The Story of Second Life, 1999 - 2017, At The LEA

By Gemma Cleanslate

Hi all. I am on my way back from a health hiatus, slowly. I got a chance to get over to LEA 25 to visit the spectacular exhibit put together by گиіρєя (Sniper Siemens). If you love to reminisce about the early days of second life and all the fun of learning , visiting the Ivory Tower, camping, crashing, this is the place to go. If you just got here and would like to find out about the early days and the massive changes since the beginning, who is who and where , this is the place to go. 

The installation is fun and interesting. When I arrived, after greeting Philip Linden, I took the train car, which wound all around, showing you historical parts of Second Life and when and how they came to be.

 

 

The history of the Ivory Tower is there.  That is where anyone can go and learn about prims and what to do with them to build. It is still relevant today regardless of mesh. Do you know the first name for Second Life? Do you know what 'primatars are’? I always wonder who the first resident was....now I know. The very first years were fraught with problems including financial being the most but to see what came out of it all amazes me still.

 

Read about Mrs Chung, the first real life millionaire from Second Life holdings. She is still here today, as you know with numerous  holdings. 

I finally got the real story behind the closing of the casinos. I have heard so many! 

 

 

The closing of camping was one of the saddest recollections of my memory. I was a huge fan of camping... sitting around in shops  or in the woods of a sim that wanted to show traffic. I met some good friends doing that and made lindens for shopping. There are many road marks along the way

  
Burning Life and Burn 2 are displayed.. so many memories as I was a Ranger there for several years. I  looked at the earliest maps and ,wow, what a difference today

 The Greenies house is depicted. What a great place that was to visit and hang out. Imagine more than a huge house where you could skitter along the floor while the cat , about 500 times your size watched with interest. We fished in the kitchen sink for prizes and Greenie avatars.I still have several  and get to wear them once in a while. The humans living there never caught on about the mischievous Greenies.

You can see the origin of the Linden Bears, and the beginning of the Linden dollar. This place will keep you busy for a few visits.It was so enlightening as to how and where Second Life really got started and the determination to keep it going. I asked Sniper why she did this region . Her answer is “ This is an old idea. I was Mentor LL in 2006. I've always helped users in SL and this sim I think is helpful to everyone.” I agree! You have until June 23 to visit and enjoy.http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/LEA25/120/126/22

Gemma Cleanslate

Metamorphosis

By Becky "Sha" Shamen

Well folks, here we are again, now on our third art exhibit in a row. A notice was sent to the Newser staff, that a reporter was needed to cover an exhibit of M.C. Escher's work. I responded, immediately, that this was my baby. As a Graphic Artist and Engineer, I have been a fan of Maurits Cornelis Escher (1898-1972) all my life. I was 22 when he passed on, making him a contemporary artist and inspiration in my own works. It is very likely that I have been a fan of MCE since before the creators of this exhibit, Solkide Auer and Sniper Siemens were even born. This exhibit is found on the LEA 15 sim. I didn't need to even search for a LM, because it was right next door to the last exhibit I wrote about. Arriving at the landing point, I found myself in the lower level of a flying saucer shaped structure. There are a number of objects to explore at that level, before going up the stairs to the main exhibit.

    My first visit to a sim is always a short one, to get an idea of the layout, make a LM and get a first impression. I return a few more times, to get more insight and take pictures. On this first visit, I notice that on the first level objects have been placed to provide key information that will help make the exhibit better understood and enjoyed by visitors. The first thing they want you to know is that it took two artists to build the exhibit. Next, we see two signboards that show the proper settings for Firestorm and SL viewers, to get the intended lighting effects for the exhibit. Next we see an original MCE drawing, placed as it was originally drawn. In addition, there were a number of the objects, used in the exhibit. I also took a quick look around the upper level, before dashing off to another appointment. Later, before returning, I reported to the Editor that I would indeed write the article, but it would be a short one and I would have to add a bit of "spin" to make it sell.

When I returned, the first thing I did was adjust my graphics settings, hoping to get the spectacular lighting effects that I thought Solkide and Sniper had intended. Alas, the lighting didn't impress me. I thought perhaps there was a problem with the viewer I was using, so I switched from Firestorm to the SL viewer. After matching my settings to those on the signboard, the lighting was the same as in the previous viewer. While in the SL viewer, a notice popped up, saying it would upgrade the viewer on my next start, so I closed it and came back. This time, the upgrade had set the lighting back to default settings. I could now see the difference, with and without the correct settings. When I corrected the settings, I was back to the same lighting as I saw in the other viewers. It was not spectacular. If anything, it was very subtle. It would take a bit longer to understand why the artists placed so much importance on getting the settings right.

At the exhibit level, the lighting is what, in stage lighting, we call a "wash". Little ovals of soft white blurred lighting dotted the walls and ceiling, beyond the perimeter of the physical exhibit. A single spot of light illuminated the center of the floor. Aha! Perhaps they want the exhibit to be seen from the center. Using Alt+Ctrl+T, to see the invisible source of the center light, I moved to where the light was directly above my head and entered "Mouselook". Doing a complete 360 degree turn did not improve the picture, but it did produce a thought, in my mind. This exhibit is built in a circle, around me. As an artist, this thought was interpreted as art "in the round", a.k.a., 3D. Suddenly, the lighting made perfect sense. By being outside the exhibit, it enhanced the 3D perspective. At this point, the artists gained  in status. Their art had communicated the message that they wanted me to hear. They had converted MCE's 2D drawing into a 3D object and I, the viewer was now inside the creation. In my attempts to create Escher style art, these were the two things that were the greatest challenge, making it 3D and being inside the art.

 Now that I understood the main message, that of turning Escher's "Metamorphosis" into 3D art, my questions switched from what they were doing to how well they were doing it. I began to investigate the individual elements that went into building the exhibit.  It looks like it was made from hundreds of mesh objects, which were then assembled. None of the mesh objects had any name, other than "object". How hundreds of objects, no two alike, were made and assembled is something I have experienced with my PXL structures, so I know how difficult it can be. This pair of artists, compared to my skills, are master art engineers. If he were alive today, Escher would probably like their work and tell them, "Bedankt voor het compliment".

While I was in the middle of being in the middle of Metamorphosis, I got a group message from my friends at Sunweaver. After telling them I was at the Escher exhibit, Mamma Gil responded with, "I went to one, once, but damn it wore me out. I never did find the top of the stairs and just felt like I was going around and around in circles". While I was there, there was very little visitor traffic. If you go now, there's a good chance you'll be in the center of attention and the circle will go round and round YOU. In closing, it turns out this article was not short and did not require any additional hype. They did a great job. I  recommend that you go see this exhibit, even if Escher is new to you.

 

Have fun,

 

LEA15 (128/129/1998)

 

"Sha"

A Visit to Linden Endowment for the Arts 17

The Greatest Story Ever Told—The History of Second Life™ 1999-2015

By DrFran Babock

Perception is Everything

Over the years there have been numerous displays that covered the history of Second Life. It’s hard to deny that SL was and is something new and different and completely different. A lot of the past has been destroyed and built over, but the facts remain, and they chronology of this virtual can be laid out. What differs in each presentation that has been created is perspective and viewpoint. Different displays have focused on different aspects of the evolution. This is perfectly understandable. At the risk of getting too philosophical, it has to be said: The way in which a person sees things is clearly their truth and their reality.

Marianne McCann’s Second Life Tenth Anniversary (SL10B) build (http://slnewserpeople.blogspot.com/2013/06/sl10b-interview-marianne-mccann.html ) focused a lot on the early days. There is hardly anyone around who has a bigger collection of SL memorabilia than Marianne, nor anyone who can speak to it with as much eloquence.

That said, there is yet another display now that focuses on the history of Second Life™, and it opened February 8^th on the LEA 17 sim. It is the work of Sniper Siemens, who had attempted this challenging task once before on very short notice in LEA6 last year and was determined to try again.

I ran into Sniper, perched on an interesting armchair at the entrance to the installation, and she told me that she was very pleased with how this year’s version had turned out.

What about perception? Well, I found that a lot of the time, as I walked through this amazing installation, that I thought I might not have covered things the same way. Everyone loved the Greenies, but Sniper spent a lot of space covering them. It could have been that she had a lot of content from that time, but I can’t really know.

From 1995 to 2015

I loved the intelligent design of this exhibition. There is a definite path (a beautiful stone walkway that has outstanding specularity, created by Kriss Lehman of Botanical) that meanders from 1995 to 2015. The specularity is important, because it adds to the overall look of the build. As I wandered from year to year, the gleam on the ground and the trees that surrounded the paths created a sense of unity that was artistic at the same time that it decreased some of the confusion that often occurs when trying to get the sense of a large installation.

I won’t spend a lot of time covering the individual exhibits, because I just noticed that genius writer and blogger Canary Beck has discovered this gem of a build, and will focus on the history details and the quiz contained on the sim. (http://canarybeck.com/2015/02/08/take-the-second-life-history-quiz/ )

What I Noted

The installation is a knockout for those of us who love and appreciate the history of this virtual world. One thing of note: If you don’t like to read a lot when visiting, you will miss a lot. There are many signs with a lot of writing on them. I don’t know how to get around this, when there is a detailed story to tell, but I am not sure many will stop to read unless they want to complete the History Quiz.

The only other comment I have is that Sniper is a good builder. Her mesh seemed to add a lot to the build, especially when there is not a lot of 3D content about the early days. 

For anyone who has ever built a history build (as I did for SL10B and SLL11B) the big problem is always how to represent residents, because the human/furry, etc. form has a high land impact. Sniper’s solution was to use these bean type cartoon characters along the paths to represent the human aspect of SL. They added color, and another level of uniformity to the build, but they didn’t really seem to be part of SL history, so they struck an incongruent note to me.

What I Loved

It is clear that this build is a labor of love, and that Sniper poured her soul, and her time into its creation. I especially loved the Linden Lab San Francisco build, and the silliness around the Zindra build.

This build is a must for anyone who wants to learn about the history of Second Life™. Sniper had a vision for creating this history, and it is accessible and understandable.

The build focuses a lot on the financial aspects of the history, and for me, it provided a revelation. I never knew that the “haptics” equipment that is now becoming so popular with the current virtual reality craze, was actually the catalyst for Phillip Rosedale to create Second Life™. The Rig, as its called, supposedly still sits in boxes in Linden Lab.

There is a great display for those of you who don’t remember a time when Burning Life was very much a part of the culture. I have always thought, along with many others, that Phillip Rosedale was trying to create a virtual Burning Man when he first envisioned Second Life™.

The Greatest Story Ever Told—the History of Second Life™ 1999-2015 will run through the end of May of this year on LEA 17, allowing you plenty of time to learn about what came before, and what might come in the future.

LEA 17: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/LEA17/26/237/22

DrFran Babcock