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Today we’re shining a spotlight on Carrie Tatsu, the visionary behind Zooby, whose innovative virtual pets and babies have enhanced the interactive experiences of Second Life Residents for over a decade.
How long have you been in Second Life and how did you first hear about it?
I joined SL in 2006. Wow, 19 years! I took a year off from my job in advertising to stay home with my real-life baby. He is 18 now. I was bored as a full-time stay-at-home mom and read an article about an innovative virtual world with user-generated content. I joined out of curiosity. I became hooked instantly and bought a prim cat. I felt a need to hold my cat when I logged in. My cat became part of who I was. I realized that the cat became part of my own virtual identity.I then thought maybe I could make a better cat. I made my own white fluffy cat with prim flexies (old avatars will know what that is) that was a representation of my real-life cat named Spaceman. I then held my own cat while I wandered various sims. Random users would ask me where I purchased my cat and wanted to buy it. I then decided I should open up a virtual pet store and convinced my husband at the time to spend $300 USD on virtual land. Within a year I replaced my advertising salary and have not looked back.
Zooby Animesh baby clothing by Sweet Penelope through the Zooby Affiliate programHow and when did you get into content creation in Second Life?
I have been consistently making content in Second Life for roughly 19 years. It is my full-time job and I support my family with income earned from selling virtual goods. I took a break from 2014-2017 to make a mobile game. I came back to SL in 2017 when Animesh was in development. I knew I had to update my products, so I spent close to 2 years developing the Zooby Animesh Baby. I also wanted to be one of the first creators to focus on Animesh. I have a team that helps me develop products, and I focus on my strengths which include project management, art, design, 3d modeling, and painting/drawing. I hire and collaborate closely with software developers, 3d modelers, and animators.
Zooby Animesh baby clothing by Sweet Penelope through the Zooby Affiliate programWhat tools do you use to craft your content? Are there specific resources you recommend to aspiring creators?
I have a master's degree in fine art from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. I do not have a business degree. I learned the basics of C4d in 2017. I did not learn Blender until 2019-2020. I did not learn Substance Painter until 2022. I have always had the mindset that if you are dedicated to learning regardless of your age or circumstances, you can. It just takes time, patience, and dedication. I have always loved art and have been able to focus for long periods of time on a project. Substance Painter allows projection painting and that became a natural tool for me and helped me create the realistic fur for the Zooby Animesh Puppies. Blender is also a terrific resource because not only is it free, but there are endless tutorials online to learn and develop a skillset. I fell in love with 3d modeling. I also work with extremely talented people and give them freedom to develop their skills and foster their own creativity.
Click to watch the Zooby Animesh Yellow Lab + Wings! on FlickrTell us more about your latest project, the Zooby Animesh Puppies. What inspired the designs and features?
I have a deep understanding of the SL community and intuition on what people like to do here. Role-play is huge. Creating experiences you cannot otherwise have in real life is also essential. I wanted to make puppies that had advanced interactive functionality. The idea was to create a shared experience with the puppies so users could enjoy them together with friends and family. The puppies had to look as real as possible. There had to be an emotional connection so the owner of the puppy felt it was their puppy. It is not possible to do a project of this scale alone, so I have a wonderful team that helped make my vision become a reality. It has also taken years to build this team.Here is a list of key features that set the puppies apart:
- Zooby Puppies can share accessories.
- Zooby Puppies include a care system where you can collect tokens and redeem them for puppy toys.
- Friends can be added to all Zooby Puppies to provide care and interact.
- All Zooby Puppies can be interacted with.
- Zooby Puppies can sleep in beds, poop/pee on puppy pads, relax on love pillows, chew on bones, snuggle with toys, and eat from food bowls.
- Zooby Animesh Babies can interact with Zooby Animesh Puppies.
- Zooby Puppies include over 100 animations.
- Post launch Zooby Puppies will be able to wear clothing. Texture Hud Kits will be provided to 3rd parties to create and sell clothing and accessory textures for the puppies.
- Zooby Puppies can walk/run/fly while attached to you and while in travel mode they can be taken anywhere in SL.
- Zooby Puppies can be held and snuggled by their owner.
- Zooby Puppies can independently fly with wings. (Flying independently with wings includes new animations, is an add-on, and has a small fee.)
- Zooby Puppies can run or walk around your sim where you set the radius and location.
- Zooby Puppies include a Hud that allows you to rez any puppy you own and you can never lose a puppy.
- Zooby Puppies have carefully detailed, custom, realistic fur and will make your heart melt when you look at them.
- In the future, you will be able to walk them on a leash, and play ball/fetch with Zooby Puppies and they will bring you a newspaper.
Click to watch the the Zooby Animesh Husky + Baby Interactions on FlickrWhat are your future plans or upcoming projects that fans of Zooby can look forward to?
I plan to make many more puppy breeds and then move on to other pets. I plan to stick around SL for a few more years and see how things go!
From your perspective, how has Second Life evolved over the years, and what makes it an incredible experience for new users today?
I love the freedom to make anything I can think of. I was not a fan of working for an ad agency and was glad to quit. I also needed a creative outlet. SL has provided me the opportunity to make amazing products and watch them come to fruition. Having a connection to the community has been inspiring because I have seen people fall in love with ephemeral things and that is absolutely fascinating to me. I have met incredibly talented people here and we have worked together without any typical social barriers. Your gender, identity, race, religion, ethnicity, education, and upbringing do not matter. All that matters is the work. I love that for so many reasons. SL has allowed people to make beautiful things and given users the opportunity to explore and imagine a life they want to live.
Where can people see your work? Please share links to your store, websites, and social media accounts.
Here is a list of the social media links:Discord
Facebook
YouTube
Instagram
Twitter
Zooby Store
Zooby Group: secondlife:///app/group/fc43d42e-3ba3-b77c-cdf3-5ec035f7a230/about
Thank you, Carrie, for pushing the boundaries in SL and enriching our virtual experiences with every new Zooby creation.
Each of our Spotlight interviews offers a unique glimpse into the diverse experiences and vibrant personalities that shape our virtual world. Explore more stories and get inspired by visiting our full collection of Spotlight posts.
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Happy Wednesday!
We’re writing to remind everyone that we’ll be holding our monthly Web User Group meeting today at 14:00 SLT in our usual meeting place, where we’ll be discussing our status with ongoing projects and our near future plans for our web properties. As always, we’ll leave plenty of time for Q&A from the community. This meeting is conducted using voice. We're happy for you to contribute in voice or in text, but you'll need to have your voice settings activated. We look forward to seeing you there.
Stay updated with all of our user group meetings on our wiki and public calendar.
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To all our Residents impacted by the bumpy grid roll Tuesday, we’re sorry - and we want you to know what happened.
Timeline:
It started out as a normal roll to Second Life Server (SLS) when, around 7am SLT, the team noticed some regions were not coming back as swiftly as they should. Alarms were raised and we got a team together to tackle the issue immediately. It was quickly determined that we could not continue with the roll without causing more extensive pain to Residents, and the decision was made before 9:00 AM SLT to halt the in-progress grid roll. That left approximately 3800 regions in an offline state, while we continued the investigation.The team continued to bring the regions back manually, while simultaneously working to identify the cause of the problems. By noon there were still approximately 350 regions stuck offline.
Cause:
We’ve identified the root cause of the trouble. The server code itself is not the issue, but infrastructure communications between various AWS services broke down and prevented the normally smooth weekly grid roll.Next steps:
We’ve canceled the RC Roll on Wednesday while we ensure this problem doesn't happen again. Next week will be a quiet week with no SLS roll. Things should return back to normal with the following week’s server updates.Thank you for your patience while we banged on things yesterday.
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The Concierge and Land User Group meeting is a monthly, public meeting for discussion and education on Second Life, useful to both Mainland Residents and Estate owners.
Topics include any issues relating to Customer Relations/Support or concerning Land in general (mainland, islands, Linden Homes, estates, auctions, etc.).
Join us on Wednesday at 12pm PT at Linden Estate Services. All are welcome.
Keep up to date with all of our user group meetings on our wiki and public calendar.
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🍂🌰🍁
Residents featured in this image:
Top Row (from left to right):
Middle Row (from left to right):
Bottom Row (from left to right):
Thank you for sharing your beautiful images with us! 💖
For a chance to have your image featured in our social campaigns, submit your work to the Official Second Life Flickr Group.
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As we continue to evolve and improve our various community initiatives, we have decided to put the Second Life Blogger Network (SLBN) on a temporary hiatus. This pause will allow us to dedicate resources to upcoming changes and enhancements designed to enrich our community's experience even further.
We sincerely appreciate the incredible contributions that each of you, our esteemed bloggers, have made to enrich the Second Life community. Please know that this decision was made with careful consideration and is not a reflection of the value we place on your work.
During this hiatus, we're excited to expand our Second Life Weekly Email Newsletter. This will be one of the main venues for us to highlight community features, showcase events, and share important news directly. We encourage all of you to subscribe to stay updated with the latest and greatest from around Second Life. It's a fantastic way to ensure you don't miss out on any of the action!
Moreover, we invite you to visit our Community Resources Portal, where you can connect with user groups and discover numerous other ways to engage and contribute. Whether you're looking to network with other Residents or find support and inspiration, these resources are there to enhance your Second Life journey.
We extend our heartfelt thanks for your understanding and continued support. The creativity and dedication of bloggers like you are what makes Second Life such an incredible place. We look forward to bringing you along on this next phase of our journey and seeing all the new ways we can continue to grow together.
Stay tuned, stay connected, and, most importantly, keep creating!
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Hi Everybody!
I would like to introduce a new member of the Linden Support team, Boxy 5000.
Boxy 5000 is a virtual assistant/support bot trainee.
But wait, wasn’t there already a chatbot who answered questions for premium users? Indeed there was! Boxy 3000 was the earlier model of the trainee chatbot.
We are learning from some design flaws and moving forward with a more advanced bot. Boxy 3000 has been re-invented and given an extra 2000!
But wait a second time! Won’t this bring about the machine apocalypse? Not just yet–Boxy 5000 is more advanced and learns as they go but Skynet is still a few upgrades away.
The upgraded bot will be a 24/7 support option for both premium and non-premium residents! (Previously only available for premium customers.)
Boxy will have the ability to answer commonly asked questions, keep you up to date on current issues, help with ticket submission and in some cases handle a support request.
Boxy has uses for all residents, from early adopters to fresh new faces.
For new and more casual residents Boxy is available to help them find the support they need.
For our seasoned veterans Boxy can offer support options for some specific requests. Specifically, Boxy will be able to submit an abuse report on your behalf and in some cases help with the restart of a region!
Boxy will continue to learn as we go. Boxy might not have all the answers currently, but we will continue to review questions posed and help the bot to better answer your support queries.
We realize that a chat bot is not a substitute for a customer support representative, and this bot is not meant to be. It is however meant to help when we are unavailable or may be experiencing higher call volumes.For premium residents Boxy will only be the first point of contact before being passed to a support representative during office hours. Utilize Boxy to help better explain your issue once you are transferred to a support representative. Outside of office hours Boxy can help or create a ticket for when we are back in the office.
The ability to get an answer to your question or to get your issue resolved without having to wait until our Support Lindens are available is Boxy’s primary directive.
Anyone interested in saying hello to Boxy can access it by logging into our support portal. The Boxy 5000 chat widget should appear in the bottom right hand corner of your screen.
Boxy 5000, it’s advanced…
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