Welcome to the November 2017 issue of Kultivate Magazine! This issue will feature The Edge Stylists as they celebrate their second year in existence, the Khodovarikha sim, Animesh in Second Life, the Aspen Fall Sim, the United State of Mind Exhibition, and a photo essay by Euridice Qork.
There are many things we all can be thankful for: life, family, friends, kids, pets, etc.. Of course as we are all in Second Life, we are thankful that the virtual world exists, at least I am, as I met my beautiful other half here, Eleseren, who has also become my real life other half. I am also fortunate to have met some really great people who have This issue marks the start of changes at Kultivate, beginning become close friends in real with our issues being published life. So take time to pause not on the 15th of each month, this just in November to be change is due to my having to thankful, but pause every day that you can, as being thankful balance real life and Second only takes a moment or two. Life. November is the month of Thanksgiving and if you are not American, you may not know the real meaning behind the holiday. Yes we eat turkey and there is talk of pilgrims and Indians, but the real reason is to give thanks for things that are important in your life.
Eleseren and I hope that you enjoy the issue and we would like to thank our supporters, advertisers, readers, and contributors. Have a safe and Happy Thanksgiving! John, Owner & Publisher of Kultivate Magazine
PUBLISHER’S NOTE
KULTIVATE MAGAZINE NOVEMBER 2017 CREDITS
John, Owner, Publisher & Editor in Chief
Eleseren Brianna, COO & Editor in Chief of The Edge Jessii2009 Warrhol, Marketing & Social Media Coordinator Inara Pey, Lead Contributor
Stavaros Gracemont, Edge Contributor
Veruca Tammas Contributor Euridice Qork Cover Photography
Pearl Grey, Guest Contributor Wicca Merlin,
Dawnbeam Dreamscape, Contributor Ilyra Chardin, Contributor
Myra Wildmist, Contributor
Guest Contributor
TABLE OF CONTENTS FEATURED ARTICLE: TWO YEARS OF THE EDGE PAGE 36
INSIDE LOOK: ASPENFELL PAGE 68
PHOTO ESSAY: BORNEO SIM PAGE 84
VOYAGES WITH VEE: KHODOVARIKHA PAGE 106
EXHIBITION SPOTLIGHT: UNITED STATE OF MIND PAGE 126
ANIMESH ( ANIMATED MESH) PAGE 144
PHOTO ESSAY: THE MANY FACES OF EURIDICE QORK PAGE p162
FEATURED ARTICLE: TWO YEARS OF THE EDGE ARTICLE: JOHN PHOTOGRAPHY: THE EDGE STYLISTS
MODEL: JAMEE SANDALWOOD
Two years ago, in November, Eleseren Brianna created The Edge. The goal of The Edge was to showcase artistic fashion imagery. The Edge later expanded to a fashion gallery and held a few awesome productions. From Burn 2, to the new E.V.A Project, The Edge showcased models who were willing to stretch the limits and try something new. In other words they were at the edge‌.the next images showcases some of these amazing models...
MODEL: JAILEY BAILY
MODEL: HONEY BENDER
MODEL: JUDELIN
MODEL: CAESAR LANGAR
MODEL: INDIGO AVONSIDE
MODEL: WICCA MERLIN
MODEL: LOLITA PARAGORN
MODEL: AHN70
MODEL: DAKOTA LAVAROCK
INSIDE LOOK: ASPEN FELL ARTICLE & PHOTOGRAPHY : INARA PEY
It’s been two years since my last visit to Aspen Fell, so when Shakespeare suggested Caitlyn and I head back and take a look and the region in its new home, I thought he had the right idea. The region presents a setting caught between autumn’s last breath and the cold winds of winter. It is a rocky place, the majority of the region given over to a high-walled rocky U running north to south, surrounded by cold looking waters and offshore peaks, the entire setting struck in muted browns, whites and greens by the lowering Sun (I’ll be honest, I pushed the Sun a little higher into the sky to gain a little more natural contrast).
you want to get particularly wet. Instead, turn to the east or west, where sit old walls bearing wrought iron fences and heavy gates, pointing the way to where you might find paths snaking their way up to the plateaus above.
This is very much a place of two parts in several ways. To the west, it is distinctly autumnal; the grass is still green, the trees still have their leaves, the lowlands offer a long ribbon of sand that curls around the cliffs, a place to walk and even enjoy a sauna – but everything is cast under a chilly, heavy sky, the tide braking against that sandy ribbon particularly cold. To the east, the region is caught in the grip of winter; snow blankets lay over both the curl of the beach and The landing point sits on the south the tops of the plateaus, and even side of the region, at the base of forms drifting slopes between the the U. Facing visitors on their two. The trees are denuded, the arrival is the high face of the cliffs, grass fighting to push itself through split by a narrow crack, which the white mantle of snow, and frost seems to offer an invitation to see catches stone and wood. what lies on the other side of the rocks. However, we’d recommend Similarly, to the west, the cliff tops, you avoid the temptation, unless caught in their autumn cast,
appear careworn and a little tired. Dilapidated barns and the ruins of a farm-house together with the wrecks of old vehicles lay scattered across the plateau. To the east, the cliff tops are given over to the remnants of much older structures: an ancient bridge or viaduct together with the walls, arches and paved floor of a former building or gate-house, their stonework giving them a sense of youthful permanence within the landscape, the snow on and around them presenting a feeling of pristine newness.
the trees, though bent and twisted, retain their crowns of leaves. Paths again wind up to the highlands above, and like those highlands the detritus of life can be found here: the ruin of a wooden house, the wreck of a car, a forlorn wooden deck caught under the downpour that holds the north-west of the region captive. Bridges suspended by balloons link the two halves of the valley, undulating over ice and water to link snow and grass. To the south, the two halves of this landscape are also brought together by an old railroad line, a narrow bridge allowing it to hold the two sides together likes Down in the valley between the stitches holding together the thin arms of this rocky U, these two halves meet, but do not merge. To slice of a cut. one side, the cliffs descend with path and rocky face to the snowIf all this sounds gloomy, don’t be covered banks of a watery finger fooled; Aspen Fell also hold plenty poking its way south. The trees of warmth. Scattered across it are here are also without leaves, bent places to sit, indoors and out, be against the cold, while an icy shelf they in the warmth of cozy cabins reaches outwards over the water or aboard the freight cars of a without actually reaching the far parked train or on blankets or bank. Across the water, the west cushions under open skies, or up in side of this broad valley again holds a watch tower or under the canvas on to autumn the grass is tall and awning of a tent. Lamps and
and lanterns are also scattered throughout the setting, offering pools of warmth and illumination, while many of the trees on the snow-laden eastern side of the region are festooned with lights, bringing their own cheer and warmth to the setting.
to explore and discover. So, too, does it offer a place to be shared, and to perhaps reflect on the passing of another year (albeit with a typical northern hemisphere outlook). KM
You can visit Aspen Fell at the Aspen Fell following slurl in Second Life: I’ve always enjoyed Aspen Fell, and http://maps.secondlife.com/ this iteration is no exception. Raw it secondlife/Peaceful% 20Den/142/6/21 may be on first looks, but there is an appeal to be found here, a desire
BORNEO PHOTO ESSAY ARTWORK: INARA PEY
VOYAGES WITH VEE: KHODOVARIKHA ARTICLE & PHOTOGRAPHY: VERUCA TAMMAS
Khodovarikha Russia! A cold, bleak, frozen landscape where one struggles to live in subzero temperatures. Khodovarikha is one of the most remote areas of Russia located at the base of the Barents Sea. Here is located a weather station manned by a few individuals who are isolated from the rest of the world all year round. Their only visitor is a research ship once a year which brings supplies and an old radio for reporting their weather data. One of those individuals named, Vyacheslav Korotki (Slava), has lived there for over 30 years. Besides the weather station and the meteorological instruments there are a few buildings scattered around along with abandoned metal barrels, cannibalized wood piles and trash.
The village has been re-created in Second Life by Serene Footman and Jade Koltai who brought you Furillen. It’s an amazing arctic landscape with plenty of areas for posing or photography. You can join the group for $400L which is the same as the Furillen group if you want to rez pose balls for your photos. The creators also have a link on their blog which includes part of a 2015 documentary called Arctic Limbo which filmed the actual individuals on Khodovarikha for a year.
The detail on the sim is meticulous from the instruments used for the weather equipment to the tools and generators in the outer buildings. You must go look at the office desk and sign the guest book. When you watch the documentary and visit the sim you’ll see how it really mirrors the real life location. Don’t forget to take photos which you can upload to their Flickr account because as stark as the landscape is there is beauty in abundance (https:// www.flickr.com/groups/khodovarikha/). KM You can visit Khodovarikha in Second Life via the following slurl: http:// maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Porter% 20Islands/78/181/22
EXH
HIBITION SPOTLIGHT: UNITED STATE OF MIND ARTICLE: & PHOTOGRAPHY: INARA PEY
Now open at Artful Expressions, curated by Sorcha Tyles, is United States of Mind, the second solo exhibition of photography by Jes Mode (J3sus Mode). It features a total of eight studies, each focused on a specific state of mind / feeling / emotion.
doubting Schizophrenia, for example, with its figure bound within a straitjacket shaking his had so rapidly we literally see he is in two minds, while Breakdown offers a physical manifestation of collapse. Others are more nuanced in presentation, such as Hedonism, with not only its ménage-a-tois, Presented in muted tones, and a but also its more subtle hints at step away from Jes’ more usual pleasure. Others appear to run use of black-and-white, these are slightly contrary to their title, or at considered, artful and provocative least bind it with other outlooks / takes on their subject matter, using philosophical both Jes and his in-world partner standpoints; Nihilism, for example, and fellow artist, Cecilia Mode when taken with its accompanying (Cecilia Nansen) as models. text perhaps also suggests vanity and solipsism through the Each piece takes its title from the emphasis of self. state of mind / feeling being presented: apathy, breakdown, Be this as it may, all deserve fear, hedonism, insomnia, nihilism, careful study, because they are schizophrenia, and vanity, and is perhaps more layered than may accompanied by notes from the first appear to be the case – again, artist to give further expression to note the bottle of wine the piece. in Hedonism, the overall setting For some of the art, the subject matter is presented in what may appear to be a relatively straightforward manner: there is little
of Schizophrenia – the image itself perfectly positioned alongside of Fear, offering a visual as well as metaphysical link between the two subjects. Similarly, Apathy offers an
an evocative presentation in which not only are the two bodies positioned so as to suggest a lack of (sexual) interest in one another – or at least mutual passivity – the blurring of facial features speaks volumes suggestive of a total lack of interest / concern, each towards the other, adding further depth to the sense of apathy within their pose. In short, these are all marvelous studies, skillfully executed representations of their subject matter, mirror reflections of their accompanying descriptions
(consider Vanity and the quote Jes gives from Lou Reed, or the way Insomnia focuses the eye not on the figure, but on the shadow, echoing the idea of a copy of a copy, as quoted in Jes’ notes. All told, a captivating exhibition, and one which should not be missed. KM You can visit United State of Mind at the following slurl: http:// maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/ Niaoupolis/154/230/21
ANIMESH (ANIMATED MESH) ARTICLE & PHOTOGRAPHY: INARA PEY
The following notes are taken from the Content Creation User Group meeting, held on Thursday, November 9th, 2017 at 13:00 SLT. For the purposes of Animesh testing, the meetings have relocated to the Animesh4 region on Aditi, the beta grid – look for the seating area towards the middle of the region. The meeting is chaired by Vir Linden, and agenda notes, etc., are usually available on the Content Creation User Group wiki page.
because I think it’s unambiguous, but it takes a long time to type!” – Vir Linden joking about the name “Animesh”. PROJECT SUMMARY The goal of this project is to provide a means of animating rigged mesh objects using the avatar skeleton, in whole or in part, to provide things like independently moveable pets / creatures, and animated scenery features via scripted animation. It involves both viewer and serverside changes.
Medhue Simoni live streamed the meeting, and his video is In short, an Animesh object: embedded at the end of this article. Time stamps in the body Can be any object (generally text will open the video in a rigged / skinned mesh) which separate tab for ease of reference and contains the necessary to the relevant parts of the animations and controlling text. However as these notes scripts in its own present the meeting in terms of inventory (Contents tab of the topics discussed, rather than a Build floater) required for it to chronological breakdown of the animate itself. meeting, so some time stamps may Can be a single mesh object or a appear to be out of sequence. linkset of objects (link them first, then set them to Animated Mesh ANIMESH (ANIMATED MESH) via the Build floater > Features). “I like the name ‘animated objects’ Has been flagged as and
and Animesh object in the project viewer, and so has an avatar skeleton associated with it. Can use many existing animations. Note that the focus of this project is not currently about providing fully functional NPCs at this point in time, which is seen as a followon project.
RESOURCES Animesh User Guide Animesh test content Animesh LSL methods:
llStartObjectAnimation llStopObjectAnimation
llGetObjectAnimationNames Animesh feedback thread VIEWER PROGRESS
prims), and allow the root objects to be a prim rather than a rigged mesh. Animesh objects should now render the same way as mesh attachments and generate shadows. The viewer also includes a number of bug fixes. [42:25-44:50 + text chat] However, while the root of an Animesh object can now be a prim, this doesn’t mean mesh objects such as pets can be dropped in-world (e.g. so someone could “pick up” their Animesh pet, carry it, then put it down again somewhere else), because the code required for “dropping” mesh is not provided on the simulator on the ground that dropping meshes can cause physics issues. ANIMESH ATTACHMENTS
Note: there is an extensive [3:51-5:33] The project viewer discussion in text chat around this updated to subject from the 13:00 minute version 5.0.9.329815 on Thursday, mark which continues throughout November 9th. the meeting.
The major change is that Animesh linksets can now include non-rigged items (e.g.
[12:59-18:06] One of the major subjects of discussion with
Animesh is enabling attachments to be added to existing Animesh objects. As outlined in my notes from the previous CCUG meeting, Animesh does not currently allow for any avatar-like attachment / detachment of objects (e.g., allowing a pet cat to wear a hat sometimes); the approach is more along the lines that everything that is intended to form the Animesh is attached as the time to object (/ linkset) is flagged as Animesh. As Piscine Mackenzie explains in the forum, this can lead to permissions issues, and the potential to exploit the work of character makers / scripters. One possible solution has been suggested via feature request BUG139168. Vir has now responded to Piscine’s post, offering a number of ideas. Of these, the mod key proposal (2nd bullet point in Vir’s notes and somewhat aligned to BUG-139168) is seen as a potential solution, with LlAllowInventoryDrop used to avoid the need for the root Animesh object having to be modify (and leaving it exposed to
the exploits outlined by Piscine and Medhue). Vir is currently seeking further feedback from people on this being a possible approach, or if there are other potential alternatives. [21:11-22:51] Two concerns on this approach are that a) any scripted mod key capability could be withdrawn at any time by the creator, potentially leaving users with broken content. However, there is no obvious means of safeguarding against this (unless it is made some kind of one-time function operation by the Lab, if possible); b) there is a risk the mod key could be accidentally exposed / leaked in being shared between those using it. [25:52-26:12] The most “obvious” means of handling this issue would be to implement a change to the permission system to cater for the specific user-case of allowing attachments to be added to Animesh objects. However, the Lab is hesitant to consider such changes due to the risk of unintended impact, risk of content breakage, etc. As such a precise
proposal on how to update the permissions system and the use cases it would meet would have to be properly defined for consideration. [28:15-30:40] A suggestion is made to have a new flag “only allow scripts compiled by the object creator run on this object”. However, this could limit cases where models are built by one person, animated by another and scripted by someone else, or situations where a creator is using full permission scripts sold by another creator, etc., and so seen as potentially less than ideal. [56:07-1:01:56] Determining whether Animesh attachments capabilities (e.g. using the mod keys idea) can or cannot be implemented relatively easily is seen by the Lab as a critical aspect to moving Animesh towards a release. If doing so proves problematic, the project will likely move ahead without such a capability being implemented. In the meantime, as there isn’t currently an available solution, creators are advised to handle
Animesh the same as any other product they are developing for the time being, and focus on Animesh at the functional level. [1:01:57-1:05:05] An example of complexity is defining how a mod keys capability would work. If it is limited to one specific group of people creating a product line, it is relatively easy to control. However, if a creator wants too support an ecosystem whereby other creators can all offer attachments for a product, then it becomes far more complicated in terms of keeping the mod key secure. Given the complexity of this subject, continued discussion through the Animesh forum thread is encouraged. KM
THE MANY FACES OF EURIDICE QORK PHOTO ESSAY
PHOTO ESSAY: THE MANY FACES OF EURIDICE QORK
PHOTOGRAPHY: EURIDICE QORK
RISTORANTE IVANNA This free self service restaurant is part of Kultivate Art Galler restaurant. **The restaurant is not a role-play restaurant wh restaurant where you can bring your date or loved one for a
ry and is in the style of a romantic Italian here you have to pay to be served. It is a FREE quiet and romantic setting. **
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MAGAZINE ISSUE
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