Things Around Second Life and OSGrid

Second Life Utopia

Utopia Machinima Area

Both Second Life (SL) and OpenSim (OS) are advancing; changes, updates, events, people. Several are small things that I doubt deserve their own post but are worth noting. Also, I’m part of a Myst-Uru fan community. So, some things come from far outside the normal SL/OS circles.

Texture Downloads

Users have found that Imprudence Viewer and other viewers use OpenJPG to decompress and process textures. The new SL Viewers use llKDU.dll. This is making a big difference in speed and the reliability of the texture downloads. OpenJPG is said to have memory leaks, which eventually crash the viewer. What I think is really odd, is that third party viewers will use llKDU files if they are copied over. Some have the KDU files included. All it takes to get the viewer to use KDU is to change the debug setting imagePipelineUseHTTP to TRUE. Various viewers have an option in Preferences to use HTTP download. One may dig around and switch on imagePipelineUseHTTP using Preferences, but either way it changes the same value. I think the change speeds up rez’ing and certainly reduces texture problems on OSGrid.

Inventory Problems

Some people are running into inventory problems. The new SL Viewer 2.0 creates some new folders and does things a little differently. Those of us switching back and forth between viewers have run into problems now and then.

One big key to avoiding inventory problems is using different caches for each type of viewer. It is especially important if you are using Alpha versions of a viewer. You can change your cache location in Preferences on the Network tab.

Another trick to fixing an inventory problem is to travel to “Cyclops”, a Linden owned region. It is protected land. Once there, select clear cache. You can find the control in Preferences on the Network tab. Next relog and use your Last Location to rez in Cyclops. Let your inventory load. Cyclops is LL protected land without lag, or very little, and people tell me it reduces inventory problems to do this. If your not seeing inventory reload or you think it is incomplete, type in an inventory search word, like latex. That should trigger a complete inventory load.

Phishing Attacks

Some number of SL Blog users received Private Message phishing attacks. LL has shut down PM’ing on the blogs. (5/5/2010). They are working to make the system safer and reopen it.

Machinima Regions

The World Expo Shanghai 2010 includes machinima made in SL, which is a big deal to those into machinima. LL is happy for the exposure.  Good news for those into machinima are these new regions; Utopia01Utopia02Utopia03Utopia04 and Utopia05 are available. Utopia01 is a trip. Sort of a leap of faith puzzle. I fell in the water a couple of times, until I learned to wait.  I had to cheat and cam through to see the top. These are some of the more interesting builds I’ve been to in some time.

There is a machinima contest running. Read the note card you get in Utopia01.

The five Utopia regions use special Windlight settings. A note card gives you all the settings. But, there is an FTP site where you can get the XML files and just add them to your viewer, much easier. (AFAIK no one has figured out how to get a virus in an xml file… they are plain text files.) The Windlight settings make the regions appear as Bryn Oh intended.

Emerald Viewer

The Emerald people are stepping up things. A new Alpha version viewer is out. Everyone has alpha viewers out right now. I’m waiting until at least the beta versions.

Imprudence Viewer Math

Now this is an odd thing I stumbled across. I do large builds in OSGrid. My Prim Docker is not transportable from SL to OS. So, I have to do more build by number things. For those of us going the math route the Imprudence Viewer has math functions built into the Build/Edit dialog. Check it out: Build Math Expressions

Saga of Ryzom

In the Myst-Uru community there is interest in Ryzom, a game that is going through many of the same challenges as Myst Online. Last week Winch Gate Property Limited, announced they were releasing many of the games art assets under Creative Commons. The server and client software is already open source. In both Ryzom and Myst Online the main game is held as proprietary. However, Cyan Worlds, Inc. is saying they will license the Myst Online content. So, the debate in the Myst-Uru community is how far ahead is Winch or Cyan in moving to open source.

See: Ryzom Open Source – Free Software Foundation for more details on Ryzom. To play Myst Online for free, click.

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