Nalates Urriah

Slink Updated Update

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Today I got a new update to my recent update. This brings my Slink Hands to version 2.1. When you wear the hands you get an update shipped to you. It lands in the OBJECTS folder. You need to unpack it.

♫
♫ by Lana Quicksand, on Flickr

The hands, Utilities HUD v2, and the OmniHUD v6.1 update. I think the alpha layer remained the same. I can’t see a difference. I have noticed that the hands don’t fit the same as the previous version, at least with my shape. I’ll have to tweak my shape again. Or it may be SL acting up again. I’ll give it a day, may be two, before I start changing my shape. 

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Second Life Bits 2015 Week 11

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Servers

I’ve been missing User Group meetings. Yesterday I was finding a work-around for a business class HP Laserjet Multifunction Printer that kept forgetting where to send document scans. I decided HP has totally destroyed their driver & software download site. Frustrating. It used to be simple.

Daisa Daisa - Color Bust
Daisa Daisa – Color Bust by Nylon Pinkney, on Flickr

But, even if I had been at the meeting, there isn’t much news. As there was no package for the RC server channels last week there is no main channel roll out this week. 

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Black Dragon Viewer

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A new release of this experimental viewer is out: 2.4.1.9 – Feature Update.

dragon in the sky
dragon in the sky by Mikil Tiki, on Flickr

This version has the Volumetric Lighting. It also has a change to how video memory is used. Both of these changes are something people have been interested in for a long time. The memory change could reduce texture thrashing(repeated render sharp, blurry, sharp…). It may be a big aid to those with newer video cards and lots of video ram.

Niran warns at the beginning of his announcement that you need to pay attention to your video memory allocation settings to avoid excessive texture thrashing These are in-viewer settings so I suspect you can live with the defaults Niran has set.

The announcement: Black Dragon Update 2.4.1.9 “Feature Update”

Inara goes into detail about the viewer: Black Dragon 2.4.1.9: “volumetric lighting” and more. She has images of the new controls in Preferences and a video showing Volumetric Lighting.

Viewer: Second Life 3.7.26 (299443)

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My viewer updated last Thursday (3/5). I’m now running on the RC Tools Update Viewer version. This is the newer Login Viewer compiled with the new build tools.

Playing w/Pencil Sketching
Playing w/Pencil Sketching

The memory leak I’ve been dealing with in the previous version seemed worse in this version. I was lasting about 15 minutes then my viewer was stuttering, jerking and thrashing textures. I was thinking I would probably have to move off it and get another RC viewer or maybe even a Project viewer.

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The Loki Avatars

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Body snatchers unit. New mesh bodies are here. Loki Eliot has made new mesh bodies. For now they are free. There are also clothes packs to go with the avatars. These are ‘packs’ not clothes. The point being is they are for designers wanting to make clothes for the Loki avatars.

Loki Avatars
Loki Avatars

These apparently are not Fitted Mesh avatars. Loki says he is still working to figure out Fitted Mesh. That is no easy task. I’ve been through it. There is a lot to learn. The SL Classic Avatar uses morphing for size changing. Plus the scaling of shapes coming out of SL via XML files and later uploaded into SL have scaling issues. (See: Exporting Second Life Shapes) Anyone trying to figure things out has to discover these hidden problems.

I gave up and bought AvaStar, being a Blender user. Maya users can now buy MayaStar. Most of the esoteric  SL problems are solved in those two tools.

See Exploring the future of my Avatars Shape – part 5 – Loki Avatars for more details.

Second Life’s Capital Exchange Game

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This is an ongoing saga. Capital Exchange is a stock market simulation game caught in the Lab’s rules for Skill Gaming. For months they have been arguing with the Lab’s attorney (s).

Leo at LEA16
Leo at LEA16 by Leonorah Beverly, on Flickr

There is a new update on the process: March 2015 Skill Gaming Update.

As I read the account of what is happening. I notice a similarity to many politically based legal disputes; delay, require more paper, drive legal costs up, never provide a clear point to oppose, … just an endless stream of obfuscation and delay.

Is the Lab deliberately using stalling tactics? Are the attorneys billing hourly? What’s going on? We can’t know.

Whatever the case, Skip Oceanlane, CEO, is now asking for your help. I suggest you read the articles he has been posting for months and make your decision as to whether you want to help. As it is now it is looking like the Lab, deliberately or not, has reached the point of abusing this SL business owner. It certainly appears to be the way to drive businesses out of Second Life.