Raul Crimson’s experiences in Second Life®
Second Life® and surroundings
Holiday Jam
Dec 24th
Some weeks ago Chou Skinstad and Kali Marville asked me to collaborate with them in a project they had for a Xmas special issue of Uncover, of course i didn’t knew what was about exactly, but knowing them i said: “ZOMG yesh!”, i knew the result would be great… and it is!
Chou and Kali joined together a crazy group of residents to help them making this (in magazine from page 34 to page 105) and some really funny letter to Santa too. As always the magazine edition is really good and i’m sure this is the best gift we can receive: fun moments, smiles, etc…
Thanks to Chou and Kali for letting me be in it, to the Uncover team for making every month a so good magazine, to the rest of the people in the project for making it so fun… and to you all… Merry Christmas!!!
Patron by Eliza Wierwight
Dec 20th
Patron (SLurl) in the personal project of Eliza Wierwight, a beautiful place to visit, a mix of an art gallery, a furniture store and something else.
Not only the place is beautiful, moreover it has personality, surely the personality of Eliza. Personally i really like Eliza, she is a really interesting woman, creative, and with a wicked sense of humour (yes, and beautiful).
Some time ago Eliza asked me to participate in a show in Patron, with no special theme, just the pictures i like the best of my own. Since i don’t use to sell my images, except for good reasons, we decided to give 100% of the sales to Amnesty International-E to help them in their projects.
She must be quite proud, since right now Patron is in the SL Showcase (as The Patron in the Arts section). And Patron deserves that for sure.
I wanted to ask Eliza about what’s Patron for her, she said:
Patron is my creative heart and home Inworld after finally settling into my own design style. It’s the environment I HAD to create , it’s the build I HAD to endure as my insatiable desire to express myself in my own time , on my own terms, evolved. Patron found it’s own momentum unraveled beautifully before me almost instinctively. To keep that momentum over 5 months was exhausting , I don’t regret a single minute though.
One thing I’ve learned about creation Inworld in the last year thanks to the experience of creating Patron and her surrounding enviroment and contents, is to stay true to yourself, your passions. Patron is Eliza, Eliza is Patron. So many stories, people , friends, lovers , revelations and histories of mine all united.
If I’ve learned anything of the experience and the joy I’ve had in sharing her and including the Art and creations of the smexy talented people whose creations & Art that I’m honored also to represent at Patron, is to never deviate from your own dreams. Patron continues to evolve, I never want to see her stuck in a time warp of ambivalence. I want her to reflect my personal best as I continue to learn and grow as a Creator. When I find time to sit back, when I see Patron and especially the contributing works of those I respect and adore gracing her, I just kind of resonate with charmingly smug happiness and guess what, it’s contagious ~winks~
The end !
One thing I’ve learned about creation Inworld in the last year thanks to the experience of creating Patron and her surrounding enviroment and contents, is to stay true to yourself, your passions. Patron is Eliza, Eliza is Patron. So many stories, people , friends, lovers , experiences and history of mine all united.
If I’ve learned anything of the experience and the joy I’ve had in sharing her and including the Art and creations of the smexy talented people whose creations & Art that I’m honored also to represent at Patron, is to never deviate from your own dreams. Patron continues to evolve, I never want to see her stuck in a time warp of ambivalence. I want her to reflect my personal best as I continue to learn and grow as a Creator. When I find time to sit back, when I see Patron and especially the contributing works of those I respect and adore gracing her, I just kind of resonate with charmingly smug happiness and guess what, it’s contagious ~winks~
The end !
Images by Eliza Wierwight published under a Creative Commons license.
JAZZLIVE in Second Life
Nov 9th
Some time ago my friend Arahan Claveau told me about a project he was working on, some like a cross-reality event, about Jazz. Finally he sent me some information about the project… and i think is really interesting! Let me paste some of the info:
The real and the virtual interact as digital artwork on a monumental scale provides a stunning virtual landscape while real-world jazz gigs, broadcast live from a small London club, are injected into the cyberspace. …
… JAZZLIVE at the Crypt presents a short season of jazz concerts celebrating the wealth of talent in the UK jazz scene. The concerts will be broadcast live from the Crypt into a virtual venue in the virtual world Second Life. …
… Those attending the concerts in the Second Life venue will also be exposed to great artwork commissioned especially for the events by some of the virtual world’s most respected artists DanCoyote Antonelli, Oberon Onmura and Juria Yoshikawa. Those attending The Crypt will also experience the art show, as it will be viewable on big screens in the venue. This two-way interaction is an essential element in the project. …
… Also to be screened are excerpts from a forthcoming film about JAZZLIVE by multimedia artist Steve Millar (also known as Arahan Claveau in SL). …
So if you like Jazz and Second Life don’t miss the next fridays at 08:00 PM in London, in The Crypt (RL side) or at noon SLT in Second Life, in the Jazzlive sim (SLurl). Or why not… in both sides at the same time! 
Find more information about this project in the “JAZZLIVE in Second Life” webpage.
The Corn Field is opened… and other Halloween stories
Oct 28th
So here i am, Dr. Frank-N-Furter (my Halloween costume for this year ), exploring the dangerous sim… the darkest prison in Second Life, opened to the public for the first time… THE CORN FIELD *tchan tchan tchaaaaaaaaaan (thriller music here)*.
This Halloween Linden Lab decided to open to the public, for the first time, The Corn Field. And… what’s The Corn Field? Well, according to the SLwiki is:
The Corn Field is a region of mythological status where once naughty avatars were sent to think about what they had done. “The corn field” is a vast star-lit field of corn and was cut off from communication with the rest of the world (a reference to the classic Twilight Zone episode, “It’s a Good Life”).
It is located at the North-West tip of Orientation Island 1 and closed to the public. Perhaps one day the prison will be open for viewing?
So… ZOMG!!! It was the prison of Second Life!!! I should confess i always wanted to visit it… some like a “forbidden place”, and finally i’m there!!! 
Anyway, once the Halloween ends they should keep it opened and close in there all the copybotters in SL… so they will have nothing to copy.. but corn Oh, if you want to visit, here you are a SLurl.
The other place in the grid dedicated to Halloween specially this time is… The Channel Island Asylum!!!
This building, integrated in Bay City, is opened to public always. Is, under my point of view, one of the best works of the LDPW (Linden Department of Public Works). An abandoned asylum in an island, full of weird sounds and some surprises… but this time is even worse, totally ready for Halloween. This is the SLurl.
Happy Halloween!!!!!
Find more information in this post in the Second Life Blogs.
3rd Party Viewers… wants the Lab to take the control back?
Oct 24th
Before i start writing i should say i’m an Emerald Viewer user and i’m a user for many reasons, some of them are:
- Client built AO
- Radar
- Temporary texture uploads (possible the best feature)
- Clothing-layer protection
- Animations window (with individual control over them)
- Lots of precharged Windlight presets
- Easy access to some graphic settings: Windlight preset, Drawing distance, number of particles…
- Lot of options on UI (user interface) skins
- Auto response choices
- Avatar physics
Also some people with more technical knowledge than me say the viewer doesn’t consume so much memory as the “official” one.
All this features are not included in the “official” Linden Lab’s Second Life viewer and possibly some are also in some other 3rd party viewers. I can’t talk about them basically becuase i didn’t tried them, well, i tried Imprudence, and it works pretty good, but personally i prefer to use Emerald for all these features and also i don’t like much the type of letters in Imprudence, but that’s only an aesthetical preference.
Anyway, if you want to know the 3rd Party Viewers, please, check the page about them in the Second Life Wiki.
But some days ago Cyn Linden posted something in the Second Life blog about some changed in the policy of Linden Lab towards 3rd party viewers, let me paste some of the text (anyway, of course, is better you follow the link and read it fully):
There are currently many third parties who create and distribute viewers. Most of these viewers are useful because they are innovative and many enable a more customized Second Life experience for those who use them; however, it appears that some of those third party viewers also contain functionality that is being used to copy content without the right to do so, facilitate griefing, enable phishing, collect user data without clear disclosure of such practices, and distribute software that contains harmful elements.
We will create new guidelines and policies outlining the standards that third party viewers must meet in order to connect to our platform, as well as tools and programs to help the developers of third party viewers and the wider community learn about and comply with those guideline. One of the tools will be a “viewer registry” that will allow developers to list their viewer in a third party viewer directory maintained by Linden Lab, identify the features of their viewer, and represent to the Second Life community that it complies with Linden Lab’s guidelines for third party viewers.
At the same time Cyn invited the community to join a discussion about the new policy. And then the tension began…
Actually the discussion has some interesting and constructive messages, but some of them are only rumours, half lies, or Prokofy Neva’s comments… I think Linden Lab wanted to do some work against some viewers that are working out or against the TOS, or the ones who jump over the Owner and Creator permissions and restrictions. But what was a discussion about this became a discussion about what features are acceptable or not and even about Open source itself. Some comments were specially about Emerald Viewer, not sure if is becuase that’s one of the “leader” 3rd party viewers or for some personal reasons. There were some comments about IM encryption and about the “famous” Breasts Physics on female avatars (both features of Emerald). Finally Linden Lab updated their post with some comments to clarify (more or less) their position and the team of Emerald Viewer decided to publish an oficial answer.
About the question in the title, does Linden Lab want to take the control back over viewers? i think the answer is NO, but YES. I mean, i can agree some control is needed, specially regarding if a viewer can “ignore” or “to be ahead of” the permissions of copy, modify, transfer, but at the same time i agree that can’t limit the development of 3rd Party Viewers meanwhile they are respecting the TOS and the IP rights. Personally i agree basically with the team of Emerald Viewer in their answer.
Possibly some can agree with what i just said, possibly some not. Anyway, read and have your own opinion. Sometimes i think i should end all the posts with this sentence.
Orange Island is closing… that’s bad news
Sep 27th
Next Tuesday, September 29th, Orange Island, one of the best community projects supported by a corporation ever made in Second Life will be closing (find more info in their blog).
The team, Fab Outlander, Eric Arkright, Sarn Aska, Nick Rhodes, Yesterday Demain, Natty Fogarty and Jade Lily, did a wonderful work in the last two years in really interesting projects of sharing techniques, promoting creation and in education projects.
I worked with that team in some projects in Orange Island, and i’m really sad about this closing. When most of the corporations only organized marketing projects Orange Island Team brought a lot to the comunity of Second Life Residents. Massively also posted about this closing.
There will be a closing party next Tuesday, September 29th, at 11:00 AM SLT on Orange Island’s Lower Plaza Auditorium, and i hope to see you there.
I’d like to finish this post saying thank you, thanks to this team of people for all the moments, the shows and the experiences i had thanks to their work.
Photography by Ravenelle, published under a Creative Commons license.
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