And So It All Begins: Exploring New Horizons

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It all starts with something - and this blog is no different. I’m excited to begin this journey and explore new horizons together. Let’s have a quick look at what I plan on writing about in the weeks and months to come.

New Horizons: Tjay Wicken standing at Cloud Edge II looking out over the landscape
Picture captured at Cloud Edge II, July 2024.

Below you will find a couple of the topics I will be diving into throughout the next weeks and months.

Protecting Your Data: Third-Party Services in Second Life

Primfeed

Primfeed logo
This blog is not affiliated with Primfeed. The logo is used under fair use for illustrative purposes.

Over the past few weeks, I have been closely monitoring the recently launched social media platform Primfeed, specifically designed for Second Life users. At first glance, everything seemed great, but once I reviewed the terms of use, I was surprised by the lack of details concerning data collection and processing practices, including how the data is being shared with third parties.

As of the 20th of July, 2024, Primfeed has now published the appropriate policies and you can read all about my thoughts on the Primfeed launch in this blog post.

What about the other services out there?

Privacy and Data Protection: Image illustrating a man with a surveillance camera as a head, taking notes.
Image generated by DALL-E 3

Taking a step back and broadening my perspective, I realize there may be numerous other services that extract information from Second Life to external servers or databases to provide their services. I believe now is a good time to start examining these as well. I plan to document and blog about my findings in the coming months - stay tuned!

Navigating the Challenges of the PBR Implementation


With Physically Based Rendering (PBR) now a standard feature in the official viewer and most maintained third-party viewers, it's time to assess its impact—both positive and negative—on users.

I run a high-end gaming rig with the latest Intel i9 processor and a 4000 series Nvidia GPU, so my experience has been buttery smooth. However, my setup is far from typical for the average user.

At first glance, many people are experiencing performance issues and fear they might eventually be forced to use a PBR-enabled viewer.

Photo showing a PBR (Physically based rendering) enabled environment
Picture captured at Akimitsu, July 2024.

This situation is complex. Alongside the PBR rollout, other features have been changed or modified, such as the Advanced Lighting Model. This was something that users with lower-end systems often disabled—an option that is no longer available.

In the coming weeks, I plan to dive deep into this topic, analyze the hundreds, if not thousands, of complaints regarding PBR and its performance, and examine the planned fixes and improvements.

And so much more…


While the above is what you will be seeing in the coming weeks, there’s a lot more in the pipeline and with the ever changing virtual world.

Check in from time to time, and by all means, do reach out if you feel there’s a particular subject I should be covering!

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