Welcome to the eleventh Sign of the Kite (SOTK) newsletter of 2016. Remember SOTK is the shortform newsletter that keeps you up to speed with all things Kitely and OpenSim. It is written BY residents FOR residents and is neither sponsored nor endorsed by Kitely.
Got news of your world or group, an event, a recruitment drive, a newsworthy shop, product or promotion? Drop a brief notecard on avatar Graham Mills_2 inworld or PM Graham Mills via the Forum. All that’s needed are 2–5 sentences with a title, URL and/or hypergrid address. All times in PDT, please, and nothing A-rated/NSFW. Copy deadline is 17:00 Wednesday for inclusion in Friday’s news.
Note that we’re currently running a fortnightly publication schedule.
Community developments
At last we know! Serene bravely asked where Kitely got its name from and Oren dug out the list of alternatives originally considered which included the somewhat implausible 3Dchicken. Graham expects that domain name’s long gone by now. [Dot checked: 3dchicken.com is gone, but others are still available.]
Builder’s Guild Rebooted!
Ozwell Wayfarer is giving the inworld Kitely Builder’s Guild a spring-clean. There will be classes, competitions and support for parallel initiatives such as the History Month. Just be sure to search for Builder’s Guild with the apostrophe.
Events At Frostbite Thane World (formerly known as Freda’s Place)
TUESDAYS, 2 PM PST
Kitely Community Chat at Freda’s Place, Frostbite Thane World
grid.kitely.com:8002:Frostbite Thane World
Come for this hour-long unscripted, unplanned and undirected conversation among friends, old and new. Everyone is welcome.
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WEDNESDAYS, 5 PM PST
Beta-Readings of Freda’s Work In Progress, Ermengarde The Expansive and The Rhinolope Rebellion at The Fairytale Cottage at Frostbite Thane World
grid.kitely.com:8002:Frostbite Thane World
Please have voice enabled so that you can hear the readings. Over the next few weeks, a king will die, and a princess will run away from home and meet a mysterious and clever gambler. The princess’s best friend, a dragon named Fira, will come to her aid, and a new queen will be faced with some of the most important choices she will ever make. All welcome.
_____________________________________________________A special request from Freda
If you are a poet or musician interested in performing in Kitely, please contact Freda Frostbite inworld or send email to FredaFrostbite@gmail.com. Also looking for local graphic and visual artists.
RezMela Show & Tell
Ramesh Ramloll is doing amazing things with authoring system RezMela and now Kitely residents can too. See his G+ group for all manner of ingenuity from classroom design to gardening. And yes, a Show & Tell as well.
Monentes Jewelry
Monentes Jewelry just opened on Kitely Market. Many styles are added daily; check back often to see what has been added.
Did you know?
The forum thread for the SOTK newsletter has received approximately 2700 views over the past two weeks (yes, for the second week in a row). It’s likely that many came via search engines, which means that more people may be discovering the possibilities of OpenSim and Kitely. So this explainer is directed to them:
FYI: OpenSim (also known as OpenSimulator) is open–source software for the creation of virtual worlds that can be run on your PC or hosted remotely as with the Kitely.com commercial grid. Worlds in Kitely and beyond are optionally networked via the Hypergrid. They are accessed via dedicated browsers such as Firestorm. Content can be created inworld or imported as mesh models. It can be scripted in LSL which is substantially compatible with the language used in Second Life (TM). Objects can display web content and access external web servers via LSL scripts. Subject to permissions being set, content may be exchanged with other avatars and can be sold either inworld or, for example, on the web-based Kitely Market which delivers inworld to more than 100 non-Kitely grids.
Freebies
21strom
Zuza has a cute little garden wooden cart full-perms available on her world. Thanks, Zuza!
World’s End
Oz has brought down the price of his Mesh Walls kit to the minimum 10 KC supported by the Market to accompany his Mesh Roofs kit at the same price point. Full perms, including Export, but no textures. Many of his other kits have been receiving upgrades. Many thanks, Oz!!
Date for your diary: August to be History Month!
Ticket to Ride? Graham waits patiently for inter-city rail services to be invented in 1830 or, failing that, the first station buffet (credits: TT Bury, 1831, and creators of the various ‘found’ items, ahem)
History Month has moved to August and the first events are being tentatively written into the Kitely Calendar. Freda is doing a great job in organising the musical side of things, including a Grand Ball. The Month is currently divided into four weeks as follows:
Week 1: Greco/Roman
Week 2: Medieval 500-1500
Week 3: 1600-1700’s
Week 4: 1800’s to 1914
Ozwell is coordinating associated building classes and New Media Arts (Ada and Selby) have offered space on Cookie II. Serene is being serene. Graham is building railway stations?
New World: Sam
A work-in-progress by avatar Sam Wyatt, this is intended as a Wild West RP area but it’s fun just to wander round and much of the content is copyable. Houses and teepees are free to use (see World page for info).
New Vendor: FlexTech
Gizmo vendor Cirrus Stratus has a new shop on the Market. Dot is very impressed with the scripted tour balloon. You can see examples on her world as well FlexTECH demo region Anomalis.
Hypergrid visit: Nautilus
Fans of the Jules Verne’s novel will find lots to explore at this build on the Japanese Open Grid by Yan Lauria and colleagues.
Jules Verne Nautilus build
Abyss Observatory (191, 216, 1507)
Hajime Nishimura/ Yan lauria
TiddlyWiki for a MOAP-based HUD: Part 1
With the arrival of the new media-on-a-prim (MOAP) it is possible to use more sophisticated apps. One such app is TiddlyWiki, basically a wiki in a single web page cunningly chunked into sub-pages called tiddlers. Moreover, there is a free hosting site called TiddlySpot where you can make your wikis available to the world or just yourself. There are two significant caveats, however:
- TiddlyWiki is fantastic BUT esoteric and occasionally fragile so (i) read the instructions on tiddlywiki.com BEFORE starting to edit, and (ii) backup very frequently;
- TiddlySpot is a simple way to make your wikis available BUT security is limited so don’t use it to store valuable or personal data. It also requires Chrome (which handily is supported by the CEF-enabled MOAP). Note also that TiddlyWiki is single-user and can also be run in multi-page format using node.js.
At the time of writing TiddlyWiki is about to undergo a significant upgrade with toolbars being introduced for writing and drawing (yes, you can draw in this single-page wiki as well as host images subject to file size). It seems to be possible to edit as well as read via inworld MOAP, including on HUDs, subject to caching, i.e. you may need to refresh the MOAP screen to see the latest version.
While a TiddlyWiki in reality only has a single URL (it is only one web page plus lots of cunning JavaScript) it is possible to give tiddlers their own web-addressable hyperlink (called a permalink). This in principle allows you to define links between the web-based wiki (in a HUD) and your OpenSim build. Thus you can use TiddlyWiki to annotate your build and create trails or quests responding to scripted chat or sensors.
Well, that’s the theory. Graham has started to create an OpenSim wiki for use in a HUD (oshud1) and is developing a tour of Kitely Welcome Center as a test case for the trails concept. More anon. Maybe.
If you just build it, they might not come: Part 4
Caledonia Skytower of Seanchai Library continues her series on promoting your inworld presence.
VR tech update
Graham struck out somewhat with his Project Sansar NDA comment as teaser footage is now available for both the building interface and some of the “experiences” (or builds as we used to call them).
Google I/O conference hove into view laden with Android VR goodness in the form of Daydream, a platform comprising a hardware spec with support from multiple vendors, an optimized Android N with Vulkan graphics, and a VR-enabled app store with support promised from developers such as EA and CCCP as well as enablers Unity and Epic. Graham (as always) was most interested in the cost, especially for the nifty hand controller. Google have thus far been building their offering from the ground up and explicitly stated that this was VR for everyone (with an upscale smartphone and unlimited data, I guess). It’s not clear (to Graham anyway) what’s offered by the reference design for the headset but it would be nice to suppose that old HMDs would not be consigned instantly to the technology scrap heap. Of course, what this does is create a new multi-vendor VR sector (including Samsung) that excludes Apple just as Cardboard becomes available for iOS. Over to you, Apple…
Sketchfab made a multi-platform announcement to the effect that their model archive will in due course be viewable in the Vive, Rift, Gear VR, Cardboard and WebVR. The demos include model animations (e.g. walking dinos) with the user being able to navigate between multiple viewing points.
Production team
Production team: Dot Matrix, Serene Jewell, Graham Mills_2, Shandon Loring
This week’s editor: Graham Mills_2
Thanks to forum and community meetup participants for suggestions
Stay in touch
Stay in touch with Kitely events and announcements.
On the Web
Kitely Forums: https://www.kitely.com/forums/
Kitely Calendar: http://ow.ly/W2sDL
Kitely Worlds: https://www.kitely.com/search
Kitely Market newest listings: https://www.kitely.com/market?sort=date
Kitely Company blog: https://www.kitely.com/virtual-world-news/
On the Hypergrid
HYPEvents Event listings: http://hypevents.net/
Opensimworld: http://opensimworld.com/