Content Creation

Second Life Mesh Bodies Popularity & Designer Support Analysis

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I am again considering making some clothes and accessories for my avatar. Maybe even sell some. And there is the possibility I will make more paint for mt helicopters. Be fun to see what wild A.I. paint can be created.

But, to make stuff in SL you need Dev Kits. These are kits with the models, UV Maps, Applier specs, and other bits only the original creators have. Fortunately, most of them make them available to most of those that ask.

SL Mesh Body Analytics

Some time ago I choose the Maitreya Lara-X body. It came very close to providing the Slink body shape I like. So, of course, it is the first body I considered making things for. I filled out the online forms for the Maitreya Dev Kit. Maitreya is now, weeks later, hiding and not responding to my requests for a Dev Kit. I’ll pester them for another week or so. Then I’ll decide what to do about them.

In the mean time I have found it is very easy to get Dev Kits for eBody Reborn and Legacy. But how popular are those bodies and how many designers are making stuff for them?

I do numbers. I ask questions. I research. And now I have the dogs of A.I. to lose on such research. This article is what AI found and at the end what I think. So, check it out.

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Avatar Size in Second Life

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I see this subject come up every so often in the forum, why did the Lab make things so big, not to-scale?

Avatar Size in Second Life
Why are you so big?

In the 2004 era of Second Life® (SL) the default avatars were 7’ for males and 6’ for females. Camera angles and settings were adjusted to give, in the Lab’s opinion, the best view. Buildings, doors, and furniture were designed to accommodate those conditions, basically the camera above and behind the avatar.

But why those settings?

We are legion…

It seems everything in SL played into making things big. Making the default avatars 7’ and 6’ tall is sort of a chicken and egg conundrum. Are things big because of the avatar or is the avatar big because of all the things?

Neither. I suspect the Lab put some thought into deciding on size and general scale. So, I think it was more of a planned thing than avatars or things making SL what it started as.

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Adobe Spark – Free

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Adobe has released a new free web tool, Spark. It is an editor/creative tool for those wanting to quickly put creative things on Instagram, Flickr, YouTube, and other social media. The video shows how it is used as a video editor.

From the video, this image shows that video is one of the three primary areas in which Spark is useful, Posts, Pages, and Video. Amy Landino, the video creator, points out the limits of Spark. It is not going to replace Adobe Premiere Pro.

Spark Options

But, this is may be handy for quick little things and those that can live within the restrictions of a template driven system.

Since it is all free, you may be wondering why it is free. The servers and programming all cost money. So, there must be some financial model behind what Adobe is offering. I think Adobe’s incentive is marketing for Adobe products. There are opportunities they take to promote Premiere and their other retail products. I can’t yet tell if that is the sole benefit to Adobe. But, they weren’t asking for an email address or log in during the parts I played with.

YouTube already has some Spark Tutorials. So, you aren’t solely on your own.

If you have ever wanted to show off your SL creations, avatar, pretty place… this is an opportunity to create with free tools from the premier maker of artistic software.

AvaStar: MakeHuman or Manuel Bastioni?

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I noticed Machinimatrix posting a video on how to integrate Manuel Bastioni with AvaStar. BElow is an image link to the video as it won’t display embedded here. Sheeesh..

Video Link

So, what is Manuel Bastioni? It is an open source character generator for Blender. Seems it is competition for MakeHuman. The download is here: Manuel Bastioni. 

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A New Universe with Procedural Worlds

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Massively has an article about a game named No Man’s Sky. In the article is a video by TheHappieCat explaining how the game’s makers created quintillions of worlds using fractals. The thing I find surprising is the worlds are never stored in a database. Yet when you come back to a world it is re-generated, but the same exact world is generated. TheHappieCat explains how she thinks it works.

The Massively Overpowered article Eve Evolved: No Man’s Sky vs Eve Online, by Brendan Drain explores what the differences between Eve and No Man’s may mean how Eve could be impacted.

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