Day: September 6, 2019

Join the Decentraland SDK Game Jam! SDK Workshops Run Sept. 8th to 15th in Three Languages!

The Decentraland SDK Game Jam runs from Sept. 16th to 30th, 2019! This is a content creation contest for the blockchain-based virtual world Decentraland, where you have an opportunity to win a share of 2,500,000 MANA cryptocurrency tokens and 200 LAND virtual land parcels, prizes worth an estimated US$275,000 in total value.

Register to join the Game Jam here (this is an affiliate sign-up link; full details here).

Even better, Decentraland has announced that they will be running SDK workshops, both online (via Twitch) and in various physical locations around the world, from Sept. 8th to 15th, 2019! Attend a workshop and improve your building skills before the contest starts!

Sessions will be held in three languages: English, Spanish and Chinese (Mandarin). I do not speak Spanish or Mandarin and I used Google Translate to translate from English.
Las sesiones se realizarán en tres idiomas: inglés, español y chino (mandarín). No hablo español ni mandarín y utilicé Google Translate para traducir del inglés.
会议将以三种语言进行：英语，西班牙语和中文（普通话）。我不会说西班牙语或普通话，我使用谷歌翻译来翻译英语。

Here are all the details (please note that all times listed for real-life physical locations are local times; please use a tool like the Time Zone Converter to see what time these events take place in your time zone). All times for Twitch streams are given in Eastern Standard Time (EST). Here is the Twitch channel: https://twitch.tv/decentraland

Sunday, Sept. 8th, 2:00–6:00 p.m. Guangzhou Time – Guangzhou University (Guangzhou, China) Roy from our Chinese community will deliver a 30-minute presentation on Decentraland, followed by an SDK Workshop by Stephen Zhou, winner of our June Hackathon. (in Mandarin).
来自我们华人社区的Roy将在Decentraland上发表一个30分钟的演讲，接着是我们六月黑客马拉松的获胜者Stephen Zhou的SDK研讨会。 More details at: https://www.meetup.com/TheMetaverse/events/264024907/

Monday, Sept. 9th, 3:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time – Online (Twitch). Nico Earnshaw from Decentraland HQ presents 101: Decentraland SDK Workshop. (in English)

Tuesday, Sept. 10th, 6:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time – Online (Twitch). Interweaver from the Decentraland community presents Building Blocks – Decentraland SDK Workshop. (in English)

Tuesday, Sept. 10th, 7:00–10:00 p.m. Shanghai Time – Neutrino Coworking Space (Shanghai, China). Roy from our Chinese community will deliver a 30-minute presentation on Decentraland, followed by an SDK Workshop by Stephen Zhou, winner of our June Hackathon.
来自我们华人社区的Roy将在Decentraland上发表一个30分钟的演讲，接着是我们六月黑客马拉松的获胜者Stephen Zhou的SDK研讨会。 (in Mandarin)

Wednesday, Sept. 11th, 7:00–10:00 p.m. Shanghai Time – Neutrino Coworking Space (Shanghai, China). Roy from our Chinese community will deliver a 30-minute presentation on Decentraland, followed by an SDK Workshop by Stephen Zhou, winner of our June Hackathon.
来自我们华人社区的Roy将在Decentraland上发表一个30分钟的演讲，接着是我们六月黑客马拉松的获胜者Stephen Zhou的SDK研讨会。 (in Mandarin)

Wednesday, Sept. 11th, 8:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time – Online (Twitch). Carl Fravel, the District Leader for Aetheria and The Decentraland Conference Centre, presents From Builder to SDK: A No-Frills Art Pipeline Decentraland SDK Workshop (in English).

Thursday, Sept. 12th, 9:00 am–12.30 p.m. Kuala Lumpur Time – Multimedia University (MMU) (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia). Leelin will deliver a 30-minute presentation on Decentraland, followed by a Decentraland SDK Workshop by Tak. An introduction to blockchain by the CEO of Blocklime (in English). Please register for this presentation at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/decentraland-x-bitcoinmalaysia-cryptocurrency-meetup-worq-subang-tickets-70875116381

Friday, Sept. 13th, 6:30–10:00 p.m. Kuala Lumpur Time – Komune Coworking Space (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia). Tak, a winner of our June Hackathon, will deliver a 30-minute presentation on Decentraland at the Blockchain Gaming Meetup, followed by a Decentraland SDK Workshop (in English).

Friday, Sept. 13th, 11:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time – Online (Twitch). Spidymonkey from the Decentraland community presents a Decentraland SDK Workshop (in English).

Saturday, Sept. 14th, 9:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m. Kuala Lumpur Time – Asia Pacific University of Innovation & Technology (APU) (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia). Tak, a winner of our June Hackathon, will deliver a 30-minute presentation on Decentraland, followed by a Decentraland SDK Workshop (in English).

Sunday, Sept. 15th, 3:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time – Online (Twitch). Nico Earnshaw from Decentraland HQ presents 101: Decentraland SDK Workshop.
Nico Earnshaw de Decentraland HQ presenta 101: Taller de SDK de Decentraland. (in Spanish)

Sunday, Sept. 15th, 6:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time – Online (Twitch). Scott/Baus from Decentral Games presents an SDK Workshop (in English). This session is going to be focusing on blockchain interactions with scenes. Our team will answer any questions you might have! This blog post would be good to check out beforehand: https://decentral.games/blog/tutorial-4-using-the-ethereum-blockchain-in-your-scene

There’s still time to enter the contest and win some serious prizes! Register today!

Sansar Store Spotlight: Thiccmarize Shapewear by Ravioli

THICC (Pronounced “thick”):
When a person has fat in the right places, creating sexy curves.

—Urban Dictionary.

*sigh*

I just keep looking at this elongated, stylized default Sansar 2.0 female avatar, and I keep thinking: Why? Why?!??

FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, WHYYYYYYYYY?!???!

What sins have we committed to deserve such punishment?

Now, there are some people who actually prefer this avatar shape (heathens!). Sansar and Second Life blogger Chic Aeon, for example, is absolutely rocking the androgynous look in this picture:

But, alas, I just can’t seem to muster up any sort of enthusiasm for it. It is firmly, absolutely, resolutely not working for me, and I will resist this foul temptation with every fibre of my being! I want my female avatar to have curves, damn it! Curviness is next to Godliness!!! (Can I get an Amen?)

*cue organ music*

So out of the wilderness came my plaintive cry. And lo and behold, the shapewear makers heard my desperate plea for salvation! Thank you, sweet minty Jesus, for the talented and nimble Sansar content creators! (Who would have ever thought, a week ago, that shapewear would become a necessary category on the Sansar Store? Truly, it is a sign that we are living in the end times.)

Late yesterday evening, I blogged about Daisy Winthorpe’s miraculous line of shapewear. And early this morning, I have decided to blog about a new line of products that also promise to transform your skinny Minnie into a voluptuous Vera. (Yea, verily, true believers!)

Ravioli has created what he calls Thiccmarize shapewear, a rigged body attachment for the default Sansar Avatar 2.0 female avatar body:

Unlike Daisy’s solution (which you wear, drape your clothing over, then remove), Ravioli’s Thiccmarize shapewear is tinted in five colours to match your avatar skintone exactly, and you are intended to be worn underneath and with your outfit (even peeking through at the bust or butt!).

Here’s what Vanity Fair looks like wearing Thiccmarize shapewear, from the front, side, and back, in a Marvelous Designer-created dress plucked at random from my inventory:

Hallelujah! Much, much better!

Here’s the link to Ravioli’s Thiccmarize shapewear in the Sansar Store. And the best part is, they’re all free!

Thus concludes my sermon. Go now, and spread the blessed Thiccmarize gospel to the slim and slender women of Sansar! And may God be with you. Amen.

UPDATE: Sorry, but it’s time to ditch the televangelist schtick and discuss a serious subject.

I have been rather sternly taken to task by one reader of my blog, for using the word “emaciated” to describe the new default Sansar female avatar. He shares the following picture of what emaciated really looks like (see right). And he asks me if I would be okay with the opposite trend of fat shaming.

He has a point. So, I will henceforth not use the word “emaciated” to describe these avatars, even though the arms on the default Sansar female avatar distressingly resemble this photo, in my own, purely personal opinion (please see the image at the top of this blogpost for reference). And I do apologize if I have offended anybody. I’m sorry. I hadn’t realized that I am still looking at things from a fat-person perspective and bias, and a First World, North American consumerist viewpoint. We all need to work on complicating our perspectives in order to make this world a better and more accepting place for everybody—thin, fat, “thicc”, and every variation in-between.

DCLPlazas Unveils a New Interactive Map of Decentraland

The DCLPlazas blog has a new interactive map of Genesis City (the name of the city in Decentraland, the blockchain-based virtual world):

The Decentraland beta testing is now in full flow. New builds, games and projects are popping up all over the metaverse on a weekly basis. However, it’s still early days and there remains vast, empty areas on the map, with very little to view and experience right now.

If you have time to wander around Decentraland looking for cool new builds, great. If you don’t, then wouldn’t it be nice to have a map which can guide you around some of the best experiences which have already been deployed?

Introducing the new Decentraland interactive map, located at the top of our new, freshly designed homepage HERE. Click the [ ] symbol to view the map full-screen.

This interactive map currently highlights a range of areas where you can click, zoom in, view a snapshot, then click to teleport directly into the exact location in metaverse (currently beta testers only) and explore.

Here’s what the newly-redesigned home page of DCLPlazas looks like, with the new map front and centre:

Click on the [] button in the upper left-hand corner of the map, and it expands to a full-screen view:

You can scroll and zoom the map. In this example, I scrolled down to the bottom left-hand corner of the map, zoomed in, and clicked on the little blue dot of Celestialand, a virtual planetarium. A pop-up window gives a small picture and a link to teleport directly to that location (red arrow):

One click, et voilà! You’re there! (Please note that you do have to already be accepted into the closed beta program for this to work.)

If you wish to suggest a location to be added to this map, you can do so using this form.

This is a very handy new tool for Decentraland explorers!