Category Archives: Building

Kiss your Second Life inventory bye?

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Canary’s list of anxieties Second Life™ residents has as items 3 and 4 a fear of losing their SL inventory and that they won’t be smart enough to use Sansar… See: Are Second Life™ residents anxious about Project Sansar?

{ My Closet } SHOETOPIA PREVIEW

{ My Closet } SHOETOPIA PREVIEW

I covered the loss of inventory in Second Life: Sansar Separation Anxiety. I think this fear is mostly imaginary. But, the issue is hard to define as there are types of loss to consider. It also requires a presupposition or two to think you’ll lose your inventory.  Continue reading →

Second Life’s Lumiere Noir

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I don’t know how well known the name is in Second Life™. I think the name Ivory Tower of Prims is probably better known. Lumiere Noir was the builder of the Ivory Tower Library of Prims. I’ve been to the Tower a number of times. It was a big help in my learning how to build with prims. I believe it is the best prim tutorial going.

Ivory Tower Staue

Ivory Tower Staue

Lumiere Noir - Ivory Tower Library of Primitives

Lumiere Noir – Ivory Tower Library of Primitives

Ivory Tower Statue

Ivory Tower Statue

Ivory Tower from Weapons Testing Area

Ivory Tower from Weapons Testing Area

Fans' Memorial Thoughts

Fans’ Memorial Thoughts

August 10, 2015 Lumiere Noir passed away. Separation and loss are painful. There are  degrees of grief. It seems to depend on ones beliefs. Whatever they are, no one seems to have words that adequately express our sense of loss or the empathy we have for those closest to Lumiere. Trying to express our feelings and comfort others in these matters shows how little we can actually do. But… we do what we are able. I can empathize, regret the loss, and deal with grieving my small part of the loss.

A number of Second Life Bloggers have covered Lumiere’s passing and in-world memorial. One of those is Daniel Voyager. He has pictures up from the memorial. Mine were taken after the memorial.

As to the Tower, no one is saying what will happen to it. However, most things Tower related are group owned. So, there are others to care for it. If you are looking for more information, contact Avi Arrow.

AvaStar 1.6-59 Alpha

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Gaia Clary has a new version of AvaStar out. How binding works has changed. Seems lots of people didn’t get that an item had to be rotated and scaled before attempting to bind the item to the armature. Release Notes So, Gaia has adapted AvaStar to provide more help.

There are 5 new videos out. AvaStar Tutorials Play List. These provide tutorials for fitted mesh.

If you install the alpha version and find problems or want changes, file a ticket.

Second Life: Experience Tools Released

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Tuesday (6/30) at about 11 AM PT the Lindens announced the partial release of Experience Tools. I write ‘partial’ because they are only fully released to Premium Members. This afternoon the 3.8.0 (302622) Jun 12 viewer automatically downloaded and I installed it.

This is also the main viewer now. Look at the download page.

That is a Jul 2, 2014 video.

The announcement is here: Experience Tools Available Now For Premium Members!

All users can get the viewer and use it. My understanding is only Premium Members can build experiences with this viewer, but all users can enjoy the experiences.

There is a knowledge Base article that helps you get started creating experiences. See: Experiences in Second Life. This is for both those wanting to participate in an experience and those wanting to create an experience.

There is a forum section the beta testers and early adopters used. It is now open to all. See: Experience Tools Forum.

You can find experiences to play in Second Life™ here; Resident-created experiences in our Destination Guide  and the Linden Portal Parks.

The End of Second Life?

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Everything ends. It is just a matter of when. We hear this story of Second Life™ ending all the time. It is not new. Lots of Chicken Little. That SL has not ended, does not mean it won’t. The sky COULD fall. But, I think we will have plenty of warning should the end draw near.

mediterranean girl

Mediterranean girl by Annahyss Resident, on Flickr

I came to Second Life from Myst Online, which has closed and come back a number of times. So, I’m used to games I like closing. Rizom is another one I liked and played for a time. It too closed and came back. Others just closed.  Continue reading →

Second Life: The Jelly Babies Are Coming

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I went to the Open Source UG Meeting this morning. Not something I usually do. I had some questions and this UG is a good place to get certain questions answered.

So… what is a jelly baby? The picture explains it better than words.

Render Muting Effect

Render Muting Effect

The solid color avatars in the image are what we call jelly babies. I first heard Whirly Fizzle use the term. I like it. I’ve also heard avatars rendered this way called Gumby or Gummies. I talked about this in: Second Life Performance: Render Muting.  Continue reading →

Second Life: Smooth Surface Mesh Seams

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If you have ever tried to make big things that require they be made in parts, you have probably run into this problem: the join points show. Look at the example in the lower right of the image (2 arrows). The desired result is to the left (single arrow).

Image by by Drongle McMahon - Arrows by me.

Image by by Drongle McMahon – Arrows by me.

This is not a matter of getting the vertices to match. Even if they do match perfectly, you get shading errors in Second Life. This is a problem with vertex normals.

There is an ongoing thread about this problem in the SL Forum: Visible seam when connecting two smooth shaded pieces. A good explanation of how to achieve a smooth surface at the connection point with correct shading is given by Drongle McMahon here.