Category Archives: Clothes Skins Etc

Tutorial: Second Life Masking

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Lildaria Resident started to do a tutorial on Masking in Second Life™. But, she found a good tutorial already exists. She reprinted that tutorial. See: Tutorial: Understanding Mask Mode.

(Image and user poofed…) Blackspot by dolletjes, on Flickr

In the tutorial it is talking about masking meaning alpha layers, hiding parts of the avatar or things in Second Life. If you aren’t clear on how this invisible, transparent, and translucent thing works, check it out. I think it will help.

If you are trying to understand how to implement ‘masking’… I think this tutorial falls a bit short. But, that may just be me not getting the ‘how to’ part of it.

Second Life & Virtual Reality

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We are getting closer to hands on. The Oculus Rift is to release in the first quarter of 2016. At this point I think the first round of pre-release technical challenges has been met. So, any possible delay would be from manufacturing and supply problems.

Now that the Samsung Galaxy S6 is in production the supply of display screens for the Oculus should be adequate.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5XVq4NLnwk

Unity and Unreal, game engine platforms, are both announcing support of HTC RE Vive. This means game developers can move away from having to develop support for the various VR headsets and use the support provided by Unity and Unreal. This saves developer’s time and means new games will move through the development pipeline faster.  Continue reading →

Second Life: EBody Review

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Looks like we have another mesh body out, EBody by ABAR. The Mesh Addicts blog has a review of the body. See: New Mesh Body Review – EBody by ABAR. The actual review is on another page, I’m not sure why they did that, unless it is the nude avatar…

EBody 2015 ARC

EBody 2015 ARC

They show the nude body, HUD, and list compatibilities. But, they include no ARC comparison, which is a shame. I got the demo so I could look to see how dense the polygon mesh of the body is.

I started with my nude base avatar with hair, ear rings, Slink hands and feet. It has an ARC of 54,127. Adding the EBody and alpha layer the ARC jumps to 131,391. In my article Second Life: Mesh Body Revolution I used a bas avatar with an ARC of 44,571 (9,556 less than the current base). A Slink body pushed that to 59,251. Maitreya’s mesh body pushed the ARC to 94,381. On this 44k avatar EBODY would come in at 121,835. So, EBody is the highest ARC of the four.

Second Life: Smile Shape Tutorial

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Alicia Chenaux has made her first video tutorial. It is a pretty neat idea that she presents. You can see it here: Smile Shape Tutorial. Iris Ophelia pointed me to this from her article in NWN: Learn How to Make the Perfect Smiling SL Avatar Shape With This Video Tutorial.

Doing a Smile Shape

Doing a Smile Shape

If you have ever used the built-in smile, you know it is pretty hideous. But, Alicia shows you how to fix it by adjusting your shape. In her tutorial she demonstrates how to fix the built-in smile emote. Continue reading →

Next Generation Platform-SL2: The Avatars

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Everyone is curious about what the avatars in the Next Generation Platform (NGP), or SL2, will be like and what we can do with them. Now we have some clues. High Fidelity is working on their avatars and has just release a set of improvements. See: Creating and rigging an avatar with Blendshapes in Makehuman. The information is somewhat compatible with the current Second Life™ and I suspect a hint of what is coming for SL2 or the Next Generation Platform.

This is a great video for designers. You’ll find references to a number software tools I have not heard mentioned in relation to Second Life. Some of those look to be handy for SL. Continue reading →

Second Life: Mesh Body Revolution

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Strawberry Singh has a meme called What’s Your Digits? It is about shape and mesh bodies. So, what can I add to that?

My Digits 4/2015

My Digits 4/2015

If your new to Second Life™ you may not know the viewer’s appearance editor reports the wrong height for avatars. You can check this yourself by rezzing a cube and stretching it to whatever height you think you are. Make it phantom and walk into it. 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: Avatar Render Cost

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This is a subject that comes around every so often. I tend to look beyond the drama and actual issue to see who is arguing and how they are arguing. Tells me a lot about them. Even more when I later learn more about them.

Avatar Render Cost Comparison - 2015

Avatar Render Cost Comparison – 2015

One of the interesting things about Avatar Render Cost (ARC) is the numeric value. Have you thought about that number? What is it? Inches, meters, light-years, weight of electrons used in the render process?

It is a nonsensical number. The Lindens used some equation to calculate an arbitrary value that is useful for comparison only. More is bad, less is better. They color the number is based on a coloring scheme that reflects there idea of good, heavy, and bad… green, yellow, and red. You can find the equation (sort of) here: Second Life Render/Draw Weight.  Continue reading →