New Ambassador to Heterocera | Meet the BBB Team: Boo | Tours, Tours, and more Tours! | B3B Movies | Particles with Delain | Folk-dancing with Lec & Hooten

New Ambassador to Heterocera | Meet the BBB Team: Boo | Tours, Tours, and more Tours! | B3B Movies | Particles with Delain | Folk-dancing with Lec & Hooten | New Locations

05/07/2022

NEW AMBASSADOR TO HETEROCERA

We welcome our new Honorary Ambassador for Heterocera, Dariah Raynier. Dariah has been in Second Life for more than a decade during which she has been involved in numerous communities and projects.

Exploring the grid by boat is one of the experiences she likes to share with everyone by offering tours. She also plans to organise events around art, music and other activities.

Her main mission, of course, will be to establish amicable connections with Heterocera's residents. At the moment, Dariah is becoming acquainted with her many new tasks, and a date for a welcome ceremony at the Embassy will be announced soon.

We wish Dariah all the best for the many great adventures that await her in her new role!

MEET THE BBB TEAM: BOO ROJYO

We begin our Meet The Team series with the person who made the BBB possible. It started as a concept, something that sounded like a good idea. Many of us have good ideas, but not all of us are successful in implementing them; of turning the thought into reality.

But Boo Rojyo was able to do it, and the BBB (Bellisserian Bureau of Bureaucracy) was born. The team started small, but grew over time as people caught the vision and got excited about it.

So, this week we meet Boo, the creator and founder of the BBB and put to him our standard questions for this series;

How long have you been in SL?

Since 2006, before everything was in colour.

How long you lived in Bellisseria?

Since 2019 I think, not long after it all started.

What is your favorite thing about Bellisseria?

Community.

What motivated you to join the BBB team?

Well, it was my idea, so I joined an excellent and talented team of one, I guess.

What are your BBB responsibilities?

I'm the Founder. My responsibilities are to make myself perfectly dispensable. I guess tinkering and interfering is my thing.

What is the most fun thing you have ever done as a BBB staff member?

I love when we take on new team members. We are either lucky, or just attract the right people, but I'm amazed at the talented team we have.

Tell us one thing about yourself that most people do not know.

I'm pretty much an open book. Struggling to answer this one.

Do you have anything else you would like to share?

I'd like to share that anyone who has a dream to add fun and community to SL can do exactly what we've done at the BBB. Just need the right plan and right motivation, and a bit of luck along the way maybe.

Article and photograph by Teresa Firelight

TOURS, TOURS, AND MORE TOURS!

Saturday, May 7, 11am SLT, Start: Bellisserian Embassy Corsica (Corsica)

Many attractions and stamps await us around the area of Corsica South Coast.

click to enlarge

Wednesday, May 11, 11am SLT, Start: Bay City Fairgrounds (Sansara)

In celebration of the upcoming 14th anniversary on May 15, we have a look into Bay City's rich and diverse history.

Friday, May 13, 9am SLT, Start: Peleliu Fields (Nautilus)

It is Fleet Week Open Day at SL Coast Guard! Join a stamp collecting tour with mini-helicopters from Peleliu Fields to Acknefar Airport where we will watch their Air and Sea Power Demonstration at 10am. More shows and activities are offered during the whole day, and a new stamp awaits you there, too!

click to enlarge

Article by H.E. Yuki Yeshto / Photos by Y. Yeshto and the SLCG

UPDATE ON DR FERRY SERVICES

H.E. Dariah Raynier – the "DR" of the company's name (and the new Hon. Ambassador to Heterocera) recently published an article in her company's blog about a meeting with the Hon. Ambassador to Nautilus, H.E. Freddie Harrington. You can read the article here.

The ambassador and Dariah Raynier discussed a number of topics related to travel and transport on the mainland continents. Such important issues as the banlines and orbs problem were discussed.

In other news, the DR Ferry Service blog has been awarded a licence and is now therefore a BBB Approved Publication featuring in the sidebar to The Gazette.

ROBERT'S B3B MOVIES

By way of a look back at the popular B3B event to celebrate Bellisseria's 3rd anniversary, we have two very different videos from our very own Robert Rhodan. The first shows him making his own plushie elephant in the Arts & Crafts tent. The second shows the aerobatics display over the Bellisseria Fairgrounds staged by H. Quimby Aviation. Enjoy!

Videos by Robert Rhodan

PARTICLES AT B3B WITH DELAIN

Delain Canucci enhanced B3B with a stunning particle show based on the 2017 movie The Greatest Showman. For those unfortunate enough to miss the event, Delain has a link in her profile picks. Robert Rhodan interviewed Delain for The Gazette and asked how long it takes to create such an amazing, complicated show.

To make a complete show for almost an hour it takes two months to create all the particles, to find music I like and to build a stage. The stage itself was about 400 prims and the seating 100 more. It was not the largest I ever built. The Gotham City stage I built for B2B had almost 3000 prims!

Robert noted that the show ran smoothly and attracted many visitors. How was it possible to achieve all the effects without making the Fairgrounds into a lagfest?

Usually particles won't effect the server much, The scripts are low impact. Particles can cause lag on the client side though as this really depends on the graphic card and system of each user. I try to keep the particles low and don't use high res textures, which should make it easier to render.

Robert asked where she gets the inspiration for her Color Alchemists effects;

I don't really know where my inspiration comes from. I just start with an effect and by changing the script multiple times an idea emerges. I see it in my mind and try to create it like I see it!

Asked as to her future plans, Delain said;

I have always a few projects going on, but the next big ones are two shows for the “Hope Fest” and “Follow The Sun” festivals. I also make effects for different dance groups and one in particular – The Monarchs – I sponsor with custom made particles.

Robert thanked Delain for making B3B so memorable. We all look forward to her future projects!

Article and video by Robert Rhodan.

FOLK DANCING AT THE B3B AND BEYOND

Hooten Haller and Lec, owners of the ContraDanceFloor and managers of the FolkDanceGroup, kindly agreed to an interview with Robert for The Gazette. Both they and Leena Quicksand were present at the Fairgrounds during the B3B and - especially at the second event - so many visitors dropped in that over the full two hours all 12 dance pads were often fully loaded and people standing in line for a chance to hop in! Robert asked why so many young people were enjoying this traditional form of dancing?

Lec answered;

I'm not sure of the ages of the folks behind these avatars, but I believe a lot of people were drawn to our event because of our dance system. The opportunity for everybody to dance individually with everyone else is unique in SL. Once people arrived and heard Hooten's brilliant and upbeat musical selections – including traditional contra dance tunes as well as more contemporary songs – they wanted to stay and hear more, even when all of the dance slots were full. And they became immersed in the upbeat and humorous local chat! Having animesh figures instead of dance balls helps folks feel they always are dancing with someone, even if they'd come alone.

Hooten added;

Contra has always appealed to people of many ages. There's some special magic where age gaps don't matter. When dancing you are with your partner throughout the 8 to 10 minutes of a full dance, and also sharing them with a new couple every 33 seconds. So there's a constantly changing kaleidoscope of people. Anyone can step up and be present with that neighbour couple for half a minute, and then they're gone and you have a new couple.

At an SL contra we aren't connecting as intimately with the partner or neighbor of the moment. What is there for us in SL is the whole "floor" of people through open text chat and private IMs, just as at any club dance. But the special sauce is the fabulous music and live calling.

Robert noted that Hooten was himself the live caller for the second event at B3B. He had seen for himself what was going on at the Fairgrounds despite the clash with Easter and Seder holidays. Did he expect such an interest in ContraDance ? Hooten said;

I truly regretted having to miss the dance on Friday, but Sunday very much made up for it. I was expecting a low turnout because it's not live music and not club music. It's a strange mix of live performance (calling) and a folksy music that doesn't hook people until they hear it. The residents gave it a chance and let us know they liked it. Despite their puzzlement over the unique (even peculiar) dance machinery, they responded by dancing with us (or sitting out on the side) and offering pleasant banter and praise.

Robert wondered if B3B had increased the numbers joining their regular twice a week dances and Lec said it had extensively added to their mailing lists. He added;

We expect them to become regulars, as they've fitted in so quickly. We'd love to expand to more lines, of course, so we encourage folks to add us to their Picks.

Robert commented on the unique features of their ContraDance simulation, quite aside from the many dance pads that change dancers' positions in turn. He noted that even a cockroach and a tiny were able to dance in the group! He asked how it all works and how the animations run so smoothly without causing much lag ? Lec noted;

Our dance system is based on "pads" (mannequins and/or animesh figures) moving through dance figures along given paths, while animations move their arms and legs. When one "sits" on a pad, it disappears, but the avatar is still in some sense riding on it. A roach or a robot can ride along even if they can't move arms or legs.

Three challenges made scripting this system difficult for me. One was learning SL's scripting language. Over the years, many people, including Hooten and numerous writers online, helped with that. A second difficulty was to accomplish the dancer's progressions in opposite directions. An early scripter proposed the system we still use. The third was synchronizing. Because all dance individually with each other, they must be dancing each figure at the same time.

Lag can make the motion jerky, but synchronizing should remain. We have had 24 pads dancing in a set for hours without losing synchronization. I can't say how much the synchronization increases lag in the region though. It seems to me more likely that it would be caused by the land impact of our animesh figures.

Hooten added;

You'll need to ask people far more experienced in the performance issues of SL. We were fearing the worst with each updated object. Each new animation must be propagated to every agent in the vicinity. To be honest the only real lag I noticed was my chat typing speed slowed way down! We have ideas to improve performance considerably. After all, this experiment in a dance system is only just completing it first year of steady use in basically one location.

Both are contra dancers themselves in RL. Lec has danced at about 30 venues in approximately 20 US states since 2000, but has never been involved as an organiser. Hooten has been contra dancing since 1999 and began to run his own RL dances in 2011. He said;

It was because of the pandemic Lec and I each worked on our own contra dance systems as we couldn't dance in person. Once we'd found each other, we collaborated a bit, and eventually decided to let Lec's system be our foundation.

We at The Gazette are grateful to Lec and Hooten for taking the time to talk to us and for giving B3B visitors so much fun at the Fairgrounds!

Interview, article and video by Robert Rhodan

NEW LOCATIONS

This week we have four new locations to visit with your Bellisseria or Mainland passports. Firstly there's a special event presented by the Bellisseria Animal Sanctuary at the Bellisseria Fairgrounds. Yes it's Zoo-Palooza 3! It's set in the Forestham National Park built especially for the occasion and runs from May 7th - 29th. Regular readers will be aware that our bureaucracy permits more colours in the stamps for such events. The event organisers and our designers are not restricted to the usual stamp-ink creations. Organiser Krys Calamity has certainly gone to town on this colourful design. Don't miss out on collecting it and enjoy the event while you're there.

We don't normally talk much about the stamps themselves but they are one of the reasons our passport system is so cool. They are not random snapshots but hand-crafted works of graphic design. Our designers listen to location owners' ideas and (except in rare cases where owners design their own) work with them to make something that represents their build. Sun has been doing a great job from the outset. Recently Robert and Amanda have contributed in their own styles. They all do a great, creative job and we thank them.

Acknefar Airport in Nautilus is another new addition this week to our Airports, Ports & Train Stations category. It's a base for both the SL Coast Guard and SL Marine Corps as well as a GTFO! hub. For those of you who don't know about GTFO! (Get the Freight Out!) it's a logistics and exploration game that involves moving goods around SL in vehicles with special scripts. It's a great way to get to know Second Life® better by land, sea and air.

Calypso Bay is a dive resort on the Beach Paradise private estate. It bills itself in the land menu as

A nice village with great underwater down to 100 meters

The underwater build is great, both for divers and SL's many merfolk. It's well worth putting on your scuba gear or as our late former editor, mermaid Fenella, used to put it – tailing and scaling, to go take a look.