Skill Gaming
Ciaran has an article up on what Skill Gaming is. If there is any confusion on your part check it out. See: LL Issue Reminder And Warning On Skill Gaming Policy. His information is based on Linden Lab’s latest: Reminder: New Skill Gaming Policy in Effect September 1, 2014.
Be sure to check out the comments below that article. It seems they are a bit one sided… Where do all these negative people come from?
Video for Noobies
Purdie Silkmour made a video that popped up on YouTube today: How To Improve Your Appearance in Second Life. (11 minutes) This is much better than your typical SL How To. Purdie does a great job of showing how to change avatar appearance and gives a good taste of the verity in Second Life. Plus they get to see search in action and learn how to find shapes, skins, etc. It isn’t just about the technical details of using SL. Nice!
I think the big problem is how to get this video in front of new SL users. This would be a good URL to save and give to new peeps you meet.
It seems there is a series of these videos… well two.
Takes a Girl Forever…
No not that. Strawberry Singh has an article out: Taxi!. It has very little to do with a taxi. She does comment on how much time it takes to change outfits when wearing a mesh body. I am finding it takes longer to dress these days. The shape tweaking stage is one that was never in my daily regimen. It seems it is a definite part of it now.
At least my hair doesn’t have to dry in SL like it does in RL.
Sr. Software Engineer
Linden Lab has an ad up for a senior software engineer. We know they are hiring for SL2, or as some call it now SL+. What is interesting about this ad is the description of what the hire will be working on:
What you?ll do:
Work on a nextgen character creation and customization system
Lead and participate in design discussions
Collaborate with other engineers in an iterative, agile development environment with a focus on shipping code and achieving practical results
Participate in code reviews, whiteboard discussions, standups, and pairprogramming on a daily basis
Provide daytoday technical leadership in a collaborative fashion within the team, as well as across the company
Required Skills:
A high degree of proficiency in either C or C++
Minimum of 5 years experience as a software engineer
Resultsoriented focus with an eye for prioritization of user experience and with the ability to recognize when and where tradeoffs need to be made
Bonus points:
Previous game industry experience (especially MMOGs)
Previous experience designing and developing userfacing tools
Experience with Havok toolchain
This is a Complaint
See it on Flickr here.
Isa Messioptra, over on Flickr, posted a complaint about feeling ripped off by The Shops on her purchase of the Mesh Body Project. I’ve seen the project mentioned. I didn’t go for it. But, I am REALLY particular about mesh products and seldom buy the rigged ones. I am finding like the fitted mesh a bit better. With minor tweaks to my shape I can get some fitted mesh to fit perfectly, my definition of perfectly.
I am looking at getting a mesh body, eventually. So, seeing the comments running about 80% against the Mesh Body Project is a wave-off for me. Also, comments coming back shows Isa is not the only one unhappy with it.
You should also remember that the process this item uses is apparently somewhat similar to what the Lindens are looking at possibly adding as an SL feature. There is a possibility that the texture baked by Server Side Appearance servers may be made available to scripts. That will open the possibility of allowing us to wear standard system clothing and have it appear on a fitted/rigged mesh body.
If the Lindens go ahead with the feature, it will be some time before we see it in-world.
Second Life Art
Ziki Questi has a post up on a new LEA exhibit that looks interesting. Spirit Within
The SL featured destinations is pointing to The Sea of Cubic Dreams in LEA region 25. It has the look of a SciFi modern surrealistic style that intrigues me.
Firestorm Viewer
I’ve been enjoying using the Firestorm viewer. But, I am finding that sometimes it loads the CPU and starts high rates of page faulting. I have yet to figure out what may trigger the misbehavior. As I see the problem increase it soon starts going non-responsive and then recovering. During this time there is a high rate of unacknowledged packets.
The result is I see single digit frame rates.
I have yet to hear of a fix or cause for the problem. I do see some people in the in-world support group chasing poor performance problems. So, far support is sending people to the wiki to go through that list of possible fixes.
Blender Preview 2.72
We are getting close to seeing Blender 2.72 release. One of the new features is layer painting. You can see the feature a the 39 minute video from CG Masters.
Another 34 minute video shows how to sculpt fabric. You’ll have to watch the video at CG Cookie.
VR’s Killer App – New Twist
Ciaran Laval has a good article up on the future of VR. Verge wrote an article with interviews of Facebook personalities. Hamlet covered in on NWN: Facebook’s Acquisition & Launch of Oculus Rift Led by Second Life Co-Founder Cory Ondrejka, The Verge Reports. Ciaran put a bit different spin on the subject.
The verge article is long. So, Hamlet and Ciaran’s are quick takes on the ideas expressed in Verge.
Jousting?
The music cracks me up. Fun video.
OSGrid
A few days ago I saw that OSGrid was down. It seems the Next Reality Grid had the same problem. In this case it was a matter of RAID drives failing. Hypergrid Business has an article explaining it all. See: RAID brings down second grid.
Experience Tools
These are still in beta but they should be getting close. Whatever their status, Loki Eloit has started building an experience. He has written about it here: Escapades island has now been upgraded to the new SL Experiences Feature. Loki is writing about the experience he has running now. You can visit it and check it out. Ricky Town Center.
In another article Loki explains what the tools are and what they allow him to do. See: The Legend of the SL Experience Tools. One interesting possible use is creating a learning experience for new users… now there is an idea.
The XPTools, as some call them, don’t solve all the problems. Loki points out that users overriding Windlight, no way to force an avatar to sit, or no ability to activate things in mouse or HMD modes remain problems. I don’t see where he has filed Feature Requests, so these fixes may not be in the cue.
Loki also points out that right now people are experimenting with what they can do with XPTools. Give it some time and we’ll soon start to see experiences rolling out. Loki thinks next year, which isn’t that far away.