During a recent office hour, a number of fine folks joined me on an excursion to a Region that gets much deserved praise, but that most of us had only seen in pictures.  And I must insist… although they give you a taste of the neon adventure that awaits, pictures do little justice to Spiral Walcher’s work,

You start your voyage in a realistic environment and perpetual darkness, I suspect as contrast to what comes next.  Following the glowing footsteps leads you to the start of your magical journey (or a souvenir shop depending on which way you go) where it’s down the acid-trippy rabbit hole you go!  Briefly separated as we plunge one at a time through the electric entryway, we arrive at the start of what turns out to be a familiar preface - the traditional amusement park lineup where you wait for the next car to arrive.  Or in this case, the next teacup.

While waiting for our whole crew’s descent, a couple rushes by us like excited kids who just finished their first go and are running back to the start for a second, while a more reserved couple stands by, hesitant about which might be the appropriate vehicle…are they simply Friends or is a Couples teacup more appropriate?  Leaving the two to giggle and flirt a bit, and hoping they make the right decision, we split up by fours and cup by cup are immersed in the Glow!

GLOW, a feature enabled in Second Life specifically by your GPU, really powers the wow factor in the Tunnel of Light.  It’s a fun ride regardless, but having Glow turns this digital landscape into a neon nirvana.  So be sure you’ve enabled Shaders to really get the most out of the experience.

In our travels we float on electrical currents via bone china under monster dragonflies and past giant trees.  At a distance the fine mesh of neon lines and their fog of Glow (see above) creates a haze that acts as a kind of atmospheric perspective and keeps foreground items like your cup full of friends in sharp contrast.  It’s an emmersive effect unlike any other I’ve seen in SL.

The ride proceeds at a pace that you can choose (fast or slow) and, should you want to take a bit of a break, allows you to pull off the path to let other teacups float by while you pause.  With this group of chatty office hour regulars, the slow ride is a good opportunity to goof around a bit and enjoy not just the charged scenery, but good company.

A bit later I had a chance to talk to Spiral about how he creates the patterns of light, and was surprised to find that I had guessed all wrong…

Blue Linden: hmmm so no sculpties involved?
Spiral Walcher: nope
Spiral Walcher: i very, very, VERY rarely use sculpties
Blue Linden: i just assumed
Spiral Walcher: most do
Blue Linden: they seem to trace intricate shapes
Spiral Walcher: most people also think all of my stuff is particles.  lol
Blue Linden: hehe that’s not too surprising
Blue Linden: since i discovered SL it’s become easy for me to see the difference when games use one or the other
Spiral Walcher: yeah
Blue Linden: i don’t know if I would have made the distinction before
Blue Linden: now I spend time playing games and saying “how can I do that in SL”
Spiral Walcher: heh.  same here
Spiral Walcher: Crysis gave me a lot to figure out with glow here
Blue Linden: oh really
Spiral Walcher: yeah.  they use a lot of glow highlights in the alien section of Crysis
Blue Linden: oh that’s right
Blue Linden: that’s a pretty game alright
Spiral Walcher: pretty?
Spiral Walcher: just pretty?
Spiral Walcher: it’s damned sexy
Blue Linden: lol
Blue Linden: okay, it’s hardware bendingly pretty

I find it reassuring that despite my 6 years of bending prims every which way, of all the conversations about how sculpties make regular prims obsolete, and of all the amazing things I’ve seen inworld…that someone can come along and make something simple yet elegant that really inspires.

Rezzable’s Tunnel Of Light page
Tunnel Of Light machinima by rockerfaerie

Special thanks to the cool people, and nekos, and hellhounds, and robots who joined me on this Eureka Field Trip.  Good times!

Hi, Madhavi Linden here again, bringing you a fresh batch of projects developed by Solution Providers (SPs) for you to enjoy. I am always looking for new (or at least new to many) and fun experiences created by SPs for residents, so if you have any suggestions, please add them to the comments. Happy exploring!

Get a unique perspective on art and design at LOCUS. In this developing art community, you can ride up an art installation (see a view from inside the Urban Spectre below), walk through photographs, and otherwise immersive yourself in the artwork of both Second Life and real life artists and designers (Solution Provider: David Denton Architects)

Unleash your inner soccer (football) player! Join the v-Soccer community, where, using a HUD, you can compete in a variety of matches, events and tournaments with residents from around the world. Hear the roar of the crowd as you score the winning goal for your team. (Solution Provider: ISN Virtual Worlds)

Want to get back to nature without leaving Second Life? Then visit Naturum Island Resort where you can cast your line out and catch some fish, catch some waves, or catch some rays in a beautiful and relaxing setting. (Solution Provider: Metabirds)

Meet me in St. Louis! Visit the St. Louis Arch, take a ride on the steamboat, and experience a taste of what St. Louis has to offer. Want to see more? You can go under the Arch to purchase tickets to visit the Arch in real life and speak live with a staff member from the St. Louis Visitor’s Commission. (Solution Provider: Designing Digitally)

For more information on Solution Provider projects, please visit the Solution Provider Directory

For more information on the Solution Provider Program, please visit the SecondLifeGrid website

The facts are that over the past four years, I’ve seen Second Life rise from an obscure project of a few dozen people to a worldwide brand with undeniable leadership in a new sector that we helped define.  We’ve built a profitable business with diverse revenue lines, broad interest from consumer to enterprise, hundreds of employees, half a billion hours of use annually, and great new leadership.  I believe that Second Life is in a better position than ever before to succeed in making virtual worlds part of everyday online life.  I’m happy to see that my path ends with the company in peak condition.

The stage is set, a fanfare announces the arrival of the dignitaries, the audience is hushed, the Vice Chancellor approaches the podium, the graduation ceremony begins.

For a group of students on the BP Managing Projects distance-learning course run by the Manchester Business School in the UK, this was the experience that awaited them in Second Life, a fitting celebration of their hard work.  The students were awarded their certificates in the virtual world, complete with specially designed graduations gowns, lifelike avatars of dignitaries, an academic procession and speeches.

The ceremony took place in the Whitworth Room of Manchester Business School’s Second Life Island.  Created by Corporation Pop, the Whitworth Room forms part of the School’s space-age tower structure and takes inspiration (in name only!) from Whitworth Hall where the University holds its real-life graduation ceremononies.

In a chat with me about the event Dom Raban, managing director of Corporate Pop explained that: “It would be almost impossible for BPs senior executives, who are spread across the globe, to take part in a traditional awards ceremony.  By holding it virtually, we have made it possible for them to  be rewarded for their achievements with minimal disruption, saving time and money as well as reducing environmental impact.”

“Manchester Business School has always been interested in the possibilities that virtual worlds offer.  They wanted a Second Life presence that could develop in a modular fashion, becoming sticky enough to encourage long-term interaction.  The space has evolved from a place to share ideas, to a location for training courses, and now a place for students to take part in award ceremonies.”

For BP, Don Hurrle, Director of the BP Project and Engineering College said:  “This is another great innovative step forward which is in keeping with the desire to keep the Managing Projects programme at the leading edge of possibilities in modern learning and development techniques.  It is another example of how technology can reach internationally distributed BP executives and be instrumental in building an effective community of practice.”

Director and Dean of Manchester Business School, Professor Michael Luger pointed out that this was an important milestone in the MBS use of Second Life adding that: “MBS’ innovative approach to e-learning is driving our presence in Second Life - adding value to the real time experience of our students.  The Award Ceremony for BP executives is the first of its kind in the UK and we’re delighted that we can bring the cohort together to celebrate their achievements in this way.”

So we’d like to add our congratulations to all the students for their success on this programme and also to Manchester Business School and Corporation Pop for showing us that as well as helping businesses to work and students to learn, Second Life can also be there to celebrate and reward success.  I hear the party afterwards was great too!

A few years ago when enterprises, governments, and educational institutions established their presence in Second Life, there was one piece of advice that we received consistently across the board, “The promise of virtual worlds is tremendous and the Second Life environment is great for some kinds of work. But, if you only had a behind the firewall solution, we could really incorporate virtual worlds into the core of our business.” Although Second Life is a safe place to work, many large enterprises and government institutions require complete control over their IT systems due to privacy and confidentiality concerns.

We understand.

Last October, Mark Kingdon, CEO of Linden Lab/Second Life (affectionately known as “M”), briefly hinted that we were working on this at the Virtual Worlds London Conference. At that time, we were just beginning to build an Enterprise team and formulate our plan. Since then, we’ve been hard at work to make a stand-alone, behind the firewall version of Second Life a reality.

Today, we’re pleased to share that the stand-alone version of Second Life solution is currently in the alpha phase. We have nine alpha installations in the field at organizations such as IBM, Naval Undersea Warfare Center (NUWC), New Media Consortium (NMC), and Northrop Grumman. And, we’re planning to go into a limited closed beta phase this summer with general availability later this year.

Yes, this is a server solution that is completely disconnected from the main Second Life environment with all of the rich functionality in the box.

Ok, you probably have a million questions that I’m not able to answer at this time—like, “What exactly is it? What’s the price? What’s included? And, on and on.”  Patience, my friends! At this point, I just wanted to share that we’ve made tremendous progress and that I promise to fill you in on all of the details this summer.

In the meantime, if you, or a client, are interested in becoming a beta customer, then please contact us through www.secondlifegrid.net and choose the “I’m interested in running Second Life behind my firewall” option in the pull down menu and we’ll get back to you as soon as possible.

Welcome to the first annual Second Life Resident Choice Awards.  Visit the Award site now to cast your votes for your favorite prim food artist, best place to share your first avatar kiss, best Resident blog and a whole lot more.  This is your opportunity to tell us what you love about Second Life.

For your convenience, we’ve included all the award categories on the microsite so you can do your thinking and research in advance.  And don’t forget, we need your SLURLS so we can direct Residents to your favorite locales, and more importantly, the winners’ locations!

Leave your questions and comments below.  We’re sure you’ll have plenty of suggestions about how to do it better next year so have at it.  We’re looking for category suggestions, voting tools, etc.

The contest runs from March 31 through April 7th so get your votes in asap.  Only one vote per avatar will be counted.  Winners will be announced on April 17th.

Resident Choice Microsite

French Resident Choice Ballot

German Resident Choice Ballot

Japanese Resident Choice Ballot