Digital artlife

Got my exhibition piece ready for the Celebration of OSgrid. It is on the exhibition area. Everything starts 25 July and i try to be there to check things out.

OS grid whas the first grid where i had a sim of my own. So always feel a little extra for it and there are some great builds. You should hypergrid over.

I try to visit all grids that visit my grid. Today i came to Sparkle. Not a grid it is a sim and as i have been jumping a lot i do not know what grid i am on. I think that is one of the great things with the hypergrid. Just jump, explore and meet people.

There is a avatar i suppose sleeping by the pool and it is a nice home sim. The guy at the pool kind of unresponsive. Another jump another day.

Got  some very nice inspiration in the mail from Amazone. Painting book by Anthony Jones. Loved it and wanted to do something disturbing.

Of course i have no time so it had to be some doodling on my Ipad.

It is ok can use this in virtual someday.

The new hypergrid is up and I finally have some time to write something. All the islands are stable now and I can jump in and out to other grids. But it was 5 days of hard work to figure out how to set it up. There is not much documentation to help. The grid is of course behind a router and firewall and is a local grid connect to internet. This creates a lot of problems if you want to connect both inside the network and outside.

Helpful things I have learned.

-- You need a router that can transfer the communication to the different Sims and you need to know how to setup port forwarding.

-- I think you need a domain where you can setup subdomains. Anyway this is how I got it to work. The subdomains do not do much on the internet its for the internal network. The big problem is that a internal network and the internet works the same way but the computers in the internal network do not have any internet IP addresses. And you want to be able to do stuff on the islands even if you are behind the firewall. With a subdomain it is possible for the internal workstations to find for example the sandbox. Then its address is http://sandbox.2worlds2go.eu not much use on the internet for that there is the routers port forwarding.

-- Inside the network you need your own DNS server to solve the network addresses in the internal network. I do not think this is necessary more than for the internal network. If your not working with computers setting up a DNS server is like running in to a wall. Ask someone who knows.

Well, well.

As I said it took me a week to figure it out. Setting up a single island really work right out of the box.But when you get it going it is easy to ad more Sims.

Of course this is a working grid so most of the Sims are only up when someone is working on them. The grid address is http://hg.2worlds2go.eu:8002 But there are some restrictions because we have a terrible internet connection being all out in the Swedish landscape. You can see more on http://2worlds2go.eu. Sometimes the High Fidelity server is running on the sandbox and slow things down it is a Alfa you know.

The new build for the OSgrid celebration.

Many people looking for a new hype in virtual worlds. The upcoming Oculus and the High Fidelity world. I do not believe it will be another hype with a lot of media coverage. Virtual worlds are mainstream today. We are a lot of avatars using VW today and I suppose with all the different game worlds there are a lot of us. Nothing is new anymore.

I use different worlds everyday. When I want to do some questing I go to Guild wars 2, if I want to drive fast cars with out killing myself I have Test drive unlimited 2, for art and socializing there is Second life and for building I go to my own devgrid or the OSgrid with Opensim.Today I use VATSIM and Flight simulator a lot. It is a thriving virtual community and a good example on how virtual worlds can build on a common interest.

Flight simulator was not made as a virtual world software at all. It is a simulator/game but a lot of clever people did not want it to stop there. So by adding software and networking to a otherwise closed game program they succeeded in creating a new world with pilots and controllers flying thousands of flights everyday. Creating YouTube movies and pictures for all aspects of virtual flying. And a education system for everybody that wants to join in. It was not made as a virtual world software but ended up as one anyway. There is a strong force here.

I think people want to create and work together. It is a basic human instinct to create new community's. So virtual worlds is here to stay.A new hype is not needed. Virtual worlds will expand without it anyway.

New look on the OSgrid

Today I visited SL10B. Very nice and I just love all the pod rides. But it got me thinking about why I am just visiting not living in Second life as I did before. I am in world a few times a week but I used to be online all the time. Creating stuff, partying and making new friends.

And so it struck me it is the creative tools they migrated off world and so did i. When you use mesh, texture creation tools and sculpties you need off world tools. So it is more ordinary computer work. They make creative work so much better but what I loved was working in Second life. Having people drop by and building something and the go off to a party and never leave Second life.

My very nice studios with great views that I paid thousands of dollars for was the reason why I staid in world in SL. Now I just visit and I would really want to spend more time but with the tools in the viewer today it is not possible to create in Second life anymore if you want to do great work.

I want another studio, maybe on a mountain top and great tools to create for the SL community. Time to think again Linden lab.

There world was a virtual world that was closed down several years ago but now is up and running again. I made a new account today and paid 10 USD to join the fun again. It is all very dated but have always loved the graphical look of There so I wanted to visit again.

At the time There had to compete with a very hyped Second life and also made a lot of mistakes. Remember this is the beginning of virtual worlds. Nobody knew how to run them.

In my mind There´s mistakes where that they did focus at a young group of users so it had to be fun and clean, no nudity. Today we know that most people that use virtual worlds are older and it is not always that “clean”. There did not let its users create what ever they wanted and on the other hand let everybody place stuff you could buy  in any way they liked making the world cluttered and very ugly.

There did not have very much content making big areas totally abandoned and empty.

But There have a great physics system that make vehicles really drivable. And the world have a very clean graphic look as a ever lasting summer break. I think many grown up users would love a world like that today.

In today´s graphic environment with games like Guild wars 2 and some parts of Second life. Where the graphic work is very good.

I think There World stands out much better. It is not about, that you cant do better graphics it is a look and feel. And the physics make There ready for any game you can think of.

I have been looking for a world of my own to build. And as I cant get my hands on There Worlds code I suppose I have to write it myself. I be sneaking around There for a while stealing ideas or just hang out as before.

I you want to try out There you find it here http://www.there.com/ 

If you are using a modern op system like Win 8 you have to run the client in XP compatibility mode. Took me a while to figure that one out.

It is all very old you know.

Not much to do. But this new world, that you can access thru facebook is something that maybe to be 3D worlds for the many.

Not really ready yet and set among the clouds where the different areas is a island in the sky looks a lot like Second life server strategy but now in the cloud.

You can get a home and some basic furniture. There are build tools and a chat.

I suppose more to come.

joni.hallison, a photo by SL explorer on Flickr.

I am always happy when i find a artist that i like. This paintig i really liked. Nice animals lot of paint. I could have done it But Joni Hallison did. Visit the Tube gallery to see more. From cyberserenity Vella via bloghud.com

My projects span from icons to web with video, pictures and sound. Working in the digital world is now and i can get stuff out there very fast.

I work with web and game software. Projecting me into the digital world.

I am digital.

I needed a break from Second life and everything. I deleted my accounts, took a long break to think about what I really wanted to do and how. Am I a game designer working on the web or should I paint in the studio or maybe do something else. But after a while I realized how much I love Second life and I missed exploring and meeting other artists. Facebook is sooo boring compared.

It is also about my 53 birthday that I celebrated a few days ago. Can I make building, fashion and trucks in a virtual world or should I do grown up stuff instead. No I think I can play around in the virtual world or even should. I am artist and working with things I find interesting is something I really can do.

Anyway I am back and I love it. And I think I stay until Linden labs shareholders pull the plug.

I have done some work with different voice morph tools before and the new one in Second life is really good. So one up for the Lab people. And the Alpha viewer is more stable on my Vista 64 workstation. Ty for that.

So now i can sound like my little wizard.

Not everybody in sl lives in a castle., originally uploaded by cyberserenity Vella.

Found this very nice build by the railroad. Small but vey nice idea and nice for a short break. I wish more people could put something together like this. Not all of the terrible design stuff i see everywhere. And do you know? Things do not float in the air. From cyberserenity Vella via bloghud.com

I love trains., originally uploaded by cyberserenity Vella.

And i always have. So Nils have bought a small piece of land by the railroad to build a station. Not this one, But i found and thought it looked really nice. More railroads in SL! From cyberserenity Vella via bloghud.com

I do a lot of changes on all our websites so this is a quick update.

http://www.2worlds2go.com. Building an new web store for all the graphic, game and software stuff.

The old Second life web is on http://www.nilsart.com.

Art space magazine is getting a new ASP site soon, i hope.

And i am putting my photo stuff on a new blog at http://www.cyberserenity.net

.And we got a good price for the 2worlds2go studio in Second life.

So a  new piece of land is bought by the railroad and I am building a Steampunk station and airship landing platform.

Many of the old blogs are gone i am sorry to say but i just have no time to write that much now when i am working this much with the company. I find some new ways to communicate.

See you on the web.

I really like when i find stuff that i have made a long time ago. And its still there. Now my little castle is full of great art. And its there on the hillside. A good build. From cyberserenity Vella via bloghud.com

Big open space and i have no idea on what to build? Maybe a small castle. The swedish small red house with white corners. A farm. A space ship..Or maybe a replica of the house i live in now in RL. I am in Sverige. It means Swedish in my language. So this is the spot for me. From cyberserenity Vella via bloghud.com

This is the latest addition to the small land group 144sqm in Torva.
This time its a Truck stop insted of those pesky add farms. Making Second
life more beautiful 16 sqm at a time.

--
Want to try out Second Life for yourself? Sign up at
secondlife.com/?u=cc6d4e6307ad41c3458b713d0e02315f

I found this nice Café on Route 1. I think its a build by one of the Moles.

It´s still nice to just explore and travel around SL. I like to follow the roads or the water lanes. Just to find new and nice builds. I hope the Moles get to build all the roads in Second life. And some time in the future the sim crossings will work better i suppose.

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Bembecia/65/240/118 if you want to visit the café.

I have started work on my own grid computer. An Opensim grid that I can run in my studio.
It is built by computers I get from different company’s when they upgrade I get the old ones. They know as an artist I can not afford to by all the computers I need. And as they know I do strange things with computer it is ok to support your local artist this way.

So I started to build. I have built a lot of systems so it is not very hard to do. I was thinking a grid of Linux servers.

And after a few days the new grid machine was ready for testing. Installing Opensim in grid mode is more complicated than you think. But after a few nervous breakdowns, a lot of coffee and working long into the night I had my first own grid up a running.

I just like to build computers and I really do not have a plan for what to do with my grid yet but I find some strange way to connect it to the rest of the internet. Now I have a lot of prims to have fun with.

My grid runs on four OpenSUSE computers, that make four islands. When I find a way to get more ip sockets in some of the machines I will ad some open spaces too. I use mysql and phpmyadmin for the database and VNC and telnet to control the servers from my other
computers. I have also put in wifi access so I can work with them from the garden this summer.

There was good price in the game store so i bought Tabula Rasa and no sleep tonight.

Started to play and found a new bunch of Swedish friends on the European game server.

I really like the graphics and the game play. I have been playing Guild wars for some time now and this is of course the same game with guns. But i like this one better. Better missions and very much better graphics.

Tonight i am going back Cyberserenity will conquerer a new world and help the meek. I just have to level up to 5 so i can use all the stuff i have collected in my inventory. I am ready just keep them coming.

After some heavy hardware building and the Swedish midsummer celebration the new 2worlds grid is up and running. It was just as difficult to set up as i thought and i had to build a new computer to run it. But now its there and after some terraforming and a lot of mysql work its up and running. Can´t wait to start building. Its four islands running on OpenSUSE 10.3 and i have a few standalone computers that run their own islands thats not connected to the 2worlds grid.. I can still build and do the debugging process. Thats nice to know.

I run in to AV:Trojanvirus Congrejo in Second life. He is my favorite gadget maker. All of his pieces are small works of art. And you can wear them. They are very functional in some strange way, conceptual art and great 3D construction work. If you see him ask for him to show you his stuff. He is sometimes flying around Second Sweden in some new weird thing.

The last few days I have been trying out all the new grids that are out there in cyberspace.
They are not as many functions implemented yet but there are many new grids operating now some of them even
Commercially. Many of the fancy stuff on the Linden grid do not work but you can build and script or just explore. Some say that it is all these new grids that a pushing land prices on the Second life grid down.
When you can start your own server and connect it to one off these grids, well do you need Second life?

Here are a few links to get you started.

http://www.centralgrid.com/

http://osgrid.org 

http://us.deepgrid.com/en/welcome

http://www.newworldgrid.com/

No computer stuff just walking around listening to music and drinking beer.
Great summer day and a lot of people. Sweden rock festival. I just want to be a Goth rocker but I really would look silly. But I want to try.

Anyway it was a great day and I stayed of the computer. But abstinence probably makes me work all day today instead.

The pic is from my phone cam, it’s like 3 generations back so it´s kind of surreal.

I have been turning fifty these few days. And I have not been online for days now. It’s nice to take a break sometimes and make life in to more than work. Checking out some new exhibitions in real life for a change.
I saw one of the coolest video works by Bill Viola, The raft. Wow wish it was my work.

Louisiana gallery outside Copenhagen. Denmark. A nice place to go if you are in the neighborhood.
Tomorrow it’s back to real life again or maybe for me back to the multiverse. It’s going to be fun.