About 40 minutes ago the Lab posted a SL15B surprise, Another 15 for 15: LOWER Land Prices and Reduced Set-up Fees!
Private regions tier will drop by 15%, setup fees by 41%… does not apply to gaming regions… the money games.
To offset some of the loss of income the fee for converting L$ to RL$ bumps up from US$0.99 to $1.49.
Today the Lab announced New Feature to Make Life Easier for Estate Owners!
The feature is about allowing region owners and estate managers to restart their regions from the web.
Sangria Wine
This is needed because in griefing situations it is often not possible to get into the region to use the viewer controls to restart and clear problems.
Part of the feature allows the region to be restarted in ‘safe mode’. Safe mode disables scripts, collisions, and physics.
Designing Worlds has done an interview with Linden Lab’s™ CEO, Ebbe Altberg. You can see their video of the interview here, Designing Worlds DW370 – Ebbe Interviewed. (Run time 1hr 51min)
Ebbe Altberg 5/2018 – Designing Worlds Interview
There is talk of a road map for Second Life™. This ‘map’ apparently isn’t a published document. The interview focuses on where Ebbe is taking Second Life. So, I take it as a word picture.
However, Ebbe does talk about where they hope to take SL and what will happen with various aspects of SL.
If the video is too long for you, check Inara’s article. She has a summary of the interview. Designing Worlds In Conversation With Ebbe Altberg – Transcript + Audio.
Monday was a US holiday, Memorial Day. So, today is the Lab’s first workday this week. As of 10 AM SLT this morning there is no Deploy post. But, there is some HOT new news today. See the Other News section.
From the Server-Scripting meeting, Simon Linden: Let’s see … for server news, we had a rollback last week of the RC channels for a bug. I think there was a post somewhere about that. We’re going to have updates out tomorrow that have that fixed … and possibly another release that has a few other items in it. It’s all internal changes, as far as I know.
Concrete studied under orange light – 3
Second Life Love Me Render Viewer version 5.1.5.515528 – This an update from the previous version 5.1.4.514788 released in week #16.
Second Life Maintenance Viewer version 5.1.5.515527 – Last updated in week #21.
Second Life Project 360 Snapshot Viewer version 5.1.3.513006 – Last updated in week #10.
Second Life Project Animesh Viewer version 5.1.4.515420 – Released week #16.
Second Life Project Bakes On Mesh Viewer version 5.1.3.513936 – Last updated in week #14. Continue reading
Bakes On Mesh – The feature is live on ADITI. At the Beta Server UG meeting we found some of the current problems. One of which is phantom skirts. You see people with a tattoo wearing a black system skirt. They see you wearing one. But, you can’t see the skirt you are wearing.
You can take off the tat and the skirt will vanish. Put the tat back on and no skirt. At least until you relog.
Southern Terodise (165,59,21) Adult
Also, the bake service is slow delivering baked textures.
So, we’ll see Bakes On in testing over on ADITI for a bit more.
Region Crossings – In November 2017 Animats started a thread on region crossing problems. It is still running, now 7 pages long. See: Vehicles vs. sim crossings, why it’s so awful. The latest information and Animats testing results appear in this thread.
There are a couple of links to people using Animats fixes in their vehicles.
The Lindens are working on region crossings again. They just improved region server to server communication. A version of that change is running on Le Tigre and Magnum RC channels.
Animats main interest, avatars being half-sit – half on and half off, is next or near next on the fix list.
ADITI Inventory Sync – OS upgrades on ADITI are in place and we are told inventory sync’s are working again as a result… or something along that line.
There is apparently confusion among users on when the update occurs. The trigger is logging into ADITI. Some time after your log out the system will sync your inventory. Apparently, the sync process gets behind and an individual sync may not happen in the expected time frame. But, I think we should see it within 48 to 72 hours at most. I think mine are happening within 24 hours.
Well, we are getting an upgrade to the Server-Side-Avatar-Baking service. That is fact. What the service does is old news. The blogosphere was covering it in 2012. By August 2013 it was considered a success. (Ref)
So, what is the service, aka SSA or SSB? Prior to 2012 the classic avatar skin, tattoos, underwear, shirt, and jacket were composited into a single texture in your viewer and used to render your avatar. This is like the process we use in Photoshop, GIMP, and other image editors when we bake a set of layers into a single JPG or PNG image.
…Wait
A significant part of the viewer’s render process was the baking effort. Once I was dressed and my clothes baked into an image safely cached on my computer, I was good. BUT… whenever I saw a new avatar, my viewer had to collect all their textures; skin, tat, bra, and top and bake their clothes into a texture to put on the avatar and render it. Everyone was doing that.
With 6 possible zones (ie., hair, head, upper, lower, eyes, skirt) to bake and 3 of them having 5 layers we were downloading a bunch of textures just for the classic body. So, something like 15 or 20 textures per avatar. In a region with 40 avatars… that is like 40×20=800 textures… if they were 1024 textures that could be as much as 3+GB of texture, admittedly in extreme cases. Plus, our viewer had to composite them before the avatar could be rendered. Each viewer was doing this and the region was coordinating the downloads. Continue reading
Ryan Schultz talked with Patch Linden about the returning ability to pick a last name. And today in the Content Creators UG meeting Oz Linden spoke more about the coming ability to change your name.
First, both are making it clear this is something that will change in late 2018. Oz hopes before the end of the year, not the last minute of December, but not real soon either.
Isle of May @ Weed – 30
Anyone, new or old, can change their first and last names. It will cost RL money to change your name. Price has not been decided. Some MMO’s charge US$20 and a few more. So, whatever rumors you hear on price, that is wild speculation so be skeptical.
You will be able to change first and last names. So, all those scripts that depend on remembering an avatar name, they are going to be obsolete. If you have a need to remember an avatar, your script will have to use the UUID, as the UUID for an avatar will never change.
You can create any first name. Last names will be selected from a list. I think it was Hamlet that was writing about watching a Linden trying to come up with last names to select from. Oz says they will be selecting names users submit. They will probably update the selection list in batches. Continue reading
The Lindens are talking… somewhat. But, we will have to capture one and waterboard them to get any real details. See their post, Happy 15th Birthday, Second Life! Fifteen Reasons to Celebrate.
We already know about lower land prices and double tier. But, you may not know they are planning to go farther with making land cheaper. Don’t think they are going to lower their income. They are just looking for ways to shift the cost to us.
Just Waiting
Part of that shift is finding ways to make Premium Membership more enticing. So, Premium Members can expect nice stuff coming their way.
We know Animesh and Bakes-On are coming. And there is the migration of SL systems to the cloud.
Windlight is getting an upgrade. We know that change as Enhanced Environment Project or EEP. I’ve been writing about it over the past weeks. Of the known things coming, this is the one I am really excited to see. Continue reading