Second Life and Virtual Worlds
In December Siddean Munro made a video of how to easily make the various Slink sizes.
I think the video shows how easy and quick it is. So, I continue to be baffled at why so many provide only Hourglass sizes of their products. Especially when discussions in the SL Forum show growing support for the Slink Redux bodies.
If you are a Slink Original wearer, Physique or Redux, and your designer isn’t making the sizes you need, send them a link to this article.
The BoM applier for GA.EG heads is out. It is said to work on Bento and non-Bento GA.EG heads. But, ONLY GA.EG heads.
You can get it for free at the main store. You pay L$1 and get L$1 back, so is free.
The applier comes with instructions. Use is easy and simple. Figuring out how to do makeup and tats may be a bit strange if you have forgotten how Classic avatars and system layers work. However, you can save a BoM look as a favorite in the head’s HUD… skin section.
You still have to have a BoM capable viewer. More and more third-party viewers are BoM capable. Just not Firestorm. :/ But, soon.
Cool VL Viewer 😛 is one that supports BoM.
At the Content Creators’ User Group this week we got a good update on what is going on. Most of the news is in the first 15 minutes.
The opening still-image was taken in the FOCUS Photography class. This is a series of classes presented at least once a month. The format gets away from ‘click here…’ training and into what makes a good picture. More the mental side of photography.
In the video, BoM is described as releasing VERY SOON. It may release with some minor issues. The project is past its expected release date. It has proven more difficult than the Lindens expected. I think most of the change in expectation is feature creep coming from residents explaining what they need and want for it to be more useful.
I expect to see its release in August… maybe July… If you are a content creator, you should be working with BoM now. File any bug reports or feature requests ASAP.
EEP is tough to predict. Any changes to the graphics render process is complex and runs into problems. So, I am not surprised it too is running behind its expected delivery date.
Animesh-II is soon to have its own Project Viewer. This phase will likely add a way to apply shapes to animesh. But I can’t be certain. It is discussed in the video.
The end of March Linden Lab released the latest version of the Bakes on Mesh (BoM) Viewer. It is in RC so we could see BoM coming out in final version soon. The recent Disconnects Problem has likely delayed BoM and other projects. That problem seems solved or at least greatly reduced. Other projects will move ahead now and BoM is probably just a couple of weeks from final release… say soon…
The questions I have all deal with how well will my clothes will work with the new BoM Mesh Bodies? Siddean the designer for Slink has provided information on what we can expect. Siddean’s Slink body is built… um… that doesn’t sound quite right, rephrase… ready for release or at least down to the final tweaks.
April 3rd,2019 Siddean answered questions about what she is doing with the Slink bodies. You can find this information in Siddean’s Discord channel.
The new bodies are a re-thought new design. So, we are going to be re-learning how to manage bodies, clothes, and tattoos.
The new body will work with clothes made for the previous body. Said in tech-speak, the body size and weighting remain the same. Also, the previous versions of the body will continue to work. BoM will only work with the new bodies.
Revised 1/3/2019 – Hamlet has an interesting article Well-Optimized Alternatives To Resource-Heavy Mesh Bodies For SL touching on the contentious debate going in Second Life as to how much lag mesh bodies are causing. The high polygon count in mesh bodies is the suggested cause of the lag.
We don’t have an obvious resolution to the argument. Nothing the non-techies can grasp. The techies stay out of the argument having learned one cannot argue with the ignorant as it is all opinion for the uneducated.
Recent technology changes have complicated the information on polygon counts and how they may affect your viewer’s performance. One complication is the shift from video card manufacturers bragging about polygons-per-second rendered to frames-per-second and now giga-rays-per-second… Part of the reason for changing metrics is the marketing hype card makers introduce to sell more cards.
It has been in the works awhile. Now there is a planned official release date, October 27, 2018.
The announcement is here: AVASTAR 2.5 RELEASE DATE 27-OCTOBER-2018.
The listed highlights are;
Coming behind this update is going to be the Blender update with its heavily reworked User Interface. Ugh… I have no idea how this Blender change will affect AvaStar. I do know I will suddenly be looking for common tools again and relearning Blender. So, I suppose that means AvaStar too.
If you have purchased support, this is a free update. I have and I plan to update my plan when it expires.