Alirium garden centre

I haven't been doing too much exploring recently, but in the course of taking photographs for a job, I came across a very well put together tree by Alirium Gardens.  It was so good I decided to search them out and have a look at the rest of their products - and I am so glad that I did.

The centre itself has rather annoying navigation.  You arrive 1000 metres in the air and have a choice of teleports.  It means that you are transported down past a wintry frost layer, to a glowy place with enormous rabbits, and eventually down the ground floor, where there is a shop.

The work by Alirium lends an impressionistic quality to the planting, as you can see from the photographs.  Having done some unnatural plantings myself, I appreciate how well they have made their grasses and flowers.

Not everything is for sale, and so you may see plants and trees which can't be seen in the shop.

I like the overall design of the shop and signage, and the products, but the prices are a bit eye watering... the trees I admired as copyables were $1999... and copyable flowers $699.

Clicking the teleport board to see the summer products used in a build meant that I couldn't find my way back to the shop easily - I had to teleport out of the sim and come back again via the 1000 metre landing spot, which was a bit annoying.  But the stuff is so beautiful, you can forgive them almost anything.

My two criticisms are the teleports - dumping customers elsewhere in the sim with no way back to the shop doesn't seem commercially advisable, and the use of glow/full bright - in places I couldn't see anything because of the glow... it should be used very sparingly.

 

Help Domenic Johanssen

I'm taking the unusual step of posting the same blog to all my blogs, no matter what their subject.

Domenic Johanssen was a happy child of two loving parents.  His parents were taking him to India from Sweden where they had been living, when officials boarded the plane and took Domenic away.  People who are told the story cannot believe that Domenic was removed from his parents on such flimsy grounds:  the Johanssens were planning to home educate (which was legal in Sweden at that time), they hadn't allowed him to have all the vaccinations, and he had two cavities in his baby teeth.

He has been in the care of the Swedish authorities since then, and repeated attempts to get him back have failed.  The separation has adversely affected the health of his mother and father, and the photograps of the child now compared to the child then make it obvious that he is far less happy in the care of the authorities than he was at home.

Th Swedish system seems to be a heartless and inhumane system which ignore human bonding and puts the interests of the family last in any decision.  I find it absolutely incomprehensible that a state in a civilised country could be allowed to behave like this.

I don't know what can be done.  I have written to judges and officials over the past two years.  In a place where home educating seems to be considered abuse, it is very very hard to know how to communicate with these people.

Everyone to whom I have told this story have been suspicious that there must have been another, hidden, reason for taking Domenic away from his parents, but that truly isn't the case.  If you can think of a way to publicise, or to put pressure on the Swedish authorities, please please let me know.

Change.org|Start an Online Petition »

Kitely launches Virtual Worlds on demand

Kitely have launched their Virtual Worlds on demand service.  No, this isn't an April Fool's joke!  What you will need to take advantage of their free beta, is a facebook account and an SL client.  And, to take advantage of their free credits offer, 20 friends.  Once you get to their website, you can sign in using your Facebook account, and then choose to visit their sample sim, or create your own world.

I found it a little confusing at the very beginning, finding myself in the sample sim, when I had expected to be in my own sim, but I soon worked out that one needs to go to the "my worlds" tab to create your own world... if you simply click to enter world once you have logged in, you will find yourself on a sample sim world with some empty exhibition spaces.

Having made your own world, and logged in using the SL client, you will find yourself on your own version of an SL sim.  This only persists while there are avatars online inside it... it shuts down and goes into cold storage once everyone has left. 

A word:  if avatars come to your world and haven't been anywhere else in Kitely, the creator of the world gets 200 kitely credits.  You only have this ability the first time you go into Kitely.  My world is here.  Kitely advertise free credits if you link Kitely with your facebook... but you only get these if you have a picture on your account and at least 20 friends.

It seems that it isn't currently possible to teleport from world to world, so you have to log out to go anywhere else.  Also, it doesn't give you a chance to use the viewer of your choice - it will use the SL viewer unless you choose another as your default.  Imprudence should allow importation and export of objects.

Meshing about

Mesh is coming to SL.  It's already on the beta (Aditi) grid, and people are preparing for the move onto the main grid.  For those of us who are not blessed with 3DMax or Maya tools, the time has come to learn Blender.

Blender is an open source programme for 3D creation which is compatible with mesh in Second Life.  I have been learning it (or not learning it) for years.  Today I decided to update my installation, and found myself on a merry-go-round where Blender told me it couldn't find my Python installation, even though I had just installed it and... it's RIGHT THERE.  Look!  Python, on my list of programs. 

I installed and uninstalled, trying to work out how to get Blender to recognise it.  I've also been seeking out good tutorials and videos for Blender, which will teach me how to use it and not to feel like I want to kill someone.

Fortunately for me, Eelco came becack from his winter holiday and told me about Machinimatrix, which is a website written by someone in SL, who has a download of the integrated program and who does very good tutorials.  They have an irritating artificial voice, but apart from that are very well produced and very simple to follow.  I like the style a lot, and felt I learned more in one tutorial than I have learned from hours of watching people on Youtube.

So, I am beginning properly with my journey towards mesh building.  I was also sent a link to Sintel, a film made in Blender, which is amazing. 

Link distance changes

Something I haven't seen any blogging about in the last week is the change to link distances in Second Life.  For some time, linking prims has been subject to an arcane set of rules which left nearly everyone confused... most people link things by trial and error and find out the hard way when things won't link together, or use a tool like the Rez Foo or Rez Faux to link builds that exceed the distance allowed.

There was a change last week that means that if something would fit within a sphere with a diameter of 54 metres, it should link.  This should mean that most house or office builds will link as one piece, which will be a great inprovement.

Angry Lindens

There's been some shenanigins on the JIRA, which is the place that residents of SL are supposed to report bugs and problems.  It can be rather complicated to someone who isn't used to it... certainly I usually struggle to establish whether or not a bug I have discovered has already been reported or not.

One source of extreme irritation for SL merchants has been the migration of goods from XStreet to SL Marketplace (SLM).  Some of them have been vociferous in their criticisms, particularly Ab VanMoer, who ended up posting one of his emails to the commerce team on the SL Blog.  It's exasperated, but not rude or impolite.

Thus it was a bit of a surprise that Brodesky Linden reacted angrily to a comment in the JIRA about ratings not showing up right in SLM, and said: "Why don't you stop wasting time and put in comments in the correct tickets. I filter (Ab's) emails to trash. Gmails makes that very easy to do."

This was such poor customer relations, particularly since Ab VanMoer is credited by other merchants with having assisted the commerce team in finding many of the bugs and problems which have been afflicting SLM.

To his credit, Ab tried to smooth things down, and made excuses for Brodesky's ill-mannered retort, only to find it thrown back in his face by Brodesky a few comments later:  "I'm glad this has been entertaining, and Ab is enjoying all the publicity this is bringing him. You can thank him for all the emails he has sent the commerce team about changing the item that gets delivered. The first part of being able to change inventory will be out tomorrow, with the ability to edit unavailable items, followed by a release where you can change inventory items."

Given that the evidence is that Ab's emails were not abusive, but detailed and helpful, and that Ab had been very reasonable and hadn't over-reacted to Brodesky's original comment, this response seemed inexplicable.

Then, Darrius Gothly published a blog which revealed that Brodesky was being fired, not for poor customer service or any transgression, but because, allegedly, Linden Lab do not want to be forced to pay taxes in the state he lives in.  Now, I don't know the facts of that assertion, but it does make an angry and inappropriate response to a customer somewhat more understandable.

I am concerned that Linden Lab are losing staff they can't afford to lose - even with Brodesky the Commerce team seem to have been struggling.  Now Philip Rosedale has announced that he is leaving again, after only a few months back at Linden Lab, without having found a successor to run the show. 

Seasick in Avaya

Someone posted a link to Avaya, which seems to be windowed virtual world for  business meetings - as long as you are on a windows PC and don't mind voice chatting with strangers on the internet.  This is what I wrote on LinkedIn, in review of the world:


I'm always game for a new thing, so I downloaded the client and had a look. The fact that there is a download of a client may be a disincentive for people to try it out casually. I found the avatar customisation easy, but the control of the world and the interface was short on explanation in world - there is a basic overview on the website etc. Having to use W and the mouse to control the avatar's movements and the camera is vomitous - I'm used to navigating virtual worlds, but the fact that the camera swings about as you are trying to see where you are is a big disadvantage.

It took me some time to work out that the focus had to switch away from the world in order to use text chat - and it means that it is very difficult to get a meaningful interaction between avatars. Most people don't want to voice chat with people they don't know - this is risky behaviour in terms of the internet... people will often do the virtual world equivalent of showing you their penis (as in chat roulette). I don't know whether the people who were in the room with me at the same time were able to hear my text chat - they didn't respond if so.

"Voice chat is always on" says the quickstart guide - but this wasn't obvious to me at first having downloaded and entered the world, and would have been a huge barrier to me trying it out, if I had understood this to be the case, for the reasons above. For the demo online with strangers, it would be far better if this were an option and not always on.

The letterbox size of the window makes it seem very enclosed and restricted, and the seasickness effect of the camera movement makes one disinclined to move about much. Most of the areas around the central area seemed to be restricted access also, which seems like a big mistake to me... to invite people in, and then tell them they can shuffle around a central area, but can't access the upper levels or the rooms around the central room is likely to antagonise the very people you are trying to impress - it's a very unfriendly act. It would be better to block off entirely and not have visible, the places you don't want them to go. If you are expecting it would make them curious... I just felt resentful, that I couldn't go upstairs - particularly as I could see other avatars already up there.

Finally, the fact that it is windows only, is a big problem. You can't always guarantee that you will have everyone on a windows PC, and a lot of people in creative industries, will be on Macs. Excluding anyone on a Mac is going to be a big issue.

I certainly wouldn't choose to us this over Second Life for a business meeting, simply because of the sea sickness effect. I would fix the camera at the avatar's eye level, unless the avatar releases it to pan the camera around - that would at least make walking around a more comfortable experience? I would switch off the always-on voice, and give people more guidance in world.

It's interesting, certainly.