Second Life and Virtual Worlds
When we upload mesh items, clothes or other things, one of the questions is how many polygons can I use? An alternative of that one, how many should I use, is also common.
For the second there is no ‘numeric’ answer for the ‘should’ version. The common answer is: as few as will do the job. But, how many can we use? Is there a limit?
Blender has some safety nets. If you have ever lost work from a crash, forgetting to save, or saving over a file you wanted to keep… then this video is for you.
Hamlet came across a video by Beev Beev that shows how to make reflective surfaces in Second Life™.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhqhZDd_33Q
Pretty neat.
Hamlet has more details here: How to Simulate Environmental Reflections in Second Life.
With the release if the Maintenance Viewer (4.0.2.312269) in week #11, invisiprims pretty much died their final death. Support ended for these critters in 2011. The code that renders them invisible has been in viewers up to this release. But, with this release something changed.
Inviziprims were prims with a special texture that caused things behind the texture to become transparent. Rendering-wise this was nightmare and problematic. The Lindens took advantage of a happenstance of the render pipeline to get them to work. I understand Crazy Mole once built a dry dock using invisiprims (the picture). Many boat builders used them to make the water inside their boats disappear.
Hamlet has a guest blogger, Brookston Holiday, that wrote a great article on doing lighting in Second Life™. See: SL Building Tutorial: Seven Lighting Tips for Stunning Results.
PS: There is a thread about Hamlet’s post on SLUniverse: Guest NWN post.
This is a big deal. I’ll get into what it means and what some of the possibilities are.
For years Second Life™ users have been asking for more bones. That would let users make avatars with tails that are easily animated. Or with more than 4 arm-leg appendages. We will be able to have a centaur with 4 legs, two arms, and a tail, something that is way complicated now and pretty lame. Or a spider with 8 legs.