World Notes readers, Mr. Max is giving away two free tickets for the premiere on July 23 at 3PM SLT.
Here's how to enter for a chance to win them, instructions straight from Hax's keyboard:
Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting
If you recall the days of Polaroids when you snapped your picture, watching the camera spit it out, and then waited for it to develop. Some people would wave it back and forth in the air, certain their technique would speed the development. Bad Racine’s photostream makes me think of that. “What’s in your mind…Tell me” is such a caught in the moment, slice-of-life picture I can’t resist featuring it. But then, her entire stream is caught in the moment.
More of Racine’s slice of life pictures after the break.
Hyperbolica is an indie adventure game coming out later this year on Steam and its rudimentary graphics hide an amazing innovation: The game world is set in hyperbolic, non-euclidean space. In other words — and please correct me, math-minded readers, if I'm not explaining this correctly — it does not take place on a virtual world that resembles our everyday reality, which only seems to be a flat plane, but on a virtual world that's perceptually spherical. More here:
Hyperbolic space allows exponentially more volume to fit in the same 'space' than you'd normally expect. This allows you to explore enormous areas while taking very little time to walk anywhere. You'll find that building a mental map of your surroundings becomes impossible. Lines can no longer be parallel. Traversing the map can result in unexpected rotations. And many more strange consequences that will make you question reality. You'll also explore spherical space, which has the opposite outcomes. For example, a reverse-perspective: Objects appear larger the farther away they are.
After Hyperbolica is published, Kevin tells me he plans to open source the Hyperbolica engine so that other game developers can play around and built with it.
And maybe that's the best way of explaining why this is meaningful: It'll make it way easier to make all kinds of games that are even more mind-bending than Portal.
Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting
I recently discovered Nick Rhodes’ photostream. It’s relatively new, started in 2018 by an avatar that has been around a long time. In fact, he is the first Frenchman in Second Life and was first featured in New World Notes in 2004. [A tale of broken romance! – ed.] This picture appealed to me because it is so atmospheric. Does he not look filled with terror? What does he see out of the corner of his eye? What is outside that window?
After the cut, he shows you what they do in France.
