Wagner James Au / New World Notes

Survey: How Often Do You See Second Life Content Promoted & Advertised Using AI-Enhanced Imagery?

June 5, 2024

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Here's a survey asking how much (or how little) generative AI programs like Midjourney and Leonardo AI have penetrated the Second Life economy. (Take with a mouse/trackpad for best results.) In the last couple years I've started seeing SL images heavily upgraded with gen AI, but I'm specifically referring to advertisements or product displays for SL content that are clearly leveraging that technology.

As an example of what I mean, check out the image below, widely shared across SL-themed social media), showing a fashion item as advertised on social media, and how it actually looks when worn in-world:

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Second Life’s Flickr Community Celebrates Pride Month in Dazzling Imagery

June 5, 2024

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

Laerka’s “Whatever Sprinkles Your Donut” made me laugh because its liberating message with donuts reminded me that ten years and one month before the Stonewall Riots commemorated in #Pride month, the purported first gay uprising took place at a donut shop in Los Angeles. Donuts were thrown! And like Stonewall, it was led by people who are trans and by drag queens. So, let's never forget the letter T in the liberation alphabet.

Speaking of which, the trans community is a crucial and thriving part of the Second Life community, as explored here, with customizable avatars offering people a chance to freely explore their gender identity and sexuality. No surprise that the Second Life Flickr community is posting a riot of images celebrating Pride month.

I love Elaine Lectar coming with all the Pride Pastries! Some say the Cooper’s Donuts Riot in LA never happened, but there are plenty of other uprisings before Stonewall and they usually involved food, such as the Compton Cafeteria and the Black Cat Tavern Riot that launched PRIDE, the acronym (Personal Rights in Defense and Education) and The Advocate magazine, the Black Nite melee in Milwaukee, the genteel sip-ins in Philadelphia and New York, and many more. Gay rights and food seem to go together.

For more virtual world PRIDE pics, click here:

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Will We Really Want to “Own” Virtual Worlds Created by Generative AI? Readverse or Not, We’re About to Find Out.

June 4, 2024

Here's a first look at Readyverse, the upcoming metaverse platform based on Ready Player One by Ernest Cline, with Cline himself helping guide development. What the teaser video actually depicts doesn't much resemble RP1 (neither the book or movie), beyond an avatar that resembles the lead character. What it does heavily focuses on is generative AI-based creation, with very little input by the user in the creation process of the world beyond text prompting.

Maybe there's more to the building than mere user prompts (little is explained on the website), but the trailer at least misses the intrinsic pleasure of user-generated building in an immersive 3D space in itself –, which on most platforms, is very easy (if difficult to master), something anyone with a mouse/videogame controller can do on a basic level. This also misses how the labor of the creation process confers a genuine feeling of ownership — almost in the classic Lockean sense of mixing one's labor with the earth.

That isn't a showoff philosophical reference, but what I've seen time and again in reporting across many metaverse platforms: People truly feel they "own" the digital space they created, because they put in the time, tears, and personal creativity to bring it into digital being.

Or to put it another way, from a classic comment by longtime reader Luther Weymann on the power of virtual world ownership:

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What Virtual Worlds Should Be Added to the Virtual Worlds Museum?

June 4, 2024

This GitHub page is a resource center for The Virtual Worlds Museum (a proud media partner with New World Notes!), an incredibly ambitious project to represent the entire history and present state of virtual worlds.

It's still very much a work in progress that's regularly updated, but there's already dozens upon dozens of worlds being tracked on the Museum's Github — everything from well-known hits like Roblox and Second Life, to a dizzying number that I'm barely familiar with. (BUD? Edorable? Stageverse?) See the screencap at right for just a small glimpse of what we're already tracking.

And we're still collecting more! If there's a virtual world not on this GitHub list, please send us the details — either directly on GitHub, in Comments below, or via the Virtual Worlds Museum contact page. We're interested in hearing both from fellow virtual worlds fans and virtual world developers who want to help us build this out, especially as the project expands!
Cajsa’s Choices: Fierce Female Avatar Portraits by Yo Roo

June 4, 2024

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

Yo Roo’s “I won’t scream and give them that satisfaction” is fierce. The sepia duotone suggests it may be an aged picture of some historic warrior queen who adorned herself with the bullets taken from the rifles of her fallen enemies. It’s just enough off-center, that it remains dynamic. She could move at any second. The title suggests she has been defeated, but her face says not in any way that matters.

Yoli kindly lists a few key items, noting why she chose them. Even the tears come from Second Life. One thing you also know from Yoli, there is no AI touching up.

For more from Yo Roo, click here:

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Tuesday Tool Tip: LSL Extension for Visual Studio Code

June 4, 2024

For the LSL scripter in your life, here's a LSL Language Server extension for Visual Studio Code. If that sounds obscure as Sanskrit, creator Jeremy Fairelander explains it simply thus: "My extension aims to provide professional-grade 'developer experience" features to make writing LSL code easier and more efficient."

Here's even more background, situating as another non-SL tool that's valuable for creating Second Life content:

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New on My Patreon: Flickr Not Targeting Second Life Users on Platform, Company Tells Me

June 3, 2024

New on my Patreon: I just received an official response from Flickr about the recent rash of reported suspensions among the Second Life community who share images on the platform. SLers are NOT being targeted, Flickr's Community Manager tells me — but there's some rules they need to be aware of:

Contrary to what some SLers have asserted, she tells me, there is no concerted effort by Flickr the company to target Second Life users on the platform. In fact, she notes that Flickr has actively promoted the SL community in recent years:

"[W]e celebrated Second Life's 20th-anniversary last year (and have celebrated SL on multiple other occasions) on our socials and through our blog/newsletter," she tells me by example, noting that they even created a special membership promo for the celebration. "My team is constantly planning initiatives focused on this and other active communities that engage on Flickr."

As for any increase in bans/suspensions, she tells me there is no heightened focus penalizing SL users on Flickr in particular…

Read the whole thing here as a free post for members of my Patreon.
Top 6 Posts Including: A New SL-Meets-GTA Metaverse Platform, How PBR Will Transform Second Life & A Look for AI-Caused Job Loss

June 3, 2024
Image featuring PBR by Terry Fotherington
Welcome Equimake: New Platform for Free, Real-Time Collaborative 3D Creation on Web, Now a New World Notes Partner!

May 31, 2024

Equimake is a seriously cool, free-to-use platform for collaborative real-time 3D creation on the web partly inspired by my book; starting next month, I'm proud to announce Equimake is a sponsoring media partner to New World Notes!

Created by Canadian developer Alexander Yevsyeyev, you can not only share, create, and script interactive 3D scenes with others, but Alex is rapidly adding features which enable more integration of content — for instance, you can embed images from Imgur or Flick into an Equimake scene. (Watch above.) And yes, Alex tells me he's hoping to add integration with Primfeed and other social media platforms.

"My passion is helping people and see them grow," as he puts it. He recently led a team of artists, programmers, and QA on a large project, and this experience helped shape what he hopes to do with this self-funded project.

"Equimake is aimed to help learners get better grip on technology, and try to tinker with 3D art and code and see what they like or dislike about it. For advanced users, I also plan to make Equimake fun and engaging where they can either teach others, share knowledge, or simply deploy their amazing art and code."

More details and project roadmap below. You can also ask Alex about Equimake features or updates in Comments or on Equimake's Discord.

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PBR Coming to Firestorm “In Weeks” — And It Will Make Second Life a Much More Game-Like Experience, Explains Firestorm Dev

May 30, 2024

Image featuring PBR by Terry Fotherington

After a much anticipation, the Firestorm viewer — by far the most-used Second Life viewer – will very soon going to add PBR:

Since Linden Lab released the PBR viewer last November, we have been working with them to identify, prioritise, and squash numerous bugs and usability issues. Our team called out the issues we felt were show-stoppers as part of that effort. That list can be found linked deeper in this post, but suffice to say that over the last 5-6 months, Linden Lab has been working on those bugs alongside their continued enhancements programme.

To get to the front of the crowd and try things early, join the Phoenix Firestorm Preview Group in-world and grab the download links from the notices there.

By soon, Firestorm development head Beq tells me, she means "weeks not months". Physically based rendering will greatly enhance the Second Life experience visual experience, giving it much more vivid lighting. (And yes, mirrors.)

Interestingly, Beq tells me the update will also make Second Life feel decidedly more like a AAA game:

"The mantra 'SL is not a game' has and I guess always will apply in the sense that SL itself has no progression, no score, no plot, but the underlying software is very much a game engine," she elaborates. "Modern game engines expect you to be focused on them, they own the system while you are playing, and the viewer is now a bit more like that than it ever was before."

That means Second Life will more immersive, but as Beq notes, that runs counter to how many power SLers experience the virtual world:

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