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Linden Lab

Happy Spring! It’s time to catch you all up on recent product developments! Continue reading for mobile updates, scripting news, new feedback portal (and end-of-life for JIRA), and Viewer releases.

📱 Mobile Private Alpha Update

Big and small updates! This is a reminder that Premium Plus members can apply to participate in our Mobile Private Alpha. If you are a Premium Plus subscriber, and you’re ready to try the app and help us make it better, find out more.

We recently updated the Second Life Mobile Alpha to support streaming audio! You can enjoy music in Second Life on your mobile device while hanging out with friends inworld. Streaming audio is off by default. To turn it on, go to Settings > Developer tools > Enable Streaming Audio.

We have brought you a couple of new Chat UI features:

  • Start a new chat from any chat screen
  • On the Nearby Chat screen, see how many people are nearby.

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Next up - teleport and avatar display improvements. We think we’ve got avatar shapes figured out…and the real challenge - skeleton deformers - are also in the works!

🐛 JIRA end-of-life

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Yes, the king is dead, long live the king! While we have said goodbye to Jira as the platform for collaboration with our residents as well as for internal issue tracking, we believe this has allowed us to improve visibility and collaboration. 

The new Second Life Feedback Portal is a great place for any new bug reports or feature requests, while the public Second Life Viewer project on GitHub is where we continue our open-source work. 

Speaking of the Second Life Feedback Portal, it has already received 672 posts, 2635 comments, and 6426 votes! We thank you for your enthusiastic participation. We have made many updates since we first introduced it in January including a whole new UI and dark mode (based on your system settings). We will continue to improve the feedback portal and, most importantly, review all the incoming reports and requests!

Although Jira is dead, the archive remains. As mentioned in our Pt. 2 blog post, the Jira archive of the Second Life BUG project on GitHub is now available. You can find the public BUG archive at https://github.com/secondlife/jira-archive/issues. The archive currently contains most of the previously public Jira tickets from the original BUG project. However, there are a few that we are still moving over. It does NOT include tickets that previously had restricted access.

👩‍💻 Scripting changes

Out now: Increased sensor result limit

We've increased the maximum number of results returned by llSensor and llSensorRepeat from 16 to 32. This will reduce the need for workarounds such as repeatedly scanning small slices of space.

Coming soon: llSetLinkSitFlags, llGetLinkSitFlags, SIT_FLAG_NO_COLLIDE

In an upcoming server release we will be allowing scripts to set and get the sit flags of linkset sit targets via llSetLinkSitFlags and llGetLinkSitFlags. In addition, scripts will be able to set the SIT_FLAG_NO_COLLIDE flag to disable the avatar's collision volume when they are seated. This will be useful for clown cars and other creations.

Scripting roadmap

Status of these upcoming changes and more are visible on Second Life's new public roadmap at feedback.secondlife.com. If you have ideas or feedback on the scripting system check out the Scripting Features and Scripting Bugs boards.

🪀 Creator news

Coming soon: 15% reduction to mesh download impact

Download weight is one parameter used as part of calculating an object’s Land Impact (LI).  We will be reducing this by 15%, decreasing the land impact of many mesh assets.

LI for mesh-based objects is either download weight, physics or server cost, whichever is greatest. This change will not impact animesh or mesh upload fees.

Coming soon: Scheduling automatic daily region restarts

This feature has been on people's wish lists for many years. Estate managers will soon be able to schedule automatic region restarts via the region console:

> help region_schedule
region_schedule
    Display or modify scheduled region events.
    An empty parameter list will display the current schedule.
    unset <event>:  Removes the scheduled event.
    set <event> daily HH::MM::SS will set the event to occur daily at the scheduled time.
    set <event> weekly days HH::MM::SS will set the event to occur on the indicated days at the scheduled time.
       S=Sun, M=Mon, T=Tue, W=Wed, R=Thurs, F=Fri, A=Sat
    Note: Times are in GMT

While most regions do not need to be restarted more frequently than weekly, which is automatically scheduled, some regions with high traffic may benefit from more frequent restarts. When you restart a region, keep in mind that everyone on the region will be kicked out.

💻 Viewers

Maintenance Viewer

GLTF PBR Maint 2 contains another round of fixes and refinements to PBR rendering, including a preview of Materials from Inventory while editing objects. Download version 7.1.3.7821226606 and check out the release notes.

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Default Viewer

😀 Emoji

This viewer was finally promoted to default release and is based on a contribution by Kitty Barnett, adding emoji support to text chat.

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Featurettes sneak peek!

Our Post Materials Featurette Package is sharing early access to:

  • Mirrors
  • PBR Terrain
  • 2k textures

Initially this will only be available on our Beta Grid (Aditi). Please keep your eye on our blog as we will post more details in the coming days.

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Catch more Second Life news on Thursday, March 14th at 12pm PT at the VWBPE Above the Book interview with Grumpity, Signal, and Kali Linden

Follow our Featured News Blog and connect with us on Social Media for future Second Life News!

Strawberry Linden

Looking for something to do this weekend? Dive into these featured events and activities in Second Life!

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Pictured: Rhythm and Rhyme with Bryn Oh (link will start working on Saturday, February 24th at 9am PT)

The Forty Thieves' Rhythm and Rhyme presents a fantastic event with a fusion of poetry and music in an art installation created by talented artist, Bryn Oh! The venue will open to the public on February 24th at 9am PT and the event starts on February 25th at 4pm PT. Don’t miss it!

 

Caledon, the esteemed steampunk community, is celebrating 18 years in Second Life this weekend with a variety of special activities. Seize this opportunity to dress up and attend their Founder’s Day Ball!

 

And yesterday, Madpea celebrated 16 years of incredible escape rooms, fun rides, and mind-bending games in Second Life. We featured one of their engaging escape rooms in a video, but you can also check out their latest one below!

 

This is also the last weekend for Black History Month. Explore the following destinations that have special events and installations in celebration - including open mic and spoken word live events this weekend at Meroe Museum and Wandering New York.

 

 

 

 

 

If you’re looking for even more fun events and maybe a few laughs, check out the following two destinations:

 

 

Or if you just want to scratch that shopping itch, teleport to these themed shopping events:

 

 

 

 

 

Don't forget to check our Recently Added category to see all the latest additions to the Second Life Destination Guide!

 

Got a spot that you’d like listed in the Destination Guide? Make sure to drop us a note at editor@lindenlab.com or submit your spot via web form. Learn more about the Destination Guide criteria for Editors’ Picks or the Destinations Floater in the viewer, and increase your chances of being featured in those coveted spots!

Linden Lab

 

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Interested in learning more about our Second Life Mobile app? Our development team is working hard to add new features and fixes to bring the best of Second Life to iOS and Android mobile and tablet platforms – it’s an entire virtual world in the palm of your hands! 

Linden Lab executives will be discussing the latest updates and future plans for Second Life Mobile in an all-new pre-recorded Lab Gab scheduled to air on socials in the near future.

Want to ask questions directly to the team behind Second Life Mobile? Please fill out the Google Form and submit your question in advance for a chance to have your inquiries answered on Lab Gab! Act quickly, as the form will close on Monday, February 26th. 

To learn more, be sure to watch Lab Gab on the Second Life YouTube Channel!

Linden Lab

Today we’re shining a spotlight on Kacee Popstar, a multi-talented Resident known for her pivotal role in spearheading events and elevating brands with a unique blend of creativity and strategic marketing flair.

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Photo by Aria Christen

How long have you been in Second Life and how did you first hear about it?
I first entered Second Life around 2010, initially exploring the platform without a specific focus. I dabbled in creating a clothing store called Fresh 2 Def and enjoyed spending time with my SL family. After a few years, real-life commitments led me to take a hiatus. It wasn't until August 2021, prompted by the unique circumstances of the global pandemic, that I decided to revisit Second Life. To my surprise, my entire SL family was still active. Soon after returning, I met Fang Palazzo (greatfang.novo), an uber talented Live Mix DJ in Second Life. My return marked a significant shift as I delved into managing DJ Fang under Pop Entertainment. Soon after, I met my partner-in-crime Sugarplum Zsun (sugarplum85) and I found myself fully immersed in SL’s vibrant club scene and surrounded by the most amazing people driven by the love of music. I spent most of my time attending sets and promoting DJs and clubs by recording short, fun real-time party videos that seemed to really resonate with people. I am a support machine! If you are doing creative things in SL, chances are you’ve seen me right there cheering you on! My real-world experience in the music industry in NYC seamlessly blended with my virtual endeavors, marking the beginning of a new chapter filled with creativity and excitement. Second Life became a space for creativity and virtual adventures. The immersive and dynamic nature of SL really drew me back, and I've been deeply engaged ever since.

You are a multi-faceted individual who is involved in the design, production, and marketing of different events, activities, and brands in Second Life. Can you share some of the projects you are involved with and how they have evolved?
My journey in Second Life is a tapestry woven with my real-life passions and talents. Hailing from a background in the music industry, where I specialized in experiential marketing, I bring a flavor to the grid that's uniquely me. In every endeavor, one golden rule guides me - a dedication to infusing joy and prioritizing the user experience.

The excitement began with event planning and creating Pop Entertainment. Orchestrating and promoting lively DJ and club events connected me with a huge network of dedicated club owners and talented DJs throughout Second Life. These amazing people and their love for music is truly inspiring. From there, I ventured into the world of creation and design with the clothing brand DAO, meaning 'star' in Thai. This was merely the starting point for a journey that led to the evolution of Palazzo Park, a small idea for a bowling alley that blossomed into a dynamic entertainment destination. It means everything to me that so many residents visit and enjoy Palazzo Park daily and infuse a little fun into their Second Life!

Around this time, I began managing marketing for various brands. The most gratifying journey has been HexPosed. I was trusted to take over management of the brand and it has been a blast cultivating HexPosed from the ground up and steering a modest pose store with only a few products into a known brand expanding its offerings to include backdrops, holdables, and furniture. 

Along this path, my mission was clear - to bridge the gap between the mainstream and urban communities in Second Life. I started by introducing HexPosed and supporting urban events and ventures with HexPosed’s involvement. This ambition translated into DJ Fang joining Sneaky Link Entertainment, an energetic and dedicated organization featuring talented Urban DJs (DJ Gunnklips, DJ Kevo, DJ Brockie, DJ Lola Bunny, DJ Ultra Violet, and DJ Blackice), managers (Shawn X. Gunner, Kevo B. Wylin, Symone Gunner, King Slaughterhouse Gunner, Luna Laveaux, Dee Allure, and Lyric Skye), and a team of exceptional hype girls who keep the vibe hype and events enjoyable. The cross-community acceptance has been incredible, with followers on both sides of the grid attending and enjoying events. My role extends to marketing Sneaky Link, contributing to its success and popularity in the Second Life community. It has been an extremely enjoyable experience!

Simultaneously, my love for designing spaces gave rise to Spellbound Manor - a fantasy-themed residential community. Here, I express my creativity by crafting high-quality resort-style luxury homes surrounded by an enchanting forest. The success and popularity of Spellbound Manor led to a venture into offering interior design and landscaping services with Spellbound Spaces & Events, where we blend enchantment with luxury in every build. 

Then came FLOURISH, my most recent venture aimed at revolutionizing shopping events in Second Life. Being a marketer, I take note of the trends and feedback on social media regarding events. Acquiring FLOURISH wasn't just about business; it was about spotlighting creators and brands and their unique journeys. Some might call my ideas over the top, but that's just the way I like it - to bring back the spotlight to the creators who are often taken for granted, but are architects of our magical experiences here in Second Life.

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Photo by Panda Banana

What unique experiences do you aim to offer visitors of Palazzo Park, and how do you keep the entertainment fresh and engaging?
Palazzo Park is all about interactive fun, inspired by the desire to create a voice-enabled, interactive space for residents to play and socialize. With attractions ranging from bowling and laser tag to a movie theater, rides, and fully interactive arcade, the goal is to foster friendships and fun in a unique environment. We aim to create a space where every corner offers something exciting and are honored to have the support of fun and talented creators, such as TIHQ, Bergson Bowling, HIVID, and Erfe Design, whose creations made Palazzo Park what it is today! Their sponsorship helps to keep the entertainment fresh by allowing me to add regular updates, new rides & attractions, and engaging events creating a dynamic and ever-evolving experience. We are in the middle of an expansion that will make way for all new and fun attractions, so stay tuned for that! Those interested in the park can connect by following our Facebook Page and joining our In-World group!

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PalazzoPark
Group: https://world.secondlife.com/group/e5bbd64f-fa3c-d70b-2197-e9002255e368
Those interested in renting Palazzo Park or sponsoring our expansion, please submit your interest via these forms.
Park Rental: https://forms.gle/XeKyh1pDDyi6aDcD7
Sponsor: https://forms.gle/dR2WaNjMo8h6JQ1F9 

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Photo by Aria Christen

Running a monthly shopping event like Flourish is a significant undertaking. What's your approach to selecting brands and creating a unique shopping experience each month? When is the launch date for Flourish? How can eligible brands participate?
FLOURISH is indeed a labor of love that involves meticulous planning and a commitment to delivering an exceptional experience for both brands and shoppers. We focus on curating a diverse range of brands, each with its own story to tell. When selecting brands, my approach is centered on providing a diverse and exciting array of products that cater to the varied tastes of the SL community by taking into consideration the uniqueness, quality, and appeal of each brand to ensure a well-rounded and captivating shopping event. 

FLOURISH stands out through its unique business model and features, such as the FLOURISH Mens Edition, which focuses on providing a dedicated and exclusive space in the center of the event for men's brands. We also will launch “FLOURISH Unveiled”, a monthly show that will put the spotlight on a featured brand and take us through the journey of the brand. This will be in correlation with a dedicated brand exhibit area, housed right in the middle of our Sponsor Concourse, that will take you through the timeline of your favorite brands’ evolution! 

We also prioritize collaboration over competition, fostering a supportive environment for brands to work together. I've introduced a streamlined process without the usual collaboration fees, encouraged collabs by offering discounted Collab Sponsor booths so brands can engage in collaborative releases with reduced financial risk. 

The commitment to brands doesn't end there. We have also incorporated features like the FLOURISH Cafe, at the landing point, for food and beverage creators who often get the short end of the stick at events. Additionally, our Concourse Kiosks offer a low-cost opportunity for emerging and small brands to gain visibility in a real-world shopping experience, reminiscent of the shopping kiosks in your local mall. We have partnered with Luke Rowley, creator of the EasyBloggers platform, for a seamless blogging experience for brands and bloggers. Furthermore, FLOURISH will launch a unique rewards program for brands with continuous participation, providing perks such as late fee waivers, premium booth selections, discounted and permanent booths, and social media features. This is just the tip of the iceberg of what FLOURISH will offer and my amazing team, Lillian Onyx, Fang Palazzo, Symone Gunner, Lyric Skye, Cakhez Blvck, and I are so excited to bring it all to you!

The launch date for FLOURISH is set for April 7, 2024. FLOURISH is not just a shopping event; it's a movement dedicated to improving the overall experience for both brands and shoppers. Interested brands and bloggers can join the movement and experience the fun at FLOURISH by submitting an application found on our website, http://flourisheventsl.com.

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Photo by Panda Banana

With Spellbound Manor and Events, you blend enchantment with luxury. What are the key elements you focus on when creating an immersive and luxurious environment? How can Residents get more information about your design and landscaping services?
Spellbound Spaces & Events is another passion project involving myself, Lillian Onyx who handles day-to-day business operations and landscaping, and Fang Palazzo, our talented and creative lighting expert. My way of building is truly unique. Beginning with choosing environments to set the mood of a space and using high-quality, luxury decor and furnishings, plant life, and lighting to tell the story of a space. I often tell clients, that I don’t create spaces, I design with my soul to create experiences. Key elements in creating an immersive environment include meticulous attention to detail, blending fantasy aesthetics with high-end resort-style touches, and fostering a sense of wonder. The enchantment is brought to life in a way that feels both magical and grounded in reality. My goal, through the use of rich and earthy tones and shadows, is to invoke a feeling as you enter the room. Pro-tip: When stepping into any space that I create, ensure you are in “Shared Environment” to experience it the way it should be! The reception from the community has been overwhelming and we are so grateful for the support. Residents interested in our design and landscaping services can reach out to us via the form linked on our Facebook page.


Watch this video submitted by Kacee about Spellbound Manor.
Video production by Sabina Valeska

How has being a part of Second Life transformed or impacted your personal or professional life?
Second Life has been a transformative journey. It has allowed me to explore and expand my creativity, connect with an incredible community, and merge my real-life skills with virtual experiences. Seamlessly weaving together my real-world background in business, marketing, and the music industry with the dynamic opportunities of the virtual realm has allowed me to explore new facets of creativity, business management, and community building. The synergy between my real and virtual experiences has been harmonious, contributing to a fulfilling and enriching Second Life. It's not just a platform; it's a canvas for personal and professional growth, offering unique opportunities that have enriched both aspects of my life.

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Kacee with DJ Fang

Tell us about some of the other Residents in SL who inspire you and whose work you admire.
In Second Life, the community is filled with so many talented individuals who inspire me every day! 

One notable figure who continues to inspire me is Fang Palazzo, DJ Fang. His passion for music and dedication to creating memorable experiences for residents constantly motivates me. I couldn’t do what I do without his continued support. 

My mother, Heaven Release, keeps me grounded and constantly reminds me that I am capable of anything! Between her and my father, King Slaughterhouse Gunner, I’ve had the most amazing support system. 

Vrutega, one of my most staunch supporters from day one, has really been a driving force behind me, giving me the courage to continue to do what drives me. 

Sugarplum Zsun and her passion for music and creating her mark in Second Life is what started my journey within the SL’s colorful music scene. 

The adorably sweet and talented SEMINA, who blessed me with my first Live Singer event, continues to inspire me with her creative shows and innovative ideas! Working with her is always a vibe and man, can she sing! 

Shawn X. Gunner and Symone Gunner both have hearts of gold and know no bounds when it comes to supporting me and all my different endeavors! Their patience and guidance are a gift as I navigate through this virtual world. 

Highlife Destination owners Tye & Gabriel Easton are truly inspiring to me. The hard work and ingenuity they put into their vacation destinations and events raise the bar and add a level of realism with flawless roleplay and endless activities. They inspire me to keep growing my ideas and I aspire to be on their level one day! 

Ras Solaris and all the education and awareness he brings with the Meroe Museum. He is the definition of inspiration! 

Second Life Creators are my biggest inspiration! Each has a distinct style and passion that continues to motivate and push boundaries. Their dedication and the unique contributions they make to the SL community are truly admirable. Their creativity and drive really keep Second Life filled with vibrant experiences, and for that, I am forever grateful. All my club rats in the SL Music scene I have a special love for! Imagine day in and day out they are here simply for the love of music. Inspiring! There are too many to name, but the support and inspiration from Second Life residents continually drives me to explore new horizons and contribute positively to this virtual world.

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Kacee with Sugarplum

Where can people see your work? Please share links to your sites and social media accounts.
Yes! Please connect with me! 
You can find all my links and info at http://kaceepopstar.carrd.co
Palazzo Park: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Spellbound Manor/105/85/2223
FLOURISH Event: https://flourisheventsl.com
Spellbound Manor: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Spellbound Manor/251/210/21
Spellbound Spaces & Events: https://www.facebook.com/SpellboundSpaces

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Thank you, Kacee, for your invaluable contributions and for enriching our community with your creativity and dedication. 


Each of our Spotlight posts features a different Resident to showcase the spectrum of experiences and personalities found in our virtual world. If you have created something inworld that you’re proud of, or have had a deeply meaningful experience that could brighten someone else’s day, please sign up! More info here: https://second.life/spotlight-signup        

Linden Lab

We’ve got some great news to share with you about the Second Life Mobile app. The latest Private Alpha release has a bunch of improvements and bug fixes – and even adds support for streaming audio!

Interested in checking it out? All Premium Plus subscribers are invited to participate - learn more about how to apply here…and be sure to check out this video preview to get the full scoop on why Second Life Mobile matters.

It’s been three months since we announced our Second Life Mobile Private Alpha and we have been blown away by the support and participation. 

During this time - with help from the Private Alpha participants – we have been able to find and fix important issues and we’ve continued to make strides with feature development. We have made substantial improvements to connection stability, reduced the sensitivity of avatar movement, decreased the memory footprint of some inworld items (sculpts!), and added additional error logging so that we can continue to dig into new or existing issues. We also fixed a nasty issue with some avatars not appearing at all!

Based on feedback reported in Canny and from bug reports sent directly from the app, we have improved the user experience by decreasing the sensitivity of pinch and camera controls, moved the camera target closer to the center of your avatar and we are iterating on the size of the area for the vstick. 

In addition to these improvements, we’re also excited to announce that our latest release of our Second Life Mobile Alpha app now supports streaming audio! Now you can enjoy music in Second Life on your mobile device with a friend or a group of friends inworld. (Note, streaming audio is off by default – go to hamburger > Settings > Developer tools > Enable Streaming Audio.)

What’s next? The UI is getting some additional refinement which we hope to share soon and we’re working on improving teleports, chat, and avatar rendering. If you are a Premium Plus subscriber, go here to apply to participate in the Mobile Private Alpha.

We are excited to continue this mobile development journey with you and look forward to expanding participation in the Mobile Private Alpha program.

With love, 
Your Second Life Mobile Team

 

Linden Lab

Just in time for Valentine's Day, we're thrilled to present another installment in our beloved "Love Made in SL" series. This latest episode features seven stories about love in our virtual world. 

Featured speakers and stories in order of appearance:

  1. The Rizzlers: Ultra and Anti
  2. The Heartsongs: Suellen and James
  3. The Evergardens: Adora and Cole
  4. Mat and Willo
  5. Ariel Jurassic from Actually Love
  6. Shady and Luci
  7. Duplicat and Quartz

Enjoy how fellow residents share the strength of their connections formed in Second Life, where chance meetings can evolve into profound relationships. Join us as we celebrate love in its many forms, showing that in Second Life, love knows no bounds! 

Watch the whole Love Made in SL series in our YouTube playlist: https://second.life/LoveMadeinSL 

Happy Valentine’s Day! ❤️

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Video Production by Draxtor Despres
Logo by Marianne McCann

Linden Lab

Today we’re shining a spotlight on Shawn Gunner, whose decade-long journey in Second Life has transformed from a curious newcomer to a pivotal machinima artist, DJ, and educator.

Second Life Spotlight - Shawn Gunner.jpg

How long have you been in Second Life and how did you first hear about it?
I have been a passionate follower of Second Life for nearly ten years, finding this virtual realm to be a constant source of amusement and social connectivity. Surprisingly, I initially discovered this platform through an online forum dedicated to IMVU, another well-known virtual world. However, upon entering Second Life, I immediately recognized its superior qualities compared to any other virtual world I had encountered previously. With its captivating visuals, limitless customization opportunities, and thriving community, Second Life has undeniably become a cherished sanctuary for me.

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You are a talented machinima artist, how did you get into it and do you have a background in video production?
Upon discovering machinima in Second Life, I was immediately drawn to its captivating and imaginative possibilities. Initially unaware that real users were behind these creations, I mistook them for a feature available for purchase within Second Life. I recall reaching out to a machinima video creator, expressing my interest in acquiring something similar. It was only after they enlightened me about their personal involvement in the video's production that I truly appreciated the depth of their creativity, and my fascination with the realm of machinima was born.

Spurred by this encounter, I developed a passion for crafting my own machinima videos. Although I initially considered commissioning a video from the creator, I ultimately declined due to cost and resolved to embrace the challenge myself. My friends, impressed by my non-Second Life video creations, wholeheartedly encouraged me in this pursuit.

Countless hours were devoted to researching and honing my craft. I carefully studied a multitude of videos on YouTube and reached out to numerous experienced videographers for guidance and assistance. I eagerly absorbed insights into various techniques and software, integrating them into my creative endeavors. Experimentation with camera angles, lighting, and effects played a crucial role in achieving my desired outcomes.

While I lack professional experience in video production outside of Second Life, my ardent interest in the art of filmmaking has always remained steadfast.

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You’ve recently started teaching film classes at GPS Studios, can you tell us more about that and how Residents can sign up if they are interested in learning?
Due to my passion for teaching, I am thrilled to have begun my career as a videography instructor at GioNation. During my time there, I had the pleasure of meeting Sergio Castellanos, the school's founder. Although initially nervous, Sergio's polite and welcoming demeanor helped put me at ease. Following a successful interview, I accepted a teaching position at GioNation until its closure.

Undeterred by this setback, I sought guidance and support from Sergio to continue my teaching journey. With his invaluable assistance, I established GPS Studios, where my team and I offer comprehensive filmmaking classes. These courses cover essential aspects of videography, such as lighting techniques, camera movements, and numerous vital skills.

At GPS Studios, we take pride in our straightforward teaching style, striving to make the learning process enjoyable and accessible for our students. Additionally, we provide a wide range of effects for Premier Pro, which can enhance video quality.

If you are interested in creating machinima in Second Life, we would be delighted to have you enroll in our classes. Our team is excited to share our knowledge and expertise with you. You can find our sign-up page here: https://forms.gle/mJtBQgnHU4CSvxnP7 

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You’re also a DJ, how did you get into DJing in Second Life and which venues do you regularly play at? Are there any upcoming shows Residents can see you at?
I have always had a deep passion for music. My sister Junie Hendrixx and I started from nothing on Second Life, playing music and slowly building a following of people who appreciated our talent. Through hard work and dedication, we honed our skills in mixing and blending, which eventually led to the creation of our esteemed entertainment company, Sneaky Link Entertainment.

Although we initially started small, over time our company grew, and we were fortunate enough to bring on my best friend and business partner, Kevo B. Wylin. Together, we have established ourselves as one of the premier entertainment companies within our virtual world. Our diverse roster of DJs, including DJ Kevo, DJ Lola Bunny, DJ Ultra Violet, DJ Blackice, DJ Fang, DJ Brockie, and myself, offer a wide range of music genres, catering to various tastes from Rap/Hip-Hop to R&B and House.

Behind the scenes, our exceptional team of managers, including Symone, Dee, Luna, Lola, Lyric, Kacee, and Slaughter, plays a vital role in keeping our company thriving. Additionally, we have a highly dedicated hype team consisting of over 15 members who assist us in promoting our events and reaching a larger audience.
To stay updated with our upcoming shows, you can join our in-world group or follow us on social media. Our Facebook and Instagram links are provided below:
FB: https://www.facebook.com/SneakyLinkEntertainment 
IG: https://www.instagram.com/sneakylinkentsl
Inworld Group: secondlife:///app/group/2f521f16-f593-e83a-90b1-59771471c838/about  

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Are there any other interesting projects you are currently working on? What can we expect from you in the future?
I am currently involved in multiple projects that hold significant professional importance for me. One such project is a collaboration with Moon Studios, where we are working together to achieve an exceptional result. Additionally, I am working closely with Peasant Tater, a highly regarded videographer and voice actor in the Second Life community, on a detailed project. Our focus is to compile various scenes into a cohesive work that will undoubtedly impress. Peasant is making significant contributions to the project by creating multiple custom animations.

Furthermore, I am collaborating with a carefully chosen group of individuals on a music video project. The casting call for the video was overseen by Sauda Moon, the CEO of Moon Studios, and Revienne Decosta, CEO of Revienne. Ryah Plastique, the founder of Mu Alpha Chi Sorority, is responsible for animating the dancers in the video.

In summary, I consider myself privileged to be involved in these projects and eagerly anticipate their final outcomes. These projects hold immense professional significance for me, and I take pride in being able to contribute my expertise to their success.

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Tell us about some of the other Residents in SL who inspire you and whose work you admire.
Within the realm of Second Life, a multitude of gifted and imaginative individuals exist, uplifting and propelling others to new levels of achievement. Fortunately, I have had the privilege of encountering a handful of these remarkable residents who have left a lasting impact on me.

One such individual is DJ Brockie, who, in my estimation, stands as one of the premier DJs in existence. Sadly, I believe he does not receive the recognition he rightfully merits. Nevertheless, his prowess behind the turntables is unparalleled, and his passion for music is contagious. He is unquestionably a role model for me, and undoubtedly, my entire team feels the same.

With respect to videography, the Second Life community is teeming with countless talented figures, too numerous to mention entirely. However, several individuals stand out prominently to me, namely VrutegaSere Vene, Sergio Castellanos, Malus Castamere, Peasant Tater, and many others. Each possesses a distinctive style that sets their work apart, showcasing their exceptional abilities and the unwavering commitment they pour into their respective crafts.

I would like to emphasize my deep reverence for each of these individuals. I wholeheartedly support and admire them in their endeavors, whatever they may be. They serve as a wellspring of inspiration for not only me but also for many others within the Second Life community.

SL Feature 2.0 copy.jpg

Where can people see your work? Please share links to your sites and social media accounts.

https://www.facebook.com/GunnerKlips 
https://www.instagram.com/gunn.klips
 
https://www.facebook.com/GPSStudiosSL
https://www.instagram.com/gpstudiossl

https://www.facebook.com/SneakyLinkEntertainment 
https://www.instagram.com/sneakylinkentsl


Watch this moving machinima created by Shawn for this Spotlight interview, where he shares his unique connection with Second Life.

Thank you, Shawn, for enriching the Second Life community with your talent, creativity, and musical expression.

 

Each of our Spotlight posts features a different Resident to showcase the spectrum of experiences and personalities found in our virtual world. If you have created something inworld that you’re proud of, or have had a deeply meaningful experience that could brighten someone else’s day, please sign up! More info here: https://second.life/spotlight-signup      

Strawberry Linden

Crystal Line Romantic Ballroom.jpg
Pictured: Crystal Line Romantic Ballroom

Looking for the perfect spot for a Valentine's date? Second Life is brimming with romantic destinations that promise unforgettable moments with your special someone. From starlit gardens to breathtakingly beautiful ballrooms - explore the Romance category on the Destination Guide - and kindle the flames of love!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And come hang out with Lindens and Moles on Valentine's Day at the following events!

 

 

Don't forget to check our Recently Added category to see all the latest additions to the Second Life Destination Guide!

Got a spot that you’d like listed in the Destination Guide? Make sure to drop us a note at editor@lindenlab.com or submit your spot via web form. Learn more about the Destination Guide criteria for Editors’ Picks or the Destinations Floater in the viewer, and increase your chances of being featured in those coveted spots!

Connect with Second Life on Social Media.
Sign up for the Second Life Weekly Email Newsletter.

Linden Lab

Creations Park Made in Second Life


Made in Second Life

Dive into the heart of creativity and connection in Second Life with the latest addition to our Made in SL series, "Creations Park Made in Second Life." 

In this two-part feature, we highlight the inspiring stories of Barbie Alchemi and Carlyle Chaparral, two remarkable Residents who have transformed their virtual experiences into avenues of real-world impact and cultural enrichment. 


Creations Park Made in Second Life Part #1 - Barbie Alchemi

Hi Barbie, how did you get into Second Life? 
My brother lived on the East Coast while my mom and I lived on the West. Although we always had a strong love bond, we did not have a lot to share in our phone conversations. One day 14 years ago, he began to excitedly talk about Second Life. We had no idea what that was, but Mom said “If we want to communicate with him, we need to learn his language.” It was our love for my brother that got us involved in SL and motivated us through the learning curve. 

Few people would want to share SL with their mother, but it brought us together as a family again. People would ask Mom how often she got to see her son and she would have to bite her tongue because she wanted to say “I just saw him last night. We were playing with our Kitty Cats in our garden!”

What is Creations Park in Second Life? Please give us a bit of history and explain what people can do in your region.
After being in SL for a year I heard someone say, “How you spend your time and money shows where your true values are.” I wanted to use SL in a positive way to raise donations for Team Fox, the charity arm of The Michael J Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research. We have now raised over $48,000 US. Our Dad had died with Parkinson’s and a year later Mom was diagnosed with the same disease. When she came into SL we were amazed to see the benefits it gave her in Real Life (RL). Mom was also documented in The Drax Files: World Makers Episode 13 back in 2013

In Creations Park I wanted to create beautiful environments and experiences. The idea for the Ethereal Light Level was influenced by Mom’s near-death experience. She described it as if the air was made of love and everything she could see was made of light with many more colors than our eyes could see. She also said she had access to all knowledge. When she came back into her body the only message she brought back was “Our purpose here on Earth is Love and Service.” Creations Park was built based on that message. For me, the most meaningful thing I do each week is the Parkinson’s Support group which has been ongoing for 12 years. Although this group was started by Mom, it has continued after her passing. 

What encouraged you to stay in Second Life?
My now deceased husband rolled his eyes every time I turned on Second Life. Eventually, he came to understand and respect what I had accomplished at Creations Park. My friends all thought I was crazy.  I told them I felt like I was an early explorer when all the people of “the old world” were afraid I would fall off the edge of the earth when getting on a ship to sail out to see “the New World.” It was the endless creative opportunities and deep friendship connections that kept me coming back. 

Your experience with folks of your generation: how would you alleviate potential fears of taking part in a “digital” community like this?
There is no age in Second Life. You are as young as you feel. Although there is a learning curve, this is also true for anything of value in life. My biggest fear when I came into SL was that everyone would be fake and how I could possibly trust enough to make a friend. A few weeks after I joined, I attended a philosophy group which asked the question “Where do you feel more authentic: in SL or in RL?” Much to my amazement, every person in that group answered in SL. That opened me up to trust. I discovered I was able to “feel” the essence of the person behind the avatar, and it had nothing to do with what they looked like. I know that SL has taught me more life lessons than I ever could have had by only living one life. 

What is the future of virtual worlds like Second Life?
Second Life will always have a future as long as the residents find value in the creative and social connections. SL has the ability to fill areas of a person’s life that might be missing in RL. It has been my desire to follow a path to use Second Life in a positive way.
 


Creations Park Made in Second Life Part #2 - Carlyle Chaparral - Savoy Ballroom

Hi Carlyle, what is the Savoy Ballroom in Second Life? What can people do?
This is the mission statement of Savoy in Second Life:
We create the authentic, realistic experience of being at the Harlem Savoy Ballroom during the Swing Era. We teach the music, clubs, bands, and especially the dances of this era and their legacies today.  We educate our guests about the role swing dancing played in dissolving segregation in the 1940s. We empower others to creatively achieve our mission and our partner organizations’ missions. 

Guests at Savoy most often come to meet people and dance. They may come for one of our many live entertainers; singers, instrumentalists, and DJs who perform mostly during the European prime time and US Prime Time hours. Our dancers have the unique experience of our Savoy couples dance animation machine, which names the dances according to their actual type of dance and organizes them by type and tempo. This allows dancers to pick dances that match the music just like you do in real-life dancing.

Some of our guests tour the Swing Era Museum that surrounds the Ballroom. This explores the key events in swing history as well as the bands, venues, music, and especially the dances of this era. In the sky above Savoy, our Museum also presents an Avatar-scale model floor plan of the original Savoy to experience just how huge it was.

Developing dance classes in Second Life was our original mission before we envisioned Savoy. Our Dance 101 Class located in front of the Ballroom is an introduction to dance in Second Life. We teach people how to recognize six different kinds of music and choose dances to match. Our Dance 301 Class -The Birth of Swing, is a full-immersion experience taking advantage of the capabilities of our virtual world in Second Life. You enter a room which transports you to some of the key venues of the early Swing Era, as you dance along with the bands and music that occurred there.

How did you get into SL and did it take time for you to decide on focusing on Savoy/teaching dancing? 
I first came to Second Life in 2006 having read an article about it in a prominent business magazine. My wife soon joined me and we had a marvelous few years exploring the experiences of this virtual world unlike anything we could have imagined. I built a real estate business in SL that was surprisingly profitable and had a lot of fun meeting tenants from all over the world. We found ourselves dancing in SL so much so that we started dancing in real life. In 2010 we both left SL and became avid dancers, dancing swing, country, ballroom, and Latin at a wide range of real-life clubs and colleges.

In 2014, I came back to SL with two specific project ideas in my mind. First, to make dancing more fun and realistic in Second Life. I want to apply the things I had learned in real-life dancing including dance classes and the social experience of dance groups. Second, to explore the medical concept of vivid motor image therapy to see if the uniquely empathic experience of Second Life could utilize high-repetition dance mental imagery to rebuild neural and cortical damage. The teams of people I have brought together have made great progress on the first project, resulting in Savoy. I hope to be able to address the second project in the future.

What background in regards to dancing and music do you have IRL?
I have an extensive background in music dating back to my high school days singing and playing in marching band, jazz band, and rock and roll dance bands. As an adult, I have been performing in church rock bands for many years and also in coaching youth church bands. I have played a lot of different instruments including acoustic guitar, 12-string guitar, electric guitar, banjo, and mandolin, but for the past 20 years or so I have performed primarily on bass guitar and keyboards.  

As far as dancing goes, when my wife and I left SL and began dancing a lot in real life, we took some formal dance classes and countless pre-dance event lessons. The experience of dancing with a variety of partners, as you do in real-life dances, was very helpful to hone our skills. Most dance events, particularly those held in colleges, will have a free dance class at the beginning where you can learn the basics and dance with people who are more experienced.  

Your experience with “older” folks in Second Life: how would you alleviate potential fears of taking part in a “digital” community?
I think by now people of all ages have experienced taking part in a “digital” community, ranging from social media sites like Facebook and Instagram to dating/friendship sites. Perhaps less experienced by “older” folks are the virtual game worlds which most young people have played,  some extensively. The challenge of SL in particular is that it is not a game to play but rather an alternative place to live a different, fantastic life (or lives.) What you experience here can be so emotionally potent that it is common for people to leave SL for a time, and then come back and do it again. However, the broad diversity of experiences and particularly the people that you meet and live with can make it all very much worthwhile. 

What is the future of virtual worlds like Second Life?
It seems to me that essentially all of the virtual worlds created so far have been an environment that was created by programmers for users. The theme might be educational or simply game playing but it is you reacting to the program. Some of these Virtual Worlds, particularly the games, have been fabulously successful in the number of people playing.

The one exception is Second Life, where the virtual world you experience is created by you and the people you are experiencing it with. Linden Lab has been providing this virtual world for decades and it is clear that so far no competitor can get close to matching the realism of what you actually experience in SL. I think the success of Second Life in the future will depend upon Linden Lab communicating the SL experience to potential new residents. I have found the video series that Drax has created called “Made in SL'' to be particularly effective in doing exactly that. Finding a way to incentivize existing residents to spread the word about SL may be the key to growing this world.


Teleport to Creations Park and the Savoy Ballroom now, and immerse yourself in the vibrant communities, breathtaking landscapes, and cultural richness that await. 

 

 

Made in SL Landscape 3b.pngMade in SL Landscape 2b.png

 

Video Production and Interviews by Draxtor Despres
Logos by Marianne McCann

Linden Lab

Today we’re shining a spotlight on Winter Karter (Allure Enchanted), the creative force behind the fashion brand Vague and the founder of the Shoppe BLK initiative in Second Life.

Second Life Spotlight - Winter Karter.jpg

How long have you been in Second Life and how did you first hear about it?
I’ve been playing SL for over 15 years now. A group of friends and I came over from IMVU in 2006 to see what all the fuss was about, and for the life of me, I could not figure it out the first time around. I was just flying around aimlessly and was like, omg what is this?! I gave up that day! It took me about a year to come back and try again and was like okay I can walk, I can change my clothes. I think I got it now. Once I returned I never looked back!

Allure Enchanted 2.png

You are a seasoned content creator, how did you get started, and can you tell us more about your brand Vague?
I first started creating clothing and accessories on IMVU. I knew I wanted to continue the journey here, but at the time I didn’t know where to begin. I wanted to create things I liked for myself and also to support my spending habits being in the game. This was a very expensive upgrade from the previous one. There weren’t as many options back then as there are now with all the different bodies and modifications. I come from a prehistoric time. I’m talking about dinosaur age! All we had was the default body, BOM clothing, and “/99bling on” accessories lmao. Shortly after figuring out the process as it was very different compared to the way things were on the other platform, I opened my first store “Killer Lipstick”. I was known as the girl who made the flexi tutu skirts lol. My store was a side-by-side concept with my now husband Kingston Karter’s former brand “Undefined”,  in a shopping region known as “NYC2CALI”. If it wasn’t for him I wouldn’t be a creator today. He’s the one who taught me in the very beginning and always pushed me to open a store. He’s always been my number one supporter, I love him dearly and I can’t thank him enough for that. Fast forward a bit to a few brand identity crises and name changes I settled on Vague, a women's apparel and footwear brand and the rest is history.

Vague - Venice.png

Do you have a background in 3D content creation and what kind of tools do you use to create your content?
Being on SL pre-mesh body days (omg crazy right) it was much easier creating BOM texture clothing back then and even texturing full perm mesh. In 2021 I decided I wanted more control over my brand, no longer wanting to rely on commissioning other 3d artists to complete my vision. I opted to take mesh classes hosted by some of my fellow residents. I can admit it was very intimidating learning programs that I’ve never heard of or even seen before. Blender, Zbrush, and Substance Painter were all foreign to me at the time and seemed nearly impossible to master. Had a few hiccups, tons of failed lessons, and even quit a few times, but in January of 2022 all the hard work paid off and I released my first 100% original mesh item all done by me. It was such a rewarding feeling. Like omg, I did this! And I owe it all to an extremely talented artist, friend, and teacher Kitti Softpaw. She’s taught me everything I know about 3D modeling, and I am forever grateful.

Vague - Sunjai.png

Your role as a mentor and teacher is quite inspiring. Could you elaborate on the community work you do and the 3D modeling classes you offer for budding creators in Second Life? Where can interested Residents sign up to learn from you?
I wouldn’t refer to myself as a teacher but more so someone you can look to when you are in need of help. Whether it be providing a discord server to come together and house fellow creatives, providing resources, helping with a HUD, setting up vendors, rigging clothing, texturing in substance painter, marketing, or fixing that little hole in your mesh lol. I will soon be embarking on a more focused mentor program where I’ll be taking a few aspiring and small creators and guiding them on their journey into 3D content creation and running a successful brand in Second Life. Most of us are either self-taught or learned from other residents. If I can help in any way, I always try to because these are things I wish I had access to and knowledge of when I first started creating.

Vague - Raven.png

Can you give us an overview of the Shoppe BLK initiative? How can designers who meet the criteria get involved?
Shoppe BLK where do I begin? After browsing on social media, the question was always asked “how do we find black-owned businesses in Second Life so that we can support them”? The idea was brought to me by a dear friend Daisy (owner of 28LA). She suggested it would be good if I started a directory of Black Owned Businesses within Second Life. I’m all about community and coming together so why not ya know? From that Shoppe BLK WKND sale was born. Its sole purpose was to highlight, showcase, and support black creators like myself within the grid. Shoppe BLK runs the first weekend of every month (Thursday- Sunday) you can find items from our featured designers each round for 75L. We are always looking for talented designers to join, all you have to do is add your brand to the directory and fill out the designer application to be considered.

Shoppe Black Business Directory 
Shoppe BLK WKND App
Shoppe BLK Facebook

Shoppe BLK.png

Tell us about some of the other Residents in SL who inspire you and whose work you admire.
Second Life is full of so many amazingly talented creators and just people in general. I’m always in awe every day seeing how creative everyone is.

Kismet Chrome from Rosary is someone who has been creating amazing clothing for a very long time. I have admired her work for years. And anytime I have a question or run into an issue, she has no problem answering or helping me solve a problem.

My dearest brother CzarFenris of Animosity Poses, I don’t know anyone who has his work ethic. From blogging, and photography, to pumping releases nonstop.

Vive Nine, Merch, Rowne, Majesty, and so many others! It’s an honor to be among so much talent.

Allure Enchanted 3.png

Where can people see your work? Please share links to your sites and social media accounts.
You can find all of our work on Flickr 
Vague Mainstore
Vague on Marketplace 
Follow us on Facebook 

Thank you, Winter, for being an inspiration for all aspiring creators and community builders in Second Life.


Each of our Spotlight posts features a different Resident to showcase the spectrum of experiences and personalities found in our virtual world. If you have created something inworld that you’re proud of, or have had a deeply meaningful experience that could brighten someone else’s day, please sign up! More info here: https://second.life/spotlight-signup 

Linden Lab

IsleofView-2048.jpg

The Isle of View is our annual tribute to all things romantic via four regions filled with forested walks, cozy nooks for cuddling, and romantic swan boat rides. 

Visit one of the Love Pavilion gift kiosks to browse through a variety of gift selections that you can send to your friends and loved ones on Valentine’s Day. The selection of gifts includes heart lollipops and balloons, an adorable teddy bear, a chocolate box with rings, cutesy cupcakes, love lanterns, and, of course, romantic roses. We even have a special limited edition Boopie you can have sent to your special Valentine or just get one for yourself! To select and send your free gifts, follow the directions on the sign adjacent to the kiosk. Or alternatively, click on the help buttons on the gift kiosks. 

VALENTINE'S LOVE TRAIN

LoveTrain.jpg

Our special Bellisseria Valentine's Event returns this year. "Love Train Trolleys" operated by our own LDPW Moles depart from the station on the Welcome Hub every few minutes starting at 12:30pm PT. The 30 minute ride ends with a teleporter that will take residents directly to Dunk & Hug a Linden or Mole, but residents can hop on at any point as the trolleys go by! Learn more about it from Patch Linden's forum post with a map of the route.

DUNK & HUG A LINDEN OR MOLE EVENT

DunkingBooth.jpg

Are you feeling “some kind of way” about the Lindens or Moles? Show your love (or friendly aggression) for the makers of Second Life at our annual Dunk & Hug a Linden or Mole Event, held this year on February 14th from 1pm to 3pm PT at the Isle of View. Come early for some fun conversations and plenty of soaked Lindens!

Roses are red,
Violets are blue,
Hug and dunk some Lindens & Moles,
At the Isle of View!

NEW LAST NAMES

Last Names Announcements.png

Additionally, we have just released new last names for the season!

The following Valentine-themed names are only available for a limited time:  
Bae
Flirt
Lovelace
Lovingood
Simp
Snuggler
Sweetheart
Trueheart

These names for Valentine’s Day are seasonal and may come back around this time next year, for a limited time.

We will continue to make additional updates to the available last name pool, so if these options aren’t for you, stay tuned for future updates. You can also suggest your favorite name on our suggestion form, the new names were chosen from there! 

For more information about the costs and how-tos involved in name changes, read the Changing your username FAQ. Click to change your name now!

2024 VALENTINE SHOP & HOP

2024 Valentine Shop Hop.jpg

The 2024 Valentine Shop & Hop returns with 280 participating Merchants across 14 shopping regions, bringing their best to inspire your Valentine's fantasies from a romantic evening with your bae, to a party with your friends, and everything in between. You will definitely find something to suit you! Every store will have at least a 20% discount on all items and a free (non-group) gift for shoppers or a gift certificate valued at L$300 or above! Check the Shop & Hop blog post for a full list of all 280 merchants with slurls!

ROMANTIC DESTINATIONS

Crystal Line Romantic Ballroom - 2048.jpg
Pictured: Crystal Line Romantic Ballroom

Are you looking for even more romantic destinations to explore this season? Grab a loved one and go on a date at one of the many beautiful places listed in the Romance category on the Destination Guide.
We’re adding new regions daily, so if you have a spot you’d like to invite other Residents to explore, make sure to check out the submission guidelines and submit yours today!

Happy Valentine’s Day! ❤️

Linden Lab

2024 Valentine Shop Hop.jpg

The 2024 Valentine Shop & Hop is almost here with 280 participating merchants across 14 shopping regions. All are offering their best to inspire your Valentine's fantasies from a romantic evening with your bae, to a party with your friends, and everything in between. You will definitely find something to suit you! Every store will have at least a 20% discount on all items and a free (non-group) gift for shoppers or a gift certificate valued at L$300 or above! There are also many stores featuring new designs for the Senra Mesh Bodies.

The event formally opens to the public on Thursday, February 1st at 9am PT - but who wants to wait when you can get early access?! If you can’t contain your excitement, join the official Second Life Birthday group inworld to be granted immediate access.

Before you jump inworld, you can get a sneak peek at many of the items that will be available in the official Second Life Shop & Hop Flickr pool. And don’t forget to share photos of your haul after your shopping excursion!

To visit the 2024 Valentine Shop & Hop - start at any one of the Regions - but be sure to visit them all to see everything that's available. Happy shopping! ❤️

A complete list of all 280 participating Shop & Hop Merchants in alphabetical order, and the direct slurls, is below: 
 

Store SLurl to Store
-Extra- http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Lavendar/153/40/53 
:::boyberry::: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Lavendar/216/153/53 
:::FRIDA::: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Gleaming/153/40/53 
::RBento:: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Jubilant/183/216/53 
:DH: Shop http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Chickory/207/48/53 
:Enyora's: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Chickory/41/184/53 
! Crisp Bear ! http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Halcyon/104/41/53 
!APHORISM! http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Lupine/41/184/53 
!dM deviousMind http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Forsythia/214/103/53 
. Hanzel . http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Gilded/50/206/53 
.: Runic :. http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Golden/72/41/53 
.:Tm:.Creation http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Tinseled/50/50/53 
.cococat. http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Zinnia/50/50/53 
.Lunaria. http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Golden/50/206/53 
.Tardfish. http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Jubilant/206/206/53 
.Viki. http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Forsythia/153/215/53 
[ SuXue ] http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Jubilant/207/48/53 
[C.YFashion] http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Forsythia/184/41/53 
[CIRCA]  Living http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Halcyon/50/50/53 
[GIULIADESIGN] http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Lavendar/104/215/53 
[Krescendo] http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Golden/40/73/53 
[LiZzYay] Party & Home deco http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Golden/104/215/53 
[MoonSha] http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Jubilant/72/41/53 
[MSN Design] http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Lupine/207/48/53 
[Onyx] Store http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Zinnia/215/183/53 
[P3] http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Tinseled/215/72/53 
[SURPLUS MOTORS] http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Halcyon/206/206/53 
{ wren's nest } http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Jubilant/50/50/53 
{amiable} http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Lupine/72/41/53 
{NANTRA} http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Tinseled/73/216/53 
@rOrO http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Lupine/42/102/53 
*~*HopScotch*~* http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Snapdragon/41/153/53 
*Fancy Dancer* http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Forsythia/40/73/53 
*HolliPocket* http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Forsythia/41/153/53 
*katat0nik* http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Gilded/41/184/53 
*KD* KaiDesign http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Sugarplum/207/48/53 
*Kira's Poses* http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Golden/153/215/53 
*PAN* http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Tinseled/214/103/53 
*paper moon* http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Chickory/104/41/53 
*Twinkle* http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Tinseled/41/184/53 
+ARANA+ http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Gilded/42/102/53 
+Half-Deer+ http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Snapdragon/206/206/53 
❤️ DUMAY ❤️ http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Lupine/41/153/53 
3rd Eye Perceptions http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Halcyon/41/184/53 
777 MOTORS http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Halcyon/216/153/53 
7wishes / 1313 Mockingbird Lane http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Zinnia/40/73/53 
ABC - Awesome Breed Creations http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Sugarplum/104/215/53 
ACCENT http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Lavendar/214/103/53 
Afterparty http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Lavendar/50/206/53 
Aitne http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Hollyhock/215/72/53 
AlaFolie http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Lupine/40/73/53 
ALANTORI http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Lavendar/215/72/53 
Aleutia http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Gleaming/214/103/53 
ALTGARD http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Lavendar/215/183/53 
AnaSTyle http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Gleaming/153/215/53 
andika http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Zinnia/50/206/53 
AngelicUs http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Zinnia/104/215/53 
ANNA http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Hollyhock/184/41/53 
Aphrodite shop http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Tinseled/153/40/53 
ART & FASHION http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Lupine/214/103/53 
Artisan Eden http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Zinnia/207/48/53 
ASH http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Lavendar/73/216/53 
AtaMe http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Lupine/215/72/53 
Atelier Burgundy http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Halcyon/153/40/53 
AURORA http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Hollyhock/153/40/53 
AXE STORE http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Forsythia/183/216/53 
B(U)Y ME POSES http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Tinseled/104/215/53 
BackBone http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Zinnia/41/184/53 
Badwolf Accessories & Co. http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Lavendar/72/41/53 
BBX YACHTS & BUILDINGS http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Halcyon/153/215/53 
Bee Dinkie Designs http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Chickory/73/216/53 
Belle Epoque http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Forsythia/104/215/53 
BelleRevenant http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Lupine/206/206/53 
Blackstone http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Hollyhock/41/184/53 
BMe, BlueMoon enterprises http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Lupine/50/206/53 
BobsCreations http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Gilded/73/216/53 
Boscato http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Lavendar/104/41/53 
BSHouse http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Halcyon/184/41/53 
Caboodle http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Forsythia/72/41/53 
CANARUN http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Halcyon/72/41/53 
Candy Bell http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Sugarplum/216/153/53 
Candy Kitten http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Sugarplum/214/103/53 
CARIBBEAN http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Lupine/104/41/53 
Cats Claw Designs http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Gleaming/184/41/53 
Caverna Obscura http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Forsythia/153/40/53 
CELESTE http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Chickory/50/50/53 
Celesticat http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Gilded/40/73/53 
Cheeky Pea http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Snapdragon/216/153/53 
CHEZ MOI FURNITURES http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Zinnia/73/216/53 
Crocodoggle http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Halcyon/50/206/53 
Crypteque http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Lavendar/206/206/53 
CUSTOM BUILDS - [TWC] http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Tinseled/72/41/53 
Cutempo http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Sugarplum/50/206/53 
Dahlia http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Golden/184/41/53 
DarkMoon Dinkie Fashion http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Chickory/153/215/53 
Deep Static http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Lavendar/50/50/53 
DFS - Digital Farm System http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Sugarplum/73/216/53 
DICTATORSHOP http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Halcyon/41/153/53 
Diesel Deluxe http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Lupine/215/183/53 
DINKIEWEAR http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Chickory/50/206/53 
Dotty's Secret http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Sugarplum/40/73/53 
Dragon Magick Wares http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Halcyon/40/73/53 
Dreadfully Dark http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Chickory/153/40/53 
DREAM http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Snapdragon/72/41/53 
Eclectica http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Tinseled/216/153/53 
Edgy*Kittiee http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Jubilant/104/215/53 
EED Home&Garden http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Halcyon/207/48/53 
Effervescence http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Gilded/104/41/53 
ELOS http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Zinnia/153/215/53 
Enaitch / Enamour http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Tinseled/206/206/53 
enLight (ND/MD) http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Gleaming/73/216/53 
EnPointe http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Tinseled/50/206/53 
Entice http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Forsythia/104/41/53 
erotiK http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Sugarplum/184/41/53 
ERSCH http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Hollyhock/207/48/53 
Eventyra http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Hollyhock/50/50/53 
Ever Green http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Snapdragon/207/48/53 
Everfaery http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Hollyhock/104/215/53 
Evergreen http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Forsythia/73/216/53 
Evil Baby http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Sugarplum/215/183/53 
Explosive - Scripts and Animations  http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Golden/183/216/53 
Faida http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Lupine/104/215/53 
Fantasy Illumination http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Tinseled/42/102/53 
Fantavatar & Moonstruck http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Snapdragon/215/72/53 
FINCA http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Halcyon/104/215/53 
Flair http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Jubilant/214/103/53 
Forest Fantasy Store http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Lavendar/40/73/53 
Fortunata http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Sugarplum/41/184/53 
Freya's Fashions http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Forsythia/50/50/53 
FurtaCor http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Gilded/215/183/53 
GA.EG & Gaeline http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Sugarplum/41/153/53 
GGVG fashion http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Gilded/206/206/53 
Ghee http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Forsythia/42/102/53 
GINKO http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Gilded/50/50/53 
Glitzz http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Gilded/183/216/53 
GoodVibes http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Gilded/153/215/53 
Gor-jus Animations http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Snapdragon/42/102/53 
Harshlands http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Golden/153/40/53 
HAUNT http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Golden/216/153/53 
Hayabusa Design http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Snapdragon/153/40/53 
HERO http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Zinnia/214/103/53 
HexPosed http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Jubilant/153/215/53 
HIDDEN http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Tinseled/215/183/53 
Hipster Style http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Sugarplum/183/216/53 
Hollow Family Industries http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Halcyon/183/216/53 
Image photography http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Sugarplum/153/215/53 
ionic http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Golden/41/153/53 
JC Creations http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Golden/207/48/53 
Jinx http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Chickory/216/153/53 
KARNA http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Lupine/153/40/53 
KiB Designs / MOoH! http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Sugarplum/104/41/53 
Kibitz http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Tinseled/41/153/53 
KILLJOY http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Gleaming/215/72/53 
kira tattoo http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Zinnia/183/216/53 
Kitty Coven http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Zinnia/206/206/53 
kiyori http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Golden/214/103/53 
KUMIHO http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Hollyhock/215/183/53 
KUNGLERS http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Jubilant/153/40/53 
KYMILE http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Zinnia/184/41/53 
Kyutéchi http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Gilded/207/48/53 
La Feminique http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Sugarplum/215/72/53 
Lacrime dell'anima http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Snapdragon/214/103/53 
Lapointe + Bastchild Swear http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Lavendar/41/153/53 
Libertine http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Snapdragon/104/41/53 
Lilleth. / LMC http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Lupine/153/215/53 
Limited Addiction http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Lupine/183/216/53 
Littlepaws Art Gallery http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Golden/50/50/53 
Löa http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Sugarplum/72/41/53 
LORE http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Golden/41/184/53 
LOVE Superstore http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Golden/42/102/53 
Lunistice http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Chickory/183/216/53 
M&M - Merc & Mindgardens http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Lupine/50/50/53 
MadCatCreations http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Jubilant/42/102/53 
MadPea http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Snapdragon/73/216/53 
MADRAS http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Golden/104/41/53 
Magic Party http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Zinnia/41/153/53 
Magnetic http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Snapdragon/183/216/53 
MAke a MArk http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Snapdragon/184/41/53 
MALified http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Lupine/216/153/53 
Manikin http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Jubilant/40/73/53 
meadowWorks http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Snapdragon/153/215/53 
Medieval Fantasy http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Hollyhock/183/216/53 
Melody http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Hollyhock/41/153/53 
MIXTAPE http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Tinseled/183/216/53 
MONOMANIA http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Hollyhock/214/103/53 
Moon amore http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Gilded/214/103/53 
Moonphase http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Jubilant/216/153/53 
MRCOIN http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Hollyhock/40/73/53 
Musa http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Gilded/72/41/53 
MY BAGS by Mila Blauvelt http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Hollyhock/153/215/53 
MYSA http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Halcyon/73/216/53 
Mysteria http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Sugarplum/42/102/53 
neve http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Forsythia/207/48/53 
No.Match http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Gleaming/41/184/53 
Noveny http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Golden/73/216/53 
OakLeaf Hair http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Snapdragon/40/73/53 
Octubre http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Hollyhock/216/153/53 
OKara Store http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Hollyhock/72/41/53 
OLD TREASURES http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Gilded/104/215/53 
Olympus Motors http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Halcyon/215/183/53 
On a Lark http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Gleaming/41/153/53 
OTHER FACES http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Gleaming/50/206/53 
Peeps Dinkies http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Chickory/41/153/53 
Petit Chat http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Tinseled/104/41/53 
Phedora http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Hollyhock/206/206/53 
Pixel Doll http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Jubilant/41/184/53 
pixicat http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Forsythia/216/153/53 
Prehistorica: the Dawn Kingdoms  http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Chickory/206/206/53 
Puke Rainbows http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Hollyhock/42/102/53 
PUMEC http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Zinnia/216/153/53 
PurpleMoon http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Jubilant/50/206/53 
QUEENZ http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Lupine/184/41/53 
Rake http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Lavendar/153/215/53 
Rapture's Enchantment http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Jubilant/73/216/53 
Roawenwood http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Tinseled/153/215/53 
RosenRot http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Zinnia/153/40/53 
ROZOREGALIA http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Jubilant/184/41/53 
RVi Design http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Tinseled/184/41/53 
Sàint http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Hollyhock/104/41/53 
Sanjak http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Lavendar/41/184/53 
sarafashion http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Zinnia/42/102/53 
Sascha's Designs http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Golden/215/183/53 
Schadenfreude http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Gilded/41/153/53 
Second Nature Jewellery http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Sugarplum/206/206/53 
SENTINUS http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Forsythia/41/184/53 
Sherbert http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Golden/206/206/53 
Shiny Stuffs http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Gleaming/104/215/53 
Short Leash http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Chickory/215/72/53 
Sid's Belli Shop http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Chickory/184/41/53 
SIGMA http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Gleaming/206/206/53 
Simply Shelby http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Chickory/214/103/53 
small http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Gilded/184/41/53 
So Silly Interactive http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Snapdragon/41/184/53 
SoftBoy http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Lavendar/207/48/53 
Son!a-Edge http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Lupine/73/216/53 
Specter Skies http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Chickory/72/41/53 
Spells & Charms http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Forsythia/50/206/53 
Stardust http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Snapdragon/50/50/53 
Starlight Apparel http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Forsythia/215/183/53 
Stiff Store http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Zinnia/215/72/53 
Stone's Work http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Sugarplum/153/40/53 
Supernatural http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Jubilant/215/72/53 
Swank & Co. http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Snapdragon/215/183/53 
Sway's http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Chickory/42/102/53 
Sweet Intoxication http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Forsythia/215/72/53 
Syren's Song http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Chickory/40/73/53 
tarte. http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Halcyon/214/103/53 
Tastic http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Gleaming/104/41/53 
Tea Lane http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Gleaming/215/183/53 
Tentacio http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Gleaming/216/153/53 
The Annex http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Gleaming/42/102/53 
The Bold Llama T-Shirt Co. http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Gilded/216/153/53 
The Jennyfur Line http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Chickory/215/183/53 
THS - The Home Store http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Golden/215/72/53 
Thundr http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Snapdragon/104/215/53 
Torgon's http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Jubilant/215/183/53 
Tori's stylez http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Gleaming/72/41/53 
Tosca Piccolo http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Chickory/104/215/53 
TPZY TREATZ http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Snapdragon/50/206/53 
TREND http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Zinnia/104/41/53 
Trompe Loeil http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Halcyon/42/102/53 
TS Creations http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Lavendar/184/41/53 
UNA http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Zinnia/72/41/53 
Unique Obsession http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Tinseled/40/73/53 
Universa http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Hollyhock/73/216/53 
Vagrant http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Gleaming/207/48/53 
Vague http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Forsythia/206/206/53 
VEGA DESIGN http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Gleaming/40/73/53 
VENGE http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Gleaming/183/216/53 
Vulnus http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Gleaming/50/50/53 
White Raven http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Jubilant/104/41/53 
WILD Fashion and Beauty http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Jubilant/41/153/53 
Wistaria. http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Sugarplum/50/50/53 
Witch in a Box http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Hollyhock/50/206/53 
Wraith http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Gilded/153/40/53 
XK Designs / Lana Tyler Creations  http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Lavendar/183/216/53 
Yasum http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Lavendar/42/102/53 
Your Dreams http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Tinseled/207/48/53 
Zerkalo http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Halcyon/215/72/53 
zOOm http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Gilded/215/72/53 
Linden Lab

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As part of our effort to better connect virtual world newcomers with some of the best and most active inworld communities, we’re excited to debut an all-new expansion to the Hub – the Second Life Community Exhibition (SLCE).

SLCE aims to bring more visibility and exposure to a diverse range of Second Life communities during the earliest moments of the new Resident journey via primely-positioned exhibition space in one of our most active and popular starting points for all newly-registered Residents. 

A wide and diverse range of community participants will be cycled in as we learn more about what resonates best with our newcomers, but early participants include a cross-range of communities including Caledon, Bay City, Furzona, BURN2, and Virtual Ability. In total, there are 11 initial participants in phase one with additional community participants planned as the project continues to evolve and expand.

Watch our grand opening event live on a special edition of “Lab Gab” streaming live on our social channels today at 1pm PT. Then join the fun inworld as we open the doors right after the broadcast. 

P.S. We plan to expand and cycle in more communities soon! If you are interested in being considered, please fill out the application form. Space is limited, but we will review all submissions!

Linden Lab

Today we’re shining a spotlight on Nico Kiyori, a dynamic DJ whose passion for music transcends boundaries, both in the virtual world of Second Life and the physical world.

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How long have you been in Second Life and how did you first hear about it?
I've been hanging out in Second Life for about six years now. It all started in 2017 when a friend, who's already a pro at Second Life, told me about it. One day, while chatting with friends online, the same friend told me about the music scene in Second Life. I was surprised to discover this cool virtual world! I realized Second Life is more than just a game. It's a place where people from all over the world come together online. I had no clue such a world existed. Intrigued, I decided to explore this new world. 

I've always liked learning about new languages and cultures, so I got really interested in Second Life. That's how my friend introduced me to this exciting digital world. Since then, Second Life has become a place not just to escape but also to explore different cultures and share my love for music.

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How did you get into DJing in Second Life?
Once I finished creating my avatar with the help of my friend, I started hanging out at the clubs to explore the music scene in Second Life. It felt like a whole new world compared to the music I used to play in my real-life DJ journey because the tunes people enjoy on SL are quite different. I did some research and practiced a lot to understand this new music culture and process to stream.

During my exploration, I stumbled upon a club, and guess what? They were looking for DJs. Gathering up my courage, I applied, went through my first-ever DJ audition, and that's when the magic began. A big thanks to the amazing people who motivated me to give it a try and always pushed me beyond my limits.

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What are your favorite genres of music, and what mood do you usually go for when you DJ?
I have a broad taste in music, but my top picks for DJing are the upbeat and energetic electronic dance music (EDM) genres like house, techno, dance-pop, dubstep, and hip-hop. When I'm in control of the decks, my aim is to set a lively and energetic mood to keep the crowd fully engaged. I take pleasure in blending mainstream tunes with some house elements, and every now and then, I spice things up with creative mashups. Creating a musical journey for my crowd is something I truly enjoy, and occasionally, I mix up everything in a set just for the thrill of it – because, why not? Crafting an atmosphere where people can have an awesome time and truly relish the music is a key focus for me.

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Which venues do you regularly play at in Second Life and are there any upcoming shows Residents can see you at?
I DJ regularly at Club 511, Club Exhale, Sonance, and 7th House in Second Life. On Tuesdays at Club 511, you can find me playing popular music like pop, R&B, hip-hop, and classic rock. We even have cool giveaways sponsored by some of Second Life's hottest brands for the best-themed nights. On Saturdays at Club Exhale, I get to play a mix of different music for a diverse crowd.

Apart from my regular gigs, I'll also be performing at future events at Sonance and other places. It's been awesome DJing at past events like Sonance Grand Opening, Badder Santa by 40 Thieves, Paragon Dance Anniversary, Blueberry X Teletubbies Collab Party, Relay for Life at Camping for Cure Team, Spookzila Hunt, Breath & Electric Ice Music Fest by Exhale/BRM Entertainment Event, Snowtide 23 at Where Our Journey begins Sim, and many more. Being part of this club community is truly a blessing.

My DJ sets are known for their high energy and good vibes, and I've had the pleasure of performing at various clubs and events across the grid. For updates on my upcoming shows, you can check my Second Life group, Discord server, and my social media channels. I'm always excited to bring the beats and create memorable experiences for the residents!

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How has Second Life impacted your life? 
Second Life has been a really important part of my life. My DJ journey started in 2006 in India, playing Bollywood dance tracks at different events and parties. However, after I finished my master's degree in accounting in 2016, work got really busy, and I had to take a break from DJing. But my love for DJing didn't go away; it stayed like a stubborn spark.

Thanks to Second Life, I can still do what I love - playing music for people all over the world. Being in this club community is a real blessing. Making friends with creative people and joining popular music events keeps my passion for DJing alive. Music is like a superpower to me; it brings people together and makes unforgettable moments.

Apart from DJing, I've met some amazing and talented folks here. I wouldn't be where I am without my small group of friends who've been with me since the start. These friendships have helped me through good and bad times, and I'm always grateful for them.

I really believe in the magic of music, and Second Life has given me a platform to share that magic globally. It's amazing to see how music connects people, no matter where they are. Second Life is more than just a virtual world; it's a place where dreams come true, and I'm thankful for the opportunity to share my beats with a diverse and global audience. Cheers to the fantastic world of Second Life!

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Tell us about some of the other Residents in SL that inspire you and whose work you admire.
Every day, I get inspired by the creative folks in Second Life. Residents, artists, and creators from all over the world make the virtual world exciting for me. A huge thanks to the amazing people who worked with me, motivated me to learn new things, and pushed me beyond my limits. I want to say a big thank you to everyone who invited me to their clubs and private events. Without my small team of friends and musical family, there wouldn't be DJ Nico. I owe a lot of my growth and success as a DJ to them.

Nicole Maladay has been my rock, supporting and helping me every step of the way. She is the one who pushes me to think outside the box when it comes to Djing. She's made my Second Life experience truly special. Her kindness, creativity, and unwavering support mean the world to me, and I'm grateful to have her by my side in this digital adventure. 

Also thankful to my close friends Syd Specter and Tessa Mermaid for being incredible supporters on my DJ journey. 

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Where can people see your work? Please share links to your sites and social media accounts.
You can find all my links in one place: https://linktr.ee/djnicolive 
I really recommend joining my Discord community to keep up with my future sets and events. Plus, you can come hang out with us there!

Thank you, Nico, for sharing your unwavering passion for music within the Second Life DJ community.

 

Each of our Spotlight posts features a different Resident to showcase the spectrum of experiences and personalities found in our virtual world. If you have created something inworld that you’re proud of, or have had a deeply meaningful experience that could brighten someone else’s day, please sign up! More info here: https://second.life/spotlight-signup   

Linden Lab

Friendly Greetings!

As mentioned before in our Pt. 1 blog post about moving from Jira there will be a transition that will temporarily affect access to the Second Life BUG project on Jira.

Migration to GitHub: Elevating Collaboration

We are excited to announce that the Second Life BUG project is in the process of moving the bug reporting process to feedback.secondlife.com and providing an archive of Jira issues on Github. This migration is a significant step forward in streamlining our development processes and improving collaboration among Lindens and the Second Life community.

As part of this transition, the BUG project on Jira will temporarily restrict logins to the Second Life BUG project while we migrate issues over to a public archive location. During this time, residents will be unable to log in to public Jira.

Upon the completion of the migration of the Second Life Bug project, logins to the Second Life BUG project will be reopened to non-Linden accounts for read-only access until the final shutdown on February 15th, 2024.

We encourage you to use the Second Life Feedback Portal for any new bug reports or feature requests. Your feedback is crucial to our ongoing efforts to improve Second Life, and the feedback portal provides a convenient platform for you to share your thoughts and insights.

We appreciate your continued support and understanding as we work to enhance the Second Life experience. The migration to feedback.secondlife.com signifies our commitment to fostering a more collaborative and efficient environment for everyone in the Second Life community: providing feature request voting, a public roadmap, tighter integration into engineering process and more.

Thank you and see you on the Grid! 

Second Life Team

Linden Lab

Happy New Year! We’re off to a great start to the year at the Lab and happy to share more Second Life updates with you. You’ll find news on scripting additions, PBR Materials, Project Viewers, and an update on the Second Life Mobile Private Alpha program. Enjoy!

👩‍💻 Scripting changes coming soon

A handful of new, useful scripting features will be getting released in the coming weeks:

llComputeHash

LSL's old llMD5 function has a significant flaw: it always adds a ":" character to the input string. This makes it useless for most hashing purposes. Enter: llComputeHash! This new function can generate a hash of an input string using any of the following hashing algorithms: md5, md5_sha1, sha1, sha224, sha256, sha384, and sha512.

llGetNotecardLineSync

You know how it takes an incredible amount of time for your furniture to boot up after resetting its scripts? Argh! Yeah, it's annoying, and likely due to your sofa/throne/maypole reading configuration from one or more notecards in its inventory.

The new llGetNotecardLineSync function makes loading data from notecards in object inventory much faster by providing a synchronous access method with the caveat that the notecard must be in the region's asset cache.

BTW, if you're interested in knowing more about the scripts that power a huge amount of Second Life's furniture, vehicles and more check out the open source AVsitter project. 🪑

llGetCameraAspect, llGetCameraFOV, and llWorldPosToHUD

Several functions have been added to help content creators position HUDs:

  • llGetCameraAspect - Returns the aspect ratio of the wearer's screen as a float (width/height)
  • llGetCameraFOV - Returns a float value for the current camera's field of view
  • llWorldPosToHUD - Returns HUD position of an in-world object

Scripting roadmap

Status of these upcoming changes and more are visible on Second Life's new public road visible at feedback.secondlife.com. If you have ideas or feedback on the scripting system check out the Scripting Features and Scripting Bugs boards.

🧪 Project Viewers

😀 Emoji

This viewer is also in RC and is based on a contribution by Kitty Barnett, and adds the ability to insert emojis in text chat.

Maintenance W

This Viewer brings many fixes (see list here), including a fix to a long standing issue with voice failing after quickly restarting your viewer

Maintenance X

This Viewer brings many usability improvements (see list here), including:

  • Saving you some clicks by allowing the deletion of folders containing worn items. 
  • In case you only wish to detach, Alt+Shift+R will now detach selected attachments so you can remove those less fashionable items at rapid speed.
  • The time format has been changed to show the more superior SLT instead of PDT.
  • The group join fee will be shown when leaving a group so you can be extra sure you want to leave it.
  • Shift+Alt+N will now open the Notifications floater 
  • Group notices can now be accessed directly from the People floaters Groups tab. Hover that mouse cursor over the group name for access.
  • Group notices will now default as being sorted by date with the newest first 

Maintenance Y

With this Viewer, you can now preview your outfit photos when hovering your cursor over outfits in the Outfit floater. You can also now remove locations from history via the context menu located in the Places floaters Visited tab.

 

See the list of additional fixes here.

Default Viewer

🎨 GLTF PBR Materials

At the end of November, we announced in this blog post that PBR became available grid wide! The PBR Materials project brings increased realism and enables bringing GLTF content into Second Life with expected results. Now you can create scenes with real reflections which mimic how our eyes have learned to identify that a surface is metal, plastic, or some other material. Whether you create objects in Second Life or simply enjoy seeing and wearing them, PBR Materials will provide a big step up in the appearance of the Second Life world.

Individually faceted disco ball reflections
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As of January 8th, 2024, the PBR Materials Maintenance 1 viewer became the default viewer for Second Life. See Release Notes here. There are 17 new Materials available in the Library so you can start building with PBR today!

📱 Mobile Update

On December 12th, we announced our Mobile Private Alpha, bringing the richness of the Second Life virtual world to your Android or iOS mobile device. Qualifying Premium Plus members can apply now for the Private Alpha. If you are Premium Plus, you can learn more at this link.

Check out this video if you haven’t already!

We’ve had an incredible amount of interest, so if you've applied but haven’t been added yet, you’re still on our list. Future testers will be added and notified as the Private Alpha continues to expand. Thanks again for your patience as we process the ongoing demand and we look forward to your participation!


Follow our Featured News Blog and connect with us on Social Media for future Second Life News!

Linden Lab

Today we’re shining a spotlight on Godiva Varela, a talented Resident whose artistic journey in machinima captures the essence of creativity and innovation. Join Godiva on January 24th for a premiere of one of her latest short films at the Second Life Cinema

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How long have you been in Second Life and how did you first hear about it?
The first time I logged into SL was about 9 years ago. I had my pauses through the years but it was at the beginning of 2020 that I really started to log in way way more. The first time I heard about SL was on some documentary I saw long ago on the TV. I always wondered how it would be to get into SL after that documentary, but when I saw an article in a magazine I said enough wondering, and decided to give it a try. My computer at the moment wasn't strong enough so I didn't log in again for another year, but when I came back with a better computer I was hooked forever! 

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Tragedy 2 Preproduction

You are a very talented Second Life machinima artist, how did you get started, and do you have a background in video production? 
Thanks for the compliment! I got started by taking short videos of myself dancing and showcasing my outfits (using gyazo), after some time (around the end of 2022) I decided to make my first music video so I just simply started putting to it all the knowledge I had about building and driving in SL. It came out as a wonderful first video so I decided to keep producing more of them. 

After a couple months I attended to the Fantasy Faire, there was a film competition which I wanted to participate in, so I gave it a try with my first video with acting. I was no stranger with providing a story to my videos, so this was the perfect opportunity to test myself onto it, and let me tell you that it came out much better than I initially expected!

About my background in video production, I really do not have any former education or formation on it, the only times I edited videos outside SL was two times in RL many many years ago, and they were like birthday videos. Since I never studied for this, I tried to learn along the way, so if I didn't know how to make a transition or an effect, I would look for tutorials on how to do it. You can say I am still learning something with each video I make. I always try at least one new thing on each video, as that makes it feel more challenging.

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Mad Maxine Preproduction

What kind of software do you use to capture and edit your videos? Any tips for budding machinima artists?
I started using the old windows movie maker the first time I edited a video in RL, but when the moment to edit in SL came, I used Wondershare Filmora. It was a super easy to use program that had very low requirements and helped me all my way through my first months making videos. After some time I felt the need to have more tools and options, so I asked around my friends and Peasant Tater suggested I should try DaVinci Resolve. So that's the software I have been using since like half a year. Its amazing with loads of options and it’s free!

As for capturing the footage, I haven't tried more than the built in windows recorder, and Nvidia Shadowplay. Since I have an Nvidia card, I am able to use the latter, and it is an amazing and simple software that does not lower the framerate while recording. I haven't had the need yet to try OBS but I may try it if I need to do some streaming, or something outside of my current scope.

We loved your recent PBR video. What can we expect from you in the future? Are there any interesting projects you are currently working on?
Thanks a lot! I really like to try the new tech coming, testing and playing with it is one of my favorite things from all time, I love changes. And well, you can expect more music videos and fun videos, but also I have some series on the works. Funky Diva has been a good testbed of how to produce my own series within SL, so I plan on giving it a more detailed 2nd season. Besides that, I also have a more serious series in the works with a whole different mood, it will have robots too, and a more cyberpunk feel to it.This new series is not named yet, but it will be filmed completely in PBR so its gonna be exciting.

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Watch Funky Diva: episode 1

Tell us about some of the other Residents in SL that inspire you and whose work you admire.
When I started in SL I really didn't had the chance to watch many SL videos, because I wasnt really on the social media and I missed a lot of awesome content. But around 2 years ago I started to go way more social and I stumbled upon the videos of Sere Vene. I was absolutely impressed by her aesthetics and attention to detail. Not much after that I also found out about Teal Aurelia and again I got impressed by the level of production on her videos and the fine aesthetics. They both really had an impact on their own ways on how I saw SL from then on. There are many more Residents that inspired me, like Vrutega and Peasant Tater, but I would have to make a long list!

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Tragedy Backstage

Where can people see your work? Please share links to your sites and social media accounts.
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/Godiva.Varela 
Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/@godivasl/videos
Flickr - https://www.flickr.com/photos/196190976@N08

Thank you, Godiva, for enriching our world with your creativity and inspiring a new generation of machinima artists.

Watch the premiere of Funky Diva Origins with Godiva and other Residents on Wednesday, January 24th at 12pm PT at the Second Life Cinema!

 

Each of our Spotlight posts features a different Resident to showcase the spectrum of experiences and personalities found in our virtual world. If you have created something inworld that you’re proud of, or have had a deeply meaningful experience that could brighten someone else’s day, please sign up! More info here: https://second.life/spotlight-signup   

Linden Lab

MacOS is used by many Second Life residents, but it is time for us to say goodbye to all the versions of MacOS X.  Starting now, the new minimum requirement to run Second Life is MacOS 11.

We will still allow some older versions of Second Life to log in, but without any support.  As with prior OS version sunsetting, we have set aside a version of Second Life available for download that we believe will continue to work with older systems. Over time, this version will become less functional as we continue to add new features and keep up with modern technologies.
https://releasenotes.secondlife.com/viewer/6.6.12.579987.html

We continuously monitor supported and unsupported technologies for compatibility with Second Life and we keep https://secondlife.com/system-requirements up to date. In the future, we will continue to end Second Life support for certain OS versions, including when their manufacturers end their own support of those versions.

We encourage you to keep your systems upgraded whenever possible.

See you in Second Life!

Strawberry Linden

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Pictured: The Story of Noah and the Ark

Are you ready for a nature-filled adventure? Dive into serene gardens, marvel at cascading waterfalls, and immerse yourself in the wonders of wildlife. Teleport through the Nature and Parks category on the Second Life Destination Guide!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Don't forget to check our Recently Added category to see all the latest additions to the Second Life Destination Guide!

Got a spot that you’d like listed in the Destination Guide? Make sure to drop us a note at editor@lindenlab.com or submit your spot via web form. Learn more about the Destination Guide criteria for Editors’ Picks or the Destinations Floater in the viewer, and increase your chances of being featured in those coveted spots!

Connect with Second Life on Social Media.
Signup for the Second Life Weekly Email Newsletter.

Linden Lab

Today we’re shining a spotlight on Aline Passiflora, the current organizer of the FabFree blog and community. She credits Second Life with helping her embrace her authentic self - and finding fashion, friendship, and even real love in our virtual world.

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How long have you been in Second Life and how did you first hear about it?
I've been a Second Life resident for 13 years and 5 months. I first heard about Second Life through random internet meandering, as far as I can remember. I have a vague recollection of reading an article about a virtual world where you could be anyone, explore things, and get to know people from all over the world, and it sounded like fun to me. At that point in my life, I was looking for connection and belonging, and Second Life really provided a space to meet diverse people.  

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You are the current organizer of the Fabulously Free in Second Life blog and you moderate the community of more than 60K Residents, can you tell us more about Fabfree and how you got involved with it?
Not to be dramatic and biased, but FabFree is the best! I've always felt that we are a really special community, filled with helpful and enthusiastic SL residents. FabFree was born in 2007 when Cherlindrea Lamont created the Fabulously Free in SL Blog. It grew exponentially from there and birthed the inworld group. We maintain that we're the longest-running (e.g. without interruption) freebie, discount, and shopping community in Second Life.  

I stumbled across the blog many moons ago, and became an avid reader and fan of the way the bloggers found affordable fashion, styled it, and then created engaging posts to share with the community. I would visit the site daily to get my dose of SL fashion and will freely admit to becoming a massive fangirl of the bloggers of the day - such as Prudence Rexroth and Serena Snowfield.  

The story of how I got involved has always amused me, as it happened quite by accident. After reading a post in 2018, I headed over to my favourite store of that time period (the illustrious Sn@tch, sadly now defunct), and set myself up for some fishing (an activity where you can "catch" free clothing in a pond).  There, I ran into Love Trill, who was the FabFree organizer at the time and an immensely talented blogger who made FabFree what it is today. I, being a massive nerd, totally squealed at her, and we struck up a conversation. She must have seen something in me, because a week later, I was a FabFree blogger, and insanely thrilled about it.

When Love Trill decided to retire in 2020 after a decade of service, I took up the mantle of FabFree Blog Organizer, just like she had before me, and how I hope to one day (not yet!) pass the baton on to the next generation of SL freebie lovers. 

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Where can Residents learn more about FabFree and its activities and events? Does Fabfree work with Content Creators or Bloggers to cross-promote different events? If so, how can they reach out to get involved? 
FabFree is a vibrant community - we've always got something going on, from coverage of massive events, to our own hunts, to our everyday blog posts about free and affordable finds in SL. Our aim has always been to promote up-and-coming designers, giving them a platform where they can communicate with a large base of potential customers. SL is a busy place, and it can be hard to know where to go to get the word out about what you offer - we love hearing from designers and members who have something they're passionate about and want to share with the grid.

Also, at our core - we just love a good free find! We love letting our readers know about the latest group gifts or under 75L finds that are exciting us each day. Second Life is for everyone, and everyone can make their avatar their own, no matter their budget! Our blogging team works hard to cover as much as we can, and we often are looking for new people to add to our friendly and dedicated team. I'm always inspired by the selflessness of our bloggers - it's a tough job and we do it out of the pure joy of sharing a great affordable find with our readers.  

If you're looking for freebies and deals, check the blog daily at fabfree.wordpress.com, or join the Fabulously Free in SL inworld group to get up-to-the-minute updates from our community about great finds they want to share - the chat is a busy and exciting (and a very friendly) place!

If you're a designer or event promoter, you can apply to be a part of our Designer program - we have over 100 stores that participate, and in exchange for an exclusive gift for our group members, you gain access to notice rights in the group to spread the word on what's going on in your store or event. You can find application details at fabfree.wordpress.com/fabulous-designers.

If you're a blogger, you might consider joining our team - we sometimes have openings for people who are team-oriented, passionate, and kind.

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You also run your own personal blog, how long have you been a blogger and do you have any advice to give to new Residents looking to get involved in the Second Life blogging scene?
I started my blog back in 2016, at a time when fashion was really starting to take on a life of its own in SL.  I kept collecting fabulous outfits, gorgeous shoes, and beautiful hairstyles. I was aching for a place to document and show off all these creations. Thus, Aline's World was born, and my pile of pretty items continues to grow.  

My first piece of advice on becoming a blogger is to make sure that it's something you're passionate about - if documenting items you're wearing on your avatar isn't something that interests you in the least, you'll tire of blogging quickly. If you're really into creating a look, a space, or a feel - then jump in and see where the adventure takes you. Also, don't be too precious about what your "style" is - you will end up taking on so many different looks that by a few months in, your style will just be seeing where an outfit takes you.  

From a practical standpoint - get on Flickr to check out the blogging scene. That's where I started, and it's where most bloggers share their looks!  

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How has Second Life impacted your life?
I think SL has taught me to be more authentically myself and take more risks fashion-wise. I've met people from everywhere, with differing views, and different styles - and those differences have informed my thought processes over the years. It's been an adventure! The other big adventure was meeting my real-life partner. Yes.. love in SL is a real thing! 13 years ago, we met by a virtual pond and now we're married and living together. Who knew?!

I've made so many friends and met so many special people who have touched my heart deeply as well as my imagination, and I think that THAT is the true magic of Second Life. We've all come together in this crazy virtual land and created a special world where we can all be our authentic selves.

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Tell us about some of the other Residents in SL who inspire you and whose work you admire.
I'm endlessly inspired by other bloggers, especially those who came before me in the freebie scene - Love Trill is always creating beautiful scenes featuring affordable finds. I also love to follow the work of Grant Valeska, Bunny Fluffz, P e d r o, and Meriluu Lumoss (and so many more!). Also, designers who craft some beautiful outfits, avatars, accessories, and attachments such as Alaskametro, Miss Chelsea, Ricielli, Cureless, Moon Amore x Muse, Lelutka, Magika, Stealthic, Truth, Ysoral, Dust Bunny, Apple Fall, Euphoric, Foxcity, Ishiku, and ChicChica, ... and far too many others to name - their craft and dedication are amazing to me. 

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Where can people see your work? Please share links to your sites and social media accounts.
FabFree Blog
FabFree Inworld Group
FabFree Info Hub
Aline's World
Flickr

Thank you, Aline, for dedicating years to guiding Second Life Residents in their quest for fabulously free and affordable treasures!  

 

Each of our Spotlight posts features a different Resident to showcase the spectrum of experiences and personalities found in our virtual world. If you have created something inworld that you’re proud of, or have had a deeply meaningful experience that could brighten someone else’s day, please sign up! More info here: https://second.life/spotlight-signup 

 

Linden Lab

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This is the first installment of a series of posts on moving Second Life issues from Jira to a new community engagement portal, feedback.secondlife.com as well as Github Issues.

jira.secondlife.com is Second Life's venerable bug reporting repository, development tracker and feature request system. It is used by thousands of users and the entire SL development team to envision, fix and build the future of Second Life.

Unfortunately, Jira Server, the software and license agreement we use to host Second Life's jira.secondlife.com site, is being discontinued and its official replacement cannot handle the number of users (over 300,000) that Second Life needs. Long story short: we need to move off of Jira before support ends in early February, 2024.

As part of this migration effort, we're excited to announce that we are opening up a new community feedback portal for early preview: feedback.secondlife.com. This site will host feature requests, bug reports and ultimately replace the public BUG project on jira.secondlife.com.

Support issues should still be reported to support.secondlife.com. We will keep using Freshdesk for all personal and content-sensitive tickets.

Where are my issues going?!

Your issues will be preserved and will not be deleted. Second Life has a 20 year history, and Jira represents one of its best sources for documentation. Jira will remain in operation until we migrate all issues to a new home on Github. We will share more information about working with the issue archive in a future blog post.

Feedback Portal

Second Life has a long history of collaboration with its residents. Rather than be bummed out by needing to leave Jira, we wanted to take this opportunity to select a community site that offers a better experience to both users and staff.

You can check out the new engagement portal at feedback.secondlife.com. This new site uses canny.io, a platform designed for receiving and responding to community feedback. We believe it will be a demonstrably better experience for residents due to features such as:

A public roadmap

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We will be providing a public roadmap of user-suggested features which have been accepted and will be implemented. This will provide greater transparency into the future of Second Life and drive accountability for us, so that we deliver what we say we would. 😜

Multiple boards

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The new feedback portal provides boards for different areas of Second Life: general feature requests and bugs, website bugs and features, scripting, etc. This will allow users to easily read up on bugs and feature requests pertaining to their area of interest, and allows triagers on our side to more easily figure out who should review new information.

Board features

  • Markdown - Text can be formatted using a simplified version of Markdown
  • Issue merging - Staff can merge issues instead of marking them as duplicate
  • Trending Posts - Boards may be sorted by trending posts, which combines freshness and popularity

Better Process

We have come to realize that the effects of some of our Jira workflows were, intentionally or otherwise, rather adversarial to engagement (read: unfriendly.) We are fixing this by acknowledging the following problems and resolving them with different behavior on the new feedback site:

Conversations remain open
One of the most detrimental features of our public Jira workflow was how it locked conversations (comments, etc.) after tickets were marked as accepted. This is not the default behavior in the new portal: comments will be allowed throughout the entire lifecycle of the request!

Know when your idea ships
The "clone issue" process on Jira resulted in a large portion of user-submitted issues never being marked as completed when their respective issues were shipped. This will be much less of an issue on feedback.secondlife.com because issues will be directly tied to their internal development tickets and automatically closed when the change ships.

Voting is Encouraged!
Vote to your heart's content. We want to hear from you which issues are most important.

Behind the Scenes

Part of the rationale for moving to Canny, the software behind feedback.secondlife.com, as opposed to alternative issue tracking solutions is that it is a very focused product that is tailor made for responding to user feedback and prioritizing ideas. In addition, the platform fit the bill by providing the following necessary requirements:

  • Single sign-on (SSO) - Users can log in using their Second Life account
  • Github Integration - Posts can be linked to Github Issues, the platform we are adopting for software development, and automatically marked as completed when the Github issue is finished.
  • Triage Tools - Canny provides a fast, unified view for triaging issues, prioritizing work, and getting it onto a roadmap.

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Public issues are not the only thing moving off of Jira --internal tickets will be migrating to Github Issues. Canny provides easy ways to create and link issues on Github, providing a better workflow than the previous "Clone" system we used on Jira.

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Open Source Collaboration

On the topic of Github, we will be making it easier for open source contributors to engage with Second Life project maintainers and our OSS projects through Github and Github Issues. Canny provides convenient integration with Github Issues, and we will be exploring ways of opening up Second Life development to open source contributors by more directly working in the open.

😖 Differences from Jira

Not everything is perfect. Both staff and residents have developed a lot of well established mental wiring, process and infrastructure around Jira. Canny is also not a Jira replacement: it's a community engagement tool which may require changes to behavior:

  • Limited attachment support - Canny only supports image attachments. All other media types will need to be linked to.
  • No private posts - If your report contains sensitive information then please redact/censor private information. If this is not possible, because it is material to the issue being filed, then please file a support ticket if it is personal in nature or security report if it represents a vulnerability.

Timeline and migration details

Jira access will end in early February. In the time leading up to that date we will be performing backups, migrating existing issues to their new home on Github, and allowing residents to use and provide feedback on the new engagement portal.

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Details about the issue migration process, such as how to find Jira issues post jira.secondlife.com shutdown will be talked about in a future post. Until then, we are excited to see new feature requests and reports over at feedback.secondlife.com.

Conclusion

Making a significant change like this is no small task. Staff and residents alike have grown deeply familiar with jira.secondlife.com through countless hours spent using the site. We hope you will have patience as we migrate data, build documentation, develop new muscle memory and smooth out wrinkles in tools and processes. These updates, along with changes like moving our engineering organization to Github and Github Actions, are part of a larger initiative to modernize Second Life development. The future is exciting, and we hope you can bear with us as we drive down the path to get there.

Strawberry Linden

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Pictured: Primitive Museum

Dive deep into the roots of our virtual world at the Primitive Museum and then journey through the rest of the Museum category on the Second Life Destination Guide to learn more about art, science, and global cultures. A world of discovery awaits! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Find even more Museums and other Learning Experiences in the Education category.

 

Don't forget to check our Recently Added category to see all the latest additions to the Second Life Destination Guide!

Got a spot that you’d like listed in the Destination Guide? Make sure to drop us a note at editor@lindenlab.com or submit your spot via web form. Learn more about the Destination Guide criteria for Editors’ Picks or the Destinations Floater in the viewer, and increase your chances of being featured in those coveted spots!

Connect with Second Life on Social Media.
Sign up for the Second Life Weekly Email Newsletter.

Linden Lab

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Happy new year! Thank you for all the suggestions sent in for future last names through our Last Name Suggestion Form

Today we are doing another big last name refresh by removing some of the older last name options and adding the following new ones from your suggestions:
Eton
Harmony
Serenade
Ethereal
Celestia
Sable
Astral
Starling
Saccharin
Rizzler
Enthusiast
Pratchett
Elara
Cerulean
Onyx
Peridot
Winchester
Fluffington
Mainlander
Wicken

The following is a screenshot of the full list of current last names available:
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We will continue to make additional updates to the available last name pool, so if these options aren’t for you, stay tuned for future updates. You can also continue to suggest your favorite name on our suggestion form, all new names are chosen from there! 

For more information about the costs and how-tos involved in name changes, read the Changing your username FAQ. Click to change your name now!

Linden Lab

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Happy New Year, Second Life Residents! If you're eager to kick off 2024 with a burst of excitement, here are some fun and educational community-driven activities and events lined up throughout the year. Enroll in building classes, attend lively festivals, and immerse yourself in educational conferences throughout the coming year. 

Relay For Life - Unveiling the Power of Unity

Go on a journey of compassion and support as Relay For Life of Second Life events kick off this year. Mark your calendars as registrations open this month. SL Living Expo, Fantasy Faire, and other event dates have already been announced. Don't miss out on any details - follow the American Cancer Society Google calendar for all the info! 

Burn2 - Festival of Community, Art, and Fire

Experience the virtual rendition of Burning Man in Second Life with Burn2! With captivating events every quarter, their first event, Winter Burn, starts on January 26th. Explore the details on their website and get more info about their weekly meetings and events in their Google calendar. It's a virtual festival you won't want to miss!

VWBPE - Unleashing Educational Innovations

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The Virtual Worlds Best Practice in Education (VWBPE) is a community-based open conference that provides opportunities for participants in all virtual worlds to share current teaching, learning, and research practices in 3D virtual environments. This year's theme is "Mythic Origins" and it runs from March 14-16, 2024. Join the event for three days of lectures, workshops, discussions, games, and fun! It's a must-attend event for anyone passionate about the intersection of virtual environments and education. Learn more on their website at vwbpe.org.

VWEC - Igniting Educational Conversations

Continue to elevate your educational journey with the Virtual Worlds Education Consortium (VWEC) Eduverse! If you're passionate about fostering collaboration among educators and navigating the virtual landscape, this is the destination for you. You can learn more about VWEC from the Spotlight interview of three of their coordinators. Additionally, you can check their website and their Google Calendar to attend their daily events and fireside chats.

Virtual Ability - Empowering Lives in Virtual Worlds

Virtual Ability, a non-profit corporation founded in 2007, is dedicated to enabling individuals with a wide range of disabilities to flourish in online virtual worlds. They have two major events throughout the year, keep an eye on their website for more information coming soon: 

  1. Mental Health Symposium (May): In recognition of Mental Health Awareness Month, Virtual Ability hosts the annual Mental Health Symposium. This event serves as a platform to share crucial information about mental health and disabilities with the broader population. The cross-disability community within Virtual Ability includes members dealing with various mental health issues. The symposium not only offers a chance for community members to learn from experts they might not encounter otherwise but also opens the doors for the general public to attend a professional conference at no cost.
  2. International Disability Rights Affirmation Conference (October/November): Taking place around October/November each year, this conference is a testament to Virtual Ability's commitment to advocating for disability rights globally. Join this empowering event that brings together voices from the disability community to discuss, affirm, and advance the rights of individuals with disabilities.

Builder's Brewery - Crafting Dreams Since 2008

For all aspiring builders out there, Builder's Brewery is your go-to destination. Established in 2008, it stands as one of Second Life's oldest hubs for learning. Dive into free training classes covering everything from building to scripting, textures, mesh, animations, and more. Check their schedule of classes on their Google Calendar.

 

Find even more educational destinations and exciting events in the Education, Help & How To, and Featured Events categories on the Destination Guide throughout the year!

But wait, there’s more! Along with these community-driven activities, we here at Linden Lab also have a lot in store for 2024 - including the Valentine Shop & Hop which is about to open on February 1st, and of course our 21st birthday celebrations in June! 

Get ready for a year filled with excitement, creativity, and unforgettable experiences in Second Life. Don't miss out on the action - stay connected: follow our Featured News blog, sign up for our weekly email newsletter, and connect with us on social media.

Let the adventure begin, happy 2024!

Linden Lab

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As the end of 2023 approaches, Second Life is entering an exciting and pivotal moment in its development and evolution. The past year has seen the release of several new features and breakthroughs highlighted by the Private Alpha release of our Mobile Viewer.  

Imagine experiencing Second Life anywhere, anytime through your mobile device. For the first time, you’ll be able to stay connected to your friends and communities - no matter where you are.  

We believe that Second Life Mobile has the potential to transform the way people experience and engage with our virtual world forever. We are grateful for our early Alpha testers’ feedback and impressions - they are helping us move forward already …and we can’t wait for the entire Second Life community to check it out in the coming year as it enters into wider release. 

2024 Roadmap

So, what else can you expect in the coming year?

More About Mobile

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In 2024, everyone will be able to experience the magic of Second Life in the palm of their hands. While the early Private Alpha release includes some popular and much-requested features, we expect that mobile will quickly evolve to more closely align with the desktop functionality as the year progresses. Eventually, you’ll see innovative mobile-specific features that take full advantage of the flexibility and, well, mobility of being freely untethered from your desktop.

AI & Other Innovations

Unless you’ve been living under a rock (virtual or otherwise), you’ve probably heard a thing or two about the rise of AI over the past year. For Second Life to remain relevant as a progressive platform that serves, empowers, and entertains our communities and creators, we know that we must find the right balance in embracing some aspects of AI while also preserving and protecting what we all know and love about Second Life. 

In the coming year, we plan to carefully explore some cutting-edge use of AI in Second Life including experimental use of smart AI-driven chatbots to help greet, educate, and mentor newcomers. We know that there are additional opportunities to integrate AI across all aspects of Second Life, but we also know that AI can be a polarizing topic and there are many sensitivities on how (and if) we should explore AI integration at all. We've already established internal policies governing the selection and use of AI tools with user privacy as the foremost consideration. Our goal is to find the right balance to bring some AI advancements and innovations into the virtual world – but only in a way that respects the rights of content creators, while also advancing the overall Second Life creator ecosystem and quality of the overall community experience.

After the much anticipated release of PBR Materials, we are looking forward to Third-Party Viewers integrating the functionality so that everyone in Second Life can enjoy the new shiny. The early experiments from our community have been so fun! In the meantime, the graphics team is working on the next set of updates including PBR materials support for terrain, true mirrors (planar reflections), and the long term goal of supporting GLTF Mesh Import & Hierarchy. 

That’s not the only excitement awaiting creators in the coming year - we are also focusing on improvements and extensions to our scripting capabilities, taking a look at tools for creating complex and compelling combat systems, poking at the animation import pipeline … because we know that every time we make things better for our creator communities, they make things better for everyone!

Something Spicy

Second Life turns 21 in 2024…and, to celebrate, we are turning attention to the spicier side of Second Life with some bold and innovative new adult-friendly initiatives. Something wickedly wonderful is coming soon…

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We’ll be taking the sheets off this mystery initiative and sharing more bedroom secrets soon…so stay tuned!

Improving the New User Experience

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Improving the first-time experience for newcomers continues to be a top priority - and in 2024 you’ll see us continuing to tweak and innovate on this early introduction to Second Life. For example, we recently began testing an all-new Community Hub complete with human greeters and mentors that are eager and available to help educate and enlighten newcomers on all aspects of Second Life. We’ll continue to iterate and improve the Hub, too. We’re at work on a Community Exhibition expansion to the Hub that will more easily and quickly connect our newest Residents to the many communities and experiences across Second Life.

New Residents are also benefiting from the recent debut of Senra starter avatars, making easier work of avatar customization at the very beginning of their Second Life journey. We’ve got updates to the customization experience and fun new wardrobe choices coming - and we’re looking forward to the community-created Senra content too!

2023 Highlights

There’s a lot of promise and potential for the coming year, but we also want to reflect on some of the key accomplishments and improvements from 2023.

Improved Performance & Viewer Enhancements

In addition to the introduction of PBR Materials mentioned earlier, there were improvements to Group Chat History and the debut of Inventory Item Preview and Single Folder View which helps Residents more easily manage and find items in their inventory.  In the background, we’ve been doing work to improve performance during teleport. 

Additionally, we unveiled more improvements to help community members seek and find items and places in Second Life. For example, Updates to Marketplace Search and improvements to the Destination Guide also help our community find the items and places that matter most to them.

We also took steps to make Second Life more secure with various security improvements including enforcement of Viewer Login MFA.

Improving the Land & Home Experience

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Buying and managing land got a lot easier over the past year, as we debuted the all-new Linden Home Store to make selecting your new home simpler. Several new Linden Homes themes also debuted in 2023, including Ranch, and Fantasy Treehouses. We also ended the year with drop of the new Mediterranean Premium Plus homes! With all these Linden Homes choices, it is now easier than ever for people to explore all the new and classic themes inworld via an all-new centralized Linden Homes demo region in the BelliHub!

We’ve also made additional improvements to Estate Options and added Scripted Agent Estate Access to improve the land owning experience in Second Life.

Simplified Avatar Customization

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It’s no secret that newer Second Life Residents often struggle to customize their avatars. While seasoned Second Life community members appreciate the complex and diverse range of avatar customization options, we recognize how important it is to simplify things for those who are just learning the basics. Enter the all-new Senra Avatars, which entered beta in August with a subsequent formal 1.0 release unveiled earlier this month. The Senra team is already hard at work on the next phase of the Senra project, which features an expanded content library with additional customizations and options.

Community Highlights - Celebrating 20 Years

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Second Life’s 20th birthday celebrations set several new records for all-time community engagement in 2023. Our SL20B event was visited 647,952 times and included three weeks of parties, live music, deejay performances, special events, exhibits, gifts, and shopping!

Our big milestone didn’t go unnoticed by the mainstream media, either. Major media and tech outlets noted and praised our longevity and loyal communities throughout the year including some great media coverage in The Atlantic, The Guardian, and Bloomberg.

Eagle-eyed viewers of the popular Apple+ program “The Morning Show” may also have noticed a certain Linden executive cameo during a pivotal scene that prominently featured Second Life in the season finale. 

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Second Life also scored some prominent coverage in the acclaimed music trade publication Billboard, which had the exclusive reveal for our partnership with legendary music label Motown.

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The official Motown presence in Second Life accompanied the debut of the first experimental version of our New User Community Hub, which aims to more quickly and easily help newcomers connect with the relevant people, places, and communities that matter to them. The new Hub also hosts the return of many passionate Second Life Mentors who seek to lend a helping hand.

What Was Hot in 2023?

Finally, we thought it would be fun to assemble a few year-end charts to show what was hot in 2023. Let’s take a look at what the community was up to last year…

Top Linden Home Themes 

  1. Houseboat
  2. Log Home
  3. Traditional
  4. Victorian
  5. Stilt over Land

Top Last Names released in 2023

  1. Blossom
  2. Nightingale
  3. Spicy
  4. Waifu
  5. Shadow

Most Visited Regions 

  1. LeLutka
  2. Firestorm Orientation
  3. Rapture
  4. VELOUR
  5. Adventure Island

Top Destination Guide Categories 

  1. Photogenic Spots
  2. Fashion
  3. Role-playing Communities
  4. Shopping Events
  5. Winter Attractions 

Most Watched YouTube Videos

  1. Second Life Mobile - First Look
  2. Second Life Mobile - June 2023 - SL20B Update
  3. Second Life University - How to Create PBR Materials
  4. Second Life University - How to Create Your Starter Avatar
  5. Made in Second Life: The Movie

Most Popular Facebook Posts

  1. Inventory Item Preview and Single Folder View
  2. Second Life Pic of the Day by Mac McGregor
  3. The SL20B Official Guide & Magazine
  4. Introducing the new Linden Home Store
  5. Friday the 13th Haunted Destinations

Happy Holidays from Second Life

On behalf of the entire Second Life team, we would like to wish you and your loved ones a happy new year! We are thankful to be part of your virtual family and send you blessings from both the virtual (and physical) worlds!

The Second Life team

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