One of the things that amazes me about Second Life is that, even after fourteen years of exploration, I still come across stores that I have never visited, or even heard about before.
And such is the case with Poet’s Heart, a store which specializes in full-length gowns (designed for Maitreya Lara mesh bodies only, although most of these gowns will also work with other models of mesh avatar bodies, like Altamura, if you make use of the alpha sections on the HUD that comes with the body).
You can join the Poet’s Heart group for free, and pick up some lovely free gowns and historical roleplay outfits from their group gift wall in-store:
Here my medieval roleplay avatar, Scarborough Fair, will model a few of these group gifts.
The Aerin gown in green has a clear elven influence, and it comes with a separate belt, overskirt, and sleeves that you can mix and match as you like:
The Happy Holidays 2019 gift from Poet’s Heart is the romantic Niniane gown with long, flowing sleeves, and a HUD with lots of options to change the colours and fabrics on various parts of the dress, including the trim:
Finally, this stunning silvery white ballgown is the Happy Holidays gift from 2017. This beautiful gown could easily be turned into a wedding dress with the right accessories:
In this final picture Scarborough Fair is wearing:
Mesh Head: Lulu Bento mesh head by Akeruka (previous group gift; group costs L$150 to join)
Mesh Body: Maitreya Lara
Hair: Magdalen by LeLutka
Gown: Happy Holidays 2017 gown by Poet’s Heart (free group gift; group is free to join)
Jewelry: Antigone silver and diamond earrings and necklace (a long-ago free gift from Kouse’s Sanctum, a store which has now closed)
Shoes (not seen): Sonnet suede pumps by Hilly Haalan (free group gift; group is free to join)
Animation Override: The Gown AO by Kamilah Hauptmann (available for L$1,000 on the SL Marketplace, it is adjustable to accommodate various sizes of gowns, including bustle gowns and Mantua gowns)
Animated Fan: scripted geisha fan by Tuty (which I retextured with a white lace pattern; it randomly switches between five different fanning animations and is available for only L$50 on the SL Marketplace)
I heard through the grapevine that yesterday’s Sansar Product Meetup was to discuss future developments to Linden Lab’s social VR platform.
Screen capture from the Twitch video of the Sansar Product Meetup
But no, I didn’t bother to come into Sansar for this meeting; I watched the hour-long Twitch livestream the next morning, coffee in hand. I am still on an extended, self-imposed break from Sansar, but I don’t think that watching a previously-recorded livestream (and blogging about it) is breaking that rule.
Here are a few of my notes from yesterday’s Sansar Product Meetup, regarding plans for the platform for 2020. Galileo, the Community Manager for Sansar, led the meeting, and Boden, SeanT, Lacie, Cinno, and a few other Linden Lab staff were also present (I didn’t catch everybody’s name). The audio on the Twitch stream at times was very uneven, and the sound cut out completely at one point, so I may have missed a few items in this report.
Any editorial comments in these notes are in italics.
Among the new features planned for the next few releases of the Sansar client:
New emotes system. You will not have to go into the character editor to select emotes. You can use hotkeys to play emotes instead of selecting them from a menu.
New starter avatar looks in the carousel, with more variety possible for first-time users.
Twitch extensions (a new feature for streamers; I have no idea what this means).
Scene-based animations (e.g. animations that are enacted when you enter a scene or world)
Having items in your backpack change according to certain events and triggers.
Improvements to moderation tools (internal use first, then eventually passing them on to end users).
Group travel and group chat (by the end of next quarter).
Improvements to the instance picker.
User Interface improvements (Binah is working on this).
After announcements, Galileo opened the floor for questions from the audience in attendance at the Product Meetup. Items and issues that came up during this question and answer session included:
Individual avatar volume controls are likely to come in the second quarter of 2020, as part of the roll-out of the UI redesign.
Skin textures and body sliders: Linden Lab is looking at skin textures in the first quarter of 2020, and they hope to have this feature released sometime over the next couple of client updates. “The body sliders are further out, for sure, but skin textures are closer.” (Editorial note: I’ll believe it when I see it. My understanding from various sources is that most of the Sansar avatar team was laid off in October, which will significantly impact further avatar customization plans.)
No planned changes to any income splits between creators and Linden Lab. (Editorial note: Again, no big surprises here. Some content creators are obviously still feeling cranky about the percentage LL takes when selling items on the Sansar Store, and cashing out profits.)
Various people reported problems with the avatar files in Blender, which Linden Lab has not yet had an opportunity to look at.
There are no plans for extending shader capabilites (and yes, there is still someone left on the shader team, despite rumours to the contrary). Linden Lab may bring him out to a future Product Meetup to answer questions.
Those are pretty much the highlights of the meeting, from what I can see. I’m glad that Linden Lab is still having regular Product Meetups, even though I still don’t expect to see any major new features showing up in any future releases in 2020. (The planned updates to the emote system are certainly very welcome, though.)
When you first set up your avatar in Sinespace, the company generously gives you 30,000 Silver (a promotional currency which you cannot cash out) to help you get started in styling your avatar to your liking. Today, I thought I would take a female avatar, and see just how far I could take that 30,000 Silver to create a starter wardrobe for her.
Here is what my avatar looked like before I went shopping in the Sinespace Store, wearing an outfit and hairstyle from the default inventory, and the Shyla shape, skin, and eyes:
For some reason I always find the default hand size on the Sinespace avatars to be way too large, so one of the first things I always do is click on the Body button, scroll down to the Hand section, and adjust the slider for the hand size all the way down to the minimum:
To get the best bang for your buck, close your Outfit window and click on the Shop button in the row of blue buttons along the bottom of your screen in the Sinespace client. Then click on the Clothes tab, then click on the word Silver in the blue bar across the top. This will give you a list of items sorted by price from lowest to highest Silver:
I’ve already talked about the freebies you can pick up for female avatars here, so I’m not going to repeat that information. This time, the focus will be on getting as many items of clothing, accessories, and footwear as I can for that initial allowance of 30,000 Silver. I will also not be blogging about items from Sine Wave, as I want to promote the content creators.
An easy first purchase is this leather dress by ELL, for just 1,000 Silver:
Did you know that most clothing you purchase in the Sinespace Shop has a tintable Material button? Just open up your Outfit window, click on the Wearing button, scroll down to find the leather dress, and click on the Material 1 button to select a colour to tint it. Here, I selected red:
And this is what the final outfit looks like, with some flats from the default inventory:
Another 1,000 Silver dress from ELL is this asymmetrical Laila dress:
If you’re looking for a sexy outfit to go out dancing, look no further than the Blue Steel outfit by Monks, which consists of blue leather pants with a lace panel on the thighs, paired with a skintight lace bodice, all for only 1,000 Silver:
Heading to the beach instead of the club? The Daisy one-piece swimsuit by Peachley is only 2,000 Silver and it will definitely turn some heads!
You can pick up a five-pack of stockings with built-in panties from BlakOpal Designs for only 2,000 Silver. These Elegance stockings are worn on the avatar tattoo layer, and will therefore work with any outfit!
This lovely bodycon dress by Stitched comes in four different colours: blue as shown, green, red and black. They’re a bargain for only 2,499 Silver for each colour:
The following blue dress by wet.fm with its gold details is another great deal, for only 2,500 Silver:
This Simple Halter Dress by Junk.In.The.Box comes in eight different colours, for only 3,000 Silver each! It’s a wardrobe staple that you can dress up or down depending on what accessories you add to it:
Here’s a pro tip: if you buy the white version of this dress, you can tint it any colour you like!
After these essential purchases, you should still have about 14,000 Silver left to spend. So let’s take a look at some slightly more expensive items to round out that starter female wardrobe.
A good pair of jeans is essential to any wardrobe, and Stitched has these skinny jeans in nine different colours, for only 3,999 Silver each. (Again, if you buy the white pair, you can tint them any colour you want.)
This Simple Strapless Dress by Junk.In.The.Box comes in eight different colours, for only 4,500 Silver each. Again, I bought the white version and tinted it bright red for this picture:
For my final purchase, I decided to splurge on a gorgeous set of eyes, the Starlight Eyes in grey from ArkStudio for 5,000 Silver. Here’s a closeup, along with the unisex Spiral hairstyle from your default inventory:
So, as you can see, you can build an entire starter wardrobe for your female Sinespace avatar if you spend that initial 30,000 Silver carefully! I still have about 650 Silver left over after my shopping spree, to use on another day.
This blogpost is sponsored by Sinespace, and was written in my new role as an embedded reporter for this virtual world (more details here).
Those of you who have been waiting on the sidelines while Decentraland develops will not have to wait much longer to pay a visit. In a blogpost on their official blog, the developers have announced:
On 20.02.2020, our dream of creating a unique, fully decentralized shared virtual world becomes a reality.
Decentraland, the first ever blockchain-based virtual world, is going live to the public.
The launch includes the establishment of the Decentraland DAO, full decentralization of the world’s infrastructure (communications between users and the serving of content), and, most importantly, public access to the very best the Metaverse has to offer. From now on, no single agent will have the power to modify the rules of the software, curate LAND content, modify the economics of MANA, upgrade the LAND smart contract unilaterally, or prevent others from accessing the world, among other decentralization features.
You should be aware that if you want a custom avatar name, that you will have to pay for it, which means setting up a crypto wallet and buying some cryptocurrency (ETH or MANA) on an exchange. The cost is 100 MANA, which works out to about US$3.50 at the current exchange rate.
It remains to be seen just how popular Decentraland will be among the non-crypto, average consumer, but it looks like we will find out this year! I wish the company good luck on their public launch.
