Category Archives: Changes

#SL ARC Replaced

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ARC denotes Avatar Render Cost. We have had this tool in the viewer for some time. When used we see a numeric value that is green, yellow, or red. Red denotes the avatar’s render cost is too high… according to someone. It tells me I’m almost dressed…

New Draw Weight Shown Above My Head

You can enable ARC reporting in Viewer 2 and 3 via the top menu. It is in the Advanced item. If you do not have an Advanced item in your menu press Ctrl-Alt-D (viewer 3 is a little strange, if you have a problem try using ‘D’ or ‘Q’ with Ctrl-Alt to get Advanced open). Then in V2: Advanced->Rendering->Info Displays->Avatar Rendering Cost. Or in V3 use: Advanced->Performance Tools->Show Draw Weight for Avatars. The change from old ARC numbers to new Draw Weight numbers is about 10 times greater.

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Where is Torley?

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I am a Torley Linden fan. I’m not a video tutorial fan. I like Torley’s video tutorials more then I like most video tutorials. I’ve watched a large number of them and sent out loads of links to them. I recently noticed the new Viewer Interface tutorials are not made by Torley. (See links in: #SL’s New Linden Helpers)  OMG! What has happened to Torley?

Yay for Daniel Voyager, he went and asked Torley. You can see Torley’s response to Daniel in a post on SLUniverse: OMG! So Torley is no longer doing video tutorials.

It seems Torley is busy educating Lindens on the history and culture of Second Life. I was just gripping about an apparent lack of continuity and history in Linden culture in #SL Mesh News Week 45. May be this is a change in Linden culture. It is the first time I have heard of a company having an employee to explain company culture to employees.

The post following Daniel’s is by Hitomi Tiponi. She has kind words for Torley and mentions the SL users lament that Lindens understood Second Life better. It seems that Torley is fulfilling a long desire to see that Lindens better understand Second Life culture.

It could also explain an early look at the new user interface that made it out of the Lab being Pink and Green. 🙂

Friendly best wishes Torley!

#SL’s New Linden Helpers

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I am seeing blogs on Second Life’s Beta Helpers project. I am wondering what is going on. Second Life used to have volunteer mentors helping on the SL Welcome Islands. These were the people I went to for answers early in my SL experience. The mentors program was closed and now the Lab seems to be starting over with Helpers? So, what’s up?

Volunteers? - Image by mrsdkrebs at Flickr

The Blog View

Danial Voyager is always curious and blogging about interesting and new things in SL. His post gives about the most complete coverage of the new helpers I’ve seen. See: New Linden Helpers Beta Program.

The Problem

Once upon a time… volunteer mentors manned the Linden Welcome/Help Islands. The Lab ran the Volunteer’s group. It is hard to trace that history in the SL Wiki and the forum, as both have changed since the group was disbanded. However, Massively reported on the disbanding in an article by Tateru Nino in November of 2009. See: Linden Lab to disband moribund mentor group.

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Second Life Inventory Beta Tests

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Yesterday in the Server User Group Jenn Linden attended to request help with testing coming inventory changes. These tests are in progress now on the ADITI grid. This set of changes is about speed and reliability. This set of changes is not part of the Direct Delivery (DD)feature. It is expected to improve DD’s performance too, but the change is for improved speed and reliability.

Want to Help and Test?

The code for the change is deployed on the ADITI grid. Instructions for the test can be found in the SL Wiki. See Inventory Beta Tests. The page includes the regions names of the areas using the new inventory code.

It helps if you take someone with you to test or make a friend while there. Part of the test is about giving inventory items to others and receiving items from others.

There is also an odd step where you are asked to: Remove an attachment such that it tries but cannot rez and must be returned. That could have been worded better. It sounds a bit over educated. Basically, you need to DROP and attachment in a no-rez area. Oskar Linden set up some no-rez areas in the test regions for that part of the test. Pay attention to parcel names within the regions.
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#SL Adds Image Posting to Feed

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I just saw where Opensource Obscure posted in his feed that the current development viewer allows images to be posted to our feed. I have yet to learn out or try it out. But, its on my list.

Update: Was on my list… 🙂

OK I found it. Press Ctrl-Shift-S to open the camera snapshot panel. See the image for the new panel in viewer 3.2.3 (the development viewer (244722).

Second Life Viewer

New Snapshot Features

Sending the image to your feed incurs no cost.

This is a nifty little feature. But there is more.

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#SL Beta Project LR

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Last week New World Notes and several others, as well as myself, blogged about the game the Lindens built. This week we have some more details on the game.

FAQ

There is a shiny new FAQ page in the Knowledge Base. Project LR Frequently Asked Questions. As one reads the page it becomes obvious this page is written for residents. There is less behind the scenes, techy, and motivations for the game and more about how to play.

In the explanation we learn that premium members can earn Lindens by playing the game.

Game Portal

Access

Also, it is not possible to teleport into the region. One must find a portal. See the image to know what they look like. For now it seems portals are placed in premium sandboxes. However, if you find one and you are a premium member and it does not work, don’t panic. When the game region population reaches capacity the portals shop working. Wait a bit and try again.

Dying

Never fear. Dying in the game doesn’t hurt… much… right. There are things in the game that can kill you. When you die you are teleported and reincarnated in a resurrection circle. I suppose it is a bit like Entropia. I am seriously considering a premium account.

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#SL New Translate Panel

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I noticed we have a new panel in the Second Life Viewer 3.2.2 (244260) Oct 31 2011. You probably know, if you follow this blog, that Google’s free translation service used by many games is changing to a paid service. That means our translator in the viewer will stop working about the end of this month.

New Translate Settings in Preferences -> Chat

The new panel provides an option to switch to Bing’s free service. It also provides a place to add your Google API key, which you get from Google Translate API. In my article Language Translation in Second Life I estimated my cost of translation services if I had everything I chat translated. I think I could easily get by for US$20 per year. Since I don’t translate everything, it would probably be way less.

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#SL’s New Attachment Points

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Additional attachment points are always handy. We are apparently getting two more.

Neck

Those of us working with rigged mesh to make avatar bodies and clothes can see the neck bone in the skeleton. Even before a large number of people started looking at the skeleton and asking why can’t we attach things there, people were asking for a neck attachment point.

New Neck Attachment Point

If you are wondering how people knew about it… animators knew about it because the ‘neck bone’  can be controlled in an animation.

Now the neck attachment point is in testing in the Development Viewer. See  JIRA STORM-1672. Previously labeled VWR-26120. If you like the idea, vote for it by clicking WATCH.

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