Second Life and Virtual Worlds
This is one of my favorite events in Second Life™. With mesh hair it is possible to have a much lower Avatar Render Cost (ARC) or Draw Weight, which it is called depends on which viewer you are using. Whatever it is labeled in your viewer it costs you performance. So, I am replacing my high ARC sculpty do’s with new mesh do’s for that reason.
The fair opens July 11 and runs to July 18. This is the 10th university of this event, or so I am told.
Second Life™ is technically complicated. Fortunately, most users generally don’t have to deal with the technical issues. We can just cruse around enjoying SL. However, if we make clothes, we are going to suffer from what we don’t know.
DE Design has a new post up that appeared in Fab Free. See: Fitted Mesh. There is some good stuff and some tings I take exception to.
This week the main channel got an update and roll. This package ran on the RC channels for 2 weeks. There isn’t much to say about it. The changes are to server logging and how member lists for large groups download.
Since there is no new package running in the RC channels, we are unlikely to see the main channel get an update and restart in week 26. Hopefully there will be something new for the RC channels in week 26.
The Lindens made a post in the Second Life™ blog asking residents to make videos about the meaning of SL. To get answers rolling, they have included some videos:
Xiola Linden is also the author of the post requesting the videos.
There are 6 videos on the blog page. See: The “What Second Life Means to Me” Video Share Project.
I think Torley wins hands down on use of color.
You may have already seen Draxtor’s video, if you follow him.
Kaya Angel is new to me. The manor is awesome.
Gentle Heron is about helping people with disabilities.
What will you say SL means to you?
If you have not been into making video in SL, look at the two pieces of software Xiola mentions; Camtasia or Fraps. Both are retail versions with free trials. Camasia is US$299, but that includes video editing. FRAPS is US$37, but it is only an image/video capture tool. One could use Adobe’s Premiere Elements (US$120) for video editing.
There are free capture and editing tools. To learn more Google on: second Life machinima tutorial.
On Monday Linden Lab announced the end of the L$ Reseller Program. As of August 1st, 2015 it will only be possible to buy L$ from the Linden Exchange. Resellers have about 6 weeks to sell their stock of L$ and close their businesses.
In the announcement they provide a video tutorial on using the Linden Exchange for those that have never used it. Apparently some people have only used Resellers for their purchase of Linden dollars.
I don’t remember the Lab telling people that the Reseller Program would be a temporary step in their plans to provide international players access to L$. So, I suspect some people will be upset with the Lab.
An in-development game named Ark: Survival Evolved is available through Steam. It apparently is drawing a crowd of players. Everyone likes dinosaurs. Gamasutra has an interview with one of the developers. See: Cretaceous creativity: Designing dinos for Ark: Survival Evolved.
With Project Sansar approaching and Advanced Experience Tools on the verge of release game design is going to be a bigger part of Second Life. We will likely have more people like Loki Elliot and more teams like MadPea making games in SL and/or Sansar. I expect to see more people move beyond just making things.