Tag: SecondLife

Aethereal Artemis Tavern

In ancient times hundreds of years before the dawn of history …in Second Life terms..in reality the mid 2000s, there stood a Tavern called Artemis. Where I made some good friends and fond memories.

Many years later the Tavern fell into disrepair and was abandoned (the region closed around July 2024) leaving its patrons and staff to wander the grid and find alternative watering holes. But some were not happy with this and chose to regroup in a new Tavern.

At the end of last year a couple of friends from those times approached me and said they’d like to bring some of the folks back together. Quite fortunately I already have a Tavern on my Homestead region that I’d not actually put to use, other than making it my Herb & Fable workspace.

After all, the “land” in virtual worlds is there merely to frame the avatars.

Mark Stephen Meadows, I,Avatar p.43

I read that shortly before my friends made the suggestion, it made me think of how my Homestead had been empty except for me and an occasional visiting friend. If the land is a frame, it needs a painting or tapestry of stories to fill it. It was time to paint and weave.

So Aethereal Artemis was born and is based at my Tavern in Bloodrose Bay.

Aethereal Artemis aims to be a warm, inclusive space for community, learning and a bit of magic. We’ll be hosting relaxed social evenings, themed events and informal meet‑ups, along with occasional Wiccan inspired classes and discussions for those interested in nature based paths, lore, herbs, tarot and practical witchcraft.

Whether you join us for a chat by the fire, a ritual themed gathering, or simply a quiet place to unwind, the Tavern is open to all who wander in with good spirit.

For those in the Herb & Fable community there’s tea and cakes to restore you and I plan to add shared community growing beds and the like when they’re released. I’ve seen the word “coven” murmured occasionally in different chats.. maybe this could be what you’re looking for.

Arrival Point: Bloodrose Bay

Group Join link, copy into local chat and click: 

secondlife:///app/group/6da1bf54-0691-e47f-6fa2-115ffa231389/about

Disclaimer: The community members of Aethereal Artemis have no connection to the physical world organisation Children of Artemis. It just happens that some of us frequented their Second Life location before it closed.

Love is in the Air

It’s that time of year again, the build up to a single day when people are supposed to show love to their special person. The shops are all decked out in pink or red and the price of flowers skyrockets, not to mention the price of restaurant bookings. Linden Lab even gets in on the action with an 18 day Shop & Hop.

If you have someone in your life, that’s great, but shouldn’t be showing your feelings throughout the year?

What about yourself? Everyone needs to show themselves a bit of self-care occasionally too, so Herb & Fable have released a Self Love Spell, to give yourself that  bit of a boost.

Image from Gyazo

The Rose bed lets you grow the Rose bush for both Petals and Flowers, but don’t forget your Gardening Gloves when harvesting them!

Image from Gyazo

Your spell ingredients

Image from Gyazo

The Spell is performed using the Ritual Bowl. There’s no end “product” of the spell, but you do earn three badges and the Rose you grow makes a lovely decor item.

 HnF_ritual_bowl: 
HnF_self_love_spell requires the following ingredients:
HnF_self_love_spell: 1
HnF_sea_salt: 1
HnF_petals_red_rose: 1
HnF_lavender_sprig: 1
HnF_rose_quartz_small: 1
HnF_pink_spell_candle: 1
water: 1
It will take 10.0 minutes to make

You can grab the ingredients at the Valentines Shop & Hop http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Dahlia/224/109/54 or the main store.

You’ll also need some sea salt from the store and a Lavender sprig, for the latter you’ll have to grow some lavender. If you didn’t do the Lavendell Quest, you’ll need to go there and buy the Quest pack for 1L$ then go to the store and get the Updated Lavender bed and buy some seeds, so you don’t need to do the whole Quest if you don’t want to.

Most importantly though with this Spell is how it makes you feel,make sure you have some peaceful time to yourself to do it, so you can relax and enjoy it’s benefits. Even if you have to wear some earphones to shut out your surroundings and listen to audio narration of the spell, it’ll make a difference.

Happy Valentines!

Herb & Fable links:

Herb & Fable: The Samhain Ritual from Jinx

Just in time for All Hallows Eve Jinx has released a Samhain personal Ritual. There is also of course a Herb & Fable version free when you buy the Ritual pack.

This time of year the Veil between the world of the living and the dead becomes thinner, at its thinnest on Halloween. Remember and cherish the memories of loved ones now passed in this powerful ritual.

The HUD guides you through the steps of the ritual with text and audio narration, animating your avatar throughout.

Inviting friendly spirits to visit our sacred space.

Toasting the Dead

Please do read the Trigger Warning at the beginning of the instruction notecard. If you are still grieving for someone recently passed, this ritual could bring to the surface overwhelming emotions.

If you would like to participate in a group Samhain Ritual, Julula ( the owner of Jinx and creator of Herb & Fable) will be holding one on 1st November at 1pm SLT on the Centauria region.

The Samhain Ritual is now available store linked below.

Note on the Herb & Fable version: To perform the ritual requires you to have a carved Jack O Lantern from the Pumpkin Pack I featured previously.

Herb & Fable links:

Enchanted Realms – Ghostly Gala

There’s a week left of the Enchanted Realms “Ghostly Gala”. If you’re still in the spooky mood leading up to Halloween and still haven’t found that perfect outfit for next weekend, you should go check it out. Here’s one of the outfits available there from Nala Designs and some of the poses from Lush Poses.

Credits:

Encahnted Realms Arrival point: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/VennaCity/140/13/2001

Enchanted Realms is being hosted on the City of Venna Roleplay sim, you can read about it on their website : https://cityofvenna2025.wixsite.com/city-of-venna

Herb & Fable: More Pumpkin stuff!

In the time it took between me buying the Pumpkin Pack and publishing my last blog post that featured it,a couple of extra activities have been added.

Pumpkin Flower Tea

I mentioned in my last post that the pumpkin growing beds also let you grow pumpkin flowers, now you can make those into tea using the rustic teapot.

When you grow pumpkin flowers and take them into your Pouch, you’ll receive three portions:
HnF_pumpkin_flower: Ava Bloodrose you received 3 of item: HnF_pumpkin_flower

The recipe for Pumpkin Flower Tea is as follows;

HnF_rustic_teapot:
HnF_pumpkin_flower_tea requires the following ingredients:
HnF_hot_water: 1
HnF_pumpkin_flower: 1
HnF_honey: 1
It will take 5.00 minutes to make

Jack O Lantern

It wouldn’t be Spooky Season without Pumpkin carving, would it? So now you can make your own Herb & Fable Jack O Lantern.

HnF_craft_table:
HnF_jack-o-lantern requires the following ingredients:
HnF_pumpkin: 1
It will take 30.0 minutes to make

Obviously you need a knife and a table on which to carve your pumpkin. The Crafting Table is free as part of the Lavendell Quest and the Knife comes with the First Wand pack from the store.

Herb & Fable links:

Herb & Fable: Making Pumpkin Pie

In the spirit of the spooky season, Herb & Fable have released a Pumpkin Pie set along with the various ingredients in the store allowing you to make more when you run out.

The pie pack gives you enough ingredients to make three pies, which is a multi-step process.

So what to do with this lot? Let’s check out the recipe cards, you can add them from your inventory and they display on screen.

A recipe card on a scroll, listing the ingredients below.

To make Pumkin Pie you will need:

1 x HnF_pumpkin_pie_mix
1 x HnF_pastry_case
1 x HnF_icing_sugar

First you need to heat your pumpkin in the Saucepan which takes half an hour. Since the pan is copyable, I’ve put three out to heat at once, they’re also Modifiable so I resized them too.

To cook the pumkin you will need:

A recipe on a scroll listing the ingredients below

1 x HnF_pumpkin
3 x water

While the pumpkin is cooking you can start on making the pie mix.

A recipe card scroll listing the ingredients below

To make Pumkin Pie Mix you will need:

1 x HnF_cooked_pumpkin
1 x HnF_pumpkin_pie_spice
2 x HnF_eggs
1 x HnF_milk
1 x HnF_sugar
1 x HnF_sea_salt
1 x HnF_butter

So before we can make pie mix, it looks like we need to make some pumpkin spice using the mortar & pestle to grind up some of the ingredients.

A recipe on a scroll listing the ingredients below

To make Pumkin Pie Spice you will need:

1 x HnF_ground_ginger
1 x HnF_grated_nutmeg
1 x HnF_cinnamon
1 x HnF_allspice
1 x HnF_black_pepper

After you’ve done all that, you should then have cooked pumpkin and pumpkin spice to use as ingredients for the next steps.

Once you have both your cooked pumpkin and spice, you’ll need to mix them together in your mixing bowl.

When that’s done, you’ll have pumpkin pie mix,that can go in the oven with the pie case as per the pie recipe. When they’re baked you’ll have some pies that look lovely and which will restore yourHHerb & Fable health stats when used.

As with cooking in the real world, a lot of mess has been made of empty containers and leftover produce, so your workspace may look something like the picture below. You can see that the items now have red hovertext over them, meaning you can either recycle the containers or compost the food waste.

But now of course you probably want to make some more? No problem! You can grow your own pumpkins with the Pumpkin Beds and seeds, with the other ingredients also available in the Herb & Fable store.

Growing
Grown

If you look here though, it’s not just actual pumpkins that you can make, but pumpkin seeds and pumpkin flowers as well.

You can buy the Pumpkin Pie Pack at the We Love Roleplay event.

Herb & Fable links:

Outfit Credits:

  • Dress: UNA. HaleyLong LaraX– UNA
  • Boots:[ContraptioN] Ward’s Boots ??? LaraX A – ContraptioN Store
  • Gloves: RE Corvus Gloves & Rings 1.1 – RealEvil Store
  • Belt Pouch: UNA. HaleyBag LaraX Brown– UNA
  • Hat: ~Illusions~ Agatha Witch’s Hat – Marketplace
  • Necklace: [+Oblivis+] Gehenna Key Chain Necklace – Oblivis Store
  • Arm Tattos: fable. all mimsy 100% (store vanished)
  • Chest Tattoo: [HDesign] Flower XXVII (Chest Tattoo) 90 – HDesign Store
  • Hair: Sintiklia – Jules – Sintiklia Store

Official Second Life Viewer for Apple Silicon offers 20-200% FPS Improvement

Update: The viewer was promoted to the default official viewer on 16th of October.

During the Zoom call last Thursday (25th September) something was mentioned that seems to have slipped under the radar, everyone focussed on the new “Premium Plus no stipend” news.

What didn’t make so much news was the mention of a new official Second Life viewer for Mac, written to run on the “M” series of chips, or “Apple Silicon” as it’s known.

This viewer has been mostly created by third-party open-source developers who did most of the work coding a viewer to utilise the technical capabilities of these chips. Philip Rosedale admitted during the call that there’s no way the Lab could have dedicated enough time or resources to do this work and they are very grateful to the community.

Linden Lab then used this code as a base for a new Official Viewer which is integrated into Viewer 7.2.2.17774206511 Beta and according to Brett Linden  “will soon be advanced to the default Mac Viewer”.

What got my attention was Philip Rosedale’s excitement as he commented that the difference they have seen in FPS (Frames per Second) is “between 20% and 200% improvements”, even on his old M1 generation MacBook.

However, I was at the WebRTC voice stress-test last night and it was Phillip that kept disconnecting. To be fair though, there were well over 100 avatars present, which would strain most systems. He was reporting 30fps in that crowded space though, which he sounded very happy about and is pretty impressive.

So I thought I’d try it for myself and asked a friend very nicely if they’d lend me their MacBook for a couple of days. It was a MacBook Air 15, 2023 M2 with 8GB RAM, I was pleasantly surprised.

I did some very unscientific tests noting the FPS at a few places with the current Release viewer then cleared the cache and updated to the current Beta. I then went back to each place to note any differences.

Current Release Viewer

LocationFPS on arrivalLowest FPSApproximateaverage once all RezzedAvatars Present
FaMeshed61282750
Warehouse 214311.427 (but laggy and crashed)51
Muddy’s452120’s45
Totally 80’s453430’s(didn’t count)

Beta Viewer

LocationFPS on arrivalLowest FPSApproximateaverage once all RezzedAvatars Present
FaMeshed3424.6mid 30’s44
Warehouse 21431527 (stable not laggy)44
Muddy’s44243562
Totally 80’s402640’s to 5239

I left the graphics settings at the installed defaults which were in the Low range, but increased the Draw Distance to 240m. The Beta viewer was noticably smoother and seemed to lag less where the previous viewer had, but maybe just a complex avatar had left between my visits. If you have a Mac though, I’d definitely download the Beta, you’ll notice a marked improvement.

Information from the release notes:

Known Issues:

  • Apple Silicon does not support convex decomposition for physics meshes
    • We are looking to have a new convex decomposition solution for generating physics meshes in a subsequent release for all platforms
  • Apple Silicon does not support pathfinding tools
  • Navigation buttons in the in-viewer browser are no longer present for marketplace and search
    • We will be restoring these in a future update
  • Subtle rendering differences might be noticed on certain configurations and EEP environments
    • We are working to improve these.

You can find more details and download it from the Release Notes page.

Being a Windows user, this really won’t affect me, but I know there’s a lot of Mac users out there and I feel this should have got a bit more of a fanfare for their sake. Maybe that’ll come when it’s promoted to being the default.

The header image is a screenshot from the WebRTC test session.

A Cheaper Premium Plus, but who’s it for and who wants it?

So here’s my take on the news that’s appeared on several blogs already; Linden Lab announce a new subscription plan . “Premium Plus – no stipend” quite simply a subscription with exactly the same benefits as Premium Plus, just without the signup bonus and monthly payment of 650L$, at a cheaper price. You can expect this to become available mid October.

Table showing different Second Life subscription plans, with Premium Plus highlighted that has a check box labelled “Save $105.12 US without Stipend & Bonus”.

Targeted particularly at creators or store owners that want the other benefits like free uploads, but don’t need the stipend payments because their business provides a Linden dollar income. The Lab believe it will also suit enthusiastic residents that want the benefits like the extra groups, but prefer to buy Lindens as they need them. Apparently the majority of current Premium Plus members buy extra Lindens anyway, so reducing the monthly/annual subscription outlay might be appealing.

Brad said in a Zoom call on Thursday “It’s the best option for SL”(people taking a no-stipend subscription). This is because paying Residents stipends puts extra lindens into circulation in the virtual economy, which is a pool that’s already flooded, which affects the exchange rate negatively.

After the Zoom call, I took the above image and posted it into the Fantasy Faire Backstage Discord server with a brief explanation to see what the merchants thought. Here’s some of the responses;

“They vastly overestimate how much I actually make lol. I spend more on stuff to make stuff with than I earn back lol I like the stipend but i could see it (non stipend plan) being handy for some”

“yeah i’ll keep my stipened some weeks it’s all i have coming in […] but certainly a good deal if you are only going to cash out”

“The stipend is the reason i have premium plus…they gonna give us one thats just free uploads with a stipend? lol i dont need the group space, or the land bonus, just the uploads and the stipend…actually i could do without stipend if theres just free uploads”

“As someone who is neither a creator nor a DJ, I always have more outgo than income in SL. My stipend goes right to the tipjars of the couple of events I attend each week, and the rest out of pocket. I wish there was a level between Premium and Premium Plus Minus Stipend. Maybe something with 110 groups and 450 L$ stipend but leave all the upload fees at Premium level since I don’t mind paying 10 L$ for the occasional texture a couple times a month.”

In contrast a larger brand creator I shared the news with said:

“Wow”

They seemed keen on the idea, despite having just renewed their annual Premium Plus subscription. However since there was talk of being able to switch plans quickly, that might not be an issue.

What I take from this is that the no-stipend plan is much more suited for large-scale businesses. Smaller businesses still appreciate it, but also raised above are the things people don’t need but are paying for. Some don’t need the land bonus (they possibly have a full region for their store), others don’t need masses of groups. I think this should be the first step in creating a custom subscription system, allowing you tick boxes for the benefits you want or don’t want and have the price adjusted accordingly.

The Return Of The Lumiya Viewer – Coders Needed!

I’m reblogging this recent post by Daniel Voyager,with my own thoughts thrown in. I got excited when I saw Daniel’s post, since in my opinion Lumiya was the best mobile viewer of its time. I may actually go as far to say of  any time for that matter. Linden Lab are doing their best building their own viewer from the ground up, but it’s focussed mainly on new residents as an entry path, not for seasoned residents that might want to quickly log in to do some task or other.

This is a reverse engineering project to resurrect a much loved piece of software. If you have the skills and are interested in helping out, you can check out the GitHub Repo for more details. Click below for Daniel’s original post.

(Header image from internet search, no credit claimed)

While checking the Second Life Reddit posts over the weekend I came across this post named Restoring Lumiya Viewer to the public posted by Kaleaon who is the last member of Alina Lyvette staff. Kaleaon has not been in contact with Alina for nearly a decade. The plan is to open up the Lumiya Viewer […]

The Return Of The Lumiya Viewer 2026-2027

Draxtor Retires from Video creation but not Second Life

For approximately 18 years Bernard Drax,aka Draxtor Depres, has been making videos about Second Life. Yesterday he did a live stream announcing he wouldn’t be doing any more. He may upload more unreleased videos he still has, but he doesn’t plan to make any more.

I’m not overly surprised to hear this, after his monologue last month, regarding the closure of the Second Life Book Club islands.

Drax says he’s not “burnt-out” he just wants to change his focus in life, some self-care after many busy years. He intends to focus more on his family and himself doing such things as producing for his son’s band, since his background is in music. To me it’s sad news, but a totally understandable decision that I totally respect. Especially since Linden Lab withdrew their sponsorship in March 2024, which I think was a big mistake on their part.

However Drax isn’t leaving SL, he’ll be logging in to reply to messages and may well turn up if you invite him to any events you may be having.

Watch the Announcement Video for more details.

The channel will remain as a curated archive of videos documenting Second Life, along with the documentaries he produced, going back as far as the 17th May 2007.

Here’s the link to the channel: https://youtube.com/@draxtor

Related links: