January 18, 2016 – Daniel Voyager

In the past week there have been some interesting blog posts/updates by Linden Lab on the Official Second Life Blog/Forums on VWBPE 2016, Project Sansar Pre-Alpha and details about the upcoming Project Bento Filming Party. See below for further details! 🙂

VWBPE 2016

On 15th January 2016 the Lab posted details on this year’s Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education conference (VWBPE 2016). The deadline for proposals ended on 17th January 2016 and the main VWBPE 2016 conference will be held on 9th – 12th March 2016. The theme for this year is Horizons.

The deadline has been extended for creative categories for exhibits and machinima which ends on 31st January 2016.

The Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education conference aims primarily to strengthen the ties of the virtual worlds communities through networking opportunities and access to innovation. Whether you work in education, or support education, the VWBPE community embraces the work of all of those that work in this industry both directly and indirectly. VWBPE connects you with the people who share your interests in furthering the goals of education in an information age.

Whether your passion involves, imagination of artists, innovation of coders and scripters, the vision of designers, the ingenuity of out of the box thinkers, or the aesthetic interpretation of performers, VWBPE has a great program on the horizon for March 9-12, and they’re looking for your participation.

Stay updated on the latest VWBPE 2016 at vwbpe.org.

Project Sansar Pre-Alpha

On 15th January 2016 the Lab responded to a question about signing up to Project Sansar and here is the latest update so far…

Thank you for your interest, Iron! Currently Project Sansar is still in pre-alpha with a small group. We will be expanding our testing in the coming months and will be sure to announce when we begin taking applications from more creators.

This latest update sounds great that the Lab plans on expanding testing in the coming months for Project Sansar. The Lab plans to announce news on taking applications from more creators soon.

In the mean time Project Sansar is still in pre-alpha and you can expect it will go through several phases of alpha and beta before its ready to launch in 2016.

Second Life will be around for many more years to come as long as its profitable etc. Linden Lab has no plans to shut it down even when Sansar is launched. Sansar will be entirely different world than Second Life and it will be interesting to see how develops in the years ahead.

I would imagine there will be more further updates on Project Sansar during the upcoming second Lab Chat event taking place at 10.30am SLT on Thursday 21st January 2016 over at the Linden Endowment for the Arts Theatre in Second Life. Ebbe Linden will be answering questions from the Second Life Community forums, Check out the thread to see submitted questions so far.

Project Bento Filming Party

On 14th January 2016 the Lab posted details about an upcoming Project Bento Filming Party for the Drax Files happening at 12pm SLT on Tuesday 19th January 2016. The event will be taking place on the Aditi grid at Bento Island.

This will be a great opportunity for all those interested Project Bento to come and show their Bento creation builds. “Selected creators may be filmed and/or interviewed to be featured in an upcoming episode of the Drax Files”.

Project Bento is one of the biggest changes to the Second Life avatar ever! More than 90 new bones have been added to accommodate features like subtle facial expressions, articulating fingers, smoothly-flapping wings, waving tails, and much more that was previously impossible or required complex workarounds.

If you’re a creator who’s testing out Project Bento, or one who’s eager to give it a try – now is the perfect time! We’re looking for creators to show off some of the possibilities of Project Bento for an upcoming episode of The Drax Files. There are detailed instructions on how to get started and how to get to the beta grid (aditi) on our wiki page. (TIP:Testing on Aditi does not cost you upload fees!)

On January 19th at NOON SLT, there will be an open casting call for anyone who has built something with Bento to come show off their work. Selected creators may be filmed and/or interviewed to be featured in an upcoming episode of the Drax Files. You will need to login to Aditi in order to access the location (secondlife://Aditi/secondlife/Bento%20Island/128/128/23). The location will not be open until NOON SLT on January 10th Information about Aditi and how to access it is located on our wiki.

In addition to the open casting call, creators are encouraged to contact Draxtor Despres inworld with information about what they’re making. Video, screenshots, descriptions – the more information the better, and the sooner you can share that – the better as well. Chosen creations and their creators will be contacted with information for a private filming on January 20th, 2016, with Draxtor and Torley Linden.

Machinimists are encouraged to come film during the open casting and get an early peek at the creative ways Project Bento is being utilised.