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Winter is here!
As winter wraps its icy arms around the grid, we are thrilled to unveil a brand new Winter Wonderland that transcends the ordinary. Brace yourselves for an enchanting journey as we delve into the glittering highlights of this snowy spectacle.
The first snowfall brings with it not just a blanket of glistening snow but also the shimmering arrival of the first fully Physically Based Rendering (PBR) enabled LDPW experience. This groundbreaking technology is set to transform your in-world experience by bringing an unprecedented level of realism to the virtual world. Picture the crunch of snow beneath your feet, the sparkle of ice crystals, and the subtle play of light on every surface. With PBR, winter landscapes come to life like never before.
Step into a world of gaming bliss as Winter Wonderland introduces a lineup of sensational new releases that promise to be the highlight of the season. This includes Sled Rides, Ice Skating and Capture The Flag! Or, collect snowflakes across the Winter Wonderland regions and win prizes! Anyone can get a Snowflake Hunt HUD and play the game through the month of December.
There are 3 prize tiers for this event depending on how many snowflakes you collect:
- 50 Snowflakes: Snowman in Sweater (deco only)
- 150 Snowflakes: Snowflake Character (deco, huggable)
- 400 Snowflakes: Nessie in a Bowl (deco, huggable, and animesh versions).
- Additionally, the first time you obtain the Snowflake Hunt HUD from the vendor, you will receive a custom winter display shelving unit for any future Boopies you collect.Boopie prizes are available from the vendor as soon as you have collected enough snowflakes for that tier level. Snowflakes are not “traded” for prizes. When you get the prize for one level you do not have to recollect that amount to apply toward getting the next level prize.
Come kick off the season in the new Winter Wonderland!
Additionally, as the weather turns colder across Bellisseria and the festive season approaches, what better place to celebrate than in the new Victorian winter community region?
This season, the Victorian community region has been magically transformed with a generous dusting of snow for Winter.
Come and celebrate the joy of Winter! Wrap up warm and play the fairground games. Sample the delights inside the Victorian cafe. Take in the festive decorations and have fun together ice skating on the frozen lake!
Come check out the new winterized Victorian community region.
Happy Holidays!
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"Today we are back to Luanes World for the winter.
It is a magical winter haven for those who love snow.
Visit and lose yourself in the fantasy of sparkles and all things nice."
Watch the video on YouTube- Read more...
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Today's Second Life Pic of the Day by Dacio Holgado reminds us that no matter where we are in the world, we can find joy in the simple pleasures of companionship and a shared virtual table. Wishing you a day filled with love and laughter. Happy Thanksgiving to all who celebrate, and warm wishes to everyone! 🦃 ❤️
For a chance to have your image featured as the Second Life pic of the day, submit your work to the Official Second Life Flickr Group.
For a chance to be featured in our #SLFeature Instagram stories, follow and tag us on Instagram.Connect with Second Life on Social Media.
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Greetings Residents!
Over the next several weeks PBR Materials will be rolling out across the grid. For those who do not know what PBR Materials are already, this post will explain what they are, how to use them and the benefits they bring. This announcement is particularly of interest to residents who create inworld objects and avatar attachments.
PBR stands for Physically Based Rendering. PBR is a richer way of specifying the surface of an object that better simulates how objects appear in real life. PBR allows for realistic lighting for metals, plastics, leather, fabric, and more, including realistic reflections and bounce lighting. The Second Life Viewer will now be able to display these more realistic-appearing objects in world, as well as allow creators to include this more advanced information in the object texturing.
GLTF stands for Graphics Library Transmission Format. This is a standard file format, common in computer graphics, that allows storage of PBR information. GLTF files can be used by many 3D content authoring tools. Second Life will now support the import and export of GLTF files that contain PBR information. Note that at this time only PBR Materials will be imported. Full GLTF support will be available at a later date.
Important note: Until PBR server support is released across the entire Second Life grid, there is a risk of damaging content to which PBR Materials are applied, if rezzed or worn in a region that is not PBR-capable.
At present, you will need to use the latest Second Life release candidate viewer with PBR support 7.0.1.6658224456 and be on PBR capable regions running on BlueSteel and Le Tigre channels with build (2023-10-11.6488746491). To confirm you are using the correct viewer and server, while running Second Life open Help > About Second Life.
What are PBR Materials? Why would I use them in my creations?
The goal behind PBR Materials is Increased visual realism. One method of enhancing realism is to create scenes with real reflections which mimic how our eyes have learned to identify that a surface is metal versus plastic. The Viewer has always been open source and so we sought an open source solution, GLTF, to achieve this realism. GLTF was created by the Khronos Group https://www.khronos.org/, a standards body responsible for open standards such as OpenGL, OpenXR, Vulkan, and others.
With this new Viewer feature, PBR Materials will automatically generate real reflections when applied to new or existing content. While we cannot go back and add PBR Materials to no-mod content -- only the original content creator can -- every effort has been made to preserve or improve all object appearances in world. The team has been working with content creators for many months, and we thank them all for their dedication to making Second Life the benchmark for beautiful inworld content.
What if you do not create content?
If you do not create inworld content or avatar attachments, you do not need to do anything as a result of these changes. You will begin to see more realistic reflections and lighting on objects inworld and for sale as creators adopt this new feature.
New Features
The key additions and changes for PBR Materials are:
- GLTF support for PBR Materials
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HDR Environments
- Auto exposure and tonemapping
- The default environment of Second Life has always been a sunny day with blue skies and this will be more apparent now.
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Reflection Probes (automatic and manual)
- Automatically generated by the PBR Viewer
- Manually generated by content creators for interior spaces (requires lighting)
- Materials system folder
Benefits
- GLTF standards are widely accepted and utilized for content creation across many applications
- PBR Materials objectively and subjectively look better
- Real reflections automatically generated by the Viewer
- Increased compatibility with content creation tools e.g. Substance Painter, Blender
There is a wonderful video from Second Life University on our Youtube channel. We encourage anyone wishing to learn more to take a look: How to Create PBR Materials
The Second Life Wiki has more technical information about GLTF PBR Materials and how to use them in the content you create.
Known Issues
While our GLTF PBR Materials project is closer than ever to full release, there are some known issues and we know with broader release, more issues will be uncovered. If you see something, please say something, by filing a BUG report in Jira.
- PBR material information may be lost from content on non-PBR aware regions
- Underwater reflections are weird. We hope to fix this in a future release
- Materials set to alpha mode Blend cannot be changed back to Opaque
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MacOS performance issues
- Poor performance on Apple Silicon when “Reflection Coverage” not set to “None”
- Poor performance on Intel Macbooks when shadows are enabled
- PBR Material limited permissions issues
- Transition lines between overlapping manual probes
- Semi-transparent fullbright objects slightly more opaque
- Non-PBR enabled Viewers will show high packet loss on PBR aware regions due to the introduction of a new message.
There are inworld Content User Group Meetings we encourage you to attend to discuss your questions and give feedback. For more information see Content User Group
IMPORTANT: If content looks good in the Khronos GLTF Sample Viewer or Adobe Substance Painter but looks wrong when you import it into Second Life, please stop and file a bug immediately. Our goal is to adhere to the GLTF specification. Please do not modify content in Second Life to work around situations where the Viewer does not adhere completely to the GLTF spec.
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The Concierge and Land User Group meeting is a monthly, public meeting for discussion and education on Second Life, useful to both Mainland Residents and Estate owners.
Topics include any issues relating to Customer Relations/Support or concerning Land in general (mainland, islands, Linden Homes, estates, auctions, etc.).
Join Wendi, Vix, and members of the Land team, on Wednesday at 12pm PT at Linden Estate Services. All are welcome.
Keep up to date with all of our user group meetings on our wiki and public calendar.
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Happy Wednesday!
We’re writing to remind everyone that we’ll be holding our monthly Web User Group meeting today at 14:00 SLT in our usual meeting place, where we’ll be discussing our status with ongoing projects and our near future plans for our web properties. As always, we’ll leave plenty of time for Q&A from the community. This meeting is conducted using voice. We're happy for you to contribute in voice or in text, but you'll need to have your voice settings activated. We look forward to seeing you there.
Keep up to date with all of our user group meetings on our wiki and public calendar.
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Hi Everybody!
I would like to introduce a new member of the Linden Support team, Boxy 5000.
Boxy 5000 is a virtual assistant/support bot trainee.
But wait, wasn’t there already a chatbot who answered questions for premium users? Indeed there was! Boxy 3000 was the earlier model of the trainee chatbot.
We are learning from some design flaws and moving forward with a more advanced bot. Boxy 3000 has been re-invented and given an extra 2000!
But wait a second time! Won’t this bring about the machine apocalypse? Not just yet–Boxy 5000 is more advanced and learns as they go but Skynet is still a few upgrades away.
The upgraded bot will be a 24/7 support option for both premium and non-premium residents! (Previously only available for premium customers.)
Boxy will have the ability to answer commonly asked questions, keep you up to date on current issues, help with ticket submission and in some cases handle a support request.
Boxy has uses for all residents, from early adopters to fresh new faces.
For new and more casual residents Boxy is available to help them find the support they need.
For our seasoned veterans Boxy can offer support options for some specific requests. Specifically, Boxy will be able to submit an abuse report on your behalf and in some cases help with the restart of a region!
Boxy will continue to learn as we go. Boxy might not have all the answers currently, but we will continue to review questions posed and help the bot to better answer your support queries.
We realize that a chat bot is not a substitute for a customer support representative, and this bot is not meant to be. It is however meant to help when we are unavailable or may be experiencing higher call volumes.For premium residents Boxy will only be the first point of contact before being passed to a support representative during office hours. Utilize Boxy to help better explain your issue once you are transferred to a support representative. Outside of office hours Boxy can help or create a ticket for when we are back in the office.
The ability to get an answer to your question or to get your issue resolved without having to wait until our Support Lindens are available is Boxy’s primary directive.
Anyone interested in saying hello to Boxy can access it by logging into our support portal. The Boxy 5000 chat widget should appear in the bottom right hand corner of your screen.
Boxy 5000, it’s advanced…
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