There is a video, included here, and a written overview with a collection of videos showing new features in more detail.
Month: September 2016
Blender 2.78 RC2 Released
The announcement is here: Blender 2.78 RC2. Earlier this month I wrote Blender 2.78 Release Candidate is now available. It gives you a bit on what is in this release. We are nearing release of the final 2.78 version.
AvaStar is now on alpha release 2.0-23 for Blender 2.77… If you are confused by the version numbering, so am I. The last version I downloaded was 2.0 Alpha-10. Asking in the AvaStar-Blender group I’m told Matrice said drop the alpha… and that Gaia does the numbering… and that they are just generally inconsistent… I took that as nobody knew.
What they were sure of is: AvaStar 2,0 is still in Alpha. I’m not sure that is so. What I do think is the case is 2.0-23 is not the final release but a beta or RC version. We may find out Thursday at the Bento UG meeting.
Second Life News 2016 w38
Servers
This week there was no rollout to the main channel. We did get a new package for the RC channels. All 3 are getting the same package: 16#16.09.14.319788.
The release notes describe it as; Minor internal changes.
Viewers
The main viewer is now version 4.0.8.319463. Formerly this version was the Visual Outfits Browser RC viewer. The previous version was: 4.0.7.318301.
RC Second Life Bento Viewer version 5.0.0.319688 – Last week Bento was running on a project viewer version 5.0.0.318969. This version is now a RC, Release Candidate, version.
RC Second Life VLC Viewer version 4.1.1.319856 – This version has updated from 4.1.1.318504. I suspect this version has just added the VOB features and some bug fixes.
There are no project viewers this morning.
Summary
We know from various user group meetings there are some changes and improvements in progress. I expect to see a new RC viewer version and possibly a VIVOX project viewer this week. Also, there is a 64-bit viewer in the works. I have no clue when it make make it to Project or RC status.
While it may seem quite, there is stuff happening.
Hardware: AMD CPU’s – Review – What’s Up with Zen?
I don’t use them. The basic reason is cost and timing. When I’ve been ready to buy Intel has had a CPU with a better performance to price ratio. I have no particular love or hate for either AMD or Intel. Its who has a well performing CPU and what will it cost me at the time I need one?
One of the commenters here suggests people looking for a new CPU wait for AMD to release its new Zen CPU. One can always wait for the next new thing but, then they wait. However, I did wonder if a wait would be worth the time. I started researching AMD and their next CPU.
Second Life: Visual Outfit Browser Released
The Lab announced today that the Visual Outfit Browser viewer has moved from RC to main viewer. See: Visual Outfit Browser is Live!
I like this feature. I started writing about the VOB Viewer in early July of this year.
Learn more about the feature in the SL Knowledge Base.
Access the feature via your inventory. You’ll see a new tab. (Top yellow arrow.)
Unless you have an image already in inventory you’ll need to upload an image to use… that costs L$10. So, I’ll be particular about which outfits I put into the image catalog.
You probably notice it isn’t purely an alphanumeric sort. It sorts outfits with an image ahead of those without an image. It is alphanumeric in the groups of with-images and without-images.
I’ve written about VOB before. I also expect to see more articles on it now that it has released. It is intuitive to use. So, I don’t see any point in repeating instructions on how to use it. You can search on ‘VOB” or ‘visual outfit browser’ in the upper right to find my articles.
It will be interesting to see if third party viewers make any BIG improvements.
Hardware: Picking a New CPU for Second Life
The skeleton and brain of a computer is the motherboard and CPU. A CPU is the Central Processing Unit. This is most like our brain.
The mother or main board is like out nervous system or skeleton. It is the large circuit board that every part of the computer plugs into, including the CPU. It holds everything together.
For detailed information on CPU’s see the video: (jump to TM 6:07 to skip the explanations and see the benchmarks.
There is a lot of jargon in the video, I’ll get the important stuff explained.
First the TL:DR, the video shows there is very little difference between the various CPU’s. When it comes to frames per second. The three tested CPU’s are about equal. However, if you are going to use Intel’s HD Graphics without a dedicated graphics card, he shows there is a difference and the 6th generation CPU wins. So, laptop people… go for 6th gen CPU or a dedicated video chip.