Monthly Archives: April 2017

Second Life: Will We Bake Our Mesh Body Avatars?

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The idea of baking mesh avatars has been a subject coming up in the Content Creators UG over the last couple of weeks. The idea is to change how mesh avatars work. If you don’t understand how a Classic body layers work now, this may be confusing. I’ll try to sort it.

Mechanical beauty

Mechanical beauty

Starting back a couple of years, the Lindens added Server Side Appearance baking (SSA). The Classic avatar is made of three separate parts; head, upper body, and lower body. The parts allow layering of textures placed on the Classic body. Sort of like sticking decals one a top another.  Continue reading →

AvaStar-Blender: Switching from IK to FK and Back

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Medhue streamed a tutorial this weekend. He was showing how to switch between IK and FK animating. In September 2014 I was facing that problem and posted a tutorial titled: Blender-AvaStar Animation IK/FK Tip because I couldn’t find any tutorials saying how to change between the two animating styles.

I think the video is a way better tutorial on switching between the two styles than my old ‘text’ tutorial.

 

Will Win 10 Creators Update Kill Second Life?

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There is some consternation about a Windows 10 update: Creators Update. It is a free Win 10 update. My headline is hype. Nobody seems to know how it will work with Second LifeTM. However, the new features are a combination of interesting and OMG more advertising built into Windows.

Whatever, the new features are:

  • 3D in Windows 10
  • Built-in game broadcasting
  • New tab management in the sucky MS Edge and more…
    • Microsoft Edge is faster
    • Tab preview bar
    • Set tabs aside
    • Jump List
    • More extensions
  • Enhanced security features – MS Privacy Dashboard
  • Paint 3D
  • Remix3D.com access
  • Game streaming with Beam
  • Gaming settings: Game bar, GameDVR, broadcasting, and Game Mode
  • Improved Windows Store – They added e-books, whoop whoop
  • Dolby Atmos – Adds Dolby audio via an app
  • Cortana can do more… like control music by mood.
    • Language compatibility for iHeartRadio and TuneIn
    • Music recognition support for the Chinese
    • Full screen Cortana when computer idle
    • Carry sessions across devices
  • Mixed Reality in Photo, Maps, Music, Movies, & TV
  • Mini View Feature
  • …and more.

So, how is it going to work with SL? No one in the forums is writing about their experience. May be everyone is waiting for someone else to go first. In general we are currently clueless.

I plan to install it on my laptop first. It runs SL at medium settings and produces 10 to 20 FPS. I want to see if adding Win 10 Creators Update with a “Gaming Mode” improves its performance. For now I will avoid the update on my main machine.

I’ll get back to you.

Second Life and NVIDA Update Problem – Fix

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It seems people updating to the current NVIDIA driver are having problems logging in. They crash on viewer launch.

As of April 6, there is an NVIDIA driver version 381.65. This is the one people have a problem with. The previous version 378.92, the one I am running, does not have the problem. So, some people are rolling back to 378.92.

Whirly Fizzle has posted in the SL Forum that the problem has been tracked to NVIDIA’s Shadowplay/Share feature. Turn it off and things work.

We are early in this problem fix cycle. So, we may learn more soon.

Second Life and Sansar in the News

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The Irish Times has an article by Marie Boran, Virtual reality is giving Second Life a second lease of life. (4/13) Marie was a participant in Second Life™ in 2010. In the first few words she reports the Trump-Swastikas at a Bernie Sanders meetup. That mention should clue people to the possibility of the reporting being shallow. I’ll try to push the Sansar news deeper and provide some perspective on Second Life..

The Blarneystone in Dublin, SL – 2017

Marie moves on to point out that while there is an ‘underbelly’ to SL, that is often reported on, there is also a surprising number of ‘ordinary’ folks in SL. The real world is pretty much that way… so…

Next Marie says her 2010 outfit and skin had expired… I went back and tried some of my 2008 outfits, well, we didn’t have “Outfits” in 2008. So, I had to find some stuff from then and make an outfit to see if things still worked. They did. I looked horrible. We can’t be sure what happened to Marie. I’ll take this as being another nail in ‘shallow’. But… Continue reading →

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Second Life: Inventory Help

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There are loads of tutorials giving Second Life™ inventory management styles and suggestions. It is Kitty Barnett that is actually building helpful tools into the Inventory Panel. Kitty, having a 100K+ items in inventory has been finding using the inventory TEDIOUS. I can feel her.

~Everybody's Changing~

~Everybody’s Changing~

These are the types of tools users think awesome and Lab programmers doubt they are worth the effort. I believe this type of improvement is something only someone using their inventory daily would think of and see its value.

So, being the programmer for the Catznip Viewer and using her inventory a lot, she is adding handy tools to her version of the viewer. To see what she is adding and why, see her series of articles titled: Three Days of Teasers. Continue reading →

Slink Male Dynamic Hands Released

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I just saw an in-world notice that Slink has released their Male Dynamic Hands, or AKA Bento hands.

If you already have Slink hands then this is just an update, no cost. Just visit the in-world Slink store (map URL) and click redeliver.

What you get depends on which hands package you purchased. If the full pack, you get the full HUD that has all the hand poses.

I’ve been wearing my Dynamic hands since they came out. Love them. Of course none of my rings work any more and nails have to be Slink or Slink Bento nails.

Second Life: Moo-ish Opinions

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Penny Patton often writes about getting the best experience in Second Life™ (SL). Smaller textures, fewer polygons, to scale building, RL sized avatars, and more. Penny also participates in the SL Forum. There she is often misunderstood as evidenced by people mis-phrasing her positions. So, she wrote The Penny FAQ to keep the record straight.

Size Comparison

Penny is what I would call a Second Life Technical Conservationist. Her political position comes across as Libertarian, Lazier-Fair. So, letting people do what they want without a lot of fascist rule enforcement seems to be her usual position, at least of those I’ve seen. It’s an education versus dominance stance.