LoD = Level of Detail. In 3D modeling LoD is a basic optimization technique used to increase performance. If you are making things, avatars, or clothes it is something to know about. Medhue explains what LoD is and shows how it affects your render and how to and how NOT to adjust for bad LoD design as a user.
Monthly Archives: December 2016
Dilbert Challenges You to Find 1 of the 97%
I think this is an amazing thing for Scott Adams, the author of Dilbert, to do. Scott is not what I would consider a climate skeptic. But, his challenge is amazingly simple and direct. This is the type of thinking I love. His humor about corporate life and management is often too true.
Dilbert Author’s Web Site
See his: The Climate Science Challenge. My challenge for warmers is to find something wrong with his challenge and explain why it is wrong.
AvaStar 2.0-24 Almost Released… sort of…
Gaia has a new post up on Machinimatrix.org. According to the announcement they have reached the end of design and are going into a user-testing phase. Those that have filed trouble tickets on the Machinimatrix bug reporter will get their copies of 2.0-24 first. The rest of us, later.
There is a load of documentation in this announcement. So, check it out.
There are people using a 2.0 version for their main production tool. However, others are having problems. I think many of the problems are from a lack of documentation. It is hard to keep the docs up to date with an in-development product. Much less make the video tutorials.
If AvaStar 2.0 finalizes we will start to see more tutorials arriving.
Second Life Adult: Magical Mystery
Finding romantic places in Second Life™ requires considerable time to explore the various places. Most ‘SL travel sites’ tell us how pretty a place is and give a few nice still images. Pictures of pretty places are for photo albums. We treasure them but seldom look at them. Once you have seen it, you’ve seen it. Then we are on to new stuff.
https://youtu.be/g743HeqwmAs
So, what keeps us coming back to a place? And what do we want to know about a region before we go there? What is going to get us there? Will we land mark it? Continue reading
Slink Hotfix Release
Today Slink has released an update to their release of last week. Apparently, somebody found a bug… or two. Probably Whirly… Whatever, Siddeon released the fix and a bit of an upgrade. I got mine today. So, I have a new body for the new year.
The upgrade is the addition of a magnifying glass to make setting the upper body alphas easier.
Slink HUD Version 3.01 – New magnifier open
Visit the Slink store (URL) and click the update kiosk to get your new update.
Obviously, the HUD updates. Many of the parts of the package have new version numbers. So, I’m replacing everything. I updated my nude body outfit using the new stuff. I think I had only made one outfit using the 3.00 version. But, I have a ton of outfits made using v2.8. Continue reading
Gaming in 2016 – Predicting 2017?
According to SuperData Research people spent US$91,000,000,000 on games. Billion… This is an all-time record. But, they are hyping things a bit. In 2015 Statistica shows $91.5 billion spent and $99.6 billion in 2016. I suppose it depends on where one gets their numbers and categorizes them. Game revenue is notoriously flaky as companies like to hype their increasing sales and keep decreases secret.
Still that is about a 10% increase year-to-year. Eight billion isn’t chump change, unless your spending $10 trillion on credit, like some governments…
Data From Statistica
They break the revenue down into subcategories. Handheld games are dying. Smartphone games are the hot item. They show the largest growth from 2015 to 2016 and that is expected to continue, which seems reasonable as smartphones are selling well.
In 2005 smartphones sales were just $3.8 billion. Eleven years later in 2016 sales of smart phones was $55 billion, a 1,447% increase. So, as more people get smartphones there are more possible users of smartphone games. According to Statistica a little less than half of the 2016 game revenue was from smartphone gaming. Continue reading
Second Life: How to FIX SLURL’s
How do we tell our computer which viewer to use when we click a SLURL in a web browser? I’ll explain what happens and show you how to make the change (at least for Windows – Sorry, I’m not an Apple person). Plus, I’ll give you the link to the way easy tool for this task that the Firestorm peeps made.
Firestorm Default Viewer Selection Tool
The Firestorm people are aware of the problem and made a tool similar to Firefox’s process for handling protocol settings. You can find it here: SLURL Proxy.
SLURL Proxy – Control your SLURL’s
Install this program. Drag and drop your viewer icons in it. Select one for your default choice. Once setup, when you click an SLURL the program will use the default you have selected.
Run the program again to make changes. Easy. Continue reading
Second Life: The Linden Review
I used to do a review of the past year. See my Annual Review tag. But, that is a lot of work and time. So, not this year.
Merry Xmas
This year the Lindens have done a year in review piece. See: Putting a Big Ol’ Bow on 2016 in Second Life! It is a good quick review of what has changed in 2016.