Linden Lab

Check out the Second Life Pic of the Day, "This year linden bear, tell me I am a cutie!" , photo by Isanelli Anatine. Don't forget to check out Second Life on Tumblr, Facebook and Google Plus!

Check out the Second Life Pic of the Day, "Teddy Bear Picnic" , photo by Serena Snowfield. Don't forget to check out Second Life on Tumblr, Facebook and Google Plus!

Check out the Second Life Pic of the Day, "Cewe" , photo by Pierre. Don't forget to check out Second Life on Tumblr, Facebook and Google Plus!

This month marks ten years since Second Life first opened to the public in June of 2003! We’re incredibly proud of Second Life’s success and longevity and we hope that all of you are too - it’s thanks to everyone who has made Second Life part of their lives over the past decade that we’ve reached this major milestone. We’ve planned some special things to celebrate SL10B that we’ll be rolling out throughout the month - be sure to keep an eye on this blog to be kept up-to-date with the latest! Commemorative SL10B Avatar Starting today, you can get a free, special-edition SL10B avatar on the Marketplace. This avatar is made with some of the new Materials features and will look even better once that Materials Viewer launches (you can also check it out with the Materials Beta Viewer). Visit the SL10B Marketplace and get your commemorative avatar today - they’ll only be available until the end of June! Snapshot Contest We’re also kicking off an SL10B Snapshot Contest! Start snapping your celebratory images and get ready to share. Top prize is free use of a homestead for four months, and second and third prizes are free use of a homestead for two months. Check out the rules and submit your entries here. Watch Rodvik Linden on The Drax Files On the occasion of Second Life’s tenth birthday, machinimist extraordinaire Draxtor Despres interviewed Linden Lab CEO Rod Humble (aka Rodvik Linden), for a special episode of the great video series The Drax Files: World Makers. Check out the episode .kwNCU3RGruE Join the Parties Inworld Throughout June, there will be celebrations for Second Life’s tenth birthday (SL10B) all over the grid - thrown by DJs and event planners inworld. So that you can keep track of where the parties are at, we've launched an SL10B Category in the Destination Guide. If you have an SL10B event planned - there is still plenty of time to submit your entry; and check back frequently - we’ll be continually updating the Destination Guide as always. From June 16 - 29, there will be a large community-organized celebration inworld as well. As with past Second Life birthday celebrations, you can expect great exhibits, music, and events. For more info, check out the SL10B Community Celebration website. More to Come Later this month, we’ll be kicking off a special grid-wide hunt with unique prizes, exclusively for Premium members. We’ll blog with more details soon, but if you want to get in on the fun, be sure that your Premium membership is up-to-date. We’ll also be releasing some limited-edition gifts on the Marketplace and inworld. Some will be limited quantity - so stay tuned to find out when and where to get them! There’s more coming to celebrate Second Life’s tenth birthday, so be sure to keep an eye on this blog for the latest. Thanks again to everyone who has been a part of the last ten years in Second Life - we look forward to what is still to come!

Linden Lab is excited to announce the launch of the Materials Beta Viewer! This Viewer will allow content creators to build objects using normal and specular maps and will allow users to view the effects of this new feature set. The end result is photorealistic textured objects inworld. Credit: Katana by June Dion Technical Details Normal maps provide modelling of fine scale surface textures at far lower cost (to performance and Land Impact) than the equivalent geometry, while Specular maps, along with advanced specularity controls, provide much richer control over how the surfaces of an object interact with all the light sources in a scene. Together, these new features provide creators in Second Life much greater ability to make detailed and responsive content appearance. Setting any material property on an object will change the accounting method to the current accounting from the old count-the-prims accounting; in most cases, this will mean that you can get lower object cost for detailed or varied surfaces that would otherwise require more prims to create. It also means that Materials objects will have improved simulator performance and mesh object upload cost by decreasing the complexity of object geometry. Credit: Jacket by Geenz Spad A Collaborative Effort This new set of features has been developed in collaboration with open source Viewer developers and content creators. New pages on how to best leverage these features and optimize the Land Impact of your creations are being published on the Good Building Practices wiki and the Content Creators Guide, and more will be added in the coming days by Second Life content creators and builders from Linden Lab. Next Steps Download the Beta Viewer from the official downloads page. To see the new effects in this Beta Viewer, you must enable 'Advanced Lighting Model' in Preferences > Graphics > Advanced (this preference used to be called 'Lighting and Shadows', but actually controlled a wider range of rendering behavior, so the name has been changed). Once we have squashed all the beta bugs (which you can file in the MATBUG JIRA project), we will be pushing the Materials Beta Viewer to Release. Check back here for updates!

Check out the Second Life Pic of the Day, "Glamping" , photo by Reema Xue. Don't forget to check out Second Life on Tumblr, Facebook and Google Plus!

Check out the Second Life Pic of the Day, "Beach House Dinner Setting" , photo by Editorial Clarity. Don't forget to check out Second Life on Tumblr, Facebook and Google Plus!

We’ve been working hard on some major changes to Second Life’s Viewer and back-end infrastructure to improve the Second Life experience for all users. Today, we’re pleased to share an update on Project Shining - an initiative that will make avatars load and rez more quickly and reliably. We’ve tested changing of outfits, avatar swapping, and initial avatar loading into worlds, and our tests showed performance gains across the board. Bottom line, Second Life users will experience less time in “clouded” or untextured avatar states and/or completely failed bakes that require relogs. Check out for more about the project.jwglL3VXI80 Project Sunshine is rolling out in three steps: 1) A required Viewer update, out now! The official Second Life Viewer (version 3.5.1 and later) includes important updates you’ll need to enjoy the benefits of Project Sunshine, so update today if you haven’t yet. Actively updated Third Party Viewers also already have Sunshine-enabled versions available. 2) A server-side update, rolling out soon. It’s at this point that you’ll begin to notice significant improvements in avatar and object load times and reliability. But if you haven’t updated your Viewer, avatars won’t look right to you when we roll out the server update, so seriously, update now! 3) A second Viewer update, released after the server-side improvements are rolled out. As long as you have the Viewer 3.5.1 or later (available now), avatars won’t look wrong for you, but this second Viewer update will be needed to get the full benefits of Project Sunshine. Get on your way to a better, faster, and more reliable Second Life experience and update to the latest Viewer today!

Check out the Second Life Pic of the Day, "Untitled" , photo by Kristen Macarthur. Don't forget to check out Second Life on Tumblr, Facebook and Google Plus!

If you who haven’t yet heard, we’re coming up on the Second Life’s tenth birthday, SL10B as we’ve affectionately dubbed it. While we’ve got a whole slew of celebrations planned, we’d really like to see how people across Second Life celebrate 10 years on the grid. So if you have an awesome place or a cool event, share your creations and we’ll make this a party for the ages. Since we can’t stop thinking about SL10B, we figured we’d stick with the theme of parties and celebrations. For those of you who prefer something quiet and intimate, we’re bringing you haute cuisine in a waterfront restaurant. For the more raucous, be sure to check out a neon kaleidoscope of a dance club and a music and art venue carved out of a subterranean cave. A literal rock cave, if you will. And if you feel like taking a break, why not take a walk through a soothing park or an exquisite Italian town? Casa De Aromas Any occasion or celebration is a good time to visit Casa de Aromas, the author´s cuisine restaurant. Casa de Aromas is the first haute cuisine restaurant in Second Life with superior dining service. they even offer special thematic menus for babies and kids, as well as happy meals to take home. Visit them soon! Visit in Second Life Club InFuZion Club InFuZion is located at the heart of NekoZone Central, a visually stunning urban-themed sim. So why not drop by, get your urban on and listen to all the latest dance and club tunes? Everyone is welcome to come and party/chill in this friendly atmosphere. See you all there, huh? Visit in Second Life Casa De Aromas Any occasion or celebration is a good time to visit Casa de Aromas, the author´s cuisine restaurant. Casa de Aromas is the first haute cuisine restaurant in Second Life with superior dining service. they even offer special thematic menus for babies and kids, as well as happy meals to take home. Visit them soon! Visit in Second Life Bliss Gardens Park Bliss Gardens Park is a beautiful four-sim nature area below the Luna Bliss Home & Garden store — a delightful place to explore, take in the breathtaking scenery and much more. Visit in Second Life Egoisme Milano Visit the new Egoisme Milano for a real Italian shopping experience! Browse the stores for fashion, skins and free gifts or sit with friends and listen to music under the glass-domed roof. This mesh build is a wonderful place to take photographs and even hosts art galleries and live events. Live the dolce vita, at Egoisme Milano. Visit in Second Life

Check out the Second Life Pic of the Day, "The Swim" , photo by Amona Savira. Don't forget to check out Second Life on Tumblr, Facebook and Google Plus!

Check out the Second Life Pic of the Day, "What Is and What Should Never Be" by Poison Nectar. Don't forget to check out Second Life on Tumblr, Facebook and Google Plus

Check out the Second Life Pic of the Day, "the start of a lonely journey" by claudiaorsini. Don't forget to check out Second Life on Tumblr, Facebook and Google Plus

Check out the Second Life Pic of the Day, "Clearing" by Ulrich Jourbert. Don't forget to check out Second Life on Tumblr, Facebook and Google Plus

Check out the Second Life Pic of the Day, "Winter Moon" by Loverdag. Don't forget to check out Second Life on Tumblr, Facebook and Google Plus

Check out the Second Life Pic of the Day, "Sunset at Onyx Isle" by MαX Rσмєяσ. Don't forget to check out Second Life on Tumblr, Facebook and Google Plus

Following the recent update to the Second Life Terms of Service, which disallows trading of Linden dollars (L$) on third party exchanges, we’ve heard from some users outside of the US who are concerned that it may now be more difficult for them to purchase L$ to use in Second Life. With a credit card, you can purchase L$ on the LindeX using 27 different currencies, including EUR, GBP, JPY, and AUD. If you don’t have a credit card, you can also use PayPal, which can be connected directly to a bank account in more than 193 countries and regions. If you put payment info on file for your Second Life account, you can also purchase L$ right in the Viewer with the “Buy L$” button. If you’ve never done it before, check out this helpful : NtY3qU3IueM Now, to give users more options and make it easier to purchase L$, we’re launching a pilot program of Authorized Resellers of L$. These sites are authorized by Linden Lab to purchase L$ on the LindeX and then resell those L$ using a variety of international currencies and payment methods. To be clear: per the Terms of Service, these resellers will not be allowed to purchase L$ outside of the LindeX (i.e. they will not be able to buy L$ back from users and cash people out). The list of Authorized Resellers participating in the pilot program is available here. If you would like to receive an application to the program when it formally launches, please send an email to LDollarSeller@lindenlab.com. We know that users are also concerned about the length of the LindeX’s cashout process and the limited choice of currencies when selling L$. We’re currently investigating ways to improve that experience for users while still providing superior fraud protections, and hope to hasten the cashout process and offer new currency options in the future.

Have you ever wondered about the personalities behind the avatars in Second Life? Virtual journalist and machinima artist Draxtor Despres has been documenting the many personal and inspiring stories of our creative community in the acclaimed video series “The Drax Files: World Makers.” This week, Drax interviews Edinburgh-based motion capture artist Abramelin Wolfe -- founder of the successful animation and creations studio Abranimations. Watch the video interview .3nSJpzzN4Ug You can check out Abranimations’ shop on the Second Life Marketplace or directly teleport to the store inworld. Motion capture artist Abramelin Wolfe and his wife are based in Edinburgh, Scotland. For more info on The Drax Files: World Makers, be sure to check out Drax’s website at draxtor.com. If you haven’t yet watched the rest of the series, check out the past episodes at the links below: The Drax Files: World Makers - Episode 1: Kriss Lehmann The Drax Files: World Makers - Episode 2: Jo Yardley The Drax Files: World Makers - Episode 3: Eshi Otawara The Drax Files: World Makers - Episode 4: Fantasy Faire / RFL

Check out the Second Life Pic of the Day, "retro beach" by claudiaorsini. Don't forget to check out Second Life on Tumblr, Facebook and Google Plus

Check out the Second Life Pic of the Day, "Luminarios Divide" by Rachelle Fall. Don't forget to check out Second Life on Tumblr, Facebook and Google Plus

This June, Second Life will celebrate its 10th birthday, thanks to users like you! We have some fun things planned to celebrate the occasion (keep an eye on this blog for more on that soon!), but we'd also like to highlight your events. Like last year, we'll have a special category in the Destination Guide for Second Life birthday-related events. No one throws a better party than the Second Life community, and if you're planning an event to celebrate Second Life's 10th birthday, we want to know about it! Submit your event or party information to the Second Life Destination Guide Submission Form (use the misc category) or via editor@lindenlab.com, using “SL10B” in subject line on the form or email. In addition, there will be an organized community celebration happening that is sure to be great, and they are currently taking applications for volunteers, performers, and exhibits here. Are you ready to celebrate?

Check out the Second Life Pic of the Day, "{southern charm}" by Alessandra (SOMETHING CATCHY.). Don't forget to check out Second Life on Tumblr, Facebook and Google Plus

Check out the Second Life Pic of the Day, "Hazardous ~6~ Revisted" , photo by HeavyT3. Don't forget to check out Second Life on Tumblr, Facebook and Google Plus

Check out the Second Life Pic of the Day, "Lost in a flower field" by Trinity Yazimoto. Don't forget to check out Second Life on Tumblr, Facebook and Google Plus

Check out the Second Life Pic of the Day, "Beam of Light" , photo by Trinity Yazimoto. Don't forget to check out Second Life on Tumblr, Facebook and Google Plus