ATG Grid News
ATG Grid News
ATG Grid News is bringing the latest updates to what is happening on the Grid. Feel free to watch the video or go through the text version of this blog post.
Video
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This is ATG Grid News.
I am Zack Haiku.
I am Katheryn Llewellyn.
I am Lilly Anne Smith.
Our top stories:
– One Billion Rising Annual cancelled for 2023
– Crystal Frost first look
– Second Life University displays PBR functionalities
Hello and welcome to ATG Grid News
Saffia Widdershins recently announced that the 2023 One Billion Rising annual event in Second Life has been officially cancelled for this year due to real life commitments.
The event will be returning next year, if everything goes to plan.
Saffia will be stepping back from an organisational role after ten years of running One Billion Rising.
On a blog post on the One Billion Rising blog, Saffia says:
“It’s with great sadness that I have to tell you that One Billion Rising has been cancelled for 2023.
Although some of the team are very willing and able to stage the event this year, others of us have been overwhelmed by real life and other commitments. In view of this, it seemed best to cancel OBR 2023, and instead look ahead to a magnificent return in 2024.
I apologise to people who may have started preparations – the delay in informing people about this news is my entirely fault, and not anyone else’s.
For me personally, after ten years, the time has come to step back from an organisational role – although I do hope I will be able to attend and enjoy the event in 2024 and beyond.”
ONE BILLION RISING began as a call to action based on the staggering statistic that 1 in 3 women on the planet will be beaten or raped during her lifetime. With the world population at 7 billion, this adds up to more than ONE BILLION WOMEN AND GIRLS.
One Billion Rising focuses on empowering women’s bodies, agency, sovereignty, dignity and respect.
Second Life University is back in session, this time with a live stream on Phisically Based Rendering, or PBR.
Second Life’s Senior Software Engineer Runitai Linden (also known as Davep), and Second Life’s Product Manager, Kyle Linden gave us an update on the status of PBR Materials in Second Life.
These are some of the topics they covered during the show: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtjGf06B8ZA
– Physically Based Rendering Wiki [Work in Progress]
– How to create a Metalic-Roughness! by Medhue Animations
– How to download the latest GLTF PBR Materials Project Viewer
The live stream can still be watched on Second Life’s Youtube channel.
The first video preview of the new unity based third party Second Life viewer, Crystal Frost, has been unveiled. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZgSnKqxnj8
Created by Second Life Resident and developer, Berry Bunny, Crystal Frost displays graphic enhancements, even if with a slower frame rate for now, and the lack of a rendered avatar.
“Rendering avatars requires decoding rigging data from meshes,” Berry says, “and I currently have not looked into how to do that just yet.”
Berry Bunny says a playable version will be available “ina couple of weeks tops”, first for subscribers of her Patreon.
“The first public test build will be in about a month.”
As for what you’re looking at in the preview, Bunny’s already working on fixing the issues:
“The memory leak issue that held up development for 6 months has been 100% absolutely and unequivocally fixed, and I’m now using less RAM than Firestorm does, while rendering everything at full 100% highest detail. However the framerate is much lower, but I know why and i’m working on a fix.”
As for the frame rate, it’s about 30 FPS now. But I’m going to do some dynamic occlusion culling and implement level of detail like Linden Lab clients have So about a third of my frame rate with Firestorm. But Firestorm, like all Linden Lab-based viewers have occlusion culling. I don’t, at all. Once I do the frame rate should be ridiculously higher.”
Sad news for the Second Life community as Asiza Wolf (real life name Toni Harper Dunlap), has passed away earlier this month.
Asiza was a prominent figure in Second Life’s singing community, as well as the owner of Asiza’s Islands of Love.
Draxtor, one of Second Life’s residents who has had the privilege of knowing Asiza in Real Life, has posted a touching in Memoriam dedicated to her: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tg_205eatk Our team at ATG Productions sends our deepest condolences to all of her friends and family, both Second Life and Real Life.
The Second Life Marketplace has been experiencing several issues with its search system.
Earlier this month, Linden Lab have applied similar search functionalities that have been put in place for Second Life’s search.
These were created to improve significance responses on Marketplace searches.
Unfortunately, this change did not go as planned, resulting in a broken search system that many Residents have complained about for the past days.
As of Friday, February 17th, Linden Lab has reverted the Marketplace Search changes, and teh system is once again usable.
This has been ATG Grid News, you can find me at twitter, @HaikuZack.
Enjoy the grid!
