In Lula Once More

Inspired by the image in the jigsaw from yesterday, which I took from Honour MacMillan’s wonderful photoblog: Honour’s Post Menopausal (View of Second Life), I popped across to Lula to see if it was really as pretty as it seemed in her blog.

And you know what?

It really was.

As I hope my own picture today proves!

I’ve been popping around other places too … the Home and Garden Expo and the SL10B Community Celebrations regions.  Both are not ready to be photographed yet – but starting to look very exciting!  More on that soon.

In the mean-time, let’s do a jigsaw!

Once More in Lula

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Catch up with your Prim Perfect jigsaws (showing images of Second Life and other virtual worlds).

If you’d like to submit a photo of your own to feature as a jigsaw, send it to the Prim Perfect Flickr Group. It should be sized 800w x 600h, or else it will need to be re-sized.

Cinders and Rosamoo discuss some great Hunt prizes!

Join us in the treet.tv studios in Garden of Dreams at 3pm, Friday 17th May, with our host Cinders Vale and hunt reporter Rosamoo Mendelsohn of Hunt SL for another great show – featuring not one but TWO interviews with hunt organisers (and details of some wonderful new hunt goodies you can grab!).

Big Day Hunt logo

Cinders will be talking to Nomiki Tremmor of The Big Day Hunt who will be telling us all about her her special wedding day themed hunt – and it’s not just for brides and grooms either, but offers a selection of things for participants and guests too!

Then Heavenly Villa will be telling Cinders all about plans for the Home and Garden Expo which will be featuring a Hunt created by those wonderful people at Whiz. Our next show will be coming from the event, but here’s a taster here right now!

Plus there will be news from Rosamoo of exciting hunts that lie ahead!

So join us at 3pm today in the studio for the broadcast. Bring along your hunter friends too. We will be glad to have you all join us for the show.

Cinders talks to Heavenly Villa

Or – if you can’t attend in person – tune in at 3pm SLT on Friday for the live show on http://treet.tv/live or on the Vimeo channel – or catch it later in the week on our shows page on the Treet.tv web site at http://treet.tv/shows/happy-hunting.

Lula

Here is another image from our deputy editor, Honour MacMillan – taken from her wonderful photoblog: Honour’s Post Menopausal (View of Second Life).

In this recent post, she muses over early mornings (and guilt) while exploring Lula, a really beautiful region where she perfectly captures the soft early morning light.

Do go and read … and visit … but first, let’s do a jigsaw.

Lula, photographed by Honour McMillan

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Catch up with your Prim Perfect jigsaws (showing images of Second Life and other virtual worlds).

If you’d like to submit a photo of your own to feature as a jigsaw, send it to the Prim Perfect Flickr Group. It should be sized 800w x 600h, or else it will need to be re-sized.

SL10B Community Celebration logo

There are just a few short days left to be part of the team at Second Life 10th Birthday Community Celebrations!

Applications for Exhibitors, Performers, slots in the Auditorium and for Volunteers will be closing at midnight on May 20th.

All applications will be carefully considered, and acceptances will be sent out in the week starting May 20th. But don’t worry if you don’t hear immediately – it will take the whole week to let everyone know.

How can you be part of the team at the Second Life 10th Birthday Community Celebrations?
There’s still time to apply to have a plot as an exhibitor. You need a good idea of what you are proposing to build – it should be community-orientated and celebratory. The clearer the information you can give, the easier it will be to assess your application. Look at the guidelines in Event Policies, and then tell us all about it.

If you want to exhibit something:
Art installation
Informative exhibition
Community group
Instructional
Media (writing, machinima, photography, etc.)
You need an EXHIBITOR APPLICATION

*******************************************************

If you want to perform, or to give a presentation or host a talk in the auditorium, make sure you fill out the form giving not only details of the event, but also the times that would suit you best.

If you want to present something:
Talk on a topic
Run a workshop
Teach a class
Do performance art
Put on a media event
You need an AUDITORIUM APPLICATION

*****************************************

If you want to be involved in the musical celebration as a:
Live Performer
DJ
You need a PERFORMER APPLICATION

*****************************************************************

If you want to help as a volunteer, but aren’t sure what role would suit you best, there’s a page of Role Descriptions too. Full training will be given to volunteers, and it’s a great chance to work with an amazing team of people.

If you want to help out with any aspect of the celebration, such as:
Greeter/Host
Moderator
Exhibitor Assistant
Stage Manager
Public Relations
Press
You need a VOLUNTEER APPLICATION

***********************************************************************

But remember – you only have a few days left.

On May 20th, at midnight – Applications close.

So make sure you get yours in before the deadline!

Designing Worlds studio

Join us at 2pm SLT today, Tuesday 14th May, for a special live recording of Designing Worlds at our studio in Garden of Dreams, as we are joined by Chantal Harvey, the weel-know machinamatographer and Tony Dyson, the designer who created R2D2, who will be joining us to talk about their fascinating new project – the Bobbekins – which utilises Second Life as a part of a wider project to create interactive electronic materials for children.

Bobbekins eBook

Chantal and Tony will be talking not only about their project (currently online as an Indiegogo project), but also about their work and careers.

And there will be the opportunity for our audience to ask them questions too!

As this is a recording of a show to be shown at a later date, we will be starting the filming at 1pm, and you will not be able to see all the inserts we will be discussing (although we will supply web addresses so the audience can take a look!). But it will be a chance to find out more about Tony, Chantal and their fascinating project!

So do come and join in the recording at 1pm!

Talking about Server Side Baking and Materials

Join us at 2pm SLT today, Monday 13th May, for the new episode of Designing Worlds at our studio in Garden of Dreams, as we are joined by Oz, Brooke, Troy and Nyx Linden to discuss the issues of Server Side Baking and materials.

If you’re wondering what these are and how they might affect your Second Life, this show should explain it.

But – as server side baking means earlier viewers will no longer work properly, it is essential that every user of Second Life should be prepared for the changes.

Nyx, Troy, Oz and Brooke Linden explain the changes coming

Server side baking is a whole new way of solving the problem of avatars (and system clothing) that fails to load properly, by moving this from the viewer side client to the server side. It will need significant changes to the client viewers (like Linden Lab’s own viewer, and also third party viewers like Firestorm and Exodus). Nyx and Troy Linden will be talking about this and explaining what Second Life users should expect.

Katana, created by June Dion of Bare Rose, demonstrating materials

Then Oz and Brooke Linden will be explaining about materials, normal and specular maps, what this is and what it will mean for our Second Life experience. And there will be samples to see too – when Oz and Brooke took us to see the work in progress at Hippotopolis. You can go there and check this out for yourselves but if you want to see the items properly displayed, you’ll need to download the special Materials Viewer (it doesn’t overwrite the main Linden Lab viewer).

A simple cube takes on depth and texture under changing light

Materials are going to mean a richer Second Life experience, and creators are going to be very excited about the possibilities, we suspect! But don’t take our word for it – come and watch the show at 2pm!

Or – if you can’t attend in person – tune in at 2pm SLT on Monday for the live show on http://treet.tv/live – or catch it later in the week on our shows page on the Treet.tv web site at http://treet.tv/shows/designingworlds – our very own version of the iPlayer!

Join us as we explore the effects of specular mapping

Back in the days of The Primgraph, we regularly featured the web comic The Quest for the Golden Prim. When the magazine closed, so too did the comic – it had completed its first volume, and had just started on a second.

Now, two years later, it’s back – and in an exciting new web format – complete with games that relate to each episode.

We launched it at Fantasy Faire – and now you can see the first two episodes of Volume 2 – here (Part 1 – After the Volcano)  and here (Part 2 – Still No Word of their Ship?) – and also look at the Games that go with them.

The opening of episode 2

You can also catch up on the Archived Chapters of Volume 1 here.

And another episode will be out tomorrow.

(And why does Lady Copperhead see Ralph Montcalm’s face in the mirror?)

Evensong Woods

Evensong Woods was, in some ways , one of the more conventional fantasy regions at the 2013 and perhaps for that reason did tend to be a little overlooked in reports, which is a shame, because it was beautifully conceived and built by Searlait Nitschke of Roawenwood, which specialises in fantasy, furniture, landscaping, clothing, and role-play accessories.

Elves in trees seems almost expected now – a vision that predates Tolkien, but is perhaps most powerfully realised in Lothlorien. The fact that we now expect elves to have tree homes is certainly a testimony to that – other writers might have placed fairies in trees (as in Barrie’s Peter Pan) but the elves usually occupied a separate kingdom – lying at the end of the bonny, bonny way that Thomas the Rhymer took – a route followed not only by innumerable ballads but also by writers as diverse as William Morris and Terry Pratchett.

Yet it was very appropriate at an event that drew together so many different genres of fantasy that Evensong Woods should be there, with its trees and carvings, and beautifully realised and Searlait has written a very beautiful post about it here, which I would urge you all to read.

Evensong Woods, photograph by Wildstar Beaumont

Remember, there is still time to enter the short story contest that Prim Perfect is sponsoring in conjunction with Fantasy Faire!

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Catch up with your Prim Perfect jigsaws (showing images of Second Life and other virtual worlds).

If you’d like to submit a photo of your own to feature as a jigsaw, send it to the Prim Perfect Flickr Group. It should be sized 800w x 600h, or else it will need to be re-sized.

Now available on the web – our latest episode, the second of our two visits to the amazing Fantasy Faire.

Saffia talked to designers Kayle Matzerath and Marcus Inkpen about the regions that they created, while Elrik learned about the amazing Fantasy Faire radio (and its rather unusual studio) from Zander Greene, and then had an escorted tour of the famed (notorious?) Explorers’ Club (Oriental Branch) by Martini Discovalante.

Lotus Valley Dream, photograph by Wildstar Beaumont

And then there are more regions to explore before we said farewell to Fantasy Faire … for this year.

Arcachon Harbour – would you like to see it again?

Do you have a favourite Designing Worlds show? Or even a favourite moment on one of our shows?

As we come up to our 200 episode (yes – that’s coming up very shortly!) we are planning a show of clips from our favourite shows … but what was YOUR favourite moment?

Will the dark secrets of Venexia be your choice?

Maybe it’s a moment from one of our Babbage shows …. maybe from one of the Fantasy Faires. Maybe its one of our encounters with the future in Insilico or Araxes. Perhaps its one of our visits to an educational project – for example, the medical centre at Imperial College London, or the Mayo Clinic.

Do you want to see the brave Flying Tigers in the air? Photograph by Wildstar Beaumont

Perhaps it’s a historical reconstruction like 1920s Berlin or The Coeurs. Or it could be a visit to a different grid like Inworldz, Heritage Key or Cloud Party. Or maybe just somewhere that is very lovely like Calas Galadhon or The Looking Glass.

Let us know by sending an email to designingworlds@gmail.com by Sunday 11th May, and let us know what YOU would like to see again. Or add your thoughts in the comments here instead!

Perhaps you want to see the Terracotta Warriors in the Museum on Heritage Key!

Entertainment in Lumeneria, photograph by Wildstar Beaumont

Join us at 2pm SLT today, Monday 6th May, for the new episode of Designing Worlds at our studio in Garden of Dreams, as we pay a second visit to the Fantasy Faire regions (now sadly closed).

Lotus Valley Dream, photograph by Wildstar Beaumont

While Saffia talks to designers Kayle Matzerath and Marcus Inkpen about the regions that they created, Elrik will be learning about the amazing Fantasy Faire radio (and its rather unusual studio) from Zander Greene, and then will be given an escorted tour of the famed (notorious?) Explorers’ Club (Oriental Branch) by Martini Discovalante.

Fantasy Faire Radio, photograph by Wildstar Beaumont

And then there are more regions to explore before we say farewell to Fantasy Faire … for this year.

And – by the way – the total now raised by Fantasy Faire stands at over US$36,000 – in Lindens, that’s over 9,500,000.

So – come and join us at 2pm.

Crimson Fields, photograph by Wildstar Beaumont

Or – if you can’t attend in person – tune in at 2pm SLT on Monday for the live show on http://treet.tv/live – or catch it later in the week on our shows page on the Treet.tv web site at http://treet.tv/shows/designingworlds – our very own version of the iPlayer!

There’s also a special short story competition sponsored by Prim Perfect and the Fantasy Faire team – you can find out all the details here.

Evensong Woods, photograph by Wildstar Beaumont

Lotus Valley Dream

It’s not just that it’s hard to let go of the wonderful Fantasy Faire this year (although that, too!).  Taking another jigsaw from there is a way of giving you a nudge (is that just a Brit thing? It’s like a firm hint!) that tonight will see the second of our two shows from Fantasy Faire on Designing Worlds – and more about that will follow later.

And that show will include a visit to the subject of today’s jigsaw – Lotus Valley Dream.  Sunset here was not a problem – the windlight setting was a permanent and beautiful sunset (a modified version of one of Bryn Oh’s settings, one of the creators, Marcus Inkpen, told me). The Explorers Club had a beautiful location – as you strolled out, you looked straight out over the road leading down to the setting sun, the beautiful buildings ahead, the lake (with its lotus and its dragon) glinting off to the right …

Is it possible to be nostalgic for something that’s only been gone a week? I think so.

Over 9,500,000 raised for Relay for Life …

Let’s do a jigsaw.

Sunset over Lotus Valley Dream, photograph by Wildstar Beaumont

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Catch up with your Prim Perfect jigsaws (showing images of Second Life and other virtual worlds).

If you’d like to submit a photo of your own to feature as a jigsaw, send it to the Prim Perfect Flickr Group. It should be sized 800w x 600h, or else it will need to be re-sized.

The SL10B Community Celebration Team is thrilled to announce its first photo contest this year in celebration of Second Life’s 10th Birthday.

The Second Life community encompasses many incredibly talented people from around the world who have displayed their skills in various forms across the grid over the past ten years.

This year the SL10B Community Celebration Team thought – “What better way to involve the residents in the celebration than to hold a photo contest?” This will allow the Second Life community to be creative in expressing this year’s “Looking Forward, Looking Back” theme.

The enjoyment of photography to express yourself and to have fun is all you need to enter, with categories for photographs simply taken inworld, and photographs that have been edited out of world with software such as Photoshop, Gimp or getpaint.

PHOTO CONTEST: BEFORE the Birthday Celebrations
PHOTO CONTEST OPENS: Sunday, May 5, 2013
PHOTO CONTEST ENDS: Thursday, June 6, 2013 midnight

HOW TO ENTER:
SL10B Second Life Community Celebration Photo Contest
Theme: “Looking Forward, Looking Back” Ten Years of Second Life

Photographs submitted by the Second Life community should illustrate SL10B Community Celebration theme “Looking Forward, Looking Back” – Second Life over the past 10 years.

Deadline for the contest is June 6th 2013.

RULES:
- Submit a maximum of two photographs per avatar name
- Photos must NOT show the SL10B Community Celebration regions (we hope to have a later contest for photos of those!)
- Explore the virtual world of second life community for the perfect picture that represents the theme.
- Pictures must be posted in the flickr group “SL10B Celebration Photo Contest”: http://www.flickr.com/groups/2188135@N20/
- Competitors must indicate whether the photograph is Category A (using only the tools available within the browser) or Category B (using tools outside the viewer, such as photo editing software).
- SL10B Celebration Team reserve the rights to use photograph submissions for event advertisement.
- Photos must be PG, make it family friendly keep it clean and FUN or risk disqualification.
- Descriptive text may accompany the photograph
- Deadline of submission of picture is June 6th, 2013, midnight SLT

HAVE FUN !!!

Happy Hunting has another great show – with a review of some of the amazing gifts available at Mad Pea’s latest Hunt – Lost Treasure of the Inca Warrior.

Rosamoo, of Hunt SL, has found six more amazing hunts and items this week – including the wonderful gifts that are your reward for completing Mad Pea’s latest Hunt – Lost Treasure of the Inca Warrior! And you can find the details of all the hunts discussed right here.

Some of the amazing things you can hunt for at the moment!

And after that, instead of an interview, there’s some special hunt tips as we take a light-hearted look at how NOT to dress to go hunting – and how to do it properly!

Plus there’s news from Rosamoo of exciting hunts that lie ahead!

Sign up for our talks!

Following the success of our discussion / interview programmes at the Home and Garden Expos for 2011 and 2012, and the Christmas Expos and the Birthdays … well, you get the picture!  At the 6th Home and Garden Expo, running from May 24th to June 3rd, we are planning a further series of talks with designers and breedable creators.

These talks will take place outside our very special Greek taverna on the Prim Perfect sponsored region. But we’ll be telling you more about that later!

We’re planning to host events at 3pm every day.  If you would really LOVE to give a presentation, but can’t make that time, contact us and we will see if we can fit you in.

We are happy to host talks, presentations, interviews, question and answer sessions.  It’s an opportunity for designers to share ideas, for people to meet their favourite creators, for communities to come together and talk about their culture and ideas.  We’re very open to hosting what YOU want to tell us about!

If you would like to be a part of our programme at the Expo, please complete this form with your topic and preferred dates and times. We will try to fit in as many people as we can!

The Streets of Lumenaria

I have a few last lovely pictures of the Fantasy Faire to post – like this view of Lumenaria. We saw a dragon boat flying over it yesterday … today we have a view from the ground.

Although most of those beautiful regions have gone now, swept away by the sand of time (and Linden Lab), one remains – and that is the Valley of Ish’nar where the Hunt is taking place!

If you were able to complete Part 1, wear the Hud you used then. The treasure chest icon on your Part 1 HUD must be open to get a free Part 2 HUD.

If you missed Part 1, you can purchase a Part 2 HUD with a donation to RFL of at least 150L  And the organisers are stressing that you should please READ your local chat when you attach the Part 2 HUD for instructions to activate it.

The Hunt was designed by Mad Pea, the story written by David Abbot, and the region itself was designed by Ryn Verwood – all three huge recommendations!

But first, let’s do a jigsaw!

The Strreets of Lumenaria, photograph by Wildstar Beaumont

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Catch up with your Prim Perfect jigsaws (showing images of Second Life and other virtual worlds).

If you’d like to submit a photo of your own to feature as a jigsaw, send it to the Prim Perfect Flickr Group. It should be sized 800w x 600h, or else it will need to be re-sized.

SL10B Community Celebration

The SLB Community Celebration is looking for Volunteers, Performers, DJ’s, Stage Crew, and Exhibitors to be part of the event taking place from June 16-23 2013.

Applications close on May 20.

To register, go to http://slcommunitycelebration.com/ for more information and links to the pages on which you can sign up!

It will be a first come first served basis for time preferences, so get your application in as soon as possible to make sure you get your dream slot!

Any questions, IM Budster Bashly or Doc Gascoigne inworld.

Cinders and Rosamoo discuss hunts!

The second part of the Fantasy Faire Hunt starts today at noon – but do take a break to catch up with all the news and views of our Happy Hunting show at 3pm! Join us in the treet.tv studios in Garden of Dreams at 3pm, Friday 3rd May, with our host Cinders Vale and hunt reporter Rosamoo Mendelsohn of Hunt SL.

Some of the amazing things you can hunt for at the moment!

Rosamoo has reports on six different hunts (and all amazing), and she’s found some terrific items to share with us too.

And after that, instead of an interview, there’s some special hunt tips as we take a light-hearted look at how NOT to dress to go hunting – and how to do it properly!

Here’s a clue – this is the “before” picture!

Plus there will be news from Rosamoo of exciting hunts that lie ahead!

So join us at 3pm today in the studio for the broadcast. Bring along your hunter friends too. We will be glad to have you all join us for the show.

Or – if you can’t attend in person – tune in at 3pm SLT on Friday for the live show on http://treet.tv/live or on the Vimeo channel – or catch it later in the week on our shows page on the Treet.tv web site at http://treet.tv/shows/happy-hunting.

Dragon boat over Lumenaria

Many people who visited Fantasy Faire enjoyed the stream that was playing. Some of the time this was DJs of course, and live musicians. But aside from that, there was a wonderfully evocative stream created by Zander Greene. And it was all broadcast from this beautiful dragon boat by Rynn Verwood.

The Faire has finished now – and it was heartbreaking watching the regions being taken down last night.  But it will, of course, live on in part when the second part of the Hunt opens (later today, hopefully), and in the stories that people are writing for the Fantasy Faire/Prim Perfect Shot Story Competition.  Why don’t you have a go yourself? There are pictures on Flickr to remind – and inspire you!

But, in the mean-time, let’s do a jigsaw.

Dragon Boat over Lumenaria, photograph by Wildstar Beaumont

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Catch up with your Prim Perfect jigsaws (showing images of Second Life and other virtual worlds).

If you’d like to submit a photo of your own to feature as a jigsaw, send it to the Prim Perfect Flickr Group. It should be sized 800w x 600h, or else it will need to be re-sized.

News story submission form

This is your chance to submit news for Prim Perfect’s special gardens issue which will be out shortly – and at the moment we are looking for news stories to feature in our popular News from the Grid feature.

If you have a news story to share about your store or your sim, you can use the special Prim Perfect news service, to submit your news story directly to the magazine.

All you have to do is to go to www.primperfect.net/news_form.html and complete the simple form. If you want an image included, send it to primperfect@gmail.com.

To appear in our next edition, we must receive your news story by 12 noon SLT, Saturday 4th May, 2013.

The news story might also appear on this blog, especially if the story concerns, for example, the kind of time-defined event we like to cover – a special store promotion, or a charity concert.

So what are you waiting for? Send your news to us – and see it in print very soon!