Nalates Urriah

Bits of Second Life 2015 Week 11

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Scoop.it Tutorial

Scoop.it has links to another interesting tutorial. This one is about working with green screen… or I would say masking and cutting your avatar out of the background.

Polly
Polly by Kaelyn Alecto, on Flickr

Nimil Blackflag wrote the tutorial and made the images. This is basically an example of how to use the Background Eraser and setup the image so it works amazingly well. It is simple, fast, and near perfect. But, it does require Photoshop.

See: so you want to remove a green screen?

Best Malware Research Blogs

I think sooner or later everyone gets bitten. CyberWarZone.com has an article up listing the best sites for researching malware and finding ways to get it out.

See: Malware Research Blogs 

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Real Life Comeback

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Drax does a series of videos depicting Second Life as it really is. He doesn’t show ALL of Second Life. He shows the side he feels is most under reported, the missing side. The reports are accurate representations of the side of Second Life he wants to show. See: Drax Files for my coverage of those videos and see YouTube for the full collection of his videos.

There are parts of real life that we don’t see. Just as the media does their hype for their purposes with little regard for presenting a balanced view of Second Life. So too the media and politicians hype their idea of what we should be responding too in RL based on their agenda, which mostly benefits the politicians. There is little if any balance our mainstream media and the accuracy is way questionable.

There hasn’t been a Drax to balance the reporting in RL. Now there is a group that is starting to do just that. Opportunity Lives is featuring a series of videos titled “Comeback” showing what RL people are doing without waiting for the government to save them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nv0TAuWyDi4

There is to be a series of these videos. 

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Login2Life Documentary

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You’ll be seeing the blogosphere for Second Life covering Login2Life, a documentary video that runs an hour and 26 minutes. This video starts in English and English is scattered throughout. It uses English subtitles where needed. About 87 minutes is in various languages. I think I hear; German, French, Arabic, Japanese, Chinese, and …

This is at least ‘R’ rated… my opinion. Not pornographic. But, adult sex is a part of the documentary. It’s well handled.

Login2Life is not the fast paced videos I am used to seeing that Drax makes about Second Life. It is a little slow paced for me. But, this isn’t something to be squeezed into something like Drax’s 5 minute vignettes.

Check it out. Please watch it on YouTube and give it a thumbs up.

Developing Games in Second Life

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Ciaran Laval comes up with interesting stuff and often unique perspectives. He has an article up about MadPea Games. His take is that since MadPea can develop games in Second Life others can too. True. That is proof positive. But, there are games and then there are GAMES.

Party Area?
Party Area? by Ciaran Laval, on Flickr

One support in the argument for Second Life as a game development platform is the new region Consignment. As you explore the region you’ll find the history of MadPea games. So, there is no doubt MadPea has been developing great games for some time and they are popular with SL users. But, are these the games gamers look for? 

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Bits and Pieces of Second Life 2015 Week 10

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MOV Files to HTML5

As the Second Life Viewer moves toward using CEF (Chrome Embedded Framework) the use of HTML5 video becomes more important. Fortunately there is a free program that converts formats.

See: How to Convert MOV to HTML5 Video?

Journey is'nt over yet
Journey is’nt over yet by Sunnygeorge, on Flickr

Boxes

Lindal Kidd has a tutorial up on how to use boxes… yes, those prim cube things. See: Boxes

If you are wondering WHY? … Well, her blog is subtitled: Notes From Second Life – Advice for the New Avatar.  She also spends a lot of time helping people in the SL Forum. So, she meets lots of new SL users. So, I suspect she will also use this tutorial as a link-to when answering pleas for help.

This will be a handy link to give to noobies.

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IAR Exports – OpenSim

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If you play in OpenSim worlds you have probably heard of IAR exports. If you built a region in OpenSim, then you probably use IAR exports to backup your work. I do… did. I haven’t started my OSGrid regions for some time.

0496 - Condensation/OpenSim
Condensation/OpenSim by Zonja Capalini, on Flickr

IAR is an Inventory ARchive file. Very handy thing to have. If your grid closes, having an IAR copy of your work that you can take to another grid can mean not having to redo your work.

Hypergrid Business has an article on the recent debate that erupted over the safety of this export/import feature of OpenSim. Safe in the sense of is it safe or subject to abuse? Abuse, like copyboting theft. It is subject to abuse, but that isn’t as bad as it sounds.

I think Maria Korolov does a good job of putting things in perspective. See: How dangerous are IAR exports?