Wagner James Au / New World Notes

Cajsa’s Choices: Isla Nebula Creates & Photographs Magnificently Composed SL Landscapes

December 3, 2024

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

Isla Nebula is a marvelous landscape photographer who has been sharing her art on Flickr for four years and I failed to discover her before today. I am remiss!

Speaking of which, here’s a tip on how I find new SL artists on Flickr to cover: By searching for a word and “secondlife.” Today the word was “winter” and look what came up (above)! This is a magnificently retro scene with the wood-panelled station wagon carrying a tree from the Christmas Tree farm. That looks like an old-fashioned VW bug as well. I love how she used the trees and bushes to foreground the picture and the story it tells. If Currier & Ives were alive today, they would be taking pictures like this in Second Life.

For more of Isla’s landscapes , click here:

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Here’s How AI Bots Could Help Improve Second Life’s New User Experience (Comment of the Week)

December 2, 2024

In our latest post about improving Second Life's first-time user experience, longtime reader/retired tech exec Luther Weymann details how AI might help with that:

AI bots are assigned to each new user. Read the IP address; if the new user is using it for the first time, they cannot disconnect the AI bot until it finishes. If the IP is a repeat user, allow disconnect.

The AI bot takes the new user through most processes, including how to rez, change clothes in a sandbox, tour important SL sites, and click a dance ball and dance. How to Add or Wear, how voice and text work, just a great list of things to know.

It takes 30 minutes, maybe longer if it's fun, entertaining, and you're getting a great intro to SL.

He contrast that with the current first-time user experience, which involves reading many in-world signs:

Reading signs on a walkway has never worked. I've tried for 16 years to help Day 1 people. Almost none of them know how to rez, that free clothes are on the SL Market, what a rez zone or sandbox is, how to change clothes, or what a dance ball is where you can join a group dancing.

You guys at SL have to overcome this. Lead them by the hand and see if concurrency increases.

This all sounds right. I think the key thing is differentiating the AI bot from a human-controlled avatar. I would actually recommend making the bot part of the viewer, a disembodied voice which can also enable relevant controls in the user experience to light up, when giving tutorials.

I've even recommend making the bot a character in a Second Life world narrative.

For an idea of what I mean, check out this first-time experience from Scavengers, a recent multiplayer game with a lead designer who once worked at Linden Lab:

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Top 4 Posts Including a New Coffee Table Book on Second Life & Other Virtual World Gift Ideas

December 2, 2024
Now Available: Second Life’s First Illustrated Coffee Table Book!

November 29, 2024

SECOND LIFE: The First, Best Metaverse in Words and Pictures is a new book from metaverse media partner Hari Sutherland, a professional author IRL with several published books, both fiction and nonfiction. His new book, as the title suggests, is devoted to Second Life, and I’m thrilled to recommend it, both for longtime SL veterans and the uninitiated wondering why this unique and quirky virtual world has thrived for so long.

It's also the very first paper and ink coffee table book fully focused on Second Life — that I can recall, at least! — and it’s sumptuously illustrated and narrated by Hari. A beautiful tribute to the virtual world, both the platform and the global community who've come together to build it, it also features moving stories of the many people who've transform themselves for the better through their avatars.

"As is often the case, a number of things — thoughts, ideas — collided," Hari tells me, explaining the source of its inspiration. "Serendipity, really, or perhaps an honest-to-goodness zeitgeist. A lot of exciting things seem to be happening around Second Life right now."

More below, including a look at the hardcopy:

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Join My Patreon for Special Holiday Offer from Aardvark: Get 55% Off All SL Mainstore Items Until December 3!

November 27, 2024

Join my Patreon for free for some fun holiday shopping specials! Starting with a Patreon-only special from Aardvark, home of hilariously charming SL items like his legendary rideable unicorn balloon and mini-pig unicorn (pictured, adorably).

55% off all items in the Aardvark mainstore until December 3.

Sign up and go here for the details, and stay tuned for other shopping Patreon specials.

And don't forget you can also gift people subscription to my Patreon: Go here to do that (please)!
Can AI Review Second Life Images Better Than Cajsa? To Find Out, We Got Claude to Describe the Images She Selected Here!

November 27, 2024

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

Pan Aeon is a wonderful storyteller with his pictures. I interviewed him back in 2018 and, oddly enough, that article began with a motorcycle, too. I thought revisiting his work might be a fun chance to try out AI writing.

So as an experiment, I gave Claude the text of that 2018 interview and described Pan’s pictures to Claude. (The LLM does not access links or pictures, so it relies on my description.)

Let’s see what Claude has to say about this picture:

In Pan's evocative photograph "Badlands", we witness a profound meditation on movement, solitude, and the liminal spaces between reality and imagination. The image captures a moment of existential freedom – a lone rider against a sepia-toned landscape, where the motorcycle becomes both a vehicle of physical transportation and metaphorical transformation.

The duotone palette speaks to a deliberate artistic choice, stripping away chromatic distractions to focus on texture, light, and emotional resonance. The sun's harsh glare over the rider's shoulder creates a stark contrast, symbolizing both illumination and potential blinding – a visual metaphor for the complex journey of self-discovery through digital landscapes.

This photograph emerges as another example of Pan's philosophy of allowing images to "evolve unto themselves" – a spontaneous capture that transcends mere documentation to become a nuanced exploration of identity and transition. The cityscape in the background suggests the tension between structured urban existence and the wild, uncharted territories of personal exploration.

Wow, profound. For more from Pan (and Claude), click here:

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Kat Verde-Dillingham Completely Transforms SL Screenshots in Incredibly Exciting Ways

November 26, 2024

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

Kat Verde-Dillingham transformed her screenshot from Bryn Oh’s most recent exhibition into something so brilliantly different that it tells a completely different story. For reference, I popped in and took a WYSIWYG snapshot using Bryn Oh’s experience. There is such exuberant joy in Kat’s version. The way she filled the elements with patterns reminds me of Gustav Klimpt — a very merry Gustav Klimpt. I love this picture. It’s one I would happily hang on my walls.

Here's the original:

For more of Kat’s wonderfully unique art, click here:

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Give New SL Users Their Own Private Second Life Instance or Noob Continent (Comment of the Week)

November 25, 2024

Interesting comment thread on Second Life's nooby-booting problem. (I.E., that many of the best Second Life hangouts and locations have orbiters banning new users with accounts under 30 days old.) My suggestion is to add a VRChat-style trust system, which is just one (imperfect) way to help address this challenge; I also like this one from longtime reader Martin K:

What about putting new users in their own private instance of a world instead of banning them? In this way, new users could at least visit and explore a world on their own. Visiting private instances of a world has the added benefit of protecting new users from the toxicity of other users in many worlds.

Their own private Second Life! I imagine you'd want select veteran SLers to also be able to access the private instance, as greeters, tutors, and event staff. But something like this has promise.

I've been thinking about a variation of this:

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Top 5 Posts Including an SL Social Media Shift to Bluesky, Debunking Affleck’s AI Opinion & an Ambitious New User-Made VRChat Game

November 25, 2024
Seven Spectacular Second Life Sims to See — Before It’s Too Late!

November 22, 2024

Originally published on my Patreon

I started writing this post as a fun casual guide for exploring Second Life sims I’ve admired and written about in recent years. But as I quickly discovered, many of my favorite, popular places featured in my long-running New World SLurl series have since changed hands. A surfing spot had been converted into castles; a seaside cyberpunk city had been turned into an island vacation home, and so on.

But Second Life goes on. After a furious round of teleporting in August to make sure these places were still in-world, here’s seven sims to see, explore, and photograph now — while you still can!

Forks [above]: Click SLurl to teleport here

A rolling rural scene with hills and meadows that could evoke paintings like Wyeth’s “Christina’s World”, a note on the sim info window notes that it might be going away soon!

Six more below:

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Forks [above]: Click SLurl to teleport here