Changes

Second Life gets a 360 Camera

by

Yesterday I published my update on the servers and viewers. Monday Inara published hers. Today the Lab announces a new Project Viewer: Second Life Project 360 Snapshot Viewer version 4.1.2.320965. The release notes are here. Download.

I’ve written about this feature coming. Now it is here, almost.

The release notes describe the project as:

The existing viewer snapshot system (control-shift-s) is being extended to add a mode where you can take a picture that encompasses all directions at once.

Placed in a suitable web site with some HTML and JavaScript, the image can then be scrolled to look around as though you had a window into Second Life at the moment the picture was taken. Please visit our wiki for details

This is also integrated with a number of other Snapshot improvements contributed by the author of the Black Dragon viewer.

The SL Blog announcement is here: A New Perspective on Second Life.

 

Second Life: MS Translator Change Coming

by

Microsoft has announced that their translation services are changing. The date is April 30, 2017. They will be changing to a new set of API’s they named Azure.

Time passes by
Time passes by

I have no idea how many, if any, SL Translators depend on the Microsoft API’s. But, those that do will need to change. 

Read more

Second Life: New Features

by

Today, about noon, the Lindens posted: What’s Happening Now in Second Life. The list is:

  1. Five new premium sandboxes
  2. Portal Park 2.0
  3. LLSit

A much-needed sandbox is (quoting):

The fifth new region is called: Sandbox Premium Weapons Testing which, as the name suggests, is dedicated to testing your SL munitions! In the past, weapons testing was done in general sandboxes where it was prone to overcrowding, griefing and instability. It was very difficult to get testing done. Now we’ve opened up more space for Premium members to test their combat gear in a less disruptive environment.

Portal Park II Oct 2016
Portal Park II Oct 2016

The other 4 sandboxes are 3 running RC server packages, one running the main package and they are adjacent to each other. These allow quick testing of items in all 4 versions of the server software running in the main grid.

Second Life Portal Park is an in-world Destination Guide.  This is a fun place to wonder around.

LLSit is a new scripting feature I’ve been writing about for the last couple of weeks. It rolled to the main grid last week.

 

Drax Does 360

by

This is pretty neat! Check it out. Start the video then click and drag inside the video. You can pause the video and drag around too.

Some of these 360 images and videos have not worked on my site, but this one does. Drax, et al, did good. I don’t know if it will work with VR. Let me know if you try it.

Since the Samsung 7’s are burning up, in recall, and dropped from production any phone upgrade I was thinking of is on hold. I expect the next gen of phones to have better VR support, Daydream. So, I’ll wait.

PS: 10/15 – Inara has a good write up on how the video was made. See: The Drax Files 41: animating Second Life.

Second Life: State of Video

by

With the release of the VLC viewer (4.1.1.320331) we will see the video market in Second Life start changing. It as of today, it hasn’t changed much. As it has in most of the rest of the RL world. So, with 4.1.1 we will have a better experience with YouTube and other services.

VLC Viewer and Streaming Media - TV's
VLC Viewer and Streaming Media – TV’s

NOTE: On starting the 4.1.1 viewer I started crashing. I changed regions and all seemed OK. Before I logged off I got a notice that a newer version was available: 4.1.2.320461. I’ve installed it and it seems to be OK. 

Read more

Second Life: Third Party Developers News 2016 w/40

by

Viewers

RC Second Life VLC Viewer version 4.1.1.320331 – updated Thursday (10/6). This update fixes a problem setting volume. Moving the slider to MAX turned of sound. Oops. This version is in good shape and doing well in RC, meaning few crashes and complaints. This viewer version will probably to promote to the main/default SL viewer in week 41, likely Tuesday.

Love You Forever
Love You Forever

The RC Second Life Bento Viewer updated to version 5.0.0.320160 Friday. It too is doing well. But, don’t expect it to release this month. The Lindens are letting us use it hopping to find any surprises. There is a crash problem that is fixed in this version. Plus it Improves mesh upload and I think has the bone position lock. There will be Bento meeting in week 41. We’ll likely hear more. Be sure to check: Second Life: Bento Hands – Vista Animations Beta Out.

RC Second Life Maintenance Viewer version 4.0.9.320231 is also doing well. Last week I provided some of the details.

On quality any version could be next main viewer. But the VLC version is a security fix for those using QT on Windows. If you have QT, you should remove it from your Windows machines. 

Read more